vegansaurus!

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

You guys, I am going to end this semester with superpowers. This is not because Allen and I have been experimenting with disastrous chemical compounds or doing dry runs of superhero vs. villain (Allen is the reluctant villain, of course) in our spare time. No, it is because I spend one evening a week yelling at people in a darkened basement. This by itself is OK, because basements aren’t that scary and I have full audio/video hookup to play as many Real Housewives videos as I want, but I am also across the hall from the “cancer risk” lab and next door to “possible radiation.” Down the hall is a room full of cut-up dead people that scared the shit out of me when I was forced to visit it in high school (not as a punishment but as a science learning experience).

I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of power I will develop, and I’ve narrowed it down to something that would have to do with being slightly dangerous, overwhelmingly adorable, and able to take naps in any location or position (god, I love to nap). In short, I will likely be able to morph into a sloth at will.

Being a sloth will be awesome because sloths are really in right now. For instance, only recently, amazing celebrity Kristen Bell (omg! I have all of Veronica Mars on DVD! I once cut a whole week of college just to watch two entire seasons of that show!) had a full-on panic attack upon discovering that a sloth was nearby.

Could you imagine how awesome it would be if your superpower was to make other people have anxiety attacks of happiness? No one would be able to rob a bank while I was nearby! Murders would be a thing of the past! “Adore my cuteness!” would be my battle cry!

After fighting evil (Allen), I would happily go and hang out with my sloth friends on a sloth farm and eat bananas and leafy greens. I would just have to make sure the other sloths wouldn’t be as adorable and try to take over my turf. They’ve already beaten Lady and the Tramp. Check out the two adorable sloths that are sharing some sort of bean. Adorable.

Although I would be a sloth I would also be an honorary opossum and chill with my pals Pear and Pearl. I know I’ve featured Pearl before but this was before I knew that she was certified in the art of animal psychoanalysis.

I went to school for many years in order to practice therapy on humans, but I can’t even come close to the way Pearl handles rapport, alliance, and resistance. I wish she would open her own graduate school where I could supplement my degree with a Ph.D in hanging out with adorable animals. Call me, Pearl, I want to enroll!

That’s it for this week. Please send me links for next week, and try not to rob a bank this Wednesday. I haven’t gained my superpowers yet!

[baby sloth photo by Lucy Cooke. Can’t see the videos? Watch them on Vegansaurus.com!]

Hello, Friends! It’s WTF Wednesday! (On Thursday!)  »

You guys, I am no longer watching Damages because it has hurt my life too much. First of all, Allen is not pleased by the lounging around I do in the dark waiting for him, and my coworkers are probably unhappy that I skulk around in the shadows wearing a feathered fright-wig and chuckling to myself. I don’t know of it’s the chuckling or the wig they’re concerned about, though. I am a very loud chuckler. I’m also back at work full-time so I don’t have time to watch anything, much less an engrossing hour-long show that requires me to remember things that are not in the “previously on” scenes. I’ve got to find more half-hour comedies.

One of the half-hour comedies I do enjoy is Raising Hope which is adorable, clever and providing Cloris Leachman with work. And you guys know she needs it. The royalties from The Facts of Life have long since dried up. Even Nancy McKeon is looking for work and Blair is writing books about how to homeschool children (obviously). It also features Martha Plimpton who is like my favorite. She was in a movie called Samantha that I used to watch like fifteen times a day but can’t even find on VHS anymore (do you have a copy? Call me!). All of the things you just read are not important because I want to talk about my favorite person, Kate Micucci. Dude, this girl is legit. She acts, she sings, and she made this amazing video about hunting using babies as the hunter and the deer:

[Can’t see the video? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com!]
God, I really want her to be my friend. You reading this, Kate? Call me! Do you have a copy of Samantha?

[Can’t see the video? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com!]

This next link comes from our friend Amy who sent me a video of a man being hit by a pigeon shooter driving a fancy car (I drive public transportation so any car is fancy!).

There are two issues here; The first is that the article claims that pigeon shooters are above the law (no mention of whether police intervened after the hit and run in the article, though), but I think the bigger issue is that no one should be hitting anyone with a car. I don’t care if you’re a pigeon shooter or not, do not hit people with your vehicle! Second, don’t shoot pigeons. Girl, you do not even know. Sometimes I think about shit that happens and I’m all “that’s pretty bad for animals. I bet nothing could be worse,” and then the Internet proves me wrong once again by telling me about people who release live pigeons and then shoot them for fun and prizes. Prizes!

