Weary golden retriever

I MET two weary golden retrievers outside the shops this morning... trotting along the street, then waiting patiently outside as their master purchased beer and cigs, or whatever, for breakfast... they did look weary indeed, all golden and patient. I think they must have been girls as they were evidently quite old and not puppies, but nowhere near as large as the pitbullesque golden retrievers down the park. Hang on a sec ~ I think those ARE pitbulls ;->...

Is it true Americans don't use the expression "golden retriever" and call them something suitably obscure like Sunshine Labradors..?

You know my Akita 秋田犬 obsession got started off in earnest when a giant fluffy grey-a-brindle female one came bounding up to me in the park a few weeks ago and stared silently at me with this mystical intensity that seems peculiar to that breed... she is so beautiful.

Next time I saw her she came right up to me again but the owner said it was my bags of shopping she was interested in. I had no goodies on me the first time, so I like to think there's more going on with this mystical connexion between me and 日本犬 Japanese inu than plain old cupboard love... but who knows?

Daffodils!

To coin a phrase, it is an awesomely sunny day today. I feel the sunlight shining right into my head and behind my eyes and illuminating some long-shrouded cobweb-ridden granny-attick in my brain... quite luminous and lucid, I feel. How amazing to be in summer at long last. OK, mid-spring, but BRIGHT and SHINY and NEW!! Everything is Amazing!! And the daffodils are out, like smiling faces all a-cheer in rows. Such a lovely day.

I had Lidl's best stuffed spinnaci e rocotta tortelloni for breakfast, topped with mysterious mixed grated cheese and cod-in-parsley sauce. Most civilized.

I even feel a little less boring than per normal.

Hope y'all are having a cheery day too, in those far-flung habitations of y'all...

OPTIKONFUSION
Close your eyes ~ forget your name ~ forget the world ~ forget the people ~~ GO INSANE
I used to love this hardcore "rave" track in days of yore... days so long ago that this, the music of my young adulthood is referred to by kiddies of today as OLD SCHOOL... how wizzening can you get?

Dullardly

O I don't know what to bloody write. My blog, so I feel, has really gone down the toilet as late and become more boring than ever before.

I mean: what can I say? I slept for hours and hours and hours?

Raymond's brother ~ ya know, the one with the sinister voice ~ got married on Everybody Loves Raymond this morning. I saw the bride trotting up the isle, then FELL ASLEEP AGAIN.

Yeah and that's about it. Blah blah blah...

Chortlesome animal clips:

FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY

2 BABY TIGERS AND A MONKEY



ALSATIAN DOG & BABY (AT LEAST, TINY) MONKEY



SIBERIAN HUSKY TROTTING ON TREADMILL



HACHIKO MONOGATARI
(The Tale of Hatchiko) original Japanese version of the famous Akita dog story



SQUIRREL VS CROW
I wonder where this was filmed?... looks like India or somewhere...

Clothes handwash

I SPENT THE BEST PART OF AN HOUR handwashing four pairs of socks, 2 undies and a teeshirt this morning... It was 5:30am so the launderette was shut anyway.

When they first went in the socks were crusty like you wouldn't believe. I have eaten Mr Kipling's bramley apple pies with less crust than those socks, I can tell ya. I have been wearing 2 pairs at once because of the workmen's boots I always wear (steel toecaps, all the better to kick yobbos' heads in down the park ~ haha!)... then I washed mySELF in the same washing up bowl (a socalled "whore's bath" as someone once said in my comments) and that took very nearly an entire HOUR too... I know this because 2 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond played out during the course of the scrubbing. I think it takes a long time because I soap on, scrub off seven times. Otherwise I am not clean...

And you wouldn't believe it but my clothes washed really clean also. I mean, considering my remiss latherorial ways it is a sheer miracle. The water eventually ran CLEAR.... And THAT has never happened before, I can tell you!

Sorry about this. Yes it is DOGS AGAIN ~ but I could not resist:

An Akita-inu and a Shiba-inu puppy...



NEED YOU TONIGHT by PROFESSOR GREEN
A modern take on that classic INXS tune...

It's really funny:



ANTIHEROIN AD
I like this one because it has that tiny doggie tearing round the park
Also I don't know WHY they insist on doing this, but the 10ml "drug works" they showed would have room for about TWENTY addict-strength fixes... nobody uses needles like that. Nobody!!
The tune is nice though, Mad World from the film Donnie Darko

A gaggle of geese, a murder of crows... a donkey derby of pizza boxes.

YES REALLY I'm talking of abortive posts scribbled on old foodcardboard, untapped in, unfinished. Sometimes I accumulate loads of them, but they're always boring (hence unposted).

