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...This time about Octopongles. Here is footage of an Indonesian Veined Octopus using coconut shells as protective cover.  It's freaking adorable, especially when it picks up the shell and walks on tippy-toe.

I have a real soft spot for Octopiddlies; they're insanely smart; personally, I think they're smarter than dolphins.  Certainly you never see an Octopipple making the mistake of rescuing a drowning human just to be caught in a tuna net by other humans.  In fact, I would not be surprised if they had a Swiss Army knife*  concealed somewhere in a tentacle for cutting themselves out of tuna nets.**

I remember watching a show about little (less than 1ft) Octobobbles, where the research crew caught one and put it in a tank below decks.  The cameraman heard a noise, and found the little smarty-pants*** had shoved the lid off the tank, slid up two flights of stairs, and was most of the way across the deck before the crew realized what had happened.  In a mutual display of respect, they let it escape.

I bet it's still planning its revenge.

Octologs aren't playing when they decide to pull off the masks of scuba divers, by the way - they're making sure all researchers maintain proper respect when faced with the capo a capo**** of squishy sea creatures. 

Okay, they do it to recreational divers just for fun.  Look around the next time you see footage on "Untamed and Uncut" of a diver on vacation being suffocated by an octopus of doom - if you look carefully, you'll see a bunch of carefully hidden Octomobbles giggling madly as they watch the human turn blue. 

I'm also not ruling out the possibility that the oxygen mix in scuba tanks has a nitrous oxide-like effect on Octopooks, and they're just looking for a quick hit.

I think it's only a matter of time before we're invaded by a bunch of Octopi in eight-legged scuba suits designed specifically so they can travel distances on land.  Think about it; there's nothing they can't do when provided with a computer and a credit card.

I, for one, welcome our new eight-legged overlords.

They're just so darn squishy and cute.

*Their version has eight different tools.  *rim shot*

**And for opening oysters.  Southern Octopods also carry cocktail sauce; Northern ones prefer Tabasco.

***Eight-button fly Levis for the fashionable Octodiva-About-Town.

****a capo, a capo... (repeat 8 times)

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So, I'm sure any of you who watch Animal Planet have seen the ads for the ASPCA (support them!) where Sarah McLachlan sings soulfully over video footage of really sad and abused animals.  I cry every time, it's shameless.  In fact, they've been so ubiquitous, that SNL and other people have been making parodies of the ads, which are actually quite funny (check out YouTube), and I don't think they do any real harm, since the kind of person who is left cold by the images of animals in pain is not going to donate (donate!) to the ASPCA (donate!  Subtle subliminal typing-type message!) anyway.

They have a new one with what I thought was another SM song, but it's actually "My Skin", by Natalie Merchant (it's on i-tunes, I just bought it this morning), and it's even more agonizingly sad than "Answer" (SM), because the words are "I've been treated so long/ I've been treated so long/ As if I'm becoming untouchable", and I dare anyone not to be even the tiniest bit moved by the dog with all-over mange as those words are sung.  It reduces me to absolute floods, but I'm easy to make tearful, thanks to the Vicodin.  I'm easy to get with animal stuff anyway, but those ads are killer.
 
Anyway, It was just in my mind, I've got nothing really to say about the ASPCA, except that I like what they do a lot better than the Group That Begins With A P That Shall Not Be Named, because they and the rescue groups that work with them actually try to rehabilitate the animals that come in from abusive situations.  And I'm not on board with the idea of treating animals as absolute equals to humans until we allow them to vote, work for a salary, and pay taxes.  And the ASPCA isn't violent.  I don't think the way to get people to treat animals better is to threaten them, insult them, offend them, and abuse them.

I'm just sayin'.

No group is perfect; there are always, always - no exceptions - issues with organizations run by people, because people are not perfect.  But the ASPCA tries, and for that, they get my support.  Yes, you can always make the argument that there are people in horrible situations, and why worry about animals when people are suffering, but my view is that it's all interconnected - animal abuse and people abuse go hand in hand, and all abuse is unforgiveable.  I'm not a vegetarian (though I'm not really a big meat eater), because I accept that I am an omnivore, and as a species, we eat other species (like other carnivores and omnivores - and I'm not really averse to eating insects, as long as they're cooked), but I don't think farm animals should suffer, and I'm against feed lots, battery farming, and people who abuse farm animals, because it's unnecessary and it makes the meat taste like crap.
 
I went off on a tangent there; sorry.

I like animals - they seem to like me most of the time.  I don't think it's appropriate to ignore animal cruelty, just like I don't think it's appropriate to ignore human cruelty - though both are ignored and glossed over every day.  I think the world changes for the better a little bit at a time, and the small stuff is the foundation for the bigger stuff. 

Um, yeah.  All that from a song I like, and a commercial that makes me weepy.

Blame it on the snow day.

I have a rumbly in my tumbly, so I'm working from home today.

(This technically means I'm not taking more of the vacation days of which I have none left.)

(Sick leave, neither.  I'm cleaned out.)