Finally, I give you the skin gun! I know this has nothing to do with animals, but my god, have you seen this? It shoots skin onto your burned skin! And then it regenerates! And then your skin looks hella good and you don’t even need to not go out anymore and live underneath an opera house and bother Sarah Brightman eight shows a week! You can even star in the show!

That’s all for this week. Send me links for next week and have a graft-free Wednesday!

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday! (on Thursday!)  »

Now that I’m back to work I am much calmer. What Allen and his family would put up with because they still have some warm feelings left towards me will not fly with people at the office. I’m still knitting like I’m about to drop a litter of little Marks but at least I’ve stopped waiting for Allen in the dark, only to dramatically switch on the light and shake the ice in my glass as he enters, effectively giving him heart palpitations. I didn’t want to, but Allen said that it was either him or my imitation of Glenn Close on Damages (not especially close: I don’t own any crisp ladies’ suits, so I sit around in an African-print muumuu), and I want to keep this relationship going because Allen knows how to cook.

If I started questioning anyone again, however, I would start with a dog that likes guitar so much that he stops smiling when the guitar is not being played. Clearly the dog is on something, I would say intimidatingly, as I leaned over a desk to show off my middle-aged lady cleavage, and I am going to find out what it is is. And then, I would say slowly but impeccably enunciated, I am going to destroy you. I will take everything away from you. Everything.

My next case involves an assault. “Where’s the victim?” you might ask me, “it just looks like a confused bird.” That is my case. Why was my client being videotaped? Why was he being harrassed? More importantly, what kind of sick and twisted individual would get a bird drunk and then stick a decoy in front of him? Who would leak this to the press? (Amazing twist: I did it. The guitar-loving dog’s supplier had this video of one of my clients and was going to release it if I didn’t drop my suit, so I beat her to the punch and released it myself, making my client appear sympathetic).

Here’s one I don’t even have to make up dramatic plot twists for: A Chinese man was poisoned to death while eating cat stew. I can’t even say anything, you guys. Apparently people are eating cat stew now? And apparently other people are poisoning the stew for some kind of weird government thing? But also, rich people are eating cat stew? The guy who did the poisoning has been caught and I wonder what jail is like for poisoners. Are there levels? Do you get treated better or worse depending on the medium you used for your poison? Where does cat stew fall? I kind of hope that there is an animal-rights activist in jail with him. And that they meet. And that there is a reality show filmed about their encounters and also that the poisoner learns that it is wrong to both poison soup in order to kill a rival but also just as wrong to turn a cat into soup.

That’s it for this week. Please send me links for next week and have a court-free week. However, if you have to appear in court this week, please do so; my sentiment should not be taken as an instruction. Pay your debt to society and leave my name out of it.

Final note: for some reason your emails were going through a time hole and appearing in my AOL inbox, which I checked regularly in high school but no longer use. I have no idea how this happened but I am not ignoring you (I swear) and will use links everyone sent me this year (the ones AOL hasn’t deleted) next week. Promise.

Vegansaurus’ own favorite posts from 2011!  »

Because we love ourselves more than anything and we don’t want you to miss out on all the amazing shit that happened on the site, we’ve curated a list of our favorite posts. SO FUN! ish!

If we’d had more time, we woulda done this for the whole internet but we’re not made of time, we’re made of cinnamon rolls, poorness, and broken dreams. SORRY!

First up: MEGAN RASCAL! I love this girl. Seriously, I’d give her a lung or my heart or a foot because she is the reason Vegansaurus currently exists and is everything wonderful. Yay, Megan Rascal!

Mother Jones loves sustainability, except when there’s delicious, fancy food involved! by Laura

I love this because I hate the sustainable meat hawkers and I love when Laura tells Mother Jones they are from planet 1970s Hippie Socialist.

An open letter to Sheri Appleby by Mark

This is great because Mark is THE MOST FUNNIEST and he references Roswell and Melissa Joan Hart. Also, I can’t believe that chick’s views on men and veganism!