In days gone by I used to scrawl out man a post in advance... not "man a post" ~ MANY a one! Lately I haven't done this, hence the boring blog and the degeneration into a morass of chinchillas and Japanese inus.

By the way, Morrisons own sweet chili chicken is nothing on Iceland's fiery chicken pizzas, which are proper stonebaked, and far more generously chickensprinkled.

Now talking of donkey derbies I think I need a Narcotics Anonymous sponsor more than I need a Native Japanese or European curlytailed furrydoggie... Also, living in the big bad city I'm scared somebody might burgle my furrydoggie from outside a shop or NA meeting (well I gotta walk the thang ~ mightaswell kill 2 birds 1 stone, ya know...)

And I don't think naming the shiba-inu "Snarler" will necessarily rub off on her character enough to put off local tea leaves.

Which is where sobriety comes in. Sobriety doesn't moult everywhere in spring, never gets bored and tears up the newspapers, will not tip over frying pans full of sausages and run off with them. It doesn't bark at strangers or scurry past park railings and into main roads.

Sobriety is hard-won yet free as a bird. It is guaranteed never to pee on the carpet (and you are less likely to pee on the carpet when you're sober), it does not need an ID-chip and unlike a cute lil dawg, nobody can ever steal it from me.

So sobriety it is.

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can ~
and the Wisdom to know the difference!

3 GOOD SONGS ~ or ought I to say "top tunes" to be hip-n-down wid da kidz..?

tHESE ARE BY FAR THE BEST (in my view) OF THE uk TOP 20 ON LAST NIGHT'S TV

#18 PROFESSOR GREEN ~ NEED YOU TONIGHT
Classic tune ~ with that DER-DER-DER from the original.
And rap WITH AN ENGLISH ACCENT ~ very modern & all...



#15 KATE NASH ~ DO WAH DO

Phoney American accents are bang out of fash these days, if you're Brit. And I love the air-hostess stuff, it reminds me of the late Princess Diana's fashion sense...



#1 LADY GAGA FT. BEYONCE ~ TELEPHONE

Musically I don't think Lady Gaga's tunes are that catchy or amazing but I do like this vid featuring Beyoncé ~ Beyoncé who ticks every gorgeous-by-numbers box, yet sexy-on-video she ain't. I think what I've seen of her acting's actually much better than her shrill singing... but anyway.
And doncha think Gaga looks like Aimy Winehouse wid da shark-eye curves?

Sweet Chili Chicken Pizza

I HAVE TWO LOVELY Morrisons own sweet chili chicken pizzas defrosting in my bag as I speak...

AS y'all probably know I do adore Chinese food... with the EXCEPTION of yukky sweet and sour (I mean, how can anyone like THAT?) ~ also pancake rolls I'm not into at all. I.e. the two most popularly ordered things on the British-Chinese menu. Nasty business, all of it.

Anyway so I tried these pizzas from Iceland. Really nice. Now I got Morrisons own. 2 for £2.50. Good value for Britain. Yeah I bet you can get the same for $2.50 in the great US or A but Britain is crap.

I don't know what I was going to say... except, well I'm trying to get a handle on this detoxy-clean thing.

I have heroin in a drawer at home. So I'm trying to avoid going there at the mo. It's 10:28pm, so I cannot avoid much longer. The pizza will go in. Food+heroin= a really good combination so I will reinforce the addiction all over. Somehow heroin x10-ifies the savour of all good eats. I don't know why. When my addiction was at its peak I remember banging up in front of the fridge, then tearing open cold roast chicken legs like a druggie Conan the Barbarian. Oh what a glamorous life I led!

What really puzzles me the most re the depression I complain about so constantly is how I manage to be in the addictional sitation I'm in and sporadically NOT feel like death. That is the real quizzation of the moment.

Then the despair comes flooding back and I'm back at home, wallowing like a swine in the sewer... My life must be mopped up first, like spilled up petroleum... THEN this misery will have no fuel left to feed on... that make sense?

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Thank you Molson. I don't know whether I want an American Akita now or a Japanese Shiba or a Norwegian Elkhound. They all look furry and wolfy and cute.

But shibas are really tiny and roborovskilike and yappy!!



Oh no, even more doggie selection. I see y'all realize the type of hound I like now. I.e. a wild wolf that's furry and tamed. I DID read all the comments yesterday and the day before, thank you everyone. I'm no good at replying when constantly about to be timed out, which is happening all the time in these nasty internet shops that won't even sell a 2-hour account, let alone 10 hrs for £5, which is the going rate. Really for £5 you should get 15... Anyway...

