Gee has decided to sit on my desk, with his ass up against my mouse and his tail swatting my keyboard. Now he got up and jumped down and went out of the room. For the moment, I no longer have to fear he'll get up and sit on my keyboard, scrolling down the window or closing it.
He's learned that by jumping in front of the computer screen and walking on my keyboard, he gets attention. What a mooch!
UPDATE: He's been up and down half a dozen times. I love him but he's driving me nuts! LOL.
I'm wary to post more news of Bush's continuing series of lies. I feel like I sound like a broken record. But he and his administration never quit lying. And as much as I believe he can be defeated by any democrat at this point, I fear that he may do so much irrepairable damage by the time he leaves office that we are going to live with this damage for years to come.
My heart goes out to those in San Diego who are dealing with all those terrible fires. 800 homes charred. Yikes! And it is so bad that the Monday Night Football game scheduled to be in San Diego tonight is going to be played in Arizona. I'm amazed they are playing at all. Who's going to be in the stands to root for the home team, when the San Diego folks are worrying about their homes and livelihoods?
It's just terrible. Praying for some rain and no wind to help out with the fires.
Yesterday evening I took Tabitha to get her stitches out. (She's had them in for 3 weeks) It looked as though her incision completely healed, except for one spot that had a big scab. But the vet thought it was sufficiently healed to take the stitches out.
Unfortunately he was wrong. By later in the evening a 2 cm hole opened up. I figure Tabitha walking down the stairs must have pulled it too much and opened the wound up. At first I thought it was just the scab bleeding a bit and I put her in my bathroom until the bleeding would stop. Within an hour or so, the bleeding did not stop and had gotten worse. And it looked like the wound had opened.
By 10 pm I was driving to the Emergency Vet Hospital in Rockville with Tabitha in tow. We actually saw a doctor fairly quickly and he confirmed what I feared. The wound had opened and she needed more stitches. I left her there since they couldn't do it right away and I was exhausted. As it was I was afraid I'd fall asleep at the wheel. Once home, it took awhile for me to fall asleep. Then my alarm awoke me at 5:30 am. I was out of the house by 6, found a gas station open at an early hour on a Saturday morning (since my car was on E), and arrived at Emergency Vet by 6:30 to pick her up.
If you are not familiar with Emergency Vets, everything costs you more than it would at the normal vet's office. And having the cat stay there costs $3.50 an hour. As it was she stayed there about 7-8 hours costing me $28. The sum total of the stitches, visit, meds, etc. was over $200. Which isn't as bad as it could be, but it hurts after one has paid in the neighborhood of $500 for the original surgery, meds, supplies, etc.
I'm beginning to think kids are cheaper than pets, as you have health insurance for kids, LOL. Though I guess this shows me yet again that I should consider pet health insurance. *sigh*
Switching from funny stories to scary stories, here's an op-ed from Ted Rall that hits the nail on the head. The kid from down the road from me [in Damascus, MD] should be rewarded and not punished for demonstrating the holes still present in airport security. All these changes, all these supposed improvements apparently mean zippo. We are no safer than we were on that day in September.
And why the hell not? Oh yeah, those tax cuts for the rich. Why fund Homeland Security when there are possible donors to refund tax dollars to.....
It was only a matter of time before some kid somewhere would decide to raid Dad's stash of Viagara and share it with his buddies at school.
Could you imagine being the teacher who had to deal with six 13 year old boys standing at attention? I have to admit I have to applaud the journalist who penned this title: Stiff Discipline After Schoolboys' Viagra Prank
Hehehehe....
This story had me LOLing: Embarrassed GM to Rename Car with Risque Overtones. It seems LaCrosse in Quebecois French is slang for masturbation. Imagine GM's surprise to learn that. Brings back memories of the Chevy Nova, sold in Mexico. ;)
Let's just say I'm skeptical. I believed him to be a golddigger from the start. (On top of the fact he's so obviously gay.) Granted I know Liza's had her problems throughout the years, but this guy knew what he was getting himself into. He's a celebrity promoter afterall.
