The Blood-Thirsty Lion?

Sorry I’m a little late folks. Now normally this blog is updated every Sunday (or Monday), we’ve been having trouble with internet capabilities so I might be a bit behind on occasion. I also might have to switch my updating day to Thursday, so please bear with me.

My latest stop-motion film project: Animal Face-Off: Lion vs. Tiger is going well. I am just waiting for the script to be printed so I can get started. So I’d say it’s about 20% finished.

Also, our next practice for the Christmas play I wrote entitled, “A Big Misunderstanding,” is scheduled for September 8^th. For exact dates and times be sure send me an email to the address near the end of this post. We still have two major speaking roles to fill (the parts of Mira and Kate), along with the 12 other non-speaking roles. So if you like acting and are close enough to come, please do so!

What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I also do a lot of research on upcoming movies. And from my research I have found out that there are quite a few movies coming out in the near future that most people only hear about a few months prior. Pixar is making quite a few of these movies. Recently, they came out with a movie called “Brave” (I haven’t seen it so I can’t give a review). The movie they plan to have out next goes with another movie they produced in 2002 that was really a landmark for the series. This movie was none other than “Monsters Inc.”  Well, the guys at Pixar have decided to create another Monsters Inc. movie. However, there’s a catch to this movie, and it is explained in the movie’s “slogan”. It says: “Since the very first bedtime, all around the world, children have known that once their mothers and fathers tucked them in and shut off the light, that there were monsters hiding in their closets, waiting to emerge. But what they don’t know . . . is that those monsters weren’t always so scary, they had to go to college first.” Yep, this movie’s not a sequel to Monsters Inc., it’s a prequel. This movie takes place ten years before Monsters Inc. The movie is coming out in the summer of 2013. Other movies Pixar are hoping to create are

•        The Good Dinosaur
•          Planes
•          Possibly a sequel to “Finding Nemo” (this has yet to be confirmed)
• The Untitled Film that goes into the head of a little girl

Check out the teaser trailer below:

Anyway, back to the present. With the Animal Face-Off movie coming up, I decided we could look at these two animals for a little while. So, let’s take a closer look at the Panthera Leo, or “Lion.”

Think you know everything about the “King of Beasts”? Well, we’ll see about that! First of all, some of you might be thinking that lions and tigers don’t really meet in the wild because they live on two separate continents -- lions in Africa, tigers in Asia. For the most part, that’s true, today at least. But back in the day, lions were quite numerous on both continents. Their range went from the Kalahari Desert in Africa all the way to South East Asia! The Bible even talks about this to some extent, as you will recall that the shepherd boy David killed a lion when it came to attack his flock of sheep (with God’s help of course). Another account of lions in the Bible was when Daniel was put into a den of lions when he refused to worship the king. And another event was when a disobedient prophet was killed by a lion (1 Kings chapter 13). This prophet (the Bible doesn’t give us his name) was told by God to go deliver a message to a town and he was told not to eat a thing. After delivering the message, he visited a old prophet who insisted that God said he could eat now. Then the old prophet really did get a message from God: that the unnamed prophet had disobeyed by eating on his trip. Then God had a lion kill him. So after looking at these and countless other ancient accounts (in and out of the Bible), it would be impossible that lions did not live in the Middle East.

The "Panthera Leo's" former and present habitat.

Lions were revered in many countries. They are very dangerous animals as we all know. Now, let’s pretend you had a pet lion. What would you feed it? Meat of course! I mean, lions are carnivores so they have to eat meat to survive because they simply can’t digest plants and other non-meats . . . right? Well, I guess nobody told “Little Tyke” that. From 1946 to 1955, a female African lion was owned by Georges and Margaret Westbeau. They nicknamed the lion, “Little Tyke”. She was born and raised in America. Now they fed this lion liked a strange diet: grain, raw eggs and milk. If even one drop of blood were added to her milk, she would sniff it and walk in the other direction! This is a meat-disliking carnivore! What’s wrong with her? Folks were sure that lions had to eat meat to survive, but Little Tyke proved this was not the case. For her whole life of nine years, she didn’t eat a single speck of meat. Little Tyke isn’t the only “vegetarian-carnivorous” lion. 

