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squirrely squirrel
Wednesday, September 9 2009
There is a squirrel in the hickory tree just north of the house (thus usually within a dozen feet of the laboratory deck) who spends his days sitting on a branch munching on hickory nuts. He holds them in both hands and spits out pieces of the husk and shell until he gets to the delicious nut meat. Sometimes as he's doing this (and, judging from his own enormous nut meat, he is indeed a he), he cusses at the Sylvia, who, on sunny days, likes to sprawl out on the laboratory deck railing (though late in the day she often prefers the solar deck, which, because she cannot climb a ladder made for humans, she has to get to by climbing the 45 degree roof itself).
Okay, I'm a database guy and I store everything in databases, particularly when it's easy to assign a robot to do the storing. If you read this site, you're in my database. Don't think I don't know who you are. There is no end to what I can determine by triangulating on IP addresses and, when they're forthcoming, the headers of emails. There are also these little files, precious files, called cookies, and they are a dream to the would-be keeper of tabs. If you have your doubts, consider this: I have columns for latitude and longitude in my reader table. And, let me remind you, Google Maps (unlike Microsoft's mostly-useless Multimap —huh?) is very latitude/longitude friendly. What I'm getting to is this: I have a column for those who have pledged money to my wife's Walk for Animals, which is coming up on October 4th. Some weeks ago I made what Gretchen considered a somewhat dismissive appeal here for readers to contribute to that walk. Perhaps she was right; the results were, let's just say, underwhelming. So I told her that my next appeal wouldn't be in my usual coldly remote voice, though I didn't say I would be assuming a sinister vaguely-threatening voice instead. But if that's what it takes, so be it. Mussolini made the trains run on time, so perhaps by using his methods I can scare up a few extra donations for her walk. It's for a good cause: pigs, chickens, cows, donkeys, and all those brain-possessing creatures people like to eat because they read once in Mad Magazine that beans give one gas.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?090909 feedback
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