Today's Guff

This Week's Shark Attack


It's really funny now, but there's been yet another shark attack, this time off the coast of Western Australia. The name of the guy is... Bernie Williams, just like the former New York Yankee Centerfielder. So it's somewhat appropriate he gets his picture on this weblog.

A scuba diver injured in a shark attack off Perth says he wrenched his bleeding arm from the predator's jaws and hid in a crevice on the ocean floor until he was rescued.

Despite his brush with a 3.5m white pointer yesterday Bernie Williams, of the northern Perth beachside suburb of Sorrento, vowed today to continue diving - with a shark repellant.

He believes it was the arrival of a diving companion with a shark repellant that chased away the great white.

Mr Williams was diving for crayfish yesterday when he was bitten on the left arm by the shark about 5.5km off Perth's City Beach.

"I just felt like I'd been hit by a truck on the side ... and there was a very large shark head hanging off my arm, trying to chew it," Mr Williams told ABC radio.

The predator took Mr Williams for a "bit of a ride" before releasing him to try to take another bite.

But Mr Williams pulled his hand free and shot down to the ocean floor where he hid in a crevice.

"I had a perfect view of it when it came at me the second time, and across its head would have (measured) three or four hundred millimetres," he said.

The shark made several more attempts to attack Mr Williams, disappearing into the gloom and lunging back from different directions, before the arrival of his two diving companions, including one named Brian wearing a shark repellant.

"I think I was actually on the bottom hiding, and being chased around, for the best part of four or five minutes and then I ran into my buddies.

"We all bunched up around Brian, with the shark pod, ... and the shark disappeared."

I swear, I'm not making this stuff up. There have been more shark attacks reported this year.

What Is It With Chicks?
Billy Beane is getting interviewed at Athletics Nation again. As usual it's a pretty in-depth interview covering the off-season moves of the Moneyball General Manager himself. It's a great interview as usual as he discusses the ins and outs of signing Esteban Loaiza and trading for Milton Bradley. The A's have had a somehwat puzzling off-season, but on paper, they do look good. More importantly, they look like a better squad going forwards.

Now...
Here's Part 1.
Here's Part 2.
Here's Part 3 Where I found this bit at the end:

Blez: Have you gone iPod yet?

Beane: Yeah, pretty much entirely. I have hundreds of CDs and my wife has insisted that I get rid of them.

I don't know about you, but I see no logical reason to get rid of CDs on the basis of having an iPod. Do you? This just sucks. How can a wife *insist* a man get rid of his CDs? What kind of wife is that? Look Billy, you can trade Hudson and Mulder for prospects, but don't trade your CDs for an iPod. Trade your wife for a younger replacement with a higher artistic ceiling!