What Telescope Should I Take to Puerto Rico?

Good Goddess! Does anyone know how far south Puerto Rico is? Fuckin’ A. Course some know. But what that means, Puerto Rico being situated fairly far south, is that an average amateur astronomer needs to have a telescope handy if he, she or perhaps that person is of the hermaphrodite persuasion, an it, or dudit, ever chances to visit that fabled isle, Puerto Rico.

Hold it! Moon is bright and up all night over Puerto Rico. Uh-oh! Oh well! Moon is up plus Centaurus is down. Dern! Well what else is up? Grus! Grus and Microscopium! Norma! Fuck me!

OK. I was fixing to take the Bushnell Family Table Top Model to Puerto Rico. But considering all the facts, I may not take that particular telescope, or any telescope. No. I don’t need a telescope for Puerto Rico comparing benefits versus aggravation. That’s because the naked celestial wonders that might require a telescope, that I might wish to espy via that telescope, in Puerto Rico, that I can’t espy here, are mostly invisible at that time in that place, Puerto Rico. Er! Dang! I shall make do with my severely trusty 10x42 Nikon Superior Elite for star gazing in Puerto Rico.

But hey dudits! If I severely needed to, I could take the Bushnell Family Table Top Model on a plane ride to Puerto Rico. That’s some serious shit to remember. All righty then.

OK! Here's some explanation for the previous like picture including Popeye. Popeye, as all good Druids know is the neo-modern expression of Cuchulian. But what about that pipe. That pipe is stuffed full of either Canabis or a delicious tobacco product. How come Popeye gets to smoke? Ever ask yourself that? Popeye gets that stuff, why not me?

Once You Got It, Baby You Got It!

Bermudagrass that is! Mercy! At the CB we have been fixing to eradicate the introduced perennial weed, Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) for like 15 years. So then one day we dug a new water line. And what comes up on the bare ground that got dug up? Bermudagrass. That’s right. Where formerly there was no Bermudagrass, now there’s plenty. No telling how long the seed lay dormant, requiring only the ditch digger action to fire it up.

Beetle and/or Wall Rocket?

Not everyone knows that some of the Scarab beetles and some of the Mustards are placed in the same genus, Diplotaxis. For example, the beetle here depicted may be a close relative of the famous annual wall rocket, Diplotaxis muralis. These little Scarabs are fairly numerous in the pecans at night at this very nonce.

Lomo Astele 133.5mm Heads to Darker Skies

Lomo with flower pot dew shield

My poor Lomo has never been out of the back yard since its arrival in this light pollution (lp) hell hole that some call Austink. But the shit piles higher. Sad but true, since the arrival of the Great Red Tube (GRT), the little Lomo only saw use on nights too windy for a Dob, or when I actually wanted to see double stars cleanly. That’s right. The Lomo can do some mighty nice, pinpoint stars.

But 10" of aperture just blows away 5" and a little bit, especially considering the lp. Yet I balked at toting the Great Red Tube out to the countryside again. That’s because at present I lack the capability of collimating the GRT in the dark. Which means that I would have to get out in the sticks while Ogma lingered, collimate the GRT, then sit around in the 100 plus heat for 2-3 hours waiting for Moon to go down. Yuck!

But the Lomo does not require any collimation, normally. Course, if an average amateur astronomer actually wishes to collimate the Lomo, he can. But he probably shouldn’t.

Plus, the Lomo is way easier to tote around than the GRT. Way easier. So all those are reasons why the Lomo got to go and the GRT stayed home.

An average amateur astronomer equipped with a telescope, any telescope, may see more than a blind mouse. That’s what I think. The fact is, I know that all my telescopes, even my Bushnell Voyager Family Table Top Model, can help me to see more than a blind mouse, or even three blind mice. But how much better? Nobody knows exactly. Nobody has figured that out.

However, Druids like me may believe that a person or small telescope should be judged on personal merit, rather than merely compared constantly to someone or something else. Given that seemingly ridiculous criteria or consideration, I was pleased with my Lomo under darker skies. The fact is, it surprised me, facilitating views of even some faint deep sky naked galactic splendors like M102, M110, M33 and M74, plus the Helix Nebula. That means, that under darker skies, the Lomo may probably help me espy all the Messier objects fairly easily. I was surprised, not only that the Lomo could espy those objects, but also by the hints of detail. Mercy!

So maybe a 5.25 aperture Mak is not the best scope for deep skies. But my Lomo works on the faintest Messiers at a fairly dark site. Plus, the Lomo does not bust my ass for transport, setup and collimation.

Efferia sp. Maybe

Man. Where’s a key to the genera of Asilidae? Like how does an average amateur entomologist determine what’s Efferia versus, say, Promachus? Huh! Now I espy that many actually split the genus Efferia. Huh!

This fly has turned up in the backyard to be documented, two years running. I don’t really even know its genus. But it’s a big fly, over an inch long

So that was yesterday afternoon. This morning an obviously different fly of the same likely species turned up in precisely the same spot that the other fly was in yesterday. This one though is a male. I believe it is slightly littler than the female.

Are these flies separating themselves temporally? Will they ever get together and have maggots? Are they really the same species? Where does this highway lead to?

The Obscure Grasshopper (Opeia obscura)

Aptly named, this little grasshopper mimics the dead vegetation. Yes. Lots of the vegetation is bleached white so this grasshopper fits right in. Check out those antennae. Huh-huh.

Yes grasshopper, I am returned from jury duty, 50 dollars richer. Even better, I got a nice certificate which indicates that I personally made a contribution to the administration of justice. And that means, supposedly, I am off the hook for jury duty now for three years. All righty then!

Turns out, jury duty was not so bad. The trial was fairly entertaining. It took less than two days. Everyone was nice to me. Nobody touched me after I got officially across the bar. And now I don’t have to fret over jury duty for three years, maybe. Not bad.