What a circus!
Sue and I visited the International Spy Museum today. It was two hours of detailed displays of spy related items. It was interesting but a bit crowded. It seemed as though some schools were out since many children were there with their parents.
All in all it had some cool stuff, but I was on information overload by the end. It will require another visit to appreciate all the displays. Some things were too crowded to enjoy, especially anything that involved hands on use.
In the gift shop, I pointed out to the manager of the video department that they needed to stock La Femme Nikita season 1. He hadn't realized it was available and agreed it would be a good addition since they do carry Alias and 24. I also mentioned that the creators of 24, also created La Femme Nikita. He did not know that but acknowledged that La Femme Nikita was ahead of it's time [since it was a show about espionage and counter-terrorism that well predated 9/11].
I must note that on Amazon.com, reviewer Derek Mok is an idiot and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Calling Roy Dupuis a casting mistake???? My god, more than half the women watching the show were drooling over him. And the man not only looks good but is an award winning Canadian actor. He can act circles around Peta Wilson.
Reading the rest of his review I note that he called Madeline matronly, therefore I know the boy is clueless. Madeline is many things, but never matronly.
All I can say is that first season rocked. The set of DVDs are worth buying...taught me much of what I know about spying and all the gadgets and tricks that go with the trade. :)
And I probably blog too much about the weather considering someone found my blog by searching " how much precipitation did we get yesterday " LOL.
Actually, I've been often been told I should have been a meteorologist, since I'm apt to check the Weather Channel the minute I see storm clouds. Gotta check that radar and see if the rain is coming my way. ;) And you know I've watched too much Weather Channel over the course of my life since I know how to read the weather maps, hehehehe.....I'm such a geek.
I'm taking the day off tomorrow since my friend Sue is coming into town for a visit. Almost all week the weather has been gorgeous. But of course the day I plan to have off, it's supposed to get cooler and rain. Waahhhh!
Back in high school and college I was a major soap opera addict. I taped Days of Our Lives and later Another World every day. I was a huge Steve and Kayla fan and later a Ryan and Vicky fan. And I thought Carl Hutchins was the most fabulous character, filled with shades of gray.
These days, when I turn on any soap whether it be Days or Y&R, I about wanna hork. Were the soaps as melodramatic then as they are now? Granted I bailed on Days well before the whole Marlena possessed by the devil storyline in the 90s, but still, were they that bad before that and I didn't see it? Or were they just a form of escapism that I can not enjoy at the present time?
Today's example was Nikki chewing out Sharon for trying to take over her role as matriarch. I yawned and changed the channel because the whole exchange was just absurd to me. I ended up checking out the weather channel today as I ate my lunch, LOL. That and one of those celebrity gossip shows. ;)
I'm not sure what makes me more sick--Bush, Cheney et al. running their mouths off instilling more fear this week, or reading how September 11th could have been prevented. I think the latter. Knowing that 3000 people died and our lives changed forever, all because the Bush administration and its cronies *ignored* all the intel Clinton et al had collected on Osama bin Laden and sat by and did *nothing*.
Read it for yourself here.
I'm too disgusted to say much more.
Just realized my last entry was #666. Maybe I should sprinkle some holy water around the place. ;)
Fall has arrived. The trees are starting to show their fall splendor. And walking around the lake today, it looked like something from a postcard. Just perfect. And the weather, almost warm for fall, made for perfect walking weather just before dusk. It smells like fall and I love it.
In a few weeks I'll be sad that all the leaves are gone. But for now, I'm enjoying the fall colors.
It seems only spammers come here and comment on this blog. *sigh* I'm wondering if its even worth me leaving them available if that's all there used for. I spent the vast majority of my two years blogging without using a comments system. I only implemented one since it was available with Movable Type. It seemed like a good idea at the time, LOL.
And from reading a few other blogs, it seems I'm not the only one who has encountered spam in the comments of their blog.
