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Archive for the ‘Animals’ Category

Cannon Bull

Saturday, June 13th, 2020

I bought the above in Japan in January. I vacillated on the purchase since luggage space was tight but I decided in the end to make it fit.

It’s a ZOID! But not a plastic model version; this is a toy version. You still assemble it, but it’s much easier and the pieces aren’t on runners. I’ve done one like this before, but they still make and sell new ones and this one seemed to be a new release.

Assembly was trivial, but I was surprised to see (since I apparently didn’t bother looking closely at the packaging) that it has a battery powered motor in it! I selected this kit for its appearance though, and think it looks quite nifty.

That’s the finished product. According to the ZOIDs wiki this is a medium sized ‘buffalo type’ weapons platform that has a mass of 50.4 tonnes and carries a 9-barreled missile pod for long range attacks!

And there he is attacking! He moves at a good clip and the barrels of his missile launchers click as they ‘fire’.

A fun little toy. Next time I’m in Japan I’ll be picking myself up another one of these I reckon…

Posted in Animals, Crafts, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Wildlife XVI: The Dead Of Night

Saturday, April 25th, 2020

Maybe you’ve heard the stories of nature encroaching as man stays home? I was wondering if that was happening even in our own backyard, and dragged out the (old, borderline obsolete) wildlife camera for another bout of surveilling. Here’s what I found…

The usual suspects were of course represented. As you know by know squirrels are so abundant I sometimes wonder if they own this house and we just rent. The deer (with baby) photo I had to adjust since it was near pitch black. The nights have been dark recently and the animals have skulked with abandon.

KLS and I were just debating the difference between doves and pigeons but we’re 99% sure this dude is a dove since we’ve recently had one lurking. When they sing – or rather make their dove noises – it really carries and it can be difficult to tell where they are. Yesterday there was one on our roof (I think?) and his cooing filled the house.

We’ve had rabbits living in our backyard for years and they’re a common sight during the day nibbling at the edge of our lawn. Sometimes they’ll come up onto the patio in the middle of the day and make good viewing for the kitties. Apparently they hop around at night as well.

So with the expected visitors out of the way, time for some not-so-common ones:

A racoon! There were several shots of this guy over a few nights. Aside from some rock-hard break (see below) we hadn’t put food out so he was probably just exploring. In a few photos it looked like he was even grooming. I guess he’s comfortable on our patio.

There were only a couple of shots of this possum, and they were separated by over a week. He’s decently sized (about as big as a small cat). I wonder where he lives?

This one is a mystery. See that black thing at the edge of the yard? We’re not sure what it is! The likely culprit is a fat dog with a tiny tail looking away from us, but in all the aeons we have lived here we have never seen a dog running wild (which is not allowed in NY State). Therefore I’m inclined to think it’s either a giant unidentified black cat like the Beast of Exmoor. What do you think?

This last pic is even more mysterious! See that half-blurred thing flying by? Is it a bumblebee? A wasp? A hummingbird? A goldfinch? The camera doesn’t have a super-fast shutter speed so whatever it was is flying somewhat slowly, but the size seems to preclude an insect since it isn’t that close to the lens. A genuine mystery. What do you think?

Incidentally you can see one of our doorstop-breadrolls in the above pic, just at the edge of the patio on the right. I was hoping for some evidence of who took them but there was none. Between two empty daytime photos separated by 23 minutes the roll had just disappeared. The rolls were (we think) too big and heavy for a squirrel, so whatever took them was too fast for the camera! Another mystery unsolved…

Posted in Animals, Blog, Home, Nature | Comments Closed

Ten Things We Saw At The Fair

Saturday, August 31st, 2019

We went to the Columbia County Fair today. We saw many things! Here’s a selection…

The rabbits were very cute; there were big ones and small ones and two mums with babies. I’d say there were about two dozen in total and many of them seemed to be owned by the same person!

Fairs always seem to have scarecrow contests and this year one of the entries was Grease themed. Danny seems to have fallen over…

There was a crafting pavilion with a lot of olde-timey crafts being demonstrated including a blacksmith, basketweaver and feltmaker. The turned-wooden bowls were beautiful but very expensive.

You’ve seen many photos of sheep-in-clothing before on this blog and as usual I was charmed by them again. We glimpsed one of these guys sans cape being groomed and his fur was ultra short and soft (and clean)!

This giant pumpkin was conveniently shaped like a chair, but I very much doubt they wanted anyone to sit on it!

Over on the midway they had the usual array of beautifully engineered rides (none of which I rode), including a short mini rollercoaster with spinning cars.

