Showing posts with label Pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pets. Show all posts

Thursday, August 3, 2017

What Are Anna H's Answers To Your Questions About Music, Anime, & Pets?

How's it going my gumdrops? Today I am answering more questions. Like I have said in the past, I normally reserve Q&A blogs for September 23rd. Next month, on the 23rd will be the 4th anniversary of It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns.

Since a number of my subscribers typically have a lot of questions to ask, I have been trying to decide if I should do Q&A blogs more routinely.

Here are 3 questions from Victor. Victor asks the following:

1) Have you ever listened to a song, that you liked but you can't remember the artist or name of said song and would get it stuck in your head for hours hoping to remember the artist's name?

2) What brand of anime do you like that are of your taste buds? (Dark Comedy, Horror, Gritty Grindhouse, mature shows, etc.)

3) Did you ever have pets when you were younger and wish you had seen them one last time?

These are excellent and fun questions to answer, Victor! I am actually glad that you asked them. To answer the following questions you asked:

1) Yes! This has happened, since childhood. You would be amazed at the many times throughout my life, that I have heard songs but didn't know, who sang them. This is something most of us listeners face at least once in our lifetime, I'm sure.

After watching commercials that advertise music compilations, if not watching a classic music video on MTV Classic (nowadays), I'll usually say either, "Oh! So that's who sang this song! I always thought it was ___," or something similar.

In fact, I was in the middle of watching MTV Classic the other night and saw the music video for the song "Broken Wings." I always thought it was Don Henley's growing up. It turns out it was Mr. Mister, who sang "Broken Wings."

Interesting enough, Mr. Mister DID actually go on tour with Don Henley, The Bangles, The Eurythmics, etc. during the 1980's.

Also, the Indie Grebo Industrial Rock band, Pop Will Eat Itself. For the last 2 decades, I never knew who sang the song, "Ich Bin Ein Ausländer," meaning "I am a foreigner"  in German. 

When 102.1's Radio DJ, Raven hosted her radio show, Industrial Nation on late Saturday nights, she played Industrial Metal and Electronica remixes of Rock songs. 

It wasn't until a year or 2 ago, that I learned the name of this band. To be more specific, Raven used to host her Saturday night show, Industrial Nation, in my hometown at New Rock 102.1, during the mid to late 1990's.

2) When it comes to Anime, I try not to limit genres and sub-genres. I watch a wide variety of Japanese animation meant for both genders, different age groups, sexual orientations, etc. both English subtitled and dubbed.

Lately, I haven't had as much time to watch as many as I used to because I'm busy both on and offline. I still have yet to stream xxxHolic in its entirety. However, I am currently watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Tokyo Ghoul, and re-watching Naruto Shippuden dubbed in English on Adult Swim's Toonami block.

If I had more time, I would stream Anime again. My biggest complaint about both Cartoon Network and Adult Swim these last 5-9 years has been, that both only care about Shonen Jump Action Anime.

Because of these restrictions, both networks have bred a lot of ignorant, entitled, and highly misinformed sycophants and zealots for fans in America.

Toonami only represents Action Animation specifically meant for teenage boys. It does not represent the female demographics. 

Those currently running Cartoon Network AND Adult Swim intentionally alienate most of their viewers regardless of their age and gender.

Colours TV was the only network that represented a wide variety of Anime genres for both genders. 

Even though Colours TV was a highly syndicated multi-cultural network, it STILL aired Shonen, Shojo, Comedy, Romance, Action, Mystery, etc.

Cartoon Network and Adult Swim could afford to tear a page out of Colours TV's book. Colours was EXTREMELY  lowly-funded. Although, those running it were still able and willing to air something for most types of Anime fans.

3) Yes, I've had 3 dogs and 4 guinea pigs, during my youth. I haven't owned any pets for the last 13 years. 

Pets require a lot of time, money, energy, and care. I always took care of my guinea pigs and they normally lived for at least 5 years.

After my last dog, Alexis had to be euthanized in 2004, I stopped wanting pets. I hate the fact, that my pets normally died around Christmas.

Who wants to wake up to dead pets on Christmas Day?

I sure as hell don't. I don't want to be in tears on Christmas Day because my pet died naturally or was euthanized without being told about it, until the very last minute.

I REALLY  wish I could've seen my dog, Mendy 1 last time before doing my high school final exams before Christmas Break, almost 2 decades ago. After coming home from school and learning, that he was euthanized, I cried my eyes out.

Hopefully, all 3 questions have been answered Victor. Since I mentioned Pop Will Eat Itself, here is their music video for "Ich Bin Ein Ausländer."

Pop Will Eat Itself "Ich Bin Ein Ausländer" Dos Dedos Mis Amigos (1994)

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

What's So Funny? Rory The Guinea Pig Makes Me Laugh!

How's it going my gumdrops? Are you in need of some laughs, during this stressful time of the year? 

I'm not a huge, self-righteous, political activist about loving animals like many people are today, however I do love most animals. This especially includes reptiles.

Over the last several years of being on social media sites, many have annoyed the hell out of me with their cats. Today's cat lovers tend to regularly act like they gave birth to Jesus. 

