Darth Vader-Fish

Remember, 720p.


New life: Bengali Cardinal.
I liked 'Ben' but, having just seen the first three episodes of Star Wars (as in, ever), la muñeca likes 'Darth Vader' because it has black. She also claims to hear the storm trooper theme when she sees it...but I don't think it's that evil.
Maybe we can compromise on 'Darth Bender'?
Probably not. She tends to get her way.

Pristine Marine

Here are some more artifacts of an expensive hobby, snapped by my life partner.

New coral:


Flash and Shrump:




Listening to
Crosses

Watching
The Hannibal Lector movies. Red Dragon & Silence of the Lambs are available to stream on Netflix. Hannibal, my favorite, you have to find elsewhere.

Playing
The Witcher 2
Portal 2 Co-op

Living Room Aquatica

La muñeca took some shots of the tank.
Long time readers will remember this was a gift from her at the end of 2009.
I did the transfer from the dead old tank in early 2010, so that puts this setup at about a year and a half old.

One or two tragedies along the way, but mostly, it's thriving.
Got some new coral (as of yet, unidentified species...anyone?).
It's bright yellow. "Highlighter coral" for now.

Click on the shots for high-res versions.

Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Shrump):


As it would in the ocean, Shrump sets up cleaning stations for fish to come by and rid themselves of parasites.
Shrump likes to clean your finger too. Seriously, just drop it in there. Instincts are powerful.


Yellow Watchmen Goby (Spot):


Spot is usually more of a perching fish, but ventures out sometimes.
Swim? Meh, this rock is comfy...
Retreating to the man cave is my move too.


Firefish Goby (Flash):


Flash is fast and hard to capture on film without blur.
He has very nice colors though...and it would appear, a gut.

High res benefits

Celebrated 3 years of happiness with mi muñeca on April...the other day, I don't remember.
Just kidding.
Every time I tried to measure her ring finger, she woke up. So I couldn't surprise her with a...Chinese finger trap.
Instead I picked up a Nikon digital SLR camera. She's been talking about getting one and learning photography since forever (3+ years, anyway).
Since her iPod touch snaps are generally very cool, I figured she has an eye for this thing and it should be nurtured.
Maybe I was being subconsciously selfish, but I think I was right...

Attendance


Flash


Spot

Fishy life

Remember, select 720p. It's HD or no D up in here.


After consulting the birthday boy, I've learned the little white spots everywhere are snail eggs.
Sea snails can change sex depending on the needs of their population.
As there are only two of this species, odds are the need is there.
Baby snails will get eaten by the fish, hermits, and skunk cleaner shrimp though, so I don't expect to be up in the middle of the night changing...water.

Tank Update

iPhone. Not the iPod touch.

Happy three years to Scoid.
Remember to select 720p.

Here's to a happy, healthy, fish tank.


..and clean dishes.

Libya has no bearing on filling up this tank

New coral up in the left quadrant.
Also get a closeup of the pulsating xenia coral.
It might look like it's just going with the flow of the water, but each polyp actually pulses in a pumping kind of motion, similar to your hand if you were to hold your palm face up and touch your thumb to your fingers (assuming all you monkeys have opposable thumbs - I don't think my readership has expanded to the non-evolved, yet).

Remember to select 720p


As is often the case, some hitch hikers (as they're called in the hobby) were living on the rock that came attached to my new coral. Not sure of the exact species, but at least two small bristle starfish (I think that's what they are, someone else got a picture) came along with the coral.
Bonus!

Reading
How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
The Master and Margarita

Hearing
Glassjaw - Coloring Book EP
The xx - xx
Dropkick Murphys - Going Out in Style

Viewing
Dexter
The Office (BBC version)

Friday Tank Update

The Yellow Watchman Goby generally perches smugly on rocks or sand, balancing on its ventral fin, perpetually frowning, until some food floats or crawls on by.
Lately, as it has become more acclimated to my tank (and much healthier than it was at the fish store, I might add*), it will venture out into the Fire Goby's domain.
The Fire Goby flicks its dorsal fin to show local dominance, but since I've found both fish in the filter chambers**, it's unclear who is dominating whom...
Remember to select 720p, I don't know why YouTube changed it up so HD isn't retained.


You can see that just swimming in place is much more of an effort for the Watchman Goby.
They are really built for perching.

*Why is that said? "I might add" always follows something that was, in fact, added.
You're in the conversation, you're not conversing about how you might converse if you weren't presently conversing.
English is fucking weird, I might add.

