Stupidest thing I ever saw

[jmowreader]

I went to Petsmart tonight to get some fish food...well, six feeder fish for my Jack Dempseys. (They have the best ones in town, or at least that's what my Dempseys say.) On the shelf was a "barklator."

This thing is supposed to be able to listen to a dog's barking and tell you in English what he's saying.

What crap. Dogs have exactly three phrases in their vocabulary: "feed me," "go away or I shall bite your face off" and "feed me again."

[Bertha Venation]

1. tell me something about Petsmart fish, will you please?

Did you buy your Dempseys there too, or do you just go there for live food? I swear... they are the only fish store I know of and I have to find another one. I ABHOR the little pricks who work in the fish area! They don't know SHIT about how to care for their fish. I've seen two of them (on two different trips) chase the fish with the net. I saw one of them drop a fish and leave it on the floor as he went to grab a new one! He almost stepped on it! I walked over to pick it up and asked where he wanted it and he looked at me as if I were an idiot for picking it up. He said "I don't care." I dropped it into an aquarium and went after the manager.

So... now that I'm done ranting.... Do you only get live food there? And what do you think of your Petsmart's fish workers?

[Dookus]

5. I think that's true of every Petsmart, Bertha...

I wouldn't buy any fish worth more than $4.00 at a Petsmart. They just don't know anything about 'em.

[Bertha Venation]

10. sigh... so do you know of

any fish stores in Charles County, MD? :shrug:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. Try calling the Humane Society...

That's the first site that popped up when I googled "tropical fish" + "Charles County"
http://www.humanesocietycc.org/weeklytp/weektip51.html

Seems like someone there would be able to direct you to a knowledgeable dealer.

[Bertha Venation]

18. Dummy.

That's "duh --> me." Thanks, Goddess. :eyes: at self

[jmowreader]

21. The Petsmart here is okay

They used to chase the fish with the net, but after I showed them the two-net trick, everyone there uses two nets to bail out the fish.

I buy some of my display fish there. Got some Dempseys there and some from a little place called The Aquarium on Yadkin Road. I got my Firemouth there. Actually, the reason I have Dempseys in the first place is because of the stupidity of the Petsmart associates. I was going to breed Firemouths. Went to Petsmart to buy two of them. Wound up with one Firemouth and one Dempsey. Dempseys are more fun, so that's what I mostly keep now.

Things I like about this Petsmart:
* reasonably knowledgeable associates; the ones I deal with all keep multiple tanks at home
* the best filtration system in town. I've seen it--a huge wet-dry system with a 500-gallon sump backing it up. (Unfortunately, they couldn't get it restarted after the hurricane last year and lost everything. It's running on an UPS and a standby generator now.)
* large selection of popular fish
* both Tetra and Hikari foods
* they discontinued the painted glassfish

Things I don't like:
* They're selling channel catfish and Pacu. The largest tank Petsmart can get you is a 150 tall; they also have 125 longs. Neither a channel cat nor a Pacu can live in a tank that small.
* No ability to special-order anything. I really want a Royal Plecostomus (http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/loricari/panaque/151_5.php). None of the seven fish dealers in town can get me one, so that's no ding against them, but they can't special-order *anything*--and there's stuff I need and have to drive to Charlotte to get. Specifically, Eheim filter media. (I could go online to get it, true, but you can't order Krystal hamburgers online and I like to stop at the Krystal stand when I go to Charlotte.)
* Inability to identify some of the fish they have. One day I was in there and they had a sign on a tank: "Royal Plecostomus $39.95." He was in a tank by himself--as you'd expect of a $40 fish. Then it swam out into plain sight; not only wasn't it a Royal Pleco, it wasn't even a loricariid. It was a bagrid! (How to tell: A loricariid is armored; a panaque (the subgroup of Loricariidae that contains the Royal Pleco) has seven armor plates. A bagrid is a smooth-skinned catfish.) Admittedly, this is a stretch--they normally don't have any catfish except sailfin plecos, a handful of corydoras, a couple of synodontis species--especially upside-down cats, which are a lot of fun--and the aforementioned channel cats. Naturally, they don't tell you that channel cats are (1) coldwater fish and (2) predatory. Or (3) that people pull six-footers out of the Cape Fear River four or five times a year and four-footers about once a week. IIRC over sixty channel cats that were at least 48 inches in length were caught in this river in 2003. You don't grow to four feet long eating muck off the bottom, children.


