Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

This weekend while clearing some vines in the yard, we had to move a rock and found some eggs, which I believe belong to the ensatina eschscholtzii, a type of salamander found in the PNW. We put the rock back, so hopefully we didn’t disturb things. I haven’t seen a lot of amphibians or reptiles out here, a toad here and there, two garter snakes, and then a couple years ago some salamanders in up near Lake Sylvia. Pictures of the eggs are and other salamanders are below.

Salamanders at Lake Sylvia, WA

The video and photo at Lake Sylvia were taken circa June 2017.

“The Masque of the Red Death: A Fantasy” by Edgar Allen Poe, Graham’s Magazine (Philadelphia, PA), vol. XX, no. 5, May 1842, pp. 257-259

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I rewatched RoboCop (1987) with my wife not too long ago. Having grown up with the film and watched it countless times, it’s a film I admittedly have a hard time being objective about. After the fight with ED-209, my wife asked how much of the film was left, and was surprised we had a ways to go. Rightly, she pointed out that the plotting was uneven. This got me to thinking, the film is structured like a video game with 3 different “enemies” or “level bosses”. This isn’t to say the writers, producers, etc. had Castlevania and the ilk on their minds when penning the script, but a quick scan of the video games that came out in 1987 concurrent with the movie would suggest my own experience of it at the time would have not been unlike the games I was playing on Nintendo, Sega, and in the Arcade.

And for what it’s worth, Arrow Video’s reissue of the film is amazing.

Approximately 47 years ago, back in May of 2020, during the ‘early days’ of the pandemic, we had a bird strike. This was the most exciting thing that happened that week—most definitely the most exciting thing for the cats.

I noticed a small bird on our 2nd floor balcony. We called the local Dept. of Natural Resources, who informed us that we should let the bird sit for about an hour. They usually recover in that time period. If not, chances were slim that the bird would survive. They also gave us some locations we could take the bird to if it needed some sort of care, though the guy asked what type of bird it was. His reasoning was that if it was a nuisance species, whatever bird sanctuary we took it too would probably kill it. Merlin Bird identified it as a Brown Creeper.

We decided to let birdo sit on the deck, and sure enough, about an hour later, it started moving around. It hopped across the decking a bit, pooped, and then decided to scale the screen door. When it started to move, the cats noticed it. They lost it. It was quite humorous, as both cats wanted to get the bird, but when Neutron got too close to Alice, Alice would swat Neutron, and Neutron would get offended that she didn’t have unfettered access to the window to watch the bird.

The bird rested on the screen a bit, pooped again, and then flew off.

Sometimes it amazes me that one of the biggest rock and roll bands of all time, The Rolling Stones, on one of their definitive albums, Exile on Main St., released a song called Turd on the Run.

Turd on the Run…

I guess I should not be surprised that in the 48 years that have passed since that song was released, it has never been played live on tour.