[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	David Gray - Please Forgive Me	]

Well, maybe not half way there exactly; more like a forth of the way. The betta blog's layout is complete for the most part, but I still have to make pages for the bettas... after that I'll start work on the fish blog, which will cover the other species I own. I killed my Tagboard and am going to use that space to link to the other blogs. I put up some temporary buttons, but I plan to eventually make a graphic thingy that will look much better. This blog can now be reached through Arsenic-Tea.com, so change your links, k?

[	mood	|	sleepy	]
[	music	|	The Cardigans - My Favourite Game	]

Yeah, I bought webspace. I'm a big nerd. All this means is that this blog will soon be relocated to Arsenic-Tea.com, and I'm adding separate blogs for the fish because... well, because that's all I ever talk about anyway. Nothing much happens in my life except fish, boring stuff, and science, so this blog will now be devoted to boring stuff and science. I'm going to try to keep fish talk in the main blog to a minimum, but I can't make any promises. I'm really only doing this because I'm bored and feel like making webpages; hurray for me.

I overheard someone talking about a great joke Dr. Gibson told today, because Dr. Gibson is awesome. He was carrying a vial of viruses downstairs, and he said he was "coming down with a virus." Come on, you know that's funny.

A little while ago someone made me rethink my goals in life and the path I'm on. This is where I completely disassemble the puzzle, pick up the bits, and put everything back together from scratch. I haven't done this in a while, so I was due. I can see you thinking I'm about to go on a tangent about how I've reinvented myself and plan to start over afresh, but this time the puzzle came out looking exactly the way it did before, which reassures me that I'm exactly where I need to be. I like it when I accidentally stumble upon a train of thought that reassures me I have my priorities in the correct order.

I'm just itching to tell you about all the fish-related adventures I've had lately, but that would spoil the fun for the new fish blog. The fish blog that no one is going to read, but by God it's going to look nice.

[	mood	|	tired	]
[	music	|	Cirque du Soleil - Vai Vedrai	]

Imagine, if you will, a turtle. Now imagine an amputee turtle with stumps instead of legs. Now imagine that turtle shot full of tranquilizers. This, my friends, is how slow the truck in front of me was driving today. He was driving down the road that leads to my house, of course; the extremely narrow road whose sides are so overgrown that not only is it almost impossible to see around corners, but you can barely pass oncoming traffic without having your two right wheels run off the road. Now, I understand why one might drive slowly on this road. It is dangerous by its very nature and build, but at least there's not much traffic. I drive 70 miles per hour on it. 50 miles per hour would be a good, acceptable speed; but no. This man was driving 30 miles per hour. 30 miles per hour when the speed limit is 35. I was riding his bumper like a pony.

Also, in related news, I nearly got rear-ended today. It was truly an exciting day in driving. I was just sitting at a red light, minding my own business, and had been sitting there for a while when all of a sudden I hear the screeching of tires behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror to be greeted with the sight of a large truck rocketing toward me. Luckily it stopped in time, but it was close enough for me to see the whites of the driver's eyes... the dumb, blonde, female driver who was on her cell phone. Haha, I just insulted myself with that one, too -- except I try to avoid using my cell phone while driving. Or while doing anything else.

Now for the part you've all been waiting for: fish.
Come on, you can't tell me you didn't know it was coming.

This has been an eventful month in fishkeeping. The lovely, wonderful wuvmybetta from the Tropical Fish Forums was gracious enough to send me a mini betta that turned up in one of her spawns. Not only that, but she sent me three other bettas as well!! All for less than $4 shipping! What an awesome person, huh?
In addition, Kara, another member of the forums, is sending me a small female betta so I can try to breed the mini boy! She sent her free on the condition that I send her back once I spawn them, along with some babies if the spawn is successful; which sounds more than fair to me. I can't wait! The female is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

Aristotle, my oscar, tried to escape yesterday. I was feeding him and he thought I hadn't dropped any pellets in the tank yet and jumped at my hand... successfully leaping over the edge of the tank and landing on the floor. He flopped around for a while, then laid still and just looked at me. I picked him up and he sat perfectly still until I placed him back in the tank. I'm really glad he didn't feel threatened by my picking him up, because if he had flopped in my hands, his fins would definitely have drawn blood. I wasn't expecting him to be quite that sharp... I'm really impressed that he let me pick him up like that, though. To me, that says he trusts me not to gut him and eat him.
Anyway, he's fine. No harm done.

There's a story about Marie Antoinette the midas hybrid in this update, too. I originally thought she was female, then a couple of people on the fish forum who know more about cichlids than I do thought she was male, so I went along with it. She really had started to look male, too, but it's kinda hard to tell when they're young. Anyway, she has proven she's female beyond any shadow of a doubt... she coated the rock in her tank with eggs!! They aren't fertilized of course, since there are no other fish she can even touch (she can just look at Aristotle through the divider,) but she's still protecting them with her life; including attacking the gravel vaccuum when I was cleaning their tank today. They're already starting to grow fungus, so I hope she figures it out and eat them soon before they foul the water. I would hate to have to try to take those eggs away from their angry mother.

And that's all I have to say about that.

[	mood	|	excited	]
[	music	|	Tatu - All the Things She Said	]

I haven't updated in a while because I don't really have anything much to talk about. My life is boring, what can I say? At least that's how it seems to anyone on the outside looking in. Me, I'm easily amused.

My parents were gone to Canton last weekend. I could have gone, but I was too lazy to pack and whatnot. Instead, David came over and spent the night. Don't worry; we didn't do anything but watch movies and play Monkeyball on his Xbox. Monkeyball was pretty fun, even though I sucked at it and he cheated a whole lot.

I saved a little oscar from Walmart on Saturday. He died though, because he was in such bad shape. I saw him when they got him in on Wednesday, and he was beautiful... but by Saturday he was pale, hiding in the corner, and had a huge cut on his lip. I took him home hoping to nurse him back to health, but at least he got to die in a nice clean tank with warm water.

On that note, someone from the Tropical Fish Forum sent me some bettas!! I had asked if she wanted to adopt out her mini betta, and to my surprise, she sent me four fish for a mere $3.45 shipping! I can't wait. I don't know what the other three are going to look like, but I'm assuming they're plakats (short-finned,) since that's what I mentioned I was particularly interested in. She was also nice enough to send a live white worm culture along with them, so I can grow them some live food! They should be arriving either tomorrow or the next day... I'm totally stoked! Her fish are really good quality, so if I wanted to, they might be worth the trouble of breeding. I have a mini girl that the mini boy could breed with... I'd like to try that and see if the babies are tiny, too.