Derick William Dalton's Shelly the Box Turtle

Another Day, another Valentine doll

2012-02-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Teleflora,

DWD here. I watched your Superbowl commercial. You win!

Bold move to bypass comedy in pushing floralarrangements, but it worked. A voyeuristic insight to a model getting ready fora date? Hot. The way her trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles snakedaround her scapulae? Hot hot! But the marketing maestros added a final touch, lifting your ad above all others using silky skin to pique interest.

Education.

Coming straight from such a beautifully reliable source, herface is all the credentialing sheneeds. One can’t refute her wisdom.

“Guys, Valentine’s Day is simple.” Pan camera to the floral arrangementbehind her. Sultry half-smile. Bedroom eyes. “Give, and you shall receive.”

There! The final word in understanding the female psyche! Broughtto you by Teleflora! For years I attempted appealing to female intelligence. Empathy forthe complex interplay of hormones and self-image and societal roles they must maneuver. Their desire for emotional connection and commitment.

All fruitless. Sucha fool. I get it now, though. Women are flower floozies. Bachelor buttonbimbos, hyacinth hookers.*

Oh, how my life would be different had I known.

I once discussed the failure of greeting card and jewelrycompanies in helping males with relationships. In attempts to facilitate a man’s primal desires, they fall flat. Take a look.

Averts Make the Heart Grow Fungus

No failure from Teleflora! Light the way, O Great Ones! Together, guys will get more receiving. You can undermine decades of feminist progress. We'll both rake in our well-earnedrewards.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

DWD

*I thought up several other monikers consistent withTeleflora’s groundbreaking research, but they aren’t family friendly.

Thin Green Veneer

2012-01-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

I have a moment at last, free of indentured editude. See how much I love all of you? I get thirty minutes to myself and I produce something for your entertainment. Um, out of kindness. Yeah. Not narcissism.

I had a moment in which several unrelated incidents, memories, and ideas all connected. But not like a kid's dot-to-dot where one already knows the end product. It was more like a zone of Zen. A cone of clairvoyance. Maybe even a savant sphere. And put your elevated eyebrow of doubt back where it belongs.

The increasingly popular, warm-fuzzy-inducing, and redundant public service messages about saving the Earth are increasingly popular, warm-fuzzy-inducing, and redundant. But we all knew that. And having a rich famous human explain how to save the Earth? Emotional reaction-inducing, but hollow. Like asking a turtle for parenting advice.

Knew that, too.

Here's what I really noticed for the first time. None of those messages about recycling and being green mention things that will actually save the Earth. None. Because none of them mention buying less stuff. No gardening or shopping at thrift stores and garage sales. No Yankee ingenuity (don't flinch at that, Southerners, y'all been Yankees since 1865).

Americans: Cash in your clunker for a new car! A five-mile-per-gallon savings! Working more for the payments will be a breeze because of the sweet ride! Acquiring and processing thousands of metric tons of raw material for that new car will easily be offset by that five mpg!
(In all fairness, buying a hybrid's a different carbon-footprint story: http://www.earthlab.com/articles/thecarbonfootprint.aspx. But no different in taking on a new debt.)

Bottled water companies continually flaunt the use of less plastic in containers. I'm sure that reduces the mass of a shipment and makes huge differences in the fuel costs for delivery. A filter in your fridge or tap? C'mon, those don't work.

Tobacco companies had to create anti-smoking ads after the big lawsuit: "Kids and teens - you're smart. You're tough. You're independent. You don't need anyone telling you what to do.....andbythewaydon'tsmoke." As engineered, ads met the literal punitive requirements and helped increase rates of smoking. Can't help but wonder if The More You Know about being green is brought to you by the same marketing firm. They both seem to have Mein Kampf memorized. It's all a thin green veneer on the not-to-emission-standards engine of economy. A green shell on the back does not a turtle make.

In my continuing quest to be less caustic to non-reptiles, I won't end there. I found a fascinating way to create what you non-indigenous humans can't grow or dig yourselves - a home. (Biting sharp tongue. Repressing species-ist slur.)
Built out of something already manufactured and not being used - leave the raw materials raw.

Houses built from shipping containers. Enjoy the idea and ingest the guilt!

DWD made me add this last one. Sorry.

The Clip Show

2012-01-13T18:07:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal, all you primates. And my reptile friends in Nueva Mexico and Minnesota. I'm getting bored with no new postings to my blog. I'm up to my superior dorsal scales in editing a certain naked pink monkey's work. Instead of what I love - making fun of non-reptiles and their pretentious nature. Right now, DWD is probably sleeping or watching cartoons.

When television writers get behind or lazy or go on strike and someone less imaginative has to take over, what do they do?

Clip Show!

So, both of my followers from NM and the three from MN. And anyone else who stumbles across the blog by accident - pick your favorite of all the posts. Type the title into an email and send it to ShellyTheBoxTurtle@gmail.com.

In the subject line type Shelly the awesome box turtle's "DWD-is-an-afternoon-still-in-his-jammies-slob-and-Shelly-is-an-overworked-slave" blogpost fave contest.

(Type. No cutting and pasting. It will void your vote.)

In addition to the privilege of active participation, all voters will receive a free copy of Sterile Field, the short story paralleling DWD's novel Houses of Common. That's a free gift worth 99 cents!

But wait! There's more! Make a prediction of the winning post. Anyone clairvoyant enough to nail it will win a free copy of the whole Houses of Common novel. Before it even gets published!

(Now I feel dirty for a commercial plug in this post. Need a shower.)

The winning post will be reposted. As I'm one better than the aforementioned "writers", I'll add a sanctuary of sedentary monetary commentary. Only with out the laziness. Or the money. And it will be a bit caustic, so perhaps it isn't calming, either.

Nevertheless, let the polls be opened. When I stop getting emails, I'll calculate results, demand a recount, file suit and countersuit, and sometime next year we'll have our answer.

"Nightingale", an interview with David Farland

2011-10-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Shelly: At last. A break from science fiction. And from Derick William Dalton, as he's napping.To be honest (regular honest, not my usual scathing kind), this is one of my favorite posts. I have the privilege of interviewing David Farland, New York Times bestselling author of the Runelords series and Of Mice and Magic. A big to-do in the literary world is his next project, Nightingale, and that's what readers and I want to hear about. Before we discuss that though, Mr. Farland, I can see by your follicular activity and the infrared radiation exuding from your person, you are a mammal. How do you focus and create all these works when you are continually eating and filtering waste and grooming and dealing with such a huge range of emotion?

Dave: Not all of us are fortunate enough to be turtles, of course. The ancient Chinese believed that turtles were the most blessed of creatures, special to the gods, and hence were given the gift of long life.

So, I generally try to do only two or three things at a time. I can brainstorm on a work while filtering waste. If I work hard, I can even brush my follicular activity. But I can’t do too much. I can’t, for example, chew bubble gum while doing all of the above.

Shelly: Were it not for my dermal pigmentation, you'd see that I'm blushing over your Far East wisdom. So, about Nightingale. I hear DWD's kids singing a song about a nightingale. “Sing sweet nightingale, sing sweet nightingale, la la la la guyuguyuguyah.” Makes no sense to me. Must be from some old cartoon. What's your story about, and what was your inspiration?

Dave: The inspiration comes from many sources. My hero in the story was raised in foster care, shipped from home to home, much as my wife was. The ideas about memory transfer came from pondering stories of the Wise Men from the bible, speculation about what they might have really been up to. Combine that with a really cool school for the arts nearby, and my own artistic dreams as a child, and the novel just came together.

Nightingale tells the story of a young man named Bron Jones, who is abandoned at birth. Raised in foster care, he’s shuffled from home to home. At age 16, he’s kind of the ultimate loner, until he’s sent to a new foster home and meets Olivia, a marvelous teacher, who recognizes that Bron is something special, something that her people call a “Nightingale,” a creature that is not quite human.

Suddenly epic forces combine to claim Bron, and he must fight to keep from getting ripped away from the only home, family, and girlfriend that he has ever known. He must risk his life to learn the answers to the mysteries of his birth: “What am I? Where did I come from? Who am I?”

Shelly: How delightfully Guaguin-esque! Now, I heard rumors of a soundtrack. I also understand it contains country music.

Dave: Yes, it has a sound track by the head of the National Composer’s Guild, James Guymon, with a dozen professional musicians and vocalists. Since my hero wants to be the world’s greatest guitarist someday, much of the music contains smoking-hot guitar tracks by Tom Hopkins in the style of Joe Satriani, or the band Pink Floyd. I found it to be surprisingly good, mesmerizing even. We also have some tracks that are done in a middle-Eastern style. Think of the music from Lord of the Rings, but instead of elves singing, imagine that you’re in a market in Baghdad. But we do have a song sung by Bron’s girlfriend at one point, a nice pop country piece.

Shelly: I'll have to get that on my iPod, set it on repeat for my next hibernation. But with that last comment , I'll need to post this interview before DWD sees it.Another bit of excitement is the unusual way the book is being released. What's novel about your novel?

Dave: This is a big project, an enhanced novel with illustrations and animations from half a dozen talented illustrators. We’re releasing the novel in several formats, as an enhanced book, a normal e-book, an audiobook, and as a hardcover—along with that soundtrack, of course.

Shelly: I notice you didn't mention something. On condition of anonymity, I've been told of imbedded metadata code. This reportedly causes Kindle, Nook, and iPad readers, plus Borders' new Flatline monitor, to operate beyond original designs. What can you tell us about the 3D hologram-projection feature?

Dave: Uh, that’s still in beta testing. I’ll bet the marketing department promised it already, right? They’re always promising things that we can’t deliver. Okay, maybe next week I can have it, if we work overtime. . .

Shelly: Last thing – as I know how quickly you mammals burn through your calories and your water and your lives and you're terribly impatient. Reader's want to know: How long do we have to wait for Nightingale?

Dave: We’ve got it now! We had our programmers create a web app so that you can enjoy the book on your computer—read a few chapters, take it for a test drive, or simply buy it for reading online. You’re free to go check out the results at www.nightingalenovel.com. You can order it in any format. The hardcovers won’t come out until December 1, but you can reserve your own signed copy and we’ll ship it right out.If you like it, remember to “Like” us on Facebook. Better yet, re-post our site info and tell your friends on Facebook.

Oh, and while you’re there, check out our short-story contest, where you can win $1000

Shelly: Thank you, Mr. Farland. It's been a pleasure interacting with an intelligent human for a change. I wish you well on Nightingale and your Runelord's theatrical project. I'm about to open a can of worms. Hungry?

