Quarantine entry #40 - April 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, COVID-19 or not. It’s raining today, so we got to stay inside, and on the DA – which itself is supposed to end at the end of May, aka within four to five weeks – I found a comic about a South Andean deer named Awka and her friends.

…From what I could understand, the South Andean deer are disorganized and scattered, at a disadvantage from the introduced red deer, (better known in North America as the wapiti), who are staying together and who have blocked-off some of the South Andean deer migratory routes and don’t let them pass. Balrog and Gandalf the Grey so understand – been there, done that, ripped the mountains of Moria asunder – where were we?

Ah yes, the deer wars. Some of Awka’s family are trapped on the other side of the red deer blockade and cannot get through – supposedly, because we are never introduced to them at all. Instead, we get flashbacks and the like, as Awka messes with the red deer herd by being the absolute worst. Pause.

Here is the thing. In AoS, (especially the initial seasons), in ‘Frozen 2’, in ‘Trolls 2’ and the like we are introduced to the idea that there are few to none deliberate villains, mostly people that misunderstand and the like. That is nothing new, even the Old Norse, (and I am not talking MCU here), had a saying that amounted to, like, ‘Even a hero had their flaw and a villain isn’t all bad’. That is realistic enough, but when we are dealing with a movie that has a magical snowman (on top of many Norse mythical monsters), or a comic that features talking deer, realism isn’t up there, is it? Tolkien’s LotR trilogy, in particular, was really clear-cut – there are the bad guys, and here are the good guys, no one is in the middle…and there are racist overtones, even though his fanbase, (such as David Day), try to deny it.

By contrast, Mr. Martin’s ASOIAF series never really has purely good or evil characters, (let us leave Brienne out of it). As a result, both in GoT and in the novels, ASOIAF became something of a morass to wade through, as alliances are made and broken, everyone is soldering on – and the unquestionably evil Night King, a fusion of Sauron and the Witch-King of Angmar, (aka the Nazgul #1), is leading an army of White Walkers and the Walking Death onto the living. To Mr. Martin, it seems, humanity is a morass – but we’ll have to hope that in his final books, he’ll show how Westeros defeats the Night King – if they defeat him; plus the GoT version was extremely dissatisfying to its’ fanbase, but we’ve talked about this before… Back to Awka?

…With Awka and the rest of her South American comic, it is the same thing – the author/illustrator is doing their best to depict everyone as well-rounded characters, and as a result, it is extremely hard to root for Awka sometimes, and she is still the main character.

Pause. Modern mass media, such as comics, TV series and movies may try to get rid of outright evil (and outright good?) characters, but that will never happen, because not all characters are equal and because conflict, (outright or otherwise) is still the main plot motor, so good & evil are still a part of media world, and for main characters in any fictional plot, they are especially important; I’m not sure if I’ll be rooting for Awka to succeed or even continuing to follow the comic, but I felt that the above had to be said. What else?

…I confess that I wanted to talk to you about bison today. Why? Because of yaks. You see, there are two species in the bison genus – the American bison that most people know, and the European bison, aka the wisent. The two species of bison are related to each other, naturally, but they look quite different from each other, and the scientists have established that proportionally, the American bison is more closely related to the yaks than to their European relatives.

To elaborate, the ancestral bison species were Eurasian rather than American animals. Then, as they began to go west during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, they interbred with the yak ancestors and split, eventually, into two species, the American and the European. The American bison consists of several subspecies; the European bison – of only one, (the rest were killed off by humans), but this is how the cookie crumbles; the American bison is more closely related to the yak than to the European bison. Bet you that MLP: FiM, which featured both the American bison, (wrongly called buffalo – both bison and buffalo may be bovine mammals, but they are not closely related to each other within the group), and yaks, did not tell you this!..

…Well, I guess that this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #39 - April 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks and family is annoying, to put it lightly. In addition, there is more new info about our main man Spinosaurus – this dino really was the first truly aquatic dinosaur, (one that is known to human science, anyhow): not even a wading bird, more like a sail-backed crocodile instead.

Pause. Is there anything else than can be said about this prehistoric reptile? By now, Spinosaurus is about as popular as T-Rex is; the two reptiles are often compared and contrasted, and the JP3 film opened a can of worms, at least for a while, when Spinosaurus had killed T-Rex in a dino face-off. The JP fanbase has never been the same again, and the first JW film tried to address this issue – sort of – by having Rexy smash through a Spinosaurus skeleton and then the entire T-Rex vs. I-Rex vs. velociraptor pack fight, but that wasn’t the same, and not just because the I-Rex was a glorified carnosaur instead. (Think Carcharodontosaurus from ‘Planet Dinosaur’ as an example). Spinosaurus was a very different theropod dinosaur from Carcharodontosaurus and the other carnosaurs, that was quite obvious from the start, so it and the I-Rex do not have much in common either. What next?

The JP franchise has become more inconsistent with its’ reboot, and the second JW movie hadn’t had too much in common with the first; it was more of a reboot instead, so there’s that, and no Spinosaurus. It had a Spinosaurus cousin in one of the scenes, a Baryonyx or a Suchomimus, but it was a minor, episodic character, and so it did not play any important role at all, especially in the second half of the film, when the Indoraptor was introduced. I will say it again: the second JW movie was made out of scripts for two films – one about the end of the Dinosaur Island, (it culminated with the Brachiosaurus scene), and the second one about the Evil E’s dino mansion and the Indoraptor, which was too anthropomorphic for my tastes. Ah well, the third JW film is being delayed, as are the rest of the films, we will just have to wait and see what will come of it, so for now, I suppose, we need to return to the real life, and-?

And nothing. Apparently, Trudeau’s mother was hospitalized not because of COVID-19, but because of an apartment fire. That is fair, especially since comrade Kim’s medical troubles have started not because of COVID-19 either, so Ms. Trudeau Sr. may not be out of the woods yet. What next?

…I honestly wanted to talk about antelopes this time, but speaking of being out of the woods? It is very hard to talk about them – there are 91 species of mammals named ‘antelopes’, which live in Africa and Asia; if they live somewhere else, like the pronghorn in North America or the chamois in Europe, then they aren’t ‘true antelopes’ at all, but are their relatives. That said, all of the bovid ruminants that are not cattle, (like the yaks and the zebu that we have discussed earlier), or sheep and goats, (think mountain goats and bighorn sheep, for example), are antelopes instead.

The antelopes are a mixed bunch on their own. There are dwarf species, such as the royal antelope and the duikers. There are gazelles, such as the blackbuck and the springbok. (The impala belongs to its’ own genus and is somewhat unique, even by antelope standards). There are really big species, like the nyalas and the elands, which are animals that are big and strong enough to stand-up to the lion. There are the wildebeests, and the bontebooks, and the Asian species, such as the nilgai and the four-horned antelopes, and there are plenty of unique-looking species too, such as the gerenuk and the saiga. In short, the antelope animal group is varied and confusing, and not even the Wikipedia, who likes to poke around this sort of confusing info, wants to touch them – but then again, true nature is varied, confusing, and unpredictable: just look at how Spinosaurus has turned out to be, or at the coronavirus-19, as examples!