Book review: The Vampire and the Vegan, Book 1: Food by Jenny

I love this because Jenny is hilar and does the best strike-through jokes. Plus, I think the blending of vampires and vegans is how we’re going to take over the world. 

Second: MARK! Mark is probably the funniest person I’ve ever met. Also, he’s hella smart and mean, but not in a bad way. His heart is filled with so much love, sometimes it’s like it’s just explodes in your face in the form of a fist. Delightful.

This is the best thing I’ve written all year, which is somewhat disheartening because this year I also wrote my master’s paper. The latter took two semesters, was a requirement for graduation and was “accidentally” lost to the academic world forever. When people ask me what I wrote it on, I mumble quietly and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible and never speak to the person again. However, when someone asks me if I’ve ever written a highly criticized open letter to a minor tv celebrity who is facing a fall into oblivion and who, as commenters rightly pointed out, doesn’t really warrant the anger I directed towards her, I happily direct them to this post!

Just link to everything I did. That is everyone’s favorite post.

Next, Miss Jenny Bradley! Not only is she super funny, adorable, and correctly obsessed with celebrities, she’s also a dessert baking maniac and I’d pretty much kill a man for her live pumpkin cheesecake. 

I really like this post by Megan cause she went to her lil’ sis for advice, which I thought was adorable. And I loved Megan’s commentary on each shoe! So funny! Especially the part about any heel over 2 inches was irresponsible due to the amount of whiskey she drinks.

This Natalie Portman post because of the part about cleft-palate babies. Hahahaha. I had JUST read that article in Vogue. Plus I love celebrities! When I do my celeb posts, I try to channel Laura instead of an US Weekly writer, but….let’s just say I’m still working on it. 

Sarah’s account of the ginger seal, as we got a glimpse into her mind and thus her love of all things ginger (except her own hair, when dyed!). I am so jealous the ruddy colored seal is following her on twitter and not me. Sarah is hilarious! 

And next, ME! I’m great!

Rachel’s Cafe Gratitude Bereavement plan because WTF are we all gonna do when it’s gone? Plus, it made me laugh.

Sarah’s brown sugar bacon buttermilk waffles HOLY FUCK

Meave’s Ecoturre shoe post because I really love whenever Meave writes about shoes because she is hilarious and passionate and I also love whenever she talks about rules about anything, especially every day behavior, because it’s so funny and spot on. 

Megan’s meat week post is probably my most favorite Vegansaurus post of all time. IT’S SO GOOD! and right! 

Now, it’s Sarah M. Smart time! She’s super great! And funny! And smart! We like her a lot, a lot.

top 8 vegan foods we’re sick of seeing on omni menus, because yours truly wrote it and also because it really seemed to strike a chord heretofore unseen in our audience, sparking a more-lists resolution. 

jenny’s las vegas redux! it’s good to know that you can party like a rock star AND be vegan. plus i’m going there in 2012 and will refer to this post often! 

Meave belatedly wants to express her love of

Megan Rascal’s Meatless Monday Unicorn! I love that mean jerk. Megan Rascal really is the funniest.

This wasn’t officially part of Vegansaurus, but I feel like Laura’s Week in Vegan was like Vegansaurus outreach to the masses/readers of SFoodie, and it’s like Laura distilled, which can be intense, but is always awesome.

I have a crippling sinus headache and am extremely tired.

Rachel might be adding hers soon but I wanted to get this up and thank you all for reading and we love you all very much, even when you look ugly and you’re mean to us, we still want to do you. That’s love. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday! (on Friday!)  »

[Ed. note: Mark sent this to us on Wednesday this week, but some people fell down on the job and failed to post it until today! Blame us, not Mark!]

You guys, I’m better now, but last week was a low point in my holiday season. I generally love all the holidays and try to stay pretty chipper throughout, but it was pretty difficult last week. I was rolling through life with a sinus infection, and there was not much that could lift my spirits. When such things happen, there is generally one thing that can keep me up even during the toughest times. I am talking, of course, about the winning combination of small children and animals!

Here is a video of a baby human and a baby Yorkie having the best time ever. You know what is awesome about this video? What is awesome is that even though the dog is much smaller than the human, it happily knocks the baby down and proves its dominance. In like the cutest way imaginable. I mean, if a dog like this knocked your baby down, you wouldn’t even be able to say anything but “awww.” Even if the dog then happily made a snack of the baby you would be forced to find it adorable. Luckily, the Yorkie doesn’t snack on babies, it just locks them half to death.

