Man texting meets Meatball the tweeting bear (VIDEO)

GlobalPost

You just can’t go anywhere in California without running into a celebrity, and sometimes those celebrities can be downright growly.

Just ask Vaz Terdandenyan.

The La Crescenta, Calif., man was texting when he looked up and found himself face-to-face with a 400-pound black bear roaming a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood this morning.

“I just turned back and ran for my life,” he told KTLA. “I guess running for a marathon came in handy because I was in a shape to run away.”

Terdandenyan heard a helicopter outside and went to investigate; he was sending a text message to his boss saying he was going to be late because of a commotion near his house.

The noise turned out to be KTLA’s eye in the sky filming their encounter, and Fish and Wildlife officers tracking the bear.

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The bear is no stranger to neighbors who dubbed it Meatball because it earlier broke into an outdoor fridge and stole the meatballs from inside, the Los Angeles Times said.

“I feel sorry for it,” resident Tod Sciacqua told the LA Times. “It’s just down here trying to survive. This is what happens when you build homes against the forest. We encroach on their land; they end up in our backyards. That’s the way it goes.”

Like all good instant celebrities, Meatball now has a Twitter feed, MSNBC said.

Also known as Glen Bearian or the Glendale bear, Meatball's tweets tend to focus on food, naturally.

As for his door-to-door shopping spree, Fish and Wildlife officers tranquilized Meatball and relocated it to a more wooded area.

Bear with Taste for Meatballs Tranquilized in California Yard: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

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