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #38 - April 28

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just look at the PM Trudeau, whose wife may have recovered from COVID-19 by now, and whose mother has just been diagnosed with it. Harsh, man! Real life is never pleasant, but, still, on the other hand, more people in the news are talking about the middle of May, (aka the next month) as the end of the lockdown/quarantine/self-isolation/etc. Will be interesting to see as to what will come down then. (In some news, the state of Texas intends to its’ self-isolation next week, aka the first week of May, but we will see if anything will come out of it.)

…In other news, no one is still certain if anything has happened to the great steersman, comrade Kim, the leader of North Korea, and no one is more worried than the south Koreans, since if anything goes wrong in the north, it will reach them first, whether it’s COVID-19, some sort of a North Korean civil war, or what else have you. The Chinese have already sent a medical team to North Korea, but so far there’s no information as to what has happened to them, because of course not.

Back in the U.S., people are continuing to fight with each other – see above, so everything is as usual. Ergo, here is a piece of my original fiction, this time – a MLP: FiM fic, because of yesterday’s discussion about the wild bovids, (maybe we will return to them later).

Enjoy:

"I must say, I must say," Rarity was telling Tempest Shadow now that the entire mess with the Shadow King was practically behind them, "your behavior in relation to that reject Yeti was quite wrong by Equestria's standards-"

"I know, I know," the morally ambiguous unicorn agreed, "it's just that since I found myself - as a filly - to be some sort of a variant Earth pony, I have handled it really badly-"

"Hm, you're rude, but you have a point," Rarity agreed, as she used her own magic to levitate Applejack's hat onto Tempest Shadow's head. "You do look like an Earth pony now under right circumstances-"

"Excuse me, Rarity," Applejack channeled her inner element of Honesty, "but this is my family's hat-"

"Yes, dear, but as the element of Generosity I just have to-"

As the Earth pony and the unicorn's conversation degraded into an argument of some sort, Tempest Shadow sheepishly looked at Rainbow Dash. "This, this, this," she muttered to the Pegasus. "I didn't mean for their discussion to go in this direction-"

"Meh, you're rude, but they're just being Rarity and AJ," Rainbow Dash replied dismissively, as she shoved the elements of Honesty and Generosity into a nearby closet. "This is just their public displays of affection. They are decisively above PG-13 rating, so out of the public eye they go!" She took a deep breath and looked around. Pinkie Pie was sitting alongside Gorthaur, (who should not have been in this story, but somehow snuck into it anyways) and examining the remaining bits and pieces of the Storm King's magics. On the other hoof, (but at the same time), the alicorn princess Twilight Sparkle was talking to a couple of out-of-Equestria tourists, (who got caught in the Storm King's takeover), wild cattle of some sort, (though not bison or yaks). The couple's teenage daughter was talking to Fluttershy about Equestria, and while the buttery-yellow Pegasus was somewhat uncomfortable in talking to a stranger, the other female was slowly winning her over.

"They're gayal, or mithung," Tempest Shadow, who was more travelled than the Mane 6 were, explained to the rainbow-maned (and tailed) Pegasus. "I think that they are related to the buffalo or something."

"Mmm," Rainbow Dash nodded sagely. "Got it. I just still think that we're missing someone-"

"Will someone break the spell upon us already!" the still-petrified princesses Celesia, Luna and Cadence called-out - telepathically - within their prison/display chamber, but no one was within reach...

The end?

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon. All comments and criticisms are welcome!

Quarantine entry #37 - April 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but people are gradually beginning to shift away from the lockdown/quarantine/isolation/etc. Well, not ‘people’ as in ‘private individuals’, more as in ‘public institutions’ and ‘governments’ and the like. There is a lot of arguing about this, both pro and contra, but the tide is moving, no doubt about it. Even in best of situations, a lockdown is a part-time solution, because no one can hide forever, and, well, not everyone wants to. Things are beginning to come to… something, but what it will be, is anyone’s guess. What next?

Well, today I wanted to talk about the yaks. Yes, we’re talking about the mountain cousins of the common cattle, and-

Taxonomy first. I.e., the domestic and the wild yaks may look similar enough, especially to a layperson, but scientists established that by now they are two different species instead.

The evolution of the yak is rather convoluted as well; it can hybridize with the common cattle; the males are infertile slash sterile, but the females are not. Moreover, the yaks can hybridize with the American bison, gaur and banteng – and the latter two are worth a special notice, because the banteng is a domesticated cousin of the gaur, which might be the biggest species of wild cattle in tropical Asia, a beast big, strong and heavy enough to stand up even to the tiger.

…As for the yak evolution, it seems that the yak – we are talking about the wild yak, the domesticated species came later – is more closely related to the bison rather than to the domestic cattle (and maybe its’ cousin, the now-extinct aurochs), from which it had diverged anywhen from one to five million years ago. What next?

On one hand, there are many colored variations of the domestic yak, as opposed to the well-known black – there are even white yaks, (and you can find their pictures on the Internet). On the other hand, the yaks played an important role in the last few seasons of MLP: FiM, now ended, but that merits a special mention as well.

See, the ‘student 6’ of MLP: FiM embodied racial variety and interracial cooperation, which proved to be important in the series’ finale. Yes, CG (and her cohorts, maybe), embodied racism on the show, (sort of), but it worked. By ‘worked’, I meant that she got to be a good villain, and as for her fate… well, with the conclusion of the series the franchise is getting rebooted and revamped, which includes – the ‘Equestria Girls’ series. In it, the more human counterparts to the mainline little ponies are beginning to aim at teens, whereas the original series – more at prepubescent children, especially of the female gender…at least that was the initial target audience. Somehow, over the years and the seasons, the MLP: FiM franchise grew into something else, and it will continue to grow as years and seasons go by… hopefully, COVID-19 or no. (Cough, Comic-con 2020 cancelled, cough). Is it a good reason to be optimistic? Normally not, but at this day and age, given that real life sucks more than it normally does, any port in a storm and all that.

…As for the yaks… yeah, I do not know why the franchise decided to include them, especially since they had the American bison already… there are also the European bison aka the wisent, and both species consist of several subspecies. Neither species is particularly flourishing, but the American bison is proportionally better off than its’ wisent cousin is; as for the wild yak, right now, its’ status is ‘vulnerable’; I suppose that that’s fair, given how poorly some of the other species of wild cattle have fared, (cough, the aurochs is extinct, cough)…

Well, this is enough for now, I reckon. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #36 - April 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. At least April is almost over, and, hopefully, the lockdown will not last for the entirety of May as well. People are getting fed-up with the lockdown/quarantine/(self-)isolation/etc. all over the world, and things are changing, because humans are political animals, and a civil uprising, (cough, Russia in 1917, cough), is disliked by everyone. No one knows what will go on during the rest of April, let alone next month, just look at comrade Kim-

Pause. No one knows still what has happened to North Korea’s leader – is he still alive or is he dead? By ‘alive’ I mean ‘alive, but comatose’. His sister is set to inherit, (unless China interferes or something), the North Korean throne, (or whatever it is called), and the rest of North Korea’s leadership isn’t too thrilled about it, but what can you do? Surrender to China, or to U.S. (via one of its local proxies)? Yeah, there is a proverb about choosing between rotting apples for a reason-

Pause. Yes, the Donald has also done his share, by messing the relationship between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in the first four years of his presidency, and that was before the COVID-19. Now, with everything on the lockdown, now so is not the time for risky political overtures at all. Not even the Donald himself is doing them, and speaking of him…

Well, rather, I am speaking of the election-2020. By everything proper, Sanders should have won, but, a), not even Democrats themselves want Sanders to win (because reasons), and b), they do not want to win elections-2020 period, especially now, with COVID-19 on the loose. Therefore, instead, they got Biden to be their leader, and he is going to safely lose to the Donald, because the Republicans do not want Biden to win; they do not want the Democrats to win because obvious reasons, and unless the Donald does something exceptionally stupid, he is going to win.

