It's Not Easy, Being Green

I think that I've decided that green isn't. There really isn't any color there, but our eyes think that no color at all is boring and would make them feel useless. So they interpret the lack of color for us.

The consequences if they didn't would be horrible, though, you have to admit. No more green means I'd try to walk through the huge wall instead of using the door to get to the next room, and end up hurting myself pretty badly.

I wouldn't ever know if my plants were doing well, or if someone had snuck in and stole them in the middle of the night. I'd end up watering them, hoping that it was doing some good, until the day I decided they must not be there any longer, as there's no chance I could manage to keep a plant alive for so long. But once I stopped watering, of course the plant would die, proving that it had been there in the first place by changing to brown.

I'd also no longer be able to wear my green shirts, of which I have a few, or my green flannel, which is the only flannel I have anymore, since my blue one decided that adding a few holes would be an interesting experiment in the conservation of matter. I'd have to wear some other color of shirt for obvious reasons. I'd have to find a new flannel, as this one would have gone missing ages ago.

And, of course, my eyes would probably be right. If they're not willing to show me what's there, what good are they? They'd be pretty boring, and I'd start using them less, instead developing my sense of hearing and practice echo-location.

I don't want to have to sleep upside down. I'm glad I can still see the color green.

Not Really Paranoid

I may not be the center of the universe, but there sure seem to be a lot of people that pay attention to me. And it's not just because I'm a somewhat tall American guy living in Shanghai. Or at least I don't think so, 'cause it seemed like lots of people payed similar attention to me in California.

That, and it's harder to notice I'm a tall American guy while we're driving along in a taxi. But apparently someone does. I thought they'd stopped looking out for me when we'd left America, but sadly, I was wrong.

In America, ambulances, police cars, cars with horns, bicycles with those bells, anything that's got at least two distinct tones seems to know exactly where I am. As I approach them, they play at one tone, the higher, and after I pass, they swap to the lower one. It can't be explained by physics and wavelengths, it can't be that my ears are simply having problems.

No, obviously people simply know where I am.

Of course, I suspect that the guy a few cars in front of me thinks he's being watched. For if the sound changes when I'm passed by, he's got to think it's because they notice him and just have delayed reactions.

It's not paranoia when the sound changes every time, right?

Conservation of Energy

It's getting hot out. Not that that should really surprize me, but somehow I suppose that it does. So it's getting hot out, and I'm not really sure what I should do about it. I could try walking around with a refridgerator strapped to my back, but I don't think I'd manage to get very far. And even if I did, I'm not sure that would really end up helping the heat any, unless I also hauled around a power supply. But that'd probably have to be gas-generated, since batteries are really heavy. And gas is so expensive now that it's probably worth living with the heat instead of hauling around a gas-generated refridgerator's power supply around with the refridgerator simply so I can get a glass of cold water whenever it's a bit on the "too warm" side of the scale.

I guess then that I just have to live with the heat and try to head for cooler areas when it starts to warm up even more in a month or so. But still, with all this heat, there's got to be something that can be done. And given that I've apparently decided that I can't really keep myself cool, I'll simply have to remember that for the back half of the year, it's going to start to get too cold. Much too cold, and the apartment enjoys leaking like a screen door on a submarine. But at least it makes a lot more sense. So maybe I can simply attempt to conserve the heat until a rainy, cold day.

It's much too hot out right now, but as soon as I perfect my heat-bottle, that won't be a problem any longer. I can then capture the heat, protect the heat, and use it to warm up my home when it's twenty-seven below outside. If the bottle's big enough, perhaps I can even keep it from being twenty-seven below outside.

But then I'll probably be outlawed in some congressman's attempt to win votes by stamping out global warming. Outlawed and stepped on with a really big boot. Or at least smacked with a really big rubber smiley-face stamp. All because of the heat. But at least then I'd have other things to occupy my mind.

How /do/ you remove that much ink, anyway?

Hungry, Hungry Sock Puppets

I missed a whole month. I'm not sure how that happened. Sure I've come close before, but still, a whole month? Three birthdays, an airplane ride, lots of running around in my car and various other activities. Not enough sleep, too much work, and generally remembering to brush my teeth. But add all that up, and it can't come anywhere near the time that's passed since last I tested the waters. Add all that time up, and it can't be more than a day or two.

