One of my neighbors is co-founder of an organization that does "TNR" and rescues of stray cats. TNR means Trap, Neuter, Release. Anyway, she has a backlog so she asked us to take in 4 kittens until they find homes. The good thing about her org is that they do not euthanize. The problem with this is that the members usually end up with a lot of unwanted animals.
So, we agreed to watch the 4 kittens. We have decided to keep two and one of my nephews has decided to take one, which means we only need to find a home for the 4th. Shouldn't be a problem... I hope.
Also, in these pics, you can see Constable Max making sure that nobody has too much fun. Max has been exceptional in that he has played a sort of mommy figure. He cleans their little bottoms (ugg) and makes sure they don't play too rough with each other. Essentially, he just gets in the way and annoys. Claws on the nose do not deter! Now, you may be asking, what do the other two feline residents of the asylum think about all this. That is a good question!
Spike, the orange long hair, seems to be ok with it all. He occasionally comes into the room with the kittens and will pretend to be aloof. Usually, he will sit, 2 feet or less away from the cage, with his back to them. Meanwhile they will be meowing and reaching through the bars to touch him like so many groupies at a Bowie concert. I did bring him in during one the free-range playtimes and he kind of panicked and fled. Another time, we brought the kittens in one-by-one and let him get to know them individually and he was ok with it all. I think he likes it that they dig him, but does not like their obnoxiousness.
Now, that leaves Mao. She can't stand the idea that they exist. She has refused to enter the room where they cage is and if I bring her in myself, she growls and hisses and flees immediately. Granted, she's always been this way. She'll act like an old bitch then when the new cats are allowed to roam freely she will accept them. She may even mother them at some point. Well, at least, that's what she did with Spritel, Flora and Spike.
Besides all of this, I have forgotten how kittens can be the most destructive force know to man. They will get into everything and attempt to destroy it without even giving it a thought. Multiply this by four and you have critical cat mass. They fight with each other and if they grow bored with that they immediately try to find the nearest electrical cable and chew upon it. When one is chewing the electrical cables, the others join in. It's a bit like Pirhannahs, they will try to destroy anything visible as individuals unless they have nothing in sight to destroy, then they will attack anything they see another kitten actively destroying. So, you have this swarm mentality where each is an individual capable of independent thought but susceptible to sheep behaviour if nothing else is available.
Maybe locusts is a better analogy?
Show us a better way to spend $300 than on the iPhone 3G.
Hmm, about an ounce of high quality... oh nevermind.
Seriously though, what a waste of money. I hate my mobile. My employer pays the bill and I have to keep it on me as part of my job. If it were not for that, I'd toss it in the toilet. I already have a decent MP3 player (not an ipod!). I don't really need Internet access while I'm out and about. So, what use is the iPhone to me? Very little.
This has to be the funniest punch line ever, from Skin Horse, 6/3:
"Man, there ain't nothing in this world sadder than a wet transvestite"
If you aren't reading Shaenon K. Garrity's and Jeffrey Channing Wells' Skin Horse, you should. Also, you might want to check out Shaenon's previous comic, Narbonic.
I got Mao in August of 1990 from a friend who needed to get rid of some kittens. She was about 2 or 3 months old and shredded my feet while I slept. She also terrorized my roommate's cats at the time. Later on she shredded my mom's carpet when I had to move back home briefly. Since then, she has been pretty much queen of her domain. There were times when I let her out into the courtyard of my apartment, then left to go drinking forgetting to put her back inside, came back home only to find her waiting at the back door, glaring at me for not letting her back inside before leaving.
I'm sure she had some adventures, but I'm glad she never ran away and knew enough to stay close to the "home base". She's always been smarter than most cats in that she always knew where "home" was and always knew to stay out of the street, even with being a primarily inside cat and with having to move around a lot with me.
She's always been fairly healthy. Although, there was a time, about 6 years ago, that she seemed to be determined to die. It was a few months after our Lhasa Apso, Petey, died from a heart condition. Mao was suffering from an abscessed tooth and had stopped eating as much as normal and had kept herself secluded from the rest of the family unit. The tooth eventually fell out on its own and she bounced back and became her usual social self.
Since then, it seems as though she is going to hang on forever. I'm quite nervous, though, that any day she will start to show the usual decline in health that cats show when they get to the geriatric ages. She's still eating, but she is showing a slight increased interest in water which could be a sign of kidney failure... but at the same time she isn't showing the other tell-tale signs: matted fur, excessive urination, rheumy eyes, etc.
