Happy Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day Explained by C.G.P. Grey via Laughing Squid.

I still can't spell Punxsutawney on my own, but just in case you needed a refresher on groundhog day, this quippy little video will clear everything up for you.

Things I Love Thursday: Pupperoni

This Super Bowl Sunday preview commercial for Volkswagon was SUPER cute (get it...Super Bowl...SUPER cute? eh? eh?) Seriously, though, puppies plus Star Wars=awesome. Then again, I am the type of person who can listen to Jingle dogs, so maybe I am not the best authority on the subject. It's worth waiting until the end of the video, or at least until the (spoiler alert) AT-AT greyhound makes an appearance.

A visit to the Aquarium

Some friends and I went to visit some penguins this weekend. I mean, we went to the New England Aquarium. It was a good mix of people—two of us had cameras and were viewing the aquarium through our lenses, and one of us was a scientist (and we kept teasing him for reading all the signs), and there was a lot of banter, some of it at the expense of some salmon.



Things That Made Me Smile

♥ Our wedding was featured on two places on teh interwebs this week:
100 Layer Cake and Fat Orange Cat (our photographer's blog)

Things I Love Thursday: Corgis Gonna Corg

From the Obsessive Corgi Disorder tumblr

honorable meniton

Feeling like a road warrior for riding my bike in the winter ♥ The Dinner Party, This American Life, and Freakonomics Radio—my new rotation of podcasts ♥ Excitement about new projects and fresh starts ♥ Daydreaming about our upcoming vacations and travel plans ♥ Listening to mountain streams as I fall asleep ♥ The pile of books I have waiting for me at home ♥ 


Happy Thursday!

Bonzai!

Nah, I don't know this puppy, but if you click on his picture, you can see his profile on Puppy of the Day! I just thought he was too cute to resist sharing.

Cute Squirrel Crashes Photo

I saw this image on cute overload, along with the explanation of why it's not photoshopped on the National Geographic blog.

What a great capture! So lucky.

RIP Phinneas

Well, our fish is dead.

He got dropsy, and by the time he started showing symptoms (he'd stopped eating a week before that), the Internet diagnosed him as doomed. So we had this fish swimming around doing a pretty good impression of a pine cone, and now he's dead. There was nothing we could do, and unlike some of the other fish illnesses he could have contracted, dropsy is the one for which there is no one known cause, and for which there is no [relatively expensive for a $3 fish] cure.

Anyway, I never thought I'd miss a fish so much. We're going to finally get that shrimp, but in the meantime I think we're going to fill the tank with anonymous no name fish (to prep the tank for our shrimpy). No more getting attached. I'll be ready for another betta sometime, but not now.

How ridiculous am I? Yeah, I know - maybe it's time for a puppy.

An Educated Fish

Allow me to introduce you to our new roommate, Phineas H. Bubblesworth, Esq. You can call him Phinny.

Phinny likes eating bloodworms, hiding in his cave, and resting in his plant. Also, sunsets and long walks on the beach.

J and I are already the world's most sickening fish parents. We really need a puppy.

Taco Flavored Fishes

I believe that I am getting a fish this weekend. I haven't done ridiculous amounts of research about this, but I've done enough to decide that we will be getting an Anabantid or Gourami of some sort. Anabantids and Gouramis, or "Labyrinth fish" have a labyrinth organ, which a) allows them to live in water with less oxygen support than other fish, and b) Labyrinth is a movie featuring David Bowie.

They are hardy fish, and while most of them are somewhat aggressive and are not community fish, we are going to be an only fish couple for a while, anyway. If we want to introduce small freshwater schools, we will be able to do that if and when we upgrade our tank.

I won't be able to come home and cuddle with my fish, but we know we won't be getting a puppy for a while, and this seemed like a fair compromise. I hope to be working less hours, preferably from home, when we do get a dog (I say puppy all the time, but most greyhounds come into your heart and home as adults). We already have a name picked out, and a title. Now we just need to find the right fishy for our home.

Even the Humpback whales use sippy cups

[From my unpublished archives, dated 31 August, 2007]

Zach, from the archived threads at WhaleASK, asked:

Some friends and I were talking about whales and the subject of drinking came up. People (and I assume other land mammals) have to drink water pretty frequently or they will dehydrate and die. How do marine mammals take in water? Is it absorbed through the skin somehow? Is it ingested and absorbed some other way? Are they "drinking" all the time, or does it only happen part of the time? How do they deal with the salt content of the water?

Thanks in advance,
Zach

It just so happens that J and I were discussing this very topic last night, Zach. Evidently, whales take in water using sippy cups. Not even whale sized ones. Normal sized sippy cups.

Doesn't it blow your mind?

What LOLcat R U?...is I?

According to OK Cupid I are Serious Cat

48% Affectionate, 27% Excitable, 57% Hungry

Hungry for knowledge in any internet forum, I demand decorum. Any off-topic remarks, absurd statements, or tomfoolery on the interweb is deeply frowned upon by me. Truth has no room for drollery.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

"More Animals Need To Be Shot From Cannons"

I volunteered to watch my friends' rats when they went out of town...
J said, "This is all fine and good, until they get out of their cage"
"Then I'd need a snake -- to get them out of the apartment!"
"Then you'd have a snake"
"I'd get a coyote....but then...I guess I don't know how I'd get rid of a coyote..."
"You'd have to get a cheetah."
"There is nothing that would solve a cheetah infestation, J"
"Except a great white shark"
"Now how the hell would we get a shark into the apartment?"
"A CANNON!"

Cheetah Attack

"Hurry! You're missing the intro! You're missing a zebra, chasing a bunch of gazelle"
[silence]
"And elephants!"
[more silence]
"And seals! And a cheetah!
[nothing]
"Eating a penguin!"

"...Wait. A WHAT? All I heard was a zebra and a gazelle...A bunch of stuff I'm not interested in...And cheetahs eating penguins."

Later...

"Look at those penguins just sitting there like jerks! Lazy penguins."
"You know what they need? A good old fashioned cheetah attack."
"The Discovery Channel should bring their own cheetahs to the penguin colonies."
"That would show them."

In Memory of Sheela

My parent's dog, Sheela, was put to sleep earlier this week. She had a tumor that made it impossible for her to eat, so she was essentially starving to death. My parents didn't notice at first, because she looked healthy, otherwise; wet nose, smiley, waggy-tailed, jumping around -- she was still practially a puppy (only three years old), and since she was so young, the vet didn't think to check for cancer at first.

Sheela was a good dog. She loved to play games with my dad. She would throw her chew toy over the gate whenever she heard the motorcycle drive up, and wait for my dad to throw it back over the fence, and she knew to only do it when she heard the motorcycle approach. She knew more commands than any of our previous dogs, but she refused to roll over, which gave her a special place in my heart. She could roll over, she just actually refused to. Not even for a cookie.

My mom just wanted to put the dog to sleep, but my dad wanted the vet to operate, since Sheela was so young. In the end, they couldn't save her, though; the tumor was too big. She seemed happy enough until the end. I know she had an enormous, unmanageable tumor inside of her, but the vet said it was probably relatively painless. She was suffering a little bit, but it could have been much, much worse, and she seemed happy.

I hope you're in a better place now, Sheela.