Actually, if the pay was just a little better, or included per diem, I could see becoming a professional juror. That’s right, 40 bucks a day plus two free meals might entice me into the juror profession. Hey. The job is air conditioned. Nobody minds if you take a little nap. You get breaks. It’s easy. Especially compared to werkin’ in the sun. Yes. I would easily rather be a juror than have to work hard like the Obscure Grasshopper.

OK. This trial is the Cattleman’s Association versus the Obscure Grasshopper, The charges are that this Obscure Grasshopper did browse upon all the Poaceae to the detriment of the Cattleman’s Association and the Association’s property, the cows, that those same cows did alas mostly starve to death or grow sickly from lack of nourishment, that both predators and parasites did thereupon, discovering those said remaining cows in a sickly state, descend upon those sick cows until such time as those very sickly surviving cows in that particular place and time did then also succumb to attacks by the predators, parasites or both predators and parasites and all those remaining sickly cows did then die miserable lingering deaths.

The plaintiff then, is demanding restitution from the Obscure Grasshopper for all the dead cows. Once the Grasshopper has made restitution for all those dead cows, the Grasshopper shall then be taken to a place of the State’s Choosing and on that spot or site shall be mercilessly set upon by savage Tarantulas. Yea verily, there in that grim spot or site the Grasshopper shall be eaten up by those big, hairy spiders. No mercy!

Jury Duty ( Yet Another Poor Tax) is not the Same Difference as Howdy Duty

OK. Here I am, arrived at jury duty. Dern. It’s a trap. They have sprung a trap on me. This process is rigged and they have totally trapped me. Mercy!

How did I, Crumby Ovate, immediately recognize that I was trapped like a rat. Good Goddess! My jury number printed on my jury card was, mercy me oh my, four. Good Goddess! How did the responsible parties get my number?! Once I saw that number four, I knew the jig was up. There was no point struggling. I was destined to have to serve on the jury. Yes. Life as a juror was my destiny. It was four for the Crumby Ovate.

Is there any reason any of you feel like you can’t serve on this jury?

The number four froze me. I couldn’t speak up. I couldn’t explain to everyone about my chronic sinusitis. All I could do was sit there and cough, sadly and feebly. Hack, hack, hack. Yes. I had to sit there, condemned almost to silence, as those afflicted with bad hearts and recent brain surgery shirked their duty.

Oh my Goddess! It was terrible. Those seats they make all the poor prospective jurors sit in are smaller than usual. Those seats might actually be kiddie seats. Course prospective juror number 5 was heavy set, so he naturally spilled over into my seat. Oh my Goddess! Since we were required to get up and down a great many times, number five kept jostling me. Mercy! I wanted to scream. Help me Goddesss! Get me out of here! Mercy! But there I was, number 4, trapped like a rat.

I sat there almost silent, coughing, as the halt, the lepers, the deaf and dumb weasled out of jury duty. But not me. I was on the jury. But at least I got to move to a bigger chair.

What Camera Do I Need, Next?

When I first started photographically documenting life as I know it recently, during the digital age, I first employed an Olympus C 5060 WZ. I still use that camera. Then I also got an Olympus E 330. I still use that camera. I use both cameras to document the life around me still, up to and including this very day.

The transition from the C 5060WZ to the E 330 was costly. Besides the kit lenses, 200 bucks, I have the 14-54, the 35 macro and the 70-300. Those three lenses set me back 800 bucks. So total, plus all the lenses and the E 330 body, I have about 1500 bucks invested which includes a trip or two to Olympus Repair for the E 330. Hold it. I also have an FL 36 flash. That’s another 150 bucks. So that’s like about 1650 bucks invested. For me, that is a huge sum because I have never gotten a nickle back on that investment. Noper. Contrast that with my 500 dollar Roosian microscope. That Roosian microscope paid for itself maybe a tousand times over. But those cameras and lenses are a total drag on my economy.

As documented on this venue, the E 330 got off to a bad start. The first year it was mostly broken. But since then it has been OK. OK if you don’t mind gluing its rubber armor back on regularly. Plus the ISO limit is around 400, and not good then. Plus the auto focus is atrocious. Mine will not ever, for example, auto focus on a bird on a wire. It simply will not do that. It can’t do that, ever. If I want to take a picture of a bird on a wire, I need to focus manually.

Uh. The E 330 is an OK camera for taking pictures of static or nearly static life as I know it, in good light, so long as there are no wires to confuse the camera. The fact is, despite the crumby auto focus, it even takes OK pictures of fairly lively subjects (bees and such) in good light. But if the light is marginal, like for example under a tree canopy, times wax tough. Correct, the auto focus is terrible. The noise is also terrible. But after all, this is documentation photography so a little noise is not so bad.

Yet what would I really like to have in a new camera that is fixing to do nothing but screw me economically? I would like to have a camera that auto focuses better in less optimal light and I would like to be able to shoot at higher ISOs so I could get the shutter speed up. I might give 500 bucks for a camera that would do that, fer me.

Also, I would like to have a 400mm telephoto lens that I could hand hold just like I do my 70-300. Then I would also like a 150mm macro, maybe, but that would be a total luxury. So maybe not.

Here’s what I’m talking about in terms of the E 330s limitations. Inexplicably, this Northern Parula showed up in the back yard today. This is bizarre because the only times previously Parulas turned up is maybe once or twice during spring migration. He, the Parula, took a nice bath in the sprinkler which I had running illegally since it’s not my day to water. This picture, about the best I could get of this Northern Parula, underscores all the limitations of the E 330.

Which, Moon or Ample Bosoms (ABs)?

When Moon is bright and up all night, the average amateur astronomer may as well go to bed. Unless of course, Moon is the object of the amateur astronomer’s attention. In which case, the amateur astronomer may not be average.

