Category Archives: Cats

April 25, 2014 · 19:38

Odds & Sods For Friday, April 25th

Item The First: The following tweet from CNN is offered as proof that President Obama reads this blog:

2014-04-24 Proof That Obama Reads My BlogIt’s obvious. I post pictures about my visit to Gyeongbok Palace (here and here) and the next thing you know, Air Force One is in Seoul and the President’s getting a tour. Since coincidence = causation, ipso facto, the President reads this blog. (Mr. President, give me a call at your convenience, I’ve got a few thoughts on planetary exploration and the NASA budget that I would like to discuss.)

Item The Second: When I talked about the Hugo Award nominations a few days ago I mentioned that some of the nominees might require some effort to track down, being published in places I don’t normally read. I had forgotten that since 2006, many (if not most, or all) of the literary nominees are available in electronic form to all eligible voters.

Of course, this year the twist is the inclusion of “The Wheel Of Time” novels (all fourteen of them) as a Best Novel nominee. People were wondering how that would be handled, whether or not they would include one novel or just not include any. Instead Tor has decided to include all of them.

That may or may not have any bearing on whether or not other works are included (it’s at the discretion of the author and publisher) but it instantly guarantees a new record for the number of Supporting Memberships for a Worldcon.

It works like this — you get the package of e-books and stories if you’re eligible to vote for the Hugo Awards. You’re eligible to vote if you’re either an Attending Member or a Supporting Member of the convention. Anyone can join. An Attending Membership is currently $205 (and the price will increase in July) and lets you attend pretty much anything at the five-day convention. (We won’t be going unless we win the lottery or something, a fact which displeases me. I really love going to Worldcon!) So if you’re going to be or can be in London in August, get an Attending Membership and have the time of your life!

If you can’t go, you can get a Supporting Membership for $40 (which will also increase in July) and while it doesn’t let you get into the convention, it does let you:

  • get a copy of the program book and other publications
  • vote on where Worldcon will be in 2016 (currently Kansas City and Beijing are competing for the bid)
  • vote on the Hugo Awards, which in turn means that you…
  • …get the books & stories in the voter’s packet.

Let’s do some quick math. The fourteen “Wheel Of Time” books currently are available in the Apple store for a total of $94.86. (For the sake of argument I’m leaving out the one prequel novel, but for all I know Tor might be including it as well.) “Ancillary Justice” is $8.99, “Neptune’s Brood” is $10.99, “Parasite” is $9.99, and “Warbound: Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles” is $9.99. That’s the potential for $134.82 worth of novels for $40, plus (potentially) many of the best novellas, novelettes, and short stories of 2013, plus voting rights for the Hugos and 2016 site selection, plus the convention program book and other publications.

Now do we see why they’re going to be flooded with $40 supporting memberships?

Item The Third: This is what I have snoring on my left most of the day when I’m at my desk in my home office:

Joey_smallWhen the hummingbirds start hovering outside she gets a bit agitated.

Item The Fourth: The Beijing vs. Kansas City vote for the 2016 Worldcon Site Selection will be a tough one for me. I had an extremely good time on my one visit to China (Shanhai) and would love to go back to see Beijing. (If at all possible we never just go into town for the convention and then boogie back out. We always try to spend at least a few days to visit and see the sights.)

On the other hand, I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas (my elementary school years) and still have many things that I love about the city. (Chiefs! Chiefs! Chiefs!) It will certainly be a lot cheaper to get to KC than Beijing. That could decide it for a majority of US voters — but China’s a really great visit, so don’t rule it out, guys!

Then for the 2017 site selection, there are already bids for Japan, Montreal, Helsinki, and Washington, DC. Tough choice!  I also had a fantastic time on my visit to Kyoto, Japan (we’ll get to those pictures after the Korean pictures) and would love to see the country again. I’ve never been to Scandinavia, so Helsinki would be incredible. Washington, DC is one of my favorite cities on the planet, and I haven’t been there in over thirty years. As for Montreal, it’s okay, but we’ve been there, gotten robbed there, been there again.

