Sid seemed a tad bored with his current toy selection and it was making him restless. It seemed like he was searching for something new – and clearly he didn’t find it at the bottom of his toy bin.
After his insane enjoyment from the Hide-A-Squirrel toy (which he still is crazy about) we ordered a bunch of other puzzle toys from Amazon and figured we’d distribute them whenever Sid looked like he was in need of a pick-me-up. [ continue… ]
So we’ve received numerous questions about how we recorded the timelapse / surveillance footage of Sid for OPERATION TUPPERWARE so I thought I’d put together a quick tutorial on how we do it.
What prompted us to spy on Sid in the first place came from the fact that we started finding tupperware strewn about the apartment when we’d arrive home from an evening out. We became curious to see when and how he managed to unroot all the tupperware. We also just wanted to see what he does while we are away – yes, we’re pretty much obsessed with the poor guy.
The software we used is called Evocam and it can be purchased directly from the company that makes it, Evological, for a mere $30. What I found unique about this software over others is that 1) it runs on a mac, and 2) it allows you to stream the footage on the web so that while we are out, we can keep tabs on Sid with Jenn’s iPhone.
Sid’s birthday present (besides his super special cake) was a Hide-a-Squirrel by Kyjen. Marvel as Sid extracts the mini squirrels from their tree stump faster than the speed of light.
“Are we going to spend another Saturday just sitting around the apartment?” Sid asked me after letting out a big sigh.
Well, I guess he had a point. It was already approaching 11 o’clock on a beautiful fall day and we were not taking full advantage of it – or any advantage of it for that matter. Having lived in Los Angeles for the past 8 years, I’d grown to take days like this for granted – but cold weather was on the horizon so we decided it was time to seize the day and head to the J.J. Byrne Dog Run for another outside off-leash extravaganza.
It was Saturday and everyone was getting restless inside the apartment. The weather was so nice that we decided it’d be the perfect time to take Sid to the nearest dog run and let him “cut loose”. The nearest dog run to Park Slope is at J.J. Byrne Park near 5th Ave and 4th Street. When we got there, a few other small and medium size dogs were already running around and the gate that separated the small dog section from the big dog section was wide open. While Sid is a veteran of Los Angeles dog parks (Pasadena, Silverlake), he had never been allowed to run with the big dogs. Would this be his chance?
Our apartment is super small and the “kitchen” has limited storage space, so we decided to keep our clean Tupperware on a bookshelf next to the couch, behind the kitchen island that divides the main room. The Tupperware was housed there for about a month without incident. Then, one day, I guess the Tupperware caught Sid’s eye.
After a week of coming home to find our Tupperware strewn about the apartment, in Sid’s bed, and in our bed, we set up a webcam to record Sid when he’s home alone. We were hoping the time-lapse footage would answer questions like, “at what point does Sid decide to ransack the Tupperware shelf?” or “what else is he getting in to while we’re gone?” What we learned is that Sid can barely wait for us to leave the house before diving into mischief. We embed video evidence for your review:
I’ll post more info on the awesome software we used to record the footage in a follow-up post. Trust me, it’s sweet.
Get your own hard-copy of the mini comic starring Sid. Only $1 (which includes 50¢ for shipping). 8 pages long in assorted rainbow colors!