When Moon is absent, I, Crumby the Ovate, feel like I need to stay outside searching for the many naked heathen celestial bodies that tend to get obscured in all the Moonlight. Or, if Moons up, I feel easy about wasting my life away supine on the Ample Bosoms.

Interestingly, our little mammalian symbionts, that is cats and dogs, often known as pets, seem to cavort about more when Moon is up, eschewing the ABs. That’s right. Cats and dogs can cause lots of trouble under a full Moon. But not me. I am asleep. Or would be if the dern pets could behave themselves.

Yes. There is nothing quite like pulling an AB or two over your noggin. Yes. Pull that titty over your noggin. That way, the titty can maybe block some of the light and noise pollution that may afflict many as we try to get a little rest.

Last night, even with Moon down, was a really bad night for an average amateur astronomer. You know you have bad seeing when globular clusters are invisible. Admittedly M55 and M72 are not the brightest globulars. But last night, the seeing sucked so bad, they were totally invisible. I actually feel like the Republicans are making light pollution worse in these parts. I didn’t think that was possible. But apparently they have somehow brightened up the night sky even more, since last summer. Jeez Louise!

Dern it! Yesterday I got my feelings hurt. That’s right. Simon says, Crumby, you blame everything on the Republicans. The implication being like I am unfairly blaming those Republicans for everything. But it’s true, actually. I do blame the Republicans for everything. And I mean all the Republicans, the Judas goat Republicans plus the many Republican sheep. They are all responsible.

For example, I blame the Republicans specifically and in particular for the terrible climate change afflicting these parts. Yes. It is primarily Republican realtors riding air conditioned Humjobs that create the high pressure ridges. Those high pressure ridges are rendering these parts uninhabitable. Anon, these parts shall become about the worst desert anywhere. Uninhabitable! Whose fault is that? Republicans! Dumbshit fuckers!

Totally afflicted by the great heat, even I , Crumby, the penultimate greatest of the Druid ovates, had to resort to art to keep myself entertained. Imagine. There I was taking photos of potentially historic clothes pins. How long may clothes pins stay on the line? Probably not 50 years. These miserable twain clothes pins may actually decay to nothingness before 50 years . So given the absence of any historical value, a picture of these clothes pins may be art. Yes. That’s it. This picture represents art for art’s sake.

The Great Heat Abated for a Tiny Nonce

My custom is to arise early. That’s because in these parts, as the day progresses, the worst is yet to come. Correct. By 10 o’clock Natas owns the place. Lately, the heat has afflicted even a 6 o’clock. But not nearly like at 10 o’clock. So get shit off your chest early. That’s what I figure. Hey! What’s with o’clock. Is o’clock, Irish?

Briefly, around 6:35 o’clock, a refreshing breeze blew from the north. What the heck? Somebody must have opened the doors on a refrigerator truck. After that brief respite it was back to the great heat, the incredible shit Natas deals out to these parts this time of year. The reason Natas does this great heat is because the piece of shit Republican sin doers actually believe in Natas. So Natas, also known as Beelzebub, is paying their sorry asses back. Oh well.

All righty then. Here is my jury attitude. If the perpetrator in the docks is a Republican, that Republican can count on my vote for conviction with the maximum penalty allowable, preferably deportation. If the perp is a Democrat, that Democrat gets 50 bucks and a get out of jail free card. If the perp is an anarchist, socialist or communist, that particular perp gets immediate access to a nice social security check, perp age irrelevant.

OK. I, Crumby, have been selected for jury duty. So right away I made a silly mistake on the form the Tejas Nazi government has a normal person fill out for jury duty. Like I indicated that I was unemployed on the form. But that’s because there was no option for the intermittently employed, which describes my relationship to the means of production, perfectly. Yes. I am not unemployed, I am employed, sometimes or intermittently.

Like this morning I was employed. But then all of sudden I espied a female or lady swamp darner totally trapped in the same general shed where I was figuratively producing surplus value. Goodness gracious! This is the biggest dragonfly I have ever espied in these parts, Crumby declaimed. So then Crumby took time out from his busy work schedule. First, Crumby took up the big lady dragonfly. Then Crumby put that lady dragonfly into the bowl of a salad spinner. Then Crumby took that dragonfly’s picture. Turn’s out, that dragonfly is a Swamp Darner, (Epiaeschana heros).

It’s true. Greenhouse type locations easily trap lots of butterflies, dragonflies and other assorted insects because, once they fly in, they are too dumb to fly out, much like Republicans in the U S. Yes. Republicans are too dumb to migrate, even though, everyone else agrees they should.

Water Conservation as a Druid Dichotomy

Which would yall rather, nice green plants or pea gravel? Obviously, this dichotomy separates the nature lover from the nature indifferent. Why? Easy money. Green plants sustain life as most of us know it on this plane of this tiny sphere that many call Earth. Thus green plants are an important component of nature and appreciated by the nature lover. Pea gravel is more modest with its accomplishments. Yet many, the nature indifferent, prefer more pea gravel and less green plants. That’s possibly because pea gravel, compared to green plants, may be lower maintenance, maybe. Plus, you don’t need to water pea gravel.

Intuitively, one might assume that a space occupied by nice green plants might be cooler than a space of equal area occupied exclusively by pea gravel. One might also expect that pea gravel spread out on the surface of the planet, to the exclusion of green plants, might make the planet hotter. But who really knows? Maybe Earth, or a similar planet finding itself in Earth-like circumstances, yet covered with pea gravel, would be nice and cool. The science is still out on that one. Right?

Many fear that some day soon we may run so low on water that some may have to do without. Like the best example of this fear is, The little children may not have water to flush with. Mercy! Ultimately, the low or no water fear brings on behaviors like xeroscaping with pea gravel, producing landscapes in which people, to the exclusion of all else, get all the water.

