A.C. Flory's Blog, page 18

Do Giraffes Have Horns?

To answer that question, allow me to hand the blog over to Robbie Cheadle, one of the most creative people I know. Not only does she write, create fondant [icing] art, paint, make Youtube videos, and take amazing wild-life photographs, she is also a fabulous Mum who knows a heck of a lot about giraffes! [And hyenas]Take it away, Robbie. Why giraffes?

Giraffes are my favourite Southern African animal. I love them because they have beautiful liquid eyes, long eyelashes, and are graceful. I call them the classical dancers of the veld.

One of my most memorable interactions with a giraffe occurred during a visit to Pilanesburg National Park in the NorthWest province of South Africa. A male giraffe came right up to my side of the safari vehicle and said hello.

How do I know it was a male giraffe? Look carefully at the picture and you will see that the ossicones (columnar or conical skin-covered bone structures on the heads of giraffes) are bald.

Male giraffe saying hello

Both male and female giraffes have ossicones which are cartilages hardened to bone. Giraffes are the only mammal to have horns from birth although the ossicones of a baby giraffe (calf) are not attached to the skull at birth. The horns lie flat on their heads like soft cartilage. This is to prevent injury to the mother during birth. Soon after birth, the ossicones begin to grow and change from cartilage to bone and by the time the giraffe reaches sexual maturity at the age of 3 to 5 years, the ossicones will comprise of only bone and will be fully attached to the skull.

The ossicones of a female giraffe are thin and tufted with hair while those of males are thicker and become bald on top due to fighting or necking. Male giraffes fight by swinging their long necks at each other hence the name of necking. The process of fighting causes the bones of the ossicones and skull of male giraffes to continue to gather boney deposits that add weight over time. This enables the male giraffe to deliver heavier blows during necking contests.

A giraffe’s ossicones also help to distinguish species of giraffe. Some giraffe species grow additional ossicones on their heads. The northern giraffe and reticulated giraffe are both species that tend to grow prominent additional horns.

A beautiful giraffe in the late afternoon at the Pilanesburg National Park

Thanks, Robbie. I’ve always admired giraffes but knew nothing at all about them. And I bet I wasn’t the only one. Which brings me to ‘Neema the Misfit Giraffe’:

I know Neema is meant for children aged 2 – 9, but I suspect a lot of adults would learn a thing or two about giraffes as well. What is the story about?

Neema is different from her fellow giraffes. Their lack of understanding make her feel unwelcome. Neema sets off on a journey to find new friends.

Includes illustrations, photographs, and links to video footage of giraffes, as well as fun giraffe facts.

‘Neema the Misfit Giraffe’ is going to be very popular with kids and adults alike, but before I provide links to the book, I’d like to say how impressed I am with your artwork, Robbie. I was gobsmacked to learn that you painted Neema’s cover, but then I had a look at your art gallery and fell in love with this:

I confess that I’m one of those people who can spend hours watching cat videos on Youtube, so of course I fell in love with this big boy! I was rather taken with the hippo too.

Okay, for those who don’t know Robbie, this is her bio:

Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published fourteen children’s book and two poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

The eleven Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie and Michael Cheadle have recently launched their new Southern African Safari Adventures series. This series is aimed at teaching young children about the wonders of Southern African wildlife in an engaging and interesting way. Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews.

And now for those links I promised. You can connect with Robbie on:

Website

https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

Blog

https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

Twitter

Tweets by bakeandwrite

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA

This is the trailer Robbie created for Neema:

Youtube trailer for ‘Neema the Misfit Giraffe’.

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

And last but not least, some purchase links for Neema:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Thanks, Robbie. I’ve really enjoyed this post and I’m sure everyone else will too.

cheers,
Meeks

Tinkering with the Tukti

This image isn’t finished yet, but I’m really chuffed that I managed to get the two little Tukti to ‘tell a story’ :

In case you’re new to my blog, the tukti are the little guys. The big red creature is the Six of Needlepoint. The Six is a rank six Vokh – hence the title – who discovered that the tukti can communicate telepathically. As the tukti are considered to be food animals by the Vokh, this discovery has far reaching consequences.

In the image above, the little tukti on the right is Little Miss. The tukti on the left is Big Brother. After Little Miss is captured by the Six, Big Brother attempts to rescue her. Brave but not so smart.

Okay, that’s me for today. I hope you have a pleasant weekend, wherever in the world you may be.

cheers,
Meeks.

My first video bloopers

I’ve been making housing videos on the EU server [of ESO] for a couple of months now, and in the process I’ve made friends with two gamers who both have a wicked sense of humour. This is our 1 minute collaboration:

The Castle is a long video walkthrough/story that just went live today.

