Hammy the Squirrel and other Squirrels I almost hit

What is it with squirrels? Yesterday (can't recall where I was or what I was doing so that tells you I've been online too long today), I nearly hit one of those guys.

I always try to avoid this, of course, even to the extent of possibly winding up in an accident (I hit one when I was 18 and the awful memory of the "squirrel incident" was burned into my brain). However, this squirrel did something that not only saved his own bacon, he did something I don't think I've seen a squirrel do.

Instead of just doing a squirrel 180 as they commonly do, he ran an arc, something that would look like this (. It was almost as if he said to himself, "Holy crap" and then started running the other way...though, perhaps, not the most efficient way.

This morning I was out in traffic and saw another near "murder-death-kill" squirrel incident (the term comes from the movie Demolition Man, one of Stallone's better movies, though Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock may wish to leave it off the lists of their "finer acting achievements").

This time, though, the cute rodent (let's be honest, they're cute rats with bushy tails) did the standard 180 degree turn, which was excellent because I was in the mood for breakfast and did not want to lose my appetite.

The image above is of the character, Hammy, from Over the Hedge, a movie that, IMO, fell short. Hammy, however was a great character with a classic case of combination OCD and ADHD (I know someone who has both, in addition to Bipolar and the combination of them makes life very hard for the affected individual).

The picture below is not a picture of Hammy but rather a disturbing example of parents who have betrayed their children.

"Oh, the Humanzee"

Lately, Simian-related stories seem to be all over the news.

Groundbreaking Research Has Scientists Talking With Apes


Humans 'learned to walk in trees'

Well, I guess with the tangential nature of human memory, these recent stories stirred my recollection of the story of the "Humanzee". This was from a documentary that I saw either on National Geographic or A&E or Animal Planet.

Anyway, I won't go into too many details about "Oliver the humanzee", though I will mention that the documentary concluded that Oliver was not, in fact, a humanzee, but, simply, a very unusual chimpanzee (though his appearance and behavior were both fairly compelling and his strong desire to mate with human females tended to make you suspicious, or, at the very least, slightly uncomfortable).

Here's more on the Humanzee topic if you're interested.

A post not worthy of a title

Completely Irrelevant