Packet 3, Feeding Time

It being day five, I did feed my office pets today. I used a piece of advice I found at sea-monkey.com, but I notice I can no longer find this advice there? Anyway, I used the small end of the feeding spoon, put the food in clean separate container and then mixed it thoroughly with water from the tank. I also could've used some bottled water thus replacing evaporated water and killing two birds with one stone. I save sea monkeys, but I kill bird. Heh? As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, I mixed the food and the water thoroughly and then dumped the water back in, which also added oxygen, one more bird dead.

Survived the long weekend

I was worried about my Sea Monkeys as I wasn't able to get into the office to pump air into their tank for three days. I rode my bike to the office on Saturday but I just missed the one guy with keys. Sunday, Monday, no luck.

This Sea Moneky Nursery really does make a big difference. When I got into work today I was most pleased to discover I still have TONS of little guys swimming around, more than I had on Friday. This is the most I've ever had hatch and they seem to be staying alive.

I pumped their tank full of air and now they're doing their loops and trips up to the surface, much bigger than they were on Friday. I tried to get a picture but it's pointless. You really couldn't make 'em out. The next batch I do I'll capture a small video clip every day for the ultimate Sea Monkey journal.

Mr. Miyagi

One of Mr. Miyagi's pics. Click to enlarge
Mr. Miyagi who resides in Singapore keeps a blog detailing, among other things, his Sea Monkey hobby. He takes much better pictures than I do. In fact he's even got video clips up and it would seem he's started a bit of a Sea Monkey keeping epidemic in his part of the world.

I'm glad his friends who have caught the brine fever from him are better at taking pictures than my friends, some of whom got their monkeys from me for FREE!

TAKE SOME PICTURES YOU PUNKS! Okay, sorry about that. I'm back to my normal mild mannered self now.

WOW

I must pronounce the Sea Monkey Nursery a big success.
I am back at work and I can't even count how many little monkeys are swimming around now. They're everywhere. I'd say close to three dozen of 'em at least. Very cool. I'll try to snap a photo when the light in here is better.

And so it starts (again)

Spring is in the air, so Sea Monkey's are on my desk.

I decided to test out my Sea Monkey Nursery. I like that it's wider and shallower for better gas exchange, but I don't care for the lids with the holes on top as they allow more dust in than the original tank's side holes.

I added the water purifier, packet one, yesterday, waited my 24 hours, and at 9:30 this morning I added packet 2, "Instant Life."

It probably was instant, but it was about 90 minutes later that I first saw little dots swimming about. No matter how many times I've done this its always a thrill to see the little guys for the first time as they spiral and twirl around the tank. An hour later they were spreading out rather than huddling in the corners. I'm guessing I have about a half dozen to a dozen in there now.

I just turned the thermostat in our office up to 72 degrees. It'll be a constant battle with the secretaries who like to keep it around 68. Luckily I sit closer to it than they do. (Wow, I really am a geek aren't I?!)

At 2:15 I noticed three guys swimming all the way to the surface of the tank.

I should have more sea monkeys swimming around tomorrow. Check back then.

Sea Monkeys, one great thing about America

When Kipling West found himself living in Canada he started thinking about the things he loved most about his old home, The USA. So, in 2001, he painted 165 Great Things About America. Just to the right of the top left square you'll see a familliar face. Kipling love's Sea Monkeys. You may recall that his Frida and The Sea Monkeys was the first piece of Art in our art Gallery and the third entry to this here blog. Click here for a list of all 165 great things.

Sea Monkeys on Veronica Mars?

Anyone see the finale of Veronica Mars? I missed it, not a big fan, but now I hear there was an in depth discussion of Sea Monkeys and their mythical amphibious nature. I'll try to find more.

Sea Monkey Race Track Commercial

I knew of these race tracks and always wanted one, in fact I still want one, but I had no idea they were once advertised on television.

Thanks to Uncle Sea Monkey for finding this and putting it up on his youtube page.

Great Sea Monkey Puppet

click to enlarge photo
Sea Monkey from Everybody Loves Pirates, photographed by Richard Sassaman for The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. Richard Sassaman wrote me and told me a bit about how the photo came to be.

"i really admired the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, two brothers and a sister who were doing shows in our area of Maine, and volunteered to do some videotaping for them, then I also took their official postcard photo at the Bar Harbor town pier.

Their most popular show, probably, is the one about pirates. They wanted a bunch of photos for it, so we went and I shot them at the Pirate's Cove miniature golf course just outside town. My next-door neighbor, a rugged old New Englander named Paul, became the 'greenskeeper' there after he retired from his auto mechanics job, and he let us use the place one morning before it opened to the public."

Now I'm dying to see the show. Any show that features a Sea Monkey is aces with me, but throw in puppets and pirates and I don't see how it could be anything less than spectacular.

Mexican Sea Monkeys Knock Offs

Uncle Sea Monkey found this on the Mexican E-bay site. It's a Sea Monkey knock off, and McDonalds is involved.
Hmmmm?

Click Here to view the original listing (for as long as it stays up.)

A Google search turns up several sites referencing both Gluupy's and Sea Monkeys, but the Gluupys.com site would seem to be down.

