The Rat's Nest

Neil Gaiman is a writer of excellent and discriminating taste. He likes rats. Most of his books have at least one rat in them. I am presently reading his latest collection of short stories, "Trigger Warnings". I haven't encountered any rats yet, but I fully expect I will. Which brings me to this image. I won it in the art auction at Further Confusion 2007. I just had to get it because I am a rat that loves kangaroos. I asked the artist, G T Skunkrat, for the story behind this piece and he said there wasn't any. It's a fine piece, but that's where he fell down, according to Neil Gaiman, who had this choice piece of advice for artists: "Be amiable but enigmatic, and when people ask for the story behind the painting, say, "My lips are sealed." But for god's sake, imply there is one. It's the story they're buying." Of course, I'd already bought it by then so it didn't matter, and I still have it celebrate my longstanding love of kangaroos.

Courtesy of Wolfie, I thought I should let you rats know that there is a documentary on ABC's iView called Mark Lewis Season: Rat which is about "the remarkable and intelligent rats of New York [Of course, all rats are remarkable and intelligent--MML] and their ongoing conflict with another successful mammal, Man." This is by the director of Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (also available on iView), so it promises to be quirky and off beat.

Hurry! These documentaries will only be on iView for a limited time.

EDIT: We've seen it before. It's actually a tabloid-style hysteria piece with not much in the way of serious natural history that sets ristin off ranting about how much New Yorkers exaggerate. (I myself have great respect for New York and its inhabitants, though I am still slightly bewildered by it. I guess, in spite of my protestations, I'm really just a country rat at heart.) Also, iView is only available to Australians. Those who are very keen could try to find an Australian anonymous proxy so they can sneak in but proceed at your own risk. :/

(Well, this rat may not need one, but it would certainly help. o_O) Brisbane researchers have mapped 66km of streets around St Lucia by writing software that mimics how rats navigate and plugging a webcam into it. Go rats! (And then tell us how you got there.)

Several months ago I reported a new rat species, now I'm pleased to announce the rediscovery of a rat species after 112 years! Yes, the very cute greater dwarf cloud rat is back with us once again, after having been found by a team of Filipino and American scientists. This find further emphasises how important the Philippines is to the world of biology, especially to rats. Lawrence Heaney, Curator of Mammals at the Field Museum and Project Leader, said, "The Philippines may have the greatest concentration of unique biological diversity, relative to its size, of any country in the world."

As should be obvious, I just love Second Life. Part of what I find so appealing about it is the amount of control you have over how you look and it's not that hard to grasp the basics of how to do it. Over the past few weeks, I've done my latest round of changes to my avatar and probably have reached a temporary point of stasis. I thought this would be a good opportunity to share the latest fruits of my labour. The main changes are I've finalised my whiskers (yes, I'm meant to have more on the right side than my left), added ventral fur and added texturing to my tail.

EDIT: Added a close up of my tail so you can see the texture.

( Includes 3D computer animated rat nudity )

For a comparison, this is what I started with back in July of last year.

Having gone a few weeks without posting, some of you may be wondering what's up. Although me not posting for a long time can be a sign of depression, it is not conclusive. :) In fact, on the furry side, my life is great! I've been rediscovering Second Life and was recently accepted into the Furry Vermin club. I'm very proud that they took me into their dystopian, militaristic sim even though I was going about in the fur at the time. I'm sure a certain very special squirrel by the name of frynge had something to do with it. ^_^ To celebrate, I thought I should make some clothing more in keeping with the theme of the sim. I don't want them to think I'm just a bit of fluff they keep on the side. ;) They have some genuinely tough-looking rats there, but I was going more for a wannabe look. I'm still just a cute rat at heart.

This news story is doing the rounds of LiveJournal. I know because there were three posts in a row that all mentioned me. :) I'm glad furrypaw was at least polite enough to point out I'm a clean rat.

Typical. The rats were hiding when I was there, and the moment I leave they come out and play.

The remarkable jackrat has done his very first RatCast, for rats and other rodents. There are some really good songs in this (not least by JackRat himself) so do give it a listen even if you're not a rodent.

(quillblade must take the blame for coining a new species name.) Tremble in fear as rose_quoll demonstrates what a ferret-rat would look like.

I've been fairly bursting with rat pride lately. I've stood up for my species on Second Life, and I even defended the honour of scavengers at work today.

To celebrate, I made a "Proud to be Rat" montage today for my profile. It's intended as a sort of homage/tribute to Rose's "Proud to be a furry" sequence, also in my profile.