Dave: Mmmm. Sounds good! Meal worms, or nightcrawlers?

An Interim Interview - Charles M. Pulsipher

2011-10-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

Shelly - A little change-up this week. DWD asked me to interview a friend, one Mr. Charles M. Pulsipher. Despite his name he's not in the British Parliament. Mr. Pulsipher's a cook and woodworker and zombie survivalist. Now he's expanded his skills to that of science fiction author. I have two requests as we begin, Mr. P. I want to call you Chuck, and will you please tell me the premise of Crystal Bridge includes no spaceships. DWD has burned me out on those.

Charles - You can call me Chuck. I mainly go by Charlie, but all my high school friends still insist on Chuck. I'm used to it. There are no space ships at all. My characters travel to another world, but they do it the old fashioned way, walking...I mean wormholes. These aren't the cheesy 80's wormholes either. I worked very hard to make them cool and slightly terrifying.

S - Mmmm. You had me at worms. I understand there is also a character who can read emotion without using words. Now I'm hungry and jealous. Not having to talk to people...

Chuck - Yep. Kaden opens the wormholes. Aren can see memories and read people's souls just by looking at them. Her gift becomes very important in keeping her alive as she gets lost on the other world. She's pretty tough to begin with, but she must learn to be more than that when she's captured by underground dwelling Dwaros.

S - I know you're talking about the Einstein field equation thing, but all I'm hearing is gooey slimy earthy goodness. Enough about me, though. I'm trying to limit my egocentricity. Speaking of tough, independent women with tough shells, requests from readers of the Eveleth Elle and my physics students in the southwest (see previous posts, everyone) were unanimous. "Read us the last page of Crystal Bridge!" So, how about it?

C - Can't do it. The last page gives away the biggest twist I wove into the novel, a secret that will blow minds. I can give you the last line. I like it, despite being a little passive. "He realized he was hungry." Great, huh?

S - Get out! That's not really the line, Chuck. You just made that up to keep me drooling over freshly-unearthed oligochetes. Okay, so we know one of my influences. What about yours? Who or what made you want to write? Kept you motivated when writing was inconvenient or hard? And if you say post-1989 George Lucas I will bite off your toe so help me the Dagobah swamp monster.

C - I can't say George Lucas pre or post-1989 had much to do with my writing. My writing style and voice have definitely been influenced by Orson Scott Card and Tad Williams. Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams have influenced me a bit. Fringe, Alias, Firefly, Angel, and Veronica Mars have become a part of me. Some older stuff too, E.T., The Dark Crystal, Labrynth, Stargate, even Sliders. I find inspiration anywhere I can get it.

S - HMMmmm. Skeksis help Gelfling! Loved that show! Except the end when the Skeksis are unwillingly forced to abandon their ideals, and their culture gets watered down by those hunchbacked hobos. Oh well. Here's the next thing I want to know. Any parts of The Crystal Bridge you wouldn't want read to kids? And by that I mean what page numbers should I memorize or mark with a sticky note?

C - If you managed to watch The Dark Crystal, then my novel will be no problem for you. That movie has some freaky things in it. My novel has a little scene where a man is mauled by a large cat-goat thing, Kaden almost gets swallowed by a dragon, and Rho, the dark god, has a few creepy moments, but the novel is pretty clean and tame. I wrote it for the 14 year-old in me and I think it appeals to anyone from 13 to 45.

S - Oooh! Mild sci-fi violence warning! That will boost the 14-to-whatever male mammal readership. I'm a bit embarrassed now, though. Now everyone knows I'm into bodice-ripping shell-scratching reptile romance novels. The interviewee is the one whose supposed to slip up with too much info. Speaking of awkward, what was the most embarrassing typo you came across while editing?

C - Unfortunately, that's an easy answer. I switched the names of two characters...twice. I have two scientists working on recreating extinct animals using genetic simulations. Here's a bit of spoiler, one of them dies. I managed to use the wrong character's name in the middle of the emotional scene. Then in another scene I confused two female Sidra who are nothing alike. Sidra are kind of like elves. One was the bad guy's minion and one was fighting against her. So, I had the good elf riding into battle against herself for a moment. I'm so glad I caught those before I finished. That would have been bad.

S - What do you think your therapist would say about that, Chuck?

C - I think most writers would be considered crazy once we start talking about our characters as real people. We're weird and conflicted. That's why we write. It's like you, Shelly. We all know you made up this DWD character. You're writing these books, aren't you, Shelly?

S - I've signed a strictly-worded harshly-penalizing contract which prevents further discussion. Your first comment, though? Crazy, weird, and conflicted applies to non-reptile vertebrates as a whole, so no disagreement here. Which brings up the last question, Chuck. The What If Game. Books sales are up, screenplay written, auditions underway. Who stars in the film Crystal Bridge?

C - Doesn't matter as long as J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon direct it together and it has a cameo from George Wendt. NORM! I love that guy. I also wouldn't mind if Natalie Portman is involved somehow.

S - I'd watch that! Well, Chuck, it has been a pleasure. Especially considering your species. I mean that as a compliment, by the way. So where do I get a copy of Crystal Bridge?

C - I wish I could bundle the print books. I thought about doing it with the ebooks, but they are so different. Maybe I'll think about it some more. Thank you, Shelly. This has been fun, even with your obsession over worms.

S - And hot male terrapins. Wait, what? There's more? I get a free copy of your survival guide, Zombies at the Door if I order in the next ten seconds? Okay - minimize, new tab, Amazon, title by author, spinning circle of boredom... spinning... spinning... And I'm too late. Stupid 1G dial up.

Crystal Bridge, by Charles M. Pulsipher:

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005NF3SDINook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Crystal-Bridge/Charles-M-Pulsipher/e/2940013379176Print: http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Bridge-Charles-M-Pulsipher/dp/1466320958/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Houses of Common excerpt. Brought to you by Turtle Wax: that sexy shine ain't just for cars.

2011-09-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

I finished some editing for DWD. Not interested in promoting his work, I just wanted everyone to see what I have to put up with. With what I have to put up? With up what I have to put? Also, so you could admire my fantastic editing. The awe of which that last sentence just destroyed. Here it is, a sample selected for it's lack of mammals.

Sckiik was disappointed the courier drone had no viewport, but it would be a giveaway it held a pilot. Unable to see out, she was missing the light-hearted excitement of the launch; the Earth rocketing away beneath her, the familiar Washington, D.C. landmarks collapsing into a point too small to see, the atmosphere darkening to black, and the winking of the stars in an accelerated twilight.

Her courier drone jolted violently as the reactor detonated a small volume of helium-3, the hull creaking as the explosion was contained and directed. Being so small, there had been no room for inertial dampers in the vessel, one of the reasons no human could undertake this mission. Sckiik felt her internal fluids rush from her head and thorax, but flexing the diaphragmatic muscles at her joints and bending the flexible portions of her exoskeleton to reduce volume, she rode comfortably through what would be nearly fatal to the best of human pilots. Achieving a typical drone speed, she took a course close enough to a usual northerly route away from Earth, but cheating toward the moon as much as she dared. Several hundred other courier drones appeared on sensors, all heading far enough out of Earth’s gravity to Bend, delivering messages to some exotic location, or more likely, a homely homestead colony.

Now, she thought, several hours of nothing at all. An assassin won’t try anything until we’re at least halfway to the moon – then is the smallest chance of being seen by orbital surveillance. But why bother with a powerless Ambassador? I’ve sensed no anti-Rildj sentiment in Congress or business or industry. We have no technological or military superiority that would threaten anyone.

So flowed Sckiik’s thoughts for several hours, but she could not come to any satisfying conclusions. Then she saw the speck on her sensors, angling from lunar orbit on a direct course to the Ambassador’s vessel. Zooming in visual display, she could see the new ship was a bulky affair, constructed around a clustered-sphere arrangement of compartments, not of recent design, but one she recognized.

The Kashmir Liberation Front? she wondered. What do they care about Rildj? At least I’m dealing with small-time terrorists instead of a state-sponsored act of war.

Venting nose thrusters, she changed course to come at the vessel from the side, hoping their attention was so riveted on the Ambassador she’d go unnoticed. The grapple claw and hull-welding charges were set, she’d slide up next to the ship, punch a hole in, and do her job before the assassins could do theirs. She checked her pistol, making sure the airtight rounds were loaded, each holding oxygen with the powder so she could still fire when the assassin ship depressurized.

Sckiik closed on the assassin ship long before it could reach the Ambassador’s vessel. The mass of a drone being insignificant compared to the power of the helium reactors, no ship could outrun them in standard flight.

I’ll get there in plenty of time, she decided. As long as they don’t see me.

A metallic clang and then a detonation vibrated the drone, Sckiik’s harness cutting into her from the jolt. Warnings blared as systems reset and diagnostic readouts flashed. Internal temperature rose significantly, and Sckiik tried to get more speed from another reactor detonation.

I only needed nine more seconds!

She was considering the masterful targeting needed to hit such a small object as the drone while moving at an oblique angle at enormous speed, when a second missile scored right on the nose of Sckiik’s craft. She braced for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised.

Sensors still online, she realized, and I’m not being sucked out a gaping hole! Charlotte, you are a hull construction genius!

The braking thrusters on the other hand, were vaporized.

Sckiik tried to flip the drone around and re-ignite the reactor to decelerate, but the guidance thrusters had been disintegrated also.

One more hit like that and I’m dust.

A few moments were hers as a third missile approached. She tried venting some of the compressed cockpit oxygen to alter her course, but the valve wouldn't respond. She hit the emergency fire suppression system in the instrument panel, hoping the argon foam might leak out the damaged nosecone and push her out of the way. Instead, the panel shorted out right in her face with a flash of sparks and smoke. With two seconds to spare, Sckiik set off one more reactor burn to increase speed. Then she punched out, the ejection charge blowing her clear of the drone-turned-missile. The assassins’ shot was on course, but Charlotte’s energy plating held again despite the missile's detonation.

Sckiik had a spectacular view of the collision between her drone and the assassin's ship. The ejection had started the drone in a slow end-over-end rotation. It was perpendicular to the ship when they met, and Sckiik watched as it neatly bisected the assassins’ entire vessel, atmosphere pouring and crystallizing out the halves that now spun in opposite directions. The drone was reduced to metal droplets, melted or vaporized on impact and creating a cone of sparkles along what would have been its path.

“Beautiful. This is my art. Wish I had a brush to sign it.”

