animals

Refresh my memory… when the flattened, decapitated head of a grey tree squirrel crosses your path, is that good luck or bad?

Bandits! 12 o’clock!
I am apparently under attack. A full-blown herd of raccoons has decided that the most fun thing to do at 1:30 am is scare the living bejesus out of me. Out of nowhere I heard what sounded like some maniac trying to break into the house. I, of course, freaked. Was there someone in the backyard?! No. Silly me. It was simply the normally-most-matronly of female felines hurling herself at the back doors in a pathetic attempt to intimidate the masked marauders milling about the patio. They sat there, peacefully, inches from the glass, with a “Who do you think you’re fooling?” look aimed right at her. It was lovely to know that she is watching over me, protecting me from the vermin of Beverly Hills. But I’ve since illuminated the backyard with the full glare of a half-dozen 100 watt bulbs and the pesky ‘coons aren’t even remotely frightened. Living in the wilds of the Los Angeles hills has acclimated them to society and, much like the median-dwellers of my morning commute, I assume they’re waiting for a handout.
“Be gone!” I yell. “There be no leftovers for ye here!”
It does nothing to deter them. Perhaps if I crawl into bed and turn on ESPN, they will see that I’m not going to toss them any scraps and they’ll leave us be. Here’s hoping …

I finally joined a gym. I had to do it, you see. I’ve withered away to a mere 165 lbs in the last year. The gym is small, but it has everything I need and is never crowded. It feels great to be lifting weights again.

After my workout this morning I sat for a while and read the latest issue of National Geographic. There was a terrific article on the Evolution of Whales. Sadly the entire story is not on line; you’ll have to subscribe if you want to read the whole thing. But the excerpt at the site has an extraordinary close-up photo of a whale’s eye that I just had to link. Check it out!

Two from the Obscure Store:

• A man test-driving a water bike was killed when a duck … flew into his face and knocked him into the water …
• Several thousand chickens were killed or maimed … yesterday morning when a tractor-trailer hauling crates of the birds lost the load on an Interstate 83 ramp.

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A very special link via LarkFarm: Everything you ever wanted to know about Octopus Sex.

an essay on “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Jerianne Wright
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Hemingway and the Beasts, by Jens Bjorneboe, is an essay exploring animal symbolism in Hemingway’s works. (translated from Norwegian)

The Sharks in Literature site has a lengthy excerpt from The Old Man and the Sea.

If you own a 30-pound pit bull and a 200-pound Burmese python and they are both missing, it’s probably safe to assume the worst.

People keep searching this site for the word frog.
I don’t know why.
If you come here looking for frogs, please leave a note and tell me what you hoped to find.
My mind wobbles.

“He was still talking when he came out of the water.”

This is just getting to be too much. I saw Jaws when I was a kid and have always been at least a little bit scared of swimming. After this summer I don’t know if I’ll be able to go into the ocean ever again. I was in a freakin’ lake last weekend and I was nervous. I can’t imagine many worse ways to die …

You really should read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by the late, great Douglas Adams. There’s a bit in there about Schrödinger’s cat that started me tumbling down a long road (many, many years ago) of trying to learn everything I could about physics, metaphysics, philosophy, blah blah blah. (Try to find a copy of William Poundstone’s Labyrinths of Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge, too. It will blow your mind.) The folks at Mad Science Laboratories have created a Schrödenger’s Cat Web Cam that is hysterical. I love the disclaimer:

DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS EXPERIMENT YOURSELF AT HOME. WE ARE TRAINED SCIENTISTS! YOUR CAT MAY THEORETICALLY DIE!

If there’s one thing on the ‘net that I’m guilty of over-blogging, it’s this. I can’t help it. Every few months I somehow find myself reading it - and laughing - and I feel as if I must let anyone who hasn’t read it yet know it is there. Go read this. You will laugh.

If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times:
“DO NOT PLAY WITH THE HIPPOS!”

“OR THE TIGERS!”

All about tigers!
All about hippos!