Item The Fifth: This is what I have farting on my right most of the day when I’m at my desk in my home office:

jessie_smallShe loves her “desk cave”, but the semi-enclosed area tends to trap the odors. I’ve thought about putting in a fan and a venting system to the outside, but I fear that the neighbors over on that side would (justifiably) demand an Environmental Impact Report, which we would probably fail. Look at all the problems the Sriracha factory is having in Irwindale.

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Filed under Cats, Critters, Dogs, Fandom, KC Chiefs, Odds & Sods, Photography, Science Fiction, Travel

April 7, 2014 · 20:30

No Day So Lousy That…

In Colonel Chris Hadfield’s wonderful TED talk last month (see it! see it! see it!) he says that astronauts know that in space “there is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.”

Sounds coming from the other side of the desk are telling me that there’s no day so lousy that it can’t be made worse by…

…hearing the cat making that “gnnuuuurrchh”, “gnuuurchhaaa”, “gghhhaaaaurch”, “splat” sound.

…getting your tax returns from your accountant and seeing all of those zeros in the amount you owe in eight days.

…hearing the thirteen-year-old, arthritic, lame dog in the back yard suddenly tearing around at 100 MPH, going “OOOOWWW, WOOOOW, WOOOOW, WOOOOOOOOW” in the dark as she turns into White Fang, Dog of the North — and then you smell the skunk.

…reading the comments on any Internet news story.

…hearing your computer hard disk make that “click” sound, followed by a rhythmic “click-click-CLICK-click-pause” over and over, while on your screen you get some error message that you’re now too panicked to read.

…kidney stones.

…getting the “Thank you for applying, but after careful consideration of your resume” generic email on a job you really, really wanted.

…a phone call checking up on a deadline that you completely, 100%, totally forgot about.

…hearing “your” numbers called as the lottery winners, only to realize that after having tickets with those numbers every draw for the last ten years, you forgot to get a ticket for tonight.

…getting a call from the IRS about the aforementioned tax returns.

…NOT hearing the cat making that “gnnuuuurrchh”, “gnuuurchhaaa”, “gghhhaaaaurch”, “splat” sound, and then finding the “splat” part in your bare feet.

The good news is that the sun will rise tomorrow, and it’s got to be better than today.

Right?

Please say, “right.” Please?

(For the record, only one of these things happened today. But two others have already happened this month. I’m hoping none of the others do.)

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Filed under Cats, Computers, Dogs, Health, Job Hunt

March 23, 2014 · 22:23

Gravity, Juggling, Fireworks, And “Cosmos”

Too much “Cosmos” tonight (the show is fantastic, can’t be “too much” of it!) to leave time for many other things. Tonight’s tale of Newton, Halley, and gravity was excellent. Catch it online or on one of the other cable networks it’s shown on if you missed it.

I’m juggling more other tasks than I have in quite some time, and while juggling a schedule doesn’t require gravity as much as juggling chain saws, the consequences of dropping things can be just as disastrous. So that’s sucking a fair amount of time out of my weekend.

Then there’s the raccoons who are again on the roof, dancing on the skylight, freaking out the cat. Anything that freaks out the cat is a good thing, but if they smash that skylight and come crashing and bleeding into the living room (due to our old friend gravity) I’ll use up my month’s allotment of adrenaline in about three seconds.

So while I deal with all of that, here are some more pictures of fireworks, which are some of the more spectacular and beautiful displays of gravity on an everyday scale.

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Filed under Astronomy, Cats, Critters, Fireworks, Photography, Space

January 22, 2014 · 21:45

What’s Gotten Into Jessie?

Besides a lot of cat food, that is.

Jessie the puppy and Joey the kitten came into the household at about the same time about thirteen years ago. We already had an older dog (Lucky) and an older cat (Oreo), and while Oreo and Joey simply tolerated each other, Lucky and Jessie were tight. Lucky became Jessie’s surrogate mom.

