A woman running away from a bear burst onto a road and got hit by a car, and now we all have to carry bear canisters in Rocky Mountain National Park. Actually, the two incidents are seemingly unrelated, except in that they both involve the diabolical trickery of bears. The pregnant woman was rushed to a hospital and seems fine, but they’re still trying to find the driver who had a friendly chat with the woman before leaving the scene.

Of course, you and I were not so lucky. Beginning this Friday anyone staying overnight in the Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry will be required to carry a bear canister. I’ll give them a call to see what I can do; after all, the park was named after me…or maybe it was the other way around.

via Out There

You kind of think, “They’re not going to go there.” Then they go there and you think, “Was it worth it?” Well, a pretty good PSA either way. Don’t worry if you didn’t see it; it’ll be on a VH1 special about the 2000’s in a few years. It comes to us from JewishRobot.com.

Rand McNally rolled out a series of microfiber lens cloths maps for our friends who can’t read their directions due to dirty glasses. The maps are mostly of urban areas as a person heading into the Alaskan wilderness likely wouldn’t want to carry a 5-pound (10 pounds wet) beach blanket map. The microfiber city maps cost about $6 each and in addition to cleaning your glasses and camera lenses work great for identifying you as hopelessly nerdy tourists.

via Gear Junkie

The parent company of Surfing, Surfer, Skateboarder, Snowboarder, and 71 other magazines will stay in business after reaching a bankruptcy agreement with creditors. Interlink Companies will benefit from the canceling of over $1 billion in debt they would never be able to pay back and they’ll be able to tap $100 million in revolving credit to keep their 75 magazines and 90 websites in business.

How in god’s name does a publishing company run up $1,000 million in debt? Did they fund a secret war on skiing?

From the press release:

Source Interlink Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Greg Mays said, “We couldn’t be more pleased, this restructuring will materially reduce our interest expense and debt levels, substantially improve free cash flow and allow us to capitalize on several operational opportunities to further improve and grow our business.”

Translation:

Thanks for the free $1 billion dollars suckers! Now we’re off to publish increasingly irrelevant trash with the rest of your money. Thanks!

via Shop-Eat-Surf

What’s abuzz on Twitter right now? Besides Arlen Specter’s party change and the earthquake in northwest England, that is? Crocs. That’s right. Everyone’s favorite Lifesaver-colored rubber slippers. Seems that this one sentence from @rainnwilson is being retweeted around the Twittersphere faster than the spread of the infamous influenza now sweeping our planet:

“I’m going to buy a pair of crocs so I can melt them down & pour them as molten liquid into the eyes of whoever invented them.”

Amen, mister.

So move over, Ashton Kutcher and CNN. You’re so old news. This time it’s @rainnwilson Crocs tweet vs. Swine Flu. First to a million wins a brand new Pontiac!

Photo via http://shop.crocs.com