Category — Miscellaneous

I was just reading about E3 in Entertainment Weekly. They briefly discussed Rock Band 3, due out this holiday season. Here’s a video about the new guitar gameplay. I cannot wait to try this out. This is a huge advance in virtual music making. A whole generation of kids is going to be able to learn how to play guitar with this game.

I’m back after my long postlessness. I’d like to dedicate this video to my parents. I hope they heed Lance’s memo.

Sorry the video hangs over the sidebar. I have some work to do on this site. Bear with me.

I bumped into this the other day. The more I looked at it the harder I laughed.

I just saw this for the first time.

I changed the theme today. Thanks to Chris Pearson, the developer. It took me hours to reshape and resize pictures for the rotating header image. Now I have to fix the images and other media to fit better, or try to edit the code. Either way I am too tired to do so now. Readers, you will have to excuse the sloppiness for the time being.

After a many month hiatus, I have reworked some of the problems I was having with this site. I am expanding the focus to include some of my other hobbies and interests so I don’t lose momentum again. So come back often for more tales of my crazy animals, as well as information about yarn craft and my insights into entertainment media. Enjoy and see you soon.

So I was just watching The Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel. It was the story of a pack of four French Bulldogs and one woman. The dogs were big time vacuum attackers. It got my thinking about how great Bonny is. Ok, confession time, when Bonny was a baby I used the vacuum kind of as a toy. I would laugh with her while I tried to get her with the sucking end. I didn’t want her to be afraid of it like many dogs are. Well three years later, she is not afraid; she wants to get it. And she is a triumph to good leadership. When I take out the vacuum she usually jumps at it once, ONCE, to inditate she wants to play. I say no and she lays down where she can watch me. When I have finished, I say ok and we play a few minutes of vacuum monster. She wants to get the vacuum the whole time but waits till I tell her to start and stops right away at my command. My only wish is that she would listen to all the people she knows as well as she listens to me.

Here’s a cute story I recieved from the AHR board.  It really makes you wonder: How can these two animals that are so different form such a tight bond? Social oddities like these serve to remind that there really are no rules about what an animal can and cannot do; there is no limitation on the uniques of nature.

It has been a sad week for Almost Home Rescue.  The board decided after a year of struggles to put down one of our foster dogs.  Bella lived with one foster family for a year.  She was a difficult case to begin with, slightly dog aggressive, slightly food agressive.  Over the year she got worse and lashed out a few times at people and other dogs.  If the liability wasn’t enough to indicate it was time for Bella to move on, a dog living that way is stressed and unhappy all the time.  That’s not the life we aim to give our fosters dogs, so Bella moved on to a better place.  I applaud everyone from AHR who did their best to help this little dog and those who had to make this difficult decision for her.  Hopefully, she is happy and peaceful where she is now.

I was just reading an article for my math class which discussed whether or not the concept of numbers and counting was hard-wired in our brains or an entirely learned skill. The author argued, and I agree, that we are hard-wired for numbers at the low end of the counting scale.
My basis for this belief is my certainty that my brain is more developed and higher functioning than my dogs and Bonny can conceptualize three quantity words: one, two, and more. I try to keep at least eight or so whole tennis balls in the house at all times. If Bonny is sitting on the couch with me, I can tell her “get one” or “get two.” Most of the time, she returns with the correct number. She can hold two in her mouth at once so either way it’s a one trip mission. I also can tell her to “get more” and she’ll keep collecting balls until she can’t find any more or I tell her “that’s enough.” Additionally, if she approaches with one ball, I can hold up two fingers and she’ll get another. I admit that last one is probably not a numerical concept but to designate between “get one” and “get two” she must have at least a vague idea of counting.