This thing.

This thing. When I was a kid I would get the plastic dinosaurs.
The set made it seem like woolly mammoths and T rex lived together; I knew better.
My favorite was this Dimetrodon.

The funny thing is that they are closer related to us than they are to dinosaurs.

They are as ancient to dinos as dinos are to us.

Synapsids like Dimetrodon had a nose like a dog, legs under the body, differentiated teeth like us, and that hole in the side of the skull like we have.

A branch of synapsids evolved into Therapsids and eventually those critters shrank down into the little proto-mammals running around under TRex's feet.

These are just some of hundreds of missing links found since I was a kid.

Humans are Synapsids but the Dimetrodon were doing it way before it was cool (well, before several ice ages anyway). Our head holes (temporal fenestra),eventually closed to protect our brain. We no longer have the trait that classifies us taxonomically as synapsid.

romantic walks in the cold

oliveanddingo.com

Olive learned a lesson recently.

She took our 11 y.o.shopping at a grocery store with a sushi restaurant attached.
The boy hadn't eaten so she sat him down in front of the sushi conveyor belt and said "Have a few plates while I shop and we will go home and make proper dinner."
Well by the time she got back, he had a stack of 10 plates and more than a $20 bill.
I always think Olive punishes with pranks (like I do) so I asked. "Did you make him eat a final wasabi one?"
No Olive read him the riot act and then both of them learned how to make sushi at home.
Lesson: You can't trust pre-pubescents with a sushi train any more than you can trust them with a tambourine.

Rolling with my lady,

As clowns we get contacted to do a variety of mischief and or prank related operations.

As clowns we get contacted to do a variety of mischief and or prank related operations. 

These go down far from the stage . We pie the boss at the company party, fill cubicles with balloons, take over positions we aren't trained for,or even help return dog poop to it's rightful owner (4 houses away) via our pneumatic canon. If you need clowns to help you win an marital argument, quit a job, Any occasion needing a fake fight/seizures or any other so called " funny business" scenario, give us a ring. We work for culture and gold (in that order so we never use our powers to actually burn people). I'm eager to shoot more poop.
oliveanddingo.com

backstage with olive and Dingo

The other day Olive brought home some chocolate sour dough bread from a Russian market.

I decided to try it today betwixt gigs.













Here I'm saturating it with cauterized chicken menses. Chocolate, Russian, French toast.


Scrumptious.

Happy Valentine's day!

For a long time everyday has been Valentine's day in our camp. 
Still, I'm very glad that our country still takes a day to remember it's cherished, late 1920's Chicago gangland massacre.Aw shux

oliveanddingo.com

Lets build a pedal powered weeny van

I would love to recommission one of these vehicles to be a "birth control Action mobile". 

Maybe even an impressive fleet of them roving around events where folks are likely to breed. 

Colorful folks delivering free protection and long term reproductive health/STD information. 

I wonder if a truck like this could run on something other than gas? How long does it take to do an STD test? 

I would volunteer my time doing this as a matter of civic duty. Also my kind of hustler plays the long game, I'm freeing up traffic lanes for myself in 20 years (kidding I mostly ride a bike). 

I actually have a huge bag of condom kits I disperse right now. I have been leaving a couple in public restrooms when I see them. 

Sex is very healthy and important to mental, emotional and physical health. Lots of schools of thought in our country have a sad byproduct called "sexual frustration" that leads to many calamities that we would love to avoid. 

Sex should never be thought of as "dirty" or "sinful", that's "primitive" lol. 

Overpopulation IS dirty, primitive and sinful. I often think "wow folks sure are sanctimonious for being an invasive species with delusions of grandeur (and other pop psychology phrases)." HAHA! 

I can drop condom kits on the D.L. but O&D aren't ideal for this gig, we would have to create a character to mascot this. How about "Ranger Forrest Management"

 Hahaha. 

So there ya go. Lets build a pedal powered weeny van to steward the country, save a lot of water, keep down disease and decriminalize body functions while having a great time. All we need is a weenie van. 

Dare to dream.

oliveanddingo.com

OK. We moved away from all my coffee haunts.

It was decided that I need to get a coffee pot for me to make it my-damn-self.
I used to have the standard Portland hook-up where it was free.
We don't do many cafe gigs anymore so it was time. I'm afraid we over-fixed the problem though.

I got this mocha-pot from Village Merchant.
It works...too well. In the cafe i get 20 oz.and a refill.
Now it's wide open.
The coffee that this instrument makes is A-Frikkin-mazing and flows all day.
I keep returning to the light like a bug.
This morning I've have had so much coffee that I can now summon humming birds with my mind.
Too much of a good thing.
I'm doing a baking project to help rid myself of the superfluous birdies
...seems like the correct tweetment.

oliveanddingo.com

father/daughter unicorn bikes.

Premier Portland Juggler Curtis Carlyle dropped into our show yesterday with his very bright offspring Z. They showed up on fantastic bikes. 

Curt let Olive try out his new steed and didn't even get sore when she wiped out on it. It took her a few tries but soon Olive was up and truckin'. 

Z's bike is really neat. A "small-tall"made up unicorn style like the other bike.

 It was neat seeing our friends.

Wanna know more about Curt? Here is some info on one of our towns best performers. 

http://curtshow.com/blog/

bye bye old life

As we were leaving our old apartment Olive said "Wow 9 years, I had memories of a lifetime here. 
Then she looked at me and started laughing "Actually YOU had memories of a lifetime here,. I agree. 

We cleaned the pad so much that we didn't recognize it. Then we went from room to room with two containers of ice cream each. We sat in each room remembering events that happened in them, eating Ice cream, giggling and crying, then we would go to the next room and repeat. Most of my fond recollections were on the steamy side then she would make me feel like a chump by bringing up memories pertaining to family and kids. 
Olive said "OK now the house is telling us to go into the world and be great clowns. You two entered the place single and are leaving together as a team, go be clowns!" 
I filled a bottle with the last clown cave tap water and we left never to return (till the next day to check mail and hug more neighbors goodbye).
We just found out a violent altercation happened shortly after we left the previous night. Had we not left when we did we would have been caught up in it. It's why we moved in the first place. We got very lucky. bye dreadful apartment (or whatever name you go by now)

Huzzah!

Mole looks like a dirty diaper but boy is it scrumptious. We just went to the Mercado in FoPo after our show for dinner. 
I had the $8 mole bowl and Olive had the $5 mole tamale plate. It is so filling! 

We weren't planning on eating originally. 
This is our leanest month. It's OK not complaining, we are really good at simple living and we have other things to stay satisfied by. We own a very sexy form of "poor and famous. "

The plan was to just drink morning dew water from leaves and suck on old shoes for nutrition until the busy season arrives just like we do every year. 
Then a funny thing happened.
 Y'know how sometimes you are out in the rain and just when you think lightning is about to strike $1300 bucks falls out of the sky? Yeah that happened to us. 

We were cleaning our old crib and rediscovered an old hiding place. It had hundreds of bucks in it. 
We were cracking up (literally r.o.t.f.l.m.a.o.). 

Hard to believe it was there many times when we really needed it. 
The hiding place did it's job like a charm. 
One of the advantages of living in a high crime zone is we got good at hiding valuables...like good as squirrels. Glad we found all those nuts. 
Now we can go eat, buy more paint and have some more cash to put down on our damage deposit for the new place. 
Huzzah!