In 2002, Lea, a lioness arrived at Rhino & Lion nature reserve all the way from Rome in Italy. Like Little Tyke decades before her, Lea didn’t eat red meat either. Instead this seven year old lion was raised on a diet of potatoes, green vegetables and cheesy pasta (speaking of cheesy pasta, I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it). There was just one food however she liked more than any other: spaghetti. Then it’s no wonder she got the nickname “Spaghetti Kid”! Now only was she picky on what she liked, she was also picky on how what she liked was prepared. When her new keepers fed her spaghetti with cut tomatoes, she refused to eat. The keepers had to be corrected: Lea only like tomato sauce, not cut tomatoes. So she’s a “picky-vegetarian-carnivore”. Apparently the keepers didn’t feel good about this diet so they were able to switch her diet to red meat within a week.

These images were taken from http://creation.com/lea-the-spaghetti-lioness

Some lions don’t like eating meat, as we just learned. However, some lions even have trouble killing the meat. In 2002, one wild lioness named ­­­­Kamunyak (which means "blessed one"), did a weird thing with a baby antelope she just caught. Instead of killing it like she normally would, she started to take care of it! Many people were surprised that a ferocious killer like Kamunyak could actually take care of her prey. Scientists were astonished! Kamunyak was so devoted to the baby antelope that she even neglected her own health to ensure the baby was protected. Unfortunately however, the baby was killed by a roving male lion (that’s just plain tragic! I’m going to have to give that male lion a call and tell him he just upset hundreds of people!). But one baby wasn’t enough for Kamunyak. She adopted five more baby antelope, and while they didn’t survive nearly as long as the first, we can plainly see that this lion was not the ferocious killer that we’d expect her to be!

Lions refusing to eat meat, lions caring for their prey . . . hmm, this is strange! This has never happened before in the history of the planet! Actually, it has. As a matter of fact, the Bible clearly states that this sort of behavior isn’t new. It is actually rather . . . old. In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 30: “ ‘And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.”  This is God’s voice commanding every animal on the planet that they were to eat fruits, vegetables and other plants. You see, God created everything to be perfect. Even the lions, or whatever cat God created, was to eat plants. However, when man sinned all of Creation was cursed and everything became corrupt. But let’s look at another book of the Bible, Isaiah 65:25: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox . . .” This is a section of the book of Isaiah that explains not the past or present world, but a future. This future world is different than anything we have experienced before. If you read on in the book of Isaiah and Revelation, you would see that this new world is when God creates a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no more sin, curses, death, disease, struggle, hardships, sadness, pain, etc, etc, etc. And it appears that in this new world, God will create animals that will eat plants, just like Lea and Little Tyke did. And best of all, we will be able to see God Himself. Boy, I’d better book a permanent visit to this new world. Wait a minute, I’m already booked! Would you like to be booked to this permanent visit too? Well, first you should know that God has a problem with sin, the bad things that we do. And believe me, we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (and yes, that includes me, too). Sin would include things like stealing (even a rubber band of CD), hating someone (God compares hatred to murder), being disobedient to parents, lying (even the so-called “white lies”) and committing adultery (God says that even looking at a person with lust is committing adultery). A common way people sin every day is saying the expression “Oh my God.” This is misusing God’s holy Name. People who use God’s name as a curse word have also sinned. Due to all the sin we’ve done throughout our lives, we don’t deserve to even book a visit to this new world. Instead, we deserve a booked permanent visit to Hell. Fortunately, God doesn’t want us to miss out on this permanent holiday destination. Instead, God provided a way for even us sinners to get to Him. He sent His only begotten Son named Jesus Christ to take the punishment we deserve: death, even though He did nothing wrong. However, three days later he rose again and went back up to live with His Father. Would you like to book a permanent visit to the new world? It’s not hard to do. You just need to follow these simple steps that are as simple as A-B-C:

·         A: We must Admit to God that we’ve sinned and turn away from it

·         B: We must Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and accept His gift of forgiveness

·         C: We must Confess out faith in Jesus as our Savior and Lord and live our life for Him.

