PUMPKIN!
RHODE ISLAND MAN GROWS 3,156-POUND PUMPKIN, BREAKS WEEK LONG WORLD RECORD
Ron Wallace of Coventry, Rhode Island hauled a 3,156-pound pumpkin onto the scale at Frerichs Farm in Warren on October 10, and Guinness has now made it official. It is the heaviest pumpkin ever weighed and the first fruit of any kind to clear 3,000 pounds. Guinness called it a major milestone in the history of cultivation, which is a hell of a sentence to write about a squash. Spare a thought for Ian Paton. The British grower had his own record confirmed on October 3 at 2,856 pounds and change, with a pumpkin he named Bagheera that he watered with roughly 130 gallons a day and tended up to six hours daily. He got exactly one week on the throne before a 60-year-old from Rhode Island showed up and added about 300 pounds to the number. Wallace has done this before. He was the first grower past 1,500 pounds in 2006 and the first past 2,000 in 2012, so this is his third Guinness record in about 35 years of growing. What changed this year was a greenhouse, his first, plus what he described to Guinness as near-perfect weather. The seed was called a 2731 Stelts 2024, because at this level these guys name seeds like thoroughbreds and talk about them the same way.
SANTA CRUZ COPS HAVE CHASED TWO DIFFERENT ESCAPED EMUS IN ONE WEEK
Earlier this month, CHP Santa Cruz said dispatchers fielded multiple calls about an emu walking into traffic near Harper Street and 17th Avenue. The agency's own post admitted it was out of its depth: dogs, cats, deer and the occasional bird are routine, an emu was unexpected. The owner showed up, troopers helped corral the thing, and it went home. Then came the sequel. Days later an emu bolted from its owner and led Santa Cruz County deputies through local streets, with video showing the flightless bird darting around while deputies tried to keep it away from passing cars. The fix was snacks. When it was over, they posted a photo of the emu posing with the deputies and its owner, which is more than most arrests get. The sheriff's office said keeping the peace sometimes means keeping an emu out of traffic long enough for its owner to come get it. They also got ahead of the obvious theory. No, the department said, this was not a repeat offender from the CHP incident. Different bird, same agenda: wreak havoc. So that is two emus, two owners, two agencies, one week. Emus run about six feet tall and 120 pounds, so this is not a squirrel-sized problem for whoever meets one at 40 mph.
Fact or fiction
The most isloated place on Earth is called: Lonliness Peak (Antartica)
FRANCE CALLS IN THE ARMY TO GUARD TRAIN STATIONS SO COPS CAN GO CHASE LOOTERS
France spent Saturday on fire. The Interior Ministry counted roughly 2,400 arrests and nearly 1,000 injured police and gendarmes, seven of them seriously, after nationwide marches over the cost of living and falling-apart schools turned into looting runs through Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux, Lille and Toulouse. In Limoges, the crowd got inside the town hall. The government's answer is curfews and soldiers. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told the National Assembly that troops from Operation Sentinelle, the 10,000-strong force that has stood outside train stations and places of worship since the 2015 attacks, will take over static guard posts so police are free to actually chase people. Paris banned carrying gasoline and gas canisters through the capital until Thursday. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a "massive" deployment for Saturday and conceded the last plan was too static and not mobile enough, which is a polite way of admitting everybody outran his cops. On who caused this, pick a side. Lecornu says far-left groups are organizing an uprising. CGT union boss Sophie Binet says Macron ignored the cost-of-living crisis and let public services rot. The two sides cannot even agree on the crowd: the ministry counted 550,000 marchers, organizers claim 800,000. Macron watched a chunk of this from a Gulf tour, prompting one French paper to wonder whether "the misery of a reviled president is less painful in the Persian Gulf sun."
BASEBALL JUST GUARANTEED A FIRST-TIME CHAMPION
The Brewers finished 103-59, the best record in baseball, then swept the two-time defending champion Dodgers to take the pennant. Last October, the Dodgers swept them. It is the first time in postseason history a team has swept the club that swept it the year before, which is the pettiest stat in sports, and Milwaukee earned every inch of it. Manager Pat Murphy's review of Los Angeles afterward: "They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we got a bunch of gamers." The Brewers have not been to a World Series since 1982, when they lost to the Cardinals. The franchise has been chasing a ring since it arrived as the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969 and immediately relocated. Tampa Bay went 98-64, best in the American League, and needed six games to finish off Cleveland. The Rays are 0-2 in the World Series and did not exist before 1998. Fun wrinkle: Milwaukee switched to the National League that same year specifically to make room for the Devil Rays. Twenty-eight years later, the expansion team they made space for is in their building trying to rob them. Game 1 is Friday at 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field on FOX. The Brewers took two of three from the Rays in the regular season. If it goes the distance, Game 7 is on Halloween.
NATHAN FIELDER NEGOTIATED A KILL SWITCH TO BURY HIS ELIZABETH HOLMES DOC
Nathan Fielder did not think the world needed another Elizabeth Holmes project, and honestly, fair. There was a book, a podcast, a Hulu series and two documentaries already. So before shooting anything, he got A24 to hand over the money, leave him alone, and write in a kill switch so he could bury the movie if it turned out to be the same story in a black turtleneck. Co-director Lance Oppenheim says that clause is what made the whole thing possible. What Fielder got instead was 34 days with Holmes, her partner Billy Evans and their two kids at the family's San Diego home, right before she reported for an 11-year sentence for defrauding Theranos investors. The back half picks up two years later with Holmes locked up and unavailable to film. A24 screened it in secret at Telluride on September 6, dropped the trailer the same day, and sold the rest on spoiler panic. It opened October 16 in 855 theaters, finished second for the weekend with $15.6 million, and is now past $18 million domestic. Letterboxd has it at a 4.8 average across roughly 145,000 reviews, 73 percent of them five stars, which makes it the highest-rated feature in the site's history, above Seven Samurai, 12 Angry Men and The Godfather Part II. Those movies took decades. This one did it over a weekend, from an audience that would five-star Fielder quietly rereading his own contract.
Sources (3)
- hollywoodreporter.com - 'You Can See Everything' Is a Gothic Romance for the Ages
- vulture.com - What Would Happen If You Just Called Up Nathan Fielder?
- indiewire.com - 'You Can See Everything': Nathan Fielder Was So Skeptical He Could Break New Ground in Elizabeth Holmes Story, He Negotiated a Kill Switch with A24
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