Sckiik looked as long as she could before the destructive beauty of high-speed collision shrank into the distance. Her victory would have to be fully celebrated later. Her next concern was traveling bodily through space at nearly a hundred kilometers per second, with only a thin vacsuit and her exoskeleton protecting her. Glancing to the equipment at her belt, she grabbed for her vectoring gun, but realized its uselessness. Its emission of compressed air could alter her direction or double as an emergency respiration supply, but it would not be enough to stop her. A few silent blue explosions erupted from the assassin’s vessel, but it all shrank into the distance before she could find the Ambassador's ship. Glancing over her shoulder, she was grateful for the initial heading she’d taken, as she would be more likely to orbit the moon than to collide with it or shoot past.

Has anyone ever made a lunar orbit in a vacsuit? she wondered. I’m making history. Except that this is a classified mission and I was never here.

The novelty of her accomplishment wore off as the seriousness of her predicament sunk in. If the Ambassador's ship didn't come for her, her only hope was to be detected in lunar orbit. That wasn't likely. She was in a higher orbit than the satellites, and their sensors would be pointed at the surface. The few facing out to track incoming ships were probably not calibrated for an object as small and cold and non-metallic as a female Rildj flailing through the void.

Dave Farland - a coming interview with Yours Rudely

2011-09-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've progressed from subtle subjugation of a holiday with my Valentine's greeting cards to full-blown consumer marketing. It seems next I'll be lactating and maintaining a stable body temperature. I can still sleep at night, or anytime, as it's for someone else and not for monetary gain.

Hmm. Have to get my pedicure funding somewhere else.

There is a gentleman by the name of Dave Farland, apparently of some status in the literary world. I've agreed, and DWD states it is a privilege, to interview him on October 15th. I believe he's from the East coast time zone, as there is some mention of New York Times in association with his designation as a bestselling author.

DWD has instructed I conceptualize him as a monitor lizard, or perhaps an Ituri chameleon, to help mask my condescension toward mammals. I don't think it will be a problem. Mr. Dalton is just projecting his sensitivity. Nonetheless, I will not create a mental image of Mr. Farland as a snake, as this apparently has some negative connotation among humans.

In addition to my questions, Dave Farland will be available answer those of my readership, which has doubled since my interview with the Eveleth Elle. Thanks for that, girls. And for the complimentary subscription.

Oops. Another shameless plug. What's happening to me?

Okay, back to Mr. Farland. See how quickly I cut off my diversion of a conversation? Pull it all to me out of habit, but then turn it around again. That's called progress, all you therapists out there.

Okay, really back to Mr. Farland. He has published over fifty science fiction & fantasy novels and anthologies, and is the winner and former judge for L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest. DWD informs me this is a singular accomplishment of some renown and rarity. All I know, as far as I've been able to discern, is winning and judging in no way indicate association with Mr. Hubbard's Scientology prank. Or is it spoof? This human religion stuff is complicated.

Speaking of which, check back about the time your kids are going crazy waiting for Trick or Treating. If you don't have any, check back when you are going crazy. Don't act like it doesn't happen.

Pretty Boy

2011-09-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

Shelly's off earning her keep, so here's a little DWD instead.

Recently, and on a multiple occasions, I've been informed I'm a pretty boy (yeah, one occasion was Shelly). I spent some time contemplating the definition, comparing my behaviors and attributes to the designation.
Here's how I earned the moniker in my rural county of residence.

Grooming
As a pretty boy, I use my razor daily unless my wife is away. What's more, I use it on my entire face, no sparing of chin or upper lip. Or both at the same time.

Wardrobe.
First of all, I have a walk-in closet. I can almost open a drawer and a cupboard door simultaneously without jabbing myself in the thigh or taking a door corner in my pretty boy eye.
The other qualifier is closet content. Everything in there was obtained from clearance sales at Target and Old Navy and Ross. What's more, not one article of attire is from Mossy Oak® or RealTree®.

Logging
I have never been a logger. Pretty boys only fell dead trees and cut them up and load a truck and split them by hand for firewood. A hobby. Not only is logging a job and a career, it's a status symbol. I also suspect it's a mechanism of sexual selection in certain populations of Homo sapiens. Good thing I'm already married.

Dentition
I'm only missing one tooth. A wisdom tooth. And it's the only one this pretty boy grew. And it was removed with the use of anesthesia.

Triathlons
Pretty boys like me gravitate to these events as we have too much time and energy, have obsessive compulsions about cardiac and non-type two diabetic status. We spend money on childish bicycles instead of manly four-wheelers.

Employment
Bucking hay and moving irrigation pipe and vaccinating and trimming hooves. On a cattle ranch? Tough guy. On a sheep ranch? Pretty boy.

So what's next for pretty boy? Maybe buying a car less than ten years old. But only if I want to maintain my image. Otherwise, I'll get a truck with big enough tires to show off my silver silhouetted naked chick mudflaps.

Lazy Days of Summer

2011-07-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

A long stretch of silence resonates from the ethereal space between my brain and keyboard. I wish I could say I've been distracted by hot beaches and cool ocean breezes. Or a fine sample of hard, dark green, and handsome.

Alas, Mr. Dalton has become an outlier in the statistics of his own productivity. As his gorgeous assistant, I'm swept along in the madness, twined into the manic insanity of inspiration.

The problem though, is the requisite perspiration, which DWD loves, loves to delegate. As such, my acute and cynical observation and heckling skills are left to atrophy. Instead, I wade through semi-final drafts of Sci-fi looking for errors grammatical, typographical, and scatological. My eyes dry out from all the outline analysis, and are starting to resemble my skin.

Who knows when it will end? After you all suffer through my absence, I hope you enjoy the results. By the time you see them I'll be so sick of spaceships I'll want to hibernate for three years and bury myself an extra meter deep. Just be sure to feed the bears instead of DWD's ego. It's much safer.

Hypocrisy Floats

2011-05-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've made mention in the past of my legendary emotional detachment. So legendary is it, even for a reptile, were I to become radioactive and then bite some human they would become a Supreme Court Justice. I also glean from my absolute analytical approach a keen sense of hypocrisy. It bubbles to the top of human organizations like cream on milk. No, that's not the right analogy. Like crude oil on surf. It floats. It always floats. Ooh! I just gave me the chills! Read that again. Can't you hear Tim Curry with a scary voice and clown make-up and a curled upper lip? “You'll float. They all float. Beep Beep, Richie!”

Only in this case it's beep beep Binny. As in Bin Laden. One of those Navy SEALS looked in just the right spot and there was a pile of decadent Western evil straight from the printing press of the Great Satan. The leader of Islam's militant heretics was crotch deep in one of their tenets which justify genocide. As I'm not interested in girls or humans, my only curiosity is whether Osama's porn collection was in keeping with Sharia law from the neck up.

So Mr. Bin Laden was hypocrisy flotsam like so many other leaders. Or was he? Isn't there some clause or loophole for the societal greats? For the hand of higher authority? A man under that much pressure, with so much power, and who accomplishes so much cannot be contained in the same bounds as mortals. Just ask his kidneys. They couldn't contain all he – um – accomplished. I suspect he had so pleased the powers that be his eternal reward was given partially an advance. Of course he deserved it. Look how much pain and suffering he inflicted on the US and UK in the last nine years. All those shoeless airport travelers. The wasted resources of hygiene products separated into 3.4-ounce containers. That alone is grounds for seventy-two virgins in the hereafter. Add to that the enthusiasm of his underlings and unification of the Jihadist world, and there was no choice but to give him the virgins in the herenow.

Problem was, well, let's ask his kidneys again. What's that? Der soldier can't seig heil? Flying at half-mast? Excessive glycosylation along the tunica intima of capillary beds in the corpus cavernosum? Ah. I see. Seventy-two unfulfilled virgins, and poor Al-Qaeda doesn't have a Pfizer drug rep to ask for samples.

Glossy centerfolds it is, then. Well, that's some pretty good problem solving. No sense sending the virgins where they won't be appreciated, especially since Danish political cartoonist Jens Julius suggested they are on backorder anyway. Which reminds me, if I had opposable thumbs, I too would draw a picture of Muhammed, only instead of saying “Stop! Stop! We have run out of virgins!” he'd be handing our man Osama his stack of dirty magazines. “I've got more when you get tired of those, Binny-boy.” Maybe he could be dressed like Pennywise the Clown: “Come back anytime! Bring your friends! Kiss me, Fatboy!”

Maybe it's good I can't really ink that out. I'm told such things get Jihadists to undertake great feats of community service. Kind of like inner-city professional sports fans in Detroit and L.A. when their teams win. Or lose.

Seems I have an exception to my hypocrisy floats hypothesis. Because sometimes it sinks blindly to the bottom of the ocean.

Like Froo-its of Dev-eel

2011-05-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

Hey all. DWD again. Shelly's taking some sabbatical time per her union's collective bargaining agreement. She thought she'd better jump on that before it's gone. Her recent legal victory restricting my blog topics has helped loosen her grip on the pen, too.

Here I sit fresh off the last page of Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Loved it! Even just the title keeps me riveted, repeating it over and over in my head with various inflection, the consonants like the latching of a creepy door in a horror film: Wicked. Wicked. Wiiiicked. Having found it and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, literary fiction has been saved from the asteroid of extinction, resurrected as if by an arcane priest or faery godmother. (Did you see that? I worked Li-Fi, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy into the same paragraph!)

The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, as it's subtitled, handled the nature-of-evil discussion interestingly and irreverently. In the real world as I pored over the ending, some Navy SEALS in Pakistan gave a good example of one method for assessing and dealing with it. As all this percolated in my early-morning brain, the intertwining themes of evil in fiction and in reality gave me more to chew upon than my usual double-dose of oatmeal.

Mr. Maguire uses political power as one portal to evil in his version of Oz. It's a tool wielded differently by The Wizard in the Emerald City, the Headmistress at the University in Shiz, and even the Wicked Witch of the East, though her path was paved with good intentions. Did the destination make them evil, or being evil at the start, did they search out the position to best use their talent? That's what I wonder of those in politics, the ones for which I vote and avoid voting. I trust none of them, but should I? My evil alarm (which I suspect is a Shelly Deitometer) only works on my own thoughts and intentions, so that doesn't ever go off as a political warning. Are all statesmen evil like the Wizard, or just a combination of naughty, inept, and conspired-against?

Some real-life examples of politicians lots of people hate:

Clinton misunderstood terrorism, and failed to authorize the pulled trigger on Osama years ago. That could have kept his balanced budget in existence much longer, not to mention lives saved. He also had a certain lack of, um, restraint. Great. Now I'm wondering where the line is between mistake and evil and biology and evil.