This may sound harsh to say, but some cat owners can be just as annoying as those proud parents, who think their children can walk on water and turn water into wine. 

Apparently, some of these cat lovers feel like acting self-righteous and morally superior to others because giving birth to children is somehow BENEATH them. Ugh! Enough is enough already! Give it a friggin' rest!

Aside from the preceding rant, I have chosen to share something cute and furry for laughs. Today's blog is more of a tribute to a friend/subscriber from Blogster. 

Scottster has been having a rough time on Blogster. Surely, most of my Xangan and Blogsterian friends/subscribers are familiar with that problem, which is all the more reason why I only comment on their pages compared to blogging on Blogster, now.

Meanwhile, I stumbled upon this cute and funny YouTube vlog last week by Rory The Guinea Pig. 

Briefly voiced by Ricky Gervais, Rory read some of the hilarious insults about his physical appearance from his Twitter account.

Before watching that video, here's an informative Animal Planet segment about guinea pigs.

Animal Planet's Pets 101: Guinea Pigs

At the age of 7, my mother bought my original guinea pig, Christopher. Christopher lived for 5 years. 

After acquiring mite, he started having scratching seizures and had to be euthanized. 

For my 13th birthday, my mother bought my 2nd guinea pig, Fantastical. He was the craziest guinea pig I ever owned!

Fantastical seemed more like a human trapped inside a guinea pig's body. He constantly strategized ways of climbing outside his tank. 

As I was leaving my bedroom years ago, Fantastical literally climbed on top of his water bottle and hung from the rim of his tank. With good timing, I luckily bolted over to catch him from falling.

The next incident involved my youngest aunt and I eating breakfast, in our living room. We sat on our living room floor at the table, while watching MTV and monitoring Fantastical in his cardboard box that we carted him in for babysitting purposes.

Once I let Fantastical outside his box, he strolled across our living room floor and BIT  my aunt's bacon. 

Had she actually set her plate on the living room table, he would've been unable to reach it. 

Fantastical biting my aunt's bacon was hilarious! He almost lived an entire year. He would have lived at least 3-4 years longer had my great-grandmother's evil friend not put some Juju on him.

At 16, I bought my last 2 guinea pigs. Altivo (meaning "superior" and "haughty" in Spanish) lived for only 3 years. Ookii (meaning "big" in Japanese) lived for 4 years. Between the 2, Altivo was my favorite.

I believe I favored Altivo more because of the way the other guinea pigs mistreated him at Pet World. I saw another guinea pig bite his face and he started whining. I REALLY wanted to reach over that cage and smack his bully on the butt!

A month later, I bought Ookii and he became Altivo's next bully. The bullying was to the extent that I had to buy 1 extra cage to separate them from each other. 

Altivo and Ookii only shared a cage together, whenever I had to clean their cages every so many days. Had they always shared a cage, I believe Ookii would've killed Altivo.

Even though Altivo was my favorite next to Fantastical, Altivo would sometimes get an attitude with me. I made a joke about using his body heat to keep me warm and he got angry. Altivo's cheeks looked inflated and he started grinding his teeth.

I didn't say I was going to kill him for his fur or anything! I only joked about using his body heat to keep me warm and he took offense to it!

Psychologists claim that animals don't have feelings. I don't believe that for a second! I know when animals are happy, sad, angry, etc. 

After joking about using Altivo's body heat to keep me warm, he snubbed me! The next day, I went to take him out his cage and he literally did his paw at me!

Altivo looked like he told me, "Talk to the paw cuz I ain't listenin'!" 

I had a Michael Kelso moment from That '70s Show. You know those scenes of Kelso shrieking, "Oh!"? 

Yup! That was my reaction to Altivo giving me "The Paw." Talk about rude!

After giving me that attitude, I snuck up to his cage and flashed him! Within seconds, Altivo literally did a 360 bolt around his cage.

His 360 bolt around the cage was a slapstick moment. It was hilarious much like Fantastical sneaking and biting my youngest aunt's bacon.

Years later, Altivo and Ookii for some reason died days before Christmas. Their deaths were 1 year apart from each other. I was devastated when 3 of my 4 guinea pigs died. 

I was a little sad, although I wasn't heartbroken over Ookii's death. He always loved biting me.

During 10th grade, Ookii bit my ear once and I had to wear a band aid on it. 

My college sophomore year, he died, which was shortly after coming home from UW-Parkside for Christmas Break.

The year before, I cried tears and mourned Altivo's death because I watched him die, when I was in the middle of working on my Advanced Composition research paper. 

Our last dog, Alexis also seemed depressed because she viewed Altivo and Ookii as her puppies. That sounds strange, but it's true.

Anyway, I've talked enough about my guinea pigs. With that being said, here are 3 YouTube vlogs featuring Rory The Guinea Pig.

1) Rory The Guinea Pig [Voiced By Ricky Gervais] Promotes Just Sayin' App (2012)

2) Rory The Guinea Pig's Pets Add Life Interview (2012)
3) Rory The Guinea Pig Wishes You A Happy Holidays From Pets Add Life & The Talking Animals Channel (2013)