I just want this week to be over.

I just want to fucking scuba.

best moment in reality television history

(Source: realitytvgifs, via phillyrules)

I need to study physics

Its literally imperative that I study physics.  Learn physics, if you will.  But instead I’ve taken to staring blankly at objects in my apartment while taking in every word of the Hunger Games soundtrack.

panache13:

southey:

partiallycommitted:

-dreaming of a lovely spring afternoon-

raspberry beer cocktail [adapted from southern living]

ingredients

1 cup of fresh raspberries or frozen
4 bottles of corona (12oz) beer, chilled
1 container frozen raspberry lemonade concentrate, thawed or pink lemonade
1/2 cup good quality vodka
garnish: lemon slices or raspberries

instructions

in a large container stir together the first 4 ingredients. serve over ice. garnish with raspberries. to make ahead, stir together lemonade concentrate & vodka in a large container. stir in raspberries & beer just before serving. garnish, if desired.

[via  drmeg]

This sounds really good, and although I know I’m supposed to be a man and only drink beer that you can chew, I love me some fruit infused beers. Hell I really enjoy Miller Chill with it’s lime. And I’m a huge fan of Cherry Wheat Sam Adams, so this is right up my alley, plus this would be awesome for summer time.

YUM!

hmm yep this’ll be happening

(Source: littlelaur)

18 hours…

now get off tumblr and read the assigned article about leaf beetles, mopey

wild-at-heaart:

Eyes of the tiger by Swamibu on Flickr.

brewski:

earnestly-sincere:

I’m so excited! I am legit geeking out over this shit! AHH!!!!!!!!

uhh, already got my shirt ready. lol. woooooooooo been counting down.

A rant from Kimmy

kimmosaurus:

I’m so very sick of animal rights activists condemning zoos and aquariums for keeping animals in their facilities. They clearly don’t know about the workings in good zoos and aquariums so they can’t make just arguments about them. 

Let’s look at why humane captivity is a necessary evil:

A great number of the exotics in captivity were born in captivity, and there isn’t much that can be done with some of them, since unless you separate male and female animals we can’t tell them that sex kills.  From what we know of some of those commonly kept animals is that they’re social, and they require the company of other animals, however, you won’t keep a zebra stallion with another zebra stallion, they’ll just fight. 

Releasing a captive born animal is unethical, because there is a good chance that they have lost their natural fear of humans, and this ends up becoming a problem.  If the animal is so used to being fed by people they will associate people with food, and will get it from them. This is what we refer to as a bad situation.

Zoos and aquariums serve as educational facilities.  Like Steve Irwin(my hero) once said, “People want to save the things that they love.” How can you love something that you don’t know about?  It’s one thing to watch a documentary on a certain species or ecosystem, or read books about them, and it’s another to see the creature first hand.  Not all of us can afford to go whale watching, or on a safari, and even then, you are putting all of this on a gamble, because animals do not run on schedules. By going to a zoo or aquarium, you can guarantee that you will see the animal that you meant to go see.

While there are certainly some facilities that do treat their animals with cruelty but there are a great number that treat their animals better than their staff.  Blame the corporate heads all you want for their interest in only the money, and not the animals, but do NOT push that blame onto the people who work directly with the animals.  Have you ever spoken to a trainer at Sea World? Have you ever talked to the Husbandry staff at your local aquarium? Have you taken the time to ask the zoo keeper some questions about their job? or about the animals they look after? How many of them lit up when they talked about their charges? 

I may be biased, but I volunteer at an aquarium. I’m in the education department, but I have friends in Husbandry. These people adore their animals. We have the same people looking after the otters, or the sea lions.  All of them light up when they talk about some goofy thing the animal did. They love the animals.  I got an opportunity to speak to a dolphin trainer at Sea World.  This young woman told me she was living her childhood dream, and there was just so much joy in her face when she talked about her job.

At the aquarium I work at the animals are fed the same quality of food that you and I eat at a top notch restaurant. Yeah, you know the kind of gourmet 5 star restaurant quality food that Gordon Ramsay(and most gourmet chefs for that matter) cooks with? That kind of quality, except the husbandry staff leaf through all the contents of the boxes of food, and throw out a lot because it wasn’t good enough for the animals.  Good facilities do this for their animals.

And this brings me to another point. Rehabilitation. Some animals CANNOT be released into the wild. What ever the situation, there’s countless scenarios that could have happened, sometimes health conditions that don’t allow the release of the animal.  For example; A bird with a broken wing, a dolphin with a chunk taken out of it’s tail fin, a sea otter with an auto-immune disease. Sometimes captivity does some animals good as they can live life in comfort, and gives them a chance to be ambassadors for their species. Let’s face it, in humane captivity the animals get it pretty good, free room and board, free food, free health care, someone cleans up after you and sometimes a free lay. 

Training.  This is a thing about captivity that gets a lot of people thinking that it’s cruel.  I’ll make this easy to understand. It’s not cruel when done correctly. Training an animal is like P.E. class for a student. Also because animals can’t speak, a slight change in their execution of a command can alert the trainer to a possible health problem that can be addressed accordingly. Training also engages their minds.  Notice how the animals that do get trained are very intelligent, thus they need to exercise their brains too.

I’m a great supporter of humane captivity.  It really irks me when people protest the idea when they have no idea what they’re talking about.  So before you go on ranting about how horrible captivity is for animals please do your research about the specific facility before you do so.