Mystery Bug 2: in the Office

I got into work early this morning. At the doorway to the bathroom I frequent, I beheld an amazing sight. There was a sizeable, light-coloured insect in a state of disassemblage on the floor in front of the door. Picking through the wreckage was a slightly smaller dark insect with a chitanous carapace.

I wanted to stay and watch, but I also had to use the bathroom. After I finished my business, they were still right there on the floor. I hopped back into my office (next to the bathrooms), grabbed a piece of paper, and scooped them up for closer examination on my desk.

Of course, once they were placed on the desk, the still-living insect bolted for the nearest cover (a Compaq Presario v5000). I played hide and seek with it for about 6 minutes, but quickly tired of its survival instincts. What I wanted to see was its gluttony so that I could capture the feeding on camera, so I proferred the remnants of its meal, still on the paper, to the scurrier but to little avail.

Clearly it was not comfortable eating in plain sight where it preceived imminent danger. So I relocated them to the floor under my desk. Under relatively darker evirons, the black bug was content to return to feeding. I filmed it with a point-and-shoot camera (Casio Exilim Z55) that was woefully ill-equipped to handle dark and close-up work. Nonetheless, I faithfully captured the moment the best I could, partially lying on the floor of my room while some automated processes were running.

Fig. 1: Video of Feeding

Naturally, the mystery of the identities of the insects began to draw my attention after the novelty of watching one insect dig through the innards of another, less fortunate insect lost its appeal. For posterity, I took a few snapshots. Again, it must be reiterated that my camera is not built for close-up work, so sadly, the quality leaves a lot to be desired.


Fig. 2: Feeding in the Dark


Fig. 3: Really getting in there


Fig. 4: Nom nom nom nom

During the course of the composition of this post, I did some research into the insects I observed. The living one was easy enough to identify, as I had a specimen that had been stepped on, but remained largely intact (COD: thoracic rupture). It looked like a black beetle that lived on the ground; this was verified by a quick Google Image Search for "Black Ground Beetle".

The edible one proved to be more difficult, owing to several of its body parts being detached and likely missing. Its most striking feature, apart from its ability to separate into pieces, was the pair of filament-like structures protuding from its abdomen. Such a feature is fairly rare in the insect world, allowing me to rule out about 90% of them right away. From this point, I just had to look up pictures for known insects with tail-like structures.

At first, it seemed like Bristletails fit the bill, but closer inspection revealed that bristletails did not have the same kind of long legs seen in the photos. I've finally settled on Mayfly. Mayflies have the filamentous tails and long-ish legs seen in the photographs.

The ground beetle was likely scavenging the remains of a dead mayfly, as beetles generally have a tough time tackling airborne prey. Adult mayflies live only a couple of days, devoting all that time to reproduction. The wings were likely bitten off at the first opportunity to reduce dragging weight.

The Mystery of the Lost USB Drives

just in these past two weeks, i have found and returned two misplaced USB drives thanks to nifty detective work. it feels awesome to combine 3 things i love: finding things, returning things and nifty detective work.

during the last week of my practicum, my associate teacher ambled over and told me that a pencil case was left in her mailbox, presumably belonging to one of her students. as it was Literacy Test Day, and she was on duty in some classroom, i was tasked with divining the owner of this pencil case. fortunately, a USB drive was among the items of said pencil case. i dug through a few files and came across a group geography presentation bearing 4 names (first names and initials). at first i did not recognize any of them, so my brain kicked into the next gear and i made some clever inferences, noting that this was a group of boys, in grade 9 Geography, none of whom seemed to be in Visual Art. and then i recognized one of the names after i told someone else that i didn't know any of the names and it was good.

this morning, i arrived to class back at the faculty of Ed. to help fellow students set up for their presentations (word had gotten out that computer wiring did not freak me out like it does everyone else). of course, no one was there, so i chatted with my instructor, who actually remembers teaching my associate teacher from this most recent practicum (that means both of my associates were taught by him!). throughout the course of setting up the computer, we found a tiny little USB drive nestled between the USB mouse cable and the edge of the computer, still jacked into the computer. seeing as how i had arrived for class 40 minutes early, i explored the contents of the drive. mouseovers of the documents yielded a document creator name. i was about to dig through the directory of Teacher Candidates when i noticed this student's resume! well, that was too easy. with name AND email address in hand, i quickly fired off a message relaying the happy news and arranged for the little drive to be stored safely in my instructor's office. it felt good, but i sort of wanted a bit more of a challenge.

these recent events, and the fact that a friend of mine lost her drive at the computer lab earlier this year, inspired me to safeguard my USB drive from being lost because of shoddy detective work, or insufficient clues. malicious intent, i cannot change, but any help i can give to a Good Samaritan will make it easier for him or her to do so. i wrote a little message with my contact information for whoever might find my USB drive and saved it as a text file.

if life were like this, you wouldn't need a Visa

under the right conditions, your mind can wander to exotic places and ponder irrelevant things ad nauseum and ad infinitum, like at the top of mountains, where nothing happens. in such meditative states, we often ask the questions that would stump the common man. we reserve them for God, who being the Creator, knows all things down to the finest detail. in His infinite wisdom, God sometimes answers immediately. it is in these moments that we encounter the sublime and the ineffable.

