My eyes have been opened to the perils of the marine world. Mainly baby sea turtles in Australia.

Dear Mother Nature:

As a sentimental human I would like to ask you to spare a thought for all the sea turtles out there. Namely the baby ones which have such a treacherous journey to take just moments after they are born. For one, please spare more than just the one or two out of one hundred hatchlings who make  it to sea, and help more of the hatchlings to return to their home safely. However, I know that you like natural selection to weed out any of the weaker species and replace them with a new, faster, feistier, sharper and better model. Of course weak and feeble baby turtles that are mere few minutes old and have to travel for three days are a pretty dated application of natural selection, but nature is in the process of weeding them out and modifying them to adapt to their duties better. Or getting rid of them completely. However, I watched a documentary this evening about the Great Barrier Reef and turtle mating/laying eggs/hatching was very emotionally portrayed, and I truly connected with the poor turtles. What they go through every day is awful and must be stopped, but cannot be stopped due to the delicate balance of the ecosystem, which I completely understand. However, I will still continue to display empathy for the targeted species.

Let's face it, sea turtles have a hard life. I wouldn't want to be a sea turtle if I were reincarnated, not at all. For starters, sea turtles are born under the sand from eggs that the mother turtle laid god knows how long ago, and couldn't be bothered to stick around and wait for her babies to hatch. So she then went back to her home in the middle of the big blue ocean, and left her little darlings to fend for themselves in their first vulnerable minutes of life. On land. And with flippers. And in the middle of birdy hatching season as well, so plenty of big bad birdies that are ready to snatch away and mutilate incompetent or unwary turtle hatchlings, so that baby birdies will have full tummies. Survival of the fittest at its most extreme here... or possibly the luckiest?

Of course, Mother Turtle is fully aware of this. However, she only just got home from that bloody beach (aka "The Love Shack" according to younger turtles. What a misnomer, seeing as it was a beach from hell...  nest  building exercises and being around no one that really grabbed your attention with an evolutionary advantage potential. feelings of inadequacy surrounding mating with a male that didn't possess strong and defining features necessary for strong offspring). No way would she be travelling back to that place with it being hundreds of miles away and filled with memories that are already trying to be suppressed. That is if turtles even had emotions... If not, the female sea turtle would need the time at home to recover from the long journey and regain energy to look after her offspring.
She knows (maybe not consciously, but something instinctive is telling her(?))that there are lots of dangers out there, in between the hatching place and the turtle's true home hundreds of miles away. The chance of one turtle being able to do that and return intact would be incredibly slim, so in order to prevent the circumstance of no returning hatchlings she lays lots of eggs. HUNDREDS of them. Maybe thousands? Well, she most certainly buries the entire contents of her womb under the sand... I lie. She lays lots and lots and lots of eggs under the sand, ( a figure ranging between 50 and 200 to be slightly more specific/give a vague idea), leaves them to incubate for 2 months whilst she rushes off home.

This, of course, would be completely unacceptable in any human society. For one thing, if someone were to give birth to 50 to 200 children, they would expected to look after their offspring, especially for the first 2 months after birth. During this time, trust bonds need to form between parent and children, which can't be done when you're buggering off home. With such a vast number of offspring, in this day and age we are meant to honour each sibling with a similar amount of favour. Yes,  time will be spread thinly between them all, provided they return to the nest safely...
Yet the mother turtles seemed to forget that most young sea turtles would not have enough energy/strength/size/valour/luck/food to cross several hundreds of miles of ocean, led by a little internal GPS pointing to mummy. It would be a shame to not have anything swimming back when the other  baby turtles return, so lay lots of eggs. Who cares if the other 127 die on the way into the sea? At least you get the one or two to carry the gene line going. Besides, nobody has the time for 127 kids, especially if they can all make it across the ocean by themselves. However, it is not alright in this modern day, age and society to allow these lives to be born to die. Who cares about their physical attributes? So what if he's missing a flipper, he has a marvellous personality and tells limericks wonderfully. No one could possibly hurt such a soul like that, even if they were super hungry and this baby turtle was a prime target due to being a cripple... But they do. They are hurt. Slaughtered. Butchered. Murdered by bullies. Yet the mother is perfectly content with sending 99% of her hatchlings to certain death... how is that moral? In human terms, turtle mothers are psycho. Well and truly psychotic and dangerous, yet are completely blinded by their faiths and rituals...

