December 17, 2007

• Ah. I lubs him.
• R.O.U.S.! I don;t think he's uggy - I think him kinda cute. I like him agouti coat.
• Forget the 'lost world' jungle -- they should send a team to check out Grand Concourse in the Bronx, especially down by the 5 train. "No fear of humans." Pfft.
• Nam nam. Tasty!
• Oh, God it's so cute. How did they get it to put on a T-shirt? And pants! Seems a bit cruel.
• Mmh. If Rattatoulie made little rats a popular pet, I wonder what could be done to market these huge, cute critters to the masses...
• Hats.
• BUT MAKE THEM FIT THIS TIME!!!
• Pfft. That's nothing.
• When a cane rat comes up your sewer into the toidy, you can't get the lid down fast enough at all. Xenmate, good thing they breed usually only once a year with a litter of 2-4. I'm with you, Hank: hideously ugly. Rats ain't pretty, folks. They may be smart and make good pets for teenage boys (and mom gets charmed on occasion) but they ain't pretty.
• Cane rats are good for finding mines.
• Hank, don't blow up those "hideously ugly" Moby Dick-sized rats --- they's just big ole land whales. You know, jus' like the critters that you (arbitrarily) lurve.... kiss me, I'm Irish
• No, you misunderstand, the rats can be trained to detect mines by smell, due to their efficient noses. In fact I was wrong, it is the Gambian Pouched Rat, not the cane rat. They don't get blowed up. I don't arbitrarily love some animals, I like them all. Except for the smelly ones and the ones I can make money by exploiting. I know you understand what I mean :)
• And I'm part Irish, too. :p
• And no fear of humans.
• There's a video on Reuters featuring the opossum, but sadly only stills of the HUGR.
• We have some huge rats in the lab. 850 grams. I mean, that's not as big as these fellas, but for a bog-standard Sprague-Dawley that's HUUUUGE. The wee grass rats I used to work with, well, we considered a 120 g grass rat to be a fatty. Man, do I want to hold one of those big HUGR ratties... they look so fuzzy. The Gambian rats are big and all, they supposedly make good pets but from what I've heard their pee is majorly stinky. And they have a bad habit of tossing the peed-on bedding out the sides of the cage.
• Sounds pretty smart, to me.
• You know, this would be a great thread in which to post an epic rodent story...
• 
• I want.
• I want. Fried or boiled? :p
• *Glares at Abiezer with beady little eyes*
• Let them eat rats. "...rat meat is not only a delicacy but a protein-enriched food, widely popular in Thailand and France." Rat sorbet, rat pie, rat tart...
• Well, it's got SOME rat in it. Three. Rather a lot, really.
• We have a lot of prejudice about what we eat. If you're gonna eat dead sheep or chicken, why not rat or lizard? It doesn't taste any worse than some of the shit you buy from the supermarket, I can assure you. You drink cow milk? Why not dog milk?* Why not whale milk? The upside of the latter is we would have been able to save that poor fuckin' whale calf they had to zap last week, just by going down to the deli. This is what amazes me about meat eaters, eat all of it if you are gonna do that. It's all disgusting, conceptually. The only reason you find some stuff distasteful is for cultural reasons, it's not the taste. I've eaten snake, kangaroo, gator, various insects.. depending on where it is from and what it was fed on, they're not any more disgusting than Uncle Ted's barbecue steak, sometimes, you know how he fucks that up. It's what you put on it that makes it taste good, or your cultural priming. After nearly 20 years of not eating red meat, for instance, a steak cooking smells like vile shit to me. One of my first jobs was workin in an abattoir. Believe me, if you saw that shit you would be the biggest fuckin' vegan unhung, my friends. Either that, or very down with the reality of this mortal existence. Now pass the sauce. *Admittedly, dog milk is sour as all hell, but you get the point.
• In fact, here's an example: there's a cultural group in Africa that eat mice. It's a big part of their diet, and they love that shit. I forget which tribe they are or where they are from, I'm sure someone read the same article I did & will grok it. OK, so they eat mice, little mice-kebabs. They love it. Mmmm-mmm, just like Grammy used to make! But they find the idea of eating rat to be gag-me-out disgusting, because to them, a mouse is clean, eats clean things like grain and berries, whereas a rat eats anything. That is all in their heads, they don't know what the mice are eating, there is little difference between the opportunistic diet of a field mouse exposed to baby birds or whatnot and a rat living in a farmer's wheat silo. It's all in your head.
• There aren't many animals I wouldn't at least try if given the oppportunity. I haven't been that enamoured by most 'exotic' meats I've tasted, but I imagine it's just because I didn't eat enough to get used to it and allow my brain to make the taste = norishment connection.
• Sewer rat could taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know, because I'd never eat the filthy motherfucker.
• OK, so they eat mice, little mice-kebabs. They love it. Mmmm-mmm, just like Grammy used to make! THIS GramMa prefers to deep fat fry them. They come with their own little handles! Sewer rat could taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know, because I'd never eat the filthy motherfucker. I knew you hated punkin' Capt., but really, you're going overboard now.
• I take it you've never seen Pulp Fiction, GranMa? All the kids loved it when it came out.
• That was so long ago she was a teenager when it came out.
• I saw a rat this morning. That's my big news for the day.
• On average, you're only ever 9 meters away from a rat. 1, in Washington.