Will blog for dopamine

One thing about the Human Assistant. He may not know much. But he's willing to waste lots of time figuring things out. (Sometimes.)

Minky wrote another comment saying she thought the faux-to of "The Last Resort in a Blizzard" was also a picture of Moey in a snowstorm.

H.A. couldn't just laugh and agree. Heavens no! He didn't think a little white dog would completely disappear in the snow. Well, okay. We did have a little white foster dog for a while. In the winter.

It was after that huge-ola snowstorm two winters ago. H.A. took lots of pictures of Poo-Poo. Or tried to. So he sorta knows about what little white dogs look like in snow.

So here's the H.A.'s impression of Moey the Cheshire Dog. The first one may not look like he already added in some "snow." But you can check it against the original.

Starting to snow!

Going....

... going ...

... Snowy Moey!

Maybe the H.A. spends so much time on these things because they trigger a drug in his brain. Or because it's good for him. Or some such thing.

He saw an article that said blogging may be good for you. Which was a kind of summary of another article that tried to be all scientific about it. And even used the word "dopamine."

The Scientific American article really only says that cancer patients feel better when they do some writing before a treatment. Then it herds in some guesses about another kind of writing (blogging). And other health problems. And how it works.

This reminds me of watching a human pretend to throw a ball. For one of those other breeds of dogs. The human only throws it once when you get right down to it. But they fill up the time with other stuff. So to the human and that other breed of dog it seems like more than it is.

Just put it out there, humans! Then we can decide whether to run with it.  ☺  As they say.

-- original photo of Moey on dogster and all derivatives posted here remain the property of the original rights holders ... probably Moey's humans.

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mr_ed:  Science can be strange. The Wikipedia article says dopamine was synthesized in 1910, but apparently it remained undiscovered until 1952. Dogs make more sense than that!

Fraudographs and books

I like books okay. But I can never finish them. I chew off a corner or two and then tear them into big pieces. Then take out a page here and a page there.

But the Human Assistant really likes books!  He can spend hours with them!  But they never look like they've even been in his mouth.

(Actually, I've never seen H.A. with a book in his mouth. So I wonder what he gets out of them.)

His favorite books are mystery novels set in Colorado.  (Why?  Left field!)  He likes them so much that he says he wants to write a book!

But it wouldn't be a novel. It would be a tourist guide. Every page or two he'd list a place, like Aspen, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver ... and like that. Then he'd tell what mysteries were set in those places.

So why all this yakking about him?  Well, he also wants to put in a picture of each place.  The trouble is, some books are set in phony places.  So.  What to do?

Remember last time I mentioned that H.A. sometimes does a bit of phony-tography? Why not phony photos for phony places?

Here's a mountain trail in the "dead" of night and a ski resort in a blizzard:

Danger on Vampire Trail

The Last Resort

I think the first one is what Minky mentioned in a comment. She remembers a faux-to of Benny. And here it is!  Only this time it's a fraudo-graph of a fraudo-place (that's in a real book). Kinda slick of the old H.A., huh?

(Actually, he stole the idea from post cards you can get in the Colorado Springs area. "Pikes Peak at Night" and "Pikes Peak in a Snowstorm." But it's not like the publisher could claim H.A. swiped a protected image or anything.)

Did you notice who the detectives were in those two books? Other famous ones have come to Colorado too, like Jessica Fletcher and Mike Shayne. And one time, even Oscar Wilde!  Who was a character. But not as fictional of a character as the others.

Anyway. That's enough and then some about bogophotos and the like.

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mr_ed:  For those who like (extra-)light romantic mysteries ... in The Last Resort, Frank Hardy kisses Nancy Drew!
Tucker:  ::SLURP!::

Innocent until photographed

Yesterday the Human Assistant saw me with my nose in the kitchen sink.  There were things in there that smelled like bacon!  But I couldn't reach them.  That's a deep sink!

Anyway. H.A. didn't have his camera ready. So he didn't get a picture. So it didn't count.

And I saw Sinjin with his paws and nose on the stove!  I thought he was supposed to have bad hips!  I don't think H.A. saw him.  So Sinjin's still a goody-goody.  As far as H.A. knows.  No pictures of it, anyhow.

But do you know what?  Sometimes H.A. makes up photos!  It's true!

One summer he worked at the Northern Wyoming Daily News. This was during Woodward and Bernstein's time as huge celebreties at The Washington Post. So you'd think H.A. would be all ethical and everything.

Well! One day he was walking around town with his camera. He saw a fire in a dumpster. He claims he took some pictures of it and one of them was on the front page the next day. Here's his "photo" of a gas can in the fire:

Gas can in fire.

Jeep in sandstorm.

Steller's Jay at dusk.

mr_ed:  Not true!  They used a real photograph that I snapped and developed at the newspaper office!

Anyway. He put these fraud-ographs on the forum for MaxFund volunteers and claimed they were real pictures.

mr_ed:  I did have a beige Grand Wagoneer!  You can ask Gremlin!

Yeah, well, I think that's enough of this for today.

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Lilac alley

"Orange puppies"?

Doesn't ring a bell.

In case anydoggy thought we were through with all those lilac pictures. From after my grooming. We weren't.

Here's an alley. Gremlin used to explore along an alley when she got out. But that was before I was born, even! She thought alleys were more interesting than streets. I guess the Human Assistant thinks so too.