The thing I don't get is do these spammers really think they can generate traffic to their sites? They sure ain't getting much traffic from my blog. ;)
I was sitting up here at my computer when minutes ago I heard this loud high pitched wailing coming from downstairs. My first thought was 'Did Tabitha get out of my room and go after Gee?"
I ran downstairs to the main level of the house. No Gee. The wailing starts again. I run down to the basement and there's Gee wailing at the sliding glass door at a cat who is sitting directly in front of him, staring in the door at Gee. It's the tabby cat I've seen in the neighborhood before, one that Tabitha has hissed at as it ran through my backyard last month.
As I walked up to the glass door, the cat didn't move. I tapped on the glass, but still no dice. Finally the cat decided two against one was not worth it and slowly moved away. Gee was still breathing heavy against the glass, steaming it up.
I've never seen him get so upset. He REALLY didn't like this cat. He's normally not the territorial one. That's Tabitha. Usually he's the happy go lucky cat that doesn't give two shits about other cats coming past. But this one upset him, I guess because it got too close and wouldn't leave.
I've never heard such a loud wailing high pitched yowl. The high pitched part is not surprising since my boy does have a high pitched myip. [He rarely meows, he usually makes a tiny myip sound.] The funny thing is poor Gee couldn't manage to scare the cat away, even with his most hideous wailing. Poor Guy. Mom came and tried to soothe the poor aggitated fellow. That's what Mom's are for. ;)
Of course, I didn't spend long soothing him, before I ran back upstairs to blog this before work, LOL.
Now I know I'm having a bad dream. Ah-nuld, Governor? Bush, Jr. in the White House? Dear God, someone wake me from this nightmare!
Next I'll be having flashbacks of the Reagan Years when a Governor from California--an actor--becomes president. Right now, that's not possible for Ar-nuld, but Senator Hatch has been proposing that naturalized citizens be allowed to run for President. With Ah-nuld waiting in the wings I say, "Hell no!"
It's bad enough we're stuck with Shrub until 2004. Don't do us any favors.
On the flipside, maybe we should call for a recall of Bush? ;) God knows his record is worse than Gray Davis'. But, I'm not sure that sort of precedence should be set.
Does anyone recall if Ah-nuld has had any moments on film with any sort of chimp or ape? That would cinch the similarities between him and Reagan.
And that cinches it for me....I'll be staying as far away from California as possible. More than half the state doesn't have a brain. Either that or there is some serious voter fraud going on.....
I read an article about tribal infighting in Congo, the first large-scale massacre since the UN Peacekeepers arrived. Since I didn't know much of the history of this conflict I clicked on the link to the right of the WP article that leads to a Macromedia presentation that summarizes the region's history nicely. [Click on 'A Guide to the Congo Wars']
Using a narrator, footage and pictures, it presents the material in chronological order, telling the story of the Congo from prior to WWII to present day. I highly reccomend this Macromedia presentation to anyone who would like a glimpse at what this conflict in Congo is really about. I was stunned to learn this conflict has resulted in the most civilian deaths in this half century of any war. Unfortunately, this conflict does not receive much attention when our TV news media prefer to focus on the circuslike atmosphere of California politics.
I'm not sure what to make of this. GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear
[My source: Tom Tomorrow]
On Ebay? Okay, not quite.
To terrorists? Who knows?
But just in case, let's leak that the protective suits that were sold are defective. That'll make them think twice before using them. ;)
To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of this article. $46,000 worth of equipment is not a whole lot. Granted I'm sure the government gets a discount. But to anyone who works in a lab and has ever priced lab equipment, that's peanuts. One piece of sophisticated equipment can cost you more than 46 Gs. Shit, a set of [cell culture] incubators will run youat least 7 grand. A [benchtop] centrifuge, another 7-10 grand. On the flip side, getting it for 700 is ridiculously cheap, if it actually works.
