Question: Day Bird or Night Bird?

Barton Stano asks:

I still worship you Marvin.
Are you a AM bird or a night bird?
Is your primate a night primate or a AM primate?

Dear Barton:

Thank you for the nice question. I enjoyed reading it almost as much as eating a peanut or pooping under a couch cushion where the human will not discover it until months later.

Here is how it works. If the human is active at night and wants to sleep late in the mornings, I am a morning bird, and I spend the early hours of the day doing my marvelous imitation of a car alarm.

On the other hand, what if the human is active in the morning and wants to get to sleep early? Why, then I become a night bird and serenade him to sleep with about four hours of microwave beeps and assorted vulgarities.

He does not seem very grateful; in fact he has threatened to put me in the refrigerator. He has not followed through on his threat, which is sad, because there is a lot of good stuff in there.

Now here is a video of a bunch of wet birds.




Save This Page Stumble It!

Question: Why is my Human so Lame When I'm so Wonderful?

stina asks:

Marv,

Could you do a brief Performance Appraisal of your human for us?

For instance, does he respond quickly and efficiently to your demands? Does he use his time appropriately (i.e., lots of parrot-squeezing/minimal cockatoo-squeezing)? In what areas could he show improvement? Please rate him on a scale of 1 to 10 peanuts.

Overall, do you feel he's qualified to retain the position of Footpad to The Answer Bird for another year?

We need more video clips & photos of you, BTW.

Dear Stina:

I would have to say, if my human had been bought at a store featuring a 30-way warranty, he would already have been returned.

As you appear to suspect, he spends an inordinate amount of time persisting in handling the phased-out cockatoo which continues to evade the trash collectors. The other day I caught him giving it a peanut, and as we all know, all peanuts are property of Marv.

He could show improvement in being less fat and buying me more bird toys. Some of the stuff he gets me is okay, but it leaves many of my urges unsatisfied and unexplored. For example, the urge to dismantle a diamond bracelet and toss the pieces into my water dish.

I would generously give him half a peanut. Shell.

Unlike Don Imus, he will probably retain his position for at least another year. At least until we see a leveling off in the price of monkeys.

I plan to put more videos up soon. Unfortunately, the human lost a crucial piece of the tripod. I suspect he ate it after it accidentally got mingled with his chow.

Until he finds it, please enjoy this video of a bird of admittedly lower quality.




Save This Page Stumble It!

Question: How do I Stay so Beautiful?

ATTENTION, PRIMATES! THE BEAUTIFUL COCKATOO WHO IS NEGLECTED AND HARDLY EVER GETS SQUEEZED CORRECTLY HAS RECEIVED AN IMPORTANT QUESTION!

Roy asks:

Maynard-

You really are a good looking bird, those 'citron' tints really set off your eyes.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

Dear Roy:

Yes, yes! I am quite beautiful. You are a very smart human for realizing this. Why any human would want to do anything but stare at and love and squeeze the pretty cockatoo all day is a mystery to me.

On the other hand, the annoying grey object looks like a giant dust bunny. Maybe it should go in the dustpan.

As for my routine, once a week I have the human take me outside and put me in a special cage and spray me with the hose. This knocks off dust and also tightens the pores. To show my appreciation and generosity, I wait until he picks me up and takes me inside, and I shake some of the water off on him, so he can bathe, too. But so far, it has not made him beautiful.

Haven't we discussed this before? Perhaps I should have my publicist do a press release.

THE COCKATOO ANSWERED ANOTHER QUESTION! LINE UP AND SQUEEZE THE COCKATOO!

Here is a video of a bird which is not as beautiful as I am.




Save This Page Stumble It!

Question: Does Marv Have Super Powers?

Roy asks:

Marv- I have heard of other african greys (like n'kisi) showing unusually accurate speech recognition and even precognitive abilities.

Do you have any superpowers?

Roy:

I am not sure if being cute is a superpower. Although I can do it through six inches of lead.

My human thinks I have ESP because I always know when he's about to laugh, and I get my laugh in before he does. However, the secret is simple. Before he laughs, his fat shakes.

Thank you for the closest thing to a normal question I have received in days.

I know you should always reward a human when it does something you like, so here is a video.




Save This Page Stumble It!

Question: What do We do All Day?

Today's surprisingly grouchy question was actually posed last week.

Sunny's Mom asked:

Two parrots sharing the responsibility for blogging, and you haven't posted since 3/29?

I dunno about bathing, but - what do you guys do all day long? Can't take 10 minutes out of your busy day and write up a new entry?

Geesh.

Dear Mom:

What is up with the attitude? I can only assume you are crabby from laying all those eggs. The answer is to quit laying big ones to impress people. Laying little ones is considerably less stressful, and if you are really good, you can squirt them out between the bars of your cage so they land on something expensive. Of course, that assumes you are shooting blanks as a diversion, instead of trying to build a family. Perhaps you are Catholic, in which case I apologize.

As for what we do all day long, the cockatoo waits for the garbage truck to take him away with all the other useless objects. And he gets it wrong every day, by waiting in the house. Meanwhile, I sit on my perch radiating cuteness and adorability, sort of like a round grey version of the Dalai Lama.

In between "sets," as I call my perch sessions, I like to mix it up by squawking loud and inappropriate things while the human is on the phone, and I also remove the most nutritious items from my dish and throw them behind heavy furniture so I can concentrate on the peanuts.

You should be half so productive. I mean, except for the eggs. Where you seem to be overachieving.

And now, a fine video. Starts a little slow, but well worth watching.




Save This Page Stumble It!