lydamorehouse: (Default)
lydamorehouse ([personal profile] lydamorehouse) wrote2019-11-21 09:55 am

Spiteful Science (aka a Scorpio Researchs Due to Imagined Slight)

 Yesterday,  when I was out driving around, I came across our neighborhood gang of wild turkeys. I sent a video to [personal profile] rachelmanija who failed to be suitably impressed with Minnesota's mega fauna (because APPARENTLY California *has* wild turkeys, because California has everything as it is nearly the length of the entire United States and has like a zillion biomes in it,) I started to think, okay, does Minnesota have something that is so truly unique that a jaded, world-traveling Californian* would be impressed?  

Do you know what I found?

The grey tree frog, whose salient feature is that it can survive being PARTIALLY FROZEN.

OMG, Minnesota. You're a walking stereotype!!










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*I don't actually think of Rachel this way, I was just very grumpy that Minnesota doesn't appear to be as inherently (and easily photographed) unique the way that California certainly seems to be. 
dreamshark: (Default)

[personal profile] dreamshark 2019-11-21 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
That's good to know. Filing it away for the type of party conversation that a beer or two tends to bring out in geeks.

If your main concern is competing with your California friend (and what Minnesotan does not suffer from that urge) - what about moose? They aren't unique to Minnesota, but I don't think they live in California. And wild rice, if you're not restricting this event just to biological forms that can walk around and obstruct traffic.
dreamshark: (Default)

[personal profile] dreamshark 2019-11-21 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
You never know what will impress people. I still remember walking around with some visitors from Australia umpteen years ago and being startled by how delighted they were every time they caught sight of a SQUIRREL.
rachelmanija: (OTP LA: skyline)

[personal profile] rachelmanija 2019-11-21 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
APPARENTLY California *has* wild turkeys, because California has everything as it is nearly the length of the entire United States and has like a zillion biomes in it,

Hahaha. True but I am very impressed by snow.

The grey tree frog, whose salient feature is that it can survive being PARTIALLY FROZEN.

What the actual fuck.
rachelmanija: (It was a monkey!)

[personal profile] rachelmanija 2019-11-21 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Squirrel!
dreamshark: (Default)

[personal profile] dreamshark 2019-11-21 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, no biggie. All true Minnesotans can survive being partially frozen.
yhlee: A white swan with the text ASSHOLE SWAN. (asshole swan)

a different fowl

[personal profile] yhlee 2019-11-22 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
I first saw wild turkeys when I was practicing driving with my mother-in-law in New York state and I almost crashed the car because I had never seen them before and I had had no idea they were so HUGE. Mother-in-law was completely blasé, as if wild turkeys are something you find EVERYWHERE. O.o
minnehaha: (Default)

[personal profile] minnehaha 2019-11-22 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
Californians do not have the skunk cabbage, the flowers of which generate enough heat to melt the snow through which they grow.

Personally, I like to tell people the [true] story of learning to drive on Spring Park Bay, Lake Minnetonka, in the depths of winter, in the boyfriend's '66 Charger. You want to learn to do a burnout? A few hundred acres of ice and muscle car is a nice place to start. We may not be unique in pizza delivery to ice (fishing) houses, but California doesn't have that, either.

I used to have a pinback that read, "We don't care how they do it in New York." The sentiment is broadly applicable.

K.