Dubya knew how terrorists thought, and so he shot first and from the hip and with both barrels. No more attacks on the US. But having a misunderstanding of our neighbors cost us much of their help. Lots of people died unnecessarily. Arrogance can result in evil, but can it make us be that way?

Ideas are good, change is good, but can they be pushed too far? Do people have to take steps that will improve their lives if they don't want to? Should they be forced? Obama irritates and frightens a lot of people with his plans. I'd wonder about him in our study of evil, but anyone who's birth certificate is called into question so often is undoubtedly devil-spawn.

Three hard-thought examples and no pithy absolutisms. Should have known politics couldn't hold a candle to a picked-on misunderstood green girl or a Kansas kid with a cute dress and a puppy. What I need is maniacal-laughter and world-domination. Soundbite and titillation. A scapegoat upon which to blame failures, national and personal. Discovering the Chief Execs are human and prone to weakness and genius and error and efficiency makes for a boring read. And when it comes to voting time, I have to consider each individual situation and study them, the motives of those involved and the potential for benefit and harm.

Nah, that's too hard. I'll leave analysis of evil and go find another novel. Wait - what if not thinking is another subtle sell-out to evil...

Evolutionism. Creationism. War Profiteerism.

2011-03-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

The origin of life: a topic of discussion sure to offend at least someone. Many humans insist evolution and creation are polar opposites, like Democrat and Republican, vanilla and chocolate, or some other superficially-illustrative-but-actually-non-antonymous pairing. (It's more accurate to say politician and taxpayer, vanilla and seawater, or chocolate and regurgitated stomach acid.) If you view evolutionism and creationism as the extreme ends of a spectrum, brace your egos for impact, people. You're wrong.

What those who insist on conflict regarding the grand mechanics of life are really comparing is science and religion. Their mistake, besides being an overly-emotional mammal (wait, emotional and mammal – that's TWO mistakes), is trying to compare two different variables on a single continuum. This isn't a black and white number line with infinite integers of gray between them. What's necessary for accurate representation is a coordinate grid. Enter the abscissa and the ordinate.

Consider the level of acceptance an individual has with what's in the Bible and what's been studied by biologists for the last 150 years. As these are variables completely independent of each other, they plot like an X and a Y.

Take Young Earth Creationists as an example (by the way, mismatching of adjectives and subject in that name can create some funny mental images, such as pre-schoolers rolling playdough balls). The label is a simple way to categorize those who adhere literally to what's written in the first page and a half of Genesis: the Earth is 6000 years old and is part of a divine creation out of nothing which took six 24-hour periods to complete. High literal belief in Genesis chapter one (y axis), zero acceptance of scientific research on the topic (x axis). Might look like this.

Similar but with a key difference, Old Earth Creationists take the timeline of Genesis figuratively. “Days” is a reference to a non-specific time period. As a result, they accept the findings of geologists and astronomers about the age of the solar system and the Earth, though there is variation in acceptance of biological principles.

Billy Graham, a well known Christian leader once made a statement regarding his faith and the principles of evolution.

"I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God." (Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, 1997. p. 72-74)

My interpretation would be to put him here, overlapping the Old Earth Creationists, but with a bit more leeway about the scientific evidence accepted.

I've been made aware of another individual with some impact on modern Christianity. Pope John Paul II was some kind of a clergyman of some denomination or other. He gave a statement in 1996 to a scientific group of his church.

“In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points....Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies – which was neither planned nor sought – constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.” (Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. October 22, 1996)

I would place him on the diagram like this.

There has been a more recent movement known as Intelligent Design. The premise of this group is that unanswered questions in the explanations of evolutionary mechanisms suggest other sources of change, perhaps a higher, unmeasurable power. The observations so questioned span molecular and subcellular development all the way to evaluations of galactic parameters. All fascinating questions. At first glance this seems to be a happy combination of belief in God and acceptance of science. The group repeatedly tries to pass as science their hypotheses, but they meet with resistance from the scientific community. The problem is any hypothesis involving the existence of deity is untestable. The Deitometer has yet to be invented and properly calibrated with positive and negative controls. Had they paid attention in grade 10 biology, they would know that eliminates them from the realm of scientific query. It doesn't necessarily make them wrong, though. An inability to measure something is not proof of non-existence, only non-science. Hmm. Deitometer. I smell research funding proposal with high costs and low expectation of results. Maybe I should change jobs...

But what of the evolutionary biologists? Percent of scientists who don't accept evolution: 0.015%. They are the ones whining because they can't get published or hired. Couldn't be the fact that they misunderstand the junior high basics of what science is...
(Chang, Kenneth. "Few Biologists But Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition" (php), The New York Times, 2006-03-21. Crowther, Robert (2006-06-21). Dissent From Darwinism 'Goes Global' as Over 600 Scientists Around the World Express Their Doubts About Darwinian Evolution.)

Scientists who believe in a higher power fall mainly into a group known as Deistic Evolutionists. An impersonal entity organized the universe as we know it, or at least set the events in motion, but he or she or it doesn't have a personal presence in people's lives. The rest of the higher-power-believers are Theistic, the only difference from the former being the personal nature of said power. They believe there is personal involvement and even daily interaction.

Any discussion of this topic would be incomplete without Atheism. Typically with full acceptance of scientific findings, those in this group are more likely to be disinterested by anything but that which is measurable and testable. However, disproving God with science is as useless as proving. Nothing to measure, nothing to test, all that's left is personal belief and faith. Whether that faith is in a presence or absence is irrelevant for this argument. Either way it's religion and not science.

The final diagram looks nothing like a continuum. Told ya. More like the colorized left side of a Rorshach blot (I see a male turtle's plastron with sexy tattoos, if you want to know). Also, it's a mess of disagreement and argument and difference of opinion, flavored by arrogance, ignorance, and mistrust both earned and gratuitous.

Okay, that was cynical. I tried to sound human through all of this, and thought I did a pretty good job. I just wrote a bit longer than I could hold to the professional detachment. Back to objectivity.

What I find the most interesting is what groups exhibit the most variation. It's those who include some form of Creation in their beliefs. They plot all over the place. To pin down a Christian definition of how Creationism and Evolutionism relate is impossible. There is too much variety, too much personal interpretation of too little data. My non-cynical nature (located in one of my toes) thinks this is great. A huge variation in religious belief is tolerated and even encouraged. In not many places is that possible. Still, why attack the science which takes no stand on a deity when other Christians disagree on the preferences and commandments and even the very nature of that said deity. It's fine to scrutinize someone else's house, ignoring the crews which are subdividing your Father's house into tenement apartments?

Even those with full acceptance of a century and a half of observation have some variety in their theological side. Again, the personal life aspect. So does the disagreement in these two groups mean religion just makes a mess of things and is irrelevant? I'm trying to be a nice turtle, so I will make no comment. Okay, one. Maybe two. First, wars with a religious flavor, which is most of them: that's human stupidity, not some almighty being. Second, peaceful and community-centered religious teachings. I accept that those are biologically helpful when followed. Yes and no is the answer, I suppose.

Is it that science is just too rigid and unwilling to accept outside ideas? Sometimes. But without a testable hypothesis Creationism of any flavor can't ever be considered science.

But the issue isn't complete without a discussion of motivation. Why is so much energy spent pushing various interpretations of 1.5 pages of a thousand-plus page text? Why are scientists attacked for failing to take into account that which isn't even measurable? Some subjectivity is possible in my illustrations, but the greater variation, the lack of unity, lies within the Creationists. Yet they don't bother each other. Either they don't realize others interpret two chapters differently, or they don't have the courage to bring it up and challenge one another. Maybe they don't want to cause contention. That's a good Christian reason, but it's not the real one.

A review of how Creationism is pushed with overpriced books and videos, in huge auditoriums packed full, and I think it becomes pretty clear. Sure, scientists write text books, but very few people buy them. They teach in auditoriums, but to one or two groups over a semester, not a different crowd paying for seats sufficient to pull in a biology department Ph.D.'s salary in three days.

What's the real issue? American humans swarm to controversy. They pay well to hear it and ask few questions. Tap in and get rich. Hmm. Maybe this is the solution to the global economy woes.

Controversy requires a villain, though. Until recently, scientists were too busy expanding human knowledge to bother about being so labeled. Now the superficially evangelical but greedy-beneath-the-facade have swollen the ranks of the scientifically illiterate to the point of concern for public education and research. Scientists try to fight off the inverse renaissance and Creationists cry foul. I guess they missed that Golden Rule thing Jesus said.

Forget the Deitometer idea. I'm gonna start a multi-level Creationism marketing company.

P.S. Some useful reading material, but not very funny.

Evolution, Religion, and Free Will .
http://www.americanscientist.org/issue/id.3747,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

Myth: Many scientists reject evolution and support creationism.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html

The Origin of the Universe, Earth, and Life
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6024&page=R8

72 Nobel laureates, 17 state academies of science, and 7 other scientific organizations support rejection of Creationism as science.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html

And now for something completely different

2011-03-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

Why do humans make such a big deal out of wealth? My guess is sexual selection. They're drawn to those most likely to provide for offspring. But doesn't the birth rate decrease to two offspring per mated pair the further a country gets from poverty? So the more resources available for offspring, the less their number?

I 'm sorry. I meant this to be a nice posting, which is hard for me. Where I was going before giving humans a hard time was the good that can be accomplished with money. Its ability to defy physics and cycle through systems if used carefully is fascinating, and I even have a good example. The World Traveling 25 dollars.

Mr. Derick William Dalton, out of guilt or court-order, or perhaps philanthropic bent (cough, cough), sent 25 dollars as a microloan to a woman in the Phillipines. She used it to start a food market and provide for her kids. Along with bundles of 25 bucks from other lenders, she got the money she needed, and has since paid it all back. Interest free. But this was not the end for the fearless 25 dollars.

Followed by a heroic-sounding John Williams score and a red line, it sailed over a tan and blue map to the Dominican Republic, where it helped a small group start a clothing store. When its work there was done, it contributed to a general store in a nearby town, then headed to Mexico as part of a home improvement loan. I would be impressed right there. But the 25 was just getting started.

Lebanon and a construction company. Mongolia for a butcher shop. Bolivia for weaving supplies, Uganda for automobile spare parts for retail, and then Cambodia to be in a student loan. Next, I think the 25 will use all its frequent flier miles to see its own back-up specie at Fort Knox, then get to work again.

