New Year starts Early

Grad, Gate, UGA and Coke got together for a new year's party.

It started early.

They partied long and hard (and didn't use many of Coke Bear's company products). Grad partied the longest and the hardest.

The next morning Grad was, well, let's just say in bad shape.

Grad Dealing with Guilt Again

Graduation Bear is still dealing with some guilt from his 'consultancy' with the hedge fund or else he has a problem again.

The pills are pretty strong given his (Grad's) weight. Sometime he actually doesn't want to be recognized. This all probably comes from the letter he received from Brandeis. They had investigated him further after the June 3 commencement speech and said they wouldn't be inviting him back.

Wile E. Coyote's Identity Crisis

Poor Wile. He had an identity crisis the other day. It is shown at this video

Eventually, he resolved it by becoming an evangelical Christian.

A few days later we had a visit from some of the J- Witnesses.

Today, I got some Old Spice Cologne for all the stuffed animals (including Wile E. and the Road Runner who are gifts from Beth).

Gate Liked Scenes in This Movie

Tonight was the Syfy movie Dinocroc vs Supergator.

This was the PREMIERE of this made of TV movie.

Dinocroc was a 2004 movie.

In Dinocroc vs Supergator, one of the actors is David Carradine (of Kung Fu TV and other fame). In the movie Dinocroc frequently walks on two legs, supergator on 4 but both run about as fast as a speeding car. At the end, the two fight and it seems as if Dinocroc wins (Gate didn't like this).

Supergator was a 2007 movie.

Graduation Bear, Commencement Speaker

Graduation Bear put on some extra clothes and went to Brandeis to give a special Commencement Address to the graduates getting their degree in Communications.

He mentioned that they should enjoy the post graduation parties and mentioned that he has his own consulting practice now. However, he was a bit sketchy on how this came about.

It was something like, "... and then after graduation, I got a job with a prestigious financial firm and, yadda, yadda, I now get fees for consulting."

Gator Used to Sell Skin Cream

Yes, Alligators are photogenic.

So much so that one company uses gator images to sell a skin cream. Apparently, it keeps the skin moist and keeps out UV rays.

But it doesn't give you alligator powers or they would have said that too.

The youtube version of the advertisement is here.

Mixed News for the Coke Bear Family

The Image is from the February 2010 storm.

The Coke Bear family got ambiguous news today. The Coke Corporation announced a 19% increase in profit (09 1st quarter to 10 1st quarter). However, this was less than analysts expected.

Sales by volume of carbonated beverages were down, sales by volume of uncarbonated beverages were up because of sales overseas.

The article from Yahoo financial is here. Below is an excerpt:

Worldwide case volume rose 3 percent, with international case volume growing faster at 5 percent. The company has been courting international drinkers as their economies improve by pitching its drinks as an affordable luxury. In North America, shoppers cut back on such purchases in the recession.

Eurasia and Africa led international growth, with volume up 11 percent. India's volume grew 29 percent and Turkey's 18 percent.

Elsewhere, Brazil's volume gained 12 percent. The flagship Coca-Cola brand posted double-digit growth in Russia, Egypt, Brazil, India, Vietnam and the Philippines.

About three-fourths of Coca-Cola's revenue came from outside North America in the quarter. North America is the world's biggest soft drink market, but it has been weak as people shift to juices and teas.

Total case volume -- including soft drinks and juices -- fell 2 percent in the quarter. But soft drink volume declined 1 percent, less steep than previous quarters. The company credited its marketing campaigns for the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics.

Sales of uncarbonated drinks such as water, juices and teas fell 2 percent in North America. People have been switching to those drinks because of health concerns, but the company noted people are cutting back on these purchases because of the recession.

Uncarbonated drinks grew 8 percent worldwide, driven by a 12 percent increase outside North America.

Gate Savors the Weather Outside

Alligator doesn't like cold and snow and in the image he is pondering the deep snow of February 2010 (from the relative warmth of our Florida room- which is typically 10 to 20 Degrees warmer than the outside in the winter).

Of course not all creatures can be inside. Specifically in Florida there was apparently a big decrease in the python population. As much as 50% of the pythons died because of cold weather in Florida.

He is the word from the AP, through the WTOP.com site,

No pythons caught during Fla. hunting season

April 16, 2010 - 1:35pm

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - An unseasonably cold winter in Florida may have taken care of what python hunters could not.

Not a single python has been caught since the state started allowing hunters with special permits to track them on state-managed lands around the Everglades. The season started March 8 and ends Saturday.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says cold weather is believed to have killed up to 50 percent of the pythons....

(Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.).

Another Heroic Dog

Although it is a Labrador, UGA should be happy that one of his species is getting the animal version of Victoria Cross (its called the Dickin Award) for valor (in this case bomb sniffing). The dog's name is Treo and he is now retired from the job of bomb sniffing. Apparently this has gone on for some time. However, this dog was especially photogenic.

UGA might be unhappy however that no dog has gotten an award for interrogation.


Information from this article

According to this other article, recipients of the award in the past include 32 pigeons, three horses and a cat.

Dog Brings Home A Snake

From Australia comes news of a dog who brought home a snake.

Here is a quote from the news article,

"The champion obedience dog stunned his Victorian owners when he recently returned to them to proudly show off his latest find.

Locked firmly in his jaws and coiled around his snout was a long, live snake, believed to be a deadly copperhead.

"He's normally an excellent duck dog but he'll pick up absolutely anything and return it to us, hanging on to it until we say 'give'," Deborah Allen said."

The article is here.

Another Win for UGA

Another News Headline for UGA to Like

In Florida there was another pro dog story.

A fire that the owners think may have started when a cat knocked over a candle led to a dog barking that alerted the owners to the fire.

Dog saves family from fire that cat started

The article is from a TV station (an NBC affiliate) which took the image of the dog that appears at the top.
alerted the owners to a fire.

Gate Uses His Influence

Gate Uses His Influence at the US Dept of Interior

Gate once worked at the Fish and Wildlife Service. Lately he has been using his contacts there and his influence at the Office of Legal Counsel to get the Dept of Interior's policy changed.

"... Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recently announced plans to ban the import or interstate transport of nine snakes that are not native to the United States: Burmese and three other types of pythons, boa constrictors and four different kinds of anaconda...."

This quote is from an editorial in the NYTimes endorsing the new policy (which Gate had something to do with also).

A Snack for an Alligator

The recent cold weather in Florida has had a number of effects on exotic fauna. Pythons and iguanas (such as the one on the left) have been dropping from trees paralyzed by the cold and numerous tropical fish have died. As stated by a spokewoman for Everglades National Park,

“A lot of these invasive exotics come from southern climates, and they won’t be able to withstand a cold spell for this long,” said Linda Friar, a spokeswoman for Everglades National Park. “And as they die off, the native species, the alligators and birds, are happily consuming them.”

I'm presuming the alligators first warmed up before the consumption.

The invasive exotics are discussed in the NYTimes article before the quote,

"....Then there are the cold-blooded invasive visitors from warmer climes — iguanas and pythons. Both started out as pets before reproducing into the thousands once set free by reckless owners and hurricanes. Now, scientists hope, many will have been killed off by the cold...."

The quote from the spokeswoman is from here.

"How do you not fall into the 'all God's Creatures' category?"

The other day we were doing the grace after meals and came to the part in the first benediction about how God provides food for all his creatures.

When Alligator or UGA is doing grace after meal with us they get very excited at this point and jump up and down. But that day we had the stuffed pumpkin farmer. It seemed to me that he didn't fit into this category because he is a composite of two things that do exist, pumpkins and farmers but the composite doesn't actually exist (except for the stuffed animal).