I can't help but wonder if they approached McDonalds about the happy meals and then got rebuffed when McDonalds realized that they were violating a patent.

And now their marketing mock ups are for sale on E-Bay.

It'll be interesting to see if we hear anything more about Gluupy's in the future.

Sea Monkey Day Party

I'm tired. So, here's a few pictures and I'll write more tomorrow:
Click to enlarge the pics, and thanks to Kiny for taking 'em.

Sea Monkey Geek on the Radio

Z-107 in Indiana will be celebrating National Sea Monkey Day tomorrow by having your's truly on their morning show. 8:30am (Central Time.) I'll see about getting a copy of the interview up here soon after.
And in case you were wondering, the monkeys in the picture are trying to find Indiana on the map. They're mistaken in thinking that it's in Eastern Europe. I'm pretty sure it's just south of Mongolia.

Later in the day I'm having friends over for a Sea Monkey Day party. I'll post the pics up right quick.

Question and Answer time

Just Elisha wrote with a great question about her Sea Monkeys. I invited Sea Monkey expert George Atamian, President of Educational Insights- the company that markets Sea Monkeys, to help answer.

Question: My monkeys will be 2 weeks old on Tuesday. I noticed some babies! Is it possible that they could have reproduced already?

Sea Monkey Geek: What's more likely is that some of the eggs in the original packet hatched later than others. This is very common. You will probably notice insanely long, um, breeding sessions, before you see a second generation of monkeys.

George Atamian: Normally, it takes 21 days for the Sea-Monkeys to reach reproductive capability. Once they start to mate, several days pass before eggs are seen at the base of the female’s tail. If conditions in the tank are perfect (by hybrid Artemia standards) the female may, in time, give birth to baby Sea-Monkeys sans shells!!
As Keith mentioned, the babies seen may come from the original eggs that may have had very thick shells, which would result in longer hatching time.

Mozilla's Project Sea Monkey

Sea Monkey's swimming around in our computers? My God! What evil hath those mad geniuses at Mozilla wrought upon us all?
Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the concept. I didn't actually read all that text, o' lord no. Too many words, not enough pictures. But When Mozilla releases the official Project Sea-Monkey Comic Book I'm there.
For now you can check out their project for yourself by clicking here.

And if you're not already using Mozilla's FireFox web-browser, I highly recommend it (if for no other reason than to counter balance my earlier feigned anti-intellectualism.)

Sea-Monkeys Vegas Style

Click pictures to enlarge
Yes, Sea-Monkeys were spotted in sin city.

Oh no! Sea-Monkey's in pasties and feathered head dresses? Gangster Sea-Monkeys collecting their protection money? Sea-Monkey's with gambling problems swimming in watered down, complimentary casino-drinks?

No, thankfully, it's none of the above. The Sea-Monkey's are on the winning side of the gambling scene. They're guests of the house, staying in the nice suites, all the room service they can handle and every cable channel unscrambled.

Sea Monkey Slot machines have apparently been around since 2005. These are the only pictures I've found so far. I don't know who the dude is but apparently the aquatic simians were good to him, not too good though; I don't know how far $13.80 goes in Vegas. Guess it all depends on what kind of a poker face you've got.

An Interview with the Sea Monkey President

George Atamian is the president and CEO of Educational Insights, the company that gives us Sea Monkeys. I hope to shoot my own interview with him soon, but for now, here he is being interviewed at some expo.

Man Claims Sea Monkeys as Dependents

Click Here to listen to a hilarious story involving Sea Monkeys on The Onion's "Onion Radio News."

Enchantment Under The Sea

Enchantment Under The Sea '65 by Bonni Ried

Eventually I'll run out of great Sea Monkey art from The Seven Deadly Sinners but lucky for you that day has not arrived. This is a particularly gorgeous painting. You can check out more from this group at www.7deadlysinners.typepad.com or for Bonni's contributions in particular click here.

Now quick, before we do run out, send us your Sea Monkey artwork.

Free Stuff For The Sea Monkey Geek

The box arrived. I'd been waiting for it, and the girls who work in the front office told me as soon as they saw the Fed-Ex truck pull into the yard.

The driver of the truck moved the package to the front of his truck and then sat yappin' on his cell phone.

"C'Mon Man! What are you doin'? Bring Me My Damn SEA MONKEYS!" I was telepathically yelling at him. His skills in telepathy were wanting, probably short-circuited by cell phone microwaves.

Eventually he did bring the delivery inside. I signed his little computerized clipboard, and I tore into the box immediately.

Little plastic pillows of air, some bubble wrap and SO MUCH Sea Monkey goodness. I couldn't wait to get it all out of the box and I did so, right there in the front office as my co-workers giggled at me.

Yeah, so I'm a big kid, especially when it comes to Sea Monkeys, and doubly so when it comes to FREE Sea Monkeys.

I knew I'd set up a pretty nice blog here, I'm proud of it, but boy oh boy, that great guy, George C Atamian, (the Sea-Monkey ReAnimator) sure must've been impressed. He sent me the mother lode.

