A controversy-free post about Chinchillas
It appears that pretty much every post I’ve made to my blog in the past year has been about Mono, or related topics, and caused enormous offense, anguish, and controversy. I have therefore decided to balance it with a completely controversy-free, risk-free post. A nice, safe topic. So, ladies & gents, allow me to introduce you to Mio:
Mio is a heterozygous beige chinchilla, about eleven months old. I have two other chinchillas – her sister Mayu, and mother Miku. Mayu’s a real people pleaser, and always excited by things – which is why I’ve got her more sedate sister out, who is a little easier to work with in front of a camera – since she spends less time running around the place. If you’ve never had chinchillas, then they’re long-lived (15 years), incredibly fluffy (fluffier than any other competitor to the fluffiness throne) rodents. The fur is so dense they can’t get wet, so they take sand baths inst…
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Mio, what’re you doing with my computer?
Living with Michael Jackson? I… look, listen you ball of fluff, when I said “non controversial”, I meant it. That means absolutely nothing that could offend people. That’s the interview that killed Jackson’s career. Are you trying to get me into trouble? Can you not hear me? Got something in your ear?
Sigh.
RIGHT. Where was I? Sand baths, right. The sand is extremely fine, and helps them keep their fur clean. Oh, and Mio has a curly piggy tail, rather than the straight tail chinchillas usually have. They are terrible for being fussy eaters, so it’s important not to give them anything that encourages selective feeding – meaning hay for wearing their teeth, and pellets for th… hang on a second.
Wasn’t that interview on ITV?
Doesn’t ITV’s web streaming service only work with Silve…
…
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Mio, you’re in SO much trouble right now. No raisin for you, you bloody rodent
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:15 am
What an adorable chinchilla.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 am
That’s put a smile on my face. Thanks
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July 23rd, 2009 at 12:33 am
I think that chinchilla is a Microsoft plant. :P Don’t turn your back on it when you sleep…
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July 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 am
I can’t shake the thought that Mio looks like a tiny furry baby elephant with SCARY RED VAMPIRE EYES.
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directhex Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 am
@Marius Gedminas, Photographing animals can be tricky for someone as ham-fisted with a camera as me.
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directhex Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
@Marius Gedminas, Oh, and size may be easily confused due to the oversized 27″ monitor
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makomk Reply:
July 25th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
@Marius Gedminas, No – scary orange vampire eyes.
(For some reason, small rodents seem to have orange eye in photos rather than red eye. Well, I know guinea pigs do, and apparently chinchillas do too. No idea why.)
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directhex Reply:
July 25th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
@makomk, Well, chinchillas and guinea pigs come from the same part of the world, they’re pretty similar animalwise. Although chinchilla fur is floooofy, and guinea pigs a bit more wiry
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July 23rd, 2009 at 1:22 am
How is itv.com working????????
I’m running moonlight 2 preview 7 and all i get is the loading graphic
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directhex Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:38 am
@Dave, It’ll be fixed in preview 8
More specifically, it’s fixed in SVN revision 138424, which means it’ll be in 8
However, the reason I haven’t posted any links to pre-preview (i.e. SVN snapshot) plugins is that the ITV fixes introduced some regressions elsewhere – meaning things will break if you use this version.
I approached upstream to ask them to prioritize the site, and it’s taken a developer about 4 days to get it working, fixing six or seven major bugs (most of them related to interoperability between Javascript and C#). One bug with the site remains (no progress bar), but I’m impressed at the work, and grateful for it.
If you REALLY want access to itv.com (but don’t mind other breakage, then I can give you a link to an AMD64 plugin which runs on Ubuntu which was supplied to me on request, or an i386 plugin which will only run on openSUSE (due to libtool being broken by design).
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July 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 am
Fair enough, personaly i can wait untill 8 (plus I’m using 32 bit Ubuntu) thanks anyway :) I’m just glad the functionalities going to be available in 2.0. itv.com is the only site thats really given me any trouble under linux (especialy since 4od and demand5 switched to flash).