All I'm saying is, this article doesn't mean much without more information to back it up. I'd like to know how old the equipment was, how many pieces, etc. The Pentagon will look stupid if in fact they sold lab equipment to individuals and not scientific companies/organizations, irregardless. But other than the 300-400 protective suits, how many pieces of equipment were really sold at bargain basement prices, and to whom?
Can you tell I've become very skeptical about the accuracy of news reporting these days?
I find mainstream science articles to be the worst offenders. I still haven't gotten over the article that detailed reason #123 that red meat is bad for you is because it contains sialic acid?!?!?! Uhh...hate to break it to the reporter but, red blood cells, the ones coursing through your blood vessels, are covered in *sialic acid*. [the major component of sialic acid is sugars]
Almost as bad was the article describing how bananas will be extinct in 50 years. And then there are all the ones that contradict each other about what's 'good' and what's 'bad' for you in terms of food and drink. Most of those studies are crap. Not enough people included and not controlled in the least bit. Poorly designed studies lead to poor conclusions based on crappy data.
I could go on and on, but I'll just end my rant there, LOL.
Tabitha had been having infections in her nether region due to her being overweight which caused her to have a fold of skin where bacteria and/or yeast could hide out in. Antibiotics did clear the infection but each time the infection would return after the 2 weeks of antibiotics was complete. So I was advised to do something more radical--have surgery performed on Tabitha that would correct the anatomical issue.
I debated back and forth, unsure I wanted to put my 10+ year old cat thru surgery. But knowing that this condition had been repeating over the last few years and that at times it made her uncomfortable, not to mention it made her butt smell (cats just love putting their butt in your face), I decided to have the procedure done on her.
She had the surgery done on Thursday. I brought her home Friday evening and have had to keep her separate from Gee. She's not thrilled to be locked in my room and he's not thrilled that he's not allowed in. But we're all surviving in spite of Gee scratching at my door at 3 am.
Today, after seeing that she was having trouble walking in addition to noting she hadn't pooped since I brought her home, I took her to the vet. Maybe I should have waited, but I didn't want to leave her home alone if she wasn't doing well. It was the difficulty walking that had me more concerned. It's always a guessing game with pets. Turns out she pooped at the vet's office. So things are working on that end. ;)
As for the walking funny, the vet (new one at the office) felt it was due to pain, so she prescribed a pain reliever. Tabitha seems to be walking better and her spirits seem up.
But by taking her back to the vet, my bills keep creeping higher. *sigh* Good thing I don't have kids. I'm having enough trouble affording my cats!
This whole episode does shake my confidence in deciding on the surgery. But the jury is still out...if it does bring good results. I'll feel satisfied.
As for Gee, he's doing just fine. He's been real affectionate of late. Simply a sweetheart. Even after the rough time we've had with his cystitis a year ago, I'm still thrilled to have him. He really is a sweetie. :)
I've come to the conclusion that some of my neighbors are mighty strange. I have one who has decided she is the champion of the row and feels she must lead/guide the rest of us. She's invited everyone over for a strategy meeting to deal with what she feels is a major issue, which is in fact quite minor.
Additionally I've learned she has three older single men living as renters with her in her house. She doesn't work, so I assume this is her way of making her mortgage. The problem is they take up 3 valuable parking spaces as we have limited open parking. The other thing about this lady is she wears the same outfit just about everyday. Very strange.
Another neighbor I've encountered has difficulty dealing with stress. She came over in regards to an item a few weeks ago. I suggested what she could do to get what she needed and she half spazzed, saying too much was going on with her husband's family--she just couldn't handle it. I wasn't sure what was going on, so I did the neighborly thing and dealt with it myself for her.
Well, last night she came over to apologize for how she acted that day and explain what was going on. Additionally I think I got to hear half her life story repeatedly over almost an hours time--spoken at warp speed. I almost went comatose during it all because I was so tired. LOL.
Meanwhile, I have a third neighbor who I talked to earlier in the day yesterday that clued me in on a few things about the other two...it all makes sense now, LOL. Now I know who to go to for getting the real skinny on the people around here. :)