Think I’m over reacting to the threat of pigeons?  Perhaps not!  I’m not the only one unwilling to sit idly by and let the sky rats run rampant.  Kings of Leon recently stopped a concert just three songs in because of the nasty creatures.  People magazine tells us:

Three songs into their St. Louis concert Friday night, the Kings of Leon had to shut down the show on account of some unexpected accompaniment that CNN pins on “pooping pigeons.”

“Jared [Followill, the band's bassist] was hit several times during the first two songs,” said Andy Mendelsohn of Vector Management. “It’s not only disgusting – it’s a toxic health hazard. They really tried to hang in there.”

The dirty birds were reported to have been lurking in the rafters of the Missouri city’s Verizon Amphitheatre and launching their aerial attack during the band’s opening number, “Closer.” Followill, 23, got it in the face.

“I was hit by pigeons on each of the first three songs,” said the musician and self-professed germophobe. “We had 20 songs on the set list. By the end of the show, I would have been covered from head to toe.”

Nor did he feel safe gazing skyward to see who his attackers were – or how many of them.

“The last thing I was going to do was look up,” he said, “but if that was only a couple, we must have caught them right after a big Thanksgiving dinner.”

After the cancelation – and, presumably, a good, hot shower – the band said in a statement through its manager, “We want to apologize to our fans in St. Louis and will come back as soon as we can.” Added the band’s publicist, “No fans got pooped on as far as we know.”

Kudos to Jared and the guys!  Next time, I hope they arm themselves with pellet guns and take more aggressive action against the sky rats.

This video of the concert popped up on youtube:

Towards the end, you can see the drummer and lead singer wipe sky rat scat from their faces. If I’m not mistaken, the singer’s shirt is also dotted with pigeon bomb shrapnel.

These birds must die!

A Utah woman has filed a suit against Google, claiming the web giant is responsible for her recent accident. Lauren Rosenberg used Google Maps to find walking directions on her blackberry device, and then disengaged any cognitive faculties that she may (or may not) posses in order to follow them along a busy highway with no sidewalks.   The case states that:

Defendant Google, through its “Google Maps” service provided Plaintiff Lauren Rosenberg with walking directions that led her out onto Deer valley Drive, a.k.a. State Route 224, a rural highway wit no sidewalks, and a roadway that exhibits motor vehicles traveling at high speeds, that is not reasonably safe for pedestrians.

The Defendant Google expects uses of the walking map site to rely on the accuracy of the walking directions given….

As a direct and proximate cause of Defendant Google’s careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions, Plaintiff Laren Rosenberg was led onto a dangerous highway, and was thereby stricken by a motor vehicle…

In case you were wondering if this case had any legitimacy, I found a few pictures that have been popping up across the interwebs…

This is the highway along which Rosenberg chose to walk:

And here are the Google Maps directions, which clearly warn that the walking directions are still in beta stage and may be inaccurate and potentially hazardous:

“But the interwebs told me to!” has never – and will never – be a legitimate excuse for idiocy. At what point did it become acceptable to shut off common sense?  This is Darwinism in action – survival of the fittest.  Unfortunately, Rosenberg survived the accident and will pass on her inferior intellect to the next generation. I can’t help but feel as though some great injustice has thus been committed. (Harsh, perhaps?)

I have a sneaking suspicion that what really happened that fateful day was similar to this news item from last summer: