The Domestic Fox…

Posted February 24, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furry, strange happenings
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– – I always try to advise people that foxes make lousy pets; we sleep in too late, eat entirely too much junk food, and lounge around in our underwear, scratching.  Besides that, foxes are wild animals, as anyone who has seen us at conventions can testify!

That having been said, however, there have been a few rare cases when people have successfully made pets of foxes, although we would prefer to think that we have made pets of the humans;  you won’t catch me cleaning up after them, no sir-ee-bob!   As a case in point let me introduce you to Miss Snooks, a comely vixen in East Sussex, England who was taken in seven years ago as an abandoned cub by a couple.  She lives in her own one bedroom flat above the couple’s pet shop,

Reared by hand and used to people, Miss Snooks dozes on a sofa, plays hide-and-seek in a den of blankets, goes for evening walks, and enjoys her favorite meals of roast chicken cooked in honey.  Her custodians describe Miss Snooks as beautiful and very affectionate…but again, her case is an unusual one and a violation of the natural order.

Comments: 2 Comments

–Hey, It’s “Hood!”

Posted February 22, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: furry, movies
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– – Everyone loves a werewolf, and I’ll certainly be rooting for him in Red Riding Hood, a Gothic imagining of the classic fairy tale in which a young woman is confronted by a wolf, this time with a teenage love triangle at its center.   If elements of this sound familiar, it should be…it’s by the director of the popular Twilight series.

Only loosely based on the fairy tale, they’ve tacked some years onto the title heroine’s age so as to make her eye candy, and in general sexualized the story…but selling tickets is the name of the game!   Several trailer/previews are to be found on the ‘net, where the commentary of potential viewers seems to range from, “I can’t wait to see it!,” to (my fave) “This movie is gonna rain with bad reviews!”

Coming to theaters March 11th from Warner Brothers Pictures…

Comments: 3 Comments

Biting Humor?

Posted February 20, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, aquatic, Brilliant but twisted, controversial, humor, television
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– – I like dark humor and black comedy, but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.  For this reason, the recent Snickers great white shark commercial has rubbed some shark conservationists and shark attack victims and their families the wrong way, plus done little to dispel the erroneous notion that humans are the preferred food source for sharks.

In the commercial, a group of well-animated and voiced-over CG great white sharks are participating in a focus group where they are questioned about a “blind taste test” of people that they have just eaten.  The preferred victim is revealed to have eaten Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, while the less tasty victim had consumed peanut butter cups.

Now the commercial is intended to be comical, harmless, and light-hearted rather than educational and sensitive, and is a vehicle intended to entertain and linger in the mind so as to sell more Snickers products.  Some contend, however, that the ad was released too close on the heels of actual shark attacks in Egypt and elsewhere, and has accordingly gone too far.- -Sick or slick?  You decide!

Comments: 2 Comments

The Return of Bownessie!

Posted February 18, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: cryptozoology, strange, strange happenings, unexplained, unidentified
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– – Last September, we had posted about Bownessie, possibly a distant relative of the Loch Ness monster native to Lake Windermere, England’s largest lake.   A recent eighth sighting of the creature in the past five years has produced the clearest photographic image yet of the elusive cryptid, revealing a creature with oily black skin and three eerie humps.

The unidentified animal was judged to be about the size of three cars by the 24-year-old kayaker and his companion who observed it, and it moved at approximately 10 miles an hour with each hump demonstrating a rippling motion.

Skeptics remain unconvinced that something of the size attributed to the creature could exist in the 11 mile long lake.  Echo sounding surveys conducted each month have revealed nothing, nor have two prior sonar scans.   A lake ecologist feels that the aquatic beast could be an Eastern European catfish misjudged as to size.  A hoax cannot be ruled out as the file size of the photo, taken on a camera phone, is too small to really tell if it had been altered on Photoshop or not…

Comments: 5 Comments

Mice for Airport Security?

Posted February 16, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, science
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– – We had earlier mentioned the possible use of genetically-modified plants to detect explosives in passenger screenings at airports.  Two Israeli scientists have advanced,  however, that mice may also suffice.

Specially-trained mice have been found capable of detecting faint traces of explosive residues.  When canisters of trained mice are placed in a device and exposed to such scents, they flee to a secondary compartment, setting off an alarm.  Mice actually have more scent-receptor genes than canines, and don’t require constant human interaction.   A rat-down is accordingly a viable alternative to a pat-down.