However, turtle mothers are not moral. They are not human. They are sometimes dangerous, rarely suffer similar psychosis to humans and certainly do not have faiths and religions. Yes, they have their age-old rituals, but that's the only thing that comes even close to how they should stand next to a human society. Human Society seems in certain ways to go against the laws of nature, especially with the ever-changing laws and regulations of today...
So we deem turtles "immoral" and look down upon them because they have a different way of treating their young from us. Humans are pretty much stuck growing up for 18 years with mother and father constantly providing for them, and useless in the real world. Sea turtles are completely independent from day one, and because of this they don't need Mummy's help. What's the point of going back to a creature that has no certainty of relation? What use is relation anyway to sea turtles when all of their brothers and sisters are competitors? None. Turtles don't need human concepts. If we tried to use our human morals down there, I wouldn't expect us to last very long. Who is going to convince a shark not to eat them due to their turmoil?
Sharks eat now, listen later, so your list of reasons not to be eaten would be rather fruitless.

I talk of the first few hours of turtle lifedom being one of the toughest life challenges facing any animal on this planet, and obviously their experiences in this short time determines their fate in the next 5 minutes or so. First of all, the turtles have to crack open their shells under the cover of night (sunset is best) and wonder what te fuck is going on. But of course, they have no time to wonder what is going on as they feel an incline to head towards the sea because the flippers that they had been provided with were no use on land. Shuffle shuffle shuffle.. Similar hatchlings shuffle around hastily, all moving the same way... Of course the sand is a bit annoying to shuffle in, but it could be quite pleasant with the brothers and sisters...

Nature doesn't want you to play happily and in your own time, little turtles. EVERYTHING IS OUT TO GET THEM. THEY ARE THE PERFECT TARGET. No parent, no defence, slow, disorientated... easy meal for any sea birds of prey. Even though they are this young, they are still capable of the struggle, powered by the sharp adrenaline increase from fear, and often are incapable of concealing their discomfort and unhappiness towards the end. It is emotionally scarring for many turtles watching their brothers and sisters being picked off one by one whilst the smart ones evade the birds by zig-zagging down to the sea. Of course they don't have any true emotional connection with these other turtles. They were raised in eggs for goodness sake. However, these pawns demonstrate the wrath of other creatures in this world. Trust nothing. And shuffle really really quickly.
Many turtles were able to get out of an offensive with one of these birds with a great deal of luck and timing, but a memory of something like that at an early age? The feeling of sheer terror and relief and panic would provide a terrifying experience for any 18 minute-old  creature, and would certainly cause many repercussions with his social development throughout life. They must be right head-cases.

Lots of the turtles are weeded out by the initial trial, a sprint across the sands dodging hungry birds. Next comes the water trial. An endurance event, small turtles are eased in by being washed in by the tide so that they can quickly get used to the water. If they don't, then they die. Simple as that. Then of course some could be swept away by the tide and into  lairy crab's pincers, touched inappropriately and generally assaulted. The hatchlings that get away from these despicable creatures are truly worth their grit, despite their emotional baggage. After that, they've got to make a ridiculously long journey to a patch of seaweed that they deem fit to raise their colony in and go back to that bloody mating place when they're old enough to mate again.

Despite all this, their suicide rate is next to none!
All this shit happens to them so often that it is considered "normal" to them

.
Sea turtles' lives are too hard for me to enjoy. It's all toil and angst and no play, alongisde fright and flight scenarios that must always be assessed. The odds that I would survive within the first 5 minutes of life are determined by luck and speed, and are slim. If I'd temporarily swapped with a turtle for a "Day in the life of Me." where I was a turtle, I'd be sat twiddling  my thumbs in a dark room for 23 hours and 55 minutes instead of doing what I wanted to do, swim around... However, it seems that I have gotten my "Buddy" eaten by a seagull, due to initial incompetence of working the flippers.
Sorry matey. Nature hates you :(

but when you live, you live forever anyway so you might not die out for a while yet.

Fear and Loathing

One toke over the line, sweet Jesus

I love Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S Thompson is a genius. Fact. You can look that up in the dictionary. Turn to "genius" and underneath Albert Einstein and all those lot you'll find a picture of Hunter S Thompson. Well, maybe not, seeing as I've never had a dictionary that has pictures in it (pictionary?) , but all the same, I do deem him to be somewhat of a legend for creating what he has created and sharing it with us all. And the brilliant thing is that many people that I know, familiar with the film quite amicably, have decided to read his book as well!