...Yes, it is not too out there to presume that he might just decide to quit and not participate in the elections-2020, saying that he had 4 years of being on the very top of the U.S. society is enough for him. Pause.

Yes, this is possible, (and might be the best way out of this way for him, and for the rest of the U.S.A., cough), but not very likely because the Donald is clearly expecting to extract everything from his presidency to the max. What this will amount to in real life, to the American society and beyond, is anyone’s guess. Anything else?

Well, I wanted to talk about something different after my latest original story, regarding the whales and co., but so far, I got nothing. I mean, there is the so-called X-ray tetra, a semi-obscure semi-familiar aquarium fish from South America, but it is too specialized a topic to talk about – my blog is not about the aquarium fishes, sadly.

On the other hand, what else there is to talk about? How COVID-19 will destroy globalization? It will not. It just will not be as utopic as it was during the late 1990s and the early 2000s at best, but that is the U.S. fault. It tried its’ best to make a utopia, and it has failed, as all utopias do, once they pass the bonds of realism. COVID-19 put everything on hold, metaphorically speaking, on the international level, and within the national level everything is breaking down and everyone is dying-

Okay, this is my bad. Not everyone is dying, thank God, but the internal infrastructures of many countries is also in trouble and as such, any international overtures are not very likely, alas. The proverbs say – since we have mentioned them earlier – that nothing is eternal under the sun, everything must end, and so the American World, Pax Americana, must end us well, no matter how good it promised to be, and how promising its’ run had been. The American Dream will endure, though, because dreams always do, and they always come back. That is why they are dreams.

…Well, this is it for now, I reckon. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #35 - April 25

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and your family is often ensuring that you feel worse on top of anything more vague and indirect. The good news that Ford, at least, seems to be intent on thawing the U.S.-Canada border interactions in May…whatever that means; I’m being cautiously realistic, and suspecting that nothing will come out of this until the middle of the next month, (i.e. we got another couple of weeks of lockdown/quarantine left at least), but what can’t be cured must be endured… unless you’re like G.W., who did something else, and now the situation is worse… on a local level… in Nova Scotia… at least. Now what?

Here is another piece of original fiction, that is what. What do you think, anyhow?

Once upon a time, there lived a merrow in the northern sea, and she had a mermaid cousin, with whom she did not get along.

“How will I ever get myself a handsome fisherman, if you are scaring them all away?” She would ask when the two would meet... occasionally. As far as the two cousins went, the mermaid was the more feral one, and both cousins knew this. Thus, the mermaid was dismissive of her cousin, until she was not.

“You’re lonely?” She suddenly asked during one such occasion, starting them both, if truth were told - the lives of the two cousins rarely crossed and they had nothing to talk about... usually. “Fine. Go to the Whale bay tomorrow - there you’ll meet someone, I’m certain,” she muttered, and with a flick of her tail, she was gone.

The merrow thought this over: she and her cousin didn’t get along, but nothing more, so why not to follow her advice? Plus, there were no bad rumours about the Whale bay, just some odd ones, and so the merrow decided to cooperate, and swam to the Whale bay to reach it by tomorrow...

...As far as the two cousins went, the mermaid was faster, but the merrow had more endurance, and so she had no problems in reaching the Whale bay by the designated time. What she found there was a large but obscure bay, rocky and out of the way, which provided shelter from both sea storms and prying eyes. “A girl could enjoy living here,” she muttered to herself.

“Glad that you approve,” someone sarcastically muttered, and the merrow was grabbed, unceremoniously, across her waist. “Kara, I told you- wait. You’re not her.”

“...” A merrow is stronger than how they look, when compared to humans; right now, our heroine was grabbed by a very large sea troll, and wisely said nothing, she just made some vague noises, lest the troll ripped her in two.

“Crossbones.” It was Kara and her partner, a merman of her own species. “Behave. This is Kara’s estranged cousin, and we’re in a special place.”

“Fine,” the sea troll reluctantly muttered, as he left the merrow go. The latter was not done herself, (her cousin set her up with a sea troll, really?), when she felt something big move through the water and decided to cooperate. This was the right choice, for thus she got a prime spot to observe the whales arrive, for this was their birthing ground, (hence the bay’s name, you know!).

For some time the foursome observed the semi-sacred event, (except for krakens and their kin, most sea-dwellers hold the whales in high regard for their strength and wisdom), and once it was over, the whales began to sing, in gratitude, for keeping the sharks and orcas out. (We are talking killer whales here and not orcs - orcs do not like water actually).

The whales sang of the north, where it is snow and ice all year round, of the south, where it is hot constantly, and of everywhere in-between. And then they were done, they said good-bye in the whale tongue, and left for the open sea, from which they came.

The foursome were left to their own devices once more.

“Now what?” The merrow muttered to no one in particular.

“Let’s go to our place and celebrate!” Her cousin said brightly and somehow everyone complied and did just this, but that is another story.

End

…Well, this is it for now. Did you like it? Comments, criticisms are welcome! And I will see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #34 - April 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks, but at least I have seen a chipmunk. A wild one, so yay! I can now die happy. Not, because the world is still out of balance, the dateline for ending the lockdown/quarantine/etc. in May seems to be going nowhere, and now, Ford’s – that the Ontario premier we’re talk about – mother in law is sick. I do not like him, but, still, I will not deny it either – this got to smart! What next?

Well, after the urial fiasco, I wanted to talk about something else, and decided upon the vulture. No, I am not talking about the Marvel villain, though MCU’s take on him in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ was quite interesting, and if anyone remembers the ‘Morbius’ trailer, clearly, he is not done with anything or anyone yet. That said, with the COVID-19 lockdown still in action, it will be quite a while since we will see anything of ‘Morbius’ the movie, so let us not and say that we did.

As for the real-life birds… what about them? The term ‘vulture’ applies to scavenging birds of two, or even three, families, as the ‘New World’ vultures, (such as the condors and the king vulture), aren’t really related to the ‘Old World’ vultures, (such as the lammergeyer and the cinereous vulture). The two vulture groups don’t even look very similar to each other – just compare a New World vulture, (say, the black vulture), to an Old World vulture, (for example, the white-backed). The two birds do not really look anything alike; their similarities are more in behavior, but-!