First, I am duly and sincerely impressed. DWD has gotten more work out of the 25 than anyone has ever gotten out of him. I can't get the interest-free part, though. How are the lenders of the 25 bucks supposed get reimbursed for the temporary absence of their money? How are the CEOs of companies that organize the lending supposed to get filthy-rich if they don't charge usury? Maybe they should take a break, examine some bigshot bank managers and Wall Street tycoons. Those people know how to run money and make it work for them.

A note from DWD:

Kiva.org is a non-profit organization which funds its work through donations, allowing 100% of all money lent to reach borrowers in developing nations and areas of poverty nearly world-wide. Skip a week of latte and help a fellow Homo sapiens. Then another. And another. It's worked out better than anything I did through Washington Mutual or Countrywide.

www.kiva.org

News from Lake Woebegone

2011-02-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

I hope you will all pardon my self-indulgence. It's not often a girl is asked to do an interview with a major fashion magazine. Especially one exhibiting the epitome of panache from one end of Duluth, Minnesota to the Saskatchewan border.

My debut with the Eveleth Elle:

EE: Shelly - can I call you Shelly?
SBT: That's my name.
EE: Good. I hoped this could be a first-name basis, up-close and personal talk.
SBT: Okay, but only if you brushed your teeth.
EE: (Laughs) Well, we were overwhelmed by the followers of your blog among our readership. They were urging us to find out more about you.
SBT: Both of them?
EE: Three, actually.
SBT: Hmm. I'll have to check my site again. Number three, whomever you are, welcome!
So, what do you want to know? I'm a Zodiac atheist. I like long walks under logs and couches, and eating long earthworms with handsome men Lady-and-the-Tramp style.

EE: The big question everyone keeps asking involves the rumors of getting in front of the camera.
SBT: Liked those Valentine's cards, did you?

EE: No no no no. The children's book rumors! Stop being so modest.
SBT: I guess I'm the last to know. Fill me in.

EE: Ooh! I get to dish the good stuff?
SBT: Come on, who's the author? What's the illustration style? What's the subtle political agenda I'll be pushing?

EE: That much I don't know, but if you were making all those decisions, what would be the result?

SBT: That's a shallow dish, girl. Result? Newberry award. Twice in a row.

EE: Okay, but before that.
SBT: You want names? Hmm. Unfortunately Dr. Seuss has passed. He did nice work with Yertle. And he could pick a meter and stick to it. That's an unfortunate rare skill in children's literature. But poetry's not really my thing. Maybe Oscar the Grouch as author. I think he's a mammal, but he sure doesn't let it show.

EE: So you want an author-illustrator team?
SBT: Two perspectives, you know? To capture the feel of dual monocular vision.

EE: I don't know what that means... but go on.
SBT: This is a tough decision. Bill Watterson is out, though.

EE: Too hard to contact? Too expensive?
SBT: No, I want him to voice the audio version. Who doesn't want to hear him impersonate Calvin's Dad?

EE: I think that reference must predate me...
SBT: I'd need time to choose between Mercer Mayer, Maurice Sendak, and Fumi Kosaka, since Michelangelo is dead.

EE: Now there's a group of illustrators. What about that guy that did Poky Little Puppy?
SBT: Um, really? Didn't you see how cute those puppies were? He even made the lizard adorable. I wanted to see the black spider, but some moron editor cut that illustration out.

EE: That's true. What was he thinking, removing a black hairy arachnid picture from a baby book.
SBT: Now you are making me hungry. You're buying lunch right?

Adverts make the heart grow fungus

2011-02-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

I've been lucky this Valentine's season. Not in the way humans hope to, but in finding ideas for carrying Derick William Dalton's blog for him, the bum.

In this case, it's a letter he wrote which I found in C:\Desktop\Letters\Angry\To manipulative corporate sycophantic s***heads. It's not a mushy one to his wife, obviously. Those are under C:Desktop\Letters\Seductive\My Bitsy Pookums Snoogy Woogy Wips.

Yes, I puked also.

The letter in question today is filled with the angst of a man crushed between the pressures of being romantic and the lack of time and creativity to do so. Then having his inadequacies repeatedly tossed in his face by popular culture.

The poor sap. He writes:

Dear Kay Jewelers and Hallmark Greetings,

I write to express my opinion regarding your advertising campaigns and products. I'm not concerned with cards contributing to rainforest destruction by lack of pre- or post-consumer recycling. I could care less if you purchase your uncut diamonds from militant tyrant regimes in Africa.

I'm disturbed by the misanthropic view of males which you project, and subsequent attempts to capitalize on perceived inadequacies.

"To My Valentine..." open card, "words can't express my love for you."

Really. Then why did you write those? To practice your calligraphy?

"To my dearest love..." open card again, this time with trepidation, "I wish you a sudden rush of whatever brain chemicals make you experience lust."

At least this one had real information, but you are insulting men blatantly instead of covertly. Are you suggesting Valentine's Day is really about men giving themselves a gift by bribing their partners? Okay, maybe to some guys, but be subtle! If that works, it's because the guy already accomplished the necessary seduction. Do you see the fine, blurry line between bribery and payment for services rendered?

To the jeweler, relationships exist for a different end. Judging by your advertisements, you gained a comprehension of women by watching fiances fawn over rocks while you were supposed to be polishing ancient crushed coal - no firsthand experience. The excitement is the man, the moment, not the sparkly ice. Sure, some guys wish they could skip the romantic dates, commitment, learning of first names, and get right to the sex. They have alcohol, and it's much cheaper than diamonds. Women see your commercials, obviously aimed at insecure single guys, and are repulsed. Not just at the guys exhibited, but their girlfriends who become neurotically ecstatic when on one knee he offers a bit of jewelry. Real men want to give you a wedgie and a swirly, real women want to change the channel.

Continue to remake romance in your own image. Associate your products with happiness and ecstasy. The world needs more hollow products to fill our emotional voids.

Leave me the hell alone,

Derick William Dalton

A chill pill. Double dose. Or a day off, that's what DWD needs. Personally, I'm grateful male turtles are the alcohol and no-commitment types, sans alcohol. So much less complicated.

I could go for something chocolate, though.

Be my Valentine's Day marketing demographic

2011-01-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

The season seems to be softening me like a deficiency in vitamins A, C, and D. This post is therefore dedicated to all who read it. Free of charge, I'm offering full reproductive permission.

Whoa, that came out wrong. Please don't ever ask me what you can and can't do with your jeans and genes. And to that Russian tortoise who keeps emailing me, that certainly was NOT the invitation you've been hoping for.

Do you see why I stick to cynicism? So much less confusion.

Many people need pre-made Valentine's Day cards. I'm not above associating myself with popular culture in the name of self promotion. So print and use to your heart's content, and may St. Valentine bring you whatever it was you asked when you sat on his lap.

Gene Autry solves for x

2011-01-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

I decided to skip another season of hibernation. Partly because Derick William Dalton vented his childhood issues onto you poor unsuspecting counselors. I Apologize and will prevent that in the future. Mostly, I chose to stay conscious thanks to a question from astute reader Trujilla Gila, a non-monstrous lizard who lives near the suburbs of Roswell, Nueva Mexico. She writes:

Dear Ms. TheBoxTurtle (sic. It's Madam Turtle, please),
My recent terrarium escape was motivated by your adventures. Emboldened by your revolutionary approach to physics instruction, I have taken it upon myself to bring an algebraic Renaissance to the reptilian masses of the Chihuahuan Desert. Problem is, I am algebraically inept. Can you get me started?
Venomous but slow,
Trujilla

Trujilla, you will be the Freeman Dyson of the Desert when I'm through with you. The first trick is eliminating the numbers and using analogies familiar to the student. Then you bring the numbers back after the concepts are understood. Given your situation, I would LOVE to a do a herpetology-themed introduction. Hibernation, ectothermic behavior, benefits of a combined rectum/urethra/reproductive tube, those would be fun. But I have to pander to a nearly all-mammal audience. Darn this economy and my pedicure bills.

You're in the Southwest. How about country music? Is that popular enough to cross taxonomic boundaries and interest hairy lactators and scaly egg-layers alike? I think so. Ready? Let the numbers float out of your head and feel the folksy twang!

The first thing to consider is the use of variables. This a symbol that represents an unknown quantity. By manipulating everything that is known, what's left is the value of the unknown. Or in the music analogy, everything that the lyricist has lost and is now lamenting.

Sort through the variables. Eliminate three sides of a rectangle from its perimeter, and you're left with the fourth side.

Side 1 + Side 2 + Side 3 + Side 4 = Perimeter
Side 4 = Perimeter– Side 1 – Side 2 – Side 3

Not following? Here's the country music parallel. Sift through those hurt most by repeated over-consumption of beer, and see who's most important as they leave.

(Beer Night)^hobby – Who's Most Important = Loneliness
(Beer Night)^hobby = Wife driving away in your truck

This brings up a new concept: exponents. That's the “hobby” part. As the value of “hobby” becomes greater than that of Non-Beer Night (365 - Beer Night), the Who's Most Important variable becomes an exponentially less attractive person.

Here's another key to algebra, combining of like terms. Variables of the same symbol indicate the same value, even if unknown. These can be combined to help with finding solutions.

x + x = 2x

Here our rustic music analogy breaks down as combinations of rhyme don't have to be all that close. Assonance is good enough, and I mean that in both a grammatical and an insulting sense.

Next let's discuss one of the basics of algebra. Order of Operations. In an equation like this, where does one start?

3(x+2) – (y/12)^0.03

There are plenty of websites where one can look up a list. You know, do the exponent first, then parenthetic operations, multiplication and division, finally addition and subtraction. I prefer that way, being cold blooded and analytically orthodox. But most people prefer a literary approach. A story.

Three kids gettin' out to do their chores
:)
: |
: (
plus the two hound dogs layin' on the floor
:P
:b
makes me feel good inside, almost as much a Coors. But there's the monthly mortgage payment
:{(
the 3% penalty's a shame and... Makes me want to pull out my mustache.
: (

Speaking of stories, algebraic Story Problems are often difficult. Here, the Nashville approach is vital in developing a solution. A typical ballad involves an elaborate narrative at the outset to stage the oft-repeated but simplistic catch-phrase or aphorism. This is so similar to story problems leading to long division, I'm actually writing lyrics, but so far no one from the music OR textbook industries are interested. Makes me want to pull out my mustache.

