I don’t know if I like them this much, though.
(Episode CCLXIV: Are you ready to rapture?)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I don’t know if I like them this much, though.
(Episode CCLXIV: Are you ready to rapture?)
Oh hey, this is pretty nice. It’s a Flickr interface on PharynguWiki.
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Special:ImportFreeImages
Search for pictures, click on (import this) underneath the picture you want. Next page: pick a size, give it a filename, click Upload File. Don’t bother with anything else; licensing is handled automatically.
Result: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/File:ReikiCat.jpg
Dogs and cats, living together….mass hysteria!
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Either that, or wills.
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We’re currently hoping that two skunks that have been enjoying the cat kibble at Chez cicely for the past couple of weeks will get the hint to move along and make their dinner reservations elsewhere. We’ve started taking the dishes in just before dark. We’d like to go back to providing Normal Service (i.e., the dishes stay out all night) to the outdoor cats after a month or so.
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They’re far too busy trying to eat my house?
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ad hominum salvator ॐ
Nice!
(are you still strange gods and/or sg?)
(may I call you salॐ) :)
I’m not sure you can even say there’s a ‘reason’ squirrels haven’t been domesticated. With domestication events, it seems to be a matter of ‘luck of the draw’ as much as anything. Why are dogs domesticated but not jackals? Why is it, of all the species of felines in the world, the domestic housecat is the one that ends up as a commonly accepted ‘pet’ and the rest are pretty much ‘untamable’? Why horses but not zebras?
The factors that go into domestication are complex, and I think much of the early steps may have happened without much direct human intervention.
I’m not an expert though, this is just my own wild hypothesizing.
Random drive-by…
Yow’s Alfie, Caine? Doing better I hope.
Katherine Lorraine, I hope the therapy helps with the inner monologue. I have one (a monologue, not a therapist), and geez does it make life interesting sometimes.
Oh, skunks. My canine recently got sprayed and it’s so silly how she just kept going back for more. I had to drag her away.
Crushes.. I guess I should be happy I haven’t drunk anything’d the party in whom I am interested. But I am “naturally drunk” and talk away to any person I like (friend or crush). I am consoling myself right now with the fact that I haven’t said anything toooo crazy yet? I am still trying to be slow (per your good advice Dhorvath!) and just be friends for now. Is rather hard though. Hope things work out with yours, Sili and DemetriusOfPharos. I’ll keep my fingers and toes crossed for all of us.
TURTLES!
Sorry, just playing with my profile settings on FTB…Takes a few go’s to change anything somehow.
Some dogs don’t like to lose arguments, but when it comes to skunks, you just can’t win.
Even if you do win, you’re still the loser who has to smell like skunk ass for the next month.
If you’re not sure what file extension to use, it’s not important. You can drop the extension entirely or just assume it’s a .jpg
Kitty Lorraine
If your internal conversations are limited to a dialog, you are already winning.
(x) down and (x-1) to go!
Indeed, TLC. And she didn’t even get sprayed that bad.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart:
I had the impression turtles were rather high maintenance. Of course, probably any pet will be, I suppose its silly to think otherwise. Plus I would generally prefer a fluffy something to a reptile – unless it was a snake. That would be cool.
***
Father Ogvorbis:
Really? I had a neighbor with rabbits when I was a kid, I don’t remember biting being a problem. But “not cuddly” would rather defeat the purpose. I had considered rats or gerbils in the past, but their short life might not match my temperament well.
***
TLC:
I read exactly that when I was looking into pets previously – that basically, the rats (or gerbils) would be generally happier and healthier and live longer if they had a friend or several friends.
***
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart:
Sweet Zombie Jesus, really? I knew the intelligent part, but I didn’t know the litter-trained part. Cute…. well, yeah, ok.
***
chigau:
I’m gonna veto that one. I’ve been around pet birds… I don’t know, not really my thing. (No need to have a pet that’s smarter than I am :))
***
Ok, so general consensus so far seems to be rat(s) or turtle. Breeds? Keep in mind – apartment, generally kept cool, Utah weather (meaning all 4 seasons, sometimes extreme).
Dogs don’t consider “Lingering Skunk” to be a bad odor.
Dogs think that “Odor of Last Week’s Roadkill” is something to share with humans.
Chigau: I’m pretty sure skunk spray is considered universally repugnant in the animal kingdom. I’m not even sure skunks like it.
Demetrius: I’ve always enjoyed dumbo-rats. I’m not sure if that’s considered an actual ‘breed’ or not though. Every time I’ve seen one, it was amongst a litter of mostly non-dumbos. It’s pretty easy to recognize them… ears stick out instead of up.
Most rat ‘breeds’ only really differ in fur color (or having none in the case of the hairless variety (if you get a hairless people recommend a normally furred cagemate to cuddle with)). My personal favorite color-wise is probably the ‘hooded rat’, but that’s probably because it’s the most commonly encountered, and thus all the coolest rats I ever knew were hooded.
Sadie was a dumbo hooded rat, and she was beloved by all. Even people who didn’t end up liking ME much, still liked Sadie. She was the shit.
Hi chigau :)
Yepyepyep.
3 or so days after the heat died out in the Your name is Tucker thread, a really heartfelt comment was posted by a lurker for the most part, Realee. Worth reading.
Phillip Legge: Wow, that is a good post.
The criteria is actually fairly well known and we can predict more or less what can be domesticated well. Squirrels seem to meet many, but if I had to guess I’d say their natural nest building instincts are so destructive as to deter their utility as pets.
News: Wikileaks suspends publishing to fight financial freeze. I presume that the website is still up.
Saw RedState
Squirrels are destructive vermin; they don’t destroy pests: they are pests.
Dogs warn, guard, hunt, retrieve, carry, pull, and destroy pests. In some cultures they supply meat.
Cat destroy small pests that can elude dogs.
Birds sing, cheer us up, and catch pests including birds. Raptors were used to catch flying game and deter flying pests until the invention of the shotgun.
Rats are a lot like people. They’re curious, affectionate within the tribe and hostile outside it.
An hour or two ago, an opossum looked through the window! We got to watch it while it slowly walked away. :-)
Sili… should I just catch up with TET, or… may I ask where the problem is? Is there some good reason why you can’t “just” talk to her, or are you just afraid you’ll foul it up when you’ll try?
:-) :-) :-)
They’re closely related to the foraminifera. :-)
Well, yes, but that’s just the name for a shape. Most of them (including most slime molds), but not all, form a clade called Amoebozoa, and the xenophyophores are not in that clade.
Amoebozoa, incidentally, is closely related to Opisthokonta, which consists mainly of the fungi and us (the animals).
Heh. Testa, not testis. Shell/bowl.
You had — long ago and without the Halloween context.
I can answer that last one: the experiment was recently done. It failed, because zebras are seriously aggressive. You let them grow up with humans, you try to ride them, and they just bite.
The Secret to a Happy Marriage
Falconry enthusiasts long await their messiah who according to prophecy will find a way to teach raptors to wield shotguns.
