I taught Aristotle to turn on and off the lights on the Christmas tree last night. It only took a few seconds, but he got it. Now I get to watch as my parents will see the Strobe Tree(tm) all December long.  

In other news, a pack of wolves in Montana were murdered last week. [link]

I begin to wonder what "steps" these Authorities take to stop wolves from killing livestock. "Well, f**k, we sent them a stern letter, and they haven't written back. Let's just kill them."  I mean come on. A pack getting used to easy meat? Make the livestock harder to get. If that doesn't work, relocate the pack. Move them someplace where there aren't any ranches. And if you can't find any(I wouldn't be surprised, "civilization" has a thing for raping land it doesn't own.) then either send them to wolf sanctuaries, or ship them to countries that want them. Sigh.  It seems to me the first thing these people think when they see wildlife adapting to a new situation is to kill them.

Makes me want to draw something either in memory of the pack, or criticizing the ranchers, but it's hard to put on paper the magnitude of disgust.

Tags: murder, unjust, wolves
Current Location: Nutopia
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Andina, The Lord of War Soundtrack

...is evil.

According to Defenders of Wildlife;

"August 1, 2008 -- State wildlife agency personnel staked out a known wolf denning site -- a practice that is illegal under Alaska law -- and, using helicopters, they gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air, part of an effort to boost caribou populations in Southwest Alaska.

When they landed, they found 14 helpless pups in the nearby dens -- just weeks old -- and methodically shot each one in the head. Twenty-eight wolves gunned down in all."

Honestly, if this is credible, I...I don't know what hope humanity has for a future. Every moment that I find a tiny, miniscule, insignificant glimmer of redeeming value in Homosapiens at all, it quickly disappears in torrents of mud. Where is the dignity, fellow apes? Where is it?

I have more to say on this subject; those of you that know how this aerial killing practice works can understand, but I want to keep this post short. Donate, write letters, petition, protest--do something to initiate change. I'm at least trying.

Tags: alaska, death, massacre, unjust, wolves
Current Location: Hell, apparently.
Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Groove Salad on SomaFM

Well, looks like I gotta keep my pup inside and out front for the next week or so. A pair of Scrub Jays have this little guy in our back yard, hopping about. Pretty cute to watch; but Aristotle thinks otherwise, so I gotta lock him inside. I really hope this guy grows up to be a healthy, happy adult Jay---his brother wasn't so lucky. The other fledgling died sometime in the night yesterday--I buried him with the other unfortunates; victims of the neighborhood cats, other chicks that had fallen and died from their nests, etc. I hope someday to have a completely secure bird sanctuary in my back yard--right now I can only do what I can and hope for the best.

Tags: fledgling, scrub jay
Current Location: My personal Aethership
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Groove Salad on SomaFM

This little guy's been all cuddly and snuggly lately. :>

Tags: aristotle, cute
Current Mood: calm

Does anyone here ever think about what they buy/make in the context of the future? Not in a 'how will this effect the ecosystem in the future' way, though that is important, but rather, in a "What will this make my great grandchildren think when they find this in my attic, long after I've passed away?" kind of way.

Though I don't plan on having kids, I still tend to think about things through that viewpoint. Antique mechanical pocketwatch? Awesome. Various old-style hats? Yep. Classical books with gold-leafing? Roger. Rocks and fossils of interest? Indeed. Old weaponry? Uh-huh. The list goes on.(goggles, telegraph, stamps, coins, etc)

But now I can add one more thing to the collection that, though it has no numerical value, should at least spark a little wonder in the world of the miniature. I give you, the bottle terrarium:


A small, enclosed world, suspended in time. (the bottle is about 5 inches tall and an two inches wide)


If this was an actual terrarium, it would not last long. However, nothing held within the confines of the bottle is actually alive. The tree was covered in a small amount of oil, then placed in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for several minutes to dry it out. The moss was covered in oil, and left to dry(though is not entirely dry yet, that will take a few days now.). The whole setup was put inside the bottle in parts, and watered down glue was dripped upon everything. Within a few days, it will be dry enough for me to keep the cap on permanently, and place with the rest of my 'attic objects'.

Tags: attic-object, steampunk, terrarium
Current Location: The Center of The Earth
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Plantage by Under Byen

So, my efforts to get a canine companion have paid off. Most or all of you already know this, but I'm posting for the sake of consistency.  I now have a puppy named Aristotle. He was born on April 7th, and is now about 8 weeks old. He's been growing quite a bit, and is still cute as ever. :D


Aristotle at 6 weeks


Aristotle at 8 weeks

The ordeal in getting him, and the ordeal afterward are a long story, and though some of you already have heard, I'll save it for another day.

Tags: aristotle
Current Location: The Kitchen Table
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Istanbul(Not Constantinople) by TMBG

So the other day(Monday, to be precise) I went to work, and came home with a juvenile House Sparrow. It was somewhat funny, I suppose.

