Budgie Updates

RIP Sugar

2009-07-25T18:27:00.001-07:00

='(

My favorite time of year...

2009-06-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

Summer is finally here! For once in eight months, I'm truly happy! I took these photos the other day, because the lighting of everything was great. I had thought there would be a rainbow but it never showed. I still got to experiment with the macro settings though:

Star Treck, CafePress, and much more.

2009-05-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today I decided I'm going to start a shop at CafePress to sell T-shirts and stuff. I have always loved graphic artistry and in particular vector graphics, which I'm quite good at making, however I won't be able to use Aviary to make stuff to upload onto CafePress unless I get a paid Aviary account, it's one of Aviary's policies that you can't sell your work unless you get a paid account, the good news is that my mom has decided that it would be ok if I got a paid account. Untill then, I'm going to make a bunch of stuf on the Gimp and make a shop.

I saw Star Treck the other day, and I thought it was great, tust me, you would love it if yo saw it.

This summer is going to be awesome. I believe I'm leaving for CTY (the place I said I was going for 3 weeks about a month ago) some time between the 19 of June and the 21 of June, I'm not quite sure.

We fixed our computer (kind of), but it's an aweful connection now that we have to reconnect about every 5 seconds.

Total Computer Meltdown

2009-05-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Well, actually not total. Here's the story. The Windows (a relatively new machine) was running fine Wednesday morning, but then Wednesday night, it started misbehaving. It stopped connecting to the Internet, to be exact. The computer was running fine (and still is), but it won't do anything besides let you use its files. In other words, I cant do anything with it besides play solitaire and sync my iPod. I am posting on the frankencomputer (my little nickname for my Mac/Linux hybrid), however I am limited in what I can do because, sadly, although I upgraded distros fairly recently, Adobe still doesn't support my weird combination of old architecture and an alternate OS, so I cannot use Fantastic Contraption, Aviary (a really awesome image editing/creating site), or any other Flash application. That being said, we are probably soon going to get another computer, and if we do, it'll be a Mac, something that will run and not crash/die/make you reboot every time you do anything useful/be an *** about everything/be evil/be Microsoft/make you enter your password everywhere.

Another Big Post

2009-04-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile, I have gotten out of the habit. Anyway, here's a post to bring you up to speed on what's going on recently, I'll format it in segments again because that worked last time.

==My trip to Boston==
I went to Boston 2 weeks ago, but forgot to blog about it! We went to MIT to take a tour, because my brother is going to apply to college soon and is going to apply to MIT, and frankly, as hard as it is to get to MIT, I think he has a good chance. Anyway, we went all sorts of places. We went to a cool science museum, where they had a really cool butterfly exhibit with live butterflies flying around the room. There was also Quincy Market, they had all kinds of stuff there... I got a really cool Beatles shirt with a stylized version of the cover of Rubber Soul on it from a small vendor selling various shirts and things. There was a really cool Sgt Pepper one, but it wasn't my size.
==Got stuff at a street fair in New York City==
I went to this fair with people selling all sorts of stuff, food, toys, clothes, etc, and I came across two things (which I bought): A Beatles poster, a print of them circa '67, you can tell by the hair. I also got the Anthology 2 new in the case with shrink wrap on it for only $16! That's really low for a two disk set, Sgt. Pepper (with less than half the songs) is at least that, maybe more. The White Album, of similar size, was about $25 or so.
==The Earth Day Play==
My school had a play for Earth Day (which was written by my grade). We practiced and rehearsed, and we performed it today. It was really fun, the theme was Dora the Explorer. We made Tico (the little purple squirrel with all the cars and airplanes and stuff) have a ridiculously funny costume, all purple with a rainbow vest and a tail.