As long as she wishes to hang on, I will make sure she is comfortable and happy.
I ask this because I have been trying to keep to a schedule of walking Max daily. The Vet says he is too fat. Also his owner, i.e. me, could stand to lose some weight as well. Max, a beagle (large, 15 inch shoulder... I think that's how he would be measured) weighs roughly 45-50 lbs at 4 years. Me, I am 275lbs at 38 years. We both could stand to lose something.
The scheme has been, on weekdays, to walk him two blocks down our street then come back up the street behind our house. According to Google Earth, this is about 0.87 miles. Then, on weekends, I take a longer walk. Depending on routes, this can be 1.25 to 1.6 miles... according to Google Earth.
So far this hasn't been a big deal. Max is always wiped at the end of any walk, regardless of distance. I give him some fresh water and he lays on the tile floor and pants for about an hour before he's back to normal. Lately, though, it's been getting hotter. I try to do these walks at 7pm or later since it can be 85 to 90F until dusk. Today I walked Max at 6pm and it was still pretty hot. I brought a water bottle and every couple of blocks would stop and let him drink some.
We went 1.5 miles today and once we got home, Max looked like he was about to go into shock. I made sure he drank plenty of fresh, cold water and he still collapsed on the tile floor and panted heavily for half an hour or so.
Eventually, he recovered and was ok, no panting, nose was cold, etc. So, I guess my question is, how can you tell when your dog has had too much time out in the heat? Down here in Houston, it can get pretty fuckin hot and humid, so how much do you think my dog can handle of taking a walk in this kind of weather?
Yeah, always showing up late, it's my MOD. Anyway, on to the multiple pet names....
I have always given multiple names to my pets depending on how I feel, how they are behaving, some silly thing they did recently, moon phase, etc. So, here they are:
My oldest cat, Miss Mao (official name or at least what the Vet knows her by), I got the name from The Illuminatus Trilogy. She is 18 years old, yes, that's right, she was born (I think) about May of 1990, I took her home around August of that year. Her alternate names are as follows:
Mux, Asynch Mux, Moose, Mouse, Winklemeyer, Quaklemux, Quakmeyer... these are due to her strange voice, she has a tendency to make a quacking noise. She also has been called Shithead, Pukemeyer, Stinkelmux, etc depending on her behavior.
There is also Spike, this is his official name. His alternates are Spork, Spark, Sprach, Spook or any variant on this theme. Also, Fishbreath, Fishface, Tunaface or any other derogatory name indicating foul odor.
The dog, Max, has multiple names as well, Pups, Poopsy, Poops-in-pants, Poppin, Puppin, Puffin, Papi Chulo, Lord Fatbottom, Bonelord, Carpet Bomber, Midnight Bomber (these last two are due to occasional outside-bathroom indiscretions), The Sheriff, The Constable, Fire Marshall, Squirrelbane (these are due to his ability to detect the odors of invading cats, squirrels, possum, etc in his backyard or if there's been a fire in the immediate 5 mile area)
Somewhere, I have a book about Pagan rituals that has a poem about cat's names. I haven't been able to locate it, but hopefully someone reading this will know it. There's a medieval poem about a witch's cat and the many names given to the cat. I can't remember how it goes, but it's something like one name for the witch to know the cat, another for the devil, another that is secret to only the cat itself. If anyone knows this poem, please let me know!
Well, not exactly, but since they like to use headlines to draw people in to articles based on shoddy research, why shouldn't we?
Obese blamed for the world's ills
Yes, that's the actual headline from the BBC. Apparently some douchebag named Dr. Phil Edwards was thawed out from the Victorian era to release a study that shows fat people are the cause of not only the food crisis but high oil prices, as well! Wow, what a fuckhead! Next he will release a study on how poor people are poor because they are lazy! I'd love to meet this prick at a party.
I know plenty of "fit" people that buy more food than their family can eat and haul it home in gas guzzling vehicles. Besides this, the oil prices are the direct result of the oil companies and their little "pet project" in Iraq, which, in turn, causes the cost of everything else to go up.