So given all this, what is the Druid’s motivation to conserve water. Easy money. The limiting factor for the Druid is the cost of the water. And the Druid, as nature lover, will spend money on water so that the green plants associated with the Druid shall have plenty to drink and not die of thirst. Course, if the climate changes toward way hotter and drier, that Druid needs to move somewhere else, to assure continued access to green plants.

The nature indifferent motivation prioritizes conservation with a view to sharing out the water with all the people. Like the little children getting to flush are the top priority. Then come the migrants who forgot to bring their own water. Yea verily, those migrants include the corporations that need plenty of water. The nature indifferent are plenty happy to conserve water so the in migrating corporations can use more water at a cheaper rate. Then there are the multitudes of rich migrants, environmental refugees fleeing no telling what awful conditions elsewhere, bravely seeking out a flipped mansion next door to a lush golf course. Goodness! Everyone should certainly conserve water so the rich migrants shall have plenty.

In summary, everyone should provide all the water they can afford to the thirsty green plants instead of conserving water for other people. Those green plants would like to take care of people, but only if we take care of them first

NGCs 6803 and 6804 in Aquila

These twain are fairly difficult. 6803 is impossible to find when employing the Pocket Sky Atlas. Insufficient stars are depicted in that handy yet slender tome. However, it is fairly easy to find once an average amateur astronomer resorts to the Sky Atlas 2000 which features slightly more stars. 6804 is hard because it is very hard to see without a filter and also difficult with a filter at low power. About the best I could do is with 100x and OIII. Even then, that cuss is better averted. However, it is fairly big, dwarfing the tiny nearby stars. 6803 also responds well to OIII. I recommend blinking 6803 because at 100x there is a close adjacent star that dims while 6803 suddenly brightens more than that star. It’s a good one for blinking.

So now I get to officially add two pns to the fairly famous list, Planetary Nebulae Visible in the Polluted Skies over Austink. That list may be easily accessed by typing in Planetary Nebulae in the white box above, then hit search blog button.

Virtual Border Security

Back on June 6, 2006, my bosom companion Ray, satirized the virtual video program the Tejas Nazi government was fixing to install along the Republic of Tejas border with Mexico. The virtual video program was fixing to protect us from the illegal south of the border wetbacks, otherwise known in these parts as, cheap labor. Our governor, Ricky the Sissy, was fixing to get plenty of money from the US taxpayers to pay for the video cameras. Then he would use that money to purchase the cameras, minus the required bribes and kickbacks. The local newspaper now reports that the videos produced on 17 eventually installed video cameras were eagerly plus incessantly watched by 125,000 virtual Texas deputies and led to eight drug busts and 11 arrests over the course of the first year they were in use. Jeez Louise! Almost 300 potential illegal aliens were also espied by those cameras and virtual Texas deputies over that same period, a year.

That 125,000 muttonheads signed up as virtual Texas deputies should tell the world a lot about my fellow ROTites. Good Goddess! Get a life. Get a hobby. Boost the global economy. Like you could buy a telescope or a dog or something. Jeez Louise!

Honestly, I was seriously shocked to learn that 125,000 numbskulls would sign up to monitor the video cameras for free. Me and Ray, my bosom companion, both figured Ricky the Sissy would hire Republican political consultants to monitor the border video cameras. He may have. That may be where some of the money went.

Ah the temptation of virtual reality on the web. Imagine, getting to watch an actual wetback sneaking across the border in real time. And then, oh the excitement of reporting that wetback transgressor to the proper au-thor- i-ta. Mercy!

But hold it! Hold that pecker in your hand. Hold it and rub it gently yet enthusiastically. Why not just squeal on your friends and neighbors for employing cheap labor?

Noper. That’s no fun. That might hurt the economy.

Virtual security is a perfect mix with the Republican ideology and lifestyle. That’s why it’s easy money for the virtual sheriff to round up a 125,000 person virtual posse. Yepper. Virtual anything, is gasoline to the Republican ideological fire and lifestyle.

NGC 6804

Moon’s been bright and up all night. But these days, the waning Moon is fixing to rise later and later every night until, on the 22nd, Moon disappears. Unable to contain the average amateur astronomer in me, I headed out last night to do some average amateur astronomy before Moon rose, around midnight. The easiest and least annoying part of Heaven for that time in these parts for viewing in a telescope is from the neighborhood of Cebalrai (How am I supposed to pronounce that?) in Ophiuchus to Tarazed in Aquila.

The big drawback to average amateur astronomy in these parts right now is that at 11PM the temperature is in the mid 90s. Yes. The evening heat plus the humidity is stifling. A mostly white average amateur astronomer like me suffers a lot in this kind of heat. Especially since, these days I am fatter than usual. Mercy!

Nevertheless, there I was, engulfed in stifling heat, humidity and light pollution, a fat, old, mostly white boy practicing average amateur astronomy. The sky was free of clouds, always a good sign given the circumstances. Skipping most of the rest of the bs, consider NGC 6804 located just west or maybe southwest of Upsilon Aquili. NGC 6804 is a 12th magnitude planetary nebula (pn). As such, considering all my scopes, and given the miserable light pollution, only the 10" Great Red Tube might allow me a visual shot at this mysterious yet naked feature of my night sky.

Well, turns out I probably espied NGC 6804 for the first time. However, I shall need to replicate all that tonight to be happy with my tentative results. Yet the probability is high that NGC 6804 shall be added to the fairly famous list of Planetary Nebulae Visible in the Polluted Skies over Austink.

OK. I only espied NGC 6804 by employing 63x plus an OIII filter. Otherwise, under all other conditions, that pn was invisible. The fact is, even with the efficacious gear in place, that pn was almost invisible. The only reason anybody can find that sucker at all under the miserable conditions I operate is there’s an asterisk pointing to a finder friendly star that makes it an easy star hop.

I also tried for the nearby NGC 6803. But that one is star-like, so, unaware of its stellar nature, I didn’t know what I was looking for. Try again tonight.

