Don't Go Into The Water

Sharks are scary. Jaws was a scary movie. But living in Massachusetts as I do, sharks aren't normally a problem. Except for land sharks. Anyway it would seem that my days of water safety are over. So far this summer, two great white sharks have been spotted in the general Cape Cod area. Why is the water always so scary?

Anyway, last year some scientists tagged about 7 great whites that were in the open ocean about a half mile out from Chatham. 2 of them have returned. The prevailing theory is that they're here for the seafood, not knowing that steamers are out of season.
Apparently there's a colony of seals nearby that proves just too tempting. And here's the hypocrisy: when a shark attacks a seal, it's considered nature and is filmed for the BBC. When I attack a seal, it's considered cruelty to animals and gets filmed for my upcoming trial that I'm not technically allowed to talk about. All I can say in my defense is that the seal on the video was barking racist names at me.
I went to the beach in Rhode Island last weekend, following the amazing Crosby, Stills and Nash concert. There were no shark sightings but I think I have a great excuse to stay away, besides my tendency to burn in the sun. Instead I will stay on the beach and get my wife to bury me waistdeep in sand, carve two wheels on the side of me, and pretend that I'm FDR. Again.
As long as I'm scaring people with sea creatures, I might as well share this picture of an alligator gar (whatever the hell that is) that some badass in Texas shot with an arrow before wrestling it onto the shore.

This will haunt my dreams for nights to come

I don't know what the hell an alligator gar is but it should be sent back to the hellish pit it came from.
Stay out of the water people. Don't make me keep telling you.

This Will Haunt My Dreams

What is it with the ocean? Why is it trying to kill us so hard? Oh right, probably the ocean dumping. Anyway, in case you didn't need it, I found another reason to stay the hell out of the water, and yes it involves sharks. If a 20 foot great white shark gets caught in the Gulf of Mexico, what could be worse? This:

Some Australian daredevils were fishing off Bondi Beach when they caught a modest blue shark. Despite the fact that they were on a 32 foot boat, they decided to just tie a rope around its tail and tow it home. Because if they brought the little bastard on the boat, they wouldn't have bait for their bigger catch. While they're towing it and presumably high-fiving each other, a massive great white shark took the bait. What's with the white-on-blue crime?

The fourth one down is lunch for the third one down

The great white, which I shall refer to as The Armageddon of Hate, smelled a free meal and shot out of nowhere to take a bite. Because it's the The Armageddon of Hate, it bit the smaller shark in two and then started going after the boat. The bastard played tug-of-war for a while before realizing he had a dead blue shark floating away that he could so much more easily.
The question this raises for me is who exactly is fishing, and for what?

• The crazy-ass fishermen who knew that it takes a big bait to catch a big fish and decided to fight fire with fire by using a shark to land a shark. 
• The Armageddon of Hate, who was this close to watering a 32-footer!  The Armageddon of Hate is a well known humanfish (literal opposite of fisherman)
• God, Satan, or both, who are fishing because they can.

So if this isn't enough to confine your swimming to chlorinated water, then watch a couple episodes of River Monsters.

Jaws 8: The Real Monster

Ok, I have to make this post quick because the Good Lady Wife and I are heading up to Maine for the weekend for some reason. So I will quickly tell you about something truly terrifying. No, not nude pictures of Barbara Streisand, something scarier. No, not nude pictures of Wilfred Brimley. What is it with you and the awkward nude pictures?
Earlier this week, fisherman in the Sea of Cortez were surprised to pull up their nets to find a ginormous great white shark. How ginormous? The monster was 20 feet long and weighed close to a ton. I'll wait a minute while you go change your undergarments.

I assume the blood is Aquamans

To give you a sense of scale, the boat that pulled it up is only 22 feet long. That's right, the beast they brought home was only slightly smaller than their boat. Holy crap, Jaws is back. A beast that size normally exists only in my nightmares, making me believe that my dreams are starting to come true. I have my fingers crossed for the lounge-singer donut with a bow tie.
The truly scary thing is that the leviathan was dead when they brought it up. I take this to mean that there is a creature in the Gulf of Mexico that is larger and more powerful than a 20-foot, 2,000 pound shark. My money is on Cthulhu. What else could kill a great white through fear alone?

I for one welcome our new pan-dimensional overlords

I already had an unnatural fear of sharks and all things aquatic (you ever see a tuna? They're huge). This just validates my fears. I will never step foot in the Gulf of Mexico, not that there was much risk of that to begin with. The thought of Jormungundr swimming around out there makes me want to move to Utah and hide in a closet.
Humans beware: stay on dry land and never ever go in the water. If we were meant to swim, we'd have gills and flippers.