The Lucky Puppy was a hoot, a great dog. We got her as a rescue soon after the kids and I started doing the one-parent household thing. She was red-tagged at the pound, meaning that it was her last day if she didn’t get picked by someone. She was a big, lovable galoot of a black lab. She immediately figured out what was going on in the house and decided that she would be the kids’ protector. No one was ever going to give “her kids” any grief, even if it was me just goofing off or playing around.

The Lucky Puppy was a fool for getting into the trash and swiping food wherever she could get it. We would find her with her head in the trash, again, and she knew that she was in trouble, she knew that she shouldn’t be doing it, she just didn’t know how to stop herself.

That was never a habit Jessie picked up from Lucky. Jessie’s always been very good about staying out of the trash and not taking food off of a plate or table if it got left behind.

Mind you, Jessie will sit there and look at you while you eat with an expression that tells you that she’s at death’s door from starvation, but she just wants you to be happy eating all of that food while she watches and hopes and prays for the smallest morsel that might keep her from fainting dead away. It’s safe to say that this has worked for her only on days that end in “Y” – she might be the most spoiled dog on the planet when it comes to food, a fact that The Long-Suffering Wife is quite proud of.

In the last year or so we’ve caught Jessie eating Joey’s dry cat food a few times. We keep two types of dry food out for Joey. Jessie won’t touch one of them, but the other one she loves and will wolf it down and clean the bowl if given the chance. We try to remember to put Joey’s dish up on the table or counter if we’re leaving Jessie in the house for a while, since the cat food is much too rich for her and does nasty things to her GI tract.

Now a new behavior from Jessie has been discovered.

Joey gets her “wet” food in the evening, and she’ll normally eat a third of it or so, then eat more a couple of hours later, then nibble on it as she wants, so that by the next morning it’s about 90% gone and by noon or so the next day it’s about 99% gone. All of a sudden in the last couple of weeks, almost every morning her dish is spotless, not even a trace of fumes left in it. I (foolishly) figured that she was really liking the current kind of cat food she was getting. I should have recognized the signs, but I didn’t.

Until last night, when I heard a slurping sound that I thought was Jessie “grooming herself” ,i.e., licking her ass. That’s not unusual, but what was unusual was Joey (who was on my lap) getting very upset by the sound. I looked around to see where Jessie was, and found her at Joey’s bowl, frantically licking the bowl clean and eating the remaining 2/3 or so of Joey’s dinner. Of course, as soon as she saw me she took off with her tail between her legs to go sit at The Long-Suffering Wife’s feet. She thinks I won’t scold her there.

I kept telling her to come with me back into the other room, but she knew that she was in trouble and she wasn’t moving. When I brought the cat food bowl in to put down in front of her, she did the classic ears-back-tail-between-the-legs-belly-on-the-floor shuffle off into the corner, where she sat with her back to me because if she couldn’t see me than I couldn’t see her.

Tonight, now aware of the issue, I kept an eye on her as we watched “Jeopardy”. Sure enough, as soon as we were distracted, she quietly and discreetly started moseying toward the other room where Joey’s dish was. When I hollered at her, she came back into the living room, but only just barely, and as soon as she thought I wasn’t looking, she was headed that way again.

Again I yelled for her to stop, so this time she went off to somewhere I couldn’t see her, waiting for her chance to move again.

Do dogs get senile? She’s not being starved to death by any means and she’s never displayed this behavior before. Is this the equivalent of the 80-year-old who starts robbing banks just because he’s bored and needs attention?

What’s gotten into her?

More importantly, how do we stop it? I don’t want to be the household pet food police for the next few years.

Wacky dog!

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Filed under Cats, Dogs, Family

January 19, 2014 · 21:18

Nothing Remarkable Happened Today

It was just a normal Sunday at Castle Willett. We slept in, went out to breakfast, did our grocery shopping. A friend from high school had a birthday. (Hi, Diane!) I took down the rest of the Christmas lights, I didn’t fall off of any ladders or drop any hammers on my head, we watched some football. My son called from Germany, my daughter called from Sacramento, I wrote a little bit. The cat broke something, the dog was a good girl when other dogs came by our yard. No one died, no one went to the hospital, it was not in any way a red-letter day for any of us.