Had a great day in town, brought home many bookses (including Snuff), so Imma go read. I’ll catch up tomorrow.
TLC:
I’ve already told you it is an actual breed. There’s a lot of good info out there on pet rats and different breeds, of which, there are a number. Don’t go talking shit if you can’t be bothered to do a little research.
Sorry Caine, forgot about that exchange.
From wikipedia:
“Rat-free”? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Demetrius:
Rats are fabulous pets and easily litter trained. Mine have two litter boxes and I use Critter Litter, which is a good small animal litter for rats, ferrets, gerbils, rabbits, etc.
When it comes to rats, be sure they come from a reputable breeder. It’s best to get them around 3 to 5 months old, but don’t rule out rescue. My first rat was a rescue. There are assholes who breed rats for aggressiveness and hostility because there’s a market for those rats (assholes who own snakes and like to see a fight between the snake and the rat.) You can see my current two here and the set up I did for them here (You can also see Ash using his litter box.)
The Sailor, I updated about Alfie in the previous incarnation, but you must have missed it. He’s doing better, responding to the antibiotics. He is moving around more, but still not eating a great deal. The most I can tempt him with right now is a few steamed peas. I think we’ll get a bit of yogurt tomorrow and try our luck with that.
Jared Diamond explores this in Guns, Germs and Steel. In explaining why certain animals were domesticated and others weren’t he outlines what he calls the ‘Anna Karenina principle’: Domesticable animals are all alike; Every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way.
What this means is there are many criteria for any animal to be domesticated. Domesticated animals all met this criteria and thus are alike. Undomesticated animals each failed in their own way.
Some factors Diamond mentions:
Diet – Domesticating a large carnivore would be very inefficient. You’d have to feed it a lot of meat that could have gone feeding yourself. Especially inefficient if the meat itself was from a domesticated herbivore that you had to feed. The dog is really the only exception here.
Growth Rate – Much easier and less costly to capture and tame an elephant, for example, than waiting 15 years for it to grow full size.
Problems of Captive Breeding – Some animals for whatever reason don’t breed in captivity. Easy to see why this is a disqualifier.
Nasty Disposition – Relevant to this questions:
As David mentions above, even modern efforts to domesticate zebras have proven unsuccessful. They’re just too aggressive.
Tendency to Panic
Social Structure – Humans benefit greatly from taking over the dominance hierarchy of the domesticated animal.
No, not the luck of the draw. It mostly has to do with whether the animals have a pre-existing herd structure. Particularly one with an alpha animal. If there is an alpha, humans can step into the herd structure and use pre-existing behavioral patterns to get the animals to treat them as a member of the herd and/or the alpha.
At least, that’s what I recall from reading Jared Diamond’s thoughts on the subject a couple of years ago. It was part of his discussion about why civilizations from the Americas didn’t have many domesticated animals and failed to develop the wheel for a long time.
I’m super tired. I’m going to bed now. This is the earliest I’m going to bed since StrangeBoyfriend moved out! Congratulate me–it’s been really hard to put myself to bed since then. So I’ve not been getting enough sleep.
I was unaware of that, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
Most reptile owners and experts I’ve known or read from recommend either feeding prekilled or being VERY cautious about live prey, due to risk of injury to the reptile. But then again, the reptile fancy in general is plagued by ‘tough guy’ types who only own snakes for shock value and really don’t give a single shit about the animal itself.
FA did a better job than me. Eh, my brain’s fried right now.
That was very interesting FA, Thanks. I seem to recall reading something along those lines, but it didn’t make much sense to me at the time.
Oh, I brought my spine home today!
TLC:
You don’t find responsible reptile owners doing that sort of shit. They actually care about their critters.
You did alright. I just happened to have copy of the book in my room, so I was cheating, :p.
Caine: I’m taking your advice and researching pet rats. A hell of a lot has changed since last time I looked into it, it seems.
Any particularly recommended internet reading?
I’ve had a look at all this Wiki stuff now, and with all the stalking and impersonating, I guess we can safely say we have a new Mabus !
Abbie Smith, what’s your opinion on Hoggle’s activities ?
If I recall my Diamond correctly, he was talking primarily about domesticating large animals. (The main thrust of his argument on this point was the importance of large domestic animals in providing alternate sources of power as draft animals and beasts of burden, as well as reliable sources of food) So the factors he listed apply most stringently to large animals. And by large he meant equal to or bigger than your average human. Dogs, cats, and chickens, for example, were completely excluded from that chapter (I think).
Small animals tend to be domesticated for different reasons, and not all the same factors will always apply. A nasty disposition and a tendency to panic, for example, are less of a problem if your animal in question is the size of a cat or less.
Rorschach: Hoggle has been impersonating people now? Who and where?
Yep, that’s true. I forgot to add that.
TLC, oh, it’s been ages since I did my initial research. I remember getting a wealth of good info from UK sites, lessee…
http://www.ratfanclub.org/
http://www.quite.co.uk/rats/
http://www.fancy-rats.co.uk/home/ (The forums here were helpful with my first rat, Ash, who was a rescue and ended up requiring forced socialization.)
http://www.afrma.org/rmindex.htm
http://www.fancypetrats.com/
http://www.pet-directory.net/rats/mice_breeds
Shit, I’m being held in moderation, let me split the links:
TLC, oh, it’s been ages since I did my initial research. I remember getting a wealth of good info from UK sites, lessee…
http://www.ratfanclub.org/
http://www.quite.co.uk/rats/
http://www.fancy-rats.co.uk/home/ (The forums here were helpful with my first rat, Ash, who was a rescue and ended up requiring forced socialization.)
2nd set of links:
http://www.afrma.org/rmindex.htm
http://www.fancypetrats.com/
http://www.pet-directory.net/rats/mice_breeds
PZ! We were allowed 6 links in a post before, what happened?
Caine: Thanks, I’ll get right on that.
I think part of my confusion there was about the definition of ‘breed’. When I was talking about rat breeds, I was thinking like ‘dog breeds’. It turns out, rat breeds are classified a little differently. When I asked if the Dumbo rat was actually a ‘breed’, I meant like in the sense of a golden retriever or german shepherd. Like an actual line of pure dumbo rats that only produce dumbo pups.
TLC:
Two purebred Dumbo rats produce a litter of dumbo pups. Breeds are called varieties by most ratters, and there are varieties within varieties. Really helpful, right?
Morning
Not good. The kids didn’t give me two hours of sleep in a row and are now as grumpy as I am.
I need a nap in the afternoon, because it’s generally frowned upon to fall asleep at your workplace.
Demetrius of Pharos
As somebody who proudly doesn’t own two rabbits (I only clean and feed them), I’ll share a bit.
First of all, getting a rabbit is a bad idea. One rabbit is an unhappy rabbit.
You need at least two of them.
Two does don’t go together, what goes well are a doe and a castrated buck, or two castrated bucks. But that means that unless you’re getting already castrated bucks, you need two cages at first and they also smell quite a bit.
I’d generally discourage indoor-keeping. I know, that’s how most people keep their rabbits, but unless you’re making quite some room rabbit-safe for them, they’re mostly poor creatures who don’t know what running, jumping or digging is.
