home sweet home...

after being away for so long it is sort of nice being home again. i'd forgotten how nice dunedin can be. mind you it helps that it is the middle of spring here.

one of the places in particular that was really nice around here was my actual home (an outdoor version of a house you might say) the dunedin botanic garden.


in particular the rock garden by the leith (aka aqua duct... or is it duck, being full of ducks and all?) is really pretty at this time of year.

in the nice bright sunlight (which is a lot rarer during the fall and winter due to constant rain) the place is really spectacular.

man i have the best living room ever!

it was nice to get out and enjoy a good solid day of spring now while i could. i was going away again for a while (so soon too). tomorrow i'm off to canada, and a return to old home...

hopes for 08

oops i missed new years.

don't get me wrong people of the web wide world. i'm not complaining, whining, or dredging for sympathy. it's just a statement of fact. i missed new years...

it didn't occur to me that it was a new year till i got back to work today and noticed the new number behind the january. kinda funny.

rather than let this bum me out like i've been letting everything else lately, i decided to go have a post celebration on my own, right after work.

the nice part about living in a big park is that your home has lots of nice pretty places to go chillaxate on your own for any occasion.

for my almost new year i decided on a slight out of the way segment of the garden i call grassy flat. why? well its flat and made of grass. making it appealing was the amazing view of downtown dunedin past the university (my home home is on the other side of the garden so i normally don't get this view).

making this the perfect spot was a nice bench i could plunk down on after not only a hard days work (well okay the security guard gig has been slow as of late. especially with ms. rhonwyn being away and not giving me new duties for my promotion), but also a hard year.

as i sat down it occurred to me what a year 2007 had been...

the year started off almost instantly with my smuggling myself into new zealand to try and get away from the dinosaur over crowding of north america.

though that part of the plan worked the government gave me those crazy criteria i had to meet including finding a home and getting a job.

fortunately i liked my job, and loved my new home.

i made some friends too.

it seemed everything was going to be just fine, and i might live happily ever after here in dinosaur-less new zealand. why is it those kinds of ends only happen in the movies though?

i ask because it was everything started to go kinda wrong...

i found out that i choose to live right on the edge of a legendary and dangerous maze inhabited by ghost lights!

than the destroyer of all hope destroyers showed up... larry. my JERK! of a cousin.

living all the progress i'd made in new zealand pretty much mute.

which is where i am here at the beginning of 2008. stranded in this far away land with the pieces of a great life i'd almost built for myself...

you might think this got me a little depressed people of the innerweb, and to be honest had my view at that moment been different it might have been my reaction. however the most amazing sight greeted my acknowledging the new year...

a beautiful sunset. one that was unbelievably gorgeous. yet painful to look at. the beams of light the sun throw out were too much for my eyes.

as the sun made it's way slowly below the horizon, and the light eased on my teary sore eyes, i realized something. that sunset was the last manifestation of 2007 (well in my slight behind the times world anyway).

just like the sun my life in new zealand was both magnificent, but more modernly painful. yet these things go away, like the sun, with the passage of time.

i'd sorta started to try and leave behind all the bad of larry's visit recently (what with the fishing , and learning to talk to birds), but i hadn't thought about the future. i'd only been thinking about the present. considering what i know of how time really works (in the geologic sense of the clock) this was foolish stance of me to take...

i needed some new years revolutions... er... what was that word craig and dan used to use during new years back in drumheller ? anyways some goalish like things to try and do from here on in.

hmmmm guess i'll need to make a list than...

first off i'm going to over feeling sorry for myself, and move beyond larry's visit

B. try and get things going at work, and make them expand my job as per my promotion

3. start working on some of my political goals. in particular dinosaur/human relations. how or what is beyond me. as it's a goal i can just start thinking about it for now...

5. post more often on my blog. things got a little busy in 07, and i sometimes only posted a few times a month. this tells me i wasn't having enough fun, as i love roaming the web wide world. so more posts means i'm having more fun!

uh looking at my list i might also add a goal of being a better list maker too.

okay so here we go. a new year. full of new oppurtunities, but let's face it be up front probably a lot more challanges and snags. key i guess is rather than think of it a year at a time, go one day at a time...

what am i? (the visitor part 11) (the pack part 1)

its hard to believe that it's been nearly 12 days since my cousin larry showed up here in dunedin unannounced for a visit. what's even harder to believe is that for the last few days i haven't even noticed the time going by.

as funny as it sounds i've actually started to enjoy hanging out with larry...

had you told me a year ago, i'd enjoy a visit from larry i would have laughed in your face! larry was the biggest JERK! i knew. how many cousins would actively take delighting in denying their cousin a new home or job (at the storyeum in vancouver)? well my cousin sure did...

so what has changed my outlook on larry?

to be honest he's no less of a JERK!. he's still selfish, egomanical, and condescending to me. he hates humans, and thinks of me as a lesser being to to my upbringing by a human. okay i'm level with you. i'm still kinda holding a grudge.

so why is it i'm enjoying hanging out with larry all of a sudden?

because the rest of the world is being even meaner to me than he usually is!!!