See? Can’t get much easier than that! Would you like to make those steps right here? Right now? Well, say this quick little prayer to God:

“Dear God,

I know that I’m a sinner, and I also believe that Jesus is Your Son and that He came into the world to take a punishment I cannot pay. Please come into my heart today, oh God, and help me to live for You for the rest of my life, amen.”

If you said that prayer and meant it with ALL your heart, you are now officially booked into that permanent trip to the new world! Congratulations! Please be sure to send me an email to the address near the bottom of this post so that we can help you get on the road to living a brand new life with God as a Christian.

Oh! I almost forgot! The “new world” isn’t quite open for business yet! However, after we die, God has provided a perfect place for us to wait for its opening. A cool place called heaven! Oh boy, won’t this be exciting! A permanent holiday destination that’s absolutely free. Thank you for joining me today and be sure to check back next week for more cool stuff. Good bye!

PS: Have a puzzling question about creation, animals (including dinosaurs), God, Christianity in general, myself or any my stop-motion movies or my newly released book: “The King on a Cross?” Post your question as a comment or send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com. You can also do the same if you’d like to start your walk with Christ.

PS 2: Don’t believe what I said about those lions? Check out these links: The Lion that wouldn't eat meat, Spaghetti Lion, and Heart of a Lioness.

Return of the Great Mammoths

Welcome back folks! The Christmas play is going great so far. I'd say it's about 30% done. We officially have the parts of Zoey (played by one of our youth at church), Kim (played by my sister Halle), Jack (played by a youth at church) and Ben (played by yours truly). Along with the 12 NON-SPEAKING ROLES, we still have two female parts to fill, Mira and Kate, two new characters to the "Kim and Zoey" franchise. To check out the book that started the "Kim and Zoey" series (which isn't really a series yet since there's only one book out so far) click this link: The King on a Cross. Of you like acting, please feel free to send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com.

Some news on the next stop-motion film: I have completed the script and will start "filming" it soon.

By the way, before I get any further, I'd like to say I have officially opened a new blog! It's called "Smiley's News". You can reach it by clicking on this link: Smiley's News or by going to smileysnewspaper.blogspot.com. This blog is the news paper of Mr. Peter Smiley. While some parts may be fictional, it is a fun read and contains some facts as well. Go check it out! (After you finish reading this post of course).

This summer, a new movie came out into theaters. It's called Ice Age 4, or better known as Ice Age: Continental Drift. I have pretty much have no idea what the plot is since I haven't seen the movie yet, but I do hope to get it on DVD from Netflix. Anyway, one of the main characters in the movie is Manny, who is a Woolly Mammoth. Now, when most people think of mammoths they think of Woolly Mammoths, but there are many types of mammoths and they have living relatives: the elephants. The elephant family tree is HUGE! As a matter of fact, there were well over 600 species of elephants roaming the globe thousands of years ago,  but today, I'll stick to the mammoths. Here are just a few species:

Columbian Mammoth

Southern Mammoth

Imperial Mammoth

Woolly Mammoth

Woolly Mammoths are the mammoths that are normally depicted in popular culture around the world in movies (such as Ice Age 4), video games, computer games, books and etc. They went extinct at the end of the Ice Age about 3,500 years ago, about 500 years before Moses (and the Ice Age fits perfectly into the Biblical world-view). These behemoths roamed the snowy plains of Northern Siberia, Asia and North America. While there are still rumors floating around that mammoths still survive somewhere on the planet, the most likely conclusion is that they are extinct. And unfortunately we will never get the opportunity to see one . . . right? Would you be surprised to see a Woolly Mammoth walking in your backyard? What if I told you extinct doesn't have to be forever? Well, some scientists are thinking seriously about bringing the mammoth back from the brink by cloning them! How can they do this? You see, unlike most extinct animals, mammoths left a lot more than a few fossils to prove their existence. When these animals died many years ago, they were quickly covered, many probably were either buried in dust storms or sunk in sticky mud in lakes or ponds. After the animal drowned, they didn't have time to rot and so today, we actually find mammoths underground in the permafrost of the northern regions of our planet, including the fur and flesh! They are practically frozen in time! After excavating these mammoths and bringing them to labs, scientists have been able to actually extract DNA from these creatures. But there's one problem: just having DNA won't help, because in order to clone something, you also need a way to get a baby animal. However, mammoths have living relatives: the elephants! Scientists have many possible methods to hopefully clone a baby Woolly Mammoth. These methods can get very confusing, even for me, so I'll go through one of their less complex methods:

