(I really should have waited and run this one in December, huh?)

Daily Rambling
New rat today, a boy, and the girls are in their typical musky-scent-induced frenzy.  I've never mentioned my pets before, and I suppose I should do a page on them somewhere around here, but it's not a real priority.  And pointless anyway, unless/until I get a digital camera to illustrate stuff with, ala Jasper shots.  Though rodents are slightly less photogenic.

I've got 2 snakes and 5 (currently) rats.  Had both snakes for about 5 years, had the first snake for 3 or so years before then.  Had rats for probably 10 years, obviously not the same one(s), since they live like 18 months tops.  Play with the rats 500x more than the snakes, mostly use the snakes for dead rat disposal. They are fun to own (all of them) but it's not like they are a major part of my identity, where I must talk about them, or go carrying them around in public. I used to with my snakes when they were new, I'd take one or the other to the arcade I used to spend time at, or to a friend's house, but I never go anywhere anymore (if I can help it) and when I do I don't bring along a reptile.  They are for my private amusement, though I hardly play with them anymore.

The smaller one isn't bad, about five foot Ball Python and very mellow, little bit head shy, but not really, and crawls around in lively fashion, and not so big/strong that she's a pain.  The other one is a red-tailed Columbian Boa, and is about 9 feet, and as a tree snake is tremendously strong (ground snakes like the Ball Python have like 1/10th the strength of tree snakes, since they are made for slithering rather than climbing) and not aggressive or anything, but totally unafraid of human contact, and quite eager to go.  Anywhere.  It's a wrestling match to hold her, since she's always snaking out 4 or 5 feet in one direction, and if she gets her head around anything, she'll easily pull it over if you try to haul her back in.  You can let her get her head to a chair, and she'll wrap 4 or 5 inches of neck around it instantly, and you'll haul the item of furniture across the room as you pull on the snake.  Amazing strength, and so long she's much more than a handful.

Anyway, point being that she's not out much, since it's impossible to do anything with her other than keep redirecting her head back around your body or neck or arm, or pulling her back, and that gets tiring.  Would probably be fun to sit with another person and talk, while you sort of passed the serpent back and forth, but being as I never have any visitors sitting around and talking, that's not really an option.  Though it would make a good pick up line, "Hey honey, you want to come back to my apartment and help me handle my enormous snake?"

You do realize when handling a 9-footer how insane people are who have 18 or 20 or 25 foot snakes, especially aggressive ones like Anacondas or Reticulated Pythons.  The 9 foot one would be a challenge to uncoil from you if it decided you were a good thing to squeeze, and their strength increases somewhat geometrically.  Like the longer the snake, the more leverage it gets on you, and the more it can squeeze with at a time.  My Python could easily bite and kill a cat or even small dog, and probably eat it once she did, and yes, I think of that Far Side cartoon with the huge snake with the big bump in the belly, halfway inside a crib.

I don't generally have any interest in FPS games (First Person Shooters), and in fact I actively avoid them, since they make me carsick.  I played a bit of Unreal from an old demo CD once I got this new computer working, and it was certainly beautiful, in 1600x1200, 32bit color, etc.  Full frame rate so it was perfect play, lovely lightning effects, so clear and crisp, etc.  And after 10 minutes of it was literally dizzy, and feeling somewhat queasy; I had to go lie down in the dark for a bit to get my equilibrium back.  Something about the movement with such a narrow field of view just turns my stomach; it's like walking around with a shoebox on your face, and a hole cut in each end, so you have zero peripheral vision.  I've never been able to play those types of games, while 3rd person 3D games give me no such difficulties.

And it is absolutely identical to how I feel when carsick, which I don't get ever while driving, but used to as a kid when I'd be lying sideways reading and seeing the blur of passing scenery out the corner of one eye, or facing backwards like in the old mini vans and station wagons, when kids would just pile in a heap in the back, with no seatbelts or restraints of any type.

Anyway, I don't play FPS games, but that doesn't mean they don't have some cool eye candy, especially the newish Halo, which is only out for the Xbox now, but is supposedly coming for the PC sometime later this year.  It looks unbelievable on the xbox, and that's a mid-range PC, so imagine it on a 2GHz, 1gig RAM, GeForce 4 PC?

A movie worth watching is Warthog Jump, and check out the full movies page and some other stuff on the fansite that hosts the movie mirror page, it's really got some good stuff, even if (like me) you have no interest in the game itself.  Warthogs are the 3-man jeeps in the game, and basically the movie is them being blasted into the air by throwing grenades under them, sending the jeeps and often the men near them flying hundreds of feet into the air, over cliffs, into the ocean, etc.  No blood, just amusing physics tests of explosive launches of indestructible objects.  Set to various good rock and roll songs.  Boom.

The Xbox must have some cool built in movie-making features, or else the basically PC-like architecture of it allows for easy modification to make movies, since there certainly seem to be a ton of people doing them.  I've paid no attention at all to any consoles since the Atari 2600, (which I still play from time to time, my old one is at my Dad's house) so forgive my ignorance, oh video gamers.

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