ever since the special news coverage about larry's few misadventures around dunedin we've been public enemy number one! the mean things people say about us on TV are hurtful. even larry the apex tyrannosaur, doesn't do half the stuff everyone says we do. whenever we go anywhere the way people run away from us and scream is even worse.

it has gotten me wondering why do i bother trying to live among humans? why have i been trying to encourage human dinosaur cooperation?

it hasn't gotten me anything or anywhere. if anything i have less than most dinosaurs who are still alive today...

than i look at larry. he hasn't made any accommodations for humans whats so ever. if anything he treats them with outright disdain and disgust. he has made it a point of pride to be a pure tyrannosaur who doesn't remotely care about being in civilized world.

how has this hurt larry?

not a bit! if anything he has thrived from it...

he is a full on movie star. the most iconic tyrannosaur in the world due to his parts in jurassic parks 1, 2 and 3, king kong, and walking with dinosaurs. through these movies (especially the stupidity that was jurassic park 3) larry has made a fortune. he is easily the richest dinosaur on earth with millions of human dollars. allowing him to do whatever he pleases...

he is happily mated with offspring. larry is definitive proof that girls love jerks over nice guys. he's mated to the second hottest living tyrannosaurid alive today, teresa the tyrannosaur
(second in hotness only to the lovely lillian the albertosaur... drool). not only is she larry's mate, but they've had eggs together. hot mate and a bunch of larry jrs underfoot. again larry's not so bad off.

then there's the respect issue. dinosaurs and humans alike both respect and fear him. i wonder how much of it is from his being a celebrity or if it is the other way round?

whatever the reason, if larry wants something he gets it! no one wants to stand in the way of a full on tyrannosaur...

it's funny because my whole life i'd thought that having people fear you was a bad thing. when i look at larry (who does frighten me a bit) i realize maybe it is a good thing...

now granted i could never get the level of fear that larry does. he is a 14 metre 6 tonne giant. i barely come up to his ankle (keep in mind on most dinosaurs the ankle was way higher up the leg than on mammals... in the pics larry's ankle is the second "backwards bending knee").

despite this, larry tried today to convince me my small stature wasn't an issue. at least with none theropods.

"i don't know about that," i countered larry's claim. "who'd be scared of little old me. I barely come up to most humans belly's."

"bah, whose to say you aren't due for a growth spurt cousin" larry dismissed. "besides you of all people should know how deadly a juvenile tyrannosaur can be."

now i knew what larry meant by this, but you human readers of the innerweb may be a little confused...

(a new feature of my blog to gap us prehistoric survivors with you the readers of the innerweb it's the first ever Palaeo FACT! TM)

adult tyrannosaurs like larry have indeed been amazingly molded by evolution for killing, but they have one weakness (as is bound to happen through random selective pressures!). initially we tyrannosaurs were small like the rest of our coelurosaurian keen. however through millions of years we branched off into larger and more heavily built forms.

our skulls became our main weapon, and with each new member of the tyrannosaurids (every 5 million years or so) not only had our overall size gotten bigger, but so had the size and power of our jaws. the price we paid for this constant up scaling was that to support the weight of our massive bodies and in particular our heads we had to slow down.

though our prey was large and slow like us it was hard for just adult tyrannosaurs to hunt them down. so the solution?

we retained part of our coelurosaurian legacy of nimbleness and speed. for young tyrannosaur bodies are built more like our speedy cousins the ornithomimids (the ostrich lizards!). only as we grow up and develop the larger skulls and bodies of adulthood do we slow do... meaning that it was the job of the younglings in a pack to actively pursue and hunt prey...

millions of years of ago in the cretaceous my role in life would have been to run into the massive herds of hadrosaurs and ceratopsians and try to chase out an individual for the adults to kill. though this may have sounded like an irresponsible form of child rearing, it was in larry's opinion the ultimate childhood. the younglings didn't consider it work, but more like a game. just one that could have life or death consequences...

end fact...

getting back to my discussion with larry. "it's not the cretaceous anymore larry," i told him.

"so you keep telling me cousin," larry angrily grumbled. suddenly he was very pointed, but not in his typical way. he actually was talking to me as though we were on level, and not like he was better than me. "do you know what your problem is cousin?"

"what?" i thought larry was going to say some easy to ignore insult.

"you're afraid of who and what you are," he stated.

"i am not!" i replied in shock at the accusation.

"really," larry challenged. "not once this trip have i seen you do anything remotely resemble a tyrannosaurian thing. not once... you have only spoken tyrannosaurese when you did not want humans to know what you were saying or these last few days."

"and do you want to know why i think you do not behave like one of us?" larry paused. "because you're afraid to face reality. afraid to face what a tyrannosaur in the modern world real is."

"every time you speak of the human world around us you speak as though you are some sort of lucky visitor. you speak of our past as though it was somehow obsolete and primitive in comparison to the humans and their 'civilization'. you speak as though we tyrannosaurs are some how an inferior species. when you speak like this, it sickens me, and insults not just myself but ALL of us!" larry stated.

"humans are not our evolutionary superiors. they have only been around a million years. we tyrannosaurus rexs alone were in existence for 3 million. they did not earn rule of this world or have to fight for it as our ancestors did. they and their mammalian cousins simply picked up the pieces after we bore the brunt of nature's greatest trial. you advocate and endorse these pathetic evolutionary vultures?!?

