masking isnt enough anymore i need a powerful amulet

Actually that makes for a really funny poll idea

Happy mother's day to the motherless, by grief, trauma or circumstance. I hear you, I love you, I am you.

I have been so depressed lately I haven’t been able to post any sturgeons but I saw this on the Great Lakes aquarium Instagram his name is CRACKERS he is a BELUGA STURGEON they are TARGET TRAINING HIM so that he can eventually enter a sling comfortably to get his checkups!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HE IS A HOOP GENIUS!!!! GENUIS AT GOING THROUGH A HOOP!!!!!!!!

LGD, I'm not one to tell you your business, but Crackers is a sturgeon. They are nothing but bones! Bones inside and out! You look at them and think "Squishy? Meat?" But then you touch one and "clonk," oops! All bones! The skeleton is indistinguishable from the living animal!

Bone score is a little low, is what I'm getting at.

Thanks for your analysis. We rarely update the Little Guys, but our error was believing that the underside of the sturgeon was quite squishy, so CRACKERS HAS BEEN DEDUCTED 2 SQUISHINESS!!!

Your sturgeon analysis has has also brought to light a gross inconsistency in our BONES metric which previously went unnoticed, so DUNKLEOSTEUS HAS BEEN DEDUCTED 3 BONES!!!!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. If there are any little guys who should be deducted more points, don't hesitate to let us know.

Here is EVERY deal Hamas has tried to strike with Israel. It was never about the hostages.

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

hi. did you know australia has a fairywren species called the superb fairywren

and another species called the splendid fairywren

...and one called the lovely fairywren

I’ll never forget the time I was sitting with this guy, nice kid, didn’t know him well, I think we must have had a bottle of wine or some questionable hashish or something, and in response to an awkward silence I just started talking and ended up going on a long meandering rant about how ugly American robins are. I’m talking a full monologue. I had an intro and conclusion. It was pointlessly vehement. I have never been so mean or loquacious about anything in my life.

Consider my horror when this perfectly nice guy wordlessly lifted his shirt to reveal a full-torso prismacolor tattoo of his spiritual soul animal, the American robin.

Their scientific name sounds like "Migrating Turd" but otherwise I find them charming if fairly derpy and mundane. I don't know if I'd get a tattoo of one though. They're like the potato of American birds.

I have no actual animosity towards them. They’re fine. I like them. They remind me if my college roommate and beloved friend. I don’t know why I said any of that—I was grasping at straws for something kind of provocative to say and failed so catastrophically that I was catapulted into a Seinfeld skit.

eerily similar to the time in college someone tried to make conversation by making fun of a silly book a former high school teacher of theirs had written only for me to just pull out a physical copy of the exact book because i’d realized he was talking about my dad

the foot seeks the mouth like leaves seek the sun

yesterday was the ten year anniversary of my insensitive American Robin comment and my tattooed friend messaged me to celebrate the “funniest thing that had ever happened to him” so sometimes critically failing a charisma check leads to a whole decade of joy for someone else

Yonic dish found in NY

MOST BASS ARE JUST FISH BUT LEROY BROWN WAS SOMETHING SPECIAL

Leroy Brown has been haunting me, so I looked into his backstory and it's wilder than you could possibly imagine.

Leroy Brown was about one pound when he was caught in 1973 in Lake Eufala, Alabama, by Tom Mann, who is absolutely legendary in the world of bass fishing. Instead of releasing or taking him home to eat, Mann decided he recognized a spark of something special in the fish, so he took him home and popped him in his backyard pond. Later, he moved the fish to a giant aquarium in his workshop. He was an aggressive fish, so he got named after the song. And Mann loved this fish. He trained him to jump through a hoop, he hand-fed him, he would talk about him to anybody. The fish became internationally known, with publicity in Russia, South Africa, Australia, and other countries.

Then, in 1980, the fish dies- probably of old age. So what to do? Have a funeral. Various sources say between 500 and 1,200 people came (there was a very large bass fishing tournament that weekend), and the local marching band was there to play "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" as the fish's tiny casket was lowered into his grave.

But then things got really wild. On the day of the funeral, it was eventually decided that the ground was too wet and muddy, so Mann put the fish and his casket (actually a satin-lined tackle box full of one dead fish and the lure he was caught with) in the freezer.

That night, somebody stole the dead fish and his tiny casket.

Seriously. This was not a taxidermy fish, this was just. Y'know. A dead fish, with all of the smells that entails.