1. First, they extract reproductive "stuff" from a frozen male mammoth (I won't explain what exactly because some of our readers might not be ready for it)
2. Then they implant this "stuff" in a female Asian Elephant
3. Hopefully, the embryo will grow in the mother elephant and she will give birth to a half mammoth, half elephant calf aka a "mammo-phant"!
4. After breeding many other baby "mammo-phants", they will breed the calves that most resemble their ancient relative and over time, their offspring will resemble a baby mammoth and they won't be extinct!

"But wait a minute," you say, "wouldn't an "mammo-phant" turning into a mammoth be evolution?" Well, no it's not. Being a born-again Christian, I don't believe in evolution and millions of years. Instead, I believe that the Bible is to be taken literally when it talks about Creation. The Bible says God created ALL land animals on Day 6 of the Creation week. Well, when God made elephants, he didn't make Asian Elephants, African Elephants, Woolly Mammoths, Columbian Mammoths and etc., etc. all during that Creation week. No, God probably only made a particular type of elephant or mammoth. And this mammoth or elephant carried the DNA for all other elephants and mammoths that would later rise from natural selection. Natural selection is NOT evolution, as evolutionists would like us to believe. Instead of an organism rising out of . . . well . . . nothing and gaining more "genetic information" over millions of years as evolution teaches, natural selection is when an organism loses "genetic information" over time instead of gaining it. So if elephants "naturally selected" from mammoths, an elephant couldn't "naturally select" back into a mammoth (we don't really know if elephants descended from mammoths or not, I just used this example so you could understand better). So no, a "mammo-phant" turning into a mammoth is not evolution. See these articles on Answers in Genesis for more information: Cloning the Woolly Mammoth, Zonkeys, Ligers and Wolphins . . . oh my!

So back to the cloning of the mammoth (and by the way, there are other possible cloning methods that would not involve a "mammo-phant". Instead, they would give us a 100% Woolly Mammoth). I am quite excited about the possibilities of seeing a real, live Woolly Mammoths. Scientists expect to bring the mammoth back from extinction within another five or six years! I hope they succeed, don't you? After that, what's next? Tasmanian Tigers? Dodos? Saber-Toothed Cats? Tyrannosaurus rex? The possibilities are endless!

I really hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did writing it. Be sure to check back next week for more cool stuff. Good bye!

PS: Didn't get enough mammoth facts? Don't worry, I'll write some more mammoth posts soon.

PS 2: Have a puzzling question about animals (including dinosaurs, mammoths, lemurs and etc), Creation, my books, stop-motion movies, or etc? Send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com or post your question as a comment. IF YOU SEND ME AN EMAIL, PLEASE SAY IN IT THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS BLOG SO I DON'T THINK IT'S SPAM!

Leapin' Lemurs!

Alright, we've got a lot to go through today, so get your seat belts on tight! It's going to be a bumpy ride! (Of course that's a complete exaggeration but you get my point) You will recall that I mentioned the casting call last week. How did that go? Well, not good at all. I sat for three whole hours sitting on a very uncomfortable bench waiting for someone to show up. No one did. So we had another one right after church, and thankfully we've got some actors! Of course, we can still use more actors. There are four more speaking parts to fill and about 12 NON-SPEAKING ROLES we have to be filled. So if you want to take part, it's not too late. Just stop by Vassar Road Baptist Church after service (or you can stay for service) and we'll see what part fits you best.