"the greatest legacy the world has yet seen, 160 million years our kind ruled this planet, and yet you'd defer to those that have only ruled it for half that time, and only due to our absence?"

"you mock and insult our traditional ways. in face of what? human 'intelligence'? what has their ways brought them and the world other than suffering and death? they destroy the environment simply to gather the means and resources to destroy each other. the tyrannosaur way was a more sustainable way."

"oh we killed all right, but only what needed to be killed for our survival. did we kill each other. yes, but if we did we never did so under the ruse of a greater or just cause. we did it because that is the nature of the world. eat or be eaten!"

"the reason you don't see all this cousin is because they've trained you to be afraid of this truth. to be afraid of what you are," larry concluded.

"why would they do that?" i couldn't see a logical reason why. some of what larry had said made some sense, but why would my friends have made me afraid of myself? why would craig have raised me this way?

"because their afraid of you too," larry asserted. "they know of your potential, and they don't want you to tap it. they'd rather you stay a good obedient little museum attraction."

"instead of what?" i wondered.

larry's composure became very pleased. "a contributing member to your family."

"what could you and aunt black beauty need from me?" i was confused. since when did a big movie star need to ask for money from his lowly security guard cousin?

"no cousin you misunderstand. about a great many things it would seem," larry explained. "i speak not of our immediate family. though they are key members, but of our greater coelurosaur family."

"we ask not for your monetary contribution, but your loyalty," larry asserted.

i just stared blankly at larry in deep thought, but he misinterpreted it as me being puzzled.

"you look as though you have questions cousin," larry prompted.

boy, did i have questions! i'd worked some things out...

"was this what you were trying to tell me about before you fell down bench hill? the 'pack'?" i asked.

larry was slightly taken aback. i don't think he'd ever expected me to remember him saying that, that alone me piecing it together. "yes cousin. that is preciously what i'm talking about."

"what is the pack?" i really wanted to know!

"the pack," larry repeated in reverence. "the pack of the primordial feather is the ancient brotherhood that has kept the various coelurosaur clans bound together since the extinction."

"i've never heard of anything like that before!" i countered. being very much a coelurosaur, and have spent a lot of time around other coelurosaurs you'd think i'd have heard of such a "brotherhood".

"of course you haven't cousin," larry assured me. "though we are more than well known to those in important places in the museum and palaeontology industries we attempt to keep a low profile. other dinosaurs fear to even speak our name due to our power!"

"i'm a coelurosaur. why am i only hearing about this now?" i demanded. my whole life i've been an outsider among my fellow dinosaurs, and now i learn there's been a coelurosaur only club that i wasn't even invited into to!

"because you were not of the age of passage," larry admitted. "all brethren must survive to the age of maturing before being allowed into the pack. till than they are not ready to take their place amongst the pack."

suddenly it dawned on me. my 4th hatching day had just gone by shortly before larry's visit... and larry had oddly congratulated me on it when he first arrived in dunedin...

why was that an important realization. well by the time a tyrannosaurid had reached 4 years old in the cretaceous, it had grown enough to partake in the hunt... the age of passage! from mere weak hatchling to predatory runner for the family...

"why didn't you come on my hatching day to visit me than?" i wondered.

"because i did not know you were here in new zealand," larry countered. "that is why i was visiting the tyrrell just before i came here. i was looking for you at the museum. imagine my surprise when i discovered that you were no longer employed there."

larry's voice grew angry and tense. i worried it was due to my decision to leave canada. "it seems those fools at the museum decided to under go a major attraction shuffle due to us. the pack had only wanted the tyrrell to get rid of the absconder, but they got rid of much more. you were an unfortunate sideeffect of that effort on their part. a mistake they will not make again i assure you."

wow that was a lot of information to take in.

so the only reason larry had really gone to the tyrrell was to see me? not his mom (my aunt black beauty) like he'd told me...

the museum won't have realized they had too many dinosaurs in its employment if this pack of larry's hadn't bugged it about a specific dinosaur. an absconder...

"discovering the museum had ejected you, and with no trace of where you'd gone we feared we'd lost you forever," larry continued interrupting my train of thought for a moment. "only by luck i stumbled across an agent who knew of your new location."

agent? he couldn't mean... "peter bond?"

"yes that was the human's name," larry agreed.

suddenly it hit me. peter had mentioned the possibility of a visit on not one but two occasions!what did peter have to do with larry? why had he told larry where i was?

than another thing hit me from a second before... absconder! that's what larry had called lillian before!!! the pack had taken aggressive action against one of its own?!?

"what do you mean the pack got lillian kicked out of the tyrrell?" i confronted. "i thought the pack was about united coelurosaurs!"

larry's tensness about the humans at the tyrrell clearly shifted towards me. i don't think he'd expected me to make half these connections...

"within reason cousin," larry once again was calculated in his responses like he had been throughout the earlier parts of his visit. "we are only about helping and accepting those coelurosaurs that help and accept us. lillian think herself better than other coelurosaurs, and better off without us. we simply wanted to reminder her how much her individual success was owed to those that came before her."

