After a year and a half, his reign of terror is over.

The albino bristlenose plecostomus, who killed every tank mate he had and thus was clearly an Evil Albino, died sometime last night. For all that he was the psychopath of the Ancistrus world, I was fond of him, and I hope tiny algae-eating albino fish go somewhere really awesome after they die. In his case, I hope he gets to turn into the dragon he always wanted to be.

Boy is it quiet in here without the aquarium going.

5 things

1. cmpriest has a pair of wonderful posts about the oil spill and what you can do to help.

2. The Planckendael Zoo in Belgium has a snow leopard cub (I particularly recommend the second video, in which Laila demonstrates her ferocity upon a hapless rubber glove.)

3. So in January, the local high school's Future Farmers of America chapter has a seed sale. Everything they don't sell, they donate to a local small animal welfare group, who then has a plant sale, which I went to this afternoon. I came away with two flats of marigolds, two Wisconsin 55 tomato plants, two Long Thin Cayenne Peppers, and three (or hopefully four) Chocolate Beauty Peppers. I spent the afternoon digging a small vegetable garden in the side yard.

I've never tried to grow vegetables before. We'll see what happens.

4. Also! The Anthropophagous Rosebush, the Grandfathered Rosebush, and one of the Cerise Bouquet climbing roses are blooming! So is one of the hydrangeas (and the other is looking happily leafy)! I'm restraining myself from grabbing passersby and dragging them into my yard to admire things. Especially with the Grandfathered Rosebush, which is all but invisible unless you're standing right in front of it, and which is blooming in this FABULOUS deep purplish-red color, the restraint required is greater than you might think.

5. This is amazing, and if I ever get to Australia, I want to see it.