Obey Zolac!

NAPOLEON CAUGHT A SHREW! His second ever vertebrate catch! YAAAAAAAY!

He was so good, too! He performed beautifully in the face of a whole pile of new situations: new location, new people, more people than he's hunted with before, new hunting style. He started on the fist while we flipped over boards and sheet metal, and he figured out pretty quick what was going on. When we finally flipped a board with a nest full of mice, we got carried away with the yelling and Poly freaked out and flew away in the other direction and into a tree and wouldn't come down again. After he calmed down a bit (and made a try at one of the escaped mice), shichahn started flipping boards again, and again he clued in immediately, following along from his treetop like a hawk hunting bunnies. ...Napoleon, I'm sorry, I will never call you dumb again. (Ok, that's a lie, I probably will.) shichahn exposed a shrew and he dropped like a guided missile. I heard the impact from thirty yards away. He flew with it into a tree, but it was a low branch and he went right back to the glove without too much trouble at all. HE'S SUCH A GOOD BOY. <3

shichahn hooded him and we had a bit of fun trying to catch rodents by hand. shichahn's sponsor Ben the Kestrel did succeed in catching a vole, and we all succeeded in getting our hands and knees muddy.

After a spot of lunch we had a very successful afternoon with the bunny hawkers. Parker the redtail hawk caught a packrat in a tree (to the chagrin of his falconer, who had trouble getting him down again), and Ruby, another redtail, caught a garter snake. True to form, our favorite mass murderer, Harlot the goshawk, ended the lives of four cottontail rabbits. <3 <3 <3

It was a gorgeous day, and I spent a fair amount of it scrambling through the underbrush and getting my skin ripped apart by blackberry brambles, and I am now very tired and very happy. I can't think of any way I could have spent my Saturday more enjoyably.

So this weekend contained many exciting adventures with media. Let me tell you of them.

( Follow the cut for massive word-dump discussion of kestrels, Misfits, Young Justice, True Grit, 1940's Batman, Megamind, a one-to-one scale model of the Enterprise-D, NOLAN'S BATMAN VILLAIN CASTING CHOICES, and the holy Buddhist temple of superheroes and sci-fi action movies. )

...So, that was my weekend. In other news, I have to keep the door to my bedroom closed during the day now. Because the cat appears to have developed the habit of coming into my room while I'm gone and PEEING ON MY BELONGINGS, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Quick LJ update, since I've been missing for a little bit. Let's make an itemized list again, those are fun.

1. Lauren and I greatly enjoyed hanging with Melissa and her Dad in Corvallis. We watched all of the RT shorts. It was fun. The falconry meet was also fun, if a bit fail. Tiny children thought Penny was cute, which was observant of them. We followed the longwingers in an attempt to see a successful duck hunt. ...Attempt, I said. The winter meet is supposed to be the duck hunters' meet, but as Randy said, there was a lot of trying, no dying. The weather was gorgeous, which meant the ducks weren't sitting on the ponds... we spent half the day just trying to find them. When we finally did, bird was doing a good flight, but just as flushed the ducks, a FUCKING BALD EAGLE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE and tried to eat the bird. (Becca, I blame you.) Next pond full of ducks, excellent flight, nice stoop... but out of all the lovely ducks on the pond, bird wanted the FUCKING CANADA GOOSE. Damn near got it, too, but not quite. All of the other birds were completely fail, except for the last flight, which knocked some feathers of a duck, but didn't quite manage to kill it. A pheasant and a pigeon died in completely unsatisfying ways, and that was it. *sigh*

2. The reason I haven't been on LJ is Aphelion started up. YAAAAAAAY!! It's been gobs of fun so far. Starting roster: Robin (Teen Titans), Church (Red vs. Blue), Tex (Red vs. Blue), Edmond Dantes (The Count of Monte Cristo), Sam Carter (Stargate), James May (Top Gear), and Richard Hammond (Top Gear). Poor Becca's being eaten by her thesis etc. and had to immediately put Sweets (Bones) on hiatus (;_;) but when she comes back it will be AMAZING. And Lauren's bringing in Shadow (Sonic the Hedgehog) this weekend, and Carrie's got the Master (Doctor Who) on reserve, and the addition of these two will only increase the awesomosity. :DDDD

3. After playing phone tag with Dan for a week and a half, I succeeded in speaking to him. He was born in Hawaii, was a kid in So Cal, and has lived in Portland since he was 10. He has a cat named Lincoln who he found as a kitten on the side of the road and rescued from certain death. He loves music, likes to sing, enjoys karaoke, and just joined a band as a singer. He likes dancing, and Dante's. He currently makes money playing poker. ...We have vague plans to meet up sometime.

4. Having James May and Richard Hammond in Aphelion finally got me watching Top Gear, which I've been meaning to do for months and months. AND NOW I CAN'T STOP. I seriously love this show guys. T_T

5. The Saints made it to the Super Bowl. HELLS YEAH can I pick a winner! GEAUX SAINTS GEAUX!!

That is all, carry on. *goes back to watching Top Gear, the BEST SHOW EVER*

Today has been a day for small things that I nonetheless find very exciting.

Excitement the first. Hanging with Lauren and Penny is always fun. I watched Lauren toss bits of meat for her, which she chased and even, once or twice, caught in mid-air. And she caught the lure before Lauren even had a chance to swing it properly, by flying to her head hopping down on it from about a foot away, the little cheater. What was exciting, though, was when she needed a bit more food in the evening. Lauren took half the meat and the glove, and I took the other half of the meat and the whistle, and we stood on opposite ends of the room to see if we could get Penny to fly back and forth between us for her tidbits. She'd never done this before but she went straight to it with no hesitation, which I thought was awesome. So that was exciting, and fun.

Excitement the second. The reason I was at Lauren's was, of course, to work on Aphelion, as we have been since FOREVER. Well, we worked all day, and at the end of the day we realized... we don't really have any more work to do! We've got to polish a few things, tie up some odds and ends, and post our missing bits to the comm, and then we're DONE. So we plan to meet Wednesday or something to do just that, shanghai a few friends to beta for us, and then omg cut the ribbon and open her up for apps! TT_TT She will indeed be a January baby!

So here's me, heavily promoting.



As you can see, safety is our primary concern on Icelus. Tell me you wouldn't want to join a game where we take such good care of our colonists.

And in the spirit of promotion, post the second on dear_mun. Feel free to poke, if you so desire.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, y'all. Lauren's making a parkin, and tonight we will consume it and watch V for Vendetta. We'll have a fire too, if the weather permits. Looking forward to seeing Penny again, bless her little toes.

My window's a great place for wildlife, what with those trees right there. There were a couple of robins earlier, acting like re-re's. As robins do. And then some sort of woodpecker/sapsucker/flicker that I couldn't identify. ...I need some sort of kestrel-sized Lauren, that can sit on my fist, and I can fling her at small birds... "Identify!"

Mme. Suzette's being obnoxious, as per usual. With an extra side order of creepy. She's been sitting quietly, staring at me, for several minutes, and then she just leaned calmly forward and took a small bite of my forearm. I told her I didn't like that, and she stared at me some more, then leaned forward and started delicately licking the spot. ...If you never hear from me again, assume she ate me.

...OH GOD SHE'S LICKING MY ARM AGAIN. T_T