Flat Lining

2009-03-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

Recently, a lack of inspiration plagues me. Am I not cut out for blogging? My life is essentially very boring, it doesn't exactly make the best reading. Even this post, which I intend to make at least a paragraph or two, is turning into an epic fail. Many have succeeded in making humorous and witty blogs because they have funny things happen to them. Here is a brief summary of my life, starting on a Friday: On the typical school day, I get up around 6:35 AM. I then have breakfast, get dressed, brush my teeth, etc, etc. After that, I get on the small school bus that goes to my school at around 7:25. Along the way, a few others are picked up as well, Rose, a good friend, Marielle (not quite sure how she spells her name, but spell check doesn't find my interpretation too unusual), a quiet 3rd grader, Sean, a, ahem, less than pleasant 7th grader, Sean's friend Travis, another 7th grader, and James, a 9th grader who mainly sits and listens to his iPod. We arrive at school at around 8 o'clock, and go to homeroom at 8:15. Homeroom isn't much to speak of, just attendance being taken and so forth. Homeroom ends at 8:27, and the first class of the day, which on Fridays is music, starts at 8:30. Here we either learn about composers and such, or sing choral songs. Next, at 9:15, is English. We learn mainly sentence structure, we are learning about clauses right now. At 10:00, Gym starts. We play sports, many times soccer, kick ball, hockey, and on occasion basketball. Next up, lunch starts at 10:45. The typical food is a slightly burnt tasting, meaty substance. A few of the food items are fairly ok tasting, like the mozzarella sticks. As for snack food, there is no soda, the closest thing to soda is Hawaiian Punch. There used to be a wide variety of potato chips, but they have diminished significantly, now there's only popcorn and a brand of pita chips that costs $1 a bag, rather than the fifty cents the popcorn costs. They also have been replacing the ice cream with frozen yogurts. After lunch, at 11:30, is Spanish class. We learn mostly volcabulary words that are usefull to conversation, like verbs and key phrases. Next, at 12:15, is History. We learn American history, right now we are learnig about the Revolutionary War. At 1:00, I go to Reading. We just finnished reading The Hound Of the Baskervilles, a Shirlock Holmes book, and have yet to be tested on it. Math is at 1:45, and we are currently working with geometry. Science is next, at 2:30. We are learning basic chemistry and physics. At 3:15 dismissal starts, where we wait for our bus. When the bus comes, everyone on my bus gets on and we ride home. I arrive back at around 4:00. I usually have a bite to eat, and then start my homework. Once that's don, I then have not much to do, so I surf the net untill it's time to eat dinner. I eat, surf more, or perhaps watch some TV, then go to bed at maybe, 11:00, somewhere there about. On Saturday mornings, I get up at around 8:00 and head down to Manhattan with my mom and my brother, the latter of which is in a science program at Colombia University. My mom drops him off at the building his class is at, and then grab some food at the campus coffee shop. We then make our way down to the physics building and sit there, sometimes reading, or using the computers in the lobby, which are open for anyone to use. When my brother's class is done, we head back to the car and drive home. I then go to swimming, which I have every Saturday. We usually swim a lot of laps, enough that I don't keep count. Many times after, we go down to Subway to eat. We get home, and once again I have nothing to do. Then comes about what I am doing now, just surfing the net, perhaps blogging some, really nothing to do.

Microbial Madness

2009-02-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

The microbes arrived today, and are currently purched atop my moniter. I took some pictures, but due to truency of the reader I have (It's an old camera with a card that can't be read by normal computers without a special device), I can't post them now. They certainly are cool looking, though.

My new CDs, T-shirt, And Microbes

2009-02-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

Actually, the reason I didn't post this earlier is that I only still have the CDs and shirt. The microbes are apparently still somewhere in the US postal service. But the CDs are....
And they are completely awesome. I've now doubled the amount of Beatles music I have. Next stop, Anthology!

And the shirt is great, too. I can play one birthday present with the other!

I also made a background, and I think it's my best work yet:

One Heck of a Post

2009-02-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

One word. Wow. It has been months since my last post. So much has happened, I can't even begin to tell about it. But that's the thing about blogging-- there's an art to it. You need humor (I have none), photos (my camera's batteries died and I have no new ones), and it all has to be short enough to satisfy the average reader, which usually has about the attention span of a gold fish. I will now divide this big post into a bug old mound of little ones--

----Perspective Project Finished, Handed In, and Graded----
This happened a little while ago, but I finished coloring the thing, and it actually looks really good. I never got to scan the finished product before handing it in, but usually (unless it gets put into the art show), it gets given back within a week or two. Of course, we have the presidents week vacation, so it'll be longer than that. But if it's in the art show at the end of the year (and there's a high chance it will be), then I won't get it until June. It probably will get put in though, as I got the highest grade in the class, a 95%. I gotta tell you though, I am really dying to show it to you people.