I missed a whole month, and I'm not sure where the time has gone. It's flying by, it's speeding through, it's gone way before it was ever here. I try to catch it and realize I'm grasping at the shadow it's leaving as it flits its merry way along past a streetlight three towns away.

But it's a streetlight in a town three towns behind me. For time's only flying by when I look backward... when I turn my gaze the other way, things seem to get stuck in a bog of molasses mixed with some quick-drying cement. The next month seems to stretch out as if it were a decade, and time, instead of flying by, is a turtle carrying the weight of the world on its shell. A turtle that was frightened by the time flying behind me, and is now hiding inside of the shell that's covered in the weight of the world. A turtle that, frankly, isn't moving very fast.

Yes, time would be crawling, if it decided to speed up some. It'd speed up and pass. But that doesn't help me answer the question of what happened to the month that I missed. I've even looked between the cushions of my couch, and it's not there.

I'm starting to fear it's been eaten by a sock.

The Secret Valor of Chickens

Of all the creatures in the world, the chicken is by far the most brave. For anyone that gives this any sort of thought, it should be obvious. Yet, sadly, chickens have gathered a bad name. In fact, they have gained a name meaning the opposite of brave. They are generally thought of as, well, chicken.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Was it to get to the other side? Or perhaps it was running from a huge evil monster and the road just happened to be in the way. Without asking it, we'll never know. And if we do ask it, it probably won't tell. Chickens are wonderful at keeping secrets. No matter how much you threaten, no matter how much you try to get an answer from them, a chicken won't talk. A chicken will never share a secret. I know people that've blabbed because someone looked at them meanly. But, no, a chicken you can always trust.

If only more people could be chickens.

That would solve a multitude of our problems, not the least of which being that people are stupid. Even if they're a stupid chicken, who's going to give a chicken a job keeping track of The Red Button? Who's going to trust a chicken, of any intelligence, with escorting a visiting princess around town? Who's going to give a chicken any of these fun jobs that I think I'd like to try someday? Nobody. So if more people were chickens instead of people, the world would be a better place. Because people, as chickens, could be stupid without harming the rest of us.

Until it is realized just how special chickens really are. Then they might be voted in as our overlords. In which case I wouldn't want the stupid people to be chickens any longer. But if the people could turn into chickens, there wouldn't be much standing in the way at that point to turn them all into ducks, or tuna, or maybe an amoeba or three.

Yeah, more people should be chickens. At least then they'd be able to properly /earn/ their bad name.

Boot to the Head

They tell me the dodo is extinct. They tell me they used to be around, but now they're all gone. There are no more. They tell me the dodo was too stupid to live.

I say they're wrong.

How could they expect me to believe that the dodo is too stupid to live. Ok, I admit, anything that would allow itself to be called the dodo would have to be pretty stupid. But what proof do I have that they allowed it too happen? If they're not around anymore, they can't do anything about it, and how do I know that they were called dodos while they lived? I don't, and I highly doubt it.

Being "too stupid to live" is a poor excuse for me never getting the chance of seeing a dodo, too. I know /lots/ of people that I'd put in the "too stupid to live" category, but they haven't been removed yet. There're even laws contrary to natural selection. But where are the laws against killing dodos? There's not a one! So I say it wasn't that the dodo was too stupid to live, I say that mankind feared the dodo and their plot to take over all of the string factories around the world, and shipped them all off to a small colony on Antarctica where they spend their days making shoes for corporate America. That's what I think happened to all the dodos.

So if you see a dodo, stay clear. I'm sure they're a bit miffed at this point, and obviously, they've got to know the proper application of shoes.

Red Light. Green Light.

I can't claim to understand.

So I went driving tonight, drove up to the city. I went dancing up there, but that's another story. Anyway, I went driving. Driving, city, as expected, there was this stoplight. But that's about where the proper expectations ended.

I so don't understand.

So I pull up to the stoplight, and as I approach it turns from green to yellow to red. Of course. Not really what I was hoping for, but common enough, I can cope. I was planning on swapping out my CD anyway.

I really don't understand.

Because about half a second after the light hit red, it went back to green. It's not that there was noone waiting. In the oncoming turn lane, there was a car. So there should have been a left turn for them. In the incoming lane, there was a car, so they should have had a green.

I truly don't understand.