Oh, on the plus-side, they’re easily litter-trained and some of them are extra-cuddly
sweetcorn vs. cow corn
Hard to mistake one for the other ;)
Yep, it’s grown in large areas in Europe as fodder
animal stories
Well, the wildlife here seems to be pretty boring (no skunks), except for the bald-headed eagles (there’s a zoo with a large falconery next door), so my best story is about cows on a single track road on Achill Island in Ireland. Since the three cows were blocking the road, I had to get out of the car to do some “herding”.
The cows totally agreed that they should move away from the maniac who was shouting and waving her arms, but they also thought that the quickest way to do so would be in running on the road. It took a while and some running to convince them that off the road would be better.
It’s one of Mr’s fondest memories from that holiday.
domestic animals gone wild
Well, there are swarms of parrots, groups of kangaroos and a herd of nandus living in Germany.
The “funny” thing is that when you have an accident with one of them, your insurance doesn’t pay because they only cover native wild animals. Domestic animals are covered by their owners, and kangaroos by nobody.
Yuck, I must be doing something wrong.
Arguably MRA thinks I’m reasonable and is friendly to me.
I’m pissed. I just realized that in addition to the project I’m working so goddamn hard on with no success, I also have a paper due tomorrow on two chapters I haven’t read.
You know, besides the test. And the translation.
:(
Regarding pet ownership, I wanted to weigh in on their lifespan as a major factor. I thought an African Grey parrot would be a neat pet after interacting with one for a week at a cousin’s house (technically still do). Then I learned they can live like 50 years. Can’t really commit to that at the moment (and definitely not at the time).
—-
Such an elegant summary of the Republican thought process.
Bah, tell me about it. Apparently my Sturnus Vulgaris can live up to 22 years, and he’s about five or six now, so I’m stuck with the little asshole for quite a while.
(I kid, of course. Jack is truly an insult to his maniraptoran ancestors, but he’s MY insult.)
Nope, addition is commutative. It necessarily does .
This is also wrong. Luntz shouldn’t quit his day job of lying for Republicans. (Actually, morally speaking, he should….)
This actually reminds me of something Ellis Washington wrote to Ed Brayton:
There’s definitely a problem with Washington’s head (brain) here.
He never explains what the fuck A,B, or C are or what this alleged syllogism, that’s the foundation of Western civilization, was suppose to even mean. It’s in not-even-wrong territory.
Maybe for the set of liberal numbers. It is a perfectly true and valid statement for such values of A, B and C that aren’t constrained by the liberal paradigm.
An interesting, but ill-conceived post at the Crommunist blog, and my response.
Also, liberal vectors, liberal matrices, liberal functions, etc. Mathematics has a well known liberal bias.
Well, technically, ordinal addition isn’t commutative (except in the special case where both ordinals are finite), but I really doubt that’s what Luntz had in mind.
I guess ordinals are social conservatives (you’d figure it would have been cardinals :).
From Youtube :
Here’s Marlene Dietrich’s version.
Because squirrels are mean little shits?
I see I’ve been soundly beat me to the GGS reference. I think you might really like the read, TLC. Sure, not every criterion would match to small animals, but the main point was that if any of them are bad, then the whole enterprise isn’t worth it. I would think that the benefit side of the equation would be even smaller for pets than work/food animals, so the barrier to domestication would be a lot lower to throw it on the side of not worth it.
Sili, I had missed that. Still, it sounds like you’re appropriately abashed and willing to pay for it by not initiating contact, which still puts you better than someone who tries to brush it off and explain it away somehow.
Demetrios,
I only have experience with one turtle, but she’s been pretty easy: Feed ’em, let ’em roll around, clean the tank when it gets stinky. They need a filter, a basking lamp and a heat lamp for the tank, but beyond that, nothing too special is required. The initial setup can be expensive, but you’ll have your turtle a long time.
Plus, they do (or at least Emery does) show affection. Emery also comes when you call her (albeit slowly), but I haven’t yet figured out if she’s responding to her name or my tone of voice.
Caine’s the rat expert, but yeah, my late rat Simon was litter and paper trained. He pretty much figured it out for himself, so as long as I remembered to put paper towels out when I got home from work (and he was let out of his cage), there were no accidents.
Speaking of little pets, has anyone seen trinioler around lately? He has a cavy he likes very much.
We have two cavies. Their enjoyment has been somewhat muted by the fact that the child who wanted them is allergic to them, and all of the care duties have fallen to mom (obviously).
Hmmm, I have one of those random biological questions that only ever occur to me at 4 AM.
Why do honeybees die after stinging? I mean I know how it happens, barbs get lodged, venom sac comes out when bee flies away, and it keeps pumping. But as far as I know, honeybees are the only ones who sting that way- other bees and wasps have reusable stingers.
Why would this evolve? I know that in an insect colony, individual survival doesn’t matter, just the colony as a whole, but why do honeybees and apparently no others have a weapon that’s designed to kill them after they use it just once? Are there any theories about why this would evolve? What conceivable selective advantage does it offer?
Thank me later :
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx79k_tsevo?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360%5D
I just googled this to find out that a cavy is a guinea pig. We* have one. It is apparently enormous and fat for a guinea pig. I wanted to name it “Sewell”, but “Baby Jackie Piggie” was the majority opinion.
*My daughter and wife have one anyway. I do not like any of the pets, and so am disinclined to claim ownership.
Rorschach, you must be way more drunk than I’m. But I’ll get there eventually! :)
OMG, these are great !
The Tide is High
Time after Time
Flashdance- What a feeling
*giggle*
Ah shit, this one takes the cake :
In the Navy
Here’s an answer to an unasked biological question: when expressing a binomial, (e.g. Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the first part (Saccharomyces) should be capitalized, whereas the second part (cerevisiae) should not, even if derived from a proper noun. Both should be either italicized or underlined.
</pedantry>
I am now just about off for my morning one serving (== 4 espresso shots) of coffee.
Here’s an interesting observation. Last night I fired off a big bulk copy from a CSV file into Postgresql on my Mac. Several hours later (a not unexpected amount of time – as I say, it was a big copy; somewhat more than 6,000 CSV files, each about 1K in size, with 5 columns of short pieces of text and integers).
This morning, loading web pages took, like, forever for the first few. Purely guessing, but I was wondering if the OS had created some kind of “all-Postgresql” temporary data in the paging system, that took a huge amount of time to flush out. My DSL modem showed massive activity for, like, five minutes with just the tiniest bits of web pages showing, then everything started operating normally.
Carlie,
My experience with guinea pigs is that they’re loud. They’re sweet and cute, but goddamn that whistling drove me batty.
Fuck, this one is priceless :
Rasputin
AE – ours are also quite fat. They are named Daisy and Peach, after the superheroines of the same. (Well, Daisy, anyway. Peach just sits around and gets kidnapped)
Audley – no kidding. Every time anyone gets near the kitchen. And also in the middle of the night for no reason.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2011/10/25/poachers-drive-javan-rhino-to-extinction-in-vietnam/
Depressing news, everyone.