Enjoy,
Meeks

In praise of MMOs – or why older adults should play them

Before I talk about why you should play, I’ll start with some definitions:MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online [game]. When you play an MMO, your character – i.e. your avatar – exists in a permanent, digital ‘world’ online. He or she lives there along with thousands of other characters. Some of those characters are controlled by players, some are controlled by the game engine and are like extras in a movie.Most MMOs allow players to fight, explore, gather materials, craft items from those materials, buy and sell items, and chat to other players. I do all of those things.Most MMOs are designed to be both ‘Player vs environment’ [PVE], and ‘Player vs Player’ [PVP], with the player choosing which way to play, and when. This means that players who just want to explore, socialise, and build things can do so without having to worry about the PVP aspects of the game. I’ve done PVP in the past but hated it. Now I just play against the game engine. That said, I have a couple of older friends who still play PVP despite not having the reflexes of a 14 year old.Older adults can be anywhere from 40 to 90.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you: 90. And I intend to be that 90 year old. I’m currently 70, and I have a gamer friend who’s 60, another who’s in his early 70’s and one who’s in her late 70’s. MMOs are no longer the province of pimply 14 year olds with hygiene issues.

So having established that older people can play, why on earth should they?

To answer that question I have to tell you about my Mum. She never learned to change any of the settings on the TV much less on a computer. As a result, the last two years of her life were spent inside, shuffling from her bed to the bathroom to the lounge where she would sit and wait anxiously for The Bold and The Beautiful. That was her life, and yet she was a gregarious woman who loved to talk to people.

I believe social isolation and a sense of hopelessness made Mum give up on life. Dad had health issues too, along with mild dementia, but he continued to do what he loved doing, almost to the very end. He lived to be 89. If not for a fall, I believe he would have made it to 90 easily.

Before the pandemic, I taught computer literacy in a retirement village. My best student was 92 and computers gave him a window on the world outside.

And last but not least, I recently watched a TV show about a program that brought older people in a retirement village together with a group of high school kids:

Prior to the program, many of the older adults confessed to feeling isolated, lonely and depressed. Re-engaging with the youngsters improved their outlook enormously.

I talk to young people via my game every day. One is only 19.

I know that many of you are incredibly creative people who are fully engaged in life and have no time for games, but…ill health can strike at any time. If it does, and if your world suddenly becomes smaller, why not give an MMO a try?

Things never feel quite so bad when we have something to look forward to.

-hugs-
Meeks

p.s. if you want to see some of my gaming related posts from the past, click on ‘Posts by categories’ and scroll down until you reach ‘Games for big kids’. Apparently I’ve talked about gaming a lot.

My three favourite books of 2023

Click on the image above to read my take on each of these books. Or if you are security conscious and prefer to know precisely where you’re being sent, click the URL below:

https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/acflory

Whichever option you choose, you will end up on the Shepherd page where I talk about why I love these three books. If you keep scrolling down, you will see a link to my Youtube channel rather than to one of my own books. This is not the norm, but I’ve been obsessed with visual storytelling lately, so that’s where I’d like readers to go.

For those who have never heard of Shepherd before, it’s a website where authors talk about the books that they love. The idea is that if you like a particular author, you may like the books that they recommend. Conversely, if you like a particular book, you may like the writing of the author who recommends it.

This year, Shepherd has asked us to talk about our three favourite books for the year. I’m sorry to say that none of my favourites hit the top 100, but I was fascinated by the books that did. I confess, I’ve already ear-marked a few for my own TBR list.

If you’re interested in which books made it to the top 100 list for 2023, click the link below:

https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023

Fair warning though: it’s a rabbit hole that’s hard to leave! I know, because I’ve just spent over an hour there.

Enjoy,
Meeks

I used to be a night owl…

Matthew Wright’s post about the importance of night owls filled me with a strange nostalgia because I used to be one. My Dad was the same. We would always be just a little bit late for work, but we’d stay up all night if necessary to complete an important job.

But those days are gone. Hence the nostalgia. In the last ten years or so I’ve turned into a reluctant ‘lark’, getting up at dawn after too little sleep. I would love to be a night owl again.

What kind of sleeper are you?

I’ve turned comments off here but I’m sure Matthew would love to hear from you.

The importance of night owls

Melbourne – a long term vision

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I live on the outskirts of Melbourne, or that I support the Dan Andrews Labor government 100%. Sadly, the Premier is no longer Dan Andrews as he stepped down not so long ago, but his vision for what Melbourne could be continues. This is a video about our massive metro upgrade project:

I don’t know who or what B1M is, but the footage of the equipment, tunnels and Melbourne cityscape are worth the marketing gumpf that is woven into the video. I love my city, for all sorts of reasons, and I’m proud to be able to show off some of its amazing potential.

cheers
Meeks

Ben Fox…the man behind Shepherd

For those who’ve never heard of Shepherd, it’s a new-ish website dedicated to books – finding them and talking about them. The idea is that authors tell readers what books they love to read, and why. As part of the process, authors also get to talk about one or two of their own books.

