British to train sharks to performHi again, yahoos and yahoo-ettes. Nice to see you. We’re a couple of days late coming out this week and for that I do apologize. Northstar’s main computer crashed earlier in the week but thanks to a real dedicated technician (Nicholas) at RE PC here in Seattle and a couple of Metro bus drivers with an asbestos sense of humor, I had the unique experience of taking the computer for a green ride. During the hottest week of the year. I am sporting a tan and a profound appreciation for why this used computer chain has the outstanding reputation for customer service they do in this area.
Thanks to one of you, we also have the opportunity to weigh in on a bill that is particularly close to me because I know two women who died of breast cancer. Entitled The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act, it addresses “drive through” mastectomies and is designed to compel insurance companies to pay for a 48-hour hospital stay for this, among the most dramatic medical procedures the female of our species can undergo. Lifetime.com has an online petition supporting this legislation. It has in fact, in one form or another, been on the national women’s health care agenda for at least six years now. For more information and to register your support, please go here.
Well, I said last week that I loved the Australians for entertaining the world doing wonderfully weird things like rescuing drowning kangaroos from hungry sharks. Well, the good folks who brought us a ‘civilised’ Down Under to begin with have, in my opinion, topped that one.
According to The Daily Mail Online, The United Kingdom’s chain of aquariums, Sea Life Centres, are training sharks to take food from their keepers, roll over to have their bellies scratched, and otherwise entertain for the crowd. Apparently the attempt to do this has been going on for some while but they’ve come up with a new technique which U.S. research indicates should make these prehistoric submarine killing machines cute in about three months.
I might have known we had a hand in this somewhere. Only Yankee ingenuity could possibly come up with something this dumb. I think economic hard times must have something to do with it. Attendance at places like Sea World is probably down, right? So the feeling is, “Hey, lets show people that Jaws can actually be cute and entertaining. They’ll stampede to this show.” Yeah, right. Not on my flipping planet.
There’s got to be a conspiracy here with Geico and that room deordorizer outfit that uses a homemaker of one species and the “working hubby” of another to sell this little device that squirts aromatic mist into the room at set intervals. Has anyone ever smelled an octopus? There’s not a home deodorizer in the Universe that can mask the 'aroma' of one of those things.
Can you imagine living next door to a family of octopi around supper time? With the wind blowing in the wrong direction? You know what they eat, right? If not, you really don’t need to Google. It’s not information which is going to dramatically improve your looks, restore your hair or make you anymore politically astute than you already are.
The way I figure it, the Geico gecko at least had the benefit of being cute, polite and speaking with a cool accent. Having said that, with my luck, I’ll get two tickets to a Sea Life Centre and a tankside seat to the grand premier.
Tell you what. IF that happens, I’ll be selling them cheap. If I don’t get any takers, I’ll PAY someone to take them off my hands. As far as I’m concerned, the only way I’d ever consider a shark cute is if I was one. And then I’d probably be pretty particular about which of them I hung out with and stuff.
And yep, another bear made the news in the town of Issaquah, which is east of Seattle, across Lake Washington where the Cascade foothills begin. A lot of it is still heavily forested and for three years, a black bear has been co-existing with the local human population.
While familiarity may not always breed contempt, in some species, it does remove the fear of humans factor. And neighbors are getting tired of chasing this particular three-year-old female of that species out of their yards. I suspect that they’re also tired of that bear laughing at them and doing pretty much what it and thousands like it do anyway.
So when the State Wildlife folks came out to take care of the problem (trap and relocate), they held the bear in containment long enough to show it home videos of bears being hunted by dogs and humans firing guns at them.
It’s what’s called “a hard release” and it reminds me a little of those gory car accidents films we watched when I was learning how to drive. (Yep, back when the ignition key was a crank in front). Experts say this form of animal control has about an 85 percent success rate. I doubt seriously it’s because it scares bears, though. I think it’s just so painfully boring that NO self-respecting life form of any kind would voluntarily submit to that process again.
And finally for those who still insist that it always rains in Seattle and that our only real weather is soggy, check this out. We do, in fact, have a summer. Several of them. There’s a very private network of citizens who can actually predict with total accuracy when those bursts of sunshine and love will occur. And they’ll tell you. For a price. Have your people call my people and we’ll do lunch.