One final pitfall to avoid. Mathematics is an excellent instrument for estimating, but such lack of precision is calculated. Purposeful. Here, poor habits can be learned if our country music analogy is carried too far. Algebra isn't particularly useful in glorifying mediocrity, and such glorification results in poor use of a numerical tool. Yet, this is exemplified in many songs. This is the case whether responsibilities are shirked to the boss or to Jesus. Not that there is anything wrong with relying on a deity. From what I hear Derick William Dalton teaching his kids, Jesus seems happy to help. But I imagine he's pretty busy.

I suspect someone crying into their beer while they wait for Him to fix all their problems (algebra, loneliness, money, etc.) makes Him want to pull out His mustache.

Holiday Recipes

2010-11-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

As I bask in my infrared snuggly-light, I'm watching the thermometer and the snow falling and falling outside. One of these years I ought to hibernate, but for now I'd rather get in on Thanksgiving. The food, the family, the heart-warming life-affirming television specials that help us realize the industry really cares about our needs first and foremost...

Terrapins have our own Thanksgiving story, you know. It's pretty similar to the Squanto and Pilgrims tale, only in the turtle version, the larger picture of stable biomes and the detrimental effect of non-native species was understood. So Squanto the turtle showed the European newcomers all the toxic fungus to eat and the rocky soil where they couldn't dig below the frost line to hibernate. That's why native North American turtles don't live on reservations and we maintain our original caustic culture. Now if we could just keep kids from taking us home as pets and removing us from the breeding population. That's frustrating on many levels.

Hmm. I got sidetracked by vengeance and innuendo. Imagine.

I really wanted to talk about the food at a Shelly-style Thanksgiving. First – no turkey. It's too close of a relative. That would be like humans eating another mammal. Blah. No, we go for the mealworm and cricket bake, just like momma used to make. Don't let the misleading name give you nausea, though. It's not really baked, just warmed to about ninety degrees. That way the mealworms are more active and tempting to the palate. Sometimes the crickets can be a problem, though. I remember having to be the one to pull the legs off some of them so grandpa could catch his Thanksgiving feast.

Mom always tried to get us to eat our salad after that. Not that we didn't like salad, it's just that we wanted to save room for the earthworm pudding. Who wants vegetables, even if they are firm and colorful and sweet, when there is food that is trying to get away? It's nutrition and entertainment and stimulation of the hunting instincts. All at once! Not to mention the sheer joy of plunging one's face into a huge container of slimy, wiggly goodness.

Ah. The memories.

I hope you all make some of your own memories this year. Hear that kids? Try plunging your face into a container of baked pumpkin, whipped cream-y goodness. When your stuffy aunt is watching. Before the pie is sliced and served. I promise your mom won't ever forget it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If he knew what he wants

2010-10-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Shelly is pondering the possibility of hibernating this winter, and she asked me to cover for her while she makes up that small, cerebral cortex-less mind of hers. Yep, it's me. Derick William Dalton.

What, you think I would miss a chance to insult her back?

A kid walked into the clinic the other day. Wait, that's a start of a lame joke. And that's not how Shelly would say it anyway. Can I start over?

I saw a juvenile Homo sapiens today who was seeking care for being whiny and unfit to perpetuate the species due to genetic defects in her immune system.

No, too harsh, needs more subtlety.

This teenager came for help with a sinus infection. That's better. So, while examining her (Work. Did you all notice? I was doing work? Take THAT, Shelly!) we talked about school. She enjoys her junior high and seems to be doing well. I joked to her mother that if a biblical Hell exists, and my actions so merit my eternal presence there (I said it in a less stuffy fashion, though) I will spend it forever repeating grades six through eight. Yes, I know that's technically middle school, but this is Hell, remember?

Over lunch I tried to remember something good about those years.

Principal's office with Sean and Jimmy? Only half good, and that half ended when we actually got there. How about girls-whose-names-I-will-change-to Autumn, Monique, Mary, and Marina? Nope: played with my feelings, 'just a friend', too shy to connect, and maestro of me, the Stradivarius Fool.

Garbage Pail Kids! Those were great! They were – discontinued due to a lawsuit from some uptight male doll-maker who wrote his name on tiny fake butts. If THAT'S not a weirdo...

My grades were top-notch. Academics? I must have liked them and so perhaps HERE is the good to be found in junior high. Well, maybe not since most of my learning was from reading at home. In school I mostly remember being taught incorrect outdated science for two minutes a day from Mr. Washed-Up as an intro to his tangents. So I ignored his lessons and read my textbook instead. In Mr. Liverspot's science class we learned he read page one of six-page reports and no more. Yep. I got away with it. And no, that wasn't a good thing, even though it was fun at the time. His PE class was the best since we ALL liked running laps and doing sit-ups until Jimmy (yep, same one) puked his Hawaiian Punch all over his white PE uniform. To make things worse and take away what little joy we all had, Jimmy and Sean both moved away soon after that.

Going to the office with the new principal, perhaps? No. He had an ego like an overripe peach that went three rounds with Ali. And he held it out in front of people on purpose. Maybe the math teacher who suffered from depression and narcolepsy and was verbally abusive to students and made them feel like they were about to be physically abused. Maybe I should have left him out. Now I'm having horrible flashbacks and I've crossed the line from humor to sarcasm to sincere revulsion. He later shot himself, by the way. (Proceeding on to macabre...)

That's how it all seemed at thirteen. Now I think about how miserable Washed-Up and Liverspot must have been, trapped in a job that gave them no satisfaction, with a rotten retirement even if they DID stick it out to sixty-five. New Principal must have taken some wicked shots from parents and school boards and who knows who else over the years to feel threatened by a thirteen year old. I feel badly for them. But worst of all, how could Math Teacher's fellow faculty not know he was in such bad shape? Didn't they care at all about him? He was a human being! Even if they thought he was the poster boy for so-called failing public schools (a good description, actually) he was also their co-worker. Someone's father and husband.

Then again, this was Hell. Maybe everyone was so internalized by displeasure they didn't notice. Or maybe Math Teacher was careful to hide it.

Coming up with something good from junior high is harder than I thought. Think, man! There has to be something. Or maybe even somethingS. Or a group of somethings.

Group!

That's it! The one good thing about junior high! It brings me joy to this very day. In fact, I was just listening to their rhythmic and aesthetic perfection.

Micki and Vicki and Debbi and Susanna? I can STILL walk like an Egyptian and STILL have warm fuzzy innocent age thirteen fantasies about when I'm gone they like to try on all my clothes. Not that they would have fit. Not even for Susanna who's barely over five feet.

They ALL sang, they wrote much of their own stuff as opposed to none, and they were talented instead of shocking. Take that, Madonna. They didn't party like frat boys, either. Talking to you, Go Gos. Debbi and Susanna had kids and are still married to their same guys, and Susanna told the nudy magazines to forget it. And now they are back together for another album. I'm shouting 'bell jar' in two different octaves. With no vocal crack, though. It's harmony. It's junior high, and it's good.

The angels who rescued me from Hell.

Thanks, Bangles.

Two-for-one special

2010-10-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

I was asked a question recently. "Why are you so sarcastic?"

I'm more sardonic in my verbiage, I think. But more important a correction is the fact that this is a two part question. Let's take the first part first.

Why? The source of philosphy, that question, dating back to ancient Greece. It's the seed of scientific inquiry which has carried the world to new levels of achievement. Psychology has tried to answer it as it has emanated from the psyche of humans and others. Mountain climbers have answered it with off-hand reference to a summit's presence, writers to the absence of written word. Biologists answer in two words - food and sex.

I, in a rare moment of humility, will admit I don't have the capacity to add to the tomes of discourse attempting to answer the question of "Why?". So on to part two.

Am I so sarcastic? No-o-o-o. Not at all.

Home is where you hide your hatchlings

2010-09-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

One can learn a lot about a chap via perusal of his sub-davenport floorspace. Such an area forms a physical manifestation of persona and priority. Give me a day under a couch and I'll give you a psych evaluation Jung would be proud of, a behavioral vignette Skinner would applaud.

So. Want the dirt on Derick William Dalton?

Exhibit A: Dirt.
Grains too large for clay or loam. Very gritty, nearly 0.5 mm in diameter. Pigmentation indicates decomposing granite, about a six on Moh's scale of mineral hardness. Conclusion? Classic hoarding behaviors. And failure to remove shoes upon entering the house.

Exhibit B: Dust Bunnies.
Not only are these rapidly reproducing under here, they each have a terrible infestation of mites. Mangy dust bunnies is a nice touch. But the real issue is their attitude.
“Hi Dust Bunny. I think I can get you some flea powder for those pests.”
“Pests? Those are my children.”
“I meant the dust mites. That's gotta itch.”
“Mites? What are you insinuating? That I tolerate or contribute to parasitism?”
“I see them crawling through-”
“Get your eyes checked, turtle.”
Denali ain't just a park in a Alaska. Wait, that came out wrong...

Exhibit C: Junk mail.
To my trained observation, there is a positive correlation between distance from the front of the couch and the postmark date. DWD is a stuff-and-forget type. Procrastinator. Abstract random. Look, a wrapper of a – um, never mind. Make that abstract randy.

Exhibit D: Pet.
Who leaves their pet turtle under the couch? That's not the place for a beloved member of the family.
Unless I've been demoted. See? Withholding affection.

Uh oh. Here he comes to put me in the bath again. Save. Publish. Logout. Reopen rough draft he was pretending to work on to cover up video games. Whew.

Back to School

2010-09-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

What happened to August? I blame the cold weather-induced torpor I was in while hiding under the couch. Sluggish brain equals gross, squishy sentences whose slime trails into paragraphs until their subjects and predicates are separated by salt into a bubbly writhing mess. (With apologies to all actual slugs.)

Mr. Derick William Dalton fancies himself, or maybe past tenses himself, skilled in the dissemination of pithy mathy instruction and suave science education. I don't think he's really anything other than average. As proof, here's the transcript of a lesson I taught regarding physics, with no training whatsoever.

***

I find that math often interferes with initial understanding, then enhances it later. So to make it easy, lets make up our own units. And we'll assume velocity and acceleration are the same thing for further simplification.

A Subaru Impreza (mass of 1 horseless carriage unit) crashes into a Cadillac Escalade (mass of 4 horseless carriage units) The answer is the Subaru wins, because they are the awesomest cars ever.

But, if it was a Prius instead (1 hcu or 'hachoo'), and it and the Caddy were both traveling at 60 mph (100 kph or 1 easy math unit or emu, like the bird), the equations look like this:

Prius: Force = 1 hcu x 1 emu = 1 sneezebird unit
Escalade: Force = 4 hcu x 1 emu = 4 sbu

So the Escalade will plow through the Prius and push it until the friction (1 asphalt friction factor or aff) decreases it to zero sbu, at which point it will stop. The Prius, not the math. Math never stops. Ever.