By the way, how did you like the stop-motion film I made that was in the previous entry? You can post your opinion as a comment. You may be wondering if I have another one. Well, I do, but I have had trouble getting it onto the computer. But I am working on my next one. It's the first of a series called "Animal Face-Off" and this first episode is called "Lion vs. Tiger". This series is based off of a series that appeared on Animal Planet a few years back (like I said in my last entry, I'm still making short films as practice). If it seems rather weird that lions and tigers would fight because of where they live, well, this fight does happen in the wild (lions and tigers both live in Asia). As a matter of fact, ALL of the animal fights in the series DO happen in the wild, but we rarely witness them. So what I intend to do in this series, is recreate these fights (don't worry, they don't get too graphic) and see what the outcome will be. So it's time for:

WHO WILL WIN?!?

vs.

So what this is is a poll to see what animal you guys think will win the fight. (Now I have done my research to ensure the fight is as accurate as possible) This episode of Animal Face-Off is Lion vs. Tiger. So what you can do is do your research and then post a comment that says which animal you believe will win. Then sometime in September, I'll show the video of the fight.

As you'll recall in the book of Genesis in the Bible, God created all the land animals on Day 6 (this includes dinosaurs). These animals would have included an animal we all know and love - the lemur. Now lemurs might look like monkeys, after all they are both primates, but lemurs and monkeys are not related, contrary to what those brainwashed evolutionists say. Lemurs are actually prosimians. Prosimians (Pro-sim-ee-ans) is a group of primates that along with lemurs also includes tarsiers and bushbabies. The most famous lemur is no doubt the Ring-Tailed Lemur, but there are over 100 other species of lemurs living on the earth today. All can be found on the African island of Madagascar. Here are a few examples:

Grey Mouse Lemur

Black and White Ruffed Lemur

The Indri Lemur

Aye-aye

Golden Bamboo Lemur

Verreaux's Sifaka

Ring-Tailed Lemur

Unlike monkeys, lemurs can't hang from their tails. But they are very handy for balance while scampering among the tree branches. The largest lemur is the Indri (as seen in one of the pictures above) and the smallest is the mouse lemur (also seen in one of the pictures above). The mouse lemur is only 11 inches long! This makes it not only the smallest lemur, but also the smallest primate.

Lemurs live in groups called troops and they are normally (but not always in some species) lead by a dominant female. Unlike most primates, this is a female-ruled society. The males don't just sit back and relax however, they help in fighting rival groups over territory. And when the males fight, boy, you might want to get a close-pin! Males don't just use their hands and feet to fight, they use stink! You see, God made these guys with special scent glands on their wrists. They rub them on their tails and then they wag their tails around to try and frighten the other lemur troop away.

These furry primates also live in a variety of habitats too, from cacti scrub-land areas, to dense tropical rain forests. They also eat a lot of different types of food, including leaves, flowers, fruit and insects. Mmmmm, sounds yummy! Some lemurs have more centralized diets e.g. the Bamboo Lemur (see the above pictures) mainly eats bamboo.

Lemur's vary greatly in size today. But back in the day, lemurs had even greater size ranges. Take the Megalatopus for example.

This lemur was one of the largest ever. It grew as big as a gorilla and weighed about 400 pounds! It was perfectly at home in the trees. Lemurs made it to Madagascar probably by floating on rafts of vegetation after Noah's Flood. Then using natural selection (which is very different from evolution by the way, but I'll discuss that later) they changed into a variety of different forms. However, about 2,000 years ago, the giant lemurs were doomed when humans arrived to Madagascar, they cleared much of the land and cut down many of the trees giant lemurs needed to survive. The smaller lemurs managed to cling on, but the bigger lemurs needed more food and would have needed to cover vast areas to find it. On the ground giant lemurs were not comfortable, they were most at home in the trees. So unfortunately they went extinct. However, we still have over 100 species of lemurs today (and scientists are STILL finding new species), but if we are to have them in the future, we must preserve their habitat and be good stewards of the earth like God instructed us to be in the book of Genesis all those thousands of years ago.

