I didn't mean the snotty to be directed at you, more that I was concerned that I'm trying to balance things, since my sense is that chaostheory is sometimes resistant to listening out of feeling attacked.
And I thought you'd take gruff as a complement, I apologize if that flopped. I like gruff people, for the most part, except in combination with some other traits you don't have, like gross ignorance or blinding hubris.
My main concern is that chaostheory seems to bounce between being concerned and being rebellious about being pressured, so I want to mitigate the rebellion so s/he can avoid death... but I really don't want to be the "good cop" or anything, so I'm just trying to keep clear that I don't want to be an adversary or unsympathetic, but I also agree that this ought to be taken seriously.
I don't mean to undercut your position at all: frankly, I'd feel better if chaostheory got rid of the octo, but I'm not sure how to do that safely anyway. I defer to you and Roy and all sorts of people in terms of blue ring knowledge completely, but I think if chaostheory, like most 14 year olds, is likely to get stubbornly contrarian in the face of dramatic pronouncements, justified or not. Maybe that's me being too pop-psychology oriented, I don't really care if I'm right or wrong, I care that no one gets killed by this octopus.
I'm not even sure it's wise to interact with it enough to get it back to the store: in the most extreme prudent view, euthanasia by adding something toxic to the tank, IDing the corpse, and demanding the store refund the money if it's a blue ring seems like the absolute safest thing to do, but trying to get it out of the tank or transport the whole tank to the store both seem riskier than leaving it alone for a few days, because any interaction is more risky than keeping a distance. I could be wrong on that, so if Greg or anyone else has suggestions on how to get it to the store safely, I'm all for it, please speak up.
No one should sleep in the bedroom with a live blue-ring, or even be alone in the room with it, though. And if it's not sent away or euthanized immediately and safely, how hard can it be to beg/borrow/buy/steal a replacement camera cable? Roy is one of the world experts on blue ringed octos, and we have a number of members, including Greg, who have interacted with them a lot, and can likely ID it immediately from decent pictures. If it's just a USB cable, go to radio shack, best buy, or even your local drugstore and you can buy the stupid thing for less than $10, and while I agree with Greg that that is neither necessary nor sufficient to avert disaster, if it's enough to get past the roadblock of inaction, it's cheap, quick, and easy, and getting rid of that as an excuse for not dealing with the situation sounds productive to me.
cthulhu77;121289 said:
Gruff? Snotty?
No offense, but I have seen friends that have lost fingers, hands, and arms due to envenomation.
I called Irwin an "idiot" when we worked on filming the southwestern rattlesnake episode, he reached into a burrow to pull out a rattler trying to get away. He said he did it all the time, and I should just calm down.
Well, he is dead now.
A deadly animal should not be sold to a minor, if something happens, the store is available for a massive lawsuit, as is the family of the 14 year old.
Get rid of it. Hand it off to the store with a stern warning, or to an experienced facility.
Waiting to ID it is like hoping that your hand grenade will actually not go off if you pull the pin. Mistake.
Sorry that I come off so harshly, but this is not some matter to be dwelled on or treated lightly.