As per Seth’s request, here is a photo of one of my tree frogs that is still mostly green. Please excuse the slight blur. Do to the aqaurium lights, my sub-par camera and complete lack of photography skills, it’s the best I could get.
Aug 112008
Aug 102008
Seth and I have a bet. I think that Nintendo will drop the price of the Wii before Christmas Day of this year. Seth thinks that they won’t because demand is still so high for the Wii in the first place. Since Microsoft has released the 60GB model of the 360 AND are going to drop the price of the Arcade 360 sku down to $199, I don’t see how Nintendo will be able to compete this holiday season unless they bump up production and lower the price. The loser of the bet has to buy the other person a $20 Microsoft points card. I’m not sure what I’m going to buy with my points yet… :]
Aug 092008
It’s been awhile since I posted anything on here. Of course, I have to post some animal news. I have the pleasure of raising about 20 Gray Tree Frogs. They’re adorable and a blast to watch. There are two batches. The first I’ve had for awhile now so they’re already getting big. The second batch I just got about a week ago and they’re a bit behind on their growth cycle. Here are some pictures I took of them today. I’m sure there will be plenty more as they grow up.
Jun 232008
I picked up Guitar Hero On Tour today. If you don’t know what that
is, I’ll help you out. It’s Guitar Hero for the Nintendo DS. So far, I LOVE IT! The game comes with a fret board controller that plugs into the GBA slot on the DS. I wasn’t sure how the grip would feel but after playing through the first venue, I found the comfortable spot and now it feels very natural. The songs so far have been a good mix with all of them being by the original bands. The game comes with a stylus in the shape of a guitar pick which is slightly over-sized and feels great to strum with. The sound quality is top notch for the DS and rocks even harder through headphones. All the well known features from Guitar Hero have been pulled into the portable version. Star power is built up as usual but can know be activated by shouting into the DS microphone. It’s an awesome addition to the game play. There are also added bonuses like blowing out fires caused by pyrotechnics that go wrong or signing autographs for fans. Overall the game has really impressed me so far. I can’t imagine anything that could come up at this point that would be any kind of deal breaker. I give Guitar Hero On Tour and 4 out of 5 strums.
Jun 152008
I found out this past weekend that my identification of the salamanders I have was incorrect. They are actually Jefferson’s salamanders and not Blue Spotted salamanders. They look very similar when they are juveniles but as they mature, the head of the Jefferson’s sally becomes broader and their tales darken to a chocolate brown color. They also tend to grow larger and have longer toes then their close cousins. An interesting aside though is that Jefferson’s and Blue Spotted sallys have been known to interbreed in the wild and in doing so spawned two hybrid salamanders that consist only of females. The two hybrids are known as Silvery’s and Tremblay’s salamanders. Tremblay’s will mate with male Blue Spotted sallys and Silvery’s will mate with male Jefferson’s sallys. What’s even more odd is that the males sperm only stimulates egg production, there is no actual fertilization and the males genes are not transferred to the offspring. This only happens in the hybrids though. When Blue Spotted’s and Jefferson’s breed within their own species, genetics are shared normally.
Information borrowed from eNature.com
Jun 142008
Geocaching is not a new concept but my wife and I just recently discovered it. It’s basically hunting for hidden treasures using only the latitude and longitude of the cache. There may be some hints given about the cache’s environment but they are generally kept pretty vague since the hunt is what makes it so fun. Caches can have small trinkets in them or may consist only of a piece of paper that you can sign thereby documenting your find to other geocachers. It is much more fun than it sounds. Today, I released my first travel bug. A travel bug is a special dog tag that geocachers purchase to put into a cache with the hopes of it getting passed from location to location. What makes it very cool and somewhat geeky is that each travel bug is serialized and registered on http://www.geocaching.com where it can then be tracked and mapped. I can’t wait to see my bug get moved around. You can even request a specific "mission" for your bug like, say if you want it to get to Florida or even Japan. My travel bug is named Swampwalk which is a reference to Magic: The Gathering, a trading card game I played growing up. I’ll be posting updates about the status of my bug. Or you can check it yourself here.
Jun 022008
It’s been too long since I last posted so let me do a quick run down on what’s been happening in my world. My frog tank is doing great. I’ve planted an asparagus fern and two tomatoe plants in the tank and they are really taking off. I also planted a few aquatic plant bulbs and am very pleased to see one of them growing at an amazing rate. The other two are a different type of plant and hopefully are just slow starters. The same co-worker that gave me the salamanders brought me a gallon ice cream bucket full (and I do mean full) of tadpoles. My intention was to add some to my frog tank and watch them mature. My frogs had different plans however, and readily ate every taddie that dared get close to them. The remainder of the tads went to Seth which he then added to his girlfriend’s koi pond while keeping a few for himself. Hopefully his will have a better fate then mine. Now for some gaming talk. I’ve been playing more GTA4 and I have to say I like it alot more then I thought I would. It’s fun to just jump into the game and take a couple cab fares to their destinations or fly a ‘chopper around the skyscrapers for abit. There are quite a few games getting ready to come out though that I’ll be picking up. Namely, Lego Indiana Jones and Ninja Gaiden 2. I figure if I’m gonna be broke, I might as well have something to show for it. My wife and I are still trying to find a Wii Fit in town. That’s what I get for not pre-ordering, right Seth? Now for a more summer time theme. We have our pool up and got a new skimmer running which is really keeping the bugs out of the water. So I’ve been spending as much time as I can floating around and staring at the sky. I love watching the clouds float by as they shapeshift and mingle with eachother. That is, until an airplane comes in for a landing at the airport down the road. Ah well. I guess day dreams aren’t meant to last.
May 182008
Our pet hairless rat Bram died today. His death is not unexpected since we have noticed signs of "old age" the past week or so. Rats have a relatively short life span of about 1.5 to 2 years. Hairless rats are more susceptible to health 
issues due to their genetics, but from what we’ve found on the Internet it appears he just died of old age. He had developed what’s termed as "rear limb paralysis" which evidently is fairly common in older rats. The information also said rats that exhibit the condition often pass in their sleep of a heart attack or respiratory failure. He never seemed to be in any pain and continued to play with us the past few days just like it always had. Some people may think it’s weird to speak of a rat with the same fondness that my wife and I had for Bram. But a bond can be created with any living creature. And we had built quite a strong bond with Bram. We will miss him dearly.
May 142008
Frogs are just incredible creatures to me. There are species so hardy that they become a pest and overtake the indigenous animal life (like the Cane Toads in Australia). Then there are species so delicate and fragile that they may not survive in the wild for too much longer. Poison Dart Frogs fall into this category. Our local zoo has a good variety of Poison Dart Frogs on display and they’re habitat is built well enough that we got to see one performing his mating call. Here’s a short clip of it that was taken by my dad when we went on May 3 of this year.
May 102008
My friends Noel and Patricia are heading to South America for the next three months and I was delighted when they said I could babysit their snake Whitey for them. Whitey is a leucistic texas rat snake that measures out about 50″ and a couple inches around. He’s almost solid white with the exception of two or three black scales thrown in for character. He has pale blue/white eyes that look more menacing then they truly are due to an extended scale above the eyeball that resembles a low eyebrow. I’m happy to add him to my reptile family and I’ll be sure to add some new pics of him as we reaquaint ourselves with each other.