That's all for now! Catch you next week!

PS: Don't forget to take part in our poll about the Lion vs. Tiger.

PS 2: Have a puzzling question about animals (including dinosaurs), Creation or etc? Or just some various question about me, my book, "The King on a Cross" and stop-motion movie projects and the such? Post your question as a comment or send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com. PLEASE SAY IN YOUR EMAIL YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS BLOG SO I DO NOT ACCIDENTALLY THINK IT'S SPAM!

PS 3: Also don't forget to check out that other poll we're having that I had mentioned a few weeks ago.

PS 4: Please help expand out wiki: Exploration Books Pedia. We really need the help. It's cool, fun, easy and free!

PS 5: Have an idea for a stop-motion movie or a book plot? Send me an email.

PS 6: This blog is updated at least once a week, so be sure to check back then. Bye for now!

A New Movie

This has been an exciting week for me! First, let me talk about the results for the quiz/poll. And . . . well, unfortunately, no one really took part in my poll. So until we get some results from that, I will postpone it.

Anyway, a lot of you might not know that when I'm not working on future books or plays or puppet skits, I am also working on stop-motion films. (For those of you who don't know what a stop-motion film is) A stop-motion film is a film done by taking pictures of objects, and when you run them together really (and I do mean "REALLY") fast to make it look as if it's moving. It's not used that much in today's time because CGI (Computer Generated Images) is now most often used, but since I don't have the knowledge to do CGI, I work with stop-motion. For some high quality stop-motion movies, check out Christmas classics such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Little Drummer Boy. As I was saying, the movie I made is entitled "Jurassic Park - The Game - Triceratops Trouble". Another thing you may like to know is that this film is also found on my Youtube channel entitled "animaladventure's channel". If you choose to look for my movie that way, you'll find it as the last movie on the channel (and if you choose to watch all the movies on my channel, please check out Answers in Genesis for information from a creationist world-view). If you don't feel like going through all that trouble, just click play on the image below to see my movie:

This movie, is based off of a demo scene for the recently released "Jurassic Park: The Game". My goal wasn't to merely create a short film, but to get used to using stop-motion before moving on to films that are completely all my own idea. So this is what I like to call a "practice film". Want to know how to make your own stop-motion film? Send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com. Believe me, making these films is really easy.

Just yesterday (which was August 4th) we had an event called Family Fun Day at my church, Vassar Road Baptist Church. It was REALLY fun! We had snow cones, popcorn, hot dogs, a puppet show, face-painting, live music, a bouncy castle, "fishing" games, bowling, bean bag toss and etc. My family and I sang some of the live music, my sister, Halle and I helped out with the puppet shows, and Halle and a few other girls from church did face paintings. I even got a whale painted on my cheek. God made it an awesome turn out! If you feel bad that you missed, you don't have to be. There are plenty of other events at church going on. For instance, there's the casting call for the Christmas play yours truly entitled "A Big Misunderstanding" that's going to be held on August 11th, 9:30 am. to 12:30 pm at Vassar Road Baptist Church. There are five to six speaking roles and about 12 non-speaking roles. If you like acting, be sure to come check it out. The play itself will be held on December 8th. The exact time is not confirmed yet. And if you want to do another event, there's also Trunk-or-Treat, that's to be held on Halloween night at Vassar Road Baptist Church, the time is also not confirmed yet.

So that's what's been going on around here. Be sure to check back again soon for more news, blue zebus and sales on canoes! (That was intended to be a joke, you can laugh, ha, ha, ha) See you next time, goodbye!

PS: Have a puzzling question about creation, my books, animals (including dinosaurs), our church projects or etc, please post your question as a comment or send me an email to animaladventures@aol.com. Also, if you   send me an email, please say in your email that you know about this blog so that I don't think it's spam.

PS 2: For exact dates and times of events, also send me an email.

PS 3: Please help expand our wiki: Exploration Books Pedia, it's free, fun and cool!