Friday, September 8, 2006

Interlude #50

Me: I think that potato soup has gone bad...smell it.

Him: It smells...funky!

Me: I'll give it to the chickens.

Him: ...and we'll see if _they_ die.

Me: They eat all sorts of shit, it won't hurt 'em. Hell, they eat Pocky's shit...which is a little too much recycling for me.


[note: Pocky eats the chicken's shit, hence the recycling. -- Ed.]

[I always wondered who Ed was when I'd read that...]

Thursday, September 7, 2006

No Swimming for Me...

..today, because Wednesday I was in so much pain I was crying by evening...between my back and my gut, I feel like I just can't get a breath without pain.
On a good note though...

Woo! Baby sand boas!
8 little tiny copies of their father!
--the mother is anerythristic, and the father is a normal, so all the babies are orange and brown like dad and not black and grey like mom...but, they are all heterozygous for anerythristic (blogger's spellchecker is freaking out on me, heh.) so if THEY are bred to anerys, then THEIR babies will be black and grey. Dontcha just love this genetics stuff?

My other female sand boa is gravid, too...all boa species are live birth, what is known as ovoviviparous: meaning that the eggs develop inside, with a soft membrane rather than a shell, rather than being laid and hatching later.
I have yet to see them give birth--they are SAND boas, after all, and live in sand...buried, I should say.

Oh, and one lone cornsnake egg hatched. There's still another, but it's stubbornly staying eggish and not even pipping.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Steve

Steve Irwin has died.

I keep hoping it's all a bad joke, and they're gonna call it off any minute now...I felt this same way when Jim Henson died: Like we just got ripped off--the creativity and changes he made to this world have been pinched. Yeah, there's all the stuff we already have, but there's not going to be any more--no more wondering what he's going to come up with next, no more awe and joy at what he does come up with.
Ach--I'm not saying this well at all.

Normally I find the concept of the Rainbow Bridge to be sappy and maudlin...but this post is fabulous: An interesting day at the Rainbow Bridge.

The Internet is completely glutted with stories, comments, and pictures about Steve and his life, and his death.

Opinions range from "he brought it on himself, tormenting the creature" to "he's a hero!" while facts are being repeated, rumored, misquoted, created, and basically mangled. It's hard to find an accurate, objective news story...some are reporting that he was filming for one show, then another, then that he was filming coral, filming stingrays, that he was attacked, that it was an accident, on and on.
I trust the CNN versions more than the People Magazine or USA Today versions...but here's a few:
Steve Irwin's death clogs Web sites
and another:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-09-05-irwin-mourned_x.htm

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&ned=us&ie=utf-8&q=Steve-Irwin

And let's not forget an article on Stingrays:
http://www.potamotrygon.de/fremdes/stingray%20article.htm

Monday, September 4, 2006

Chai...Masala Chai

Chai means Tea in Hindi.
SO know that you sound like a dork ordering a Venti Chai Tea Latte...try to learn what the terms mean, okay?

Chai = Tea
Masala = Spice
Garam = Pungent/Hot/Fiery

A great site I found whilst trying to find a recipe for Masala Chai is a hindi translation page: http://www.wordanywhere.com/.

So anyway...
If you do a search for a chai recipe you will find about a thousand different versions...basically, it's black tea boiled with a combination of spices--usually cardamom, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves. Let's not forget some sugar/sweetness, to bring out the robustness of the spices...

Since it's all about taste, and everyone has a slightly different spice preference level, you pretty much are left with personal trial and error to get to a spicy chai you like...

As I brewed my chai today, TTK had to bail to the front yard to get away from the profuse aroma--he went into a severe headache reaction...when he tried my chai last week, his tummy got so upset he had to take Pepto.
To me, the house smells heavenly...

I think I used too much cardamom, though--it's easy to do since cardamom is so powerful if it's fresh.

Saturday, September 2, 2006

Interlude #42

Him: Ooooh, Titan has METHANE! Let's go there!