If your baby is inconsolable, however, just get a cat to calm it the fuck down. I especially love the look on the cat’s face. It’s not like it’s all, “I care about you, tiny noise machine,” but more like, “I’ve got this. I’ve read Go the Fuck to Sleep. And by god you are going to close your fucking eyes and not bother anyone again until tomorrow.” This is also Allen’s approach, by the way. Every time he thinks I am making too much noise he puts his hand on my head and hopes that I will shut up. If I am making too much noise at night he gently calms me down by putting a pillow over my face. The last sentence was a cry for help.

If babies don’t cheer you up as much as they cheer me up, however, here’s a music video about breaking kneecaps. Breaking knee caps is also a cheerful holiday activity!

That’s it for this week! Send me links for next week and have an awesome holiday weekend. If you don’t celebrate this particular holiday, I still hope uou get Monday off!

[Christmas hamster photo by LuLu Witch via Flickr]

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

Mark is the cranky one.

You guys, I had a really good week in Modesto. I was really concerned about what I would do so I brought along every craft, portable video game system and textbook that I needed to write a lecture from. Then I spent my time eating Field Roast and napping. And abusing NSAIDs. I even got through about 10 hours of Final Fantasy VII before I realized that the entire game was approximately six hundred hours long and decided that I just could not make the commitment. When I told Allen this he said ” that game cost seven dollars. You’d better finish it!” Then he went back to watching 27 Dresses on non-cable television.

Allen loves to watch movies on TV, even though the movies he watches are movies he owns on DVD. In fact, they are movies I bought him on DVD. During the past week he has watched Up twice and been excited and surprised every time it came on. This is a movie that Allen owns the special-edition of and is still in its packaging. When I mention Allen’s behavior to him, he just says that watching movies on TV is fun, and that I need to either lighten up or finish the game I paid $7 for. Because nothing makes more sense than a person who will chastise me for not finishing a video game but will happily watch movies that he has paid for and that are five feet away from him on network television with frequent commercial interruptions. The result of this logic makes my head explode and Allen has to face the consequences of putting it back together and screwing it back on to my shoulders.

Consequences, by the way, are really important. While trolling around the Internet during a pre-nap relaxation hour I found out that one of the consequences of messing with a cat is getting the shit beaten out of you. I really hope that the little monster in this video has to watch this on a daily basis, because it will teach him two important things. First of all, don’t hit living things even if you perceive that they are weaker than you; second, those living things might fight back. No matter what logic you use, it is impossible to blame the cat for giving the kid what he deserved. One time, I reached into Bunny’s cage when she was sleeping and she bit me so hard I almost blacked out. You know what I learned from that? Not to disturb her when she is sleeping. What I hope this kid learns is that you don’t try to squash a cat with your fist. What I hope this kid’s parents learn is not to videotape their kid crying, and perhaps invite him to a visit with a practicing therapist. If you’re jonesing for a video where the cat is the aggressor, scroll down the same page and watch an adorable middle-aged baby get sucker-punched like a boss.

Besides douchebag babies, animals also seem to hate phones. Check them freaking the fuck out when commercials for the iPhone come on (animals are very cost-conscious) and kicking over the phone when it rings and disturbs their beauty rest. That is totally something I would do if I were a pet, too. Just knock shit over to let my people know that I do not have Stockholm syndrome. Ms. Cleo’s been doing that a lot. That and not letting me change her litterbox. I swear, every time I go to empty it she freaks out like I am stealing precious diamonds from her. Allen won’t even go near that because he is so frightened she will take a finger off. She has not been responding so well to Spanish.

That’s it for this week. Please send me links for next week and have a bite-free Wednesday!

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

Yesterday I was informed that I have high blood pressure. The doctor was so concerned about my blood pressure, in fact, that she would not let me leave her office without signing up for tests, agreeing to check my pressure daily for a week, and swallowing some kind of medicine. I was not pleased yesterday and I am not pleased today. The doctor’s advice was to work less and enjoy life more. My thought about that: yes, but who is going to show up for work for me? And who will do all of my paperwork?

