As we all recover from the 4th of July three-day weekend – hopefully with the same number of fingers and toes we all had on July 3rd – we turn our attention to the pressing news of the week.
The news from Washington, D.C., you ask? No, of course not! I’m talking about news from the real world.
We start with Australia, where we discover the shocking revelation, via a story from the AP, that Tasmania is apparently a real place and was not just made up by Warner Brothers for the crazy spinning cartoon character. We also find out that Tasmania has been invaded by a 2200-pound young male elephant seal named Neil.
Australian officials ask fans to respect the privacy of Neil, a 1-ton seal who respects nothing
It’s unclear from the story whether the people of Tasmania, who are apparently considered to be actual Australians, named him Neil, or if his parents did, but “Neil the seal” seems more likely to be perpetrated by humans. Animals would never be that cruel.
Perhaps because of his name, but more likely because he’s a young male, he has decided to wreak havoc on the unnamed beach town. Again, it is unclear from the story whether the beach town’s name was simply not mentioned in the story, or if all towns in Tasmania are unnamed, but it’s part of Australia, so we have our suspicions…
Neil is five years old, and he has another five years to go before he’s old enough to breed. Elephant seals breed in a system by which the two largest males battle it out for the rights to the ladies, while the smaller males sneak over to the ladies during the fight and take care of a significant amount of the breeding.
The males spend their young lives practicing how to fight until they are old enough to be taken seriously by the other males, and more importantly, by the ladies. Neil is on land to practice fighting, but Neil forgot one very important practice ingredient – another young male.
You see, Neil is the ONLY elephant seal to show up in Tasmania this year. I’m not sure if it was Neil that got off course, or ALL the other seals, but he’s got no one to practice with. So, Neil’s doing the next best thing. He’s slamming his 2200-pound chest into parked cars and street barricades. Good on ya’, mate!
Speaking of getting off course in the ocean, one woman definitely did NOT.
The Good News Network brings us the story of Kelsey Pflendler, easily one of the most badass people on the planet, who just beat the world record for solo rowing between two US states not connected by land.
Woman Rower Breaks Men’s Record for Fastest Solo Voyage from California to Hawaii
Kelsey rowed across the Pacific in what looked more like a spaceship than a 21-foot rowboat, and she did it in just 43 days. If you, like me, had never considered how long it might take to row a boat from California to Hawaii, mostly because that is just a whack-a-doo idea, you will be impressed to learn that the previous women’s solo record was 86 days and the men’s record is 52 days. (I mean, did the other lady get lost or something? Am I right?)
It’s 2026, so I’m surprised the news outlets are making such a big deal out of the fact that she broke the men’s record. You and I obviously understand that that is a huge deal, and I’m sure Kelsey does too, but I thought the media wanted us to ignore things like that now. I guess maybe they didn’t like the low readership the time they excitedly reported that the guy who went across fastest shattered the women’s record by 34 days…
As amazing as Kelsey’s feat was, it still unfortunately highlighted the fact that open-ocean interstate rowing has a pathetically small fan base. She rowed into Ala Wai on Oahu to a “crowd” of “over 100 people.” More people than that show up each day to the unnamed beach town in Tasmania to look at Neil the seal, and he doesn’t even have a spaceboat.
It’s possible that her crowd was a little lighter than it should have been because of her charitable cause, though. In addition to shattering world records, she wanted her trip to help raise money for “a charity that supports the physical and mental care of Colorado River rafting guides.” I was under the impression that being a rafting guide WAS mental care, but I’ve never actually been one, so I can’t say for sure…
No matter how you slice it, Kelsey is amazing, but it appears as if she also got very lucky. I don’t know what obstacles or dangers she encountered on her trip, but I’m pretty sure she lucked out in the space ball department.
Back to Australia we go for some more shocking news – Australia has a space agency for some reason. And that space agency (unclear if any Tasmanians were invited to join) seems to have solved their most vexing case yet:
Australia space agency has found ‘likely source’ of mystery space balls
Source: Space
No, not that kind. This kind.
Source: Tasmania
The BBC brings us this story of “mysterious large balls” (you heard me) that washed up on a beach in northern Queensland this weekend. The six solid objects discovered on Forrest Beach, to the north of Townsville, were thought to be space debris. The ASA said on Monday that they “appear to be pressure vessels from a space launch vehicle”. They also added, “Yes, we name our beach towns here. This is Queensland, not Tasmania.”
The agency went on to say that it was working with “international authorities” to formally confirm the launch vehicle, and by “international authorities,” we, of course, mean NASA.
Now, I don’t know what the hell is going on up in space, but I do know that Neil, Kelsey, and probably a lot of other ocean-going mammals got pretty lucky over the weekend, not getting nailed by a space ball hurtling out of the sky. Can someone please call Elon Musk and have him get a handle on this situation before someone gets a space ball right through their spaceboat, or worse?
But if you think falling space balls are bad, PIX11 News brings us the most ironic story of the week - a partially buckled high-rise in New York City.
Columns buckle at Midtown building: FDNY
In case you are currently in the area, I would not go near 235 E. 42nd Street near 2nd Avenue.
Multiple blocks in Midtown were cordoned off and several buildings were evacuated after officials discovered the high-rise building, which is being completely renovated with floors being added, was unstable and at risk of total collapse. A few of the upper floors partially collapsed and two major support beams were found to be buckling.
That wasn’t the only discovery of the day. We also discovered that New York City officials are possibly the worst officials in the nation at describing structural column problems, when they stated that beams on the 21st and 22nd floors were “bending like cigarettes.”
Hmm.. yes, bending like cigarettes. All clear what the problem is now. Thank you, officials.
Why is this the most ironic news story of the week, you might be asking? Well, it just so happens that 235 E. 42nd Street is the former headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
The building is still mostly upright, but work continues to get it back to fully erect.
See you soon,
-Smidge
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