That was my initial perspective, and it is 100% valid and accurate.

Then I started thinking about what my grandfather, when he was the same age as I am now, might think of everything I did today. (We’re talking mid 1940’s on a farm in South Dakota.) About the only thing he would recognize would be the bacon and eggs, the cat, and the dog.

The digital alarm clock? His probably got wound up by hand.

The HD flatscreen television? I’ll bet that he didn’t have a television in the 1940’s, and the big thing in the 1960’s when he died was color TV.

The iPhone and iPad on my bed stand? I doubt that he had a phone in the 1940’s. I’m not 100% sure they had electricity by that point. Even if he did, then you’ve got that whole comparison of a 1940’s  rotary dial phone with a world-class computer that just also happens to convey phone calls.

Our car, the convertible with the big engine? OK, so the 1940’s Indy cars might or might not have had more horsepower (pole position was won with a speed of 126mph and I’m pretty sure our car could do that on a track), but any car my grandfather ever drove in his life most certainly didn’t. His tractor didn’t have a roof other than his hat, does that count as a convertible?

The 737’s going over our house into Burbank and the 747’s and 777’s going over our house out of LAX toward Asia? Sixteen hours non-stop is a long haul from LAX to Tokyo (been there, done that), but compare that to sixteen hours (with three refueling stops) to get from Los Angeles to New York on a DC-3. As for how commonplace air travel is today, I’m not sure my grandfather ever flew in a plane, ever.

The computers that I’ve used all day to write, do accounting, surf the Internet, read online newspapers? They weren’t even a theoretical dream to anyone on the planet in the mid 1940’s.

If we went to see a movie today, it would be wall-to-wall digital effects to make anything utterly believable, as well as on a huge screen, with flawless projection and eight-channel high quality sound. In the 1940’s, the big, new technological breakthroughs in film were color and stereo.

The ISS went overhead today with six men on board, a vessel that has allowed us to have a continuous human presence off-planet for over thirteen years. The moon’s just rising now, and there are six manned landing sites and twelve sets of boot prints in the dust. We’re driving two separate vehicles on Mars (one of them over ten years old), we have spacecraft currently orbiting Mercury, Mars, and Saturn, we’ve done long duration missions to Jupiter, we’ve swung by Neptune and Uranus, we’re currently on the way to Pluto, and we have spacecraft that have left the freaking solar system and are now in interplanetary space. In the mid 1940’s, only Wernher von Braun and a few of his friends that that his would ever happen.

I’m listening to music from satellite radio and watching live tennis from the Australian Open. Our car radio has dozens of AM stations (all talk and news), several dozen FM stations, or we could plug in our iPods or iPhones. He had a radio the size of my desk with maybe three or four stations he could get during the day, maybe a couple dozen at night. It would have been a big deal to hear something live such as a presidential speech from Washington or war news from Europe.

That was my more introspective perspective, and it also is 100% valid and accurate.

It’s all a matter of perspective, which we forget all too often. “Nothing remarkable happened today” — when you compare today to yesterday. “Mind blown, gobsmacked, and miracles everywhere” — when you compare today to just fifty or sixty years ago, well within a normal lifespan.

Maybe something remarkable did happen today.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Cats, Computers, Dogs, Entertainment, Space, Travel

January 15, 2014 · 22:11

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Wednesday, January 15th

‘Cause I’ve been laughing so hard I might have broken an internal organ or two, that’s why.