Schizura unicornis

Mmm-boy! This redbud,(Cercis canadensis) is delicious.

Correct. The red bud is delicious. Otherwise, this herbivore, (Schizura unicornis), would be eating up something else.

So far, studying insects, I have found no greater contrast between a moth and its caterpillar than this example. Also, careful observation indicates a bifurcated horn. Does the adult moth have a single horn somewhere?

Up Most of the Night (Burnham's Cruel Fate)

That’s right. About 2:30AM, just a while ago, I woke up. I woke up in a sweat, barely able to breathe, also farting like a pack mule. Nor could I go back to sleep. No matter how I tossed and turned the various annoyances or distractions persisted. I tossed and turned, sweated, coughed and farted. Fuck this shit, Crumby, you need to arise. The Ample Bosoms have cast you off.

Off I headed through the dusty hallways vowing to eschew shrimp forever. Those shrimp taste like erasers anyway, Crumby reminded himself. Yes. Crumby theorized that the shrimp whoredoerves was the mastermind behind his current difficulties. How the hell do I actually spell whoredoerves?, Crumby wondered.

Often, in these, up most of the night, situations, Crumby turns to the Celestial Handbook for distraction. The famous Burnham’s Celestial Handbook that is. Nowhere else maybe, except in the Celestial Handbook, could one easily find a reference to the Milky Way as Caer Gwydyon (sic). Or to put the situation in perspective, Gwydion has a castle in the Milky Way. Yet I have confirmed Burnham’s reference to Gwydyon on two internet sites that supposedly specialize in Welsh mythology.

But then I remembered. Some hearsay regarding the extraordinary Burnham came to my ears only recently. I said to myself, Crumby, you need to find some biographical information on Burnham. So that is what Crumby did.

Mercy! Poor Burnham. Oh well. Paraphrasing H.L. Mencken, Who should expect to earn a living from a hobby?

Turns out, shortly after Burnham published the Celestial Handbook, Lowell Observatory laid Burnham off. Yepper, they ran out of funds for Burnham’s project and laid him off. Burnham was too high-hat by then to take a proffered janitorial position. Instead, Burnham wandered off to San Diego, which in those days had a forgiving climate. Mercy! Failing as a vender of cat paintings, Burnham died a pauper’s wretched death

Burnham’s sad story is well-known among average amateur astronomers. The big hearted average amateur astronomers have, by now, worked up a Burnham Memorial at Lowell Observatory. Praise the Goddess.

Yet I, Crumby, was entirely ignorant of any of these facts concerning Burnham until a couple of hours ago.

Crumby reflected uneasily. Uh oh. My trajectory seems a little too similar to Burnham’s . Yikes! I formerly got paid to do science. But alas, boo-hoo, everyone conspired against me due to my lousy personality and contrary opinions. Now I don’t have a job or jobs. Boo-hoo. Anon, I may wind up selling cat pictures in the park. But I can’t even paint. Boo-hoo. I shall have to sell photographs of the miserable cats instead of paintings. Boo-hoo.

Say mister, want to buy a color photo glossy of my pussy, Bernice? Good Goddess. How horrible would that be? No one shall ever purchase any pictures of my pussy whether that pussy is Bernice or Herman. I shall expire in poverty just like Burnham, a few cat or pussy glossies that nobody wanted clutched in my bony dead fingers.

Calm down Crumby. You need to calm down before you exacerbate your allergic condition even more. Think, Crumby, think. OK. Many may understand that Burnham never married. If Burnham had married, his chance of avoiding certain death in San Diego would have gone up 110%. I, Crumby, have married twice. So my chance of avoiding a similar fate is 220%. Praise the Goddess!

The Great Heat Versus the White People

Leaving aside the idiotic babbling of Mrs Palin, most of the craziness exhibited by white people in North America, lately, comes from the most heat stressed parts. Among those heat stressed parts are Nevada and South Carolina. Course Oklahoma, plus the Confederacy, are always on the verge of civic meltdown, exacerbated by the heat of summer. Yes. The summers are getting lots hotter and the likelihood of general civil disorder plus bad manners increases as the temperature rises. And don’t forget about Arizona. No, don’t forget, Arizona is getting hotter and nuttier too.

Historically, white people were barely able to hang on in the south during the summer. But the general availability of free labor, and later, cheap labor, allowed white people to stay inside during the hottest days. There the white people would sit, inside, or maybe on the porch, as inert as possible, while the free or cheap labor fanned them and fetched lemonade.

Air conditioning changed all that. With the coming of air conditioning, the normal energy level of white people could be maintained inside the house even on the hottest days of summer. Yes. Even during the dog days, an average white person could move around a little inside the house, restlessly thinking up mischief. Naturally, the mischievous thoughts of the air-conditioned white people turned to masturbation, fornication, adultery, and sometimes, egad, sodomy! Mercy! Not only did air-conditioned white people consider sodomy a potential mischievous summer time entertainment, the most creative among the white people thought, Hmm, I bet I could also practice same sex sodomy.

Well, praise the Goddess, no one has figured out how to air condition the outdoors. Which means that the antics of white people are generally indoors during the summer. Yes. Indoors instead of out in front of the Goddess and everybody. Except for when it comes time to fess up. That’s when we all get to see the shit on TV.

So that pretty much concludes the positive impacts air conditioning has made on the behavior of white people. What I, Crumby, am personally most worried about is that the Palin family, freed from any civic responsibility in Alaska, shall move somewhere down south. Egad! Consider that bunch immigrating to the Republic of Tejas. Immediately, they would set up in a habitation with plenty of air conditioning. Then what would they get up to? Oh, my! And of course, the Palins, in a million years, would never think to bring their own water. Merci beaucoup!

Ant Lion City Redux

Dude! If you were an ant, what would you do in Ant Lion City?