----SCAT Test----
I took the SCAT test (no idea what it stands for), a test for a talent search. the results were actually very good, 490 out of 500 for the verbal section (It is in fact supposed to be very hard) and 498 out of 500 for the math section (I barley even needed the scratch paper, it was almost all logic). So guess what that means? I'm going away for 3 weeks this summer. I'll be away at Maryland, and sorry guys, no laptops are allowed (actually, I think they are, but Internet is strictly forbidden in any case). And besides, I don't even have a laptop. I'd have to post with my iPod, and I don't even know if they'll have wi-fi there.

----What is Expected for My Upcoming Birthday----
My bithday's on Saturday, and I have only asked for three things--
1. The Capitol Albums Vol. 1-- A box set of four of the early Beatles albums, Meet the Beatles, The Beatles' Second Album, Something New, and Beatles '65.
2. GIANTmicrobes-- Awesome toy germs, about a billion times to scale.
3. Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt-- A completely awesome shirt that plays music, I can even plug in my iPod!

2009!

2009-01-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

This was probably the best new years ever. I went to my friend Emily's house for a small new years party, and she said that I could bring CDs, music, movies, whatever. So I decided to put Revolution 9 backwards on a USB drive and bring it. I initially had no time to really listen to it, so I stuck it in my purse and left, I was in a rush because I might be late. So I went to the party and showed my friends. They said they would listen to it later, but then, the power went off for like, two hours! Half way through the power outage, I realize that the Revolution 9 backwards thing must be cursed, but when I try to find it to throw it out the window, ITS GONE! So when the power is finally back on, we all eat dinner, watch the ball drop, and go to bed. The next morning, I find the USB drive and my friends are so curious, that they ask to hear the song. So I put it in my friend's laptop, and open the file... Email me if you want the backwards song at nospam112358@gmail.com

Desktop (again), and Some Avatars.

2008-12-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

I've been bored lately, decided to do one of my favorite pass times, image manipulation. I made the "White Avatar" from scratch, and the other two are from this source and this source. The blue sun was more difficult than I expected, had to add some light effects to make it glow. On the other hand, the Sgt. Zippy's drum was much easier. (By the way, "Zippy117" is my user name for almost every website I go to)

Finally!

2008-12-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

I would show you a photo of my new albums, but I cant find my camera's memory card to get the pictures, and I don't feel like hunting around for it now. I'll tell you what albums I got, though. I got Sgt. Pepper's, Magical Mystery Tour, and The White Album.

Perspective

2008-12-11T08:48:00.001-08:00

In art class, we have this project where we all do a city block in perspective. Heres mine. I've hidden some clues in it, see if you can find them. Some are obvious, others, well, you have to be a fan of something to get. PLEASE click on it for a higher resolution, it looks much better if you do.

First Snow of the Year

2008-12-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

It's snowed before, but it never actually stayed on the ground. The flakes always melt. But now its finally here to stay!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hello, and happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm going into Manhattan (I live out about an hour from it)
to see some relatives. Tell me in the comments where you are going/ what you are doing for Thanksgiving.

I Hate Apple!

