Breeding Update: End of Season

It looks like I will not be having any viable young this year. My female dropped the rest of her litter last Saturday and they were all stillborns with one last slug. She is now in shed and has taken a meal, so at least she is recovering nicely. I have tried to find solace in the fact that she is in good health and should be ready to try again this year. But cleaning up dead babies is just no fun.

Robophidians

Since my real snakes are doing less than stellar I thought I would post this sweet video of robotic snakes. They were built by the folks at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute.

Breeding Update

My albino female had her pre-birth waxy stool yesterday and with it came 2 unfertilized eggs, 5 still born babies and some regular stool. It is not uncommon for a female to deliver premature babies with a defecation within the last month but to have her drop such a mess right around the time she is supposed to deliver makes me less than optimistic. She has thinned out a lot after all this but is still acting like a pre-parturition female as opposed to one who just delivered. I am going to give her a week and she how she behaves but this may be the end of my season this year. I am disappointed and a little mad. This season has been rife with problems and set backs that do not seem to trace back to any problems in my husbandry. Just lots of bad luck.

In other snake news, my male Fredward is still not doing very well. He developed a mystery sickness around the holidays and has not responded to any form of treatment. I helped him shed for the third time now. He cannot control his head movement enough to shed properly and he has to be assisted. I think he may be at the end of the line. I will try to feed him one last time this week and if he still cannot swallow then he will have to be put down.

Funny how easily we forget that we are working with wild animals and abiding by nature's laws. I thought I would have produced ten times my current collection this year and instead it looks like I am losing half of it.

Drop Crap

My band, Silent Film, recently returned to their old tuning of Drop C for the guitars and bass. I was the main force behind moving up to Drop D tuning so, it goes without saying, I am less than thrilled. But in reality it is almost insane for us to ask anyone to try and sing our songs a step higher than they already are.

For those who are not familiar with guitars, basses, git-fiddles or git-girdle-tars, Drop C tuning is an entire step lower than standard tuning plus the lowest string is dropped an extra step. Taking a string one step down is no big deal on bass. There is less tension on the string but this can be compensated for with proper setup. Two steps down, like E down to C, is another story. De-tuning this low makes the string almost unplayable and really effects the tone and sustain of all the notes along the string but more so on the open C.

My solution is simple, I have a 5 string bass, my first Fender Jazz, that is currently tuned in Dropped D Tenor DADGC. I use 6 string bass strings and simply leave off the highest gauge string, the low B. From now on I will use this bass tuned CGCFA# using 6 string bass strings but now leaving out the E gauge string. This will mean tuning the low B up to C and the rest of the strings down one step. My only fear with this setup is uneven tension on the neck but she is a solid bass and I am sure she can handle it. I am not sure yet if I will try to find a better setup for my 4 string bass. I will have to see how the 5 string works out but it is always nice to have a backup for shows. Hmm, sounds like a good reason to go bass shopping.

How About A Flux Capacitor

My buddy Steve made a post over at his blog about Hillary's windfall tax. I was just going to comment his post but did not want to sully his blog with my uneducated understanding of economics. Steve makes a point about the windfall tax being aimed at Exxon and their record profits last year. He then moves on to talk about the ethanol mandate and it's ill-effects.

I am always interested in government intervention in business. The little I do know about economics has always led me to believe that any outside artificial pressures and stimuli only confuse or distract investors from making sound decisions in future technologies. The ethanol mandate not only sets the bar for how much ethanol is to be supplied but also provides tax credits and tariff protection from cheaper more efficiently produced foreign ethanol. This makes the production of corn based ethanol more profitable, it turn causing the price of corn to skyrocket. And as Steve points out this increases the price of not only US produced ethanol but also corn used as food for human and animal consumption. All of this comes to the tune of about $7 billion in government incentives to increase production of a more expensive fuel that is 1/3 less efficient than regular gasoline. And I have seen estimates that put the reduction in petroleum use caused by ethanol as low as 1% by 2012. It seems clear, even to a layperson like myself, that ethanol is a poor alternative to petroleum and these government mandates only serve to pull capital away from markets that may provide a more efficient and economically sound fuel source.

Really, I am just agreeing with Steve's comments on ethanol as an alternative fuel. My father and I just had a similar conversation last night so perhaps this is just left over enthusiasm. I just find it hard to believe that anyone can look at the facts on ethanol and not see that it is a poor fuel choice and that these government mandates are hurting consumers with minimal benefits to petroleum use and the environment. At least corn farmers are making an increased profit. It always seems that when farmers are involved people have this emotional reaction that has them jumping to their rescue. I have a healthy respect for farmers, it is a hard life, but I cannot help to end with a quote by H.L. Mencken.

….LET the farmer, so far as I am concerned, be damned forevermore. To Hell with him, and bad luck to him. He is a tedious fraud and ignoramus, a cheap rogue and hypocrite, the eternal Jack of the human pack. He deserves all that he ever suffers under our economic system, and more. Any city man, not insane, who sheds tears for him is shedding tears of the crocodile.

No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limit of our endurance; when the going is bad be comes bawling for help out of the public till. Has anyone ever heard of a farmer making any sacrifice of his own interests, however slight, to the common good? Has anyone ever heard of a farmer practising or advocating any political idea that was not absolutely self-seeking–that was not, in fact, deliberately designed to loot the rest of us to his gain? Greenbackism, free silver, the government guarantee of prices, bonuses, all the complex fiscal imbecilities of the cow State John Baptists–these are the contributions of the virtuous husbandmen to American political theory. There has never been a time, in good seasons or bad, when his hands were not itching for more; there has never been a time when he was not ready to support any charlatan, however grotesque, who promised to get it for him. Only one issue ever fetches him, and that is the issue of his own profit. He must be promised something definite and valuable, to be paid to him alone, or he is off after some other mountebank. He simply cannot imagine himself as a citizen of a commonwealth, in duty bound to give as well as take; he can imagine himself only as getting all and giving nothing.

