The Maltese Scorpion

You may remember from a previous post that I was looking for a new pet. My friend Jon came down to Gainesville this weekend for the local Reptile Show, as he is breeding snakes and had some up for sale.

I have no issues with snakes, but did want a pet that was slightly exotic that few people had. Unfortunately, the hedgehogs were $200, albeit adorable.

I decided to go with the Emperor Scorpion which at $6 is very affordable and only requires a $10 10 gallon tank. They can sting you, which is said to be similar to a bee sting, but only if you really tick them off. Also, they do have the claws, but they don't really seem to use them except for catching food.

I've decided to name her Malta, because it's a cool name. If I can figure out how to get pictures from my camera onto here, I will eventually post some.

Welcome to the household Malta!

Don't Stop til You Get Enough

Video Game Art is one of my favoritest things in the whole universe, and I would kill to have a beast like this on my walls.

If you're a big fan of Duck Hunt, take a look at this interesting take as well.

Triple Crown of Stud

Heavy news day today-- deaths in the threes, lots of NBA trades, and a crazy Supreme Court strip search case.

As a poker player though, the most interesting for me was professional player Jeffrey Lisandro winning his third bracelet of the 2009 World Series of Poker. He won the Seven Card Stud event, the Seven Card Stud Eight or Better Event, and finally the Razz event, to complete a trifecta of Stud games.

Because Seven Card Stud isn't a very popular poker game any longer, this will mostly go unnoticed. It's also worth noting that only one other person has won three bracelets in one year, the amazing Phil Ivey.

Congratulations Jeff!

Alice and Kev

I've broken down and bought Sims 3, the first Sims game I've ever played. And the reason is entirely this blog, the story of Alice and Kev. Here's the premise, excerpted directly from the site:

"Welcome to the tale of Alice and Kev.

This is an experiment in playing a homeless family in The Sims 3. I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over."

The characters I've created to play this game with aren't quite as fabulous, but I'm only just getting started.

I want a new pet

It's time for a new pet. Ever since Mrowatamos went to the great gig in the sky last year, I've wanted something new. I think some fish or a scorpion or a snake or something would be great.

I really wish these mudkips were around, but apparently they are very difficult to catch.

Tattoo you

Charissa says that we should get matching tattoos to commemorate our friendship. I'm the needle hating, anti-body art type.

I think my body is plenty a work of art as it is!

This Cracked article on what your tattoo says about you is extremely amusing. Read it before you get that tattoo!

A Circus of Nietzschean proportions

The Nietzsche Family Circus combines German existentialism with sickly sweet Family Circus cartoons to create a wondrous mishmash.

I would vote for all of them

What if all the presidents had been pandas?

Thankfully, Alexander Barrett used his artistic license to depict all 44 presidents as Pandas.

That's Pandadore Pandavelt pictured.

Vive la Différence!

The first in what I desperately hope is an ongoing series of kick-ass tattoos.


(via)

Yes We can

It's a Blast!

I haven't seen these in person, but I'm assuming that they're large enough to carry your boombox in. Hence they are more than boombox-shaped totes -- they are more like boombox COZIES. Something you didn't realize you needed until you saw it.

And now? I'm sure you can't live without it.

Large Ghetto Blaster Bag

Binging Bastards

Those copycat coattail riding such and suchs over at Microsoft created a new search engine, Bing, which I refuse to link to.

Imagine my surprise when this wondrous site Toucan Plan does not show up at all when searching for Toucan Plan.

I wrote them to complain, and let's see what they will say. I feel like a grouchy old man.

Tales of the Monk Fish

I am endlessly fascinated by the simple concept that there are so many lifeforms existing on this planet at the same time as myself, carrying out their own distinct and unique lives. It's especially disorienting to catch such a brief glimpse of a person, a creature, a plant, carrying out its existence, completely devoid of context.

Here is a monk fish, caught for only a minute or so on camera, looking almost wholly other and yet also clearly one of us.

Hey! Come Over!

What makes me saddest of all, looking at this photo I took of a post on the bulletin board at the William Temple House a few months ago, is that I didn't call this number.

Toucan Totem

A totem is a spirit or entity that watches over a group of people, not just one person, typically a family or a tribe. The totem is typically represented by an animal.

When Charissa suggested the name "Toucan Plan", it immediately resonated with me somehow. Not just the clever wordplay with the Two can plan, but also the image of the Toucan--

Toucans are highly prized in advertising and such because they're so beautiful- (just look at that tongue, it's amazing!)

Toucans are also some of the loudest birds in the forest-- their calls can be heard for half a mile. Their spirit represents sound, communication, speech. Proper words in the proper places, and all that jazz.

But, the toucan can also be unpredictable, and do what they want when they want to. (This is me, to a tee) Also, in some areas, toucans are associated with evil spirits and said to be the reincarnation of demons.


I was first drawn to toucans when going to Walt Disney World and visiting Tropical Serenade (it's since been rennamed the Enchanted Tiki Room)

While I don't remember ever going into the attraction, there were toucans outside that would talk to anyone standing nearby. I was fascinated by the animatronic birds, and would just stand and listen. On and on they would go, yak yak yak.

There are a lot of animal spirits guiding my thoughts and actions, but the toucan is becoming prevalenter and prevalenter.

Whereever they may roam

Believe it or not, this is a grammatically correct English sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

It was discovered/invented in 1972 by University of Buffalo linguist William
J. Rapaport. It means "Buffalo from the city of Buffalo that are intimidated
by other buffalo from the city of Buffalo themselves intimidate a third group of buffalo, also from Buffalo." From here.

Twenty Five years of Tetris

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the great video game Tetris. Even Google got in on the act, posting a sweet image.

Those Russians are very good at falling blocks, vodka and that spinning piledriver maneuever.

The fabled crunchberry tree

A woman actually sued Cap'n Crunch saying she was misled into thinking crunchberries were real fruits.

While I imagine a land with crunchberry trees would be a magical, enchanted place, even I find this one pretty ridiculous.

A trial where Cap'n Crunch has to show up, and brings in Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger and that Cookie Crisp criminal in as his witnesses would be pretty awesome however.

Phil Ivey is the stone cold nuts

Phil Ivey, my favorite poker player, won his sixth World Series of Poker bracelet in the no limit deuce to seven lowball event Thursday night.

The prize money was $96,000, but that money meant relatively little to him, as he had prop bets out on him winning a bracelet-- he won at least $3 million in prop bets from the winning.

The picture shows here he took his 96k winnings and sat it on the floor. Reports said he tipped the whole 96k to the dealers, but this is unconfirmed as of this moment.

Congratulations Phil!

Shrinky dink, manic gigantic

If you have a shrinking ray and a gigantic ray and you shoot them both at each other at the same time, what would happen?



A. Nothing, they would cancel each other out
B. The shrinking ray would turn gigantic, and the gigantic ray would shrink
C. The world would explode
D. Some other, offbeat answer