I have occasionally thought of opening a fish store with some of the more interesting fish you don't see in the chain stores, adequate-sized aquariums (read: huge) and high-performance filtering systems. You can't get discus around here. You can't get ancistrine plecos. You can't get any of the really fun fish you read about in the magazines. Hell, you can't even get Rams!

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. You forgot I have to go pee...right now!

:hi:

[Bertha Venation]

8. Read this out of context . . .

:wtf:
:7

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. Ha! I didn't think of that. You wouldn't believe what I almost posted the

other day in the annoying phrases thread. Boy was I glad I reread it before I hit the post button. :)

[NoMoreRedInk]

3. My dog says "Mama's Home", "UPS/Mailman is Here", and...

"People are in our yard" as well.

[camero]

6. Mine says, "Rub my belly".

[tridim]

4. Absolutely disagree

My dog has about 3 completely different types of barks, 5 or so different whimpers and 2 different whines that I've ID'ed. She's a talker.

[Philosophy]

7. My dog only answers questions

When she wants something, she scratches my leg. Then I ask her a series of questions ("Do you want to go outside?", "Are you hungry?", "Do you have to go pee?", etc.), and when I get to the one where the answer is "yes", she jumps up and down. This arrangement is much better than me trying to interpret her barks, because it means that she has to be quiet and pay close attention to me.

[HawkerHurricane]

9. My two dogs...

The male has only two things to say:
"There is something here, and I want it to go away"
and
"Is there any food for me?"

The female has a much larger volcabulary...
"That idiot has cornered a skunk again, can I please go inside where I won't have to smell him?"
"Could you please pass some of whatever it is you are having down to me?"
"Dry food is fine, but I prefer what you are having."
"There is a cat in the yard, please come kill it."
"Stupid here won't stop barking at passing airplanes, would you please come kill him."

There's more, but it's hard to remember it all...

[Lostmessage]

12. What about.......... I didn't fart you did

A dog might want to ask why is he being blamed for the fart that you just cut.

[jmowreader]

22. I don't think that's in the little machine...

Just a sneakin' suspicion.

[BiggJawn]

13. Dogs have a much broader vocabulary...

Dave Barry knows all about dog talk. Like, when they're outside and they all start yapping and howling? If you could translate it,you'd find that wee-wee's and Number Two's are hot topics in da hood.

"Hey! Hey! I made wee-wee!"... "That's nothing! I made a HUGE #2!!"... "Hey-hey-hey-hey! I made wee-wee AND #2!"..."Hey! smell THAT???"..."Oh, WOW!!! Fi-Fi's in SEASON!!!"..."Yeah, let's get goi-URK!!!"..."Ha-ha! forgot about that chain again, din'tcha, dipshit?"

and on and on....

[HEyHEY]

14. You know the dog's attitude?

If you can't eat it or fuck it, piss on it.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

15. Hmmmm...

I had never heard of barkolater. Now
I have and I thank you for it.

[CO Liberal]

17. The Stupidest Thing I Ever Saw Lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

:-)

[LuCifer]

20. AHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

Aw hell, you esencially stole my thunder! HEHEHEHEHE!!!!!

And what's with that "barkilator" thing? Translates "dog" to "English" huh? RIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! Well well well, how about that!!! Hey, guess what? I'm 19 feet tall...I live on a MOUNTAIN that is due WEST of Ft. Lauderdale...and my skin colour is BRIGHT GREEN!!!!! Pahleeez!

Lu Cifer, what next? a "Meowilator?"

[jmowreader]

23. Okay, the stupidest thing you put batteries in

..

[Robb]

19. Amazingly, I saw this product reviewed on TechTV

The conclusion was it was absolutely worthless, I'm happy to report. :)