Revisiting comment 248: Do I need to get two giant amoebas so they can keep each other company? Or will they fuse to one giant, human-eating blob?
The silver fox domestication experiment suggests there is more to it, at least in the case of the dog. There’s a theory that the first stage of wolf->dog domestication was “auto-domestication”: wolves hanging around human settlements to scavange, where tolerating human proximity and behaving non-aggressively towards humans would have been selected for. One support for this is that feral dogs do not revert to wolflike appearance and behaviour within a few generations, but adopt this scavanging strategy. I think something similar may be true of domestic cats – as soon as there were grain stores, cats would be attracted to them to prey on rodents, and would have been encouraged by the stores’ owners. Feral cats are quite social, often living in colonies, unlike the African wildcat which is the domestic cat’s main ancestor.
OT, I just had to share this:
“Only half of [US] Catholics know that the church teaches that the bread and wine of Holy Communion actually transform into the physical body and blood of Christ, but of those who know, the vast majority believe it”
Transubstantiation
And here’s a moment of Aaaaaargh.
I got the wrong date given as to when the workers would turn up to exchange the TV cables. So I got a bit suspicious when I heard them working on the balcony underneath.
I called down and asked “when are you coming here?” and they said “in 10 minutes”.
So I had 10 minutes to clear the bedroom and the livingroom.
You can’t enter the kitchen at the moment, but at least they’ll be finished before the kindergarten closes…
Soon.
Soon…ish.
Rorschach: I love Where Have All The Flowers Gone? I can even play it on the piano. :-p
@Giliell
That sucks. Don’t those kinds of companies give courtesy calls to check if you’ll be in the morning of an appointment?
FUCK the Uni paper is gone to utter dribble. The editorial page is filled with little fundy conservative Kotch/Kato Institute recruit hopefuls posting things like “Occupy Wallstreet anti-sematic” and “Out of touch Liberal Reform Does more Harm” or “We may have lost many of our freedoms but at least we still can spend our money the way we want…unless Obamacare has its way!”
Seriously, FUCK the last one. FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT! This anus gobbling turd snorkeling piss gargler smiles and is fine with indefinite detention, torture, surveillance, and body rights being revoked on brown people, the poor and women…but touch HIS wallet and now it’s a human rights violation! I’m not exaggerating either…that’s the quote “We lost many freedoms blah blah blah but at least we can still spend our money!”
occupy wallstreet is right; the press, on apparently even the shitty uni level, are fucking ringers.
Ok, this has to be seen to be believed…
Herman Cain sings “Imagine There’s No Pizza”
(Ironic. I doubt John Lennon would have been a Cain fan.)
My apologies if this is news to no-one but me, but speaking of lesbians, there’ll be no double doubles in this couple’s future:
Goddamn small town Canada.
Facebook group here.
Added hilarity. I’m informed last wed Editorial was a plea to the readers to ‘stop complaining about bias”
I would gladly sacrifice pizza if it meant no Cain
@ Walton
Why? Where was that? When? I don’t understand :(
No, I don’t think so. Why would anyone want to sully the elegant killing machine that is a hawk with crude firearms? More to the point, why would I want a hawk to be able to blow my head off for looking at her wrong?
Neither do I. It was only uploaded a couple of days ago, but I’m guessing it was from his days as a pizza company CEO.
I don’t know anything about falconry, but it does make me strangely happy that there is still a Hereditary Grand Falconer of England. (Though the office no longer involves any actual duties, as far as I’m aware.) The title is currently held by the Duke of St Albans.
Okay, I picked #1 up at the kindergarten, dug out our beds again (all that stuff had to go somewhere and it doesn’t help that I own about half a mile of fabric) and now I’ll have 10 min of peace before I’m off to work.
That nap I talked about? Well, there’s always tomorrow…
What is that even supposed to mean?
Did they undress and have sex on one of the tables?
Or were they, you know visibly more than just friends?
Carlie,
Trinioler, seems to have moved out of here and into PET so I will risk answering in his stead. He still has his Munchkin and talks about it with passing regularity and much fondness.
This article has a different spin on the story, but who knows?
I see high-school age couples making out in public all the time. I don’t like it, but I don’t fall down in a dead faint because no-one’s thinking of the children. I would lay down money that whatever the couple was doing, it would not be nearly as much of an ordeal if it were me and my girlfriend doing it. Straight privilege means at most, people roll their eyes and move on.
Huh. Dumbo rats it is. Though I am warming to the idea of a turtle, maybe I’ll do both.
Maybe I could get 4 turtles, and expose them to some mutant goo, and one of the rats as well…
Another reason why Clint Eastwood is teh awesomes.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/308682_10150416067491211_532691210_10251906_1430968784_n.jpg
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/14/clint-eastwood-i-dont-give-a-fck-if-gays-marry/
The pastor was right to have them removed. We know that there is nothing more destructive and toxic to young and impressionable minds than public displays of affection.
And so is steer manure that has been spread on flowerbeds. After all, if we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t make it so available, now would we?
When I was a kid, we had an exceedingly-woolly cockerpoo, and in the spring, just when the local housewives were prepping their flowerbeds for the annual neighborhood “MY Flowerbed is Better Than YOURS” competition, without fail, he would escape from the yard. He’d be gone for two, maybe three days, and come back home with his fur densely matted with dried-in browny/greeny steer manure; I can only assume that he was in charge of Quality Control, and felt that it was his duty to roll in ’em all.
He always looked so betrayed when we’d wash him (in the backyard, with the hose). All his hard work, all gone….
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According to Wikipedia, “Attempts have been made to train zebras for riding, since they have better resistance than horses to African diseases. Most of these attempts failed, though, due to the zebra’s more unpredictable nature and tendency to panic under stress. For this reason, zebra-mules or zebroids (crosses between any species of zebra and a horse, pony, donkey or ass) are preferred over purebred zebras.”
And from here, “Zebras are also notoriously difficult to catch. They have evolved superb early-warning mechanisms , such as peripheral vision far superior to other horses. Often bad tempered, they grow increasingly antisocial with age and once they bite, they tend not to let go. A kick from a zebra can kill — and these creatures are responsible for more injuries to American zookeepers each year than any other animal.”
Additionally, in order to execute their long-term plan for world domination (while concealing their essentially Evil nature), horses needed to harness (note careful choice of word) the global spread of humanity to conceal (under a carefully-crafted semblance of “utility”) their own increase in numbers and territory. Hence their pose of “domestication”.
While zebras, as equines, do have an obvious tendency toward Evil, it is a more diffuse, less directed form of Evil, and therefore they need not engage in any pretense of domestication. In a sense, zebras and horses fill different niches on behalf of the Greater Evil.
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For a relatively trivial effort (i.e., putting the kibble inside a cage trap overnight), I could get you a ‘possum for your very own.
Just say the word.
:)
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Mt Soledad Cross Poll for pharyngulation….
I hereby lay claim to the insult “anti-semantic”. It am wrapping it in a napkin and taking it home.