The Norwegian Elkhound, thank you Syd. As a puppy:



Fully grown. If I'm going to be fussy, these encompass the colours I like most, namely pure white or brindly-grey:

Dogs

WHAT was all this crap I banged in yesterday about "doggie fun"... what was I on? Nothing? What was wrong with me. Everything, probably. Well I'm not deleting it even though it was stupid.

I don't know whether I wanna get a dog or not. I do. But I don't as well.

I suppose I wanna learn how to take care of myself first (wah-waaah!!)

I am scared of getting hammies as the gap under my door is so huge they could easily just ping under it and be out in the hallway in 2 seconds flat. Then the people downstairs would jump out of their skin the minute they saw a round roborovski furball scurrying across their carpets in the dead of night.

When Itchy escaped, on the frequent occasions that she did, she usually laid low for at least 48 hours ~ in that time I did not see or hear hide nor hair of her, so as far as I knew she could be dead or out on the street or anywhere. Then, when it was really quiet I would suddenly see this tiny tubby cartoon mouse like thing that looked more like Tweety-pie scuttling across the floor. Any movement from me and she was GONE.

We had wild mice in the house at the same time in one address, and I can vouch that a domesticated escaped roborovski is considerably FASTER than a wild housemouse. The swines!

Anyway when it comes to dogs, these are the types I like.

1. Really fuzzy furry ones, like Spanish water dogs:



2. Old English sheepdogs:



3. Fuzzy terriers. But these aren't a breed, so you cannot reliably seek out and find one, not without endless poring over pictures of internet puppies, wondering what they might grow up into:



4. Wire fox terriers. It's the fluff-round-the-nose thing...



Japanese dogs. There are six original dog breeds from Japan. Their genetics have been traced back as far as 3000BC. All of these breeds have the same wolf-like appearance and distinctive curly tail. The two most popular in the West are the tiny Shiba inu 柴犬 (inu just means doggie).





And the Akita inu I keep going on about.
The appeal of these is that if I'm going to have a dog I want one that's cute and tough in equal measure. This is important today as the parks are full of yobbos with Staffordshire bull terriers (yesterday's fashion) and Rottweilers (today's fashion).
I would go for a female dog anyway. Hopefully then the snarlers in the park would treat her like a lady instead of savaging her. Also if I can find another Akita at the right time of year... free puppies, wahey!!

Note the similarity of features with the shiba, but huge disparity in size:





These are Shikoku dogs:



A Kai inu:

Easter Vulgarity

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL having a great Eggster/Passover/long weekend... whatever it means to you. Here are some cute bunnies for the pagan amongst ya:



And a lopsy-eared chinchilla, for those, like me, who prefer a martian bunny to the earth variety...



A technicolour Easter Chinchilla...



I had a miserable easter with no eggs and no drugs. I was trying to give up but ended up in such pits of misery I only wanted to die and do the world a favour and get it over with as quick as possible. How I hate being alive without drugs. Can't live with them; can't live without 'em. What the hell am I going to do?

I don't WANT to cut my throat, or jump in front of a train, but I haven't the guts to detox. So I'm stuck in this agony of misery ~ toothache of the soul.. and have no idea what steps to take to clamber out of this dreadful morass....

Nobody can help me. Only I can help myself. Yet I can't. I'm too lazy.

So I'm ****ed, aren't I??

Akita 秋田犬 alerts! Akita 秋田 means Autumn 秋 Field 田 or Fallfield 秋田, if you want to be American and succinct about it. I saw a huge dark male one trotting down the street the other day. I wanted to say kon-ban-wa! (good evening) to it, but was too self-conscious. Also it looked 50% really cute and 50% like it wanted to bite me (which is why that breed appeals to me in the first place, a mixture of ultra-furry and scary, haha!...



Then I was watching Ray Mears in South East Asia yesterday and saw a white Akita dog 秋田犬 on a floating Vietnamese boat village in Vietnam. I'm surprised a dog designed to brave the Greenlandic winters of northern Japan could survive in a tropical climate, and it did look a bit scraggly, but I suppose the undercoat moults out in tropical climes... Anyway, Northern Vietnam has quite severe winters, so I spose the poor swine would need his coat for that...



I'm still undecided about what to do about pets. The problem is, roborovski hammies are so very tiny and pingy and are a bugger to get back once they escape (which they do with exceeding ease) and I have a great gap under my door that would NOT be good vis-a-vis getting the tiny swines back...

I was thinking of doing what Mr Downstairs Man did with his Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy and getting a doggie anyway and waiting facing whatever trouble arises as and when. I really want my Akita 犬 swine and do not see why the local council piggery should stand in the way of doggie happiness. The swines!

