I'd Like To Make A Request. An Iron Maiden... But With Hands Instead Of Spikes. Think About It.

I gotta get lost. I feel like getting lost would be a new adventure. Of course it's just a little voice in my head wishing for more in life. Never being satisfied with what I have, I'll probably lose a lot someday and realize what was lost. I'll realize what is to come is just a new shedding of the old. I'm starting to find that it's an old plot that needs tending to.

On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.

Frank Zappa

My own lobotomy...

It's entertaining. To be honest I'm enjoying this whole thing. It's like an out of mind kind of deal, to which I am the surgeon looking down into the brain of a young man whose life is in my hands.To which is quite interesting since I'm performing my own surgery.

It's to my understanding that I do enjoy looking deeply into my life and how it spreads to others, effecting them. I have been quite a good man to many and to quite a few a mother fucker. To all, I agree with. I have been a paragon to many as possible. It's in my nature to be so. Whilst it's also in my nature to be a bastard to those who have it coming or to those who I believe deserve it. I find myself in the nature versus nurture ordeal a lot of the time. But in all honesty, I try to stay in line out of how I believe things should be. Then again this rule applies to every living soul to walk across the crusty earth.

As I dissect into the lobes and folds and vained grey bits of this young man I find that he's never really cared for much. That he takes life for what it is. A good joke. To me a good joke has a meaning and a good joke has a downside to it all.

So far all I can do is laugh at the irony, the bits of bullshit and how cliched the world is. Could my life be scripted? Written into a cheesey series of novels that some teens will read, thus pushing the sales into movie territory and thus a cheesey movie of my life will be made. I find that my life will be as it is while more will find it to be more than an average joe's. It's up to them to make me seem more than I am. In some other dimension or universe, I'm just character on a page. But in my dimension or universe I'm a self noticed teen who already cracked the fourth wall and yet hasn't the care in the world. Take in all the little things and make a big deal out of them. Take in the big things and make them as small as possible. Keep everything you love close and stay aware that you're still alive even though I find myself in situations that I believe wouldn't happen to a goof like myself. Such as coming across things like a great girl, a good moment or even a song to speaks to me. I find myself in the fourth wall conundrum where I think I'm either reliving a moment through death and through time (so it goes) or I'm dreaming.

A rarity this boy might be, but alas he's flawed and easy to pierce. Many young adults can agree with him, that is if they knew him before he was drained of what sense he has left, filled with chemicals and then operated on. Maybe he's a dying breed. Maybe he was an old soul. Time to preserve this specimen is running low.

ペッタラペッタラ手を上げながら歩くボス

Gotta kill time and keep my mind from wandering.

This. This is going up on my wall and it will be an awesomer wall! Recently got this from this wonderful girl. She surprised me with it. Fuckin love it!

A plan to end the search...

...for bigfoot. It occurred to me, last night, that people still enjoy the cryptic known as bigfoot, I mean shit they still make shows about searching for the bastard(s). Have the researchers gotten close to finding the evidence to support the claims that a wild monkey man is lurching around the mountains and forests of the world? I'm pretty sure they've got mold of the footprints sasquatch leaves behind, they've got samples of hair that were left behind after he stepped on the wrong branch or on some rust nails near a house. The evidence has been analyzed and most of it has come back as a relative of apes after this people keep on searching, wondering what it could be big foot could still be...huh? They just told you, hair from some animal that was left behind in the rocky mountains (which I'm quite sure is devoid of apes or monkeys) is of ape origin and people still question whether it's real or not.

The television shows are annoying me with footage that capture Bigfoot in the distance and yet nobody dares to chase after it like an idiot American would do. So I figured hey, find the craziest, strongest, bravest man alive. Convince him to stalk Bigfoot with a camera strapped to his head and send him off into the forest and tell him to only return with evidence of Bigfoot. You obviously need to put him in an area where big foot has been spotted dozens of times before. Send him there and tell him to live off the lands and try to find proof that big foot is real. Maybe a carcass will do? If Bigfoot is so aloof with his sightings then it'd be a change of pace instead of rubbernecking at him in the distance and instead to charge at it with a few friends. If it attacks then try to let it chase you into town or near a road in plan daylight where you know for certain it is busy.

