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Insurance Animals Hate Us

Hi, I'm Cash Money Mallard.  Do you want more money?  Sure, we all do.  You think I enjoy pecking around in the dirt while an elderly woman shakily lobs tiny bread crumbs at me?  I hate every minute of it.  God, she smells like old.  Sometimes I just want to take out one wrinkly knee, grab that loaf and run.  But as bad as things get, I never once considered committing insurance fraud.  Insurance fraud is one crime that affects all of us.  You see, when someone drives their car into a pond and reports it stolen, everyone else's rates go up, so it's like you're stealing from all the honest insurance buyers out there.  Also, did you ever think about all the innocent ducks who used to hang out in that pond?  That was my favorite mating pond, at least before that Kia Sedona landed in it.  Sorry you couldn't make the payments, mister, but I was on a date, and she was way into me.  I hope you know some other way to make adorable ducklings, because now she's not in the mood.

Insurance fraud:  It's totally quackers!  Isn't that right, Cautionary Salamander?

That's right, this is Cautionary Salamander, in the house, deep in the house.  Maybe I'm on the ceiling, or scuttling along the baseboards, you don't know.  Know this: I'm always watching.  I know that your fancy new nightclub is deep in debt, and I know about your plan to burn it down.  Well, go ahead then.  Light that match.  Did you know that salamanders can survive even the hottest fires?  Or is that just a story?  Want to find out?  I'll let you in on a little secret.  We salamanders can also survive the most scorching cross-examination by a defense attorney.  And you know what we really love?  We like flies, sure.  We like sitting on warm rocks, never doubt it.  But what we love more than anything else, is to testify against arsonists, and send them to jail.  Amphibians make very credible witnesses.  Never forget, insurance fraud is a crime, and I never blink.  I may lick my own eye once in a while, but the other one is always watching you, firebug.  Believe me, you will slip up, and then it's curtains.  Cautionary Salamander knows what you did.

Insurance fraud:  You'll burn for it.  Isn't that right, Joy Buzzard?

Hi, I'm Joy Buzzard, with some cheerful news about death.  You can make big money with very little effort, just by taking out a life insurance policy and then dying.  But remember, your death has to be an accident, or else it's insurance fraud.  No matter what your friends tell you, insurance fraud is not cool.  If they tell you that, they're not really your friends.  So be legit about it.  Ask your friends to accompany you on a road trip into the desert.  Get nice and insured beforehand, legally insured, and then drive out there in some piece of overpriced junk like a Kia Sedona.  Before you know it, you'll be wandering around the desert starving to death.  Whoopsie!  Totally plausible accident.  You didn't mean to starve.  In fact, you ate 3 crushed bulbs of garlic and an entire stick of butter before getting in the Kia.  Your friends brought along a marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, honey, allspice, and nutmeg, to keep you hydrated.  Despite all that, you succumbed.  Such a shame.  Such a spicy, Caribbean style shame.

Insurance fraud:  Animals and humans, let's work together to prevent come on come on drop already I'm starving

Technorati Tags: Aflac duck, Geico gecko, State Farm ravenous vulture, insurance, red in tooth and claw

The Little Prince: Whimsically Naïve, or Developmentally Challenged?

Q:  What is this?

A:  Digestion.  Specifically, a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.

Q:  How did this happen?

A:  The boa constrictor was hungry.  The elephant let his guard down.

Q:  Will the elephant be all right?

A:  Come on, really?  You don't know?  Sure, the elephant will be just fine.  Minor lacerations and he won't be able to wear shorts for a couple months.

Q:  Will the snake and the elephant be friends after this?

A:  Honestly, it'll be a little awkward.  If the snake sends out a mass email, it'll wonder whether it should take the elephant off the list.  But what if one of their mutual friends mentions the email to the elephant?  It'll be rough for a while.

Q:  Couldn't the snake just apologize?

A:  For being a snake?  For injecting another animal with venom, then swallowing and slowly digesting it?  If he apologizes to the elephant, he'll have to apologize to every rat and kitten and puma he's ever digested.  That'd take forever.  He doesn't know where half of them are now.

Q:  Say, if you didn't show that cross section, it'd look like a picture of a hat.

A:  No hat you'd want to wear.  It's full of poisoned, dying elephant.

Q:  He's dying?  You said he would be fine!

A:  I wanted you to have one last moment of childlike innocence.  But now it's time to grow up and help pick elephant bones out of snake poop.

Q:  Why?

A:  Because it's what the elephant would have wanted?

Q:  Really?

A:  Not really.  I sell the ivory.

Q:  So am I going to see any percentage of these profits?

A:  Wow, you sure grew up fast.

Technorati Tags: Little Prince, elephants, snakes, digestion, whimsy

The Vulpine Life: Foxin' and Reloxin'

I don't know about your iGoogle theme, but I'm all about the Tea House fox.  Some people get sick of him, because his daily routine centers around tea, rowing on a lake, and hanging out with a bee and a baby chick.  Well, life is what happens when you're hanging out with bees and chicks.  Life isn't full of explosions and parachutes, it's full of tea, and you better drink it before it goes lukewarm.  Maybe once in a while you see a parachutist explode, but not every day.  It's an unexpected treat, like a briefly shrieking rainbow.