And Otter shit.
Have you ever had the displeasure of interacting with otter feces?
horror
Is that what grammar Nazis are?
See! The face of Evil! Eeeeeeevil!
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Hi Caine,
Oh Munchkin is great. She’s very much nagging me all the time. She’s big now, over 1kg. I now limit a lot of the more fatty guinea pig foods, and she mostly just eats cucumbers(6-7 a week…) and parsley with some bell pepper and a lot of pellet food and hay.
She will play tug of war with me if I move her blanket or hay on her…
Also, she refuses to let me cut her nails, so I have to take her to the vet.
That sucks for your cavies. :( How are you caging them? I ended up building a home-made cage, because A it was cheaper and B less wasteful of wood chips. She also loves it way more than the old wood chip commercial cage.
Not Caine, but Carlie. Sorry about that. I’ve been sticking out of TET because of A) drama and B) can’t keep up with it.
Went to the NC Mtns to shoot some fall color, see the parental units and swing by a Balloon Rally. Some shots of both.
Balloons
Carolina Balloon Festival. Pretty cool but easily one of the most logistically unorganized events I’ve ever attended. And they’ve been doing it for 38 years. Waited in line for 1 1/2 hours at a remote parking lot waiting to be picked up by shuttles that seemingly could not see the big ass LOT #3 sign as they drove by full of people from the lots on either side of us. I finally had to call the damn event and explain to them what idiots they were. This was astonishing to the 100 or so others in line with me as I heard whispers of “where did he get the number to call” and “he must know someone” and “is he in charge here”.
Web page people. Smart phone. It’s called technology. Embrace it.
Fall
Leaves were mostly blown down everywhere but the light was pretty good one morning.
Girl’s rats are named Rizzo and Splinter. No goo yet. I think that’s in Boy’s room.
Sailor,
Hell, a nice set of rca cables can attract my attention, I like things that work.
___
Sili,
Coming off a relationship is a vulnerable time, if she is close enough that you would naturally have offered support that seems reasonable, but seriously even if you did make headway, it would be with a person in transition and unfair to both her and you.
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AE,
Well, just bring that vulvan thought in with you. It would calm my nerves anyways.
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Sally Strange,
Dude!
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Re nym capitalization, I do this, a lot. It bothers me that I am so ingrained as to put capitals where they don’t fit solely because I am addressing someone. It’s a work in progress.
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cicely,
Is this true?
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aladegorrion,
I am sorry you are finding it hard, time is the best gift you can give right now, and it will slip by before you know it.
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rorschach,
I am troubled by the current of longevity equating to happy in that SA article you linked. In short, I think ‘Happily Ever After’ is a horrible notion. It leads to expectation, entitlement, deliberate ignorance, and broken people when none of those things work. I would prefer a stronger cultural narrative about how relationships can change, and how to do so with minimal harm.
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Therrin,
So the Republicans are non-Abellian?
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Brownian,
Because it’s so terrible for anyone to witness people who are happy together.
I couldn’t care less about PDAs. Scratch that. I suspect we could do with more loving on the streets, but I do recognize that says more about me than anything else.
___
Rev,
I kinda like Squint. I mean, I have long watched his films, but the things he does outside of that intrigue as well.
Balloons?
Oh yes I did
trinioler – hi! Glad Munchkin is doing well. Ours are in the biggest cage we could find, although I know it’s not big enough to be optimal (it’s about 7 sq ft I think, and we have a large round “outdoor” ring that we let them “exercise” in, meaning they just sit there and eat grass). Did you build yours out of wire cubes, or something else?
Celery is their favorite; are there fatty vegetables? We had a bit of a time dealing with bedding; the one that worked the best seemed to have something I was allergic to, because the whole time it was in the house I felt like I was having a constant low-grade asthma attack. We’ve settled on aspen with a sprinkling of CareFresh on top. They’re happy, just don’t get handled as much as they probably should.
Nah, their anti-science fanaticism now includes denying math.
Carlie,
Avocado and olives spring to mind as fatty. I don’t know as either would be healthy for the stubby quadrupeds.
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FA,
Oh I got that, I was just exercising a new term.
Hi Carlie,
I built mine out of wire cubes. For the flooring, I got those exercise foam pads. They’re non-reactive, non-toxic, and taste disgusting. So guinea pig pee has no effect on them, and pigs don’t eat them. Then I have a layer of two towels, and then quilt batting on top.
Its cheap, easy to clean(I have a stack of towels just for the cage as well as multiple sheets of batting), and cheap. Towels can be had from the local thrift store, and quilt batting is really cheap at walmart. I just shake the batting off, vacuum up everything, broom up the rest, spray vinegar water mix on the padding, and wash the towels and batting. I can clean it, put in new towels and batting within about 20 minutes or so.
She gets so happy every time I clean the cage. I would recommend moving away from wood shavings. Even the kind meant for cavies can generate some dust which gets in their lungs. :/
Fatty vegetables would be spinach, coriander, and kale, as well as fruits.
Hmph. Here was I all ready to admit I’d been wrong about something, and reap the kudos that gains around here, when I find I was at least half-right after all! I predicted that Obama would not pull all US forces out of Iraq at the end of the year, and it’s now been announced that he is, having failed to talk the Iraqis into giving any troops that stayed immunity from Iraqi law. But according to Ed Brayton, there will still be 5,500 mercenaries in Iraq under State Department control!
Ah yes, according to this, http://theguineapigrescue.com/PDF%20files%20and%20Docs/Guinea%20Pig%20Veggies%207-25-09.doc
Avocadoes and coconuts are really high in fat. I had meant to say I avoid giving her alfalfa hay now.
It is at Son’s house. Well, technically only one dog, but counterbalanced by three cats, one of which is in many respects dog-like in her attitudes, and the mass hysteria has certainly been installed.
It has so far stopped short of walls bleeding, however.
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The way the feminist storyline is going on at Sinfest… <3<3<3
cicely,
I was riffing on the mayor scene, I have had dogs and cats living together as well.
Apropos of absolutely nothing…
Homestuck finally updated today after more than a month of silence. And it’s freaking epic. Everyone here should read it because it’s awesome and the music is also extremely awesome… I’m listening to the new album (that also came out today) and it’s sooooo good…
But that’s not why I bring it up here.
I’d love to see someone debate William Lane Craig with this. WLC could go on his shpiel about how ‘something has to have caused the big bang and we know it has to be God because there’s no other way it could have happened and resulted in intelligent life bluh bluh bluh…(insert bovine excrement here).’
His opponent could reply, “Well, Andrew Hussie theorized in 2011 that (spoiler alert) universes could reproduce and propagate through natural processes, and that intelligent life itself could be the natural process responsible for the propagation of new universes, and the reason that each new universe seems ‘fine tuned’ for intelligent life is because intelligent life is both required for the process and in control of the process… and since the whole process occurs ‘outside of time’ then it’s not subject to causality so a particular universe could in fact be indirectly responsible for it’s own creation – no god needed. Now, do we have any evidence for this process? Of course not. It’s just a story. But we don’t have any evidence of a god, either, and the mere fact that this story fits the evidence we do have better than ‘god did it’, and it makes fewer assumptions about things we have no way of knowing about, it actually makes Mr. Hussie’s story more likely than god.