The sideshow games were staffed by the usual frightening carnies and featured a dazzling selection of desirable prizes…

Unusually – and the first time we’d seen this – they also had a section of coin-pushers using real quarters that paid out cash?!? Isn’t this illegal? I put exactly one quarter in and actually did knock some coins down but they didn’t come out the hopper so there were shenanigans going on!

This was my animal of the show: an inky black and supremely handsome rooster! KLS said his eyes had a ‘spark of intelligence’ 🙂

And just before we left she treated herself to a chocolate-mint milkshake. At this point I was overrun with exhaustion, possibly from heat? Maybe I should have eaten something.

Overall a fun time, as fairs always are. I think we’ll visit one more this season..

Posted in Animals, Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »

Ocean Apes

Friday, July 26th, 2019

It was our wedding anniversary the other day, and naturally I purchased KLS a gift. To be specific, this:

Just add water for beloved pets! Of course we’ve done these before (and maybe you have too since I’ve given some as gifts) but it’s been many years. But who can resist their own aquatic humanoid shrimpy friends?

Instructions were read:

Water added:

And waiting began:

Now we – and probably you – know that ‘sea monkeys’ are just a form of brine shrimp, and the first packet (the purifier) contains the actual (water activated) eggs with subsequent packets – including the one labeled as eggs – being just food for the little guys. So it wasn’t surprising when only one day after we added the supposed egg packet we saw our first pets!

They are shy and difficult to photograph, but I succeeded more or less in capturing images of two of the half dozen or so that have already joined our family. So with pomp and ceremony let me introduce:

That little guy (circled in red) is Emperor Titanus, aka first-among-monkeys. As the firstborn he is naturally the undisputed leader, and his reign has started off well although his fuse is short and I worry he tends toward authoritarianism. Luckily his more primal urges are kept in check by:

High-Ambassador Alkarab. Third-born he may have been, but he quickly established a seat next to the emperor and attends to matters of state whilst keeping the masses distracted. As his name suggests it seems his true loyalty rests with another colony somewhere, and I fear this distraction coupled with his many day-to-day obligations may make it hard for him to resist the machinations of the unnamed second-born who hides in the depths, whispering madly.

The colony increases daily, with the monkeys simultaneously growing in size. We’re on the edge of our seat watching the politics evolve, and waiting to see if the rumors of a prophet emerging from the proletariat come to pass.

Stay tuned…

Posted in Animals, Pets | 1 Comment »

Review: Aquaman

Monday, December 31st, 2018

I went and saw Aquaman yesterday, at an impressively early 9:30 am screening. I momentarily baulked at the ticket price…

But then remembered that the film was going to be awesome and couldn’t throw my cash at the attendant fast enough!

The cinema was crazy big. I dutifully sat in my assigned seat (N-16) and when the projector started I was the only person in there! But then I noticed the first half hour or so were just adverts (including many social engineering PSA’s: exercise more, don’t stay in the sun, start a savings account, etc.) and sure enough the locals knowledgeable about such things shuffled in just before the main show.

Aquaman is about a fish-powered dude that fights a lot and seems to wish he was actually a professional wrestler. I’m not going to spoil the overall plot here but I’ll say it starts off strong and within minutes I was intrigued:

Aquaman’s powers are a cross between Superman and Yoda and are frankly absurd (why is he bulletproof?!?) but you won’t question them because after the crazy start the film quickly evolves into madness and then ascends into bonkers territory.

This was my face during the political scene between the aryan riding the zeuglodon and the Viking riding the dragon:

And then when they introduced a pretty redhead fish girl and the film briefly stopped being about fish and became Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park I was slackjawed.

This was my face when the murlocs (from World of Warcraft) turned up:

But it wasn’t even close to done! When a futuristic city sequence that makes Blade Runner look like the scribblings of a child was followed by a space battle that featured not one, not 1000, not 1000000, but every fish I was just roaring at the screen with joy:

There’s much to love about the film. Its visuals and design are astonishing, its script unfettered by tradition, its actors unconstrained by expectation and it’s easily got the best depiction of cetacean armies fighting a billion crabs that have ever been printed to celluloid.

It makes you feel every emotion, from love to hate to glee and yes, to terror. It’s unfettered fun, and easily gets my highest recommendation. Best fish war film ever by a mile.

Immediately afterwards I languidly strolled over to the Game Center and found a coin-pusher machine:

I was so full of DC comics appreciation I had to win a card, and quickly targeted this Batman that was right at the edge:

As you can see it was about to drop! So close in fact that a shift of only one atom would have caused it to fall…

…

…it only cost me $25 to ‘win’ it 🙂

Posted in Animals, Art, Books & Comics, Miscellaneous, Movies, Science, The Unknown | Comments Closed

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