But, firstly, the two groups of aerial scavengers differ in that the New World vultures have a very developed sense of smell, (a rarity amongst the modern birds), while the Old World vultures hunt… well, scavenge, through the sense of sight alone. (Just look at the YouTube video on the Inside Edition channel, where a turkey vulture is circling above NYC – that’s a bird that is a) on a mission and b), guided both by sight and smell. I have seen turkey vultures live in Canada, (albeit southern Canada, but still), and, yes, they are a gruesome sight, much less comely than a chipmunk is, but we digress.

The thing is, that secondly, Old World vultures don’t look identical either; some of them, like the abovementioned lammergeyer (aka the bearded vulture), or the so-called Egyptian vulture, look very different from the rest of them, which is why the Old World vultures are sometimes classified in two families, or at least – two subfamilies, one with the lammergeyer, the Egyptian vulture, and the palm-nut vulture, and the second with the rest of the Old World vulture birds. Both subfamilies belong to the Accipitridae family, which makes them a part of the Accipitriformes order, which contains not just the vultures, but also the various hawks, kites, buzzards and eagles. (It is a tangled mess). Pause.

The New World vultures, on the other hand, belong to the Cathartidae family, which is a part of an entirely different avian order. There is no clear idea as to which birds are more closely related to the New World vultures – the other birds of prey, or the storks, of which we have talked about in the past. (Animal taxonomy is a dense mess). Some scientists do think that the New World vultures are more related to the other birds of prey, but that still isn’t settled; what is certain, is that many vultures are endangered and should be protected, because if they die-out, it’ll be bad. Anything else?

Sadly, nothing much; nothing is good on YouTube anyhow, and the TV is out of my reach for the moment. For better or for worse, life keeps on happening, and when it stops, there is always the vulture to send you on your way.

…Well, this was morbid. Also, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #33 - April 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In my case, it was more of a family emergency than anything else, but it does not hide from the fact that life as we know is ending, and we cannot do anything about it, thanks to the lockdown/quarantine/etc. G.W. was an asshat, but odds are that the world-wide emergency brought that out to the fore before it was time, and people know have to live with the consequences of his actions – or not. The lockdown’s effect on COVID-19 itself is ambiguous, its’ effect on the rest of the global society – obvious: everything is falling apart, and many people are upset about it, and are clamoring for the lockdown to end. What this will all amount to is up in the air. Anything else?

Well, I wanted to talk about the urial for a while, but then the DA website officially exclaimed that its’ old version will permanently end in May, so I do not really want to talk about real life for the moment. Pause.

What is an urial, BTW? It is a subspecies of a wild mountain sheep, or rather – a common name for about half a dozen subspecies of the wild mountain sheep in question. They all live in Central Asia rather than in North America, so few Americans have ever heard of them. Does not stop their IUCN status from being officially ‘Vulnerable’, it seems. Real life does suck, so let us talk about something else.

...Well, the ‘Venom 2’ movie is delayed until the year 2021, apparently. On one hand, that is sad, on the other – it allows the Sony/Marvel team to work out any flaws that it might have. The original ‘Venom’ was not too bad, but the thing is, it was an origin story, and somehow, it came across as rather lackluster, plus-

-Plus some things did not really make sense, for example, Dr. Skirths’ rather ignominious end – she was being set up as being fairly important in the movie, and then she just got killed by the alien symbiote, the end. Kind of a letdown, you know?

Or take Riot… from the ‘Venom’ movie, because there are several characters with the same name in the Marvel universe; Carlton Drake’ symbiote, in particular, seems to be based on the Marvel comics’ character named Trevor Cole, who only got the official name of Riot in part due to the fans’ popular demand at least, and that is sad, but it isn’t the point. The point is that in the first ‘Venom’ movie, Riot demonstrated most of Carnage’s best tricks – i.e. limbs into bladed weapons – so what will the actual Carnage do in the second movie to top that – is an open question.

…Actually, speaking of Carnage, I must admit that I am not so certain just how successful ‘Venom 2’ will be as a movie because of Carnage. As a villain, the latter is just interested in killing people – human and otherwise – the end. In the recent past, the Marvel comics had a major comic arc that had Carnage – and some other evil symbiotes – trying to bring back their god (?!) back to the world of living. Sadly, this was when Sony and Marvel had a falling-out over ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home’ success, so the entire arc got even more confusing and kind of fizzled-out, with Carnage being defeated by the Spider-Man & Deadpool duo.

Disney/Marvel bought-out Fox, so it now owns Deadpool too, so why can’t he team-up with Spidey? We will just have to wait and to hope. What next?

…The latest DC stand-alone Batman movie is having its’ own problems and is delayed because of course it is. When team DC hadn’t had problems? Yes, I am talking about Ezra Miller getting into a fight with some fan, but this appears to have ended for now, so let us not provoke it! Team DC already had to re-cast their Batman; do they really need a new Flash too? Probably not, but, hey, real life is confusing and tangled – for example, the urial subspecies’ complex is primarily untangled via where each subspecies lives, so only professional biologists and zoologists care about this mountain mammal, really. Considering that ordinarily humans hunt mountain sheep and goats, maybe this lack of attention and common knowledge is for the urial’s betterment.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #32 - April 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. However, sometimes, it is also insane, and no, I am not talking about G.W., the asshole gunman from Nova Scotia, Canada. Rather, I am talking about the U.S., whose state of Missouri, will be suing the Chinese People Republic, (aka plain old China), over the COVID-19. Do not know what will come out of it, do not know if anything will come out of it, but sue China Missouri does.

In other news, the new installment of ‘Penny Dreadful’ – the ‘city of Angels’ – has aired a couple of days ago; sadly, I’m not the biggest fan of the series, so I’m in position to judge as to whether it will be a good or a bad show, so what is left?

Turtles, really. Last time we talked about squirrels, so this time – let us talk about the chelonians! Pause.

Let us start again. The term ‘turtle’ defines all of the reptiles of the order Testudines, all of which have a bony or a cartilaginous shell that acts as a defensive shield against predators, whether they are sharks or raccoons. However, this order also contains 14 extant groups with 356 species, (currently), and they differ from each other… how?

Firstly, there are ‘turtles’, as in ‘sea turtles’, some of the biggest chelonians that there are, (or were, as in case of the now-extinct Archelon, the biggest chelonian ever, up-to-date). Such reptiles live only in seas and have flippers, instead of feet. The biggest of them, the leatherback, might be the biggest modern chelonian, and the most massive one. All of sea turtles still come ashore to lay eggs, (more about that later, maybe).

Secondly, there are the ‘tortoises’. These chelonians live only on land, almost fully vegetarian, and are the proverbial tortoises, as in ‘Aesop’s fable of the hare vs. the tortoise’. These reptiles have domed shells, can withdraw their heads inside, (while the sea turtles cannot), and were sold as pets quite often during the 20^th century at least. However, they also include such giants as the Galapagos giant tortoise, which is one of the biggest land reptiles of the modern age.

