Hugs and Skritches…

Posted July 28, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furries, Off-topic
Tags: ,

379animal_avatar75—I appreciate you, my loyal, intelligent, and off-beat readers!–As of July 27th, we’ve had over 40,000 hits on this blog, reaching up to 769  hits on a single day!—Foxsylvania has been listed as a growing blog and on lists of “better blogs” (whatever they are), and it’s all because of you!

When I started Foxsylvania and was getting three to seven hits a day, I almost packed it in…sure am  glad now that I didn’t!  Hope you’ll forgive me now if I indulge in something that we furry types do in moments of extremity every now and then…<GROUP HUG!!!–AARGH!!!>

‘Scuse me, I lost my mind for a minute…I’m sure I’m gonna be sore after that one, but it’s a good hurt, right?– All I wanted to say is, thank y’all for reading…and I’ll keep doing whatever it is I’m doing here if you keep on reading…Why be normal?!

…alrighty then, carry on, and try to look busy!

Comments: 1 Comment

Chain Saw vs. Mountain Lion!

Posted July 27, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal occurrences, animals, furry, strange happenings

images— In an incident reported July 17th, a Colorado man used an 18″ chainsaw to successfully fight off a mountain lion that attacked him during a camping trip with his wife and two toddlers in northwest Wyoming!  The adult male lion was described as being emaciated and showing other signs of starvation when he pounced on the man, an ex-Marine…Semper Fi, Dude!

The camper met the lion head-on with his chainsaw running, inflicting a six- to eight-inch gash on the lion’s shoulder and suffering only a small puncture  wound on his forearm.  Knowing when it was outmatched, the lion ceased the attack.

The mountain lion was later killed by wildlife officials after it attacked a dog brought in to track it.  Rabies tests were negative on the mountain lion, although other diseases have not been ruled out and starvation seems likely to have contributed to his unusual behavior…

(…chainsaws:  good  for cutting wood and predators down to size!   And remember…when chainsaws are outlawed, only outlaws will have chainsaws!  <fires up a big Stihl chainsaw…BRAPPP!>  Bring it on, baby, yeah!)



Comments: 2 Comments

Something Fishy Goin’ On?

Posted July 25, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: cartoons, furry heroes, trends
Tags:

Aquaman— Believe it or not, there appears to be a live-action Aquaman movie in the works, with the star yet undecided!  Aquaman has come a long way since his rather insipid portrayal as a whale-summoner in old ‘toon shows like SuperFriends; more recent incarnations have portrayed a superhero with an edge;  buff, wounded, and with some anger issues. The poor guy was one of the few without a secret identity; he was always Aquaman, 24/7!

Movies are also being planned for The Green Arrow, and even a Bizarro (Superman) flick! –And get this:  they’re trying to convince Cher to play Catwoman! She always did strike me as having feline qualities…

…it’s a great time to be alive, right?  😉

Comments: 5 Comments

“In Search of the Real Cujo”

Posted July 24, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, furry, trends
Tags: ,

feral dogs— MonsterQuest seems to be straining a bit to come up with new material, and the new season opener was not a strong muchless a dazzling entry; we all know that there are feral dogs out there, some abandoned pets, others wild for generations.

The problem is a real and serious one, however, with significant wild dog populations reported in Detroit, Toledo, East St. Louis, and other cities in the midwest. Large packs of territorial predators prowl the streets, often disease-ridden and aggressive. This is not a breed-specific issue but rather one of human mismanagement; yep, ole homo sap botches things again!

In 2005, a map of canine DNA was established.  MonsterQuest drew blood from some feral dogs that they succeeded in caging, and found genetic traces of Pit Bull, German Shepherd, and Rotweiler lineage, as well as more remote traces of other breeds; mixing the genes of more aggressive breeds with feral dogs yields potentially undesirable behavioral traits.  MonsterQuest also used a camera on a collar or “collar-cam” to monitor the daily location and activities of wild dogs, finding that the packs tend to hang in wooded areas as well as abandoned homes; again, no great surprises.

As urban decay accelerates in the troubled economy and people flee the cities, the problems posed by feral dog packs are increasing.  An attack by a wild dog occurs nationally once every 40 seconds, some resulting in deaths…

Comments: 2 Comments

Taco Bell Chihuahua Dies!

Posted July 23, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, Brilliant but twisted, cool things, furry, furry heroes, television
Tags: ,

taco-bell-240— Jeez,  you  can hardly turn around these days without another beloved celebrity passing away…and so once again we mourn the passing of one of the truly great furry ones, Gidget, the former Taco Bell chihuahua, who died of a stroke Tuesday night at the age of 15.

Yes, Gidget was really a female playing a male dog who was voiced by Argentine-American actor Carlos Alazraqui!  The commercials featuring the chihuahua haven’t aired in nine years, essentially killed by a rash of political correctness.  In their peak in the late 1990’s, the canine actress traveled by limo and went first-class in planes.  Following her retirement, Gidget is said to have lived “like a queen.”