That’s it for this week, folks. Take care, stay well and once again, thanks for the ear.
Rusty
Thanks to one of you, we also have the opportunity to weigh in on a bill that is particularly close to me because I know two women who died of breast cancer. Entitled The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act, it addresses “drive through” mastectomies and is designed to compel insurance companies to pay for a 48-hour hospital stay for this, among the most dramatic medical procedures the female of our species can undergo. Lifetime.com has an online petition supporting this legislation. It has in fact, in one form or another, been on the national women’s health care agenda for at least six years now. For more information and to register your support, please go here.
Well, I said last week that I loved the Australians for entertaining the world doing wonderfully weird things like rescuing drowning kangaroos from hungry sharks. Well, the good folks who brought us a ‘civilised’ Down Under to begin with have, in my opinion, topped that one.
According to The Daily Mail Online, The United Kingdom’s chain of aquariums, Sea Life Centres, are training sharks to take food from their keepers, roll over to have their bellies scratched, and otherwise entertain for the crowd. Apparently the attempt to do this has been going on for some while but they’ve come up with a new technique which U.S. research indicates should make these prehistoric submarine killing machines cute in about three months.
I might have known we had a hand in this somewhere. Only Yankee ingenuity could possibly come up with something this dumb. I think economic hard times must have something to do with it. Attendance at places like Sea World is probably down, right? So the feeling is, “Hey, lets show people that Jaws can actually be cute and entertaining. They’ll stampede to this show.” Yeah, right. Not on my flipping planet.
There’s got to be a conspiracy here with Geico and that room deordorizer outfit that uses a homemaker of one species and the “working hubby” of another to sell this little device that squirts aromatic mist into the room at set intervals. Has anyone ever smelled an octopus? There’s not a home deodorizer in the Universe that can mask the 'aroma' of one of those things.
Can you imagine living next door to a family of octopi around supper time? With the wind blowing in the wrong direction? You know what they eat, right? If not, you really don’t need to Google. It’s not information which is going to dramatically improve your looks, restore your hair or make you anymore politically astute than you already are.
The way I figure it, the Geico gecko at least had the benefit of being cute, polite and speaking with a cool accent. Having said that, with my luck, I’ll get two tickets to a Sea Life Centre and a tankside seat to the grand premier.
Tell you what. IF that happens, I’ll be selling them cheap. If I don’t get any takers, I’ll PAY someone to take them off my hands. As far as I’m concerned, the only way I’d ever consider a shark cute is if I was one. And then I’d probably be pretty particular about which of them I hung out with and stuff.
And yep, another bear made the news in the town of Issaquah, which is east of Seattle, across Lake Washington where the Cascade foothills begin. A lot of it is still heavily forested and for three years, a black bear has been co-existing with the local human population.
While familiarity may not always breed contempt, in some species, it does remove the fear of humans factor. And neighbors are getting tired of chasing this particular three-year-old female of that species out of their yards. I suspect that they’re also tired of that bear laughing at them and doing pretty much what it and thousands like it do anyway.
So when the State Wildlife folks came out to take care of the problem (trap and relocate), they held the bear in containment long enough to show it home videos of bears being hunted by dogs and humans firing guns at them.
It’s what’s called “a hard release” and it reminds me a little of those gory car accidents films we watched when I was learning how to drive. (Yep, back when the ignition key was a crank in front). Experts say this form of animal control has about an 85 percent success rate. I doubt seriously it’s because it scares bears, though. I think it’s just so painfully boring that NO self-respecting life form of any kind would voluntarily submit to that process again.
And finally for those who still insist that it always rains in Seattle and that our only real weather is soggy, check this out. We do, in fact, have a summer. Several of them. There’s a very private network of citizens who can actually predict with total accuracy when those bursts of sunshine and love will occur. And they’ll tell you. For a price. Have your people call my people and we’ll do lunch.
That’s it for this week, folks. Take care, stay well and once again, thanks for the ear.
Rusty
2 comments:
Sorry, removed the comment because shark link in post didn't work but the one under the picture did. Thanks for the link for breast cancer site, I will check it out. Enjoy reading your blog, Rusty!
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