Finally, there are terrapins. As a rule, they are freshwater chelonians, superficially similar to tortoises, but their feet are webbed, and their claws are more adapted for grabbing than for walking; plus, they are much more carnivorous out of the two groups. Technically saying, the snapping turtles are really terrapins, only…

…Only the above-depicted classification aside, the ‘word’ turtle is often used for all of the above-mentioned reptiles, regardless of where they live and what anatomical details are particular to them. This is not just the case of the English language, but in other languages too – ‘Tortuga’ in Spanish, ‘черепаха’ in Russian, and so on. The more scientific analogue of these names is chelonian, so I will try to use it from now on. Anything else?

Hard to say. Of all the reptiles, the chelonians’ behavior is the most primitive, but humans do not care – they eat their flesh and eggs, and out of their shells, they make various household items, such as combs. This sucks, because even by the modern conservative estimates, the chelonians have existed since the mid-Jurassic – i.e., they lived alongside dinosaurs, and have outlived them, (modern birds aside). It would be a pity if they would die-out now, because of pouching, habitat destruction, and introduction of alien species the entire world instead. (As it was in case of the Galapagos tortoises – introduced goats competed with them for food, while rats, cats and dogs ate their eggs and young… on top of humans doing the same thing, cough). Real life may suck, because of COVID-19 and all, but still, let us try to be considerate, shall we?..

…Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #31 - April 21

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask comrade Kim, the great steersman of North Korea, who has been in surgery and is now fighting for his life. How true this piece of news is unknown, but there is no renunciations of this either, so there is that. What next?

People in Nova Scotia are licking their wounds and recovering from their losses; what do the people in North Korea feel is another question altogether, and one that will be answered at a later date, provided that the news of comrade Kim’s issues isn’t fake to begin with, (hey it could happen!). What next?

I admit that I would like to talk to you about squirrels, since our talk about rhinos did not take, but the truth is that the squirrel situation is the same as it is with mice – it is a mess. First, there are the Oriental giant squirrels, (4 species, 1 genus) and a single species of the Neotropical pygmy squirrel, both of which have their own subfamilies.

…On the other hand, we have the terrestrial squirrel subfamily, the bulk of which is composed of marmots, ground squirrels, chipmunks, prairie dogs and the like; the outliers there are the so-called spiny squirrels, but aren’t very spiny, (not compared to some of the spinier rodents).

The next tribe are the Asian ornate squirrels, which are tree squirrels rather than ground ones, and the subfamily of the ‘true’ squirrels, which features both the squirrels that are most usual for the Western society and the ‘true’ flying squirrels as well – as opposed to the scaly-tailed flying squirrels of Africa, whose closest relatives are the springhares. Sometimes animal taxonomy is a crazy thing. And-?

And nothing. Part of the reason as to why I do not want to talk about squirrels is because of AoS – its’ final episodes begin to come out in about a month, (May 27, 2020), and here we are, stuck in lockdown/quarantine/self-isolation/etc. without a working TV in sight. Real life sucks, however petty in scope it may be!..

As for the computer, I got to watch another DW episode – this one being the ‘Ming Warrior vs. French Musketeer’, with the latter winning, spoiler alert! Was it a fair victory? That is prone to discussion, seeing, for example, that team musketeer brought a rapier and a main gauche dagger to the short-range weapons, while the team Ming only had the Dao sabre, but on the other hand…

On the other hand, unlike the DW S3 premiere episode, GWVSNB, which also featured a misbalanced number of weapons, the two contestants in this confrontation were clearly different, with the weapons of team Musketeer being clearly more progressive and superior than those of their opponents’. I.e., the Musketeers’ musket was a better and a more precise weapon than the Ming’s ‘nest of bees’, (a more derived version of the incendiary arrows, I reckon). Put otherwise, whereas DW S3 tried to feature more equal combatants in its’ episodes, the show’s previous seasons – not so much. This what made them more fun than the S3 episodes too, FYI.

The team Musketeer also had a better armor, and at a time when the firearms very still primitive, this was important, still. Therefore, yeah, on this particular occasion, the victory was honestly, yay! Back to squirrels?

Sadly, no. Real life obligations have intruded, and I am afraid that our discussion for today must end. This is it for now, see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #30 - April 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is a why Canadian from Nova Scotia, G.W., decided to do something about it, and started a shooting spree that killed around 16-17 people, as well as the man himself. Pause.

Listen, I am not the best person on this planet – just listen to me complain about DW (say, ‘Napoleon Bonaparte vs. George Washington’), or AFO, (i.e. ‘Elephant vs. Rhino’), or even about JFC, (the Majungasaurus episode, for example). Fair enough and I do not deny that I am probably slowly going insane, for better or for worse, (probably for worse). Regardless, this weekend’s events are horrifying for me, and-?

And nothing. There are still a lot of black holes in the entire investigation, but even before today, (Monday 20, 2020), the official sources agreed that this incident happened unexpectedly; the unlucky RCMP officer was summoned to investigate some shooting incident, and it all snowballed from there. Pause.

Here is the thing. I have seen the photos of the deceased RCMP officer, and they have a rather Dudley Do-Right feeling to me. Regardless, this might be me, plus the event happened in a rather obscure town on the province of Nova Scotia, which is a far call from my home city of Toronto, Ontario, so this is probably just my inner snob speaking out, and-

-And the RCMP officer and the rest did not deserve to die for no good reason, just because G.W. might have cracked from the lockdown/quarantine/(self)-isolation & etc. There is a hierarchy for this sort of thing, it is kept in proportion, and G.W. blew it all apart. Asshole. Real life does suck, and so he had a bright idea of making it worse for a lot more people than before. This is not right. I may be a misanthrope, but I cannot approve of it. What next?

Here is a bit of original fiction that I have created before I learned about this weekend’s shooting in Nova Scotia and had to talk about it instead. Yes, in part, this is because of the lockdown/quarantine/etc. people are also starved of news to talk about, especially not related to COVID-19 or the Donald, and I am not sure that that is a good thing. Rumors can be nasty things, once they get out of hand; certainly neither the families of the deceased nor the investigators of the case in question really need any sorts of rumors to make their lives even worse – real life sucks already, thanks to COVID-19 and all… Where were we?

Ah yes, the original fiction, here we go:

In the jungle, branches are breaking, trees are swaying. It is the rhinoceros, one of the biggest beasts of the modern world, passing through. It is ignoring thorns and spikes, bushes and stumps. 

Rhinoceros’ hide is thick, like true armour - arrows will break, spears bend. Only bullets can get through.

...As a result of that, the five modern rhinoceros species are varying from endangered to extinct in the wild. The horn size varies from species to species, but all of them are hunted for it, regardless of where they live, in Africa or Asia...

It is not surprising, then, that the rhinoceros is a suspicious animal, with an explosive temper!

End.

…Well, this is it for now. Did you like the piece? I hope that I will see you all soon! Comments and criticisms welcome!

Quarantine entry #29 - April 19

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes, real life sucks. Other times, it does not; it is just annoying and you just want to die and get over it. Ah well, what can you do about that? Nothing, so let us talk about quails. Pause.