But neither of those cars got to go. Nope, my light changed. From red to green. Right after changing from green to yellow to red.

I won't ever understand.

But that doesn't mean that I'll like it any less.

Pennies In Heaven

Some people say that the stars are like the sun, big masses of incandescent gases, gigantic nuclear furnaces. Of course, if I believe that, it also assumes that I believe the sun is a big ball of flaming goo too, and I'm not sure that that's something that I feel like believing in today.

In fact, I know that I don't feel like believing that the sun's a big ball of flaming goo. Or goop, or anything else for that matter, for fire is so much more fun and interesting to both look at and to play with than is the sun. Growing up, I was often and repeatedly told, "Don't look at the sun!" But how many times was I told, "Don't look at the fire!"? None! I was often told, "Don't play with fire!" But how often was I told, "Don't play with the sun!"? Never!

So I refuse to believe that the sun is really made up of a bunch of fire. Maybe it's a giant flashlight as someone tries to search for their missing marble, maybe it's a huge glow-worm inching its way toward the planet. Maybe it's the moon's magnified reflection. I don't know.

But I do know that I don't believe it's a huge ball of flaming goo. And since all the stars are just like the sun, but smaller, they can't be tiny huge balls of flaming goo. I rather like to think they're quarters, and that they get there from my couch, 'cause I know I had a dollar in change the other day, and my sofa isn't willing to give it back to me.

Give Me Fun, Not Physics!

Some cats are fairly intelligent. They know how to open doors, that clean laundry is the most comfortable place to take a nap, and that a bed that someone else is sleeping in is warmest on that person's head. Other cats..aren't. But the less-intelligent energetic cats sure can be fun! Of course, the laser pointer is the bane of any stupid cat. Well, if they have enough energy to care to notice it anyway.

It sees a dot on the floor, it knows there's something there, something invading its space, something that needs to be..removed. So it begins stalking it. Prowls around, looking for the best angle to attack from, finally crouches, wiggles its butt a few times, and then pounces. Now in the best case, the laser pointer is pointing toward the cat, so it manages to get its paws "covering" the dot. In the more fun case, the pointer is coming from behind the cat, so its head gets in the way mid-pounce.

Of course, if its head gets in the way, it aborts its pounce, knowing that it missed its target, and starts prowling again. Which means it moves just far enough that the dot appears..right where it had been. The smarter cats will try this a few times before giving up, realizing they can't catch the dot.

The others can keep this up for hours.

Of course, they'll finally manage to get the dot "covered" by their paws. Where they'll either notice that the dot is /on/ their paws, not under it, and do this "paw-over-paw" thing where they attack the dot with their bottom paw. Otherwise, they'll realize they don't see it, but also can't feel it, so they slowly back up..only to see the dot's still there!

These are the same cats that are entertained by a speck of dust, or by birds on the other side of a window, or by wondering what that noise just was! These cats don't understand the basics of how the world works.

But they have a lot more fun!

Schrodinger's Paperweight

Watching You Can't Take It With You, I found a new use for kittens. While they're a lot of fun to play with and are apparently good for stealing energy, I'd never before thought of using them this way.

Apparently, kittens make good paperweights.

Now, I never thought that something that is as rambunctious as a small kitten, something that's so mobile and playful, would ever be able to sit still long enough to make a decent paperweight. Paperweights are required to just sit there, holding down the papers any time the hint of a breeze comes through, or any time the table is shaken due to fireworks being set off in the basement.

Kittens seldom seem to just sit there. They may nap for a couple of minutes, but then a butterfly flutters around three blocks away, and they're off to see what that small flash of color is. Or thunder will start booming, and they'll run and hide. Or they'll start playing with a friendly speck of dust. I assume it's a speck of dust, anyway.. it might be a ghost, either way, I never really see anything.

But then again, kittens will occasionally just sit there. When you're getting ready to sit down and eat, it's already there in your chair before you. Or when you want to go to bed, it's taking your pillow. Or laundry comes out of the dryer, and you can't do a thing to keep the kitten away. So, yes, there are times that a kitten would be a good paperweight.

The problem is those times are when you want it to move.

Once you want it to be a paperweight, you have to not want it to sit on the papers. Which makes the whole exercise fairly pointless. I say it's easier to just use a box. Then you may not know if there's a kitten inside the box or not, but at least it's holding your papers down.