And at least Hussie never pretends that he didn’t make it up out of whole cloth.
Only over the phone.
Cool – I had read about using towels etc, but I didn’t know if they had any digging instincts that required the fluff to nose through (or how gross it was to clean). It would be very nice to be able to cut out that expense. I would think their claws rip up quilt batting?
We use all timothy hay, although they loooove whatever fresh grass is in the yard. If they pull it out from the hayrack and it touches the ground, though, they won’t eat it. (grrr) They are pains in the butt about pellets – won’t touch them even if I try to force it by withholding other foods.
(Sorry, everyone else who does not have guinea pigs)
…oh, and given that they won’t eat pellets, we’re limited to guinea pig foods that are a mixture of different things with a low pellet component. And since the child is allergic to nuts, we have to get one that has no nuts, which limits us down to what is coincidentally the single most expensive food out there. *sigh*
That sucks. Nuts aren’t the best thing for them anyways.
You could try home-drying vegetables they like as a replacement. They’ll keep, and can be cheap.
The digging instincts depend on the guinea pig. Munchkin used to dig a lot, but not anymore. I often give her newspaper or towels she can burrow under however, which she does often.
I also use a hay trough, which munchkin loves. It keeps most of the mess in one spot, so you can add extra absorbency or fresh daily small towels, or whatever. I just take a plastic planter and cut a side in it, so she can get in and out, put newspaper on the bottom of the planter, and add hay. She mostly poops and pees in there, so cleaning it daily handles most of the mess.
A lot does depend on the personality of the cavy it seems.
Carlie, I use soft cloths for my rats. I picked up a cheap polar fleece throw at Big Lots and cut it into small squares for their various sleeping places. I cut up old pjs made out of soft cotton and a couple of old bedsheets too. I don’t use towels, because rat nails snag in them very easily (don’t know if that’s a problem with Guinea pigs.) Easy enough to toss in the washer on a regular basis and I have a large supply of them, so dirty ones don’t have to be washed immediately.
Me, too; that’s why I referenced “the walls are bleeding”. I almost went with something about talking to Fiorello LaGuardia in Son’s bedroom. Maybe I shoulda.
Ghostbusters is in my opinion one of the Great Classic Films. One of my favorite quotes:
“But if I’m *right*, and we *can* stop this thing… Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.”
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Ghosbusters gives us the line I constantly use to try to debunk the bible “If someone asks you if you’re a god…SAY YES!”
there is no reason to believe the PR hype of even a clearly manifesting supernatural being.
Ah, I missed that. Too slow by half this week.
Everyone should watch the show “Ancient Aliens”. It’s fantastically stupid. Claiming that a American gold figurine can ONLY be an airplane rather than any animal…when the figure is clearly shown to have antennae carved into and other bug features is hilarious.
think of the children
Yeah, they couldn’t learn worse things than love and affection.
Why am I suspicious since the one who complained was a pastor?
Good things
I’m home
I had dinner
The transatlantic steamer that carried the mailbag with my “Support for RW” project has landed and the parcel is safe and sound with oniongirl
Rorschach:
That’s evil.
I’m starting to hate you.
Now I must hunt you down and kill you. ;)
What’s purple and commutes?
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An Abelian grape.
But you knew that already, eh? Well, if you don’t want to associate with me that’s OK. Feel free to distribute this as far as you want.
Something similar happened in my town a few months back. Two lesbian teens kicked out of the public pool for apparently ‘making out in the hot tub’. Never mind all the hetero teens doing it. Apparently they were followed into the changing room by a lifeguard and everything.
I may have sniffed some otter turds on a beach once, but it was only because I wanted to know what they smelled like.
In other news, I get to go to Joe Squared tomorrow night. Afterwards I believe I’m obliged to go to the Lucinda Williams concert, but: Joe Squared!.
We haven’t been going out as much due to I’m unemployed, so this is a real treat coming up! Sure hope the downtown location has Dale’s Pale Ale on tap the way their Station North one does. I may have to have three servings!
What’s complete and normed and yellow?
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A Bananach space
You just have to withhold longer.
Fuck, if I was legitimately starving, I might eat mushrooms.
I might.
Fuck, if you won’t eat mushrooms, you ARE starving.
Oyster mushrooms are delightful.
So are boletus, but you have to find them before the bugs do.
Those are positively awesome. Fried, as part of a spaghetti sauce, on a BBQ. They make being vegetarian even more enjoyable ;)
I had a mushroom strudel just the other evening. Pastry solidly full of mushrooms. Mmmmm.
Chas:
While that tends to work with dogs (and sometimes cats), it doesn’t work so well with rodents. They simply drink more and will chew on anything except the hated food. I can’t get my rats to eat lab blocks, never have been. I tried the ‘withhold’ business. No go. I’m talking over a week of ‘withhold’.
That makes me think the stuff must be pretty awful. I don’t push it. I don’t know about Guinea Pigs, but there are all kinds of different dry mixes you can do yourself and I’d say getting mixed veg and greens are more important than trying to push commercial pellet food on them.
I find that mushrooms don’t seem to taste like much of anything to me. At least, that’s my experience. Like, a mushroom burger just ends up being this flat thing, like eating styrofoam, but without any of the latter’s chemically goodness.
I assume they’re (mostly) being prepared wrong. But at least it means I don’t object to them.
Alex: I like ’em in mushroom burgers and bacon-mushroom sandwiches. I also made an excellent cream-of-mushroom soup with them once.
Oyster mushrooms and boletes are delicious, but I want to branch out a little. Problem is, they’re the only ones I feel confident in identifying.
What’s the value of a contour integral around Western Europe?
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Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe.
(Knowing this group I’ll say right now that I’m aware of “Polish plumbers”.)
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The engineer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, “How odd. Scottish sheep are black.” “No, no, no!” says the physicist. “Only some Scottish sheep are black.” The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions’ muddled thinking and says, “In Scotland, there exist at least one sheep, with at least one side of which appears to be black from here.”
TLC
I will adopt that idea ASAP. yumm.
@First Approximation
Not quite. In 2010, the contour integral around Germany alone would have been 838870*pi*i ;)
Richard Austin: How are we defining ‘mushroom burger’ here?
Just cause I make a mushroom burger, doesn’t mean I’m withholding the meat.
Bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and beef. Delicious. Sauce? Mayo? Veggies? Maybe, but why fuck around with it?
TLC:
Oh. I suppose that works, but I meant one of those ones where they replace the patty with a large portobello or something (I think that’s what gets used).
A burger the way you describe has, to me, just tasted like the same burger but without the mushrooms. It just had a slightly different texture.
Richard Austin: I can’t really describe what the mushrooms add to the mix. Maybe it’s how they soak up bacon fat when I fry them, but there’s something about the texture too. They definitely add a taste, but fuck if I know how to describe it. Umami?
