Imagine What Could be Happening, Prob if McCain Won

In a conversation with a good pal last night, we began talking about the little fish and about how they are dying out mainly because they cannot fit even the smallest food I could find into their mouths.

Ben then imagined how strange it would be if it was like that for us.  Imagine if for some reason all the food on earth was like apple shaped, with protein and vitamins in them, and for some messed up reason, god (me, in the case of the fish), didn't have the decentcy to cut up the apples so they'd fit into our mouths.

Then imagine, we have no hands and the apples float in the air at about chest height.  How ridiculously annoying would that be.

Basically, your hungry after a long day of hiding under rocks from birds and squirrels, you don't even know what these things are but they huge, there's a giant scummy thing that sucks you toward it, you don't what this is, but whatever, all your older friends can eat, 3 guys you know tell you stories about how they were frozen and then dethawed, you don't believe a word, and when it's feeding time, you can't eat because the food won't fit into your mouth, wtf?

Now, if your having a bad day, say, at least the food my god, (be it an actual deity if you are religous, your parent, your partner, or your grocer/restauranteur, or yourself) is making fits into your mouth, and if it doesn't at least you have hands to use utensils to cut it up.

C'mon people, brighten up.

Cooking in Masao's Apartment

Note, now in the bottom right of the blog you can check out video's from a guy that is hilarious.  Jay and I informally know him through our hockey forums.  He's actually really smart, has completed law school, knows 3 languages, is really well read, but comes off goofy in the videos.

I get a lot of laughs out of his videos, they inspired me to make my own.  I try not to copy him too much but sometimes I might.

He really likes sambuca.

He is French Canadian, lives in MTL, also half Japanese and 1/4 Italian.  His house is a mess.  His girlfriend/wife of many years recently left him, but he's upbeat.

He's a socialist, and a philosopher, enjoy!  But not as much as my videos!!!

Fish out playing volleyball like in Topgun

Ok, this was made on April 27.  Sunny day, they love to come out in the sun.  If it's not sunny they hide under rocks.  In this video you will see Big Boss.  He is the only different species of goldfish in the pond, Adam can elaborate on this.

He bought Big Boss with Jessie and was hoping to surprise me with him but when we looked in the pond, he was hiding, he was always hiding. 

He was round and fat and devoured food like a human of this shape would.  He didn't really have any friends and would hang out in the top left quadrant (from where I normally film.)

These are some pictures of Big Boss in his prime.  Notice how robust and jubilant he looks.  He reminds me of Danny Devito from Twins, and the white finned Cryo is Arnold.   So funny, when Arnold gets pregnant and wants stroodle.  I love Arnold, make prop 8 happen Arnold!

Anyways, enjoy the video, next time I will explain why we have a new pump now and a waterfall.

One Ring To Rule All The Fish

Ok, let's take a timeout. Life can be a little stressful at times. Let's face it, it happens to all of us. Whether you work in an office as an accountants assistant, and taking care of fish in your off time, or are a Queens University Masters student, learning all there is to know about the world of labour relations, you need some time off your day and night jobs to enjoy the smaller things.

Thus, I have decided to not talk about fish at all today, and actually come to you from the present, and show you my wedding ring.

I may show you the pond in the end of the video but it's very brief.

I also will give you some home gardening tips in this video, look for those.

By the way, I saw the movie Wallstreet on sunday. Real good. I recommend it. Realistic story about how wallstreet really does control the North America and a good part of the world. Those that work in the Government and are very isolated from this stuff should watch it for sure. Oliver Stone is a wicked director. Mike Douglas is awesome, and Charlie Sheen was pretty decent before he got all messed up. The reason I chose to watch was because I heard about the sequel at work and I recently discovered that I can download at work really quickly and I don't have to worry about going over my limit.

The new movie will have Shia Le Steak which is not a good choice, he must have a real awesome agent. They needed a young guy though, so Charlie was out. Also he's an embarassment because of his disgusting tv show.

Anyways, please, sit back and enjoy the video.

Day 2, Continued in video format.

First off, huge thanks to Adam for the information and posting. Amzing insight and hilarious as alyways. In present time I write to you after helping Ben and Lyndsay move into their new place. It's super nice. I've never done a more organized move in my life.

I have memories of quite the opposite in a move involving Gilmour street. I'd be pissed off if I didn't like who I was moving so much.

Anyhow, the rest of the day in question was really fun. I went to work, that was ok, because I knew the night ahead would include a delicious meal and absolute comedy.

Hanging out with Jessie's friends is alyways a strange but fun time. People from Timmins I have found out are kind of weird. I really like weird people though.

Enjoy the short vids:

The pet that smiles back! Goldfish!

First blog post, thanks for bringing me into your world of ponding Tom. I spent a few days in Ottawa last week, and working with Tom, Holly and Jessie on the pond was one of the highlights. The other highlight was also fish related, and that was the sushi gorging that went down at the Banc and later at the Sushi Kan. I'm becoming a bit of an expert on both ponding and eating fish. Maybe we can combine them some day and harvest sushi grade fish... not sure how the Petsmart girl would take that. I've probably eaten 75 lbs. of sushi over the past 7 months. No joke, it's kind of gross when I think about it. The Kan is definitely the lowest grade sushi, but it's also as cheap as comets. Jessie and I treat ourselves to sushi every now and then as a reward for dealing with the grossness of grad res. Finally though, we're out of that shithole. The sushi servers in Kingston know me, and the sushi chefs look at each other with fear in their eyes when they see me come through the door at Asha. The owners don't even say hello anymore. I can eat what 2-3 average people eat easily. I probably have so much mercury in my system.

