Hello everyone. I actually have posted before but just as I was sending, my computer crashed and I never was really sure if it made in onto the list. If not, hello, my name is steven. If so....hello my name is still steven. Has anyone ever wondered how horses can stand up while they sleep? Yeah, me neither. It's weird how dogs bury bones. I had an uncle who did the same thing but he was mysteriously arrested in relation to a series of missing persons. You know those archeological sites of roman civilizations where they discover artifacts and skeletons and remains? Dogs did that. I had a dog once but it didn't bury bones, it actually buried cats. Vets tell you that when you have a newborn puppy, you should put a ticking clock in its basket to replicate the beating of its mother's heart. That's all fine and good, but when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, that dog's going to have some serious psychological issues. "Mum! Are you alright? Why are you making that strange noise?" And then you're gonna get this new breed of dog that doesn't bark, it just goes: "Riiiiiinnnnnnngggggg!!!!!!!" (Attempted sound of alarm clock) And if you have one of those alarms that plays the radio, you're going to have one entertaining pet. I wonder if any of these puppies become police dogs? "Watcha got boy? Did you find the drugs? Oh, not another time bomb. Bad dog! No biscuits for you. Drop the bomb! Drop it!" When I was growing up a lot of my friends had cool pets like talking parrots and dogs, and with dogs especially they'd teach them tricks like fetching the newspaper and shaking hands and rolling over. At my house, we didn't have a dog, we had goldfish.called Rex. But I was still determined to teach it tricks. Every animal trainer will tell you that food is the key to training animals, so I used to sprinkle these floating fish flakes on the top of the tank, and with persistence I actually trained the fish to swim up from the bottom of the tank and come to the surface. The fish food was the only stimulus it needed. It would come right up to the surface at the very sight of the food. That was a damn smart fish. Damn smart. As the training progressed I could get the goldfish to do these crazy backflips and intense summersaults simply by placing a toaster in the water. That's all the prompting they needed. It was amazing. The thing is, as much as I would train them, they'd only ever perform that trick once. It really seemed to really take it out of them physically. That's another thing about goldfish, it's no big deal when they die. Even when you're a kid you don't care. Your Dad will say "Come on Steve, let's go down to the pet store and we'll get another one." Imagine if it was that easy when your grandma died. "Steve, the bad news is that your grandma's passed away. The good news is we're going down to the old folk's home and you can pick out a brand new one. They catch them in a big net and put them in a container with a cardigan and knitting needles. A complete beginner's package. That's why a lot of older people don't seem to know who you are. You say "Hi Grandma" and they're all confused. "Who are you?" "I'm you're grandson remember?" "Where am I?" Often when we'd come back from holidays we'd find that some of the fish had jumped out of the tank and you'd find them dried up on the ground. I often thought at what point after jumping out of the tank does the fish think to itself "You know what?.I really should have stayed in the tank. My God, how I loved that tank." Sorry my introductory mail was long. (That's alright steven. We all like you very much) Wow, thanks! What a great list. Steven, Brisbane, Australia ps. yes, my B&S content is completely limited to the subject line. I've learnt from the best. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+