Like thousands of other people around the world, I got hooked last night. I spent hours watching a baby ostrich named Pip slowly (and I mean slowly) peck his/her/its way out of an egg. Some nice man who'd acquired an ostrich egg had set up a webcam so Ustream users could watch it hatch…and for a very long time, it was impossible to turn off. At least every time I tried going back to a script or to bed, I'd see another bit of movement as the newly-emerging bird shoved against its shell. For hours and hours and hours, a worldwide audience was trapped, thinking, "It'll just be a few more minutes."
As it turned out, Pip never did make it out on her own accord. The "nice man" finally went in and performed the eggshell version of a Caesarian, clipping away pieces of the shell and underlying membrane so the baby fowl could wiggle 'n' wriggle its way out. This happened about eight hours after I started watching, thinking all the time it was only a matter of minutes. It happened about three hours after I finally decided that it wasn't that vital that I witness the emergence as it happened. If I'd known how long it would actually take, I could have given up a lot sooner, gotten a lot more sleep and also finished a Garfield script. This morning, I got up and watched the video of what I'd missed and at this moment, the webcam is showing Pip strutting about and taking in food and water…a happy ending.
Here's the video. For many, many long hours, I and thousands of strangers watched what you'll see in the first part…the egg, with a little unseen creature chirping within, cracking more and more and more…always making you think you were but minutes from seeing little Pip come on outta there. The video then jumps to the assisted hatching…
Realizing how long the entire process took makes me feel a bit dumb for having stared at the screen as long as I did but I'm very glad the gentleman set this up. It was in many ways fascinating and wonderful to see, as frustrating as it was at times.
There was also an element of…well, I wouldn't call it disgust so much as open-mouthed amazement at many of the contemporaneous comments that were posted live by other observers. A lot were rooting for Pip to make it out and they posted things like, "You can do it, Pip" and "We're all behind you" — as if the baby ostrich had Wi-Fi inside the shell and was surfing the 'net while fighting to be born. An awful lot of folks posted tasteless remarks about eating or molesting the infant fowl and there were a couple of guys posting racist and homophobic attacks on…well, on everyone. I was kinda amazed at what some people thought was funny…and my newly-observed Rule of Thumb is that the worse your thought process is in this regard, the worse your spelling will be. I must have seen thirty different people crack omelet jokes without being able to spell the word "omelet."
At times, it was hard not to think that if the tiny creature inside that egg did have a decent internet connection in there and could read the rantings of a few of the lower lifeforms who were rooting for its death or frying, it might have elected to stay in there.