notes written upon accidentally accessing internet porn

i was at work, looking up information about dholes. Dholes are asiatic canids. i am interested in the origins of domestic dogs, because it ts thought that humans made dogs and to some extent dogs made humans - we may not have had successful pastoralism without them. But dogs are not descended from wolves. What happens if you back breed dogs, is you don't get a wolf. All over the world dogs are let loose, and breed, and the result is a tan coloured, medium sized, prick eared dog like a dingo. Or a dhole. South East Asia has many such dogs, and they live with humans in an earlier version of the relationship, keping down mice and seeing off intruders, in exchange for scraps and some rough-hewn protection.

So i was at work looking up dholes and i found a site caled family pictures of dholes, and i scrolled down pictures of dholes, and dhole habitat, and cartoons of dholes, and then i came upon a picture of a thin blonde woman performing an indecent act upon a very largely endowed man of recentAfrican or Melanesian descent. Horrified, i called my work colleagues over. There was some hilarity. One female colleague thought it was a rather huge amount of chocolate. The picture was enlarged. There was further hilarity. She then thought it was probably a pepper grinder. Even more hilarity resulted. By this time i had, with some further hilarity, realised that i had accessed a pornographic image at work. Even more hilarity as i was told people had been sacked for less (it's true!) and i will never work in this town again.

i am now left with two issues. One is whether or not to confess to the Powers that i saw the image, with all its appalling racial stereotypes and resulting hilarity. Clearly the site abut dholes had been tampered with, as the picture was nested into paragraphs of text about dholes and other pictures of ... dholes, actually. We know the internet is not safe by any means, but we do not expect to access this stuff at work when WebMarshall forbids Photobucket and Flickr and all sorts of innocent material. In the end i took advice and did a big fat nothing. After a while i will stop feeling uneasy. Time is such a distraction.

Oh, the other thing. Never again will i look the same way at my husband's large dark wooden...


...pepper grinder, as it sits grinning evilly at me on the kitchen table. For my dining pleasure...

enGagement

Today was the day Gage the Police dog died in action, in a street not far from mine, in Linwood.

Gage, his handler and another officer were looking for someone and the officers knocked on the door of a neighbour. Suddenly they were in the middle of a cannabis growing operation.
The grower's flatmate shot Gage's handler in the face, the other officer in the leg, and Gage himself was shot dead in the street. Armed offenders squad members then arrested the 'suspect'.

i knew Gage, having worked with him twice or three times in the course of my work. He was a dog of noble dispostion, and huge enthusiasm for his work. That made him slightly scary. i would wonder if he was thinking 'ooh, testicles!'. He was also as beautiful as a German Shepherd can be, athletic and charming and bright.

It is often thought that humans made dogs. Actually, dogs may have begun the domestication process themselves. Friendly canid puppies may have sought human warmth and scraps, and human children may have played with them. The relationship has always been complex and possibly genuinely symbiotic.

Once i was walking my little dog Tigger and a wandering dog was hit by a car as we walked by. i tied Tigger up and went to help, along with others. The dog screamed with pain and snarled at its rescuers. When i returned to him, Tigger was shaking with fear. i took him home.

No physical harm came to Tigger that day but he must have some sort of imagination because he felt the fear and pain of that dog. Today, after Gage was shot, another Police dog was part of the AOS callout. i wonder what it was like for that dog, passing its dead companion, doing its job, like the human officers. When we enGage the services of dogs, we ask their all and we get it. Then, we owe them, for sure.

Now the two officers, including Gage's handler whom i also had worked with of course, are in hospital badly injured. i bet there will be a funeral for Gage. His handler would have dedicated a large part of his professional and personal life to Gage. i wish him healing and courage. And i do feel sour about the man who did the shooting. i hope his weed was worth it. Reflexively, i think that the penalty for killing a Police dog should be the same as that for killing a Police officer.

Well, Gage, you were born into a human world and your lot was thrown in with ours. Thank you for your service and go well, wherever you are, there will be crims to chase and balls to bite, and nobody to tell you to stop.

Lights and sirens

i have had the experience several times of ringing ambulances for people (not myself) where i am not in the house with them and only know the situation from phone calls.

The ambulance staff ask me if i want lights and sirens. And do i want normal road speed.

So, how the hell do i know? i'm not there in the house. i may not even know the person very well.

So, i say, well shit, just don't bother with the lights and sirens and drama, and how about you order a pizza and pick it up on the way there because it is cheaper that way, and when you arrive at the house i suggest you make like repo men and turn your lights off and cruise up the drive way really really slowly...

So, no, i don't say that, because i don't know what is going on in that house and i kinda don't want anyone to die.

What i say is this.

Fuck yeah i want lights and sirens. And speed. More speed, dammit! And i want helicopters and the armed offenders squad and at least one platoon of Marines going hut hut hut...actually skip the Marines, as i've heard they've had their brains removed to make more room for ammunition. Instead, i would like the New Zealand SAS led by the awesome Corporal Willy Apiata, VC. And i want him straight from Afghanistan looking like a hero from Gears of War or something XBox anyway, armed to the teeth and all sweaty in the dusty heat. And he can take my person to the Emergency Department and all the nurses will pause and look thoughtful, and it will be me who sent him and i will say, oh yeah, Willy, yeah, good guy, no worries, real casual.

Actually i don't say that either.

But more on Willy later.