Don't blame fat people, blame the oil execs. Think about it, who ultimately profits from this? The oil execs, that's who. The rest of the world is starving and the Saudi royalty are building 100+ story apartment towers, indoor ski resorts and private islands in Dubai. These things are created with the blood of the poor and the working class. The Al Qaeda dipshits are attacking the wrong people.
I have to give the BBC credit, at the very least, because, out of the 18 paragraphs of this article, the last two offer a dissenting opinion... Wow, love those journalistic ideals...
But Dr David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said it was "stretching it a bit" to blame the obese in the way that the study appeared to do.
"Really, it is discriminatory towards obese people. They are an easy target at the moment, but I think the causes of climate change and rising food prices is much more complex."
Yep, that's all these fucktards are going to let Dr. Haslan say about the issue.
I found this picture in the latest Texas Higways magazine in an ad about Dog Days of Denton. He's called Papin Hood because he's a Papillon, I guess. Whatever breed he is, he's certainly a fancy lad!
I found a new beer this week so I figured I'd talk about it and another beer that's not really new, but worth a mention. The new one, New Belgium's Abbey Belgian Style, is a fair approximation of the Chimay or Maredsous dubbels. It has a rather fruity, flowery aroma when first opened that kind of backs off a bit after a while, but stays in the flavor. This fruity/hoppy flavor is common in most of New Belgium's beers, I guess it's like their signature taste. Now that I've experienced it in this Abbey beer, I realize it must be a hop or yeast that is used commonly in other Abbey beers. In their other beers, like Fat Tire or Blue Paddle, it was always this background note that I couldn't identify. So, yeah, this is a very heady, flavorful beer. Letting it warm up a little bit (almost, but not quite room temp) brings the flavor out in full force. And at 7% and roughly $7 a six pack, it is both cheaper and lower in alcohol than its European Abbey dubbels which can be up to 9% and $6+ for a 24oz bottle. If you really want to experience all an Abbey has to offer, try the Maredsous Black Label... it will kick your ass if you don't watch out!
The other beer is one I've know about for some time: Arrogant Bastard Ale. This one isn't an abbey, but more of a Northwestern US microbrew special, a lot like the Rogue beers. Very heavy and dark with lots of flavor and hops. Unlike the screed on their website, it is very easy drinking. It just taste so damn good, just enough bitterness to get your tastebuds asking for more. At 7.2% you'll find yourself pleasantly buzzed when you're done with the large bottle. I had mine with a couple of links of Zummo's smoked boudain... yeah, I know... it's not what you would drink with something like boudain, but oh well. That boudain had been in my freezer for a few months and figured it was a good time to cook it and get a refill on my southern heritage.
One of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. I'm almost done with the book now, and I must say the movie did it justice. They changed the characters around a bit, but it didn't detract from the story at all. I love the subtle humor. There's a few easy laughs, but most of it is the kind of stuff that you'll laugh at first, then a few minutes later it will come home as to how funny it really was.
The book was written in the 30's by Stella Gibbons and has lots of scathing satire of the social nuances of the day. Mr. Mybug's pseudo-intellectual debates: "do women have souls?", and the whole "wrong" that was done to Robert Poste for which the Starkadder's have been repenting for years. It's truly brilliant.
The movie has the lovely Kate Beckinsale as Flora Poste and Joanna Lumley (of Absolutely Fabulous, probably the funniest sitcom ever!) as Mrs. Mary Smiling and also Ian McKellen (of the X-Men series) as Amos Starkadder, plus a few other folks you might recognize.
"There'll be no butter in Hell!"
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Ken Kelsey said:
Japan starts mandatory waistline measurements: http://genomicmd.typepad.com/dna_and_you/2008/06/mandatory-waistline-measurement-in-japan-good-public-health-social-policy-or-genetic-discrimination-against-fat-people.htmlWanna bet Americans will be doing the same pretty soon? read more
on BBC says fat people are the root of all evil! -
zenjive said:
Hehe!I think I'll look for the Blue Buffalo stuff. read more
on How much is too much of a walk for a dog? -
crankypants said:
hahah, yeah, not all dogs are frisbee dogs. Elvis would as soon let it bonk him on the nose. hmmm,... read more
on How much is too much of a walk for a dog? -
zenjive said:
He was on the prescription Science Diet weight loss stuff, but I got tired of having to buy it from... read more
on How much is too much of a walk for a dog?
If by fat they mean the wealthiest of the wealthy rich people, then yes. :) read more
on BBC says fat people are the root of all evil!