I do not think it is a coincidence that this happened the week after Allen and I welcome my former friend and roommate Ms. Cleo into our home. You see, Ms. Cleo (who is a giant black female rabbit) and I do not like each other very much. We spent two years together, and while we were fairly happy—I would supply her with food and toys, she would supply me with bites and scratches—we parted ways after I moved in with Allen. This happened for two reasons: first, I am never at home. At the time of the move I was shoulder-deep in grad school and was out of the house so much that I was not able to give Ms. Cleo the proper attention she deserved. Second, Allen was scared of her. I asked him to hold her once when we first started dating and I was attractively cleaning her cage before we went to dinner. She scratched Allen so hard that he dropped her (on the bed. She was on his lap. It was like less than an inch). The she turned and stared at him until he got up and walked out of the room. Then she peed all over my comforter to teach me a lesson. Allen was not happy about staying over that night.

Anyway, I moved and Ms. Cleo moved in with the roommate I was leaving, with the understanding that I would invite her back if circumstances deemed it necessary. And I hoped circumstances never would. Then my roommate had to move, and now we are living with Ms. Cleo indefinitely. I am probably allergic to her. Allen, on the other hand, could not be happier.

That’s right; Allen is in love with his former enemy. I know this because he gives her his organic vegetables every day (and knows which ones she likes), because he texts to remind me to play with her, because he willingly took me to a pet store and made me buy the most expensive stuff and because he talks to her. In Spanish. Regularly.

“Allen,” I said to him when I first walked in on him calling her Bonita and saying that she was très bien, “I do not think she understands that. She comes from an English-speaking household.”
“She gets it,” he said. “She speaks Spanish fluently.”
“How do you know?” I asked, wondering if Allen was some kind of modern-day Dr. Doolittle.
“Because I gave her a banana and said ‘eat the banana’ in Spanish.”
“Yes, and?”
“And she ate it!”
“Maybe she just likes bananas,” I said.
“Maybe you should go see your doctor for an attitude adjustment,” Allen said, and went back to forcing pieces of bok choy through the bars of Ms. Cleo’s cage.

Perhaps I do. I do a lot of doom and gloom here on WTF Wednesday because doom and gloom brings me a lot of joy, but Allen has inspired me to do a “what’s good” week. Thank god the internet is happy to oblige.

First, there’s a dog who pisses while doing a motherfucking handstand. What is that? How awesome is it? Do you have any words, because I sure don’t. This dog just gets up on his front legs and says, “Watch this. This entire world is mine!” I think he is actually hitting a big area. I wish I could do this, but I can barely use the bathroom and can certainly not perform a handstand. Maybe I will have one of my yoga friends teach me. Then I can blame it on the rabbit and Allen will love her less and me more!

Here’s another thing that I like but I’m wondering if it is OK to. It’s a pack of puppies cuddling a kitten. Well, they are basically attacking the kitten, and then cuddling her. And she’s more like a full-grown cat. But they’re wagging their tails! And the cat ends up OK! And it is just so goddamn cute! Look at their little tails wag. What do you guys think? Is it all right for me to find this adorable? If it’s not, please take a look at this cat, who is more fashionable than either you or me.

Ok, fine, here is something unobjectionable: hedgehogs bathing! They are swimming! This is almost as cute as when I would bathe my guinea pig. She didn’t love it at first, but then she would get in the warm water and chill and squeak, just like these hedgehogs. I wish I could play this on loop. I wish I could give these hedgehogs a hug. I wish Allen loved me more than the rabbit. Wait…

That’s it for this week. Please send me links for next week and have an adorable Wednesday!

[photo of Luna from Facebook via Buzz Feed]

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

You guys, it is the season of sickness. I don’t know what’s going on, but since Monday I have been feeling cold, nauseated, and headachey. Sleeping doesn’t help, drinking water doesn’t help, even cuddling with Allen doesn’t help (especially when he falls asleep and starts kicking). I’m at a loss—there’s really nothing you can do about a cold except wait it out and suffer. And continue going to work where other people are sick and probably getting you to bonus levels of sickness. On Monday afternoon I just snuck into my office and took a 10-minute nap. That was great!