"so you destroyed the one thing she cared about most?" i angerly asked. lillian's only purpose for existing was to be the tyrrell's star attraction. she was the poster dinosaur for the whole museum. the international image of what an albertosaur is. this pack had taken it all away from her.

"i know you wished to court her cousin, but you are still young, and there is much about that female you do not know," larry tried to calm me. "that is part of the reason i have come to you cousin. i know all about your failed attempt to win lillian's heart, and we in the pack wish to see a happy ending to that tale."

"we have helped far more of our kind make it in this human dominated world than hinder them," larry stated. "lillian just left us no choice. you know how self-absorbed she could be. we only wanted her to realize the error of her ways."

"what do you want larry?" i cut to the chase.

"for you to stop pretending that you can fit in the human world. for you to finally accept your potential, and embrace what you are. lastly for you to take your rightful place in the pack of the primordial feather!" larry advocated.

"we am not your enemy traumador," larry addressed me by my name for the first time this whole trip. "the pack wants to do nothing but help you. we can make all your problems go away. rather be forced into being a mere security guard at a museum we will make you the star attraction of one. rather than have to live alone an outsider inbetween to worlds you could join your own kind."

"most important of all we will see to it that you find a mate," larry promised.

i could hardly believe my ears. after all my bad experiences with dinosaurs in canada, after the tyrrell had laid me off, i'd gotten used to the idea of dinosaurs being unable to get along anymore. due to the few places that humans have uses for us competition is very fierce among us to get them.

now larry presented me with the solution to this very problem, but was it true?

at moment given the way new zealand as a whole had turned against me what did i have to lose by accepting larry's offer?

just as i was about to give larry the reply he wanted, from behind us came a defiant call. "you're a bit late larry. i waited a good month for you to show up for before i stopped paying attention. looks like i should've kept my guard up a bit longer."

as we both turned around i let out a yelp of surprise. there standing before us was my legal guardian craig. larry's lips curled up revealing his massive teeth all the more (a clear bit of tyrannosaur body language indicating hatred). from larry's throat came a confrontational growl.

"it's been a while larry," craig casually remarked ignoring larry's very intimediating posturing. "i got lucky that you made the news everywhere here or i might have missed your visit."

larry's growl became a much more audible roar.

"you sound like you're not happy to see me larry," craig mocked larry. a very brave move considering the signals larry was giving off. "well i can't say i'm to pleased to see you either larry, but there is one thing i can say for sure. you're not taking him larry. not over my dead body!"

to be continued...

a damage bench mark (the visitor part 9) (enemy! part 4)

only a few more days before my cousin larry has to head off to his audition with peter jackson elsewhere in new zealand. though i have to say initially larry's unannounced visit produced nothing but trouble, the last couple days i've been finding him far less of a JERK! and almost tolerable.

he still is a bit of an egotist, human hater, and general condescending to me, but compared to times past (especially when i bumped into him in vancouver) he is much more agreeable than i recall him ever being...

that having been said there are a large number of outstanding questions larry still hasn't answered since he arrived:

• why is he visiting me period (or as they call it here in new zealand full stop!)?
  

• when was he in drumheller visiting everyone at the royal tyrrell museum (my old home)?
  

• why was he even at the tyrrell (he hates museums)?
  

• how did he find out i was in new zealand in the first place (only 3 people know i'm down here!)?


• what movie is he auditioning for with peter jackson?

i was determined that today i was going to get the answer to at least one of these questions!


as we walked home from my current workplace the otago Museum (which we had just been exploring) i decided that the tyrrell was the easiest of these to pursue.

as larry and i entered the botanic garden (my current home) we'd entered into a comfortable silence walking. which to be honest is a little weird. normally in the past me and larry would have nothing but very UNcomfortable silences. if we weren't arguing about something...

i decided to risk this quiet truce. "larry could i ask you about the tyrrell?" i ventured as politely and casually as i could.

larry delayed... it was almost as if he were deciding whether it'd be better of him to answer or not... "of course cousin," he answered after a clear deliberation in his head.

alright we were in business i thought! "when were you there," i eagerly asked. i hadn't been at the tyrrell since x-mas last year...

"i popped into drumheller for a visit with my mom {known to most humans as black beauty the tyrannosaur} in july," larry answered.

that made sense. though larry has never been a fan of the confinement of museums he is something of a family dinosaur, and he did have a habit of visiting his mom at least once a year. that was the majority of the times i'd seen him actually in my life come to think of it.

"how is aunt black beauty?" i asked. i'd always gotten along fine with larry's mother (and my mom's sister).

"she is very well," larry responded smugly. "they finished some big renovations at the museum earlier this year, and my mother's display area was majorly upgraded."

the renovations weren't completely news to me. i'd seen the beginning of them back during my attempt to return to drumheller last year. aunt black beauty's area was majorly torn up at that point, but i had no idea it had been completed...

"that's great news," i acknowledged. it was good to hear that at least one of the tyrannosaurs at the museum was doing well. there was another i cared about far more though. "and how is... my mother?"

though i'm not sure he wished to express it, but larry's body language made it as though he had the satisfaction of making a kill during a hunt when i asked this question. an odd description i know, but i know my tyrannosaur body language (at least compared to a most humans!).