Every day, I load up my Firefox browser, see the little fox doing his little foxy chores, and click on a certain pixel of his ear which takes me to What's A Fox to Do Dot Net.  It's a laid back, hare-free forum where socially conscious foxes can discuss the challenges of brewing tea without thumbs and the possibilities of peaceful cohabitation with smaller, tastier animals.  Did you know foxes eat grasshoppers?  It's true!  Also, it's a hurtful stereotype.  Not all foxes eat grasshoppers, you bigot.  For shame.

StarFox4EVR:  o hai i am a fox

StarFox4EVR:  taht bby chik looks prtty sweet

StarForx4EVR:  i'd eat that he he amirite

Reynard74:  StarFox, this is your last warning.  We do not eat our animal compatriots.  We dine with them and give them rides in our rowboats.  This isn't FoxYumForum.  Maybe you should lurk around over there.

StarFox4EVR:  srry i jsut liek 2 steal chikens

StarFox4EVR:  u know natur red in tooth n claw lolz

StarFox4EVR:  hay i was in farmr macgregorz henhouse the othr night were u there?

Reynard74:  No, I wasn't, "StarFox".  Nice try, MacGregor.  Say hi to Chris Hansen for me.

StarFox4EVR has signed off.

Technorati Tags: Google, iGoogle themes, tea house, foxes, Tennyson, Starfox, Reynard, To Catch a Natural Predator

Slidey Ninja

What's up with all these Flash games ending up on the DS and PSP?  The whole point of a Flash game is that you're supposed to play them when you should be working.  That's why they have a boss button.  And you have to somehow obscure the screen so you have an extra few seconds to hide the window as someone approaches.  You can't just whip out a DS at work, unless you work at Nintendo.  And even then, it's obvious that you're slacking.  You can't tell Shigeru Miyamoto, "Oh, this?  That's my new laptop.  Yeah, they do keep getting smaller.  Let me just get those figures for you . . . uh, here they are . . . looks like next quarter we'll be earning four gems, which should help us defeat the goblin of . . . inefficiency?"

I just learned about this game from Kotaku.  Looks like it's been around since 2005.  Maybe I hadn't heard of it because it's called, simply, "N" and I mistook it for a variable.  It's like Lode Runner with a little ninja who can wall jump (nice!) but definitely can't stop on a dime (whoa, I died!).  He slides to a halt, as if every level were an ice level.  If I were an icy footed ninja I would carry around a little bag of sand or kitty litter.  I'm sorry if that goes against the code of the ninja.  Sometimes you have to decide if the code of the ninja is just holding you back.

I don't want this post to be solely about video games and ninjas (although that pretty much describes my twelfth and thirteenth year of life) so I shall conclude with a story about insects.  I just saw a little ant crawling around the floor and he happened to touch part of a spider web.  Instantly this spider dropped down out of nowhere and sort of sized up the ant.  I could tell he was thinking, "This isn't a fly.  I really prefer flies.  Should I just eat it anyway?  I am conflicted."  He decided to hold out for a fly instead.  The ant hurried away.  I could tell the ant was thinking, "Why did God spare me this day?  He must have plans for me.  How does my destiny serve God's mysterious plan?"  Well, ant, I can answer that for you.  You became part of my blog post.  Without you, this post would be overrun by slidey ninjas.  Go in peace.

Technorati Tags: ninjas, N, flash games, ants, spiders, icy feet, God, last minute reprieves

Park Animals!

Well, I'm sorry I didn't post over the weekend, but I'm not going to apologize for it.  I hate those bloggers who have to apologize for every day they don't post, even if they have a really good excuse, as I do.  I feel sorry for them.  I'm sorry they're sorry.   But I do not apologize, because I have nothing to be sorry for.  As we said in the Old Country, “Mea culpa.”

So, I didn't post because I was at the park (sorry! my bad!), but I saw a lot of hot new animals for the spring season!  Now, without further ado, at all, it's my review of: Park Animals!

 

Two Geese Herding Six Goslings Across the Path and into the Water
Three Stars

I could have done without all the honking.  They split the goslings up into groups of two and four, with one goose leading his pair across the path while his mate waited in the woods.  During the whole operation they just honked like crazy.  I guess that's one way to deal with predators, annoy them.

Anticlimactically, the geese and goslings all made it into the water without any trouble.  Then they paddled around for a while.  The goslings looked and swam like little tennis balls with tiny, flailing feet.  No speed or control at all, just natural buoyancy.  Still, I look forward to seeing them in other estuaries.

 

Two Ducks Getting It On
Five Stars

Now, this is definitely not for the kids.  These ducks went crazy.  One used his whole body to thrust the other one underwater and then just tooled around the pool with her just barely keeping her head high enough to breathe.  I'm assuming the half-drowned one was the female, unless they were doing a role-playing thing.  She did a lot of preening afterwards and he stuck around, which was polite at least. She also displayed her full wingspan before they started getting it on, as if to say, “Look at all this duck!  Don't you want some of this?”  Sparks flew!

 

Four Turtles Sitting on a Mossy Rock
No Stars

 Yeah, I really liked this one, back when it was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II : The Secret of the Ooze.