Besides sickness, there are two things that are not great this week. The first is the knowledge that in Japan, artists are murdering rats and painting them to look like Pikachu. The rats don’t even look that much like Pikachu. What they look like are fucking murdered rats painted yellow. What? Why? How does this even qualify as art? What is the message here? Capitalism? Anime? Mass-consumerism? I don’t understand it! What’s even more disturbing is that one of the comments I read about this monstrosity was a discussion on how the rats must have been killed in order to maintain their bodies. It turns out that in cases like this, people sometimes drown the rats in a cage, which is noted as being fast, economical, and relatively easy for the rats! Dude, what are you smoking? Drowning may be fast and economical, but having your lungs filled with water while stuck in a small cage sounds like anything but easy. It sounds like one of the top 10 worst ways to die, with number one being involved in some kind of trap from Saw. God, those movies are scary!

Here’s the other thing that isn’t great: people torturing cats because they’re depressed. OK, so cats can be kind of messed up, choking out hair balls, vomiting, and peeing all over the place. (My brother has like 15 cats. I hear stories.) Horrible. Yes, we can blame cats for all of these things (the same way I can blame a rabbit for pooping a lot, but then understanding that this is just how things are). Yes, we can whine about it. No, we cannot start blaming cats for our depression to justify strangling them. Seriously, people need to stop. Depressed people don’t torture animals. Most of the time they just don’t have the energy. Psychopaths, however…

That’s it for this week. I’m going to climb back into bed. Please email me links for next week, and I wish you a Wednesday filled with antibacterial handwash.

Hello, Friends! It’s WTF Wednesday—Avenging Hamsters edition!  »

You guys, I need to talk to you about something serious. You know I’m all about fun and games and tormenting Allen for the amusement of others, but today we have to discuss an issue really near and dear to my heart: hamsters.

I get it; I talk about hamsters a lot. Perhaps, some of you may be thinking, I love hamsters a little too much. Perhaps you have never taken a nap with a hamster or involuntarily shared your oatmeal with one. Perhaps you have never given a hamster CPR only to be bitten in the face. Hard.

Fine, I love hamsters too much, but somebody has to. A lot of the time we do not take small animals seriously. You tell someone that a dog or a cat or a horse got tortured and killed and people go into a rage. You hear about someone who tortured and killed a hamster, and a lot of people are all, “Whatever, rodents…” When I took my hamster Bunny (RIP Big Poppa!) in for surgery once even the vet looked at me like I was a crazy person, and asked if I wouldn’t want to spend my money on “something else,” and just have Bunny euthanized.

For me, this was a huge problem, because not only was it insensitive, but Bunny wasn’t a something, she was a someone. She was a rodent, sure, but she also inspired me to stop eating meat—why eat cows when we don’t eat hamsters?—gave me good stories to tell other people, and kept me company while I was doing homework. One time she also bit someone I didn’t like in the face, which was awesome and taught everyone the importance of not putting an animal right up to your face and cooing at them, even if they are small and adorable.

I wasn’t really even thinking about this until this Facebook post started circulating. If you have not seen it, the gist is that some horrible person, who appears to be a female in her 20s, decided to let her orange hamster, Nemo, out into the wild to give him his freedom. Admirable as her intentions may be, this young lady apparently did no research and therefore did not learn that YOU CAN’T JUST FUCKING LET A DOMESTICATED PREY ANIMAL OUT INTO THE FUCKING WOODS!

Her reasoning was pretty romantic: Nemo would fend for himself and become big and strong. He would eat berries that he found in the forest and drink cool, clean water from the brook. He would build himself a fine home made of sugar and gingerbread and he would find another hamster to share his life with. Perhaps, he would return to visit once in a while, maybe bringing his partner around to say hi and nibble a carrot; reminisce about old times, check up on the old places. That would be nice. Too bad that Hamster was probably dead within 24 hours because, again, hamsters are prey animals that don’t know how to love in the wild. They’re not going to find brooks and berries. What they’re going to find are falcons and snakes and seagulls.

True story: I once had a pair of hamsters named Reggie and George (Dead Like Me FTW!) that had been rescued from the home of a disabled person whose main joy in life was breeding her hamsters. These hamsters came from the same families and had not been fed a very good diet; they came to me slow, bloated, and uninterested in anything. Especially the exercise wheel. Wanting to do them the most good and being very naive, I called an organization that prepared animals for the wild and asked what I should do. I was told that first of all, the hamsters would not be returned to me—they would be set free. I was also told not to do this because no matter how much preparation the hamsters had, they wouldn not survive for a long time. So that was the end of that.