But until the day where we can send crazed men into the forests to hunt the legend down with only their wits and Teddy Roosevelt-like rage we'll have to accept the fact that yes he's probably real and yes there will be shows and movies and books about him. But I rather just settle the whole thing now and just hunt for it. I also didn't really think this whole think out, this could be an incredibly dumb idea and I'll be viewed as a jackass. I don't care really, I'm bored as hell.

oof

mugwomps

replied to your photo

“Sometimes when I’m working, Kaiju will violently shove the laptop away…”

I’ve never kept reptiles other than catch-examine-release…does your Very Large lizard actually want cuddles from you? Is she, um, bright enough to know you from other humans? Sorry, I am as ignorant as I am curious!

That is actually an EXTREMELY GOOD QUESTION and something I’ve been working on defining for as long as I’ve known Kaiju! It’s hard to describe affection without being anthropomorphic, so I usually approach this question by looking at what I know about reptile behavior and then trying to figure out what specific behavioral sets mean. This is gonna be a long post- it’s something I REALLY LOVE talking about.

Reptiles socialize in ways that are very different from mammals, and this can be really confusing- especially when one of the big things they tolerate humans for is our body heat. Research into reptile behavior suggests that lizards can definitely distinguish between people by scent alone, as well as by sound. It’s not uncommon for captive lizards to recognize their primary keeper- who’s feeding them, who’s interacting with them. Kaiju can actually differentiate between my clothes and other peoples’ clothes (she’s a horrible laundry thief). The people don’t even need to be in them. But beyond that, the most interesting things (in my opinion) happen in larger lizards- things that are big enough not to be everybody’s prey species, things that are able to be a little more confident and less reliant on hiding or running away.

The benchmarks for attention-seeking behavior and and curiosity/interest in humans that isn’t food-driven have been best studied in Komodo dragons due to interest in the zoo industry because encouraging these behaviors has become a key part of Komodo dragon management. These criteria include interacting with human keepers in a non-food context, expressing heightened interest in items that smell like a specific human, and non-predatory non-regulatory behavior- i.e. play. Trooper Walsh, who’s the guy at the National Zoo who got Komodo dragons to breed in captivity and Gordon Burghardt from UT, as well as a bunch of other herpetologists lay it all out in a chapter of Komodo Dragons: Biology and Conservation, which is one of the best books about big reptiles I’ve ever read. An example of both play and preference is seen here- Kraken, the dragon in question, has no reason to want that handkerchief. It’s not food, it doesn’t smell like food, and it doesn’t look like food. And it’s not feeding time! But she’s gonna take it regardless. Kraken was also notorious for stealing shoes and sticking her face in them, which is something Kaiju does as well. (I think that’s Walsh in the video with her.)

Now, Kaiju is a tegu, not a monitor lizard. But a lot of this still applies- tegus are extremely curious. There’s actually an evolutionary advantage to that- they’re scavengers with extremely broad diets, and investigating novel things can have great rewards. Being able to solve problems and work through natural puzzles is beneficial- there’s definitely incentive to be curious and to get highly comfortable with the environment.

There’s also a lot of anecdotal evidence that just… suggests that they like being around people, that they’re interested in what people are doing. 

This is one of my favorite videos because it’s really cool visual evidence that these tegus… well, want attention. The human offers food and they’re all far more interested in contact and attention. And I don’t think it’s just these tegus- I think it’s any tegu that’s learned that humans can be trusted. I’ve met a whole bunch of really well-socialized tegus, and they definitely have their people- they’re happy to accept pats and scratches, but at the end of the day, their human is their constant. They’re built for different worlds that the one we live in, and while they are highly adaptable and curious, having something they know is safe to return to is probably very comforting. 

So how does this look for my very large lizard in particular? I represent a constant- I’m something that she associates with pleasant things, comfort, and food. But I also represent a continual source of entertainment- I do new, strange things and make odd noises and sometimes dispense food. I pet her- if I don’t, she shoves her face into my hands until I do. Anecdotes aren’t data, and it’s not a rigorous study or anything, but time and again I see her making decisions that put her in proximity to me. I see her scratching at the cage door when I come home. I see her climbing into my bag in the mornings before I go to work, even when she’s got a million other places she could hide. I see her having all this space to move around and regularly choosing to be near me- even when it has nothing to do with thermoregulating or food. When I came in to pick her up from boarding, she fought the lady bringing her out to me and then wouldn’t let me put her down for hours after I got home. It was a struggle to get her in the pet carrier. I see this wild animal falling asleep on my lap, and I have to wonder- this isn’t a dog. This isn’t a cat. She’s not domesticated, and she wasn’t even raised by humans- she’s a feral animal from the swamp in Florida. And yet she feels safe enough to fall asleep on me. I think that means something. 

This video is where comedy peaked