Business Chicken

Gears of Chicken

Betsy Aoki — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:17:52 +0000

I’ve commented here before about the love of gamers for random chicken NPC or active characters in their games – but then there’s the reciprocal concept of chickens loving to play video games….

Is there greater love than this than to own a chicken…?

Betsy Aoki — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:20:23 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows that this blog is an act of love, as opposed to professional courtesy, mad money-making scheme, or career advancement. I am not as in love with chickens as say, Jason is.

But what I do love is the way chickens are so experiential and in the moment and I feel this is best summed up by the Chicktionary doll, Herbina, and the following cartoon. First a real-life photo of Herbina.

Herbina was named because I wanted to call her Herb and Jason said that’s the wrong name for a hen. But I also imagine her as being the polar opposite of Rufus Chicken, who always worries about everything.

In my mind, love is not merely blind, it is Herbina-like. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Trying to eat better in 2012

Betsy Aoki — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:12:31 +0000

For many of us, the New Year’s resolutions are dead in the water already, but if you made a resolution that gives you pleasure, you might still be at it.

Hence, Rufus….

Jason McCullough — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:00:01 +0000

They are dangerous.

No one here but us chickens

Betsy Aoki — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:10:39 +0000

I love this cartoon mostly because of the expression on Innocent Chicken’s face.

Dali and surreal chickenry

Betsy Aoki — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:07:33 +0000

Dali is one of those artistic figures that I have actually done some research on – been to the museum in Florida (and want to go to the one in Spain), read a couple biographies, and done some reading about the fellow artists of his time period. If he had been born a chicken he would probably have thrown lobster phones (since it was one o his creations) but I fear the chicken itself would not have been surreal an animal enough to embody him. He’d need a mythical beast like a hippogriff or a basilisk or something to really do him justice.

The power of a good bathrobe

Betsy Aoki — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:01:25 +0000

I’ve long held a bathrone is one of mankind’s finer inventions. Broad and bulky enough to ensure modesty, comfy enough to sit in and drink coffee before mustering forces for the day, and at times warm and encircling enough to convince one that all’s right with the world even when everything else is riotously against that premise.

I love this cartoon because Petunia embodies that so-rare smug sedate happiness that is at odds with my modern digital lifestyle. First of all, nothing is sedate. And second, smug happiness is so often met with irony that its healing powers have little to no time to work.

Occupy the chicken farm…

Betsy Aoki — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:58:31 +0000

Reagrdless of your political leanings, I think you can have respect for people who enter the world and are determined to change it for the better (even if their way isn’t your way).

The main weakness of this cartoon is of course going to be pointed out by someone – chickens have no opposable thumbs and thus, cannot make a fist (although they can DREAM, can’t they?). Sorry, horrible primate biases coming to the fore here.

I regret nothing!

Jason McCullough — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:00:37 +0000

It is a valuable, inspirational message to us all.

Chicken cape… more like chicken straightjacket

Betsy Aoki — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:48:45 +0000

Well, measurements are the key to chicken couture and frankly, we gotta do more measuring. I went for a “turtleneck cape style” – combining what I thought were the best elements of the “chicken sweater tube” and the strange zipper suits the other pro chicken models were in. Essentially I took a felted/shrunken turtleneck neck from a sweater, and stitched a bits-of-felted-sweater cape to it.

First we picked the smallest, amenable chicken – Shy Chicken. She came running out and Jason snagged her, then I wrapped her in a towel and we got the turtleneck over her head (with its attached cape).

She squirmed a lot. Here you can see what the “turtleneck” part looked like close up.

You can see the fatal flaw in the design in the picture above- the turtleneck is bigger than her neck and is falling on her body more like the “sweater tube” from a previous blog post. That meant that the cape – which was not a true half-circle or a closed tube, but had a pie-wedge open in the front for more flexibility – was falling more along the fatter part of her body than resting on top of the place where her neck begins.

The generous cut of the cape was supposed to ensure the cape fell on top of the wings but did not constrain them. Because the coat fell too low, it turned into chicken straitjacket. :(

Here’s Shy looking elegant but constrained in her chicken sweater corset so you see what I mean. After a few seconds of struggling to get her wings out, she gave up and immediately swooped on a worm. We felt bad however and took her out of the garment once she’d gulped down the worm.

I tossed the garment into the trash. Next up might be “tube with wing slits.” But, I’m not sure. Mother Nature intended chickens to run naked and we may be messing with vital supernatural forces here if we taunt the powers that be too much with chicken sweaters.