He could have taken me along when he got out of the car! It would've been a nice little walk. But nooo! He thought he needed both hands to take nice pictures.

He shoulda taken me. The pictures wouldn't have been any worse using just one hand. And with a little pulling on the leash. Occasionally.

Anyway. Here's one block of an alley. There's one bush that has two pictures. But other than that you can see that 7 houses had lilacs in their back yards. That you could see from the alley.

Who knows how many more houses had bushes that were hidden in the front yard? Or side yard? I guess Denver people love lilacs!



Oops! The H.A. just realized that there are two bushes that each got two pictures! So make it 6 houses in one block. That you can see from the alley. And so on.

Now, in case anydoggy thinks we're through with all those lilac pictures. From after my grooming. We are.

Now we can move on to something more interesting! Like what I'm doing! When I'm not trapped in the car!

I'm not sure what that will be, exactly. I'll have to take a nap on it.

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Orange puppies?

♫♫  Doo be doo be doo....  ♩	Tucker said there were puppies.
Orange puppies!	Do you see any orange puppies?
Poppies, not puppies!  Teeheehee!	Oh!  Hahahahaha!

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Say good night, Dick!

Dick Martin, thank you for bringing your laughter into my home!

     -- Ed

-- photo of Dan, Dick, and Dick (may they rest in peace) from Associated Press

Happy birthday, Seabiscuit!

(referring to Friday, May 23)

Winners!

You got the Molson, eh?

People thought neither of them would race again. But a crippled jockey and a 7-year-old stallion that had had a ruptured ligament won the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap.

Their time would have won the same race last year! With a million-dollar purse! Old? Injured? Don't count us out!

Oh yeah. Also happy birthday to the North West Mounted Police!

On King!   On you Huskies!

I may be the last dog on the internet to play the Japanese name game. But I was tagged by Thor. And by an entire Army of Four.

OOF!  That's a lot of tagging!

If you don't know the game, tag yourself and then visit their blogs!  ☺

Real Name	Game Name	Tease Name
Gremlin	ji-shi-ku-rin-ta-ki-to	Taquito Bandito
Lucy	ta-do-mi-fu	Lucy-fucy
Sinjin	ari-ki-to-zu-ki-to	Ricky Toe
me	chi-do-mi-me-ku-shi	Cushy,  Yak-a-Story

-- photos from Wikipedia

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More uncooperation

First of all, uncooperation from the Human Assistant! It's been almost a whole week since he helped me write anything here!

Okay, he was working on a boatload of photos. Not photos that I'd pick. (And it is my blog!) But since he took 'em, we might as well use 'em.

Here's a Beagle that lives two yards away. Two back yards. Things wouldn't be very pleasant if he only lived two yardsticks away!

Bark!  Bark!  Bark!

What's goin' on?

Hey!

The Beagle was rolling around in the grass. And it wasn't the happy-​to-​be-​alive rolling that Lucy and Zot do. It was roll-​in-​stinkies rolling.

I know because it stood up and peed on that spot and then rolled some more! Now, the H.A. is an artiste in the fine art of photography. So he said,

mr_ed:  Hoooee!  I gotta get me a pitcher of that there doggie!

So he did. Whoop. Dee. Doodoo. But the Beagle wouldn't cooperate and roll around any more.

Then there was the uncooperation of our lilacs. All bent over. Probably from one of our rainstorms.



They're doing better now. But I'll bite the H.A. if he takes another picture before we get this posted. So no views of standing-up lilacs for now.

At least, not our standing-up lilacs.

I mentioned that I went to see Diane Doggroomer, right? On that trip H.A. took 75 pictures of lilacs and only 4 of me!!!

H.A. says if I knew military talk I could say it was definitely Whiskey Tango Foxtrot time. But I don't, so I guess I won't.

Lovely front yard ...

... and a closer look!

This is where our trip home started. It should've taken 15 minutes to get from here to MaxFund. Where we got some stuff. But it took much longer. Like a certain three-hour cruise.

These pictures embarrass me! The lilacs all look really crummy up close. H.A. says that's another uncooperation. His old digital camera.

Here's a house with two lilac bushes:

One in the side yard ...

... and one in the front yard!

H.A. wants to buy a camera that costs more than two years' worth of kibble‽‽‽

Here's another house with bushes in two places plus one peeking over from their neighbors:

At the back of the back yard ...

... and the front of the back yard!

Sometimes humans put bushes where there's not enough room for them. Not when the bushes are grown up, anyway.

Crowded against a side fence.

Room to grow.

But lilac bushes can look scraggly until then. And they're probably hard to groom.

Except for sitting still. Heh.

Here's a house with seven lilac bushes! If I counted them right. I'll bet they'll look great when they're all grown up. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures. But each one looks like it's a different color. To me.

Bushes # 1 & 2 ...	... # 3 ...
... #s 4, 5, 6 ...	... and bush # 7!

Lilacs tucked away:

Hidden away?

Peek-a-boo!

And lilacs you can't miss! Huge ones:

Big bush!

Bigger bush!

And lilacs in the front yard:

Lilacs right out front.

On show for everybody!

I told H.A. he needs to pick his photo subjects better. (More pictures of me would be good!) So he doesn't have to worry about a new camera.

But maybe he'll decide to stop buying me food. In which case I could use some help. And the rest of us, of course.

I'll let you know!

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