Here is the thing about the quail. It is a real-life bird, actually, quite a few of bird species, but because real life sucks, the term ‘quail’ is designated for several bird genera instead. They all belong to the superfamily of Phasianoidea, but otherwise? They belong to different families – the Old World quails to Phasianidae, and the New World Quails to Odontophoridae. They differ from the grouse by preferring open spaces to woodlands, and from the ptarmigans by avoiding the north. Pause.

…That said, the quails, the grouse, the ptarmigans are very similar birds, science aside – they are game birds from the Galliformes order, which is a fairly old bird order. Remember, we mentioned the Galloanseriformes when we talked about the ratites? That is because they are about as old as the ratites/the paleognaths are and are similar to them, especially to the tinamous, which are also ratites, sort of.

Just like the tinamous, the birds in the Galliformes order are poor fliers, they do not like to fly, and they prefer to run. Their chicks hatch already ready to run and learn to feed quickly by themselves, with minimal interference from their parents.

That is actually a divisive line, because in some wildfowl, like the grouse (and the peacocks), the males do not readily involve with their chicks; the females often raise the youngsters by themselves – it is called sexual dimorphism, where the two sexes are different. (We will be getting to that later). In other species, such as the quails, (at least in the Old World species, but probably in the New World as well), both parents raise their chicks.

The difference in lifestyle raised difference in appearance – in the grouse, (and the peacocks, and the like), males and females look very different; in others, such as the quails and partridges, they do not. Pause.

Getting back to the ratites, whose chicks also are born mobile, somewhat independent and rely on their parents for some protection, but aren’t as helpless as the chicks of the songbirds, where do they fit in?

Again, they are a mixed bag. African ostriches have sexual dimorphism, though mainly in coloration, but most of the ratites – such as the cassowaries and the rheas are not physically very different, though the childcare falls mostly to the males there.

Pause. Here is the thing – with mammals and birds it’s two different things. In mammals, the pregnancies are internal, (unless the mammal is a monotreme or a marsupial, but we will talk about them some other time instead). However, in birds, they are external, once the egg is laid.

Yes, the formation of the egg is internal and male and female birds are built differently, but once an egg is laid, it still needs to be incubated and hatched, which is where the differences may come in. In birds of prey, including owls, the females are bigger and stronger because they are the primary caretakers of the youngsters. In some of the gamebirds, and also in many of the songbirds, the females are drabber than the males for the same reason. However, in other birds, where both parents care for their chicks, there are not too many physical differences between the gender – and this leads us to the buttonquails.

Now, some Old World quail species are called button quails, (i.e. two words), but the buttonquails (i.e. one word) aren’t really quails, or gamebirds, but rather members of a separate bird family – the Turnicidae – which is a part of the shorebird order, (Charadriiformes). These small birds are found in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and Australia, (including Australasia), and for a while were presumed to be either gamebirds or crane relatives. Instead, apparently, they are relatives of the shorebirds, sandpipers, plovers, woodcocks, etc., even if they do not really resemble the latter. So what is so special of them?

A complete gender reversal, that is what. The female buttonquails are much more colorful than the males are and do most of the courting when it is mating time. The males, too, take care of the youngsters by themselves, after the eggs are laid, while the female moves on to the next male. Curiously, there is a small genera of shorebirds, call the phalaropes, which have the same thing – the females are much more colorful than the males are, and are also bigger; the males are the primary caretakers of the young and eggs.

…The phalaropes are also atypical in that their lifestyle is more like ducks and geese than the other shorebirds – they do most of their feeding on open water than on the shore, unlike the other shorebirds, but we digress. Where were we?

Ah yes, the buttonquails have an odd one out – the lark buttonquail, also known as the quail-plover, which is monogamous and belongs to a separate genus from the rest of them. Clearly, the evolution of the buttonquails was not a straightforward thing as you might expect by looking at most of them…

Well, this is it for now. Real life might suck, especially for humans with COVID-19 and all, but for other lifeforms – including quails, buttonquails, shorebirds, ostriches and what else have you – may be benefiting from this; (certainly our friendly neighbourhood groundhogs seem to). We will just have to wait and see.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #28 - April 18

Obligatory disclaimer: I hate my life. It sucks. It is getting out of my control and I cannot do anything about it – all because somewhere in China a wrong person ate a wrong bat, or scaly anteater, or something. Real life sucks and no mistake. No escape either, especially from the legal side of things. What next?

What can’t be cured, must be endured, I suppose, though it a thin enough consolation once you are on a pointy end of things. Real life sucks, again, and COVID-19 is only making it worse – but we were trying to move on. Where to?

To the pelicans, I suppose. They were mentioned a while back, when we were discussing ibises, so let us recap. The ibises are a subfamily in the ibis-spoonbill family, making them close relatives. The herons belong to a different family, but to the same order, and the storks belong to a different order altogether. Pause. So where the pelicans come in?

In the past times – including the late 20^th century – pelicans were grouped into the same order as the cormorants, gannets, anhingas, frigatebirds and tropicbirds belong to, (among others). Now, though, the tropicbirds have their own order, while the pelicans were proven to be more closely related to herons, ibises and spoonbills on one hand, and to the hammerkop and the shoebill stork on the other. Pause.

Out of all this motley crew, the pelican is the odd one out, with its’ short legs and neck, and a massive beak, complete with a pouch that enables pelican to catch big fish and other prey – I believe that it was on David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ series, (the bird-based episode, most likely), when we saw pelicans prey on chicks of gannets rather than fish. They may look goofy, but, apparently, they owe their body shape to air sacks beneath the skin, and otherwise, they are leaner than how they look. Pause. ‘Planet Dinosaur’ used to talk how carnivorous dinosaurs, (including bird ancestors), developed air sacks to be lighter and faster than their prey. Hah.

…The shoebill stork looks vaguely like a pelican, but it has no pouch in its bill, it is just big and wide and heavy; physical similarities are superficial, though it does look like a modern dinosaur. The hammerkop, on the other hand, looks like some sort of a heron or a stork instead. It builds big nests in its’ African homeland, but, again, it does not look like a pelican at all. It and the shoebill stork are more closely related to each other than to the pelicans, after all. What next?

Speaking of appearances, there is also the pelican’s appearance in the Christian mythos; to wit, that a pelican nourishes its hungry chicks with its’ own blood. I believe that even Shakespeare mentioned it, in ‘King Lear’ or something. Leaving aside the entire issue of realism, there’s also the fact that it is depicted nothing like a pelican – more like a generic bird with a long neck and a short sharp beak with which it tears its breast so that its’ young would feed on its blood. Christian religion is weird sometimes, and this heraldic pelican looks nothing like the real pelican, again. I am surprised that it did not surface in Westeros or some similar place, eh?

…Getting back to real life, the pelican- or gulper eels deserve an honorary mention. See, these deep-water fish have extendable mouths that form a pouch similar to the one formed in the pelican’s bill for pretty much the same goal – to swallow bigger prey. Whereas the pelican birds are known well enough, the gulper eels – not so much, so let us put them aside, for now. Anything else?

…Sadly, no. Rather, this is it for the pelicans and co. Their relationship with the wading birds that are not storks has not been defined yet, and they are more formidable than how they look. Ah well, appearances are deceptive and all that. For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #27 - April 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I have no idea when it will end and we are stuck in the lockdown, and it is snowing again. What next?