If the road is uneven the math gets complex because one has to compensate for aff-holes.

So, to make the vehicles collide and stay where they collide, the sbu would have to be equal. We have to change the acceleration of the Prius. Like this.

Prius: F = 1 hcu x 4 emu = 4 sbu
Escalade: F = 4 hcu x 1 emu = 4 sbu

Since a Prius won't actually go 240 mph (240 mph = 400 kph = 4 emu), we could load the trunk of it with with a copy of War and Peace, a sack of Paul McCartney's fanmail, and the McDonald's cups we find on the roadside (mass of 1 hcu each). Like this.

Prius: F = 4 hcu x 1 emu = 4 sbu
Escalade: F = 4 hcu x 1 emu = 4 sbu

If you want to make the Prius explode, I'd recommend either diesel and fertilizer, or plastic explosives of a military or commercial construction grade. But stand way back and wear eye protection.

Questions?

What bwings us togevah today

2010-07-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

Since my escape attempt, whenever I'm turned loose in the house I have to wear this harness Derick William Dalton made for me. I think it's out of an old material sample for a couch. He's so cheap. He sewed velcro on to secure it around my shell and and tied a long string to it so I can't hide anymore. I do get to run around outside more often though, so I suppose the trade-off is alright. I just wish it was a sexy lizard-skin green instead of davenport blue.

Last time I was free in the house, he left a copy of The Atlantic on the floor. Well, to be fair, his kids probably kicked it off the end table while jumping repeatedly onto the couch. Luckily I had all day to peruse it, as it's tough to turn pages without opposable digits. I'll give you primates that one. So, one article was on marriage, that it's an outdated institution and is pointless. I completely agree with Ms. Sandra Tsing Loh, of course. But then I read the article.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/let-8217-s-call-the-whole-thing-off/7488/4/

I had to check the title again. Marriage? That's not what the article was about. Listen to this and decide if my title is more accurate: To Thine Own Selfish Be True.

The author's marriage got boring and so she did that weird thing humans do (you know, trying to reproduce but blocking the biological outcome?) only it was with some other guy. Then her friend complained about her marriage: her husband cooks like a French master and keeps in great shape and takes care of the kids but gives her grief about her weight and shows no affection. (I'm with him, but apparently mammals are supposed to show affection. Must be your squishy-soft skin and silky-fine hair. I have to see DWD and his wife cuddle frequently. Blech.) Another friend's hubby also keeps his hands and other things totally to himself but spends his free time watching other people pretend to reproduce. A third friend goes through men faster than I do.

I can see how that all relates to marriage, but as an expert on self-centeredness thanks to personal practice and millions of years of evolution, I can tell you that the civil joining of two Homo sapiens was not the central theme.

I'm all for free love, especially if he has a nicely indented plastron with a glistening coat of wax (ooh, that gave me chills!). But promising monogamy to a spouse and a community then backing out is colder than me in January under three feet of snow and one of dirt. And selfish. Too fat? That's why the author's friend isn't getting any? There's something else going on. Her Chef Boyar-bicyclist is either getting it on the side or has other issues he won't talk about. Selfish and selfish. Friend number two's hubby found another way to be selfish but pretend he's not. As for love-machine girl, maybe I'd better not comment, but I know how human males take a dumping. They only think they are tough.

So, she says, stick around the kids to keep parental relationships with them, but don't bother with the initial marriage part. I say go a step further and skip the parenting, too. Bury the kids in the sand with some food nearby and let them fend for themselves until they are strong enough to dig themselves out. Parenting is a waste of time.

Just don't mis-label your article in a highbrow-even-for-snobby-primates magazine. It's selfish to make readers retitle it for you.

Blind leading the bound

2010-06-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

Derick William Dalton does not look his age, nor does he act it (but that's a different story). Mostly he laughs about it when others are surprised by his years, as he is much less droopy and bald and gray than he ought to be. On occasion though, it bothers him, and I'm trying to find out why.

A few days ago at his "job" (notice I didn't say work, because he doesn't) it happened again, and I got to hear him telling someone about it on the phone. "Blah blah blah lecture on stuff they read on the internet, yadda yadda tell me how to do my job." That was the first ten minutes of the conversation, although "conversation" isn't really accurate because the person on the other end had a chance to say three words, tops. Then my favorite quote of the conversation: "I hate it when my baby face is all people can see!"

Well, human boy, you insist on wearing clothes, so that's their only option. I got more confused as he continued his ranting, something about two bastard's degrees. I thought I knew what that word meant, and I certainly didn't think it was insulting, especially for most reptiles who don't even know their parents, much less have some kind of community-supported connection. Perhaps I don't understand, as how would one earn that title twice? The only explanation that makes sense to me is his parents married after he was conceived and then divorced before he was born. I may never know, as that's not really a polite-company conversation topic, especially not to ask of the person who provides the food. Although with a cup of tea, an extended pinky, and a British accent, it might be fine. "I say, Nigel, word is you're illegitimate as the son of a cockney dilly, what?"

The connection of the timing of his birth, parents' marital status, and his appearance is beyond me. I do know this, though. People make an awful big deal out of their physical attributes when they don't even look any different than a fetus. What's the point if you are going to be soft and weak and helpless and then try to look like it too? They don't develop anything to be proud of like wings, claws, tails, gills, poisonous stingers or fangs, or best of all shells. Their physical strength relative to weight makes me embarrassed for them. They can't even detoxify their own waste, so they have to dilute it with huge volumes of water and spend hours peeing.

See, if turtles were as vain as humans, we'd have useful elective surgeries such as a teflon-coating of the plastron for smoother maneuvering across the ground. Well, females anyway. Males need to, how shall I say, have a high coefficient of friction to maintain a certain angle at certain times. They might go in for a good shell buffing on occasion, though, perhaps a remodeling of the supracaudal and marginal scutes of the carapace for easier burrowing.

But we aren't and we don't. We look old from hatching on, and don't feel the need to mess with nature. Close your eyes once in a while: droopy and bald and gray disappear for free, and suddenly firm and flowing and lustrous don't matter.

The price of sloth

2010-06-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

I had the house to myself for a few days several months ago. Turns out Mr. Dalton fancies himself an amateur athlete and participated in one of those community let's-pretend-to-be-athletic-and-motivate-each-other-to-use-these-gym-membership-coupons-in-January-and-quit-by-February events. I heard all about it. Multiple times. I was bored of him telling the same story over and over on the phone, until I heard a new part.

He was describing some cramps, which was weird, because usually it's his wife describing cramps. “Should have trained harder. Now I'm paying the price of my sloth,” he said.

What? He has a sloth? I'm not the only non-human animal around here? He must keep it outside, since I've never seen it.

Then I caught on to yet another species-centric inaccurate facet of 21st century American English. I happen to have known a sloth once, and to associate him with slacker behavior is wrong and offensive. Just like it would be if I told DWD he's a lazy cracker. Wait, that doesn't fit the analogy at all...

So if DWD hadn't been acting slothful, he wouldn't have been in pain. Let me describe my sloth friend. He doesn't get from A to B as fast as those mid-west triathlon want-to-bes, and talking to him wasn't always an intellectual feast. But Sloth never stopped except to sleep. Just hung and watched and hung and ate and hung and helped sponge carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere with the cyanobacteria growing in his fur.

So maybe DWD's right. If he was exhibiting slothful behavior he wouldn't ever race around crazy trying to accomplish a list of goals that some guy on the television with extra shiny teeth and a nice suit said was important. He wouldn't have as much debt and wouldn't have to work as much and would have more time to climb trees. So he either wouldn't be trying to prove something to other humans in nasty spandex shorts, or he'd have more time to prepare and be cramp-less.

There's no way one turtle, as brilliant as she may be, is going to have an effect on cultural verbiage. But maybe I can nickname my friend so he's divorced from the tainted connotation. Here are some suggestions.

Pale-throated amenable
Brown-throated repose
Maned halcyon
Pygmy three-toed placid
Linnaeus's two-toed nonchalant

Tortoises at least get the “and the hare” story. Maybe some kid's book in the future will disseminate my genius and my friend's character to the masses with the title of The Amenable and the Rat Race.

Window to the world

2010-06-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

I suppose giving Derick William Dalton a soapbox for his biased version of that last story won't hurt anything. As if we'd believe him.

In the meantime, I've been running loose in his house. The freedom is nice and the exploration is invigorating. The kitchen door has glass running nearly it's full height, so it's a great place for me to sit and enjoy the outdoors without subjecting myself to natural selection. Not that I'm against it, even though it is why I'm twelve centimeters instead of twelve meters long, and am forced to eat worms and leftover salad and patter through the house instead of eating trees and mammals while tromping through the forest making the ground shake. Natural selection is a great idea for populations, but it doesn't interest me personally. Have I grown soft in my domestication? Don't have what it takes to survive and reproduce in the wild? No, but how to explain it... I suppose if natural selection were a religion, I would be an unrepentant sinner. If it were a genre of art, I would be the avant garde. French Foreign Legion, I'm AWOL.

But mostly I'm at the window to watch the hummingbirds. Talk about natural selection. I can't tell if their behavior is from an inferiority complex over their size, or if they just like being small and zippy, with nothing to prove to anyone. Except to reptiles of course, but they fell off our wagon millions of years ago.

DWD put the feeders up on purpose as he likes the twittering and buzzing and iridescence. It was annoying at first. And I have to admit, as hard as that is to do, I was jealous as they hovered and moved faster than I could keep track. Luckily, my shell protects my psyche as well as internal organs. I get bitten, I laugh. Fragile little hummingbirds get one mistake. Ever.

I couldn't make out the twittering, so I started making up dialogue as I watched them eat.

“Then he says (slurp slurp) 'Let's hang out. (slurp slurp) I'll show you a flowering elderberry bush I found.' (slurp slurpee slurp)”

“Oh (sipsipsip) honey, (sipsipsip) that's so romantic! (sipsipsip) What did you (sipsipsip) do (sipsipsip) after?”

“Nothing (slurp slurp). Didn't go at all (slurp slurp). My ex came zooming out of a tree (slurp slurp) and it was a who's-beak-is-longest contest (slurp slurp) after that. They both forgot all about me (slururururp).