"she misses you traumador," he stated coldly. "and she was most distraught learning you'd moved this far away from her."

that cut a little deep. for a moment i was silenced by guilt. "is she really mad at me?" i ventured.

"saddened i'd say rather than mad. you know how perpetually melancholy skeletal dinosaurs are," larry corrected me.

it was true. fossilized dinosaurs being not truly alive were more an emotional imprint of their former selves, and as they are still aware that they've lost their bodies and minds tend to be sad about it...

guilt still numbed my head a bit. "other than my making her sad," i gulped. "is she doing okay?"

"yes," larry simply answered. "she would very much like for you to return to somewhere near drumheller though."

returning to north america really wasn't an option right now. i didn't have the money for it (i'd had to smuggle myself into new zealand as was the first time), and more to the point i'd be returning to the old problem of too many dinosaurs there that i had already fled.

desperate to change subject. "what about lillian?" i asked. lillian was one subject that already made me feel a little better. she's so dreamy..."she didn't happen to mention me did she?"

larry's posture once again showed he felt satisfaction like a kill, but his voice was somewhat angry and resentful. "lillian no longer works at the royal tyrrell museum. serves the absconder right."

"WHAT?!?" i thought out loud. i was unable to believe my ears!

lillian had been the museum's mascot for years! their star attraction... why in a million years would they get rid of such a magnificent specimen... (especially considering that curvy tail, those recurved talons, perfect teeth, and the body of a goddess... excuse me people of the innerweb i need to find a drool collecting bucket for a second)

i'd heard rumours before i was fired, that lillian might be leaving the museum. in fact it was my telling her about those rumours that ruined my asking her out way back in yesteryear.

and what did larry mean by absconder? what was lillian absconding from?

"yes the museum was," larry paused. for some reason he was considering he's wording carefully for some reason, and it wasn't to shield my feelings for lillian. "the museum was persuaded to consider more 'cooperative' albertosaurs to represent them to the public. lillian was too head strong and self-absorbed."

funny wording coming from larry. "self-absorbed" ha... i'd still say larry takes the cake for that one over lillian. though to be fair lillian was sort of a matriarch... oh sorry that is the tyrannosaur way of saying "princess" or spoiled girl. in a t-rex pack the alpha females (or royalty) are matriarchs.

"wait a minute you're saying the museum hired new albertosaurs to replace her? why would they do that?" i asked in disbelief. wait a second. though i didn't know it at the time i'd met her replacements... during my return to the museum i'd run into a very aggressive and rude pack of albertosaurs in the lobby. those must have been them. where else was the museum going to get a pack of living albertosaurs on short notice?

i pushed further confused by a part of larry's answer. "who persuaded the museum? not lillian?"

"the pack," larry instinctively whispered in a droning voice. i know he didn't mean to answer that because he snapped his head about and his voice became very calculated. "an outside party to the museum that very much has important dinosaurs interests at heart. something museums tend not to take into account."

"what outside party?" i demanded. "i've spent my whole life around museums. dinosaur heavy ones at that, and i'd never heard of such a group helping dinosaurs out."

"you're young still cousin," larry condescendingly replied. "you were never made aware of it's existence because you had not yet come of age. i can see you have many questions about this. which is good. it is why i have come to visit you."

finally larry was going to answer my biggest question. why was he here to see me at all!

that is he would have... had we not be drastically interrupted!!!

unbeknownst to us while we had entered the botanic garden we had been watched... no watched isn't the wrong word... we were being hunted...

we tyrannosaurs don't have the best bewaring instincts. in the cretaceous as the top predators of our environments (minus around water... we still had to be careful of giant crocodiles) we had little to fear... of course with the extinction everything's changed except our ancient instincts... humans can be very much an equal top predator to us... only more cunning and sneaky!

one of larry's actions in new zealand had angered a particularly dangerous human into action...

the germ-man had set out to lay a trap for me and larry in retaliation for larry's terrifying him the other day...

earlier in the day the germ-man had devised the most ironic of revenges. during the flood dunedin had a little while ago i'd tried to make up to the germ-man for eating his favourite dish by giving him some bananas.

"let us see lizard," he jokingly said to himself. "you ate one schnitzel, but gave me 5 bananas in return. i'd say that is one too many. i shall have to give it back to you."

only the germ-man could have devised a way to use a banana against us...

for you see once you've eaten a banana you're left with a peel... something i'd never have thought of. partially because i don't eat fruit under any circumstances (they make me literally sick in my predatory stomach), and also i never would contemplate turning food into a weapon.

we were about to learn one of the diabolical uses for fruit.

the germ-man had prowled the botanic garden all day waiting for us to pass by. in a different life he would have made an excellent tyrannosaur. patiently and contently stalking his quarry. savouring the anticipation of the perfect moment to strike...

the only problem with this is that we tyrannosaurs WERE the quarry! in that different life it would have been some poor ornithischian who'd have to worry. not us...

it just so happened that the perfect moment for the germ-man to strike was right as larry prepared to tell me his true reasons for coming to see me...

the germ-man of course had no perception of the ill timing of his attack. nor would he have cared. in fact knowing him he probably would have been twice as happy...

throwing his banana peel carefully into position the trap was set.

doesn't look like much does it. to be frank it isn't really...

unless you put 6 tonnes of weight balanced solely on one leg on top of it...

in which case something very much like this would happen...

i wasn't sure which was louder... larry completely destroying one of the benches of bench hill or the bellow of pain larry emitted when he hit...

needless to say it was just a lucky thing that no one had been sitting on bench hill... just imagine that same 6 tonnes needed for this equation to work in the first place running over a person!?!

larry though not seriously hurt fortunantly (we t-rexs are made tough) was somewhat stunned and disoriented after his tumble. certainly in no shape or condition to finish our conversation.

he staggered off with a minor limp to his clearing to rest off the minor injuries he'd recieved from the fall.

the germ-man who'd gone unnoticed simply enjoyed the whole incident unfold from his hiding place.