speaking of ineffable, what would you consider the most ineffable animal? by this i mean, when you see a baby of this species, you think, how'd they do that? what are the logistics? the angles? the procedures?

the animal that comes to my mind is the porcupine; porcupines look pretty ineffable. and one day, at the top of a mountain, i asked this very question, to which i was provided an immediate answer. here's a more thorough answer.

and now you know too, and can share this powerful knowledge with your friends.

the Mystery of Women: Episode 1

women are a mystery. this is by design; everything is on the inside. men, who have (almost) everything on the outside, cannot even begin to comprehend the mysteries locked away in the opposite sex. in this new series, exclusive to pocketfish, i will explore the uncharted and give men everywhere (that read this blog) a fighting chance.

in this first installment of The Mystery of Women (MOW), i will reveal the answer to the question that has been burning on the minds of men since the Pyramids were first conceived: how do women make those towel turbans?

the towel turban has baffled men for many generations. a towel is a large rectangle of cloth; how can it possibly be tranformed into something so elegant as a turban for wet hair? why have we been scrubbing our heads like idiots when we could be letting them dry by turban? it must be magic.

my brothers, the towel turban is not magic. to make a towel turban, you will need the following:

• 1 towel
• 1 head

step-by-step:

1. hold ends of towel so that its length is perpendicular to you
2. bend your body so that you are facing the ground
3. drape the centre of the towel over the back of your head so that the two ends dangle on either side
4. twist the two lengths of towel together as if making a unicorn horn until there is no more slack
5. holding the two entwined ends tightly, stand upright and drape the 'horn' over the top of your head
6. tuck the ends under the portion of the towel covering the back of your head
7. show your wife, girlfriend, sister and/or mother and gloat

so there you have it, an age-old mystery solved. how impressed will your lady friend be when you offer to wash her hair and then wrap her lucious locks in a towel turban for drying?

what does celery do?

i got an email from Friendster to update me on some changes to someone's profile.
i don't have a Friendster account. spooky.

the name was not familiar and neither was the face. now who the diddly would have my address AND want to send me things? a mystery was afoot, and since i'm trying to get Nancy Drew's attention, i thought solving it would be the most excellent way.

while the name was unfamiliar to me, the combination of her name, location and other profile information led me to conclude that this was someone from the Christian Chinese circle. i have a few massive lists i could've looked through: softball, ACF, etc. i quickly skimmed the ACF mailing list that gets broadcasted everytime an email is sent (perhaps i should talk to them about bcc-ing); lo and behold, mystery girl's name and email were there. saved me the trouble of checking the softball list, which is in size 6 font; my eyes can squint no further. the curious thing is that the Friendster email was sent to GMail; the UTSC ACF mail goes to my UT account. more investigation required.

one of her pictures looked familiar. i think it was a group shot of another Chinese Christian Fellowship. a few months ago, i made a video slideshow for a big Joint Fellowship event that required some people to send me their fellowship photos. i think she was one of the people who sent me stuff. i cannot verify this as i cleaned out my UT account of those emails a couple of months ago when i switched to a different email client to manage the account.

anyway, i checked with one of my sources (people who know lots of people) and it turns out she went to the same high school that i did (as well as university). of course, in the process of reverse stalking, i've left internet footprints all over the place; i have the subtlety of an e-rhino.

mystery bug

on Friday, i roamed around the church parking lot with my camera, hoping to get a few shots of anything interesting. the wind was rather gusty that day and it apparently picked up a bug and flung it at me. the bug struck my shirt around the abdomen and clung on for dear life. naturally i brought my camera to bear, toggled the focus to macro and tried to get a good shot of it.

normally i'm pretty good with identifying animals, but this one completely eludes me. it defies any categorization of insect that i am familiar with. it is not a butterfly/moth, not a beetle, not a social insect, not a flier... i can only describe it as... a kiwi bug, on account of its resemblance to a kiwi bird.

it is about the size of a large housefly, but denser. its 6 legs (making it an insect) are rather muscular, like grasshopper legs, indicating some jumping ability. this might explain why it was on the wind in the first place. its carapace looks fairly sturdy with all its parts arranged very compactly. the eyes are relatively large in comparison to its head, suggesting that it relies mostly on sight to do its business. its business seems to have much to do with its huge red proboscis, from which some antennae seem to be attached. i initially believed it to be some sort of bloodsucker, but it doesn't appear to have the penetration power, nor the storage capacity. the drab colouring suggests that it is a tree dweller, so the proboscis could be for more benign use, such as sap sucking or nectar drinking.

through the course of writing this post, i did some digging around online based on the above information. there is no dedicated search engine to finding insects based on physical characteristics, so i had to search the hard way. i looked up "tree insects" can came upon a list of the most common types. a quick image search of the closest type yielded the answer i was looking for. the mystery kiwi bug pictured above is the pecan weevil. i knew all those hours spent reading The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew in grade 3 would pay off.