I'm also still dealing with a mean case of the insomnias; I spent last night staring at the clock, feeling uncomfortable with my tummy, my arms, and a nasty new symptom of sharp pins and needles in my right shoulder in turn, wondering if I'd be better off on the sofa, and too tired to move.  Naturally, my brain was thinking up sarcastic rants at a mile a minute.

I really should just start writing them down, since I thought that I came up with some particularly incisive and funny stuff, but I've done this before, and I know from past experience that I can never remember exactly what it was I thought was so clever, just the general subject.  Last night's was an epic rant on fast food advertising and the general insanity with which the advertising industry approaches food (best described as the kind of love/hate relationship immortalized by the Montagues and the Capulets, or maybe the Hatfields and McCoys, in that everyone loves to hate what they're fascinated by, can't live without it, and everyone dies in the end), but most of it was gone by the time I woke up properly.

Of course, my insomnia-addled brain could just be fooling me; I write symphonies in my sleep, too.  Last night I wrote a symphony, attended a Billy Joel concert, stopped some people from walking around my house because they thought it was a tourist destination, and all this was happening at the house my mother lives in in London.  It's right by a park, which is where the concert was being held.

So, you see, my brain could be thinking I'm brilliant, and what I'm really thinking up is something on the level of "so what about that advertising?  Strange, huh?  Go figure", with no actual joke at all.  I can't tell.

All I know is my tummy hurts (we both have it, whatever it is; Merry Christmas to us), and my brain has possibly turned on me.

If I wake up tomorrow and my brain has crawled out of my ear and is typing merrily away on the computer, I'll know for sure.

At least with my brain gone I'll still be able to go to work. 

Or I could send my brain in my place; slap a little mascara on, and no-one will notice the difference.

Blech.

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Well, goodness.  It's been a while, but then, I haven't been to work since before I went to Plimoth.  This is the longest I've ever been off work since I started, and now I don't think I remember how; at the very least, it's impossible to get anything done the week of Christmas/New Year's. We're going to the farm NY's day, after a party up here.  We still have things to do.  We were going to go this past weekend, but the snow seemed a little too much to drive through, so we cancelled.  But there is stuff that needs doing, so we go.  After Christmas and New Year's Eve, since all the presents are up at the apartment. I'm going to do a quick rundown of my recent past, since going into detail feels a bit beyond me at the moment...

( A few pictures, a few words... )

Not many people know this, but when I was growing up I briefly had a fear of drains. I think it had to do mostly with Stephen King's IT and a couple (?) episodes of X-Files. I got over it the way I got over all my mild childhood fears: "fuck it--bring it." Not meeting my challenge, I declared my fears to be pussies and went on with my life.

I bring this up because I think it helps explain my next point. When I've just awakened or am in such a relaxed state that sleep is near, my imagination is hyper-active and susceptible to suggestion. My brain consciously starts making those trains of thought that will soon give rise to nonsensical dreams. Because of this, I sometimes develop mild, irrational fears at night in this state (I deal with them as described above, but that isn't the point here). A common one I experience, possibly for reasons outlined above, is the irrational fear that there is a tentacle monster in my toilet.

I woke up this morning, still dark, had to pee. I stumbled into my bathroom, sat down, took a piss, flushed, washed hands, picked up a pen, scribbled something on my stack of post-its, and went back to sleep. When I woke up this morning I found a post-it, written in the hand of a 5-year-old, that simply said "krakken in my toilet."

Here's an hour-long, enjoyably digressive podcast I did with Ken Plume.

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As you can see, iTunes favors informality -- the "I'm"s outnumber the "I am"s 6 to 1.  Click to enlarge.

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After the jump, my responses to the ONTD Q&A.

(Cross-posted over there)

( Funny you should ask )

Flu.

*cough* *cough* *groan* *whine* *whimper*

So, I've actually gotten into the whole zombie-movie thing lately. I've sat down to watch Quarantine, Night of the Living Dead, both versions of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. I've recently seen The Omega Man and I Am Legend and Day of the Dead, not to mention the spooky French movie They Came Back (Les Revenants). Now I'm opening the floor up for suggestions. This is a rich and complex genre. It is both the last genre where pure, unspeakable horror is possible, and, paradoxically, the genre most capable of making broad statements about civilization and its fragility. That is, it is both the dumbest and smartest of genres. I haven't ventured very far outside of acknowledged classics, and barely at all into the realm of low-budget exploitation (the closest I've come to that is Robert Rodriguez's gonzo tribute Planet Terror). I saw one Robert Fulci* (*I mean Lucio Fulci, obviously) movie a long time ago, but otherwise have not seen a foreign language zombie movie and wouldn't know where to start. I ask my strong-stomached readers to recommend their favorites.

Last episode of the first half of Season Four tonight at midnight. Season Four back eight premieres in the spring. Got it?

I've cracked the big time.

What does Dr. Orpheus want? Dr. Orpheus has brought his Triad to some sort of desecrated cathedral, to stop Torrid from opening a portal to Hell. When The Outrider, Orpheus's romantic rival, steals Orpheus's thunder and takes care of the Hell-portal problem, Orpheus wants to prove to his ex-wife (or maybe only himself) that he is a "better man" than the Outrider.

( Read more... )