"wunderbar," he laughed. "those stupid lizards will never suspect, with their brains, that are tiny and small that this was my doing."

"if only there were some way i could share this most joyous of spectacles with others," he mused.

"ah but of course!" something in his wicked mind schemed. "with but one call, on my phone... oh my lizard friends i have only begun with you."

the germ-man cackled to himself as he ran off to enact his new plan... one that would have HUGE implications...

meanwhile i had implications from the germ-mans first stunt as was. my landlord ben the gardener was furious to say the least as the destruction of two of the benches on bench hill among other things. i got a call from him within 15 minutes of larry's falling, and him demanding to see me at the garden's cafe/information centre.

"do you have any idea how much those benches cost traumador?!?" he demanded and exclaimed at the same time. "what if someone had been sitting on them!?!"

"no idea, and they'd have been squished," i answered glummly.

"when i agreed to let your cousin to stay here you promised that nothing drastic would happen!" ben challenged.

"problems actually," i corrected. ben's face got really angry looking (in human body language... a lot different than t-rex... just pointing out i can read both species body language... can get confusing for me sometimes). so i quickly added. "but i can see this being a bit of a problem."

" 'a bit of a problem'. that's the understatement of the month," ben grumbled.

"traumador, do you have any idea how hard it is for me right now not to just chuck the two of you out of my garden?" ben pleaded.

"probably pretty hard," i tried to reassure him. i had to get him on my side right now!

"seriously though ben i swear it was an accident." i had no idea about the germ-mans involvement... yet... "larry just tripped. it'd be like kicking out all the little kids who fall over in the gardens and squish grass in the garden every day..."

"it's not that simple traumador," ben frustratedly responded. he was trying to be nice, but the 'gravity' of the situation was 'weighting' him down (i'm trying to 'lighten' this part of the story... get it ;p ). "even if i ignore the fact that the next time your cousin trips he could hurt or kill someone. i still have two demolished expensive benches to replace!"

than an idea popped into my peanut sized brain! "okay the benches i can help you with," i offered. "we'll replace them."

"on a security guards salary?" ben was skeptical.

"no a hollywood star's," i rebuttaled. "larry's the richest dinosaur actor in history. he can totally afford two new benches."

ben stood thinking about it.

"please," i pleaded. "it takes care of the problem he caused, and he didn't mean it. you should see the bruises and cuts on his back from the tumble. larry didn't do it intentionally."

than ben's face lightened back to close to his normal chipper happy self. "alright. so long as i have the money by tomorrow," he paused. "and tell your cousin not to trip anymore in the gardens! anywhere else, but if it's here i'll have to kick you two out traum."

great. so i now had to not only keep larry from being larry, but i had to prevent chance circumstances too!

that and now i had to tell larry i needed more money from him...

and i didn't get the answer to my question about why larry is here...

worse of all the germ-man had one more huge surprise in store for us!

to be continued...

start spreading the news (the visitor part 6)

so 4 days of my cousin larry's visit have gone by, and not without incidence.

larry has thus far managed to get me in trouble with: my landlord, the the department of conservation (DOC for short), and even the dunedin police department!
_

due to larry's unprovoked attack on a car, tyrannosaurs have been getting a lot of coverage in the news in the last couple days around new zealand. the verdict is we t-rexs are nothing more than stereotypical killing machines. fittingly their comparing larry's real life act to those from his famous film role in the jurassic park movies...
_
there's a lot of people calling for me and larry to be removed from new zealand (by any means necessary...) ... i'm expecting another visit from agent hamilton, my attache with DOC, to carry out such action... this visit just gets better and better. . fortunately agent hamilton hasn't showed up... yet!
_

despite the recent anti-dinosaur sentiment sweeping dunedin, not everyone had jumped on the band wagon... my friend owain being one of them. though sadly, not due to his confidence in us tyrannosaurs. he just hadn't read or watched the news lately.

i haven't hung out with owain in a little while, not since our bad run in with the germ-man in fact. we've both been really busy sadly. owain being the great pal he is decided that one of us needed to fix this current trend of none hanging out...

why did he have to pick today of all days to try and reconnect though?!?

after several minutes of looking for me around the garden owain finally tracked me down.

"hey traumador," called owain. i didn't reply not wanting to draw attention to owain's approach.

owain picked up on this though sadly. "what's the deal traum? you haven't called, you haven't wrote, you missed all my birthdays," owain jokes.

"yeah i guess i haven't and did," i feebly jest back.