2008-11-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

Ok. We'll start this from the beginning. I got an iPod a while back, and my parents kinda dawdled about starting the iTunes account. I finnaly got it started yesterday, and decided to download some songs. "I know," I thought, "I'll download songs from my favorite band, The Beatles." When I searched the name of a fairly popular and well known song of theirs, it came up nothing. "That's odd," I thought, and next I searched "The Beatles." All I got was all this 'The Beatles Tribute Band' and stuff I didn't want. So I Googled it. Turnes out, theres a big ongoing lawsuit between Apple and The Beatles. I read some news story or other which I did'nt get about it, and thought it was even weirder that they sold work of all four during their solo careers, like Paul McCartney and the Wings. So I went back to Google, and got an article I could understand, in other words, one without all the legal mumbo jumbo. I then learned that the beatles owned the record label 'Apple' since 1968. When Apple formed, there was a different lawsuit. Steve Jobs ended up paying a very large settlement with The Beatles, promising that Apple would not affiliate its name with anything involving music. When iTunes was formed, understandably, The Beatles got a little upset, and conciquently have not licenced their songs for download anywhere, so, in short, I CANT PUT THE GREATEST BAND ON EARTH'S SONGS ON MY iPOD BECAUSE APPLE IS SO SUPID!

WoRdLe AdDiCtIoN!!

2008-11-22T14:06:00.000-08:00

GO TO WORDLE! I found it a few days ago and in the space of two days have made tons of them! (if you don't know what a wordle is then check out this link) Check out my account and all I've made. To make an account, you don't even need to register! Subscribe to mine go here.

Budgie Pic of the Week

2008-11-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

Here's another one. And a funny iTunes Gift card. Maybe the budgies are listening to The
Byrds. lol. In other news, Subway is haunted. My mom and I were eating there, and the ice maker randomly turned on! It was freaky.

P.S. - I have a Wordle for you all! Go play with it by clicking on the picture of it. Sry, but I couldnt get a decent image of it.

Budgie Pic of the Week

2008-11-12T17:31:00.001-08:00

Here's another one, and that lady in the background is my mom.

Desktop

2008-11-11T14:26:00.000-08:00

A lot happened this weekend, but none of it is particularly interesting. Heres a picture I whipped up. Very abstract.

Another Desktop

2008-11-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, I like to make images on the GIMP (kind of like photoshop, but free). and today I have another desktop for you. Use it, for any purpose, no charge, just like this post. Click the image for a full veiw.

Budgie Pic of the Week

2008-11-05T16:29:00.001-08:00

Fresh Seed

2008-10-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

I've heard that seeds alone aren't a good diet, so I buy seed mixes that have pellet food mixed in. The reason seeds aren't good is because most are dried or frozen. Well, I just found out that MY seeds aren't like that. Ya know how? Because three days ago I spilled a few seeds into my bird's water bowl. This morning, I found little green shoots sprouting from the water! I guss those seeds are pretty fresh!

>=(

2008-10-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm really angry at you people. I know I have readers, one of them asked me a question about a new post a few days ago, and yet I didn't get a single vote on that poll. I bet you people don't even know what poll I'm talking about! When they first went to read today's post, there like, "Oh, look. She changed the banner! I wonder why." and then read today's post. I bet as they read it, they just come up with there own little excuses, like, "Oh, I was too busy to click ONE STINKIN' BUTTON!"

Budgie Pic of the Week

2008-10-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

{EDIT - WILL SOMEONE PLEASE VOTE ON THE POLL?!? I PUT THE POLLS THERE SO PEOPLE WILL VOTE ON THEM!!!!}
[EDIT- POLLS CLOSED] #1.
#2.
#3.
#4.
#5.
#6.
#7.
#8.
#9.
I'm also thinking of changing the banner on top of the page. Here's a few possible others.

Several Things, Actualy...

2008-10-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

First, I'll say HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (almost). This guy is on my lawn. The photo was taken via my moms phone, so its a little blurry.

Next, I'd like to tell you that you can download and use any photo I post for any purpose, including this one I took in Times Square.

P.S.- Tell me about your votes in the comments

P.P.S.- Follow my blog! =)

New Segment!!!

2008-10-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

Hey! Its me again(who else would it be?), and I'd like to introduce............ the budgie pic of the week! heres this week's pic-

Bubbles' "Gets Me Mad"

2008-10-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hi, my friend, Bubbles, has a segment called "Gets Me Mad". But you know what gets ME mad?

