Thank Grog It’s Firday!!
Yep. Been “one of those weeks” when the combination of work, tapping, charities, and volunteerism has colluded to make my life a bit insane. And then…there was the whole iOS debacle with the Thanksgiving takedown/launch.
I’m not going to take the blame for this. Even though, there was a part of my paranoid “lizard brain” that immediately seized upon the “EA is doing this to me because of the things I have said about their lazyassprogramming (EALP) in the last event!” But, would they penalize an entire subset of players (millions of others who use iOS padular devices) just to get at me???? Well…like I said…it was likely just my “lizard brain” talking.
But, this time of year, due to a wide range of reasons, I prefer to admit to calling my “lizard brain” my “turkey brain.” It’s not that great a leap, as I’ll explain.
But with the NEW THANKSGIVING MINI-EVENT gobbling up our tapping time, it is not so much a question of IF we are going to succumb to turkeys, but how MUCH turkey we are willing to endure? And do we really want a Turkey NPC roaming our towns?
And…perhaps Lisa is on to something! Maybe it’s time to Turn Away From Turkey, and look for an alternative. If for no other reason, than to help stem the rising Rural Turkey Invasion!
Let’s begin with helping to define the direct correlation between “Lizard Brain” and Turkey Brain. If you want a quick overview of how our “Reptilian Brain” continues to shape our actions through our evolution, GO HERE. In short…our “Lizard Brain” is responsible for the BIG Six F’s in our life. These are:
- fight
- flight
- feeding
- fear
- freezing-up
- fornication
I didn’t make this up. Really.
Now, remember that in an evolution sense, birds, NOT lizards, are actually considered to be the most direct evolutionary line to dinosaurs, which mostly just “roamed” the earth. That is the primary descriptor of dinosaurs that you will read. Roaming. And apparently roaming, while performing some aspect of the Big 6 Fs, which we will call the F6 from now on.
So now, after ions of evolution, in our modern society, we have a new phenomenon of huge, rampant, packs of Turkeys ROAMING the streets of towns, small and large, and apparently growing far less reliant on Fs 2,4 and 5, while becoming more and more proficient at Fs 1, 3, and 6. NOT a good thing. Fat, happy, and fertile!
If anyone has any doubt about whether this has become a national crisis…even one threatening the VERY GOVERNMENT that protects these things in urban settings…watch these two videos!
A United States agency…and crappy Snail Mail service. OK. Maybe I get it. I want to chase our postal person sometimes too, when he crams a package into our mailbox, or brings a profusion of junk mail during the holidays.
But, they go after regular citizens as well!!
As I have written about repeatedly lately…our neighborhood is inundated with wild turkeys. Yes. There is a legal wild turkey hunting season in Oregon (and in most states in the Union), but that does little to help with the other 10 months out of the year, and you cannot hunt any game within the city limits. So, Turkeys, Deer, and all other assorted critters have figured out that they are mostly safe, by “moving to the city.” Even during Thanksgiving.
I don’t run from them. The most any of them has ever done when I approach a flock in my front or back yard, is just puff up and flash their plumage. this mostly happens during mating season, as a sign of male dominance to the females in the flock. Don’t sweat it Tom(s)…I have no designs on your women-folk.
I also don’t run, or freeze, or freak out (the 7th F?), because I am pretty good at assessing an opponent. If you haven’t really noticed…Turkeys have huge bodies, and tiny, tiny, tiny little heads, with even tinier brains. When you compare the size of the body with it’s brain size, it’s no wonder there is barely enough room for more than 6 Fs.
When I see a Wild Turkey coming at me…I imagine him saying…
But that is clearly giving the turkey waaaaaaaaaaay more credit than it is due. It likely goes through the full Six Fs line-up, before deciding that it can’t eat me, and that I am not a likely candidate for F6. It suddenly realizes, that I realize that his tiny little head, with its weird little beak, really can’t do much damage to me, if I am swinging a 6 iron from my reserve bag of golf clubs.
Let’s face it. Except in the cartoons, and advertisements for “Wild Turkey Shoots” (you see them all over the South), turkeys really aren’t equipped to hold a rifle, or do much harm, other than dig up your garden, crap on your car and hot tub cover, and chase you.
And, as far as protecting Turkeys??? They really aren’t even protective of their own flock…as I have witnessed countless times, as I use my BB gun to move them off of my roof, or deck.
Before any of you ASPCT (American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Turkeys) starts in, my BB gun is a pump action that also shoots .22 cal pellets. I never shoot pellets…and only pump it 5 times, which will make a statement, but can’t/won’t break skin, and barely gets the attention if I shoot for one of the fleshier/featherier parts of their bulbous bodies.
Anyway…I have witnessed this countless times. I’ll shoot one in it’s fat turkey behind…it will gobble, fly into the air (they DO fly by the way) and escape into the neighbor’s yard (now his problem, not mine). However, the others in the flock will not move…and barely register more than a “Hey…where’s Bob? He was here a second ago…I need to F3…tonight could be my lucky F6 night!”
I’m serious. They are as dumb as…well…Turkeys!
So, when it comes to the ASPCT and Lisa, and vegetarians trying to convince me that eating Turkey at Thanksgiving is cruel…or not good for me…or not morally correct, I say…PFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTT!!!!
You actually want me to eat TOFURKEY????? Come on…if you are so against the concept of eating meat, why do you keep making your Tofu in the shape of meat?? (Yes…they sell turkey-shaped molds for your Tofu).
I’m not going to debate this. Everyone has their own traditions. But leave your ding-dang-feather-lovin’ hands off of my Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner! After braving years of horribly over-cooked, leathery turkeys in my youth (my Mom never met a piece of meat she could’t ruin), I married a girl who has come up with a recipe that is the most tender, tasty, perfectly mouth-watering bird ever!
The entire family agrees…and any of them within driving distance, will show up here to have some. We have even made Deb make an entire TG turkey dinner the day AFTER Thanksgiving, if forced to go to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving. It’s that good.
And this year…just to test my theory that turkey’s are dumber than a brontosaurus (similar brain to body ratio), I am going to save the bones from the turkey we have at Thanksgiving…and string them together so I can rattle them at the next flock that darkens my driveway…and say…”Hey! Remember Bob???” and see if they can make the correlation. I doubt they will.
Thanksgiving…it’s a time when we give thanks for the little things in life, like the Thanksgiving Update on our padular devices! S-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Thankful that we are done with Wizardry! On to the Macy’s Parade…Santa…and all that makes sense in the world! Turkey’s be darned!!
Do YOU have wild turkey’s in your town? What is your favorite Thanksgiving meal item? Have you ever had Tofurkey? We want to know!