A cashier came to me (who wanted me to bag for her) and told me that there was a bird in a box at her register. She had to repeat it to me twice.  The customer whom had this bird(in nothing more than a Chinese food box!) explained to me that it supposedly fell out of it's nest, and was then attacked by a common crow; she went and shoo-ed the crow away and spent the next two minutes trying to box the poor sparrow up.  She explained to me that she certainly did not want to take care of a bird, so I told her I'd take care of it, (luckily this happened at the very end of my shift).  When I walked outside, one of the people petitioning for some tax thing that will never work walked up to me and asked if I'd sign her petition. I said yes, but only if she could tell me where the bird was found and give any additional info she could. Turns out the sparrow had 'fallen' from a tree nearby. So I happily signed the petition and raced to Fencing class(It's Finals week, remember?) where I explained to my instructor that I had a sparrow in a box with me.(He had me repeat that, twice.)

He told me to go sign in and take care of the bird before coming out and fencing, then made a Chinese food joke about it. I'm sure he was glad that looks could not kill, at that point.   I went immediately into the restroom and inspected the bird for injuries; there were none, save for a few missing feathers on it's crown (I say 'it' because I cannot tell the difference in gender with juveniles).   I talked to a fellow fencer who told me to go home and take care of the bird, so I went to my instructor and asked if my presence was absolutely necessary. He told me to save the bird.(who'd have thought this little guy would keep me from having to fence everyone in class?)

So I raced home and did a bit of research on the bird and how best to take care of it--turns out I did not need to do much save for feeding and hoping it survives the night.



Above is the little guy in his/her temporary plastic container while we frantically prepared a bird cage, the bird only having to spend a few minutes in this thing before getting a much bigger, more comfortable space with food and water. 

I was quite worried throughout the night for it, and was relived to see the sparrow awake and alive in the morning. I then went to the place it was originally found, and released it. He actually stayed on my hand for a few moments, looking at me before making what I presume was the youngling's first flight.

In other news, I've been pushing my parents to try to adopt a dog from the SPCA. I would be spending all the money and time in this case. I've tried to make things as easy for them as possible, all I'm doing now is awaiting their decision. I feel like the bloody thing is the Assault on Hill 400. Shell them with guilt, then try to take the guns via offers. :/  I fear the outcome however will not be good.

Tags: bird, dogs, rescue, spca
Current Location: My Aethership
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Tainted Love

So we had a cluster quake on the 25th; a 3.3, a 4.7 and a 3.4 all within seconds of one another. There's a huge crack in the wall at our staircase, and tons of things fell: including glass bottles of things in all the bathrooms. A few shingles even came off our roof. Ugh. At work everyone was talking about it and what they were doing to prepare for 'The Big One', if that ever comes. The thing I noticed most was people were actually afraid. One of my coworkers told me while we were *still* cleaning up from the quake , "I hate waiting for this. I mean, if we're gonna have it then we might as well have it now and get it over with. "  I kindof agree with her. I'd rather it happen while we're still cleaning up from the last one.

In other news, after telling my manager I would quit if I didn't get my check within a day, I finally got it--and registered for my passport. Yay! My father gave me something I'd been wanting for forever on Thursday: a Werner Klemperer autograph.  Woo!

I've also been wearing this 24 hours a day:


A friend in my Art of Film class asked me if I got it at Hot Topic: I said no, that if I was to buy a human collar, it would defeat the purpose.

Tags: collar, earthquake
Current Location: The HMS Beagle
Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: GrooveSalad on SomaFM

Warning: short rant without cited evidence.

So Earth day is supposedly the 22nd of this month. Such things make me wonder exactly where the dignity lies within people. Earth day is not an excuse for people to pretend that they care about the environment, dress like hippies and go to free concerts, completely forgetting that the rest of the year, they could be doing some of this.  Earth day is there to remind us that we live on a living planet, and that we need to take care of it 365 days a year. But of course, "Earth was geeven tah us bai Jeeezus tah do whutevar we wont tuh it!"

I've seen so much crap from right-wing Christian nuts that now I can't help but hear this song in my head whenever the word "god" is mentioned.

Tags: environment, jeeezus
Current Location: Soviet Russia
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Der Fuhrer's Face

...Or so it would be if it was good news; it's not.

Starting today it is now legal for Wyoming citizens to kill wolves on sight for any reason, without hunting licenses. Here, have a link.

On top of that, Idaho and Montana have released plans for legalized wolf hunting, and have schedules for hunting season already in place: not that it's news, though, they did that the very day the wolves were de-listed. I'm not even going to get into the fact that the de-listing was premature, or that giving rights to the states to hunt wolves is an unbearably stupid idea; after all, it isn't the first time we've done it.

I've written letters to my senators, not that it's helped, and I've donated all I can to EarthJustice, who are suing the U.S. government to get the wolves back on the ESL.

I feel like drinking myself into a stupor over this, however I know this is only a tiny fraction of the crimes the Administration is committing, and that makes me even more depressed. No, more than that. Utterly pissed off.

Tags: crime, death, dystopian government, environment, fascism, injustice
Current Location: My Environmentally safe derigible
Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Remind Me --Royksopp