Do I Believe in Me?

You've lost faith in yourself! Isn't that rich? A god who has become a self-atheist!
Baba Yaga, _Enchantment_ by Orson Scott Card

The ancient world had oodles of gods. Between the Romans and Greeks, there were gods to cover anything imaginable. Apparently there was even a god for mildew. But in most of the stories about large pantheons, the power of a god comes from belief in the god; once people cease believing, the god ceases to exist.

So that causes one to wonder, is a god's belief in itself enough to keep them going? (It also begs the question of which came first, the gods or the people that believe in them? I think it was the chicken.) Or does another god's belief in it keep it going? Could the gods form a coalition of powerful beings, a group of mutual belief, keeping them going for centuries after mortals cease in believing?

Would the gods then be powerful enough to create new gods, just by believing in something that didn't exist yet? Would they actually care about people believing in them? Would this be a source of infinite power? Could they then make unlimited rice pudding?

One would assume not. Otherwise they wouldn't have sold out to so many writers, allowing themselves to be used in horrible novels, just to be remembered. They should have at least held out for made-for-TV movies!

The Name Game

After meeting someone, introducing yourself, exchanging names, a common statement is something like, "Oh? Huh, you don't look like a Fred" (or George, or Anne, or Henry, or Jessica, or Erin, etc). I've never really understood that, though. How can someone not look like whatever their name is. Are parents supposed to know what their child is going to look like when they grow up before choosing a name? Or is it just expected that certain types of people will name their children certain ways? But then why don't I look like my brother?

Sure, I could understand this for certain people. I'd think it'd be a fairly common occurrence for some guy to hear, "Oh? You don't look like a Sue to me". An even more common occurrence would be for Sue to get into a fistfight, probably, but I can understand people being unable to quickly accept that that face and that name could go together. But for generally common names in America, about half of the people anyone will meet could easily have that name.

Really, what is a name? It's not a descriptor, it's not based on you as a person. It's chosen for you when you're born so your parents don't have to stand on the back porch at dinner time shouting "My third son, dinner!" Without names, lots of kids would end up getting incredibly overfed. So they are very useful. But I still don't see how a person could belong to an otherwise distinguishable group, based solely on their name.

Of course, it's entirely possible that my problems come from my inability to connect /anyone's/ face with their name. Except maybe mom's cat. I don't know.. I haven't run into him in a crowd yet.

I must agree, though, that names are useful. Without them, phones would be much more difficult to use, teaching (and giving grades) would be a pain, life would be so much more difficult. But please, don't tell me that I don't match my name. I've had it for quite a while now, I think it fits fairly well. I even manage to answer to it half the time it's used. And who are you to say I don't look like a Rumplestiltskin? What does one look like, anyway?

Unicorn of the Sea

The aquarium (yes, I love fish) has a sign in their new shark exhibit. Something to the effect of "Sharks are the unicorns of the modern era". But how can that possibly be true? Sharks are real and unicorns weren't, right? Or at least that's what I always believed. But the people running the aquarium know more than I do about many things, and sharks are (hopefully) one of them, so maybe it could be true.

Were unicorns real creatures at some point? Did the roam the land the way the sharks roam the sea, being drawn to blood, ferocious animals that everyone feared? Were unicorns seen as the most vicious of animals, hunted to extinction to protect families from the constantly looming threat of being gored when they least expected it? Did unicorns stalk their prey, the tip of their horn the only thing visible, warning them of the doom at hand? Did merchants sell unicorn teeth to tourists visiting the forest for the first time?

Mayhaps sharks are really just a myth. Maybe there's some benign creature out there, something that afar appears to be this deadly evil. Perhaps noone has ever died because of a shark, all of the stories have been made up, imagined, designed to keep children from running out and playing in the ocean while their parents are safely sleeping. It's possible that all of the pictures were faked, all of the stories fictitious, all of the fear created and not due to something that's real. Plausibly sharks will be the creatures of myths years after they're discovered to just be a variety of tuna, their shape and size appearing changed by the refraction of water.

Truly, though, the quote is supposed to be taken more literally. There used to be no sharks and many unicorns, and over time the unicorns changed. Being hunted out of the forests and off the plains, the only place left, the only place safe was in the water. Through the years, the unicorn lost its horse-like appearance. Being a magical, mystical creature, of course, it can do that. As time passed, the unicorns became sharks.