Lets see, I received:
2 Sea Monkey Nursery Sets
1 Pirates Gold Set
1 Sea Monkey Detective Set
1 Glowing Stones Set
1 Wrist Aquarium Set
1 Pink girly Locket Set (for that special lady in my life)
1 almost classic set with a portable key chain aquarium
1 Hang Ten set
1 Sea Monkey "Shaky" (bobble head)
1 X-Large t-shirt
and 1 Birthday Set

The Birthday set is not yet available to the public. It's everything you need for a kids birthday party. Sea Monkey tablecloth, plates, Cups, Napkins, Straws, invitations, A Sea Monkey Candle, Sea Money Crowns and best of all EIGHT SEA MONKEY SETS! So every kid goes home with some instant pets. Look for some photos of this one in use soon as I'm inviting my nephew and some friend's kids to test it out.

I shared the wealth, passing kits on to some friends who have promised photos of their Sea Monkey experiences. I myself am holding off on hatching until I get packet of Sea Medic, Vitamins and other good stuff from Transcience, but I will be trying these goodies out soon and I have my video camera at the ready.

Yeah, I'm a big ol' geek, but I'm a happy geek.

More Virtual Sea Monekys

Section 8 studios has a free Virtual Sea Monkeys game. If you do all the steps necessary being careful not to overfeed and remembering to oxygenate you can raise healthy, happy Sea Monkeys from first hatching to mating to second generation. And it's easy to be patient when waiting 24 hours just means hitting the "Wait 24 hours" button.
Click here to check the simulation out for yourself.
Or click here to adopt a considerably less interactive Sea Monkey.

TMCM meets The Sea Monkeys

Click images to enlarge
It was in the pages of comic books that the earliest fans of Sea Monkeys were introduced to the hobby that for some became an obsession which often causes other adults to look at you funny (and with maybe a touch of sympathy.) So it seems appropriate that todays comics would want to feature Sea Monkeys.

For me its win, win. I love comic books, the indy ones like Too Much Coffee Man especially. I was thrilled when my friend Carl informed me that TMCM had himself a Sea Monkey adventure.

Our caffeinated hero decides to fill his bathtub up with Sea Monkeys. When he accidentally falls in, he discovers he has created a whole under water world. And he soon finds himself in hot water under water.

You can read the whole adventure and plenty more for free at www.TMCM.com. To start at the beginning of the Sea Monkey issue just click here.

And as long as we're on the subject, other comic book artists I enjoy are Daniel Clowes, Jeffrey Brown, Robert Crumb, Chester Brown, Los Bros Hernandez and many more. Of course not all their work is appropriate for all ages.

Trouble Is A Seamonkey

Trouble is A Sea Monkey by Rod Filbrandt

The wonderful folks who make up the art group The Seven Deadly Sinners have been kind enough to link www.SeaMonkeyGeek.com from their site witch is quite an honor. Check them out at www.7deadlysinners.typepad.com.

Wouldn't you love to have your original Sea Monkey art featured here? I would love to have your original Sea Monkey art featured here.

Uncle Sea Monkey on YouTube

Well I'll be a Sea Monkey's uncle. What's that? The jobs already taken? So it is. This Uncle Sea Monkey is the same fella who designed www.Sea-Monkey.com and he has a great youtube page full of Sea Monkey videos. From fighting to mating to babies. Check out all his great videos at www.youtube.com/seamonkeysforever.

And please note, I purchased a URL so the site can now be reached by typing www.SeaMonkeyGeek.com into your browser.

Celeb-Monkeys

Click image to enlarge (really, it's great.)

Celeb-Monkeys by 14

I am continuing to feature the fine Sea Monkey themed art of The Seven Deadly Sinners. Please visit their site for much more arty goodness at www.7deadlysinners.typepad.com.
This one is much fun. Be sure to click on the image so you can view it full size with all it's gory details. Now, if I buy some celeb-monkeys, will my Tom Celeb-Monkey come with the elevator shoes or do I have to buy those separately?

And quit being stingy, send me your Sea Monkey art.

Were You Disappointed?

Ad parody found at www.joeydevilla.com, Click to enlarge

I'm surprised when people tell me they were disappointed that their Sea Monkeys turned out to be "just brine shrimp." I was not.

Click here to see original ad
The little book that came with my Sea Monkeys gave me so much fascinating information about the creatures and I was thrilled to be able to take a dry powder, drop it in water and instantly have animals that would grow, change and reproduce.

I also was not disappointed upon discovering that my chicken nuggets wouldn't sing and dance like in the commericals (or scream in pain when I ate them, though that would've been pretty cool), that my Rice Krispies didn't actually have much to say or that mommy couldn't really tell when I was lying. Pretty pleased about that last one actually. How old do you have to be to understand caricature as it's used in advertising mascots?

My only disappointment was in the difficulty I've had in keeping them alive for more than a few months, a difficulty I blame on my brother originally, and the lack of climate control in every home I've ever lived in as an adult for my later failures.

The few months though have always been worth the price of admission. And C'Mon, who out there really expected little monkeys? I hate to make fun of innocence, but anyone THAT "innocent" should maybe have someone helping them with the scissors.