The hugely-popular commercials which immortalized the phrase, “Yo quiero Taco Bell” drew the ire of Hispanic watchdog groups which claimed that it promoted stereotypes, and demanded that the commercials be taken off the air.  I, for one, never saw the chihuahua as being anything but hip and cool, an articulate and bright furry spokescanine that could be appreciated on a variety of levels.

In one late commercial of the series lampooning a variety of fast-food spokesmen, I’ll always remember the chihuahua driving up in a tank, and saying, “Hey, look what I found!”  Rest in peace, Gidget…you were among the best!

Comments: 2 Comments

Longest Eclipse!

Posted July 22, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: historical perspectives, science
Tags:

eclipse— If you missed today’s solar eclipse that was visible across much of Asia, tough luck; there won’t be a longer one until 2132!  In parts of Asia, today’s eclipse lasted as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds, the longest since July 11th, 1991; it will not be equaled again in this century.

A solar eclipse is a celestial event historically met with a mixture of awe, excitement, and fear; in Hindu mythology, an eclipse is caused when a dragon-demon swallows the sun.   More than one soon-to-be-boiled missionary in hack writing has been saved by conjuring up knowledge of an impending eclipse to intimidate a primitive native population…

Comments: 1 Comment

Foxes in Detroit!

Posted July 21, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, environmental, furry, humor

Detroit–My people are moving on in…to Detroit, that is.  That’s right, the Motor City!  ‘Ya see, Detroit had a population of 1.8 million hyoomans in 1950, and it’s down to 900,000 now.  With the big economic meltdown and GM goin’ belly-up, Detroit has an unemployment rate of 23%.  Bad for hyoomans, good for us foxies; we’re movin’ in, ‘ya see.  We figure we just might be able to do somethin’ wid da place…

…you can find my people now in untended lots, houses, and buildings.  Seek us in your weed-filled lots and in the shadows of long-abandoned factories.  The riverfront is good for us.  We kinda like it here, and plan on stayin’ indefinitely if the hunting is good and we can raise our young.

…of course, we just might re-tool your factories a bit to grind out lots and lots of Volkswagen Foxes, making improvements on the old design as we go.  The combination of German engineering and vulpine  stealth and cleverness just might make us ready to move into your other cities, too…the liberation just might be at hand, perhaps in 2012…Ahahahahaha!

Comments: 6 Comments

Lunatic…

Posted July 20, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: historical perspectives, space
Tags:

Buzz— On this 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, it is sobering to think that a significant number of Americans believe that Buzz Lightyear was a member of that Apollo 11 mission crew…

Comments: 2 Comments

Think Green!

Posted July 19, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: comics, cool things, Off-topic
Tags: ,

Green Lantern— Woo hoo!–The Green Lantern is coming to the big screen!–Just not real soon…think June 2011.  At least we’ll get a chance to see it before the Mayan calendar runs out in December 2012…

…yeah, I know that a lot of you guys are big Marvel rather than DC comics fans, but one can live in both universes…Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, right?–Anyhow, the Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds in the title role will be shot in New South Wales, Australia, presumably beginning in November 2009.  For those of you who can’t wait until then, a DVD feature-length Green Lantern animated adventure will be available soon.

For those of you not familiar with Green Lantern,  Superman was born a hero, Batman became a hero, but Green Lantern was chosen to be a hero…see, he’s been granted a mystical ring that bestows him with otherworldly powers, as well as membership into an intergalactic, multi-species squadron tasked with keeping peace in the universe.  The ring has to be changed in a lantern every so often (you know how re-chargeable batteries are), hence the title…and the ring, once charged, projects a green energy that can transmute to matter, and basically do almost anything.  There is also an accompanying secret oath that I’ve had memorized since childhood.

…so “let those who worship evil’s might,” beware the power of Green Lantern’s light!

Comments: 2 Comments

Humboldt Squid Beaching!

Posted July 14, 2009 by vulpesffb
Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, strange happenings, unexplained
Tags: ,

humboldt

— They were having a terrible, no-good, very bad day in La Jolla, California.  First there was a 4.0 magnitude earthquake centered 19 miles out in the ocean, then dozens of 3-to 4-foot long Humboldt squid weighing up to 40 lbs. washed ashore and flopped around, dazed and disoriented and probably appalled at California’s real estate prices…

…then to add to the eww factor, seagulls swooped in and started feeding on the squid! — How’s that rate on the grossness scale?  This caused well-intentioned beachgoers to try and save the squid (gotta be a T-shirt slogan there!) by tossing them back in the sea, and we’re talking big, wet, slippery, heavy squid here!  The squid were so loopy by this point that even when thrown back, they tended to wash ashore again.  There’s no helping some cephalopods…they just don’t listen.

So a fun time was had by all, excepting, of course, the squid.  Water  temperature inversions rather than the earthquake could have been the cause of the beachings…calamari, anyone?


Comments: 3 Comments

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