How many stories about sharks /were/ there when unicorns roamed the earth?

Lower Rent

Any time someone mentions aliens, the thought that pops into my, and probably many other peoples' heads, is "Little Green Men." There have been other types of aliens proposed (and reportedly seen) since, but it is no mistake that the most popular version is little green.

Photosynthesis is one of the highest changes on the evolutionary scale. Somewhere after telekinesis and the ability to not watch wrecks in the other lanes of traffic, we as a race will finally be able to refrain from eating, instead just having to sun-bathe. Something that many people do already, preparing themselves for this inevitable future.

Sadly, we as a race are too intelligent for our own good, we have cause evolution to become stagnant, we've stopped the need for change. We've begun changing our environment instead of letting our environment change us. And if we don't learn, it could make the next few changes planned for us take ten-fold the time.

Yes, it might be uncomfortable in the meantime, while we adjust, while we let evolution take its course. But for progress to occur, two generations must agree. We and our children must refrain from eating, must allow evolution to supply us with our energy through the sun.

And when, finally, we have gained this skill, when we must eat no longer, we'll have more time free for the better things in life. Us, our children, or our children's children, however long it takes.

And we'll need a handful fewer square feet in our apartments, so it should lower the cost of rent. If we no longer need to eat, who's going to need a toilet?

Language Woes

Words are wonderful (full of wonder), and a ton of fun to play with. Suffixes and prefixes and infixes and any other kinds of fixes add so much extra meaning to words, they allow so much extra depth that could by added via a myriad of other words. Instead of having to memorize a ton of definitions, we instead can just remember a few, and combine them in new and interesting ways.

Of course, taken to the extreme, this will lead to a 1984-type language, in which words can be removed from the language, words which do have extra depth or shades of meaning, because they aren't politically appropriate. But as long as we can retain the extra words, with different meanings and shadings, we can manage to not only keep our freedom, but also converse intelligently with a variety of people. So getting rid of the extra words would be double-plus-un-good. But having the ability to extend the meaning of a word is even better.

Of course, with our complex language (as with many a complex language since the dawn of time), our language has the capability of being both ambiguous and also a lot of fun to play with. Not as much fun as the Romans, maybe, with their oracles that could say pretty much anything and make no sense, but be taken as incredible wisdom and a great prophecy.

And then, even better, when the prophecy was fulfilled (filled to fullness?) they could look back and see that, well, yeah, the oracle's nonsense could have meant things to work out that way.

No, English is much harder to do that with. It can still be played with, the things that you can do with it are pretty amazing. But it still makes me feel aweful.

The Mystical Mole

Shortly after the invention of wheels, back when dinosaurs still roamed free and disco was the dance of choice, there was a tribe of pre-computer humanoid-types. This tribe, like most tribes at the time, had odd worship habits. Some worshiped the sun, others various types of plantlife. This tribe, though, worshiped the mole.

Out of love for the mole, across the footpath into their village, they created a mound of dirt, as if a path had been dug displacing dirt underneath the road. This mound caused them to pause upon entering or leaving the village, remembering their chosen deity. They were amazed at the magnificent power of the mole when later that summer, a "cart" from a distant land came through, and slowed upon entering the village. They knew that the mole must be known to others in distant lands!

Because of that, the decided to go forth into the world, to find their lost brethren. They departed, and went to join other tribes across the world. Yet, they also knew that non-believers would ridicule them for their faith in the all-mighty mole, and so they should keep their beliefs secret. So the followers of the mole infiltrated the other groups, keeping their origins and purposes secret.. but yet, they remain, to this day. Many modern establishments even retain the memory of this long-lost deity, building altars that must be passed before entering.

Cat Capacitor

I like kittens. Fuzzy bundles of joy, they're so much fun to watch and play with. But there's one problem with them, that I see. Now most people probably don't think that it's a problem, and actually think it's good. But that's because most people aren't me.

Kittens have way too much energy.

It's not possible that something that small and fuzzy can possibly have that much energy on its own. It can't be storing it up, otherwise one would expect to see kittens walking around with their hair sticking straight up. So I think that kittens are master thieves, stealing energy from their unsuspecting victims. When it starts purring, that's just the sound of it sucking energy from the nearest available source..generally me. This is why I'm so tired.

