I found this amusing anecdote on rec.music.gdead when I was doing research for Atomic Dog and have been since looking for an excuse to repost it: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I am absolutely not making this incident up; in fact I have it all on videotape. The tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent a reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that washed up on the beach. The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass was placed with the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory that highways and whales are very similar in the sense that both are large objects. So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon a plan (remember, I am not making this up) to blow up the whale with dynamite. The thinking was that the whale would be blown into small pieces, which would then be eaten by seagulls and fish. That would be that, a textbook whale removal. So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite next to the whale and set it off. What follows, on the videotape, is one the most priceless events in the history of the universe. First you see the whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone changes. You hear a new sound like "splud, splap", and you hear a woman's voice shouting "Here come pieces of...OH MY GOD!" Something smears the camera lens. Later, the reporter explains: "The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber rained down everywhere." One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter of a mile away!! Remaining on the beach were several large rotting whale sections the size of condominiums. There was no sign of the seagulls who had no doubt had permanently relocated to Brazil.