Hey, Y'All! We've Got Ourselves A Bigfoot!

Oh, Gawd bless the Intarweb, without which I would never have known that the deep, dark, and skeery backwoods of Virginia, my home state, might possibly, maybe, just conceivably harbor a Bigfoot! Yeah, baby, you heard me, a BIGFOOT, so screw you, West Virginia and your wimpy-ass, red-eyed, flighty little Mothman, WE'VE GOT A BIGFOOT!

No, really! Check out "In Search of Bigfoot" in the August issue of Blue Ridge Outdoors:

"It’s midnight and the black veil of darkness that pervades the woods has been transformed into varying shades of green, thanks to the night vision goggles we’re using. It’s as if we’ve stepped out of reality and into a video game."

"We’re looking for Bigfoot in a wildlife management area on the edge of the Rappahannock River, about an hour from Washington D.C. It’s a strange thing to be doing on a Sunday night in the woods of Eastern Virginia, because A) Bigfoot does not exist according to mainstream scientists, and B) if he does exist, it’s hard to imagine the creature living here, half an hour from the nearest D.C. Metro stop."

"But Dranginis claims to have seen a Bigfoot creature not far from here several years ago, and a number of sightings have been reported in this general vicinity dating back to the 1950s."

There's lots more information (including a sightings map) over at the Virginia Bigfoot Organization and Sasquatch Watch of Virginia websites

See also "Hot For Creature."


A big "thank-you!" to kitten_moon for making my Wednesday evening just a leetle more interesting by posting this in the Shenandoah Valley LiveJournal.

Would That Emily Post Had Lived To See the Cell Phone

And now I shall proceed to show my curmudgeonly ass.

So I wander into my local Barnes & Noble Travel Section to see if Weird Virginia--Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets is worth the cover price of $19.95* when I'm suddenly surrounded and aurally assaulted in the narrow aisle by not one, not two, but three people yakking on their cell phones simultaneously.

It felt like a D & D melee attack and there I was without my +5 Gauntlets of Bitch-Slapping.

Now, I acknowledge (grudgingly) that bookstores are not libraries with enforced rules of quiet, that the neurotypical require almost constant social interaction whether face-to-face or electronically (though I'm at a loss as to why), and I've got nothing against cell phones--I'm not that curmudgeonly; hell, I own one myself--but people! Disconnect once in a while! What in God's name is so important that it can't wait till you get somewhere a little less public?

(And I assure you these conversations to which I was forced to bear witness were not emergencies)

Lest you think I am a lone voice crying in the wilderness, allow me to direct your attention to the following:
Cell Phone Etiquette: 10 Dos And Dont's
The Ten Commandments of Cell Phone Etiquette and an update.

'Nuff said? Good. All that's left is to do something about DWMP**



*No.
It's okay--hardbound, profusely illustrated, full o' stuff--but typically superficial for a book of this type; it lacks the kind of depth and substance I prefer in a travel book, though that's not to say it wouldn't make a great gift for someone. I walked out with Redmond O'Hanlon's Trawler--A Journey Through the North Atlantic ($14.95 trade paperback) instead.

**DWMP--Driving With Maryland Plates. Why is it whenever I see people doing something truly outrageous in their car they are (1) drunk, (2) futzing around with their cell phone, or (3) sporting Maryland license plates?