I’ve been a Shepherd author for a while now, but it’s only today that I went down a rabbit hole and discovered that I really like the principles and world view of Ben Fox, the entrepreneur who started Shepherd just a couple of years ago. This is a little bit from his ‘who am I’ post:

‘I can remember the exact moment when I learned to read. I was trying to read The Snow Baby and jumping from word to word. There was this magical moment when the words came alive, and it all clicked. It was one of the most amazing feelings in my life. I read 100+ books a year, and I thank my parents for making books a massive part of my life.’ 

Ben Fox

That paragraph sent me back to my own childhood, and the day something clicked in my brain and I realised that s-a-w made ‘saw’! Why that word? No idea. All I know is that the moment was a revelation, and like Ben Fox, I’ve been devouring books ever since.

Further along in that same post, Ben talks about why he started Shepherd:

‘As a reader, I am incredibly frustrated with online book discovery.

When I look for a new book online, it feels soulless.

Online bookstores sell books like toothpaste or underwear. Something about that is profoundly wrong. 

A book is an experience, and the process of finding a book is part of that experience.’ Why am I creating Shepherd

All I can say to that is – YES! These days, discovering new books, and new authors, on Amazon is almost completely hit or miss. I am currently reading two books that are not much better than ‘okay’.

Goodreads had promise, but I only ever found one science fiction Indie whose work I can honestly say was exceptional. The last Goodreads author I tried mixed science fiction with steamy romance/erotica between a human female and a male android. I didn’t mind that the male was an android, whatever floats your boat as they say. What I did mind was that the android ‘fell desperately in love’ with its human.

Really? -facepalm- All I can say is that the author knows absolutely nothing about how humans work. Our thoughts and feelings are a combination of electrical signals and chemical signals that interact at a most fundamental level in the human brain. An android would have to mimic the exact same process in order to ‘feel’ the way that humans feel.

Impossible? Well, I once read an article that claimed the human brain was like 17 billion computers all rolled into one. Going to be fun squeezing those 17 billion into one human sized android…

Really?

Ahem

Excuse me for a

moment while I fan the steam

away from my ears…

My point, in case it isn’t obvious, is that I loathe the way I’m forced to discover books at the moment. By contrast, I love getting recommendations from authors I already admire. I may not like all of their reading choices, but I’m pretty sure the quality will be excellent! And that is important when you read as much as I do.

I found the rest of Ben Fox’s post to be equally forthright and relatable, and I think you will too. In case you haven’t followed any of my previous links, here’s the direct URL to his post:

https://support.shepherd.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406512278417-Who-are-you-and-why-are-you-doing-this-

You’re welcome
Meeks

To the 39% of Australians who voted YES – thank you.

You are my tribe.

You are the people who give me hope.

You are the people who didn’t allow apathy, and fear and yes, racism, to sway you.

You are my heroes.

Stand proud.

I love you,
Meeks

Australia, a nation united…in denial

I’m choosing my words very carefully this morning because…I believe in democracy, and the Australian people have spoken, and the word is NO.

This is a map of Australia showing how people voted. The huge pale area in the middle doesn’t count as it’s a territory not a state. Everywhere else, the darker the colour, the more people who voted NO:

I was prepared for the referendum to lose, but the enormity of this loss is almost impossible to understand. Only one area voted a resounding YES, and that was the ACT – the Australian Capitol Territory.

In my own state of Victoria, the inner, more affluent suburbs of Melbourne voted a strong YES. They are the ones shown in shades of purple. Warrandyte belongs to the division of Menzies, and Menzies voted NO:

A similar pattern is repeated in most of our capital cities, but this is how the overall vote ended up:

Most Australians wouldn’t know our Constitution if they fell over it in broad daylight, so I can’t put this result down to some deeply felt desire to protect our Constitution. The only two possibilities that make any sense to me are:

racism, orfear

I know there was a lot of disinformation from the NO campaign, much of it utter conspiracy theory bullshit – like the one that said the UN would ‘take over Australia’. These are the people who are convinced that Chicken Little is right, and the sky is about to fall in.

But I also personally know people who…see ‘Aborigines’ as drunken no-hopers who don’t deserve the government handouts they already get.

These people know nothing about our Frontier Wars, the Stolen Generations, or any of the other factors that have left First Nations people in such a terrible state.

These people think ‘I’m in a good job, I have a house, a car, a good life, why can ‘they’ do the same?’

These people can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be dispossessed.

These are the hearts and minds we have to change.

It’s time for Truth Telling.

Meeks