A mouse-employing scanner manufactured by BioExplorers is less invasive than full body scanners, but requires maintenance of the mice as well as cleaning of their cages…

 

Comments: 2 Comments

Not Mickey’s Twisted Cousin…

Posted February 13, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, cool things, furry spirits, music
Tags: ,

– – I don’t know a lot about progressive and house dance music, but I know what I like, and Toronto-based electro sensation Deadmau5 (pronounced “dead mouse”) often performs in costume that includes a giant stylized mouse head , usually red in color and with strobing eyes, although I prefer the black variant, evil maus (shown above left).–Someday, perhaps more icons will be furry!

His album, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) is a personal fave, with “Moar Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” playfully creepy and hauntingly memorable with a repeating funereal theme!  It’s great stuff for those of us who like Halloween year-’round!–Rock on!


Comments: 2 Comments

GE’s “The Electric Cattle!”

Posted February 11, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, furry, television
Tags: ,

– – In one of several GE commercials for their Ecomagination campaign, we are shown “cows in concert,” touting the company’s use of Biogas Technology using, err, waste from cows and landfills to generate energy.  These cows are the rock stars at a concert that they are powering, and we are shown their hooves working a bass drum pedal, hitting a cowbell (–what else?) with a drumstick, and working a mixing panel slider.

At the end of the clip, one of the bovines even takes to trying a little crowd surfing…very mooving!

Comments: 3 Comments

Magnificent Mentos Spider!

Posted February 9, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, Brilliant but twisted, cool things, insects, Invertebrates, television
Tags: , ,

– – Short of Peter Parker, you aren’t going to find an arachnid as breathtaking as the Mentos Rainbow pack spider! The commercial introduces us to a young couple sitting in their living room when suddenly the female goes ballistic, shrieking and recoiling on their couch.  The view shifts to the carpet, where we are shown…a spider!- –What is it with chicks and spiders, anyhow?!

Anyways, the guy responds by dutifully going to deal with the spider, extending a finger, possibly to crush the inoffensive creature.  The extended digit is all our eight-legged hero needs, however, to demonstrate his profound mastery of Jujutsu or perhaps Aikido, grasping the human’s finger and throwing him like a rag doll across the room no less than three times! A shelving unit and coffee table are splintered in the fracas!  The wrath of the spider is awesome, and the human is hopelessly outclassed!

In the closing images, we see the grounded human’s body dragged forcefully across the floor presumably by the amazing arachnid as the announcer intones, “It’s better to know what’s coming next!” It’s not revealed what fate awaits the human female, but I doubt things will go well for her, either…

…Bravo, I say!  Long may this arachnid martial arts master live and prosper!


Comments: 2 Comments

Year of the Rabbit

Posted February 7, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal behavior, animals, furry
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– – According to the Chinese zodiac cycle, we are now into the Year of the Rabbit, a fact which has booted sales of rabbits in Asia and elsewhere.   Animal rights group PETA is urging consumers to forgo adopting rabbits as household companions on a whim, however, warning that the animals are often abandoned once their novelty wears off.

Rabbits aren’t just cute and fluffy, you see, but are high maintenance animals which require significant resources, equipment, attention, and veterinary care.  The group also points out that rabbits have fragile bones, require lots of exercise, and tend to gnaw on everything on sight, making them less than ideal pets for all but the most patient of owners.

Comments: 2 Comments

Wrecking Bunny Ad…

Posted February 4, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, animals, furry, plushies, strange, strange happenings
Tags: ,

We all know that it’s important to use the right tool for the right job, and H&R Block illustrates this fact in a recent commercial by showing us a demolition crew trying to take  down a brick building with a 16-foot-tall pink and white bunny…predictably, it doesn’t go too well.  Clearly, a plush bunny is not good for demolition, even a really big one.

In the “wrecking bunny” ad, people gathered at a demolition site “ooh” and “ahh” as the bunny is raised by a crane and swung toward the building.  There’s a muffled thump as the bunny impacts with the unyielding brick, crews wince, and spectators plod away with dejected looks on their faces as they realize that the plushy is not going to take the building out.

It’s an absurdist type thing, but I wind up feeling vaguely sorry for the bunny, wondering if they’re going to keep bashing him into the wall until his poor stuffing pops out; the plushy doesn’t seem to mind, however, and maintains his slight smile…what a trooper!- -Is this abuse of a plushy?- -Can’t someone rescue him?!  He just needs a good, loving home, admittedly one with a lot of space.

Perhaps in the future we’ll see other inappropriate tools used on the wall, like an enormous marshmallow or a gigantic cream-filled donut!

Comments: 2 Comments

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