Three weeks later, the tackle box turns up at the Tulsa, Oklahoma airport. A baggage handler found it, and it was decided that the box full of three-week-old decaying Leroy was too nasty to ship back to Alabama. The statue remained at Fish World, which is where the public could visit Leroy during his life, until 2005, when Tom Mann died and the facility was closed. (Fish World was like... a weird museum/facility to learn about bass fishing. Mann wasn't just an expert angler, he also designed some of the most popular lures that are still used in bass fishing, as well as the Humminbird depth finder- still the most popular depth finder brand on the market. So he had this workshop/lure lab there and people could come see his stuff but also learn about how to go bass fishing and how to do bass fishing as a sport.) The statue went to another bass fisherman, until the city of Eufala asked for it back in 2016. Now it sits prominently on Main Street, reminding everyone that most bass are just fish, but Leroy Brown was something special.

LEROY BROWN UPDATE

I found a picture from his funeral!

From left to right: Tom Mann, Leroy Brown (deceased), Ray Scott

Ray Scott was the president of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, and was the person who had the Leroy statue from 2005-2016.

I am still trying to track down images of Leroy when he was alive. There should be some, as the fish had editorials in Southern Living and a couple of other magazines, but those may take longer to find. For now, enjoy this image of Leroy laid to rest, covered by the only artificial lure he ever struck: Mann's coveted strawberry worms.

Tom Mann's memoir, Think Like A Fish, is up on the Internet Archive. While it doesn't have any photos (or at least, the edition that's online doesn't), Chapter 11, which is about Leroy, implies that there may be video evidence of this fish!

I really hope I can find some old commercials. Leroy was the only small fish in the entire tank, so if these commercials still exist, and if there's a small largemouth bass in them, we'll have moving images of this fish!

FOUND HIM

I couldn't find any of the old TV spots, but I did find this ad for Mann's Jelly Worm, featuring the legend himself!

There he is! In the four pictures to the left, that's Leroy Brown! Look at him, being extremely suspicious of that bait! Mann notes in his memoir that while Leroy Brown would hit plastic bait, he'd never take it- in other words, he'd bite, but if it had a hook, he wouldn't swallow. Instead, he'd swim with it:

I am officially declaring this investigation into the life and times of Leroy Brown complete. We've seen his memorial, we've learned about his life, we've marveled at his post-mortem kidnapping, and now we've seen pictures of him both dead and alive. The only thing I have left to show is this: the merch.

Oh yeah, there was merch. Specifically, the Leroy Brown crankbait and the Leroy Brown belt buckle:

If you want to see more about the lure, including watching a guy fish with it, there's a youtube video from a fella who does a lot of fishing with vintage/retro lures.

I feel enriched for having learned so much about bad, bad Leroy Brown.

11.05.2024 T'IS MY BIRTHDAY ✨

 ╭ ◜◝ ͡ ◝ ͡◜◝  ╮  (                      )  (        cock       )    (                  )      ╰     ͜      ╯                      O                    o                             °       〃∩　∧＿∧      ⊂⌒（ ´・ω・）       ｀ヽ_っ＿/￣￣￣/ 　           　   ＼/＿＿＿/ 

Fixed it.

Did you get the wokeness? Did you get the performative wholesomeness? Did you secure the likes?

╭ ◜◝ ͡ ◝ ͡◜◝  ╮ (  Emotionally  ) (     fulfilling     )   (    cock       )     ╰     ͜      ╯                     O                   o                            °      〃∩　∧＿∧     ⊂⌒（ ´・ω・）      ｀ヽ_っ＿/￣￣￣/ 　          　   ＼/＿＿＿/

Seeing people decide to watch Breaking Bad based on the Tumblr memes is especially funny when they do it specifically for the memes about Jesse, because... well, let's put it this way. Aaron Paul, the guy who played Jesse, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award for best supporting actor in a drama series for his work on Breaking Bad on five separate occasions, including twice in one season, and won three of those nominations. He was the first person ever to win that award three times for the same role. Like, Jesse's storyline is so viscerally unpleasant that it set industry records.

Jesse Pinkman is basically the prototypical Poor Little Meow Meow in that yes, he does objectively terrible things, but literally everything about his life seems calculated to maximise his suffering while he's doing it. It gets so bad that the show's producers ended up making an entire spin-off movie about Jesse in which he kills two men in order to obtain money to purchase a fake identity and go into exile in Alaska, and this is framed as his happy ending.

they put him in a hole and yelled at him

They put him in a hole and yelled at him.

"how can you like this objectively bad thing!" because i have bad taste. move on.

rip to all the “fuckyeah___” blogs that carried our society at one point </3

we are in the midst of a true Real One

official fish post