Holy crap

If this isn't enough to fill you with joy and wonder, I don't know what is:

Dolphins are really [insert adjective here]

Mine happened to be: clever, playful, talented...Oh, and do mute your speakers if you don't want to hear the violin music (it doesn't really contribute much

Did somebody say snow?

Yeah yeah, "I can do everything you can do better" and all that jazz. It's days like today I really miss having a man around. Why? Because snow's been falling at about the rate of THREE INCHES PER HOUR since about 1 PM this afternoon, and my arms are so, so tired.

I've put in about three hours of solid shoveling so far this afternoon and evening, and I'm predicting another 2 or so necessary tonight so that I can actually get my car out of the driveway tomorrow morning and get to work.

Idea of the month: leaving work at 12:30 today to avoid traffic

I'm just saying. From what I hear, it's taking some people about 4 hours to get home from work. Me? I spent that same time shoveling. And working on the report that's due tomorrow...

And listen, I know the snow plows are just trying to be helpful, but do you think they could stop SNOWING IN MY DRIVEWAY? That takes a lot of work to get rid of, you know.

I also wouldn't complain if my upstairs neighbors helped with the snow removal.

I think I'm going to increase my hours-of-shoveling-remaining estimate to 3.

OK, 'nough complaining for now, I need to get back to my carbo-loading.

Dancing bird

No, really, this bird dances! I'm not saying he has the best taste in music, but he's certainly a better dancer than I am.

Internet roundup

Just a few neat-o articles/websites to tickle your fancy on this Thursday night:

1. Great/poignant comic/social commentary
2. Extra emptiness in space
3. Diamonds nearly as old as the earth
4. More new creatures discovered in the ocean

And I have a new blogging idea. It has recently come to my attention that I take the stories a friend of mine tells me of her life and consistently embellish them wildly in my mind, only to regurgitate them to her later in some sort of uncrecognizable form. I'm thinking of actually writing out a biography of her life as I have remembered it (ok, and possibly with the addition of some blatant and vastly-more-conscious-embellishments) as a serial. Let me know what you guys think. I can already tell you what the first line of the biography would be, if it helps sway you in either direction:

"X was born on March 11th, the 15th child of a 15th child, already an aunt and already a grandmother."

TTTB (too tired to blog)

Had another insanely early morning at work today, so I think I'll just leave you guys with some interesting news items:

• I blogged a little while ago about a new "species" of chimp that was found deep in the forests of the Congo. Well, it seems the scientists have had a chance to do a little more exploring (I'm only guessing it's in the same area), and look at all the exciting things they've found!
  
• There's ground-breaking news from the anthropology community about our ancestry. Little known fact about the Bibliophile: I almost became an Anthropologist instead of a Chemist! Who knew?!
• And on a sadder note, more news in line with what I blogged about yesterday on L.O.N.T.E.D.

Hopefully you'll get a more coherent post from me tomorrow. I'll leave you with what I'm reading now:

Bookus inhalerensii

I've been accumulating interesting things to tell you guys about, but haven't had the time, so you're all just going to get them in one unorganized heap.

1) Apparently my hero, David Attenborough, has an animal named after him (Zaglossus attenboroughi)! How neat is that? This creature is one of the four species of echidna that are still extant (though the one pictured at right is NOT the species named after Sir David). I first learned about echidnas from his Life of Mammals series, and thought they were one of the most interesting animals I had learned about in a very long time. Z. attenboroughi was recently in the news.

2) Scientists have finally succeeded in studying the legendary Congolese chimpanzees that apparently hunt large carnivores (leopards, lions, etc.). The population is deep in the jungle, very large and exhibits many unusual and unique behaviors.

3) Joss Whedon's rant against misogynism has resulted in a wonderful-sounding new project, mentioned here (subscription, or willingness to watch a 30 second advertisement, required).

4) Two nights ago I read (and actually loved) my first manga. I heard about it from Justine Larbalestier's blog, thought it sounded interesting, and decide to give it a shot. I have to say, it manages to be just about as romantic and compelling as I was led to believe. I'm not saying that I'm going to start reading a lot of this stuff, but I think I've grown a little. You know, as a person.

5) My upstairs neighbor just pounded across the floor to the beat of "fee-fie-foe-fum," at exactly the tempo you would use to get little kids to run away shrieking. Also, the only thing more annoying than hearing the same movie every night through my ceiling is, apparently, listening to a documentary through my ceiling. Whywhywhywhywhy?