I admit it, I read the book after watching the film. Obsessively. Well, maybe not quite that far, but I have seen it a fair few times. The first thing that strikes you though is that you start reading the book in Johnny Depp's Raoul Duke voice, from the first line. Pretty much the word GO and that film starts playing through your head. Except it's in words as well! In front of you! How excellently written. Very well played as well to Mr Depp for making such a memorable job of it all. I will actually write a smiley face now. :)

However, as you would expect any book that is mere memoirs of a drug fuelled rampage in an arrogant and obnoxious city, some parts are rather odd. Of course, I must find this having never experimented with psychedelic drugs, and certainly not to the extent that Duke and the Samoan have. Of course, I wasn't really about in the 60s, or the 70s, or even the 80s, so of course have very little experience of their drug habits and public attitudes towards them at the time. But there are some things that are a bit funny.

Like the dwarf with the phone. Why do you need a dwarf to carry a Bakelite phone around whenever you wish to call someone from the middle of a hotel bar? Of course a mobile phone would be an outrageous idea because the world wasn't ready for them in the 70s. But why did a dwarf have to bring them a phone on a platter? Why a dwarf? True, they did a good job in dressing him up in a little suit and all. He looked very suave. Was a normal person not capable of carrying this phone over to them whilst they drank cocktails and ate mescal on the side? I don't know. Might be a dwarf activated phone.

Whilst we're still on wildlife, why were they so adamant about obtaining this chimpanzee? What use would a chimpanzee be to anyone? For the lengths that Duke bargained in order to try and obtain this beast, what use would it be anyway? For one, they're not even pretty. They are fat and ugly and have wrinkly faces. And blow raspberries a lot. Not my sort of companion. But not only that, where would the mad fools keep the beast? Duke and his attorney get up to too many chimpanzee-unfriendly adventures that Mr Chimp would be left out or in the wrong place at the wrong time. And people would stop and stare if it were trying to be like people and its masters. Its masters would be out of their minds all the time, and would set a very bad example to it. Also, what would it eat? Where would it sleep? The valets always take the cars, so certainly not in the trunk of a car, nor the backseat. And it couldn't eat the stuffing from the seats either, because it is highly lacking nutrition. Best they didn't get that beast.

I also never realised how health conscious they were as well. SO MUCH GRAPEFRUIT. GRAPFRUIT ISN'T EVEN THAT GREAT. so why have so much of it?

That book is crazy. That's why I like it. But it doesn't really do Las Vegas many favours as a tourist destination. If I ever go, I'll bring golf shoes.

I will give you something new soon

I promise. But here are some more puppy pictures. DAWWW

THE BIG QUESTIONS

I've recently started to try and get into the flow of twitter by sitting on it for extended periods of time at a time.
Despite the fact that I was not physically capable of "sitting on" twitter as it moved to the virtual Cloud-Zone a couple of months ago, I found that I was kept up to date with the latest stories. Today it is a Sunday, we're looking at the prime-time 11.30am-midday slot, and mayhem has broken out over the change of television schedule in the England and Wales region.
Viewers were disappointed to find that their middle class cookery programme: "Something for the Weekend" (affectionately dubbed online as #SFTW) was replaced by a show that is meant to answer all our questions. Well, all our big questions. Chaired by Nicky Chapman, the show's twitter promised us a series of moral, ethical and religious debates upon topical issues which is meant to put the nation's mind at ease when they find out the "right" answer. However, this change brought much distress to dedicated viewers to #SFTW and they showed their disgust through their phones. And mini blogs., And everyone had to let everyone else know that their cooking show had been cancelled for politics, of all things. They make me sick etc etc *abuse*

OH IT'S THIS SHOW

Calm down dear, it's just a change in the scheduling. You already know how to cook, and you have to admit that that lady on it was annoying anyway. Instead, the BBC want to hear some people "have their say" about their topics, and it could even be (god forbid) educational or inspirational. IT'LL BE PROPAGANDA, THROW AWAY YOUR TV! You know that those people are going to be paid to say what they're going to say anyway, and who the hell would hold a heated debate on a Sunday morning? Obviously the BBC have to take into account the "hangover-watchability-factor" which is ever so vital to its existence, and had to tone down the issues tackled to be "broad and sweeping and a little easier on the mind". One would not like a brain haemmorage alongside their nauseous stomach whilst they try to figure out whether they're still drunk or not. The BBC ruled out that anything that had long multiplication in it or trickier wasn't fit for viewing until the 4 o'clock watershed, the time when Everyone Who Was Hungover This Morning Should Be Trying To Get Out Of Bed Now. Hungover people can't think properly, so what better way than to gently ease them into their day with some deep but simple and stupid questions...

