In short, both dogs and cats have the same neurochemical response that humans do under circumstances humans would refer to as “love.” So perhaps I’m not being unnecessarily anthropomorphistic when I draw certain inferences when I see Fingers’ relationship with Raedthinn:
Of course, it might just be the mind control rays:
For a long time I had a mediocre flip-phone. Last autumn it crapped out on me, and got replaced with a truly cheap flip phone ($14, WalMart). My phone contract provides for a new phone every two years, and that time came at the beginning of March. So, I finally got a smart phone-type-phone thingie, a Nokia something-or-other. As it turns out, it actually takes reasonably fair photos, though not nearly as good as you get from a *real* camera. Behold:
If you downloaded and liked the photos, please consider a donation. Suggested: $1. Of course, more is always appreciated.
And they said it couldn’t be done…
The dog is female, so the story has the gay marriage angle built right into it.
A student film that proves to be as good, in its truncated way, as a lot of what comes out of major studios. I shudder to imagine the amount of time it took to create all the CAD models, especially the cathedral.
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Twenty minutes or so ago, there I was, minding my own business, reading up on fusion microexplosions when a fargin stampede stampeded past my window. A trio of neighborhood horses had escaped their enclosure and, as always, ran to *my* back yard to commune with the horses that are already back there:
And while I’m out there taking pictures of them (because why not), there was one of those sounds that sounds *really* creepy: an air raid siren *waaaaaay* off in the distance. Seemed to be coming from over the hills to the west, from ATK. The siren ran for thirty seconds or so, then shut down. Time on the clock: 1PM, Thursday. And then the ICBM motor fired up. Holy crap, that was LOUD; it was a sound that sort of filled the world. Ran for 50 seconds or so and didn’t do the horses skittishness any favors. Several minutes later the exhaust plume finally popped up over the hills:
NOTE: for those few of you awaiting cyanotypes… check out the sky in these photos. This is what I’ve had to work with for *weeks.* The cyanotypes require strong, clear, consistent sunlight. Hasn’t been much of that lately.
A lot of people didn’t like Transformers 3, but I did… the very, very dark tone of the last third or so of the movie, with the city of Chicago effectively wiped out, hundreds of thousands dead and numerous skyscrapers reduced to rubble. was a major shift from the chuckleheaded inanity of so much of the series. And TF:4 looks like it’s actually carrying over that tone. Which to my mind is the *appropriate* tone, given the basic idea: extremely dangerous artificially intelligent war machines can drop out of the sky randomly. Some are human-friendly, but by far the majority are opposed to humans, and have tried to wipe us out several times. And there are more, probably many more, out there. Even if humans and their extremely few Autobot allies have managed to fight them off a few times, the basic math says that the universe is essentially out to get us. This would have an interesting and kinda dismal effect on human society.
Plus… dinobots! Woo!
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And I gotta wonder what Lovecraft would have made of this pooch. It’s like an eldritch horror from beyond tried to materialize in our corporeal realm, but a small fishbait dog wandered into the stone circle at just the wrong moment and now Cody the dog is possessed by Yog Sothoth.
[youtube y-lthKQa5io]
It was the Annual Parade of Sheep Heading West today. Thousands of fuzzy poopmonsters being hustled along by dogs and Peruvians.
This was of interest to at least one other observer…
As anyone who has read the blog for more than a few minutes knows, I’m fond of cats and try to make my property a reasonably safe and welcoming place for them. I am, at least so far, not a whackjob about it… not a cat hoarder, nor do I try to provide for all the needs of all the cats in the region. Just a place where they won’t get chased and can get a bite to eat from time to time.
I’m a cat-guy. I’m not a horse-guy. Still, I have several acres of farm-yard that weren’t going to be used for farming, and I have several neighbors with more horse than property, so I have allowed my property to be used as a grazing/socializing/running-around spot for local horses. It’s been sufficiently successful that a half-dozen or more times I’ve been awakened late at night by the sound of a horse (sometimes a bunch of horses) running flat-out down the road out front and turning into my yard to go hang out back with the the others.
And so… today this Shetland pony was dropped off. The four horses that were already there had clearly never seen a Shetland pony like this before… they initially clustered around it like rubes at the freak show. Within an hour or so, they had all become friends.
UPDATE:
Well, THAT didn’t last. Within a few hours, the pony found one of the several gaps in the fence big enough to allow it to escape… and it escaped. But even though it made it over the wire, it stayed right there, communing with the Big Horses. A trio of local girls tried to round it up, with my dubious assistance. PROTIP: two feet is all a Shetland pony like this needs to build up a head of steam sufficient to plow into a sizable guy and knock him right on his ass.
Ow.
FURTHER UPDATE:
When the Smallest Horse On The Planet steamrollered me, the only bit of me that was hurt was my pride… it was slightly embarrassing to get centerpunched and pitched in front of three giggly teenager females. But no physical damage was detected apart from a small cut of no consequence. Until several hours later. My shoulder is now quite impressively painful. Apparently something got tore up. Yay. You’d think I’d learn… no attempt at a good deep goes unpunished.
So, lets say you are in the business of herding large animals, and you’re getting kinda tired of them wandering out into the road and night and gettign whacked by cars. What to do, what to do…
It’s an interesting idea… spray their antlers with reflective spray paint. Under normal lighting, or darkness, it won’t much change the appearance of the beast, but when bright lights are aimed at it, it’ll light right up like a street sign.
Original article in Finlandese:
A few photos taken near Thatcher about a month ago…