  • This is what damn near killed me tonight. I’ll entertain the idea that I’ve been dealing with some stress and pressure to the point where I was ready to pop like a balloon — this was the pointy thing that burst the bubble. Whatever. I still haven’t been able to read more than the first five or six comments without getting to the point where I can’t breathe and the dog’s whining because she thinks I’m dying.
  • There’s a very fine line between a cat trying to cuddle with you and a cat trying to see how much they can piss you off.
  • To Donald Trump and all of the other troglodytes who think that climate change is a hoax because they’re having winter, I would note that California’s in its worst drought on record and it was 95° F this afternoon in Orange County at 13:15.
  • At what point does being creative and purposefully “thinking outside the box” cross over into desperation and panic?
  • I actually had to use a trig function in a calculation for yesterday’s blog article. I’m still amazed that I remembered how to do it. (Shut up, Bob!)
  • It sucks when the dog gets old enough so she can’t jump up on the bed and instead just looks over the edge of it with those sad, brown eyes. “Anthropomorphism” my ass, you know that she remembers being able to jump up there, wants up there now, and knows that she can’t make it.
  • Whoa! Wide dynamic range of emotions there tonight, from laughing myself nearly into unconsciousness to sad, old dog eyes. As a pilot, you want to avoid those kinds of oscillations, they can lead to a loss of control. Which suddenly has a whole new meaning…
  • Tomorrow morning the nominations are announced for the Academy Awards and for us the scramble starts. How many of the nominated films for the “Big Five” categories (actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, best film) can we see before awards night? That way we can have informed and knowledgeable completely useless opinions instead of our usual ignorance-based useless opinions.
  • How do they determine who the weakest link is in a “prayer chain”? Is it based on the honor system, does God rat you out, or do we just check with the NSA?
  • And to think, I get paid for writing this nonsense!
  • Wait, what?

Remember to floss. At a bare minimum, do it when you’re changing the batteries on the smoke detectors on the day when we “spring forward” or “fall back” into or out of Daylight Saving Time.

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Filed under Cats, Death Of Common Sense, Dogs, Flying, Juicy Chunks, Movies

January 9, 2014 · 20:55

What Does The Dog Want?

We all love our pets, but face it, all of our assumptions about what’s going on in those noggins is as anthropomorphic as hell. And “assumptions” is the correct word, because even on the “easy ones”, we could be wrong.

For example, when the cat crawls into your lap, starts purring, and starts nudging and nuzzling your hand, our assumption is that the can wants to be scratched, stroked, and petted. But how do we know that the real goal isn’t really to get between us and our keyboards?

When it’s 6:00 and the dog is running around your feet and whining, we assume that she wants to remind us that it’s dinner time. Sure, when we feed them (because they’ve trained us to do that when they act like that) that’s great, they’ll take it (dogs never, ever turn down food), but what if they really are trying to get us to open that cupboard where the food’s kept just to check and see what’s in there?

When the dog’s scratching at the door, dancing, whining, and crossing his legs, we assume that they want to go out and pee. But what if they’ve really got a “Dancing With The Dogs” practice scheduled and they don’t want to be late?

And those are the “easy ones”!

What does it mean when the dog has had dinner, has had “dessert”, has had treats, has been out in the front yard (twice), has been out in the back yard (three times), has fresh water (two bowls at different ends of the house, heaven forbid she should have to walk that far if she’s parched), has dry food, and still is up in your face every five minutes whining? We have no clue.

We’ve tried to get her to “use her words”, but that’s not going all that well. I’m sure it’s our fault, not hers.

In “Up” they had that great device by a mad scientist (see, someone’s working on these things!) which allowed the dogs to communicate with humans. (“Squirrel!”) Why can’t we have one of those in real life? (“Only available in this TV offer, but wait, there’s more! Order now and we’ll send you a second Petalk Helmet for your other dog, you just pay additional shipping and handling.”)

What would happen if such devices existed? Would you need different models for dogs and cats? It seems obvious to me that you would, but I’m not the mad scientist here. (I’m just a little angry.)

Better yet, what kind of output would you get if you put a cat-to-human communication helmet on a dog, or vice versa? That’s a show I would pay to see! Extra points to whoever invents the dog-to-cat communication helmet. Or dog-to-squirrel. Wait, that’s probably why they had “Universal Translators” in Star Trek.

But in the bigger picture, if we have so many problems with the details in communicating with creatures that share 90% of our DNA and have evolved along side us for hundreds of millions of years, how will we ever communicate with an alien species if they land their UFO’s on the White House lawn?