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July 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 am
I forgot… Nice chinchilla ;)
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July 23rd, 2009 at 1:54 am
I, for one, welcome my Moonlight hacking Chinchilla overlords
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July 23rd, 2009 at 6:38 am
No controversy except that you just flashed a poor little nocturnal/crepuscular animal in the eye with a very bright light. Nice!
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directhex Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
@nnonix, damnit, now taking photos of your pets is controversial too?
There’s no winning in this life :(
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nnonix Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
@directhex,
I just had to say it. LOL.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 am
The Chinchilla and you shouldn’t vaste time with Linux-crap. You and your Chinchilla should work for Microsoft. Just like Miguel d. I. and his Chinchillas.
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Alan Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
@Duke Ellison, Yeah, that chincilla is a Microsft astroturfing shill! I even have proof. I followed the chinchilla home and found a brand new washing machine *and* a huge sack of money waiting for him on arrival. It was obviously a plant to promote evil technologies!
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5208/moneychin.gif
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July 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I shared your Chinchilla story with my wee kids just now. They were able to get over the slightest hint of Chinchilla controversy within your post and comments below. We even replaced Chinchillas with Billy Goats in the Three Billy Goats Grruff story this morning :) Almost like what people have been doing with Mono, except just removing it. Hehe, thanks for this one.
Jimmy (pak33m)
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July 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
That really made me chuckle.. and now I want a chinchilla too.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Is this a kindergarden?
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July 23rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Or a kindergarden trip to a zoo…
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directhex Reply:
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
@Vadim P., Will there be a petting zoo? Will there be llamas? :o I want an ice cream! Ow, a wasp stung me :’(
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July 24th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Mio is an abbreviation for “Miguelito” btw. And the beast looks like the infamous red-eyed Redmond-ShillShiller. That’s a very dangerous animal killing all other animals in your house during moonlight.
Beware of those red-eyed Redmond-ShillShillers!!
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July 24th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Adorable! I had chinchillas when I was younger, some of the best pets I ever had. In addition to getting a beige from a local breeder, I had an ebony, a black velvet and several standard grays. Some old photos are on my website if you’re interested.
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directhex Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
@Elizabeth Krumbach, All mine are from a rescue in Liverpool. Certainly within the UK the majority of actual breeders are “reformed” fur farmers (which is why chinchilla shows only score animals on the basis of pelt quality), so I didn’t want to encourage that trade.
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July 30th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
They can’t get wet? Sure they can, they just HATE it – it takes too much for fur to dry, collects oily dirt, and “glues” the hairs together. They MUST have sand bath (volcanic sand) because only sand can reach the skin and leave hairs in proper state. Their fur is so thick that no insect/parasite can break thru it! 1 hair from skin “branches” into ~60 tiny hairs. About feeding – there’s no rule. Give her everything you have, and she will only eat what she needs in just a proper amount – they are VERY smart about feeding, there’s no need to “rape” them with your theoris! And this Mio chilchilla is pretty ugly – too artifical & geneticly fucked up. She’ll most probably die in 2-3 years from nervous breakdown (that’s pretty common with this “oh how she’s cute” types). If you want proper stuff, buy one from chinchilla farm – go see them all (in cages) and hopefully you’ll recognize the “fighter” type one. That can live up to 17 years.
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Fliss Reply:
July 31st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
@Smart Ass,
Well yes, that and they stand a real chance of catching pneumonia and dying, or their fur going mouldy and them dying.
Basically wet chinchilla = dead chinchilla unless it is VERY lucky.
As Hex says, very fragile rodents. Gorgeous though…
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August 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
[...] those who hate baseball and need a smile on this first Sunday in August, there’s a post by directhex from last weekend that I dare you to read and not smile [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Great idea, but will this work over the long run?
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directhex Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 12:42 am
@Chris-Muellerson, Given I’m currently the only person seeding CLR i386? I really doubt it.
Talk is cheap, and we ARE in a recession…
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