Let us switch from amphibians, such as newts, to ostriches. Why? Because I have watched one of David Attenborough’s specials – ‘big birds can’t fly’ and it is about ostriches and the other ratites, so let us begin!

First, there are actually two species of ostrich – the common ostrich with its’ subspecies, and the Somali ostrich, which differs from the common ostrich in terms of coloration. (A blue neck and head, primarily). It coexists with the common ostrich, (with one of the subspecies, anyhow), but does not hybridize with them – apparently, they are that different genetically.

…This situation is not too unique to the ostriches – other birds, physically very similar to each other, do not interbreed either, for example the white and the black storks of Europe/Eurasia. Externally, they differ only in plumage color, but nevertheless, no hybrids.

Back to the ostriches. They are ratites, aka the paleognaths, aka a group of very specialized flightless birds that are only distantly related to the rest of the birds, aka the neognaths. They are other flightless birds in the modern world, but they live on islands where no land predators are present, and they have keeled sternum bones as well. Penguins, in particular, have fairly powerful wings and they can fly, only underwater, not in air. And the ratites?

Out of this superorder of birds, ostriches are the most basal slash ancient ones, followed by the rheas, (aka the South American ostriches). These birds are the biggest existing ratites, and they got big wings. They still cannot fly – too heavy, the anatomy is all wrong – but the big wings serve to impress females, to shade chicks from the sun and so on.

Speaking of South American rheas, this continent also has the tinamous. They are important, because while they belong to the ratites, they actually can fly, just not very well, and are the local ecological counterparts of pheasants and grouse from the rest of the world. (The galloanseri birds are some of the more ancient birds, alongside the ratites, but we will talk about them some other time). As such, they got added to the ratites only recently, and even that with some caveats, I think – but more on tinamous later.

Next, we got the cassowaries and the emu of Australia and Papua New Guinea. They are more advanced than their African and South American counterparts are, and have no wings. The emu is represented by a single species; the cassowaries – by three, (the fourth had died out). The emu lives in the savannah, just as the ostriches and the rheas do, while the cassowaries prefer the jungle. Pause.

Here I take a breather from taxonomy, and point out that the cassowaries are not like the extinct dinosaurs, raptor-like claws on their feet or not. Raptors were carnivores; cassowaries are not – they feed of fruit and other plant matter, and if possible, they avoid humans, who encroach on their territory, cutting it down to clear land for their own needs; most human-cassowary conflicts are human-initiated, sadly.

Finally, the living ratites also feature the kiwi birds, which are the smallest ratites of them all. Also, unlike all the other ratites, existing and extinct, rather than have long necks & legs and short bills, they got short necks, shortish legs, and long bills, with which they prove earth for their sustenance – various invertebrates. They are nocturnal, got an attitude, (just like the rest of the ratites, actually), and number five species – the most numerous modern ratite groups.

The rest of the ratites are extinct by now; of a particular interest are the moas of New Zealand, (cousins to the South American tinamous), and the elephant birds of Madagascar, (cousins to New Zealand’s kiwi birds). The moas were the tallest of the ratites, the elephant birds – the heaviest. Both of these ratite groups died out during the historical age – the moas from the New Zealand Maoris, the elephant birds – from the natives of Madagascar and the Europeans, possibly. Unlike their mainland cousins and the kiwis, they were just too specialized and tasty to survive, it seemed. The moas, in particular, had only their drumsticks slash legs eaten and the rest was given to the dogs – literally. No wonder that the moas died out, as did the elephant birds, though in the latter’s case it was more of a habitat destruction situation instead. Anything else?

Sadly, no. The modern ratites are flourishing, more or less, but many of them are in trouble, (remember the cassowaries’ issues with humans?). ‘Big birds can’t fly’ has addressed that issue, though this film was kind of a tangled mess, featuring bits and pieces of previous BBC/Attenborough productions, but I’ve still enjoyed it. Beggars cannot be choosers – cough, Comic-Con 2020 is cancelled because of COVID-19, cough.

Well, then, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #26 - April 16

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: the snow may have stopped falling for now, but I have snubbed my big toe – and by extension, the rest of my foot – rather badly, so I am limping everywhere now instead. Life is not fair, it sucks, and we are stuck in it – thanks a lot, COVID-19, you really done it now, as in ‘ruined everyone’s plans until the middle of May’. Mr. Doug Ford, in particular, can go and screw himself – but we are getting distracted.

…Well, initially I wanted to talk about newts, but there is not a lot to go on, once you get Newt Scamander out of equation. (With COVID-19, it is anyone’s guess when the third movie is going to be made, period). They are a suborder of Salamandridae order of the tailed amphibians, differing from the rest of them by having a semi-terrestrial juvenile stage…pause.

Let us start at the beginning. Like all amphibians, newts hatch from the eggs as aquatic larvae with gills. Unlike those of frogs and toads, the larvae of newts and salamanders have extern gills, and their front legs grow forth, and then the hind ones, faster too than in case of frogs and toads. The gills, too, disappear, (in ‘true’ newts and salamanders, anyhow), lungs appear, and the baby newts become efts.

…If you are wondering as to what an ‘eft’ is, then it is a juvenile form of newt, (actually, for a while, newts as such were called efts in the English language; in other languages, they were called tritons, in honor of son of Poseidon, one of the original mermen – but we digress). An eft lives on the ground, out of water, but in humid conditions, until enough time passes, and it becomes a sexually mature adult. Pause.

Here where things get murky. North American newts – as adults – live mostly in the water or near it, unlike their eft offspring. The European species, on the other hand, return to water only to breed once they reach maturity, but otherwise they live on land. Where the rest of newt species falls, I have no idea. Anything else?

…There are over a dozen of existing newt genera, (anywhere from 14 to 17 at least), and another half a dozen of extinct ones. Many more newts are in danger of extinction, both from pollution – all amphibians are sensitive to it – and from exotic pet trade. Ouch! Did I mention that real life sucks?

…Ergo, I have escaped into yet another DW episode – this one from S3, ‘Joan of Arc vs. William the Conqueror’. It was the first time when one of the titular combatants on the show was a woman; there were female characters/warriors in the past seasons, once or twice, but never someone like Joan. She defeated William too, you should know; and-?

…And the face-off itself was quite fair; team Joan won because it had more derived weapons than team William did. A cannon will always defeat a catapult; William actually had a proportionally better crossbow, (though Joan got the advantage anyhow); and team William actually wielded a better sword, but had inferior armor as compared to team Joan, and so they lost. When DW wanted to, they could be fair and just without any political correctness involved. Anything else?

Regrettably…no. As far as escapes from reality went, ‘Joan vs. William’ was a good one, a straightforward one, but also – an almost boring one. As the management and leadership of DW changed between S2 & S3, DW tried to become exciting and intriguing and high-tech so hard, that it made the audiences feel nostalgic for the previous layout, and so the ratings dropped, and the show got cancelled for good, video games or not. At least no newts had been harmed in the production of DW. Real life sucks and can be so unforgiving somehow, whether you are a private person or a multi-personal company…

…Well, this is it for now, I am afraid. I will see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #25 - April 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks. Snow still comes, even though it’s mid-April, and the lockdown continues until the middle of May at least. My computer is not doing so well either, so let us talk about something else – mice.

