They're Alive!

First, a little bit of backstory:

Last weekend was probably one of the worst in my life. It certainly holds no water (pun to be self-explanatory later) to the weekend where one of my best friends' life hung in the nether world betwixt life and death, but it came decently close enough to qualify.

We had gone to L.A. for the weekend to attend my best friend's mother's funeral. That, in itself, was devasting. En route, our rental car broke down on the edges of beautiful Buttonwillow. The gas station attendents were extremely nice; so were the Enterprise reps. But 4 hours in the middle of nowhere with a little stiff wind blowing will entice the bacteria in one's body to act up, which they did. The next day, both Bratworse and I were deep in misery. That very night, I spewed all over.

The drive home was relatively uneventful; however, as I opened our front door, instead of being greeted by a nice waterfall sound, we were greeted by angry buzzing noises that didn't sound muffled by water at all. We dashed in to find an empty 40-gallon tank with pumps and filter still running.

Luckily for us and unluckily for our next door neighbor, the water had run away from our unit into theirs. We paid for all the damages of course, but all the live rock were dead and so were the live sand, which was the most expensive investment we had put into the aquarium.

Not only that, but I figured the 50+ blue legged hermit crabs which I had purchased the week before (to help cycle the tank as well as provide nourishment for Ossie the Octopus) were goners for sure.

First three days after the trip, I hadn't the heart to work on the tank. Finally last night, I went and got buckets to put the live rock in, as well as the sand. After removing the rocks, I was about to start on the sand when I blinked and could've sworn I saw something moving among the sand. I blinked again and sure enough, little tiny movements could be seen.

Lo and behold! 20+ crabs survived the drying out of the tank. I scooped them up and threw them into Ossie's tiny tank hoping for the best. We observed Ossie hanging outside her den but not much more. Since she had inked and seemed shy after we had taken that flash photography, we're not anxious to put more stress on her. Hopefully, she likes her new temporary tank mates.

Ossie gets the snail

The following is a minute and a half movie of our octopus, Ossie. Please be patient, we're trying the embed command for the first time to see whether we should use it. But because we are using Geocities to host the movie, you may see just a question mark. Come back later and hopefully no one will have visited the site during the past hour. Actually, it's more than likely no one will have visited in the past hour LOL.

Well, our Geocities experiment failed. Therefore, we moved it to YouTube but the quality of the video has dropped considerably since it's now a flash animation. Still, you can see Ossie, especially in the latter half of the movie.



Enjoy!

Ever Notice...

... That it's becoming common-place on print ads, internet ads and on television/movies to see a white man with a different colored woman,

but you RARELY get to see a different colored man with a white woman?

I just saw an internet ad showing an asian woman with a white man asking "Good match?"

Quick, name the last time you saw on a screen, a couple consisting of an Asian man with a white woman; or a black man with a white woman; or an hispanic man with a white woman.

Time's up. Did you think of one? I couldn't, even though in my family alone, there's been more males marrying whites than the reverse.

Isn't She Beautiful?

Here's a picture of Ossie the Octopus in full color.
Click on photo to enlarge.

Lost Judas Gospel in National Geographic

I am having WAAAAAY too much fun reading the forums for this article.

1) I am a former christian, who finally had it with the inconsistencies;
2) I am also a self-taught scholar of the Gospel times, choosing to focus on the area communities, that is the Romans and the Jews; and
3) I understand the mindsets of the two communities clashing on the boards only too well.

Let me explain. In a short time, National Geographic will publish an article giving what translation they could get from 1,000 pieces of parchment which had originally contained the Gospel of Judas. This will contain the head-exploding tidbits of details like Judas actually had the blessing of Jesus. (Which, honestly speaking, was hinted at when in the Gospel of John, that Jesus told Judas something like, go do what you have to do and THIS was one of the inconsistencies I couldn't deal with)

Because of the three facts above, I scurried over to the forums as soon as I realized there were forums, and delved into my first one. I am having a HOOT!


In one corner, we have the people whose world-view would somehow collapse if anyone ever had a dissenting thought. We call them fanatics. We call one of them George Bush but I digress.

In another corner, we have the ones who research everything (I happen to fall into this group). We call them the logicians. Or the faithless.

In yet another corner, we have the people who are feelers. They're the ones who have no research to back them up, but they *could* see where this gospel came from because they'd always felt in their heart of hearts, no one could betray the Good Master. Of course it had to be consentual! Feel gooders.

On the third page, I noticed a back corner... the pick-upers. The women seemed to put their first names, the men included an authentic looking email. By the fourth page, I was falling over laughing realizing I had stumbled upon the virtual equivalent of the "going to church to find me a date."

BTW, I work with a bunch of white guys. Out of the ones who've come and gone, about 30% told me they went to church to meet a prospective bride and after they got married they stopped going to church. About 30% still went to church and the other 40% hasn't said anything. Makes you wonder, eh?

Anyway, hope you enjoy the fireworks as much as I do. Me? I still subscribe to my personal theory that Jesus didn't get resurrected at the cross, that Satan did and showed himself to the disciples at the tomb. All he had to do was show up a few more times (if you believe Acts) and the snowball got rolling. Bet I'll get flamed for that one.

And yes yes, I know I'm going to hell. Wasn't it predetermined from you guys that I was unsavable unless I give up sex? Since it's predetermined anyway, why shouldn't I just screw up more? See, this was another illogical point that couldn't be resolved. The inability to count days was another. HOW is there 3 days between Good Friday and Easter?

One day I'll write about the inconsistencies and illogic of the Christian belief/Bible.

OH! That reminds me, that was ANOTHER thing I was having fun with. See, most logicians don't come from a faith background. Therefore, to them, because Catholics are the biggest sect, they reference "the church" or "the pope" as if it applies to all Christians. But the truth is, Christianity is as diverse today as it was back during the days of the Gnostics. And most Americans aren't Catholic even if they might be the majority group. The Protestants as a whole outnumber the Catholics. That's more people not believing in papal power than believing. Therefore by referencing the Catholic Church, your post automatically gets put into the "bunk" pile.

Double OH! Yet another thing I was having fun with was seeing the Mormon Church get slapped around. To a mainstream protestant (from Lutheran to Methodist to Catholics to Baptists), the Mormon Church is akin to devil worship. Nevermind that it's the richest church in America AND it's among the fastest growing.

Anyway, can you tell I'm THOROUGHLY enjoying this? Taa! Back to reading the forum for me.

Your Republican Party...

Oh yeah, the party of values:

• a Majority Leader who's under investigation for bribery, who's two former aides and possibly a third has already pled guilty to charges of bribery
• a U.S. Domestic Policy Advisor arrested for STEALING FROM TARGET
• a Top Gun who gets convicted for taking bribes and mind you, this is the guy who proposed to Congress that flag-burning should be illegal
• a U.S. representative of Ohio lying on her resume, and mind you, this is the gal who called Murtha a coward
• A Homeland Security Press Secretary who tries to seduce a 14-yr old girl over the internet

Oh and there's more, I just can't think of any more. And all these just within the past 3 months.

And these guys have the friggin gall to tell me, MY lifestyle causes harm? That if I get married to Bratworse, I will cause the downfall of the sanctity of marriage?

Give me a friggin break! As if there's any things left sacred to them. Please! 14 year old girls? Stealing from Target? Sheesh! At least steal from Walmart. That would at least give you SOME redeeming qualities.