Baby please don’t go. Baby please don’t go.

Baby please don’t go down to Ant Lion City, baby please don’t go.

Do wah!

These are the same kind of ants I put off in Ant Lion City yesterday. See. It’s not like I mean any serious harm to this particular kind of ant. No. See. I am feeding these ants. That means, since I am feeding them, I have nothing much against these particular ants. The fact is, I feel like I owe them a free meal or two because of what I did to their kin or friends, yesterday. Yes. These are the same kind of ants I fed to the ant lions yesterday. Mercy! I bet the emperors of Rome felt just like me. They fed Christians to the lions. I fed ants to the ant lions. Same difference.

These ants are enjoying orange soda water and brown sugar. They like it. Those twain little dead ants liked it too much. Yes. They drank themselves to death, a common enough interspecific problem, drinking too much.

Well then. The Druid Dichotomy is, Which would you rather, drink yourself to death, or get eaten up by a wild animal or Hades crazed relatively primitive insect? Easy money, I bet.

That’s right, many would rather fall into a bathtub full of Samuel Smith’s oatmeal stout. Then once in the bathtub might as well swill up as much of the oatmeal stout as possible. On the other hand, a tiny minority might like to get torn to pieces by a shark or maybe by a rat multitude or lions. Mercy!

Few desire to get actually torn to pieces and consumed by an alternative species. I, Crumby, suspect that getting eaten by an alternative species may be one of the innate fears of most individuals of most species. Course, what about getting eating by human cannibals? Human cannibals could participate in getting eating by one's own species. That’s bad too.

The truth is, nobody actually desires to get eaten by somebody or something else, regardless of the intra vs. inter, maybe.

The Global Warming 8 Plus Ant Lions and Cultural Deprivation

The Dickens, Natas, has these parts by the short hairs. Every day the temperature reaches 100+. Every other day is a new hot high. The lake water evaporates. There is no end in sight.

Yes. A tiny few predicted many moons ago the great heat would descend upon these parts. Yes. Now the predictions are true. Anon, the little school children shitting their little turds out in the school lavoratory, won’t get to flush. No. Those little turds shall just sit there until they are like petrified. Mercy!

So the industrialized 8 have decided to cap emissions. But the ignorant third world dumbasses won’t go along. Huh-huh. Well, that means the ignorant third world dumbasses shall continue to pollute and the industrialized 8 shall also continue to pollute. Yes. The industrialized 8 shall all cheat. That’s right. Every last one of the G8 bunch shall cheat like crazy.

The fact is, humans shall pollute more and faster than ever. That’s right. Human pollution shall correlate positively with more heat. That’s because many humans require air conditioning. Today, for example, the temperature in these parts shall reach at least 105 in the shade. Does anyone seriously think a plump Republican could survive that kind of heat out in nature? Course not. That plump Republican shall seek out a nice air-conditioned spot or two. Plus, in the final analysis, that plump Republican shall do anything, anything, to stay cool. Yes. That particular Republican shall be numbered among those many that increase personal pollution, just trying to keep even with the ever increasing heat.

Many holler, Global warming is a hoax. Nay, nay, nay, Natas!!!! Humans doing anything to stop global warming is the hoax. All we shall do is, make it hotter.

Ant Lions and Cultural Deprivation

Mercy! It’s already too hot outside for man or beast. And it's just 8:30AM. Despite the great heat, I decided I had missed out on the fun of ant lions long enough. That’s right. During my Christian rearing I never got to play with ant lions. How sad! So today I decided to make up for that hunk of cultural deprivation from the long ago and play with ant lions.

First I took the butterfly feeder receptacle over to ant lion city. There were some ants on the butterfly feeder, free loading on the blood orange and brown sugar concoction I have been trying instead of bananas. A squirrel keeps stealing the bananas.

There those ants were, maybe six free loaders. Come on my lads, Crumby cried, let’s go play with the ant lions. Crumby was fairly skeptical about the ants and ant lions putting on much of a show. Boy howdy! Even a Druid Ovate like Crumby, when victimized by a rearing filled with cultural deprivation, can be totally full of shit. Mercy!

Crumby held the butterfly feeder over ant lion city and brushed the luckless ants off. Anon, the ants began to wander into the craters. Good Goddess! Crumby was not expecting the horrible scene that met his astonished eyeballs. First one ant, then another, began struggling frantically as if something had hold of a leg or two. Mercy! The terrified ants wiggled frantically for a couple of minutes. Then, those ants, one by one, went torpid. At last, anon, those miserable ants, one by one, sank beneath the soil. Except one of the ants that just lay there, dead, at the bottom of an ant lion crater. Crumby reckoned the ant lion was worn out by the struggle and figured to drag the ant down to Hades later.


OK. Once Crumby established the fact that ant lions really do grab ants, Crumby decided he needed to grab an ant lion. All righty then. Crumby found the best way to grab ant lions is to watch the ant lion craters. Pretty soon, an ant lion shall start throwing dirt out of its crater. They throw the dirt out really high so watch out you don’t get dirt thrown in your eye. Anyway, the ant lion tossing out dirt is the ant lion that may be easy to grab.

In terms of equipment, the ant lion hunter can get by with a spoon and maybe a container for the ant lion. Crumby employed a mortar. However, the trouble is, if you put too much dirt in the mortar with the ant lion, the ant lion shall certainly root down into the dirt, rendering picture taking difficult. Next time Crumby shall put in less dirt. By the way, to get under the dirt, the ant lion backs up. Apparently, ant lions eschew forward progress.

OK. Here is a picture of the ant lion Crumby captured. See, it is covered with dirt.




And here is an adult ant lion possibly only recently emerged from Ant Lion City.

Lepidophera? Did you mean, Lepidoptera?

Why do all the filling stations have about the same price on gas? Why do the twain search engines, Google and Yahoo, both try to interact with me? Why, why, why? Assholes!

