Virtual Quill

In a small college town like Beige, Halloween is different from how it is in the suburban bedroom community of Domain. Back home, little kids prowl the streets from approximately five o’clock until nine, invading the normal sleepy routine of the neighborhood with their zombie-like candy demands.
(BTW, there was no Halloween celebration in the rabbit warren. Everyone down there is already ruled by fear throughout the year, so there’s no need of a special night to focus on it.)
Here at Bege, kids are in short supply and largely confined to the Family Housing Dorm which has its own self-contained Halloween parties. Otherwise, the offspring of university professors are the only ones going door to door with the classic trick-or-treating rituals, and sometimes I feel they’re all doing it ironically.
Nevertheless, we have our bowl of candy ready. Being nocturnal, we have to get up before we normally do in order to accommodate the first arrivals. Of course, the good news is that we still have that whole “day” ahead of us when it’s over.
I carved a pumpkin and stuck a number of my quills in it to make it look like me. I’m just not sure how to make one resemble Fenton.
Oops! There’s the doorbell!

Kell’s latest Herd Thinners initiative concerns the insectivores she hired in the spring. That strategy was a success, as it created a new revenue stream for the company in selling to those with my diet. The question was always, what happens in the fall when the insects die out? Instead of laying off the insectivores she’s established an extermination service to keep them employed.
Customers with an insect infestation (and who prefer not to eat the invaders) will call Herd Thinners and a crew of bats, shrews and hedgehogs will show up to devour the problem. A simple, elegant solution, and very much in a character for Kell.
Of course, there are many existing extermination services and they’re not happy, to say the least. Often, a new competitor in a market endures threats from the established entities. This is where the standard Herd Thinners employees come in, to provide protection for the insectivore staff. Nobody is going to argue with a wolf, especially one who is bored during the winter months after the herds have migrated.
Upon its announcement there were mixed reviews from the financial speculators, and the company’s stock fluctuated. However, it was a big success when it was finally rolled out, so as usual Kell had the last laugh.

Poor Rudy. Parasites are a constant presence for those of us with us fur, and it’s impossible to be completely free of them. What’s more, they’re a constant Greek chorus in our lives, endlessly commenting on our actions. It’s a good thing that few individuals take them seriously, as their advice is generally so far off-base as to be in another area code.
Non-furred species like reptiles and amphibians aren’t beset by them, and mammals with little fur are similarly protected. That includes elephants, rhinos, hippos...and humans. Granted, I only have a small sample group of one with Francis, but he does seem to lack a parasite colony. Of course, that’s also due to the excellent hygiene practiced by his mother Danielle.
For the rest of us, we do our best with regular flea dips. In Rudy’s case, his situation reached a tipping point when his parasites actually treated him as a legal residence to be bought and sold (and foreclosed upon). Their latest act of presumption was in hiring moths to devour his wardrobe and them to order clothing using their own atrocious taste.
Rudy ultimately foiled them again...for now. Personally, I think Fiona needs to be more proactive in encouraging Rudy to take better care of himself. As women, that tends to be our job.

It’s with great sadness that we mark the passing of Steve Lops, the legendary head of Carrot Computer. We here at Hare Link have always had a special connection to him and his company, dating back to this meeting. Ever since then we’ve used Carrot Computers for all of our ISP’s technology. (In many cases, of course, we put a PC partition on them since most of the customers who require tech support are PC users. Ahem.)
I won’t add to the already long list of obituaries that have been written in the past week. I just want to say that I hope Carrot continues on the path set by its visionary co-founder. I feel it’s currently in able and capable hands, since its new CEO is a graduate of Beige University.
In the meantime, Kell’s phone got hacked by her competitor Roadkill, Inc. (No, it wasn’t an iPhone!) Fortunately their attempt at turning her staff into roadkill failed, but it was still an unnerving episode. Dad got a new phone for her, and I installed some heavy-duty industrial grade security features.
Stay safe out there, everybody!

Ow. Damn chin-up bar.
In other news, Coney has given to Rudy the portion of the yard she’d been using as a garden under Gran’s tutelage. That had been part of Gran’s futile campaign to turn Coney toward the path of herbivorism, and for a while Coney had gone along just because she likes Gran’s company. Now, however, Rudy really needs that acreage to protect his trademark so Coney was perfectly willing to cede it to her big brother.
If Gran is smart, she’ll go All In in helping Rudy. The two of them, despite their obvious species differences, do have a kind of bond. They both have dystracksia, and they both have athletic talents. (The thinker Howard Gardner of the Multiple Intelligence theory calls it the Bodily-Kinesthetic talent.)
And yes, Mr. Gardner is a herbivore.
I’ve always been puzzled by Gran’s obsession with Coney, anyway. After all, she must know that Coney’s rabbit genes are, well, skin-deep. While her outward appearance is lapine, she has the teeth, digestive system and internal wiring of a wolf. Gran should have realized that by now, but I guess we have our blind spots.
Like, say, judging the proper height of a chin-up bar.