Franklin

One aspect about owning reptiles that is not so great is live feeding. Hugo's diet consists mostly of insects and you can't really expect a wild animal to wait for his prey to die of old age after they had a long, happy life. And I guess you could say it's not a big deal, because they're just bugs, anyway.

But, weird as some of you are probably going to find this, we're still trying to be nice to the "food". Which is something they're not going to appreciate, because by the end of the day they're still gonna get dusted with yummy, healthy vitamins and calcium and thrown in the reptile tank, but at least we're feeding them until their time is up. And we respect the tough fighters. :D

You see, every once in a while a locust will manage to escape. They'll make it out of the tank, possibly even survive the attacks of our cats and suddenly you find yourself with a scared, battered and beaten up bug in front of you, which has absolutely nowhere to go. And then you can pick it up and say, "you've made it this far, now you're gonna be someone's dinner."

I think that's pretty horrible. Yes, they're only bugs and the only reason they were born was to become food at some point in life, but the little guy didn't ask to be eaten, he didn't sign up for it, he made his way out of the tank, battled our cats and then you want me to punish him with death?
Nah.

For as much as I'd love to spare every single one of our bugs, I can't exactly tell our lizards to stop eating. But if one of them manages to get away, then we usually give them their freedom. It's getting cold outside and throwing them out right now would just be another death sentence, but if nothing else, we can keep this little guy and feed him and he can live his life in his little box. It's not exactly a great life, he'll never find a mate and one day he'll die of old age long before spring comes around. but at least he'll have plenty to eat and nobody will kill him, so there's that.

There's a brand new microphone coming my way, because I'm making video reviews for work now. People keep telling me to use my voice to make money, so that's totally a thing now. I might use it for some of my youtube videos, as well, if I'm feeling confident enough. We live in a day and age where "constructive criticism" has shifted from, "I think you could improve this by doing this and that" to "plz kill yourself". 90% of my paid work is online these days and comes with a comments section and you can only be told to kill yourself so many times until you stop giving a fuck, but I'll admit it was pretty difficult to deal with for a while.

Here's a fun fact for ya: while it's a comforting thought that most people who spam comments sections with their garbage are kids who don't know any better, it turns out that age doesn't really matter. Just do a Google search on DreamHack and their former CEO, who was laid off last week. And how he is wishing death and disease upon everyone. And yes, they're kindly asking him to kill himself and live-stream it.

2014 went by in a flash. It's almost November now. My birthday is coming up. So, if you wanna email me some topless pictures of yourselves, go ahead. Tits say more than a thousand words and should be part of every heartfelt birthday message. If you're male, money, beer, bacon or any combination of  those are equally acceptable.

-Cat