Domesticated amsters don’t survive in the wild. Wild hamsters, like in Mongolia, look mean, like they know how to win a fight. Nemo doesn’t: In the pictures this woman took pictures of herself releasing Nemo, he does not look ready for hunting and foraging. He looks confused. And the outcry on this woman’s Facebook is an immediate “Nemo is dead,” which she does not seem to understand because it’s not like she left him on a highway somewhere, she let him go in the woods. With the fucking berries and the cold, cold stream. However, when someone points out that hamsters don’t really do the whole nature thing, her response is not a remorseful “Oh my god, what have I done? How could I have been so stupid?” but “RIP Nemo!” Honestly, where do these people come from?

I want to know how this woman is any different from the young girl who threw the puppies in the river. That girl was told to do it; this woman apparently just decided to release her hamster. She didn’t even try to rehome him to—evidenced by the “I would have taken him if you had told me” comment—and when she was told that Nemo was on his way to a certain and terrifying death, she didn’t show much remorse. Would we be hearing more about this if it had happened to a more “important” animal than a hamster? This makes me sad. And it makes me angry. And that’s not good for anyone, especially Allen, who has to listen to me go off about hamsters for hours on end. You guys should see us.

That’s it for this week! Please send me links for next week and have a Wednesday filled with happy hamsters!

[photo by moriza via Flickr]

Hello, friends! It’s WTF Wednesday!  »

Last week was tough for me, you guys. Not only did I work 13-hour days and torment Allen more than usual (“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON’T TAKE ME OUT TO DINNER???”), but I also stepped into a discarded fish and a puddle of vomit on the same day, one just minutes after the other. I was upset, as you are when you are walking down the street on your way to purchase a delicious lunch at 10 a.m. and step into the lifeless body of a fish that has been discarded in a torn-apart pink shopping bag. Man, was I upset you guys; upset not only because someone had fucked a fish over in this way but also because much of my job consists of taking to people in small, enclosed spaces with locked doors. A job which I would now have to do smelling of dead fish. Then there was my guilt about being mad at the fish on the ground, like it had swum its way out of the ocean and decided to die on a residential street in a quiet neighborhood. Highly irrational, I know, but I doubt any of us would be able to think straight during an incident like this.

I walked back to work feeling really sad about both the fish and my foot, but was only greeted by more unpleasantness. As I wandered down the hallway, I put my other foot (the one not covered in fish) straight into someone’s vomited-up breakfast. Then I had to go I to a small room and sit there on my own for several hours, debating whether it was worse to smell like fish or like vomit, and castigating myself for not looking where I was going.

In a way, I feel very much like the gentleman who robbed a convenience store while a police officer stood right behind him and snickered. He was not looking where he was going, not following the contextual cues. People were openly laughing at him as he attempted to rob the store, and he probably thought he pulled it off, all “Man, I am going to buy so many apple products with this money!” Then the police officer caught him and the only thing he got was the notoriety of being an idiot criminal with an ammmaaaaaaaazing mugshot.

I don’t know how I never posted about this cat before, but you need to know about him, because he takes the bus, which is awesome enough because “let me through! I am on important business!” but he also knows where to get off (fish shop, natch!) and got the awesome nickname Macavity! How awesome would it be if someone actually turned the song from Cats on whenever Macavity got on the bus? How long do you think the other passengers on the bus could stand it before going totally insane? Side note: I used to work at a video store that closed only this weekend (R.I.P. Film Yard) and I would play Cats all the time, to see what other people’s reactions would be. Lots of people would hum along, but one guy rolled in one night, heard the unmistakable melody of “Jellicle Cats,” said “Oh fuck! Oh no!” really loudly, and dashed from the store. I am pretty sure that he had just remembered something completely unrelated, but I like the idea of such a violent reaction to a musical about suicidal cats holding a pageant in a junkyard.

Finally, we have the touching story of Arizona cops shutting down traffic in order to shoo a bunny off the road. You don’t really hear about that a lot. I am really impressed that the officers actively did something to prevent the rabbit’s demise. That makes me feel a little better about life.

That’s all for this week! Send me links for next week and have a vomit-free Wednesday. Or try to.