Here and There

Here.

Ways to help here.

Thx: David

Okay, okay. Today has been a good one.

Thx: Tara and Cute Overload

It was a matter of time … Yes We Can Has has arrived.

Some may deem me deprived, but one of the top five best things in life is when I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing, and my dog comes over and says hi.

Hi, Gida.

In the 1970s, the seemingly never-ending war in Vietnam begat race riots, draft dodging, the Hippie movement, student uprisings, the sexual revolution, and more. It expedited feminism and civil rights, and changed music, fashion, and even the political landscape (and, I’m willing to guess, food, art, architecture, and flower arranging, to name a few).

Fast-forward 30 years, and the moral morass, the lethargy and indifference, the deep-seeded need for distraction caused by the seemingly endless war in Iraq has given us … lolcats.*

* Disclaimer: I’m in no way pretending that lolcats are a new phenomenon. Nor am I pretending the my ~April 2007 introduction to them was on the cusp of their popularity. I just woke up today and realized I’ve yet to chime in on them. Enjoy.

Super-ultra-uber-cool stuff about a primitive form of communication, from The New York Times.

* My mom, fresh from a trip to Denali National Park, informed me very matter-of-factly the other night that “reindeer and caribou are the same animal.” Whoa, wait right there. When you say, “animal,” do you mean species, mom? “Well, the way it was explained to us was, a caribou is a nondomesticated reindeer.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, reindeer are domesticated? Reindeer actually exist? “Look it up. I’m just the messenger.”

Sure enough, when you wiki “caribou,” you’re lead to the entry for “reindeer,” whereupon you’re informed that they are members of the same family, and that, yes, mom, reindeer are domesticated caribou. Moose are members of the Cervidae family as well.

Here’s the rub, though: deer deer (think Bambi) is composed of the entire family Cervidae, which includes brockets, pudus, reindeer/caribou, and moose. Wow.

* I recall hearing something about this before (maybe on my parents’ last visit, as they love to tout all things Texas), but Fort Worth, my hometown, is experiencing a boom these days thanks largely to the discovery of natural gas in something called the Barnett Shale formation, which the city was built atop. Apparently the discovery, coupled with a rather new ability to drill horizontally, is making a lot of Texans rich.

* The theme here is “Mom Told Me So.” Last night over drinks at the splendorous San Francisco Hyatt, she told me about some catholic-priest-marriage-loophole, wherein a married Episcopalian minister can convert to Catholicism and stay married!!!

It’s a tough one to verify, but here are some clues.

* Courtesy daring fireball, the itso. (love it)

* I grew up wondering exactly what “gig ‘em” meant, in the sense of the Texas A&M sports slogan, “Gig ‘em, Aggies.” Mom did the favor of explaining, by way of dropping a “TCU rules” reference in there, that the term was coined during a football game between A&M and TCU, in which Aggie fans told their team to “gig ‘em,” a reference to a method of killing frogs. Yes, TCU’s mascot is the frogs.

* Sorry to incur another sports reference here, but I also learned the origin of the name of my college’s mascot, Bevo. Wiki dispels what was discussed last night, that some time way back University of Texas mascot (a longhorn bull) was stolen by students of the then-named Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. He was branded “13-0,” which was the score by which A&M beat UT years before. UT students then got the longhorn bull back and changed the brand to “Bevo.” Crazy? Dumb? Yes, yet I’m interested.

No matter how bad the crime, seems like there’s always some jackoff around who’ll supply the world statements such as this, from Michael Vick’s lawyer, responding to Vick’s plea of guilty today in hope of receiving a reduced sentence for raising and killing fighting dogs:

“Watching Michael Vick go through this, even for a lawyer with my experience on these types of cases, is very painful,” Billy Martin, one of his defense lawyers, said in a telephone interview. “We find a young man in a predicament that should never have happened.

Watching Vick go through this? Give me a fucking break.

— photo courtesy of Tara, expressionist photographer

Don’t be alarmed, but there’s a big, gaping hole in the otherwise ubiquitous internet.

Hold on to something, for you’re about to learn what this breach is …

Photos of dogs yawning.

I mean, there’s this pathetic attempt, which you get when you type “dogsyawning.com” into a smart browser. And as always, a google image search renders satisfactory results. But where is the dogs-yawning equivalent of icanhascheezburger? I mean, for serious ….

Oh, and here’s the reason for this post:

I’ve never really had a big problem with pigeons. The debate abounds, everywhere. Every city I’ve lived in, I’ve run into people who can’t stand the sight of the animals, dead, alive, or in fecal form.

But recently, the anti-pigeon netting on my house went out, and a group of the creatures has begun to nest up on a ledge about 10 feet above my door. First I noticed the area just outside the door covered in their poop. Then it went away.

Now it’s back with a vengeance.

But …

The reason for this post has as much to do with my dietary habits as it does the degradation of my domicile.

I tend to get into ruts with what I eat. For the last few months, I’ve had two chicken tacos from the same taquería just about every day. For dinner, I’m on a streak of turkey sandwiches from the same deli near work.

Lately, though, with the pigeon infestation, and consequent repulsive smell just outside my house, I’ve had to swear off all forms of poultry. I’ve just got too strong an associative mind. I eat chicken, and no matter how well-asada’d, I taste pigeon. Ditto the turkey sandwiches.

It’s a sad story. I’ll keep you all posted on my reintroduction to poultry. Until then, it’s vegetarian burritos and tuna sandwiches (on light rye, of course).

Maybe.

Scientists have discovered a single gene responsible for the greatest size variance found in any species of mammal. Behold, the dog … small and ferocious. Large and timid. And everything in between.