"man you sound down traum. what's the matter?" owain concernedly asks.

before i can answer though owain suddenly draws in his breath and stiffens his stance as he notices the rather large figure standing behind me...

even now i know how this is going to play out... though larry hasn't said it officially, the whole purpose of this trip was to destroy my life piece by piece... owain is just the next on the list...

though i know i'm fighting fate, i try to introduce owain to larry on the hope of hopes that larry will be play nice. "owain this is my cousin larry."

for several seconds they just stare at each other. larry in disinterest, and owain out of borderline terror...

amazingly to his credit owain worked up his courage enough to speak. "nice to meet you mr. tyrannosaur sir." owain's voice barely betrays his fear. though sadly his smell does. yeah we t-rexs have a pretty good sense of smell, and that old saying "predators can smell your fear" is true!

larry just cocks his head a bit like a bird (as we t-rexs are just giant direct relatives of birds it makes sense we do this... just humans are often surprised by this similarity). i'm more than a little surprised at this.

i venture in hopes that this might actually be a civil interaction. "owain is a film student larry," i try to get a common ground. larry being the biggest dinosaur movie star in modern film might put up with a student of his craft...

owain tries to ease into this subject (man is he the best friend a tyrannosaur can have or what?). "i'm a big fan of jurassic park sir. you capture the majesty and raw power of your kind very elegantly," owain starts.

"so many classic moments. your entering the film with the lamb's leg gag. that magnificent entrance through the electric fence. the classic flashlight in the eye. everyone's favourite part where you eat the lawyer. not to mention the finale rescue of the heroes from the raptors. i have to say sir it is the all time best dinosaur movie of all time!" owain butters larry up. his confidence builds.

"what was it like working with steven speilberg?" he enthusiastically asks forgetting that larry is potentially 6 tons of killer reptile.

than the most tragic thing happened... larry answered.


what makes this so tragic is that larry actually civilly answers owain's question... the debacle is all my fault! me and my peanut sized brain forgot to warn owain that larry doesn't speak english like me (i am the only theropod in the world that can...) but rather tyrannosaurese...

"steven is a most brilliant and imaginative human. working with him is one of the few instances i have ever..." larry begins, but his is cut off... by owain running away!

you see due to my slight neglect the version of the answer owain heard was very much like a live performance of larry's full-on roar from jurassic park. if you don't know any better (which 99.9% of humans justifiably don't) it is a really scary experience...

as owain bolted from the botanic garden my anxiety overwhelmingly came back... another of the people close to me was now terrified of larry, and no doubt had an altered perception of me. not to mention how this might play into the media's hands. suddenly they'd have a close friend of one of the "monsters" spouting on about how menacing we are... and larry wasn't even being a JERK! for once...

"how strange," larry notes. "i actually was beginning to like that mammal."

i try to recover on that sentiment in case i ever somehow managed to get owain to meet larry again.

"he's my best friend in new zealand, and a real awesome guy. you two will get along great on the whole movie thing. we watched all the jurassic park movies, and he loved 1 and 3!" i desperately try to play up owain into larry's vainity (larry still being a JERK! loves himself, and his own movies).

"he's just never heard tyrannosaurese before... you know how skittish humans can be the first few times they hear it." i try to reason with larry.

"he is hardly worthy of being your friend if he can't accept that part of who you are at face value cousin," larry challenges.

"well he... wait what?" larry catches me off guard.

"if he is truly your friend than your native tongue should not scare or offend him," larry notes. "you not only put up with his mammalian language, but you have gone to the effort to learn to speak it. you have even submitted yourself to his culture. you wear mammalian clothing, and try to fit into mammalian society. yet he can't accept you for what little is left of who you are."

technically it was larry's demonstrating of my cultural roots that freaked owain out that bad. yet larry sort of had a point. what if i had asked larry a question in tyrannosaurese or introduced owain to larry in tyrannosaurese. i had done so in english because larry understand english (just doesn't speak it), but what if i had in tyrannosaurese? i don't have as large of lungs as larry making my t-rex accent a little quieter, but it sounds roughly the same.

was larry right? was owain not really my friend? after all weren't friends supposed to tolerate each others differences?

i got stuck on this as the day went on. there were still key questions i needed to ask larry about his visit, but for now the sudden re-examination of my interactions with humans overwhelmed my tiny little mind...

all the while anti-tyrannosaur propaganda spread throughout the city of dunedin...

to be continued...

waking a sleeping dragon (the visitor part 4)

so my cousin larry has shown up uninvited to visit me here in dunedin... the last thing i ever wanted to happen!

larry has caused some serious friction between me and my landlord. more to the point he has majorly jeopardized my being allowed to stay in this country through the department of conservation... this was all just during the first day of his visit!

i have at least 13 more days to go... then... or at least as larry claims... he is off to go audition for some new peter jackson movie (larry being the big hollywood star was in jackson's king kong), and will be out of my feathers as of that point.

larry hasn't told me why he wants to visit. typical really, what with larry being one of the biggest JERKS! i know...

i do seriously need to know more about his trip though. i've come up with a cunning plan to get information...

you see yesterday after all the "fun" with ben and agent hamilton, larry wanted to check out dunedin. rather than have even more "fun" i opted to goto bed. so showed larry to a nice spot a little ways away from the dell i live in.

it's now nice and early in the morning, and my plan is this... wake larry up, and in his sleepy state try and get him to tell me more about his intentions...

as i approached larry i realized this wasn't as easy a plan as it sounds. larry as a fully grown bull tyrannosaur isn't exactly the lightest of sleepers. i mean that in two ways. the first is that obviously he weighs a LOT! second as the top carnivore of the cretaceous (and easily here in new zealand!) he's not exactly conditioned to being weary in his sleep. only a fool would want to wake him up...

and i guess that's my cue... oh boy...

getting closer i try the safe route first. "psssst larry... larry are you awake?" i whisper some distance away. nothing.