I though I'd give some information on the origin of the fishes that Tom has welcomed into his pond habitat.

Originally from Switzerland, the Carassius auratus, commonly known as goldfish, were introduced to the United States in 1962 by Pepperidge Farm founder Margaret Rudkin. They come in many variations, including Original (plain), Baby, Xplosive Pizza, Racing Ranch, and Cheese Trio (cheddar, zesty cheddar, and parmesan).

The PetSmart on Innes Rd. was sold out of these popular variations. However, they had a full house of Comets, both Baby and non-Baby variety. The Comet does not originate from Switzerland, as they are descendents of the Prussian Carp from Asia. Because of Asia's rock bottom labour costs, Comets are born for 1/4 the price of those from Switzerland. The payoff for the North American goldfish consumer: decent quality comets that can be bought by the bagful for a mere blue spot.

Here's some info from wikipedia on goldfish:

"Goldfish are popular pond fish, since they are small, inexpensive, colourful, and very hardy. In an outdoor pond or water garden, they may even survive if brief periods of ice form on the surface, as long as there is enough oxygen remaining in the water and the pond does not freeze solid."

Clearly, wikipedia cannot be trusted, as this information is bullshit. If this info is true, the cryos are either an aquatic miracle or the 1/2 ft of water in the pond didn't freeze over the winter. In any case, it is possible for goldfish to handle a Canadian winter and emerge as strong leaders for the hord of comets we introduced last week. I thin k the cryos buried themselves in the mud and leaves. Man, I'd love a picture of them frozen in time. Maybe Tom and I can create a new study on ideal cryo conditions. We could divide the pond in half, cleaning one section completely and leaving dirt and leaves in the other half. We could see how/where the cryos go once the water freezes. Obviously, wikipedia's contributors and the scientific community would benefit from our research.

More to come shortly on a special type of goldfish variation that we introduced to the pond. I'll also do a bio on this guy and, with Tom's help, provide a status update on his latest exploits/whereabouts.

Day 2, All's well on the Wetened Front

Ok, so, with the morning of day 2, we kind of expected to see a whole lot of dead fish. First off we're just amateur scientists, second off, everyone in the scientific community was doubting the validity of our experiments, and third off, Holly can be a negative nancy sometimes. Just kidding, not really.

Of course, it was a friday, and Adam and Jessie are asleep on the futon, Holly sleeps in until the last minute, and I get up to empty the dishwasher and take a shower and eat breakfast. These days I've been putting fruit in a blender mixed with some protein powder. One day I put an entire orange in without peeling it and it was awful. It tasted like cleaning products. I drank the whole thing, so I didn't waste any vitamins, but don't ever do it. It was probably healthy, except for all the chemicals the capitalists put on the fruit though.

Anyways, here's a video of me in the morning checking on the fish.

Day 1, late night emptying of the bags

Ok, now is the moment you've all been waiting for.  We were finally ready to let our new friends into their cold and foreign new surroundings.

We remarked earlier that even if this was their last night on earth, it would be like going to the playboy mansion compared to where they were living (something like living with Steve Isaacs, or in Aushwitz.)

So, we released our guilt and dumped the bags into the pond, we used a light I use for ready for light because we couldn't find the houses only flashlight.  Although we remembered that I have a light for my bike that I use.  Adam and I once shared it when we biked to Sara and Lindsay Huard's house.  On the way home the battery was almost dead and we only had like 1 second of light each and were biking in the pitch black half drunk.  It's so fun to do little adventures like that!

Anyways, hope you enjoy the video!

Day 1 Evening, Adding of the Bags

As I mentioned in the video, we had the bags with the fish in them, 30 in one bag, 3 in another.  5 bucks for 1 bag, a dolla for the other.

So here we drop the bags in the water and hope the fish survive.

The night was supposed to be a cold one, and these are supposed to be tropical fish.

So with the fish girl doubting us, Holly doubting us, mother nature against us, we say f*** the world and capitalist propaganda, buy the cheapest fish and drop them in for their initial cold weather experiment.

I hope to Poseidon that he keeps them safe.

And Tom created the water and the rocks

WELCOME!!

This is going to be an ongoing journal about our pond with some added things thrown in about my life and backyard.  From this point, know that we've purchased a house with a pond and a pump and 7 fish.  4 fish perished in the winter.  3 survived by being cryogenically frozen and then subsequently dethawed.  I'm going to need people to give advice and feedback as much as possible.

All of the stuff that I mention in the journal is real.

Here is Adam drinking a sambuca and protein drink outside!
Here is a picture of the pond:

day 1. (note that day one actually happened about a week ago, but I will not update all the days at once cause I'm real busy and it's prob more fun for the reader this way.)

Tom and pond shepherd Adam, decide to buy some more fish for the pond.  They go to the local Pet smart and buy 33 more fish to add to the 3 cryogenic fish that froze and dethawed through the harsh Ottawa winter.

The 3 fish will be known henceforth as the cryos.  The other fish were 30 tiny goldfish and 3 slightly bigger tiny goldfish.

Here's a video of before we added the fish: