Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and on this
particular day, there is nothing going on in real life that is exceptionally
noteworthy, the rant of a certain musician on Twitter aside. People are falling
apart, as simple as that, and the fact that such captains of industry as the
aforementioned Twitter, Google and Facebook are allowing their workers to work
from their homes even in the post-lockdown world doesn’t help. Working from
home means co-existing with your family 24/7, and this is what the lockdown has
already exposed as overrated – you need to have some space from your family,
some time off, and if that isn’t happening, then it isn’t happening, and you
got an unavoidable meltdown instead. What else?
…People have been asking me as to why I have not been
discussing Ubisoft’s latest ‘Assassin’s Creed’ installment – the one with the
Vikings. My answer is plain: I do not do ‘Assassin’s Creed’ as a rule, and this
version is essentially ‘Assassin’s Creed’ meeting the ‘Vikings’ of History
channel, and in case you have forgotten, I wasn’t impressed with that TV series
either. Frankly, I’m going to call a spade a spade and call out, saying that if
it wasn’t for the lockdown, the ‘ACV’ wouldn’t receive as much publicity as it did,
but this is the hand it was dealt instead, the end.
…As for ‘Stargirl’, the latest darling of the DC TV-verse, I’m
not going to touch it right now either – I’m not a big fan of DC TV-verse, ‘Stargirl’
may be superhero drama meeting a teenage rom-com, or sit-com, or whatever – don’t
care. This is not my TV show for now, the end. What is left?
…I feel like talking about lions, actually. Of course, we
have talked about them repeatedly in the past, so let us do this now once more –
I am feeling sufficiently nostalgic, here and now.
So: the lion is the king of the beasts. People claimed that
it could stare into the sun without blinking. However, so can the other cats –
the anatomy of their eyes permits that. ‘Tis just that the lion is so
regal-looking, so majestic! It appears that a lion is never looking at anyone
directly, but only at some point in the distance, as if it does not notice you.
And its’ roar is something else – it isn’t roar, it’s thunder!
When it comes to strength, the lion does not attack only the
African bush elephant, (namely, the fully-grown animals), the African rhinos,
(ditto), and the polar bear, (because the latter is never found in the African
wilderness). Anything else is fair game. The lion’s strength is such, that it
can break a bull’s back with one paw strike. However, more often, the lioness
will jump onto the prey’s back, grab the muzzle with its paws, and by jerking
around, it either suffocates the beast or breaks its’ neck, whether it was a
wildebeest, some other antelope, a zebra, or even the African buffalo.
…Yes, there are several subspecies, or even species, of the
African buffalo, which is only a distant relative of the American buffalo, aka
the bison that we have discussed in the past. However, right now, we are
talking about the lions, which is the only species in the Panthera genus that hunts in packs, as the wild dogs do – aka in
prides. All the rest of the ‘roaring cats’ are solitary hunters. Beyond them,
we got the cheetah and maybe the cheetah’s South American cousin the
jaguarundi, which also live in family prides, especially the cheetah. Too
little is known about the jaguarundi to make a concrete statement.
Finally, the lions used to live beyond Africa – in Eurasia
and even in North America, (which used to be connected to Eurasia via a land
bridge in the past epochs). As you know, those beasts were called cave lions in
Europe and American lions in North America. Whether they actually lived in
caves, or were only depicted there by the Stone Age humans, is another story.
These days, lions live only in Africa, and in the Gir Forest in India, Asia,
and their status slash well-being is contradictory and worrisome. A sad end for
the king of the beasts there!..
…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!
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