Anyway, after almost two years of constant or maybe intermittent fret, I at last figured out this particular insect is no moth. Nay, it is a fly. The fact is, I must have thought it was a fly because Ray, my bosom companion, named it Quasimoto fly on Viguera dentata originally. But sometime after that, and not making any progress on the fly hypothesis, I decided it had to be a moth. So for a long time I have operated on the premise that the Quasimoto fly was actually a moth. Turns out, it’s a fly. I can now move this picture out of the Insect file and into the Diptera file.

Apparently there may be three species of these Quasimoto flies living in North America, two of which may be indistinguishable absent exploratory surgery. Naturally, mine is one of the two requiring surgery, either Lepidophora lepidocera or Lepidophora lutea. Try Googling one of those.

No. These obscure flies have not made much progress yet in the fame game. I shall try to help them out. Quasimoto Fly. Humpback Fly. Hunchback Fly. Crookback Dick of Gloucester Fly.

See. What these flies need is a host of common names. Yes. There is nothing like a common name or two to bring on the fame.

McNamara is Dead, Finally

Praise the Goddess! There is one less imperialist in the world these days. Good! One less is better than none less. Mercy!

That McNamara got to fool around so long on this plane of this little globe fucks with my religion. Yes. His perseverance, here, makes me doubt the existence of the WG, Upup, and all the other Gods and Goddesses Druids need to believe in. Mercy! I am having a crisis of faith because a worthless cocksucker like McNamara got to dwell on this tiny planet for 93 years. Mercy!

Mercy! Why does McNamara get to live on while many die? Yes. McNamara engineered the deaths of the many. Yes. McNamara lived on while millions or maybe billions perished. Yet even a cockroach roasted by napalm deserves as much whatever as the McNamara. Why Goddess? Why WG? Why, why, why?

This is the exact kind of question that can fuck with an average person’s faith, eventually destroying that average person’s faith. Yepper. The longevity of the well-known imperialist cocksucker, McNamara, could easily destroy all the religious beliefs I hold dear. How can I believe in a Goddess that would let that asshole McNamara persevere nearly forever? Fuck me! Boo-hoo!

Oh well. Many live too long. Like, for example, Bob Dylan shall probably live as long as Bob McNamara. Either way, too long. It’s like the WG has no control over, or access to the human gene pool. No. She has no control. None. Which also explains Lance Armstrong.

Yes. Sinners and evil doers go on practically forever. Simultaneously, the relatively innocent suffer early demise. What does this mean? Why does this pattern persist? Fuck me. I don’t know, Goddess damn it!

Nevertheless, it is the nature of the weak and/or weak minded to always believe in some type of bullshit. Me too. I fall into that average category of the weak and/ or weak minded. So I must continue to believe that the White Goddess and even Upup know what they are doing. Yes. I must continue to believe. Yes. Mercy!

Third Cicada Species Documented for CB

By the light of the silvery moon, the average amateur naturalist, accompanied only by quarrelsome pets, attempted to figure out what’s eating up all the Turk’s Cap. Equipped with a headlamp, a butterfly net, a digital camera and some curiosity the intrepid amateur naturalist soon discovered lots of roaches on the Turk’s Cap. It’s probably these roaches eating the Turk’s Cap Crumby figured. But just to be certain I better fix a roach or two up with a tiny colostomy bag. Where did I put those tiny colostomy bags?

Besides the roaches, Crumby found one moth on the Turk’s Cap. Crumby deftly captured that moth in the buttterfly net. But it escaped before Crumby took its picture. Then Crumby espied this cicada newly emergent from its old exoskeleton. Turns out, at this stage the average cicada lacks much pigmentation. Absent pigmentation, cicadas all look alike, much like young blondes.

Luckily for Crumby, a cicada was apparent this morning only a foot or so removed from the location of the previous evening’s exoskeleton husk plus the newly emerged. I bet this is the same cicada maybe, only now, it has eaten up plenty of Turk’s Cap. The Turk’Cap meal has allowed it to gain some pigmentation. Now I can easily identify this cicada as Tibicen superba, the third cicada species documented for the CB.

The Insects are Scant

This past week at least 1.9" of blessed rain fell on the CB. So now there are a few more insects around. But the insects are still scant or scanty. That’s why, for lack of any other source of invertebrate entertainment, I have lately been fooling around with the moths. Like that beautiful moth that was in the utility room last week is an example. By the way, I may have made one of my rare mistakes, blaming that beautiful moth for the Turk’s Cap depredations. It may be this one instead, or too. Oh my Goddess, what if this is the same kind as that other one? Mercy, this one is identifiable to species as Melipotis indomita possibly. I caught this one in my trusty butterfly net. Then I put it inside an inverted wine glass. After a few days the wine glass began to run out of Oxygen. The paucity of Oxygen eventually calmed the moth down. Only then could I safely take its picture.

Actually, moths, just like grasses, should not be neglected by the average naturalist. Yes. Just because moths are seemingly nasty, does that imply they are actually any nastier in their personal habits than say, butterflies? Course not. Like you never see moths standing on a turd with their proboscis stuck up to their necks in the turd. Butterflies do that behavior all the time.

I think moths get a bad rap because, just like the Mexican sycamore, the moth’s hairy scales are apt to easily come off much like the duff on those sycamore leaves. Then too, moths are nocturnal which is always a sign of friendship with Natas, or at the least, witches. Also, a moth is apt to come to a light and make a nuisance of itself. Then too, moth caterpillars are generally a plague on the vegetation, guzzling up everything in sight. Many moths are personally unattractive. Some are sneaky. Yet in spite of, or because of these obviously negative traits, the average naturalist should realize that ignoring moths entirely may be impossible.

All righty. Back on 6/19/2007 this is how the banana feeder looked. Obviously, that gray moth could also be the one eating my Turk's Cap.