Happy Eggster!

HAPPY CHOCOLATE EGG MUNCHING to all you followers of the pagan ways, haha!

Monsters of the Cold Water: Alligator Gar

SCALY FRIDAY (ON SATURDAY)...

Resembling a resident of a real-life Jurassic Park...



Gator gars, as the Florida locals like to call them, were a long way down the line when God handed out natural beauty...

... contrary to popular belief, these fish are not man-eaters and can only swallow relatively small chunks of flesh, which they down whole ~ usually in the form of smaller fish...



The aligator gar is North America's largest freshwater fish, growing as long as ten feet and weighing in at up to 127kg...




Named after the alligator, the gar is a true fish that survives partially by "air gulping"... they are known to survive up to two hours out of the water...




And baby gator gars are "tiny and cute"... and could easily pass relatively unnoticed in a community tropical aquarium (until they started eating the other fish!)...



HAVE A CHEERY WEEKEND, Y'ALL!

The Mood-Pig

AARKHH!I've failed! It's coming back, I can feel it. Depression, or whatever you want to call it. That feeling that something is wrong all the time, when I cannot (or do not ~ whatever) do anything meaningful with the day. And I should. And my days are only like that, I only have empty days because I have made such a wreck of my life, and that is why I'm so depressed ANYWAY. Know what I mean... Vicious circles are nasty things.


So my life is in the piggery once more. I did write out a rambling old post on a pizza box, but it's too long to type in without constant credit top-ups at this cybercafe that will not take money on account and give multi-hour discounts. (I cannot function in half-hour or one-hour increments. Tried: cannot do it. It wastes time and is a big reason why many of my bloggosphere friendships wither due to lack of contact on my part. I cannot relax into it when the clock is ticking constant threats of disconnexion in my ear. No!

I don't think I'll be out of the piggery by tomorrow but you might get the typed up PIZZA FUNGHI box edifice. So beware! Have a cheery Easter (ie Passover) if that is what you do. When IS Easter, by the way? Good Friday? Easter Sunday? Or Easter Monday? I never did get that one...

New Pets Soon

I WAS hoping to post something deep and meaningful here, but whatever it was has gone from my mind.

You know I stopped feeling depressed totally for a time!! But now the tide is turning. I sleep suspiciously long hours (always a warning). And have nightmares. The night before last I dreamt I was escaping from a Thai prison (too much Midnight Express/Bangcock Hilton I think...)

Bangcock Hilton Customs Scene:
Nicole Kidman acts out every tourist's worst nightmare...



Bangcock Hilton: trip to prison:
The nightmare gets worse...



Bangcock Hilton is a famous Australian-produced mini-series from 1989, starring a very young Nicole Kidman as the poor kid duped into carrying 140g of "number four" heroin out of Thailand...

If you want to see Bangcock Hilton in its entirety, click here ~ running time over 2 hours, so you've been warned!



There are all sorts of animals I would LIKE to keep, but cannot for practical reasons: Akita-doggies are prone to bark, and need lots of grooming and expensive food (I'm not feeding my animals rubbish). Mars-rabbits, better known as chinchillas, are exceedingly cute, but need a huge cage that you cannot hide...

Now I'm seriously thinking of getting some new robbies, but before I do, posthumous honours must be bestowed on the old lot. Aristocratic titles are usually associated with British towns, so Itchy-san will be The Donkey of Derby (where else?!), Bashful-san ~ who so loved biting me in life ~ can be Nibbleswine of Nottingham in death. And Spherical-sensei (sensei is a more honorific suffix than san, so the name means something like Dr Spherical) is posthumous Trotter General of the Western Isles... That sounds very royal because the Royals are well into Scotland (I think this has to do with retaining a toehold when the future United Kingdom breaks to smithereens, as I would not put it past it to do...

In case any of you don't know, Roborovski hamsters are the tiniest, pingiest hamsters in the world... This picture here gives a good sense of scale compared to the human hand. The tubbiest one here is fully-grown:



Roborovskis are the most social of all hamster species. Their behaviour often mirrors that of others in the group, deliberately or unconsciously:



These tiny animals have huge appetites. You needn't worry about rotting their teeth with sugary treats, as the teeth grow out. Though too much sugar isn't good for their general health (but they love it!) ~ I wouldn't feed even five trotters a biscuit this big ~ about 1" diameter:



And like many small animals, they frequently rotate nests, perhaps having four or five on the go at any one time and show a distinct proclivity for sleeping in what seems to us some slightly bizzarrre places:



Sarcastic Bastard I cannot get through to your blog ~ the internet caff has seen fit to bar access!!