"larry?" i try at normal volume. "LARRY!" i scream. he doesn't stir a muscle...

oh fun... this was what i was afraid of. no matter what volume i yell at him i don't think i could get wake him up.

i picked up a stick and threw it at him. i hit his nostril pretty much dead on. i'm reward with a slight sniffle from larry's nose.

it seems now to wake him my only choice is to get within the death zone, as it were. i'm going to have to hit him in the face...

he could easily gobble me up in his waking reflexes if i'm not careful.

creeping forward i pay close attention to whether my life is flashing before my eyes or not... the movies say that's a good way to see if you're dead meat or not. though i don't experience the flashback effect, i'm still not convinced of my not being dead meat...

as i get beside larry's great skull, and am penetrated by each laboured breath his massive lungs take, i brace myself for what could be my last action on this earth...

the moment of truth comes as i head butt larry beneath his eye (i'd have hit him, but we t-rexs have such short arms it'd have been like hitting larry with a pen...). his entire body suddenly surges to life as he awakes...

opening my eyes moments later i'm amazed that i'm still alive! larry simply raised his head to see what interrupted his sleep... rather then instinctively chomp down on the disturber... things have changed in 65 million years it seems!

"what do you want?" larry demands to know.

"it's time to get up," i tell him.

"very well," larry sleepily grumbles.

"larry there's some things i need to know," i spring on him.

he yawns with his colossal jaws, exposing the rows of rail spike sized teeth a reminder of the danger larry still poses to me and everyone else in dunedin. i'm rattled by the great clap of muscle and bone slamming back together he concludes the yawn. i start to regret my tact in this plan...

larry sensing my fear, and seeming to be aware of what i'm trying. "it can wait," he says groggily.

"why are you here?" i try one last time.

"to spend some quality time with a member of my family," replied larry.

i've never heard larry EVER refer to me as a member of his family. larry typically used to equate my small size, and preference to hang-out with humans as my being a sub-standard tyrannosaur. i know this because he told me several times in the past!

"many back home have grown concerned about you traumador. especially since your dismissal from the tyrrell," larry added.

"who?" i asked sceptically.

"your mother namely," larry replies sharply.

man larry has always been good at ruffling my feathers (even now after i've lost them all growing up). i haven't thought of my mom since my ill fated return to drumheller...

i forget my whole purpose of the wake up call with the reminder of my mother. larry senses he is gaining the initiative.

"not just her mind you," he carries on. "my mother black beauty, the daspletosaur triplets, and even lillian have asked about you."

larry has me dumbfounded. drowning me in my small brain with a sudden flood of homesickness. though i'd turned my back on dinosaur kind like it'd turned its back on me last year they are still part of many of my fondest memories...

"when were you in drumheller?" i asked longingly.

"just before i came here," larry responds lifting his immense weight into the air on his two pillar like legs. "i was visiting my mother at the tyrrell, when both her and her sister {my mother} wondered if i'd heard anything of you."

larry reminds me of my need for information. "how did you know i was here in new zealand?" i inquiry.

"many miss you at the tyrrell," larry dodged my question by straying back into nostalgia. he starts to walk around the clearing "i thought the most striking example was how the mosasaurs and pliosaurs in the bear paw gallery still howl every night expecting you to feed them."

"how did you know i was in new zealand?" i angrily repeat. there's no way larry would know about my feeding the marine reptiles in their exhibit unless he had been to the tyrrell. due to his movie stardom larry hadn't lived at the tyrrell very long, and that was well before my time...

larry holds his ground in not answering my question. instead letting loose his greatest weapon. "lillian sends her regards," i forget my questioning... again! lillian. there's a name i have thought of a few times as of late.

larry continues. "your mother hopes you will someday muster up the proper courage to mate with her," he starts to walk towards the path. "now come cousin. show me this new land of zea you have chosen to migrate to."

as we set off down the path i get furious with myself... not only did i not have any more answers than when i started, but now larry had gained the upper hand, and raised more questions.

was he telling the truth?

does everyone (that is the dinosaur everyones) back in drumheller miss me?

did lillian really want to say hi to me?

why did my mom talk to larry more than she ever has to me... her own son?!?

another thing suddenly dawned on me as we walked... we were walking!!! as in me and larry were about to walk out into dunedin... dunedin a city that had never ever seen a full grown tyrannosaur wander its streets...

well there was one up to this recent development... it was probably going to make yesterday seem like a much better day in comparison!

to be continued...