But I don't blame them, they can't help it. They learn, as they get older, to control themselves. To pull energy from more specific sources. Their purr gets more mellow. And they do /try/ to generate energy. Why else would they spend so long licking themselves, building up huge reserves of static electricity, unless they had some way to convert it into a more usable form?

So even though kittens constantly drain my energy, I still love them. They're so much fun to watch, and make much better use of the energy than I. And it's nice to know I'm good for something, even if it's just a cat's capacitor.

A Vase is Like Flowing Water

Trying to introduce children to physics, you can get some pretty odd questions. Some insightful, others..less so. But all of them are fun, and help you think on your toes.

For my favorite demo, Newton's first law, I often will tell them that the vase, just sitting there, _wants_ to keep on just sitting there. And had used pretty much the same line for a couple of years before one kid finally asks me, "How can the vase want to just sit there? It can't think, can it?"

Pause. Think.

Err, well, no, it doesn't think. But still, that's what the vase is going to do is just sit there. It has the possibility of randomly moving, similar to how things have the possibility of spontaneous combustion. Or bananas being able to quantum tunnel. But it's so unlikely, it's simply not going to happen. But how do you explain all of this to a six-year old kid? Probabilities and fun math and all sorts of stuff, when I'm not exactly sure of a really good answer, or even "why" myself. I just know, well, that's what it wants to do, don't ask me what it means for a vase to want something!

"Well, it wants to just sit there, like how water wants to flow downhill."

"Oh, okay."

Content, and apparently confident that he now understood the secrets of the universe, he took his father by the hand and moved on to watch someone else shatter a racquet ball.

And I was content that my view of the universe is capable of satisfying the curiosity of a six-year-old.

Hills... Of... Doom!

In one of my intro physics classes, I learned that "there's no such thing as a sucking force." However, around the same time, I also learned that gravity is a myth, the earth just sucks. I tend to believe the latter theory. Regardless if which is true, though, one thing is certain--things generally prefer to go downhill.

I however, think that most things are silly. Sure, it's much easier to go downhill. Fall, and then you get to roll all the way to the bottom. However, getting there in one piece is much, much more difficult. Given the choice of walking uphill or downhill, I'd say that it's much nicer to go uphill. Walking uphill, you have to work against the full effect of gravity, overcoming it so you end up with no downward acceleration.

Walking downhill, however, you still have to work against gravity. But you also have to work with it, to the point that gravity pulls you downhill just as fast as you're wanting to go. Yes, this does mean that you have to apply less of an uphill force. However, you still have to apply the uphill force, while walking downhill. In essence, to walk downhill, one has to apply a backward force, while still moving forward.

Unless, of course, you're wanting to get downhill really, really fast. Which is painful, and often not the preferred solution.

As such, I continue to find the people that complain about walking uphill amusing. I'd much rather walk uphill through the snow both ways than get horribly bruised falling flat on my face and rolling to my doom.

The One Squirrel

Driving down the road, many people have had the experience of hitting a squirrel. Several years ago, however, I learned that there's actually only been one squirrel that's ever had the experience of being hit by a car.

There is, in fact, only one squirrel.

The squirrel is a very special animal--most people think he's rather stupid, especially after having just run one down. He'll run back and forth in front of a car, seemingly unable to determine which way to best avoid the behemoth bearing down on him. Seemingly indecisive, he ends up getting hit. However, the squirrel isn't actually being indecisive, he's trying to figure out where best to stand that the car is unable to avoid making roadkill. For you see, there's only one squirrel, but he's very special.

He travels through time.

Most of us do travel through time. Born on the 72nd of Checkuary in 2164, we travel forward, live our lives, and then are done. That's how most creatures tend to work. But not the one squirrel, he can travel both forward _and_ backward in time. He can't push a button to switch his direction. He does need help to switch which direction he's traveling, though.

He looks for a car.

He'll wait by the side of a road whenever he's needing to switch directions again. Minutes, hours, days, he's got all the time he needs. But when he finally sees one coming, he prepares himself. He jumps. He runs around, trying to get hit, trying to stay in the path. And finally it comes. He gets hit. He switches directions.

He's roadkill.

Or he was roadkill.. depending on which way he's going now.

(I'm not really sure where I first heard this theory, or even if I assisted in its design. But I still favor it whenever I see squirrels running on the road.)