So this week's topics were: The End of the World, Thatcher's Legacy and Assisted Suicide. Really something that I would love to crawl out of bed for, head pounding and feeling absolutely rotten, slump down onto the sofa and watch of my own free will. I think what I haven't taken into account is that people have tvs in their bedrooms and can just watch tv from there without the painful moving process. Finding the remote to change channel might prove too much today...

Several types of twitterers

In the end, I only received twitter coverage of the show as by the time I'd finished watching angry remarks appear on the news feed to turn it on, it was over. What a shame. I would have put the television on the background but that may have been too distracting. So, I gathered from the general "trends" on twitter that most people were disgruntled and upset about the appearance of #bbcbqt on their screens. I could only speculate as to whether it was truly unwatchable from the word go, as many a twitterer tweeted, or lots and lots of middle aged ladies who are getting on a bit and like to kick up a fuss.Surely the title credits couldn't be that bad? They must have been something truly diabolical if one woman was ready to kill herself 10 seconds in, yet the studio audience seemed to be fine. And I'm assuming that those who had carried on tweeting through it must have done so by the skin of their teeth, it was such a traumatic ordeal. People with such dispositions as that lady should be banned from exaggeration.

We did of course get those who endured the whole show, and were thus entitled to give a valid comment upon it. We would say free from prejudice, but this is Twitter. No one can censor the internet. Well,, not yet anyway. It turned out that these so-called "experts" who were here to iron things out for everybody were a bunch of idiots. They didn't get their facts straight alongside having boorish accents and simple terms to associate with the working class who might be tuning in. I didn't know that experts knew so little! That's what I drew from that. And these Big Questions? Everyone has their own answers for them anyway.

They tackled the "End of the World". It truly sounded like it on there.

And then the next minute... it was gone. In an instant. Everybody on twitter was talking about something else. Probably completely different people as well. All this tweeting reminds me of being in a crowded room where everyone is voicing their opinion, and a cacophany of expression ensues.

I couldn't find another topic that engaged me like the first one, so I've given up twitter now. Birds tweeting has always been an annoying sound to me.

me.

The First "True" Post of 2012

I don't think that posts solely containing pictures of puppies really constitutes an adequate blog for entering the year, so I've decided to ignore the fact that it was posted completely before this one. It doesn't have enough words for it to be a real blog... merely picturess...

Herllo. I am writing from the second Sunday of 2012, (the 8th of January)because I didn't have last Sunday off work. In fact, I haven't had a Sunday off work in about four months or so until now, and I'm at a loss for what to truly do today. Of course, I have neglected any duties for posting blogs and such because a) I am lazy and b) I am just too busy. Now I have mustered up energy to look ahead at the rest of this year.. 8 days into the whole thing of course.

I know we all have to individually look  closely at ourselves and set up some resolutions to undoubtedly improve ourselves over the coming year, both physically and mentally. What I don't quite understand is how so many people see New Year's Day as the start of their "crash diet" in a year that is meant to make a "fitter, happier you". People who are giving up a whole snack group cold turkey, as soon as the bell chimes at midnight, are fools for doing so. It's almost as if they can see their failure on January the 2nd, swimming around at the bottom of a Cadbury's Heroes tin, having consumed one too many of the dairy milk. Bloated and defeated, everyone gives up and goes back into their normal routine of eat junk feel shit. Realistic targets, anyone? Ditto smoking, chocolate, cheese...

I've gone the whole hog this year and made TWO resolutions as opposed to the normal one or the never-ending list of faults that neeed to be improved before the year is out. First one is to take a picture every day for thw rest of this year. I did attempt it last year, but seeing as I didn't have a nice little camera or a camera on my phone, I was traipsing a DSLR around everyday. I also didn't start on January 1st, but in sometime mid-February.
The next one is to have more fun than last year, because i think that that is a pretty attainable goal. It's a win-win situation, because I don't think I had that much fun last year. I guess I'll have to strive to include more fun-inducing activities into my daily routine then! Whilst everyone's being all miserable with their celeriac diets and struggling to stay away from the pub, you can waltz straight in and already be enjoying the indulgence much more than the "giver-up-ers". You can have this pint and cigarette guilt free this way! No self esteem breaking things, no damage to self confidence... You can sit in the pub with the pleasure that you are the only one who is truly enjoying their pint without the worries of too much to drink, blood pressure, driving, meant to be cutting down, calorie content or someone else's nagging to ruin it.
Why do you make yourselves so miserable?!

Cthulu and R'lyeh