Yet we are asked to venerate this prehensile moron as the Ur-burgher, the citizen par excellence, the foundation-stone of the state! And why? Because he produces something that all of us must have–that we must get somehow on penalty of death. And how do we get it from him? By submitting helplessly to his unconscionable blackmailing by paying him, not under any rule of reason, but in proportion to his roguery and incompetence, and hence to the direness of our need. I doubt that the human race, as a whole, would submit to that sort of high-jacking, year in and year out, from any other necessary class of men. But the farmers carry it on incessantly, without challenge or reprisal, and the only thing that keeps them from reducing us, at intervals, to actual famine is their own imbecile knavery. They are all willing and eager to pillage us by starving us, but they can’t do it because they can’t resist attempts to swindle each other. Recall, for example, the case of the cottongrowers in the South. Back in the 1920’s they agreed among themselves to cut down the cotton acreage in order to inflate the price–and instantly every party to the agreement began planting more cotton in order to profit by the abstinence of his neighbors. That abstinence being wholly imaginary, the price of cotton fell instead of going up –and then the entire pack of scoundrels began demanding assistance from the national treasury–in brief, began demanding that the rest of us indemnify them for the failure of their plot to blackmail us.

The same demand is made sempiternally by the wheat farmers of the Middle West. It is the theory of the zanies who perform at Washington that a grower of wheat devotes himself to that banal art in a philanthropic and patriotic spirit–that he plants and harvests his crop in order that the folks of the cities may not go without bread. It is the plain fact that he raises wheat because it takes less labor than any other crop–because it enables him, after working no more than sixty days a year, to loaf the rest of the twelve months. If wheat-raising could be taken out of the hands of such lazy fellahin and organized as the production of iron or cement is organized, the price might be reduced by two-thirds, and still leave a large profit for entrepreneurs. But what would become of the farmers? Well, what rational man gives a hoot? If wheat went to $10 a bushel tomorrow, and all the workmen of the cities became slaves in name as well as in fact, no farmer in this grand land of freedom would consent voluntarily to a reduction of as much as 1/8 of a cent a bushel. "The greatest wolves," said E. W. Howe, a graduate of the farm, "are the farmers who bring produce to town to sell." Wolves? Let us not insult Canis lupus I move the substitution of Hyæna hyæna.

Dave

So my band finally found a drummer. His name is Dave and he is pretty cool. Dave has brought some of what I think we so desperately needed, new energy. Silent Film has been around for a while and after you go through the same rise and fall, record and tour cycle so many times you start to lose steam. Plus, we are all 30-67 years older than Dave so he helps keep us motivated when we get distracted and want to take naps. He is also a damn good drummer. I never got really comfortable with our old drummer, musically or socially...he would only talk to me when my head was freshly shaved. Already I can find a solid rhythm and really lock in with Dave. He is young and throws in some slightly screwy fills from time to time but when he is on point we all can feel it and play better. Now all we need is to finish our search for a singer and in 7-9 short months we will be rocking again.

Breeding Update

It has been 5 months since the beginning of the breeding season for my boas and a lot has changed. In late November I noticed my male acting odd. He could not keep his head held up for more than a few seconds and was not tongue flicking. He is still not recovered despite months of antibiotics and veterinary care. It looks like there is some damage neurologically caused by an infection or possible trauma while in with my female. He will be finishing his last round of antibiotics this week and after that only time will tell. Fortunately, it looks as though he got the job done before I separated him and the female. She has been coiled tightly on her hot spot for weeks now and is getting quite large in her lower half. She is refusing food and has not shed since ovulation. I have calculated her due date to sometime in early March and we are preparing for the possibility of baby boas. We ordered a Iris 375 rack from Animal Plastics which should be arriving in the next week or so. Now all we can do is wait. Wait and see if our male improves in health. Wait and see if our female is gravid. Wait, wait, wait... I will post more updates as anything exciting happens and hopefully I will be posting some baby pictures come March.

Too Much Rock?

I bought Rock Band about a month ago and I love it more than I though I would. The game accomplishes what I always felt Guitar Hero never achieved. Rock Band connects the player with the music much more than GH ever did. GH's crazy button mashing often left me frustrated and most of the time I could play songs in real life that I couldn't even touch on expert. But when I saw the Rock Band Stage Kit online I almost couldn't believe it. The Stage Kit is an "interactive light and smoke stage show" that is supposed to enhance your rock to all new levels.
Really?!?
Seriously?!?
Ok...so some people might actually buy this product but this just seems really stupid to me. I can think of much better accessories than a cheap light show and smoke machine. A groupies kit would be nice, of course the bassist would be completely ignored. Or why not get the full experience of being in a band and create a shitty manager add-on that talks you up and fills your heads with hopes and dreams only to disappoint with horrible shows and mange. Better yet make a Great White Stage Kit that burns down your house.

das nötige Geld

I am starting the blog back up. A lot has happened since the last post but my wife is away on business this weekend so I should be able to get caught up. Things I hope to cover include snakes, the band, rock band and yet more bass gear.