Days till next vacation: too many to count

Days on vacation: 15
Pictures taken: 1,444
Miles driven: 1,840
Books read: 5
Approximate number of different types of animals seen (that can be readily identified -- I'm not so good with birds): 35*

FAQ

1. So, are you tired of eating seafood yet? No, no I'm not. In fact, I feel like I'm going through seafood withdrawal. Must! Eat! More! Seafood! Now!

2. Can you look back ont your pre-trip anxieties about not being able to find food and laugh? No, no I cannot. There were a few days where we had a hard time finding a restaurant or even a store that sold food. There are some seriously unpopulated areas of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia! I guess that isn't surprising given that there are more people in California than in the entire country of Canada. Let this be a lesson to you all: sometimes my craziness is prophetic AND well-founded.

3. What books did you manage to read? I'm so glad you asked. Here is the list. The ones I liked in particular are in bold. I'm also happy to say that Book and I were generally exhausted enough at the end of each day that I didn't get much reading done. I consider this evidence of a successful vacation.

• Stardust, Neil Gaiman
• Shadow and Claw, Gene Wolfe
• Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson
• A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
• Charlotte Sometimes, Penelope Farmer

4. Will you be writing about your vacation on this blog? Um? Maybe? I guess I'm not sure. Do you guys really want to hear about it? Probably not in a huge amount of detail, but maybe I'll give you the highlights from each day with an accompanying picture or two. Or seven. Did I mention how many pictures I took?

5. What didn't you get to do that you wish you had? It would have been nice to have time to go on a kayaking trip in the Bay of Fundy to see some of the 15 species of whale that are there this time of year, and it would have been nice to have more time for hiking in Nova Scotia. But that's why this was a whirl-wind, fact-finding tour of the Maritimes: now we know where we want to visit in the future and to see in more depth.

6. Wait, so you have to go to work tomorrow? *quiet sobbing*


I'll leave you all with something you may not know about me. I'm a giant!**

*Birds: turkey vulture, osprey, seagull, ducks, chickens, crow, bald eagle, loon, yellow warbler, crow, a heron of some kind, canada goose, double crested cormorant, white-winged scoter, scarf scoter, ruby-throated hummingbird
Sea creatures: starfish, muscles, snails, harbor seals, grey seals
Misc: squirrels, chipmunks, horeses, goats, sheep, llamas, alpacas, dogs, cats, deer, frogs, cows, porcupines

**And also that pictures of me from below are hugely unflattering. As are pictures of me from the front. And pictures of me from the side...

Baby Animals from Around the World

I just came across this gallery of baby animals from around the world, and I know that if The Bibliophile were here she'd be crooning over it.

Another thing I know is that she would be swooning over the weirdos, like this squirrel/rat/bunny looking thing, desperately trying to convince me that they are cute.

The reality is that I am set on tiger cubs as the cutest baby animals alive. Even though they likely will tear these baby chicks to pieces....and that's not so cute.

posted by EyreAffair

Do we keep cats....

... or do cats keep us?

A recent article, linked here, suggests that it was not us who domesticated the cat so many years ago, but the cat who domesticated itself! I can't say I'm surprised-- I mean, ours did teach themselves the litter box, the scratching post (our couch), the water dish, the grooming, and the all-important know-when-to-wake-us-up-for-breakfast tasks. All we really do for them is feed them. Oh, and vacuum when they shed. And Mr. Food takes on the litter box once in a while. For that I am eternally grateful!

-- E of ismellfood.com

T minus 15 hours

Ahhh.

That's the sound of me slowly starting to unwind. Up until about an hour ago I was not so relaxed. But I got home from work, looked over my set of lists (yes, that's right, I have about five), and realized that Book and I are actually closer to being ready to go than I realized. I guess he was right! B has taken to sending me adorable pictures of baby animals every time I send her an email where the subject and body are both "AHHHHHHH!" And I immediately relax and say, "ooh! A baby panda!" or, "ooh! A kitty!" Excellent job on Friend Management, B.

Am I always this strung out before a vacation? Well, not usually *this* strung out, but yes. The big problem in this case is that we'll be gone for TWO WEEKS. And we'll be driving all around and what if there's no food? You know, like, anywhere? I mean, it could happen, right? And what if I don't have enough warm clothing? Or enough cool clothing? What if I run out of books? Or have way too many? (ha ha ha ha ha) What if I forget something Really Important? AHHHH!!

Uploaded on October 16, 2005
by Riude

Ok, I feel better now. The good news is that clearly I'm in a Good Place Trip-Wise, or I certainly wouldn't be sitting here blogging. I'd be packing or cleaning or pulling my hair out.

