Well it certainly has been some time since I have seriously looked at this blog. A lot of things have changed since then, take the house for one. SURVEY SAYS the number one answer for how to describe my place issss... ZOO.
With that said I proudly give you Willow, she is the newest addition to the madness. She is a Goffins cockatoo who was rescued from a Chinese home in Markham. She is 9 years old and doesn't speak a word of English. She was given to us because her previous owners couldn't stand her crying anymore and the bird started plucking, a sign that she wasn't a very happy camper. I am glad to say that after eight days in our home the only squawking she has done has been playful squawking or the 30 minutes of "I don't want to go to bed yet dad" squawking. The deal is cockatoos are noisy creatures, they require as much attention as a 2 year old child and they have the emotional capabilities of a 3 year old. They are wild animals, not pets.
The bird and I get to bond later at night when I come home from work and after dinner. I like to think that we have a game where I sit her on my knee, play an album and observe how she reacts. I try to position her in the sweet spot of the living room; the apex of the 7.1 awesomeness. Some albums have great mixes, take any Doors album for example, the sound stage is all over the place. Jim is coming out of your left and right ears, the drums are front left while piano/guitar are front right.
I played her some Edgar Winter the other day cause I wanted to see what she would do to an instrumental rock ballad. To be honest she didn't do much, that was until the drum solo kicked in; I got my phone out just in time to get this.
Haha, welcome to my 2012 video ending. Playing with video editing software and using old footage of funny stuff; that's why blogging is fun.
Last night we played some more of our game.
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| She stayed pretty much like this for the entire guitar solo in Voodoo Chile |
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| Stayed all puffed out for Flaming Lips |
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| She was all about bowing here, this was during Dark Side of the Moon |
When you have a copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and a copy of the Wizard of Oz, it makes sense to play them at the same time. Have a look.
After I figured out she likes the classics I thought to myself; what about Kraftwerk? Lol, after not even 24 hours after having posted this someone commented:
Sugoi!!!! Domo Origato for the video!
The coolest thing about having a cockatoo in the house is the day to day observations of having a wild animal living among perfectly balanced people. That and the Asianesque picture taking I do. I'm sure to post other random cockatoo stuff or love bird stuff or bearded dragon stuff, but it sure as hell won't be written all professional like. It'll be more like; holy crap I live in a zoo which is awesome style. For those looking to see and read about "you ought to know ___ if you have a bird", see the wife's site:
http://toosandtricks.blogspot.com/
She'll basically answer any questions you might have if you are looking for advice on how to troubleshoot your bird whereas I only troubleshoot the internets; or at least that's what I tell people I do.