**These are chambers behind the wall of the tank, housing active carbon, sponges, the pump, and the water heater. If a fish is back here, it was usually chased to the surface and jumped out. It is a bitch to get them back into the main tank.

Reunion, Reef, and...Furries?

It was almost a year since I saw one of my best friends since 2nd grade.
We had a reunion of sorts this weekend, complete with burritos, bourbon, NBA Jam, and...furries...
Leaving the bottomless mimosas, we walked over to the AMC movie theater. The Green Hornet was the best choice, but it wasn't playing for another 40 minutes or so. We decided to continue our walk through downtown San Jose.

Coming up to the park, we were bombarded by herds of bipedal animals:


Adequately buzzed, we figured...what the hell, suck it Seth Rogen.

They all stayed in pretty good character.

No, they didn't creepily hit on little boys. I mean to say they didn't speak much, kind of like theme park mascots.

Justin really warmed up to them.

A day late Google search told us this was a convention for...people that...like to dress up...as furry animals...

Punnily named "Further Confusion", we were quite confused by it.

But also entertained.

Sunday, after waiting out the hangover, I went to the fish store and got some new life, a Yellow Watchman Goby and Pulsing Xenia coral.

Here's a video.

Yup, as an added bonus (since this was uploaded directly from the iPod touch with original audio), you get to hear the Mrs. and I discuss the location of our salsa in the fridge...

Pro duct timid tea

Between work, class, term papers, operating system process scheduler simulations, and my charity work at Arkham Asylum, this has been a busy week.

I rose to the challenge.

I made a list on Saturday. It was long. All but three things are crossed off: call Swarovski about my girlfriend's earring repair (tried today but they are on E.T. time, so I will phone home tomorrow), create report for simulator program project (come on team...lil' help?), and open the Flip Ultra HD.

I put the Flip at the bottom because I knew it'd come packaged with an excess of distractions.

I accomplished enough this week to feel deserving of opening it and embracing those distractions, but just to rub it in the world's face (for being against me), I went to the gym after class tonight.

Now I had no excuse not to enjoy my purchase. The Flip Ultra HD is packaged nicely. Opening it reminded me of the sexy unboxing of Apple products...

But who the hell cares? Let's see some video!

This is the first vid I took with the device, so quality should improve as experience increases, but I was quite impressed.

Also: My charity work at Arkham is complete. It is a better place now.

Kerbatman!!!!11!!!1!1!!one!!11!1!!!2

Your diversions smell like fish, Scott.

I was working on a philosophy paper for professional business ethics (read: reading some bull shit so I can write some bull shit) when I realized I forgot to eat dinner. Pretty standard occurrence for the Slobscot, but I generally feed my fish while I eat or while I'm preparing my own food. (You have to train them to get on your timetable ya know? Show them who wears the pants.)

Oh yeah, I got some fish!

Nitrate problem is a thing of the past, still need to keep an eye on it, but the brother says that "fish are part of the nitrogen cycle".
And he knows how to fly a plane! So I do what he says.
The green star polyp soft coral I got a while back is opening up more and more, so maybe he's right...that ragamuffin.

So now - if I forget to eat it's more of a big deal because then I'll forget to feed the fish. The critters can live off of the algae and whatnot, but the swimmers need something...you know...for the effort...you know...

So I was reading about the moral questions of forcing certain income distributions in a society, looked up, and remembered they gotta eat!

Some may know, I'm working on bringing the economy all the way back by paying off all my debts and then buying cool stuff. Namely, a Flip Ultra HD Camera along with the underwater casing, and a tripod.

But - I'm not opening it until I finish my paper and program because it will cause lots of distractions for sure...whew...side-stepped that land mine...he said whilst blogging...doh!

So eventually, you will get some HD videos from the Slobscot, but for now, I just grabbed the good old Olympus for a quick vid, then to iMovie, then up to Vimeo...because fuck you Blogger, you can't host a video any better than my TI-83.

Massive Attack provides the soundtrack with "Two Rocks and a Cup of Water" from the Danny the Dog Soundtrack.

Check out 1:48 - ish. Zoidberg dominates one of the other hermits feasting on some brine shrimp, knocks him right off the rock and into the sand.

That hermit got totally Berged!!!

Also, the persistence of the snail had to be included (filmed elsewhen).

She won't let a pump and strong current deter her from reaching that brown algae!

Under and in.