Everybody knows I love budgies. But I also love dogs. Big ol' dogs, Labs, Goldens, Shelties, etc. But my favorite breed is the pit bull. That's right, that dog with a bad rep, American pit bull Terriers. And it gets me mad that everyone thinks pit bulls are "evil". Pits are probably the most loyal breed around. The whole reason they fight is because, they're so dang loyal that their owners, convoluded as their twisted ideas may be, need only to give the word, and they'll do anything. And pits make the best family dogs, too. They are among the best dogs, because studys show that pits have remarkably few dog-on-human attacks.

Another Week of Normality

2008-10-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to say, nothing worth posting has happened during the past week, and I'm just posting to let you people (yeah, yeah, politically incorrect, and blah blah blah) know that I haven't abandoned you.

P.S. If you were wondering about the image on top, I made it using the GIMP free graphics editing software.

P.P.S. Click the image for a full scale veiw. It looks much better that way.

Re: Gumi and Her Ceres

2008-09-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

I went to the vet yesterday, and I have very good news. The vet said that both birds are in good condition, AND THEY ARE BOTH MITE FREE!!!!Apparently, Gumi has a disorder called "Hypertrophy of the Cere." This is caused by excess hormones causing her cells to grow. I think it is a benign tumor, but I'm not sure. The vet said it was completely harmless. He also said that their nails were long, and told us that you can use a nail file in place of a clipper to trim them, and that method wond hurt thr birds.

2008-09-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hello again, I have some things to show and tell you. First, in the pic from the last post, there were seven birds. I always say this for these kinds of pics: If your average, you see 4-5. If your smart, you see 6-7. If your skitsofranic, you see 8+!
Also, It struck me that I never told you about my other pets, Arlo and Beggar. Arlo is my dog, shes almost 8 now, and Beggar, my cat, below, is somewhere about at leased 8 years old also, now that I think of it.

I've also changed the appointment time for Gumi and Sugar. I'm going with a vet someone I know recommended.

By the way, if you still can't see all the birds, stand farther away from the computer.

Appointment With the Vet

2008-09-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry its been so long, I had almost no time to post. Between school taking up an 8 hour chunk of my day, and homework taking up the rest, I've had a lot to do. Good news, I've booked the appointment with the vet to check out Gumi's ceres, and both the birds need their nails trimmed anyway. Here are a few pics of the birds, and trust me, that's just the begining. Plus, how many birds are in that last pic? The answer is in my next post!

And Some Info on Gumi, Too

2008-09-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

I also neglegted to mention much about Gumi, either. She was bought from a store that breeds their own birds. Then, Less than 2 weeks later, we got Sugar.Gumi is just under 4 months of age.BTW, you can put captions on your own pictures here.

More About Sugarcube

2008-09-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

On that note, I realize I haven't told much about Sugarcube, my other bird. I call him Sugar. He is actually about 3 1/2 months old, a little younger than Gumi. A birds cere, or that little thing above the beak, changes color as they get older. It changes blue in males, white in females. It starts out that purplish color, and then changes. Sugars cere will never turn blue, because he has a feather trait in blue budgies known as "recessive pied", also known as "clear flightedness". Clear flighted males have purple ceres all there life.Sugar is also very sweet(No, the bird!). He has never bitten anyone, an is SO attached to Gumi. But with Gumi's aggression, Sugar is always lonely.

To Treat, or Not to Treat?

2008-09-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

One of my budgies, Gumdrop(a.k.a. Gumi), might be having some troubles with her beak. I fear she has scaly face, but not as advanced as the cases in the link. here are some before and after shots, but trust me, it looks worse in person, and I struggled to get a good shot:

As you can see, there is a crusty layer over her cere, or nostril.

I think it is also causing her pain, because she has a lot of recent aggression problems as well. when we first got her, she was very sweet, and would sit on your finger, and come up to the door to come out. But now, she will bite, and bite VERY hard. Her feet are probably also infested, but I'll show you pictures of that tomorrow.

Edit: I found online that if you apply paraffin to the affected area for three weeks that it terminates the mites.

Welcome

2008-08-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Hi! My name is Suzanne, and this is Budgie Updates, with budgies galore. I'll discuss budgie health, diet, and generally budgies. I'll also be happy to answer your questions about budgies.