Freedom Versus Democracy

A Druid like me, Crumby, would never be caught dead at one of those noveau tea parties. That’s partly because I routinely use French words like noveau. What if I spoke out some Frenchified word like noveau at the tea party? What if I commented to some of the other attendees?, Say, this sure is some noveau white trash bullshit, yall. Man alive! Talking like that might get me fucked up, maybe, but probably not. Because, I suspect, the attendees at those tea parties are too crazy, and sunstruck, to understand much of anything. For them, its all just great noise, similar to all the great noise the Germans enjoyed at Hitler Youth rallies. Whereas, for the rational, its just noise pollution.

Even though I did not and never would attend a tea party, I know the participants whooped for freedom. That’s because freedom has the potential to encompass no taxes, no public schools, no public land (like, for example, Zilker Park where a tea party occurred), no social security, etc. Or expressed positively, freedom may say yes to property rights, secession or even slavery (the freedom to hold people as property).

In a democracy, on the other hand, the majority of people may decide that cardboard recycling is a good idea. Many may participate in the recycling of the cardboard. Many may not. Many may not for several reasons. Some may believe there is plenty of cardboard, so why recycle. Some may believe that recycling is messing with the natural order which may involve God always providing plenty of cardboard. No need to recycle. Some may not like that profits made from recycling may go to the Mafia. Some may not like that recycling has rules.

What are two well-known rules of cardboard recycling that fly in the face of freedom? Easy money, break down your boxes and actually put your boxes in the dumpster or receptacle. These are two rules a democrat may find easy to follow, but the freedom lover may find the rules make too tight a demand on personal liberty. So the freedom lover just tosses out the boxes next to the dumpster, or into the creek, and the boxes become the democrats’ problem. Mercy!

Newt Boot and Ant Lion City

OK. If you want to keep from getting pregnant or getting your girlfriend pregnant, you sometimes advise the use of a rubber or you actually put the rubber on, maybe. If you don’t want a mm of organic matter accumulating on your Newt's mirror, you can employ one of these rubber or diaper similar devices, a Quick Cover. Mercy! What a great idea, a Newt Boot!

Check out this ant lion city. It’s like craters on Moon. Man. I have been fixing to find some ants to test out in ant lion city. But the dern ants have lit out for Hades. That’s right. Those ants have dug down so deep, they are hard to come by. But tomorrow I shall try really hard to find some ants. Those ants need to face the perils of, Ant Lion City. Wooooooooo!

Ah Aint White Trash

You callin’ me, white trash!

Oh my Goddess. The Sanford family is all white trash. Like could President Obama do like an executive order for the deportation of the ignorant white trash Sanford family, plus all their friends and cousins, to maybe Paraguay. Yes. Paraguay, a possible NAZI stronghold would be a good place for the Sanford bunch to go to roost. The Sanfords should feel right at home in Paraguay. Plus, big Mark could easily travel next door, to Argentina, where he could continue his whoremonger hobby.

Please President Obama. Deport the white trash Sanfords before they get a TV show.

Does Your Vacuum Blow and Suck?

Sadly, my old fashioned vacuum cleaners only suck. Nevertheless, yesterday was vacuum the CB day. While vacuuming one may discover interesting vermin that have come into the house probably looking for water. However, these stick insects, Anisomorpha sp., are, were, fornicating when a spider got them. The spider also got that roly poly. Then I got all of them with the vacuum cleaner. I sucked them up.

Next we see a moth that came into the utility room. Here that moth sits mournfully looking out the screen door, only wishing to get back outside and rejoin its friends. Ha! That was its last wish before it too got sucked up. No. No. No. Just kidding. I let it go outside.

However, this particular moth is a member of a species that presently represents the most common moth at the CB. I supsect, the caterpillars of this species are the ones eating up my Turk's Cap. So letting this one go may have been a mistake.

The Wicked and the Evil

Some of the undeserving wicked or evil denizens of these parts got a break yesterday from the terrible heat that afflicts these parts. That’s right. The rain fell at last. The CB, for example, enjoyed at least 1.7" of nice rain yesterday. The CB deserved that rain, because we are relatively innocent compared to the wicked and evil that hedge us round. But we have not figured out how to have the rain fall exclusively on the CB. Too bad. In a just world the wicked and evil would get no nice rain. No. The just or relatively innocent would get all the rain while the wicked or evil would get nary a drop.

Here’s an example of how that might work in practice. Like a big cloud arises toward high heaven. That cloud rains itself out directly over the CB. Then, one after another, all the clouds follow suit, so that the CB gets all the rain while the wicked and evil get naught.

Then, because the CB has all the water, the wicked and the evil have to come begging. There they all are, lined up. Yet the wicked and evil are many. The line snakes all around the Burger Center parking lot. Ha!

All righty then. It is I, Crumby the Ovate. I warned all you wicked and evil ones, you sin doers, what was fixing to happen. Time and time again I warned you. But did you listen and mend your evil or wicked ways? Course not. So now, here you all are, lined up, sweltering in the Burger Center parking lot, looking to beg a little cool drinking water.

Yet all I can spare for each of you is one cup. Plus that cup must be a pewter cup. And that pewter cup must have an enamel pentagram on one side. And the points of that pentagram must be identified just so, with a letter for each point. And those letters shall be N-A-T-A-S. And those letters shall spell the name, Natas. Yea verily it shall spell the name of that pretend imp all you wicked and evil ones have long worshipped. And on the other side of that pewter cup shall be an enameled image of the merciful WG with her Ample Bosoms plus plump arms exposed. So all that lack a pewter cup of that description must now depart. Yes. You must go get a pewter cup similar to the one I have just described if you want a nice drink of cool water. Sorry. No exceptions. Like everyone else, I have arbitrary rules that make no sense. So either follow the rules, or go thirsty. Huh-huh!