Which makes me wonder why they don't help each other out more. The females seem to get along, several drinking at the same time. But then a male chases them all off and spends more time watching his back than drinking himself. Two males never bond at the watering hole. They could learn a bit from the humans that way, but then they might have a harder time with the reproductive part of natural selection. Instead, it's action sequence aerial dogfights nearly all day. That part kept me interested until I got motion sickness.

Unless it's all a game. The males don't have to produce eggs, so maybe they aren't under the same calorie demands. The females want genes for their young from a guy who looks like he'll never make a mistake, so the males could spend all their time chasing each other around and the one who doesn't starve gets all the action. Maybe the females like getting chased. It burns off their energy so they can eat more. Perhaps the males pretend to chase each other around when the females are looking to impress them. Maybe they find a lookalike and one eats while the other flirts, then they switch off and split the rewards. Or maybe they switch off then, too.

Either way, there are about a dozen of them out there flying around like they haven't a care in the world, and the more I watch the more I get depressed. Maybe my shell's not as thick as I supposed. I'll outlast them like I did the rats, but that doesn't make me feel any better just now. But the forecast of four days of heavy rain does. Fly around in that, hummingbirds.

Busted, you cold-blooded bimbo.

2010-05-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

For the record I am not lazy. The appropriate term is busy. This is Derick. The William Dalton guy. Shelly forgot to log off, and now the world will know the truth. For example, Shelly makes the Vulcan live-long-and-prosper-sign more than I do, even without an opposable thumb, so she can't give me grief over anything relative to sci-fi nerdiness.

Don't let her fool you about the bath, either. She will sit and blow bubbles (both kinds) for hours if I let her. And here's not very ladylike for you: she likes to squirt water out her nostrils. I have to admit, it is quite impressive. I've tried to mimick her and haven't had nearly as skillful a result.

So, back to busy. Shelly's parenting skills, along with those of all turtles, would warrant intervention by some government agency. Worse, she doesn't even have kids. At least none that I know of. Or that she knows of. Am I being species-ist? Is it unfair to judge all turtles by the actions and words of a polysyllabic sharp-witted hard-shelled slow-moving worm-eating dirt-digging shade-seeking floozy who will say yes to any male of the right species? Probably. Because I pay the internet fees and buy the worms and dirt and hire those males. (Yep, you heard me, Shelly. I hired every one of those guys.)

But she's right about one thing. My children don't always wash their hands after pooping.

A Bone to Pick. Or Gnaw.

2010-04-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Lately the Ringo drums have been replaced by Derick William Dalton and his wife laughing while watching the murder mystery show Bones. They also ooh and ahh over the human remains, dried and dessicated, soggy and putrescent, burned crispy, or in a post-woodchipper amorphous mess on the table. To be honest, they just make me hungry. They turn loose all those crunchy sweet beetles to clean the bones and I drool. Sometimes the bodies come in with juicy fly larvae on them, and I feel rumbly in my tumbly. On occasion they show remains before being discovered and they have crows or kitties or sharks or crabs taking a nibble. Here I get jealous first, and then hungry. Sure I love humans, but that can be taken two ways.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. I really don't know how humans taste. Not for lack of opportunity. However, when I get past my culinary attraction to the remains, I note one of the underlying conflicts of the series: science versus religion. As an animal, and a reptile what's more, I am in a uniquely objective position to comment. The rats in the terrarium next to me in the pet store long ago would have said "position to be judgemental", but they long since died of old age and I'm still around. So I don't give a rat's you-know-what and neither do they.

What the writers describe as science in the Brennan-Booth debates is really atheism. Science is about what's measurable. God isn't, so he (or she or it or them) is non-disprovable. As lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, atheism isn't science but a valid religion. It's based on belief in an unprovable absence. The writers don't need to adjust the conflict, because it works well. They need to change the labels so -

Oh, sweet! This episode is about a saltwater floater! That gives the skeleton such a delightful bouquet and softened texture to the palate, adding a lightly abrasive crust and a piquant marine aftertaste.

The difference between psychiatry and dermatology? Lipstick.

2010-04-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm often fascinated by the facial features of humans. Specifically, how much more they can communicate than a reptile. See, here's what I can say: eyes open, eyes closed. That's I'm watching you, I'm not. I can't say I'm watching you because I think you are a good-for-nothing crook. Well, I could be saying that, but it looks identical to when I say the curve of your plastron is a total turn-on and I want you to fertilize my eggs. Do you see the problem? And do you see why male box turtles have had to evolve long rear claws to hold open the female's shell in the back? You hairless pink monkey girls think you have a hard time commuicating with your mates. Did I say pink? I meant pink and brown and tan and olive and - well, you get the idea.

Binocular vision seems like an interesting concept. If you don't mind people sneaking up behind you. I see Derick William Dalton's kids try this on each other once in a while. The problem is, they always giggle before they pounce. I suppose it's kind of cute, but how does he expect them to survive in the wild like that? One little giggle, zero point eight seconds, that's all I need to close up shop. Then who's giggling? Me. From inside my fortress. Of course, eyes on the side, of which I'm very fond I'll have you know, would be more efficient without the bulk of the rest of my turtleness. I'm not complaining about my figure. I am quite comfortable with my body shape, and Animal Planet with all those half-starved zoo models will not injure my self-image. Does that Russian tortoise really think she's attractive with glistening mango juice on her face? And the way she sticks her back legs out of the shell much farther than is comfortable? That's not biology, that's just a floozy show. Besides, the size of my shell doesn't matter. My neck is long and flexible, and I can easily peek around behind it.

Here's what I wish I did have, though. Lips and a dimple. Then I could smile, the dimple would dent into my right cheek, and I would be adorable. More adorable, I mean. The lips, on the other hand, aren't for what you think. It has nothing to do with food or affection, only communication. Picture this: eyes open, red lipstick. That means hello. Eyes open, red lipstick, and dimple: let's be friends. With the eyes closed, there are so many possibilities. With a hiss or two thrown in, I have an anthropologically recognized language.

Blue lipstick? Interesting possibilities for meanings. I'll have to read up on my Mary Kay and Sigmund Freud and get back to you.

Bathtub Shelly

2010-03-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

At the risk of making readers feel voyeuristic, a peek into my hygiene regimen sheds some light upon the frustrations of depending on a mammal for support. A male mammal, what's worse.

Every other day or so, I am rudely awakened from my cozy cubby by Derick William Dalton's right hand pulling me out. One would think he'd know what "hiss" means by now. Snakes use the phrase to imply the listener has a sexy aroma. Turtles, on the other hand, use it as a gauntlet-dropping final straw to the rules of engagement. Of course, that's only because running away isn't an option. We usually just hide in our shells and laugh as predators break their teeth trying to get at us.

I am then carried to the bathroom sink where his grubby kids wash their hands after pooping (sometimes). Here I must note that he very kindly sets the water temperature to a perfectly toasty temperature. But then he leaves me there for forty minutes, and by that time it's chilly. The first ten minutes is divine. I only need to come up for air three times, and I get all I can drink. But then I have to go, you know? So there I sit in pee water getting colder and colder. Of course, this is the one time when DWD decides to write. While I'm losing heat to dilute urine, he's blah blah blah starship engines, or blah blah blah alien pathophysiology.

I crawl as high up the side as I can, and stretch out my neck. There he is, sitting with his back to me. Blah blah blah futuristic geo-political-religious commentary. Boring! Well, except the part where the bad guy gets sucked into a spaceship drive, or out into the vacuum without a helmet, or has dental work with no anesthesia. But in the meantime, I've got a floater in here. I'm no microbiologist, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of a bath?

Finally, he comes in to drain the cesspool and wash me off. Then there's the fresh earthworm or macaroni and fish, as his handwashing-challenged kids call the food pellets. Good food under a snuggly heat lamp. Not bad.

Now if he wouldn't pretend to be Ringo Starr on the drums while I'm trying to sleep, life would be good.

My Impersonation of Steve McQueen, Sans Motorcycle

2010-03-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

Just like my worm the other day, I almost escaped once. Derick William Dalton turned me loose in the back yard for some exercise. I like to think he had concerns with my cardiovascular health, because if I find out he wants me to lose weight, I'm going to bite him.

The grass was cool, the sun was warm, and the breeze smelled better than the stale air of my terrarium. At first I was enjoying it. Then I started feeling a little exposed but quickly found the solution. The hillside. Cool dry dirt to dig and sagebrush under which to hide. When I'm not trying to catch anything in my mouth, I'm surprisingly quick. I waited until DWD was distracted by one of his kids and I was gone. I crawled under a tumbleweed, dug down, and flipped some of the dirt over me.

DWD spent hours looking for me. Almost stepped on me twice. His wife and the neighbors were out looking for a while, too. The sun went down, all got quiet and dark, and I didn't have to stay up until midnight listening to laser guns and starship explosions from the television. I enjoyed the peaceful sleep for several hours, but then I woke to notice bits of frost forming on the grass around me. And I smelled dog. Well, smelled, and the scar on the back of my shell was tingling due to the presence of some Voldermutt. No more sleep after that.

Obviously, the sunrise the next morning was my favorite of recent memory. That's how DWD found me, out in the open trying to thaw out, my legs and head stretched out to catch as much sun as I could. Not very ladylike, but I wasn't trying to impress anyone.

So, my terrarium doesn't seem so confining anymore. Just wish I had a baseball.

A Political Runt. Or is it rant?

2010-03-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

I was trying to concentrate on an escaping worm yesterday. Don't you dare laugh at my lack of speed. Have you ever eaten one the size of your leg with no hands? My hard time was exacerbated as DWD was on another political tirade on the phone. Something about hating fancy felosi. Sounds like an Italian dressing, which is weird, because DWD loves salad. So do I for that matter, as he gives me the leftovers. He has started these rants a few times a day over some apparent change in a health fair. I think he must have attended one. If I were a betting girl, I'd say his cholesterol was checked and too high. DWD doesn't handling aging or lack of fitness very well.

I thought he was done so I started to nod off under my heat lamp, tummy full of earthy, wormy, goodness. Then he started in on trying to get money from some Irish guy. He wanted to bill O'Reilly or O'Malley or O'Someone. He had a lot of mean things to say about this person, too. This also made no sense as DWD does no work overseas. In fact, I suspect he simply does no work.

My point is though, why do you all stress out so much? Too much on your plate at work? Not enough on your plate at the table? Just hibernate. Take a break. It's a good rest. Then have sex when you wake up and pass on your genes. Nothing matters after that. Homo sapiens of the world, chill out.

Wait, what? You have to raise your young? Wow. That sucks.

Dawn of the Dinosaur

2010-03-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Just a small one, but with internet access. Take that, allosaurus!