Interesting note: I'm bringing about 8 GB worth of memory cards on this trip. Will it be enough? No, seriously?

In any case, I've lined up two friends of mine to keep y'all entertained while I'm gone: B and E. I think you'll find them as wildly entertaining as I do. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post at least once while I'm gone, but if not, expect a TON of pictures when I return.

UPDATE: I just realized I almost forgot to pack PJs. What else am I forgetting??

It's a "good" kind of stress

I've been stressing about our vacation. You see, next Saturday we're going away for two weeks! We're entirely unorganized about it at this point, though, and have to do some major shopping. Food shopping, supplies shopping...I haven't come even remotely close to completing the list of things we need, let along the list of things we need to bring! And did I mention that we were leaving on Saturday? For two weeks?

I'm actually really excited about this vacation (it's actually two, two, two vacations in one!). The first week we're going up to Bar Harbor with my family to celebrate two milestone birthdays. After realizing how long it had been since Book and I had been on a vacation by ourselves, we decided to just jaunt over to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia the second week, you know, because we were already up there.

I've *always* wanted to explore this region of Canada, and I'm so excited that I'll have the chance to do so this summer! This trip is going to be a whirlwind adventure through two provinces. It'll be just crazy enough to help us decide where we'll want to spend more time during future visits.

What am I looking forward to the most? One word: seafood. I LOVE seafood. And shellfish. Oh, and did I mention that 15 species of whale travel to the Bay of Fundy this time of year? And that I may get a glimpse of some of them? Hopefully by KAYAK?!

But first we need to go buy a compass (because it's THE LAW in NS that you hike with one, it's not just common sense, people!) and a lot of food and wind/waterproof matches and more memory cards (picture-happy Bibliophile on vacation for two weeks = need for a ton of memory) and a new backpack and I'll need about 10 books to last me that long and and and

*HEAD EXPLODES*


**Dolphin Stress Test

The picture posted here has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at Loma Linda Medical Center.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study of a group revealed that in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins. The number of differences observed matches closely to the amount of stress the observer is experiencing.

Look at the photograph and if you find more than one or two differences you may be experiencing stress.

Uploaded by Tidewater Muse on 24 Apr 06, 8.38AM PDT.

More on squirrels

As there appears to be a fair amount of interest on the topic (at least by the standards of my blog -- comment more, people!), I'll discuss B's Squirrel Aversion in a little more depth. The aversion is, I believe, to rodents of all sorts, especially wet and bedraggled ones. So yes, the capybara is abhorred by B because of its unusual size (stay out of the fire swamp!) and also because it's semi-aquatic. Remember, wet rodents are icky rodents.

Interestingly enough, I learned last night that it is indeed the squirrel's cute, bushy tail that really sets B off. "What?!" I said, "Their tails? But they're so cute and poofy! And they twitch!" As a shudder ran through her body and she gagged slightly, she replied "yes, that's the problem." Sadly for her, this has only made her aversion that much more amusing to me.

I believe B also holds a special place in hell for flying squirrels, but she should really be commenting on these things herself. Perhaps, if there is interest, I can bring her in as a guest blogger to go into her sciuridaphobia in greater detail. I believe you will all find yourselves as amused as I have grown to be.

B says: "Preserving the Devil? Is this necessary?"

My friend B has a thing about squirrels. She HATES them. No, hate is not a strong enough word. She calls them Devil's Spawn. If I were a better friend I would have accepted this knowledge and let it go. But...I'm not that kind. I think it's hilarious, and so I do things like give her a squirrel card every year on her birthday. I'll randomly send her pictures of squirrels gleaned from The Internets. I send her this:

Yes, it's a "semi-aquatic rodent." She barfed a little in her mouth (and probably just did, seeing the picture again -- the only thing worse than a picture of a squirrel is a picture of a wet squirrel, or rodent, in this case). Her Aunt, who is now my hero, pasted little pictures of squirrels up all over her bedroom about a month ago, with text bubbles that read things like: "don't hate me because I'm furry!"; "we need to talk"; "I'm just as God made me"; "I'm just like a bunny." Etc etc. Apparently B has only found nine so far, and there are *at least* a couple more lurking somewhere!

E mentioned albino squirrels at our last book group meeting, and immediately I had a plan: I knew that somewhere, somehow I would send B pictures of albino squirrels! With those beady, red eyes and fur as white as a driven snow...How much more devilish could they be?!

