See, geckos are funny and social little things. They are one of the few small creatures I'd consider having as a pet anymore. Four doors down from me the couple owns a fucking monitor lizard. These fucking guys have all of the sort of pets usually all those weird, lonely straight dudes who wear Dio t-shirts and own lots of cactuses: snakes, an Emporer scorpion, and the crown jewel was the previously mentioned razor-toothed dinosaur the length of a yoga mat with knives for teeth. Why? WHY? Why buy something as nasty, fiesty and noisy as a Pacman frog? Or a fucking parrot for that matter. I had a pot dealer with three scarlet mccaws. Beautiful. To look at. Not to get close to, because they're psychopaths and of course every Conversation went like so: Me: (yelling over horrible bird-language") "DO THEY EVER STOP SCREECHING?!?!?!" Him: "NO! NIGHT AND DAY, BUT YOU GET USED TO IT!!"
One of my aunts has a macaw and, at one time, danced around leaving him to me in her will. I quickly shot that down. So cute. So fucking obnoxious.
Big birds are like really smart/high energy dogs. They're as good as their owner, and they need to be engaged constantly because otherwise they get bored and that's when bad behaviors start. A friend of mine at a beautiful blue macaw who was friendly, quiet and well-behaved, but that friend worked from home, spent a lot of time with the bird, had a lot of activities and socialization... it's all a crazy amount of work, and the things live for-freakin'-ever. Big bird owners are signing up for a part time job for the rest of your life. It's like people who go out and get a husky because they're pretty, then leave them alone 8 hours/day, take them for a quick pee, and don't understand when the thing starts howling nonstop and eating the house.
Hell Im sticking with smooth coat dogs just because I don't want to brush the fucking things all the time.
Yea I have a husky/lab cross. And she gets left along for 8 hours a day for 2 weeks when both me and my wife are on day shift together. But the dog gets 2 30+ minute walks a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. For the 2 weeks when we are on dayshift together I get up at 6:15 and give her the morning walk. It just isn't fair to the dog otherwise.
Semi related to the focus, I think it fits here and I need to get it off my chest. My mom does pottery and I just can't stand it. Some people really love it as something hand crafted and seemingly functional. I am not one of those people. I'd say 1 out of 100 pieces she makes, be it a cup or a plate, has a functional shape I can learn to like. Otherwise they are heavy as shit and very cumbersome. They fill up the dishwasher and cupboard awkwardly and makes doing dishes even more of a pain in the ass. I really have to hide my dislike for it as to save her feelings. Truth be told, even with the 10k+ plus hours she's put into it, she isn't very good. It's all crunchy earthtones in the similar style of most of the crunchy hippies that make pottery, though she is far from the Crunchy hippy type. She, like everyone in my family, just doesn't have that natural artistic talent that produces anything breathtaking. Ive helped her move and set up stuff a few times at art classes or events and I'll see people's work that really stands out as creative, I just kind of do the thousand yard stare. Any time I've praised something she's made she'll immediatly make 10 more of them that'll never get used and takes up more room. Ive learned to tactifully decline offers for little projects like dishware sets and such as she runs every desicion by me about shape, glaze color, clay used, etc for ultimately something I won't really like and won't enjoy. Spent months going back and forth on a sushi set, I had seen a crackle glass look on oriental plates I told her I'd love. I sent her an exact picture of the type of plate I was looking for. She claimed it wasn't hygenic for eating and made an approximation with the single ugliest pea soup green color I'd ever seen. I don't think I used the set once. Plus, upon moving to China with my brother, a street vendor had a huge set for like 10 bucks of the exact style I wanted. Mass produced, but we used it all the fucking time when we were there. I feel bad about looking at it like this since she gets a lot of pleasure out of her hobby but I just do. not. like it. I love you mom! Happy Mother's Day!
Newspaper comics have been stupid for decades. Guy implies he cheated on something, girl says "Did you win fairly?!" and dat's da joke. About fifteen years ago someone other than the Keanes did this Family Circus: A Google image search tells me that this comes from the misleadingly-named Perry Bible Fellowship, and that I should be reading more of their comics. They should also take over Family Circus, and a few other comics. My E39 540/6 was expensive enough to keep on the road. There have actually been car shows with names like "All Show, No Go". It doesn't seem nearly as bad as it used to be, in the early 2000s. I had an SVT Contour at the time, and while I thankfully never had this happen (might have had to start a fight that I'd be bound to lose) some SVT Contour owners had people try telling them that their car was, well, like that fake Lightning; ie, there is no SVT Contour. If anything happened to my SS I'd consider an STi, but... That damn wing. I know it's a functional spoiler, it's not fair to call it rice, but... That damn wing. Arragh. Anyway, focus: There are lots of subcultures that I don't get: Fishing is one of them. I'm sports-literate, but don't really follow sports much. I can appreciate the appeal of a lot of subcultures (HAM radio), but don't have the urge to jump into them myself. I went to a reptile show once, didn't think they were that weird. Alt Focus: Performance cars: While I'm still ignorant in a lot of ways, in both mechanics and driving technique, there's a ginormous thrill in nailing 0-60 in a short time frame or in taking an able-handling car through a left turn on a stale yellow at urgent speed. Tabletop RPGs: Wait, maybe there's a reason I don't think reptile show people are weird...