Human food preferences are weird. Can anyone name any other species anywhere where some members are strict herbivores, whilst others are highly carnivorous, with every single variation in between?
What’s yellow and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice?
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Zorn’s Lemon.
–o–
The Axiom of Choice is obviously true.
The Well Ordering Theorem is obviously wrong.
And who can tell about Zorn’s Lemma?
Could also be the mushroom itself. If it’s a big ol’ agaric, then it won’t have much taste.
There’s a grocery store close to an hour from me that always carries a decent variety of muchrooms. I am not happy that it is so far away.
Caine – good to know that it’s not just my inability to be stern and forceful that is keeping the piggies from eating their pellets. I mainly want them for the standardized constant vitamin C influx (and extra fiber). All of the cavy info guides stress pellets as part of a good diet. Mine just don’t agree.
> muchrooms
Heh
Nobody told me it was joke night. Hmmmph.
Three scientists are out target shooting. The physicist shoots first and misses to the right.
The chemist shoots next and misses to the left.
The statistician says “I hit it!”
Good one!
Two atoms walk down the street, says one
– I think I lost an electron!
– You sure?
– I’m positive!
Alright, if you want to be pedantic I can be too. The really contour integral around Germany would actually be:
:P
(No, I will not make a joke about simple poles.)
Carlie have you tried different brands? Munchkin hated one of the brands I tried, but she loves the new one I’ve got. They may also hate the texture or smell. Cavies are ridiculously picky.
If the tastes of our (ex)Hamsters are any indication, there are huge differences between brands. Some, they would stow underground in a matter of minutes, others would never be touched ever. Of course, I have never seen a Hamster get positively hungry as we were never so cruel as to take away their entire storage.
I wish I knew a funny joke.
Also I wish I had some booze. Today has been rough.
Caine, re ratfood:
Interesting. As I know you know, many generations comprising (probably) millions of individual actual labrats have thrived (or rather survived to–usually–termination, but many reproducing too) on nothing but those food-blocks. Maybe you just have to start ’em out on it.
Rev, lovely balloon pix!
I used to be on a chase team and if you chased for 5 flights you got a ride. It’s amazing, except for the burners it’s totally quiet because you’re flying at the same speed as the wind. Definitely a different experience than aircraft, rotorcraft or even sailplanes.
Scary fucking landing tho.
WARNING: AIRPLANE STORY
Some years ago I was flying a Piper 180 out of IND one fine day and heading to BMG. Just after takeoff, cruising along at 4.5k ft I see this dot at my altitude on the horizon. It isn’t changing aspect.
One of the tenets of navigating is that if it’s not moving right or left, it’s either coming at you or going away.
Since I am in an approach corridor, and closure rates with heavy metal can exceed 400 mph, I diverted up. Then left. And called ATC to see if they had any traffic.
They didn’t. The speck got bigger. Now I’m worried, WTF is going on?
I diverted right a few miles, it looked the same.
Fuckety, fuck, WTF?
It was a hot air balloon.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is some weird science:Possible study of anthrax vaccine’s effectiveness in children stirs debate
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Jules, why’s that?
I’ll lend you one though:
A parasite walks into a bar.
Says the barkeeper: sorry, we don’t serve parasites here.
Says the parasite: You are such a bad host.
The Sailor,
At least in Europe I always heard that hot air balloons had their own separate class of aircraft and so I always assumed they would be registered with traffic controllers. I’m far from an expert though.
Grizzly bear walks into a bar, sez “Gimme a Green Flash Imperial IPA and… …uh… …some of those peanuts.”
Bartender sez “Why the big pause?”
Has anybody heard of corduroy pillows?
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They’re making headlines!
Carlie:
I don’t know how helpful this will be, but lots of people make up their own dry mix for rats. Ingredients include:
Puffed rice/wheat
Total whole grain cereal
wheat and tricolor pasta
pumpkin seeds
Grape Nut flakes
organic granola
freeze dried bananas or banana chips
barley oats
freeze dried fruits & veg
yogurt drops
It’s possible to get them plenty of fiber and and vitamin content if you can get them onto some of the above. Of course, there will be things in any mix they don’t like – fussy little bugs, the lot of ’em.
What is
?
Answer: log cabin + c = houseboat.
I got “lime-green hairy-lipped squid”:
http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Talk:Squid
Yeah, it was old the first time I heard it. And that was a long time ago.
Chas:
I know! They are always recommended. Always. I think it is a matter of them starting out on them and having nothing else. Every fancy rat I’ve seen in a pet store (or in rescue) has been on a commercial dry food mix, not blocks. Not one of my rats has so much as touched a lab block and I tried out one brand after another.
Statisticians are having a conference. Two colleagues meet up at the conference and one says to the other “how was your flight?”
“What flight, I took the train, haven’t you heard about the terrorist airplane bombers? I calculated the odds and they are 1 in 10,000!”
“Well yeah, and I calculated the odds and came up with the same number you did. Then I recalculated for 2 bombs on board. It was 1 in a million.”
“How does that help?”
“It’s simple, I carried a bomb on board.”
Mushrooms? I hate them, can’t stand the texture. Somewhere between rubber and flesh, it makes me gag. It’s a pity, too, as the flavor is actually quite nice. I don’t mind a mushroom gravy as long as the actual solid mushrooms are picked out of it.
Jokes…
A duck walks into a bar. Says to the bartender, “Got any raisins?”
Bartender: “Nope, no raisins here.” Duck leaves.
Next day, the same fuck walks into the bar. “Got any raisins?”
Bartender: “No I don’t have any raisins, this isn’t a grocery store. I told you that yesterday, weirdo!” The duck leaves.
Next day, it’s the same duck, back again! “Got any raisins?”
Bartender: “No I don’t have any fucking raisins! And if you ever come back here asking for raisins again, I’m gonna nail your fucking beak to the bar!” (Bartender’s voice is best read in a Brooklyn accent.) So, the duck leaves.
Next day, the duck comes back! He sidles up to the bar. “Got any nails?”
Bartender: “No you idiot, this isn’t a fucking hardware store! I don’t have any nails!!”
“Got any raisins?”
———————–
It’s probably funnier in person…
The chair of the physics department goes to the provost for the annual budget review. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is we have a lot of exciting things going on in the department – some potential Noble-prize winning stuff. The bad news is we need a new particle accelerator which will cost $10M.”
The Provost is shocked. “That is a lot of money. Why couldn’t you be like the math department – all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper.”
Hey, speaking of funny stuff, this fellow I dated in high school (not the asshole 12-Tribes guy) is the son of two college professors. On time I called up their home and got the answering machine:
“Hello. You have reached the winter of our discontent. We are not here. You are not here. Do not leave a message. There is no beep.” BEEEEP.
I thought this was enormously clever and hilarious.
That guy is doing well now. Had his documentary featured at the Tribeca film festival this year.
Ok, one more for the road, in honor of the MRA threadz
Good night
Alex, Tyrant of Skepsis
I’m glad the idea appeals. Please tell me what you think of it afterwards!
