popplers

They've had to do this in downtown Troy, also. I haven't heard about any of the Crows on Tibbetts Ave. being targeted. Yet.

That is one trippy tiki.

63,800 is a LOT of crows (avian or human)! I speculate that the Dept of Ag has special "Farenheit 451" trucks that they can dispatch at a moment's notice for emergencies. Directed from from a huge secret underground bunker under Mt Rushmore, the trucks roll on our nations highways at all times, on constant patrol. I imagine a giant swiveling cannon-like laser on the roof that is swept over the flock. With it, they provide both the light, pyrotechnics, and noise and distress calls as hapless crows explode.

I guess THIS is what happens after you look at that trippy tiki painting. You start thinking cRaZy.

Don't these two statements conflict?:

"They are beautiful creatures, and we don't want to hurt them. We just want them out of our downtown," said Mayor Timothy Lattimore. "We wish them well - just somewhere else."

And...

Last year, ... 208 hunters ... who killed
1,061 birds. Crow season runs from Sept. 1 to March 31, ...

It is like when they say "This project is
critical to the company" just before cancelling it

re: truck-mounted laser cannons

Reading Poz's description conjures up visions of a huge crow rave— crows congregating for the laser light show, grooving to the thumpy bass-beat noise, and taking tiny hits of corvine ecstasy while wearing mini-glowsticks around their necks.

re: Crow season hypocrisy

The paragraph that made my head spin was this:

Crow season runs from Sept. 1 to March 31, but crows can only be hunted Friday through Monday because of a quirk in a 1918 federal law covering migratory birds.

Do migratory birds not make the commute on weekends? Are they all too busy finishing their errands at the mall?

I also thought that it was interesting that the mayor was on record, but that the person who organized the hunt was an unnamed "businessman." (Cue spooky X-Files music, cut to silhouette of "businessman" in an office. Smoke wafts up from the ashtray on the desk; zoom in a bit on ashtray and hold. Roll credits.)

Does anyone we know actually know the
"Accordian Guy"? You have go to see "Sexy Beast"
posted recently at:

http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/14/243433.html

How do you put links in the comment section?

Actually, Chris & I have both met Joey. We bumped into him in the hallway of a hotel when we were in Toronto for Worldcon in 2003. But he and I had sent email back and forth before that, after I linked to this entry on his old site. (He used to have popplers linked under his blogroll.) He's a very funny guy, and talented with the accordion. You haven't lived until you've heard AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long played on an accordion.

As far as the sexy beast… I have just one thing to say: Aieee! Aieee! They're both terrible photos, but I think the second one is even more horrifying (if that's possible) than the first.

Finally, you can add a link by entering the following in your comment:
<a href="http://www.url.com">sexy beast</a>

In Re: Sexy Beast
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I will be working "corvine ecstacy" into something I write. It's almost as good as "cellar door."

"Cellar door"?

NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday had a piece on a different NY town trying to rid itself of crows. I thought that some of the techniques were interesting: the biologist played a recording of an injured crow "distress call", which actually attracts crows (coming to its aid). Then, when the crows gathered, the guy set off some pyrotechnics to scare them away. Simple, but it works (no laser cannons/ bullets/ mercenaries needed).

JRR Tolkien:
"Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent."

'Sausage'! There's a good woody sort of word, 'sausage'. 'Gorn.'