Category Archives: budgies

oh yeah… this…

two of the budgies — the ones that came from ian — apparently are unsymptomatic carriers of a disease that, when disease-free birds are in their presence, bad things happen to the disease-free birds. and, apparently, more than 40% of pet birds are unsymptomatic carriers… apparently, they have only recently determined that this disease exists, which means that they don’t know very much about it, yet, and testing for it means sending samples to a testing lab… so, we gave the two birds back to ian, after losing one of our own budgies, and almost losing another one. at this point, we’ve got two “baby” birds, grover and fozzie, and one remaining bird from the disease fiasco, bert, but bert has been in isolation for a few days. ernie and bert were the ones that went back and forth from work, with moe, but, with ernie dead, that whole scene has been disrupted.

the whole dog-training facility scene is scheduled to reach its current climax the last week of may, and moe has been overwhelmed with emails, and phone calls, and meetings, and this, that, and the other thing in preparation. she’s kind of got to hit the ground running at a speed faster than she can run, because she’s got to start IMMEDIATELY making about three times as much money as the business has been bringing in, because the former owners have been paying on a mortgage that was put in place 20 years ago, and moe is paying on a mortgage that was put in place yesterday. to start out with, that means putting more classes on the schedule, but all of the infrastructure to do that, including the class instructors, is in flux, because the old owners are retiring and moe hasn’t taken possession yet. it sounds as though moe knows what she’s doing, and has everything under control, but there’s a lot of running around, shouting, and arm-waving going on, which makes me (who is only vaguely informed about all of this) kind of nervous.

i’m still thinking that i’m probably going to have another flare-up of diverticulitis, eventually, but it hasn’t happened, yet, which is also making me kind of nervous.

i wrote to proto-pipe llc about my pipe which the stem broke off of, and they said that they can fix it for me, so i’ve got it all packaged up and ready to ship out tomorrow. i have another one, but it is brand new from the manufacturer, never even been unwrapped, and i want to keep it pristine.

oh, also, my “left-handed” mouse started acting like it was possessed by demons, so i got another, right-handed mouse, went to “System Settings -> Input Devices -> Mouse” and chose “Left handed mode”, and, by gum, it works! fuck the more expensive, demon-possessed mouse that was “made for left-handers”! i got a perfectly good, 3-button mouse for $10 that works just fine!

UPD

it’s weird… i can login using my linux box, but for some reason, i CAN’T login on my tablet, despite entering the same password, and my authenticator app LIVES ON my tablet… i think, ultimately, it’s going to take turning off 2FA, and then turning it back on, but i don’t want to do that… yet. 😒

260217 - Cookie Monster, Oscar The Grouch, Bert, Ernie
260217 – Cookie Monster, Oscar The Grouch, Bert, Ernie
we got two new budgies to go with our two less-new budgies. we’re naming them after characters on sesame street, because two of them (ernie and bert) “interact with the public” — i.e. they are “clinic pets” at the clinic monique works at — so calling them tony and tommy was… less desirable. 😉
260219 - Bert, Ernie, Oscar The Grouch, Cookie Monster
260219 – Bert, Ernie, Oscar The Grouch, Cookie Monster
the new ones are oscar and cookie monster — green and blue — to go with ernie and bert — “violet” (which looks blue to me) and yellow — and i’ve actually got sesame street finger puppets from when i was, probably, 10 to 12 years old…so, now we have a whole flock of budgies, which is good, because budgies live in flocks (in australia) in the wild, so that helps.

i’ve got another flare-up of “smoldering” diverticulitis. i recognise the symptoms in time to go get medication for it without going to the hospital, now, but it royally sucks having constant diarrhea. fortunately, unlike the last time, i am NOT in the middle of a performance, and my circus and unicycle classes are on break this week, so the “have to be out in public” parts of it are a lot less, but it doesn’t make it even the slightest bit more tolerable. 😒

the mornings full of spam text messages are back in full swing: anywhere from three to ten spam text messages between 06:00 and 11:00 or so, about 5 days out of 7. i now have over 1,200 blocked phone numbers on my phone, but that doesn’t stop ’em from coming up with new ones, every single day. and, i’m sorry to say that, at least they’ve got one thing right: americans, by and large, are the dumbest people i have ever met, and, if it is possible, i’m pretty sure they WOULD give scammers their money of their own accord, because, no kidding, folks, these scams are THE MOST OBVIOUS… messages from “8P-P-le Support” and “Ap-p-le support”, messages that contain the words “PrivacY, PoliCY”, messages from “Apple” with return addresses in Cork, Ireland, and a phone number in Rosco, Illinois, messages that claim “Your Apple ID was used at CHILD PORNOGRAPHY WEB SITE” which assure me that “Your IP will be BLACK LISTED SOON”, the person answering the “Apple support” line telling me that his name is “James T. Kirk”… the worst are the messages allegedly from “PayPal” which don’t address me by my full name, which is one of the things legitimate PayPal does to assure you that it is not a spam-scam. seriously! have you EVER known paypal to CALL YOU??? jeez! 🙄

one would really think that people would get the idea, eventually… 🙄

i’m reporting every single one to the phone company, apple, and the federal government, but none of them has resulted in THE SLIGHTEST decrease in their occurrence. 😒

finally, here’s some relatively new art:

260214 the deception pass bridge
260214 the deception pass bridge