No, not computer mice, but the real life mice in whose honor the computer devices are named. Ergo, what about them?

The term ‘mouse’ is not very scientific; neither is ‘rat’, though technically speaking, a ‘rat’ is bigger than a ‘mouse’ is. As for mice themselves, they are a mixed bag, which consists of…

…'True mice', aka rodents from the Muridae family – the so-called ‘true mice’. Most of those rodents live in the Old World rather than the New, and by the rodent standard they consist of those that humans call ‘mice’, ‘rats’ and ‘gerbils’ to begin with. They feature the house mouse, the Eurasian field mice, and also – the Eurasian harvester mouse, one of the smallest rodents ever.

Closely related to the ‘true mice’ are several species of ‘mice’-named rodents, (such as the American harvester mouse), which, however, belong to the Cricetidae family instead. Most of the Cricetid rodents are identified as hamsters, lemmings, voles… the ‘mice’ from this family live primarily in New World instead. Murids and Cricetids are close relatives, both belong to the Myomorpha suborder of rodents, but they belong to two different families all the same.

The rest of ‘mice’ look much more exotic than the rodents that we usually associated the name of ‘mouse’ with – mice do make popular pets, and even more popular lab animals slash subjects – real life sucks not just for people, but for animals as well. Firstly, there are the ‘mice’ from the Heteromyidae family – these rodents are known as kangaroo mice and rats, and also pocket and spiny pocket mice, and they all look to be slightly more…derived than the ‘ordinary mice & rats’ do. Instead, physically, they appear to be more like miniature kangaroos of Australia instead, although, yes, pocket and spiny pocket mice do look mouse-like, but they all live in the wild, often away from humans, so people aren’t aware of them as much as they are of the kangaroo mice and rats, (and yes, we’ll get to the kangaroos soon as well).

Secondly, there are the flying mice. Now, in such languages, such as Russian, the term ‘flying mouse’ is the local analogue to the English ‘bat’, (remember, we've talked about them earlier as well?), which does look like a mouse with wings, but the ‘true flying mouse’ are more like flying squirrels; if the aforementioned pocket mice and co. belong to the Castriomorpha subfamily, which also features the beavers, (while the muskrat is just an oversized aquatic vole, but that is a different story), then the flying mice are actually ‘scaly-tailed squirrels’ or ‘scaly-tailed flying squirrels’. They, too, belong to a separate suborder – the Anomaluramorpha, and their closest relative is the African springhare, which looks like a kangaroo rat…or just a kangaroo.

This, in turn, brings us to Australia proper – this small continent features not only true rodents, both native and introduced, (which includes the house mouse from the aforementioned ‘true mice’ group), but also the so-called marsupial mice, which aren’t rodents at all, but are marsupials, just as the kangaroos are. Only, while the kangaroos feature the biggest modern marsupials – the red kangaroo, the two greys and the antilopine kangaroo, the marsupial mice are some of the smallest marsupials, and they belong to the Dasyuridae family, which features not only them, but also the infamous Tasmanian devil, and the quolls, which are marsupial ‘cats’, or rather ‘martens’, (real martens are cousins of weasels, FYI). The marsupial mice themselves are carnivores, (while their rodent counterparts are more herbivorous; the flying mice, which are one of the genera of the scaly-tailed squirrels are supposedly food specialists, even), and behave more like shrews rather than true mice, (let us keep the rats out of this equation, shall we?). Consequently, these days, the terms ‘marsupial shrew’ and ‘marsupial mouse’ isn’t used much anymore; the terms ‘antechinus’, ‘dunnart’, and the like instead…

…Well, I must admit – this was informative. I never knew that there were so many different mice, marsupial and otherwise, and that they had even more relatives among both placental mammals and marsupials. They had certainly distracted me from the realization that real life still sucks and that COVID-19 is still going strong through the planet. How about you? Any comments? All criticisms are welcome, and this is for now, see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #24 - April 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, Doug Ford insisted that the Canadian province of Ontario remains in the lockdown for another month – that is until the end of May or so. Ouch! The road to Hell is paved with best intentions and all – but at least this time I have seen a flock of grackles, which are some of North America’s bigger songbirds. What next?

I have returned to watching DW, in no small part because I do not want to go back to AFO instead – really, the only episode that we had not discussed in AFO is the ‘lion vs. tiger’ one, and I am not going to talk about it, it is so flawed on so many levels!.. So, let us talk – speaking of flaws – of the DW episode ‘Spartan vs. Ninja’, and-?

And here is the bottom line – Ninja had lost fairly, but with a caveat. This caveat is called mid-range weapons – Spartan had a spear; Ninja – a bunch of eggs, filled with pepper powder, or poison, or some similar crap. The result is that team Spartan received a major boost in points during that comparison, and team Ninja was never able to catch-up to their rivals.

As for the rest of the weapons… Ninja’s ninjato sword was actually superior to Spartan’s xiphos. Spartan’s javelin was slightly better than Ninja’s shurikens and blowgun, but not by much. In addition, yes, Spartan’s shield was better than Ninja’s kusarigama…but not by much, again. It was Spartan’s spear, not shield, that carried him to victory, period, but only because the DW team had set Ninja up, in a manner of speaking. Ah well, that was the expenses of growth, of inexperience, and in the next seasons the DW team was able to avoid such mistakes. Good for them, just…not good enough to save them after three seasons of various success. Ah well, that is life, live with it. It sucks, but live with it, would you?

…And yes, Spartan did come back for a ‘Back for Blood’ special, set between the DW S1 and S2, where he faced-off against Samurai. This time, he did win because of his shield, making me wonder as to how a Viking vs. Ninja face-off would have gone down? Considering that the black eggs still would have been used by Ninja, the latter would have lost altogether, but, still, it would have been exciting to watch.

…There was no ‘Back for Blood’ special between DW S2 and S3, and that indicated that something had shifted behind the scenes of the show, and not for the better. Ah well, let us not go around beating a dead horse more than we need to…

Anything else? …Actually, yes – here’s a brief drabble of original fiction about a lion, because the King of the Beasts deserves better than what AFO gave it – a dubious win over a tiger in one episode, and a clear loss to the Nile crocodile in another. Ah well, we are not going to discuss the former, and we have already discussed the latter, so here is the drabble in question instead:

Beware, ye wild horses the zebras! Beware, ye speedy antelopes! Even ye beware, great-horned buffalos!

The lions are abroad!

Thunder seemingly thundered, rolling through the Savannahs and scrublands. The lions Roared, the lions snarled. Everyone else hid.

Aside from the elephant, the rhino and the polar bear, the lion is the king of the beasts. Their teeth are strong, their claws are sharp, and the mane is thick.

Who will be eaten tonight, you know?

End

...Well, this is it for now; see you all soon! (Hopefully, the lockdown will end by the month of May or sometime around it, but I am not making any positive bets). Cheers!