For nearly the past month two of my pigeons, Soren and Marie, have been incubating plastic eggs. I did a little switcheroo on them and threw out the real eggs. The birds seem to get aggressive when I just take the eggs. Anyway they really fell for the plastic imposters. Today they just stopped nesting. It's like they suddenly figured it out. I was sort of hoping they would just continue caring for the white orbs of plastic forever. At the same time I was feeling guilty about fooling them.



Of course now that they're not distracted by eggs, there's lots of mating going on. Springtime! As you walk around and see pigeons wandering about, notice how much cooing and tail-dragging is going on. The male making his little noises around the female getting her in the mood. Though it looks like the males are harassing the females, it seems to be all part of the fun for both of them. Pigeons mate for life, so much of the time you're seeing the equivalent of a husband taking his wife out for a good time. If you're lucky, you'll see them mate, a somewhat awkward maneuver resembling leap-frogging. There is usually some after sex strutting about from both the male and female.

Posted by Nica @ 10:49 PM PST [Link]

The March 22 New Yorker's top billed article Enabling Martha reveals the Stewart's slip from genius CEO to bungling felon is just as ugly as imagined. To get an idea of just how pathetic her case became, consider that part of her attorney's closing argument was that surely Stewart wasn't trying to hide evidence from the goverment because she wouldn't have been so stupid to do such a bad job of it. Surely someone with such domestic refinement would have the skills to really clean up her business faux-pas, no? Of course the response from the prosecution was that white collar crimes are often the result of bright folks acting stupid. If this "too smart to be so stupid" defense had worked, I would be tempted to start lying to the goverment while making sure I do a really lousy job covering my tracks -- so lousy, I would look innocent!

Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker article argues that the nature of her relationship with her staff caused her downfall. A stockbrocker breaks the law to win her favor. Her attorney dreads the thought of asking his client to take the Fifth. In fact she was surrounded by talented people interested in helping her, but it was to little avail. They failed her because they were too frightened of getting on her bad side to give her good advice.

Celebrity news is often information more useless than a pet cat, comforting, amusing, a good conversation topic, but little more. Ms. Stewart's difficulties are actually very relevant. It's about how easy it is to lie and pretend to know what you're doing, instead of just shutting up and letting your staff guide you.

Posted by Nica @ 12:49 AM PST [Link]

There was an anti-war rally at the waterfront on Saturday. It was a good chance for me to try out a very used 24mm lens I recently purchased. It did OK, but with such a wide-angle lens you really need to get into peoples faces to get pictures.

Posted by Nica @ 10:24 PM PST [Link]

This is another one of those things which I'm not sure if it's a joke, serious, or a little of both. You be the judge. They're being serious...right?

Posted by Nica @ 09:46 PM PST [Link]

Darpa been getting some attention on mainstream new lately concerning today's Grand Darp Challenge. It involves having contestents race across the Mojave dessert some 200 miles. The winner with a time of less than 10 hours gets $1000000.00!



Here are the results.



They need a Barbie that says, "Robotics is hard. Let's go shopping." Who would argue with that?

Posted by Nica @ 01:11 PM PST [Link]

I swear, if I worked at a sandwich shop, I would enjoy asking people, "Would you like low-carb bread with that?", then if they responded to the affirmative, I would give them a sucker punch. The Atkins diet is almost as absurd, and certainly more pernicious than such overly maligned fads like pet rocks. At least pet rocks were not suppose to be taken seriously.

Of course you can't talk sense into people on the Atkins diet. Dieting is more about religion than health. There has always been a weird connection between religion and eating. Individuals who wouldn't dream of being dogmatic concerning their vision of the Creator, will waste no time ranting like a preacher about the power of proteins, the evils of carbohydrates, and other scientific sounding scripture.

I would like to lead an anti-Atkins movement. Ah yes. I can see it. I would be leading a parade of baguette munching Atkins non-believers.

Posted by Nica @ 11:25 PM PST [Link]

I generally don't like the look of the Seattle Art Museum. It looks like a decorated warehouse from most angles as far as I'm concerned. But from some angles it's not so bad looking. It looks better in bright light. We have mostly overcast lighting around here. Maybe around here they need architects who design with flat lighting in mind.

Posted by Nica @ 12:38 AM PST [Link]

You're looking at Darkwing and Blanche. They are the youngest ones next to Claudius. This little photo doesn't do them justice. I really think they are especially good looking pigeons. I wish I had the facilities to really breed pigeons and refine features.

The two grown hens managed to both lay eggs today. What are the odds? My husband is convinced that when we take the eggs, they get stressed. So I will be replacing the eggs with plastic eggs. We'll see how that goes.

Posted by Nica @ 11:33 PM PST [Link]

I'm not much of a celebrity watcher, and I'm about as domestic as a spayed ferret, so Martha Stewart isn't someone I think about usually. She is however big news now, and I can't help but notice her presence. I got curious about how Imclone was doing now. It's about $48.00 per share. She sold her stocks at fifty something per share. Well I guess had she gotten away with her trades, it might have saved her money, but not much. Really quite sad.

Sam Waskal, the former CEO of Imclone, managed to get himself 87 months in jail for insider trading which was equally pointless. Actually, he cheated on his taxes as well.

Rich people going to jail. I can't get too happy about it all. Remember, if you have lots to lose, don't cheat. You're rich! You don't need to be sneaky.

Posted by Nica @ 12:35 AM PST [Link]