Tonight, while searching for more pictures of albino squirrels to use I stumbled across this. Please, click on the link. Really, you want to. The best part: they have a screed!

Trip to the middle of the country

We got back Wednesday night from our trip to the Chain Restaurant and Shopping Capital of the World, aka Book's home town. We usually spend the time with his family eating, playing games and watching movies, but this time was different. His Mom had a Plan of Action, and we were out doing things every day. Despite the incapacitating heat (nb: I happen to know a lot of people who love 90+ degree weather. I am not one of these people. Give me a cool, humid, overcast day anytime. Sadly for me we left the latter for the former, and this Bibliophile turned into a lump that could barely propel itself from place to another).

I mentioned about a week ago that I had particular animals in mind I wanted to see and capture on film during our trip: the red pandas and sun bears. Last time I had been at this particular zoo the sun bears were not out yet, and the red pandas were sleeping. Well, last week I had partial success: the red pandas were still sleeping, but I got a whole slew of pictures of the sun bear! It's hard for me to choose which ones to show you guys. So I will show a couple:

Look at that cute tongue! This guy was really quite small, and seemed to be enjoying exploring his habitat. I also got a cute picture of two elephants fighting over a stream of water in their exhibit:

Our excitement didn't end there, though. The next day we went to this great conservatory with several interesting biomes filled with beautiful plants and flowers.

One was even filled with butterflies! There was also a beautiful garden outside the conservatory

with a large sculpture I really loved (here are two wee small parts of it):

There were also lots of exciting birds (red winged black birds, common grackles, great blue heron, green heron, cardinals, hummingbirds, just to name a few) and other animals in the backyard (squirrels, chipmunks and HUGE bullfrogs).

All in all, we had a great time!

I'm baaack

This is going to be a very short post as it is already late and close to my bed time. But I wanted to say that the trip was Great Fun and Action Packed, and that I have LOTS of pictures to post for you guys. In the mean time, check out this article that was in the paper today.

The animals await no picture-taking freak

I won't be posting until the end of next week, as tomorrow morning, bright and early (or as the case may be, not-so-bright because it'll be just *that* early), we're going out to the Midwest to visit Book's family. But never fear, I should be returning with loads of (read: several hundred) pictures like these to share with you all:

Well, hopefully some of the ones I bring back this time will be a tad more interesting. These are the new exhibits at the local zoo, and the animals I'm really hoping to get a good look at:

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

In general I'm quite conflicted about zoos. They can be truly depressing places to visit, and it's hard for me to imagine that it's better for an animal to be in a zoo than in the wild. It's hard for me to imagine because it really isn't better. But since we as a species are doing an awful job protecting the habitats of other species, I think zoos are the lesser of two evils as long as:

1. The animals are given plenty of space
2. Their space is a good representation of their natural habitat
3. The animals are kept as wild as possible (to enable #5)
   
4. The zoo does what it can to propagate endangered species
5. Once the animal's natural habitat has been protected and restored, the zoo actively participates in releases to the wild (see #3)
6. The zoo focuses on educating the next generation of policy makers so that they will enable #5

I'll see you all next week.

Kittens!!

My friend's cousin posted this video of her husband and their very hungry kitties:



I implode from the cute! For more adorable kitten pictures, including a very floofy kitty munching on a ruler, go here (scroll down for the ruler ones).

I have some good news and some bad news

First, the good news: the next David Attenborough documentary is called Life in Cold Blood, and will be coming out sometime in 2008.

The bad news: apparently Cold Blood will be his last major documentary. Say it ain't so! I guess I can find it in my heart to forgive him, though, as he will be 82 when the series is done filming. A guy should get a break from work *sometime*! Check out his impressive biography here.

And don't think for a second I've forgotten to write about the current documentary, Planet Earth. That will happen once I finish the series, and I just watched episode 10 of 14.

Stay tuned.

Bee informed

There is a fascinating round-table Q&A piece in Salon.com today about the honeybee disappearance. Those interviewed are: the leader of the USDA honeybee lab, a member of the Honeybee Research Facility at UC Davis, an amateur bee keeper who works at NASA Goddard and finally, a biologist and beekeeper who lives in PA. Topics covered include the shortened life expectancy of "winter" bees, genetically engineered crops/land use/industrial agriculture and malnutrition, to name a few.

I'll be talking more about industrial agriculture sometime in July, so stay tuned! But in the meantime, you can read this article to learn about how one of the most likely contributors to the bees' demise is us.