Philosophers don’t need wastebaskets kind of finished me off.
___
Mushrooms aren’t part of the two food groups. They sure smell nice though.
TLC,
Will post field report ;)
Hedgehogs.
Why can’t they just share the hedge?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8216991.stm
A baby fur seals walks into a club
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badump-ching!
I’m arguing with Mormons on Raw Story. Can anyone lend me a clue-by-four?
I swear i rememeber someone mentioning this, but the search on the phone is frustrating, so I’ll out it to the horde Has anyone here grown their own culinary mushrooms? I have seen plug kits for oyster, shiitake and others. I remember a blue oyster cult joke…
I think the ref was recent, so whomever posted it probably hasn’t seen much growth yet, but I’d love to hear if there are any others with experience.
Bartender sez: “We don’t serve your kind here.”
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A tachyon walks into a bar.
MikeG, we’ve grown our own. FungiPerfecti has some nice kits, we’ve ordered the one for shiitakes, got a lot of nice shrooms out of it.
A priest and a vicar walks into a bar.
The rabbi ducks.
Cannabinaceae, that joke made me groan out loud.
(FWIT, instantrimshot.com makes an excellent “badump-ching!)
Thanks, Caine. I have a bunch of fresh oak logs that I hate to get rid of if they can provide delicious shrooms.
My fav on the link above was: Jack Whitehall – “I’m sure wherever my dad is; he’s looking down on us. He’s not dead, just very condescending.”
The secret to comedy is
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Timing!
Check your USB port, favorite swill on the way.
I may have already told this story. If so, just try to stop me.
No?
Okay, then.
For my grandmother, her father was a Great Polish Patriot. He was an officer in the Polish Lancers, fighting the evil Russians. I never had the heart to tell her that the Polish Lancers were part of the Czarist Russian Army.
Apparently, their estate (very minor nobility) was about 3/4 in Russian Poland and about 1/4 in the Autrian-Hungarian Empire. Heironymous became an officer in the Russian Army and held said commission until 1905. When he, and many other Polish officers got kicked out because many of them had the odd idea that Poland, which was an independent nation, should be independent.
He could see which way the wind was blowing so he picked up the whole family and moved to the Boston, Massachussetts area. My grandmother was born in 1912, in the US, but attended a Polish school because Heironymous was sure that Poland would become independent.
Well, turns out his optimism was well founded. In late 1919, they picked everyone up, my 7-year-old-at-the-time grandmother included, and moved back to Poland, buying a couple of houses jsut outside Warsaw. He managed to not become an officer in the new Polish army (he was busy trying to build a career as a banker) but Hieronymous and Pilsudski gad some bad blood (could be that Hieronymous, being a minor noble, and Pilsudski, being a socialist, just disagreed about politics). So they emigrated back to the US.
Yes, that’s the true punchline. My family was so Polish, they emigrated to the US twice.
Birger Johansson, @574(ish): Do I need to get two giant amoebas so they can keep each other company?
Nah, get one. Soon you’ll have two. Then four, then …
Two graduate students walk past a bar and . . . .
What? It could too happen!
Two graduate students walk into a bar. The undergrad ducked.
Algernon says:
Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I like strange.
I didn’t think you were. Must mean I’m getting better at this shit.
DemetriusOfPharos says:
Thanks. This woman valued my friendship as well. I hope you’re better at not being an arse than I am.
In the end I managed to drink myself into enough of a stupor that I couldn’t type anymore.
And I didn’t mean to refer to her as “girlwoman” as an insult. My strikethrough of the first word went AWOL.
First Approximation says:
Thanks. The woolies who chose it for me have good taste.
It’s just a ruse to lure you in.
David Marjanović, OM says:
I talked to – ‘confessed’ so to speak – when she broke up with her last boyfriend a coupla years ago. Obviously a dick move meant to exploit her vulnerability. On the other hand, waiting could also have been an underhanded attempt at lulling her into a false sense of security.
I’m afraid, yes. But I also can’t pop out of nowhere after two years and say “O HI! I stalked your internet activity and saw that you’ve just gone through a breakup with your boyfriend of two years. Wanna boink?” I have nothing to offer her in terms of companionship or advice. I just miss her and talking to her, but I can barely recall just what we actually talked about. I’m just pining stupidly.
–o–
Classical Cipher, Murmur Muris, OM says:
I’m sure mine must be as well, given the source material.
That said, I do loves me some femdom.
–o–
David Marjanović, OM says:
I did not know that.
–o–
Caine, Fleur du Mal عنتر says:
Ain’t atheists supposed to be spineless? Or is that just the invertebrate Overlord?
Especially if the bar was a “local” watering hole, on their way to the student friendly alcoholing hole.
SallyStrange, that joke has been made into a series of music videos! But with grapes. (notice the 61 MILLION views(!))
There is also the duck story 2 and the duck story 3, although by the third one it’s down to 53k views.
Making this right now but substituting broccoli raab for the escarole (I know, but I wanted to).
you soup haters avert your delicate eyeballs.
Ingredients
1 1/2 quarts chicken broth
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 cup dry adzuki beans
1 cup uncooked wild rice
2 onions, cut into large chunks
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 zucchini, cubed
1 yellow squash, cubed
1/3 medium head escarole, coarsely chopped
Directions
Place the chicken broth in a large pot. Mix in the chicken thighs, adzuki beans, wild rice, onions, and garlic. Season with sage, thyme, and rosemary. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook 1 hour.
Remove chicken from the pot, shred with a fork, and set aside.
Stir the sweet potato into the pot. Continue cooking about 5 minutes, until sweet potato is slightly tender. Mix in the zucchini, yellow squash, and escarole. Continue cooking 15 minutes.
Return the shredded chicken to the pot. Cook until heated through. Increase the amount of broth if the soup seems too thick.
Pssst, Sally. Your Freudian slip is showing.
I think unintentional profanity counts as a double offering to Tpyos.*
(*May his Holy Wrod never be spellchecked.)
Dammit. Rey beat me to it.
Thy wrod and thy staph, they comfort me?
Gotye is my new pretend internet boyfriend. Just sayin’.
(he is, however, a bit in the doghouse for only selling through itunes)
ATASTTB
Staph? As long as it’s not MR.
5:4 rocks (jazzes):
Haha! I love it! All hial Tpyos!
Oh, by the way, anyone remember “Dr” R? Well, it turns out that the whole doctor thing was a big fat lie. And he thinks this is cool. And is still acting like a self-pitying asshole.
A perfect example of how one can be incredibly rude and disrespectful without ever using a single curse word.
G’night all.
Church down the street has a revival tonight. Which means that they are parked scross every driveway. I guess when you go to church, parking laws do not apply.
Ogvorbis – too bad you don’t have a supply of atheist fliers to put under their windshields. :)
Oh bother.
Lazarus the Laptop froze utterly and completely (I blame Rorschach’s AMVs) without saving my browser session. And I can’t recall all the tabs I had open.
Damn you, modern technology, for making my life so simple!
NEW THREAD!