Maybe they’ll already have invented human-to-alien communication helmets for them to use with us. Will they wear the helmet, in order to utilize their far superior intellectual (or telepathic) abilities? Or will they make us wear the helmet so that they can avoid undue strain on their necks? (I’m assuming, of course, that alien UFO’s don’t come with chiropractors in their crews.)

Will they naturally gravitate to football players to communicate with because they’re already wearing helmets? If they’re looking at old television footage due to the limitations imposed by the speed of light, will they think that Terry Bradshaw or Joe Montana is our leader? (Are we doomed?)

Or will they show up and have communication helmets for only the dogs or the cats? If they have aliens-to-dogs helmets, the cats will be even more pissed off than humans will be. (If you have a cat, you’ll understand.) Humans will probably get nice chewy treats for taking care of the dogs. If they have aliens-to-cats helmets, well, it’s obvious that we’re all pretty much screwed.

Unless we take the alien-to-cat communication helmets and put them on a dog! That should mess up those alien brains, sort of like what Jeff Goldblum did in “Independence Day”.

Y’all think that over and let me know your thoughts (via comments, not author-to-reader communication helmet).

I’ve got to go take the dog outside. For the tenth freakin’ time tonight.

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Filed under Cats, Dogs, Farce, Science Fiction

January 6, 2014 · 20:15

Ups And Downs

First of all, I was playing webmaster and social media guru (you, in the front row, stop laughing!) today. Starting today if I did it right (which means “starting tomorrow” according to the guy in the front row) notices should be appearing on my Google+ and LinkedIn pages every time an article gets posted here, just like notices have been posting to my Twitter and Facebook pages for many months. So, hello to anyone reading “We Love The Stars Too Fondly” for the first time after seeing it mentioned on Google+ or LinkedIn! Spread the word! Browse! Comment!

It was a good day today for SpaceX! They got the first launch of 2014 off on the first try, successfully delivering the Thaicom 6 communications satellite into a perfect orbit. Congratulations to everyone there for a job well done!

It’s always great to see a successful launch, but for the past few years it’s been even better due to the use of small video cameras. NASA-TV will carry coverage of NASA-related launches (and you know how much I love NASA-TV), but for non-NASA launches like SpaceX’s commercial jobs, many of them are shown live online. SpaceX is doing a fantastic job of showing their launches on LiveStream, and today’s was no exception.

Look at the view you start to get at about T+0:00:48. You’re looking straight down the body of the rocket with the engines firing below you and the Earth dropping away. Talk about “seeing the Earth in your rear-view mirror!” But it got even better. Watch what happens at T+0:02:58. As the first stage shuts down, the video feed switches to a camera inside the engine compartment of the second stage. We see the stage separation, the first stage falling away, and the second stage engine lighting off and starting to glow red hot. That’s just freakin’ amazing!

With luck it will be a busy year for launches, both from SpaceX and Orbital on the commercial side, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin (the United Launch Alliance) on the government side. Let’s see Falcons, Atlases, Antares, and Deltas all heading off-planet safely and successfully all year! (Ditto for the Soyuz, Protons, Arianes, Long Marches, PSLVs, H-2As, Zenits, and Vegas all launching around the world. By the way, just what is the plural of “Soyuz”?)

The next launch scheduled is in less than forty-eight hours, with Orbital set to launch an Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station. Check NASA-TV early Wednesday afternoon for that launch. If you happen to be on the US East Coast and it’s clear, you might be able to see the launch yourself.

Later in the year, if all stays on schedule, SpaceX will be firing off their first Falcon Heavy. SpaceX originally started launching their Falcon 9 rockets, so named because they use 9 engines. The Falcon Heavy will use 27 of those engines and its capabilities will rival that of NASA’s Saturn V (which hasn’t flown in forty years) and the Russian’s Proton heavy-lift vehicle. That launch will go out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, about a three hour drive north of here. I might just have to do whatever’s needed to get up there to see that one.

On the “down” side, it was a short Christmas light season with Thanksgiving coming unusually late. Today was the start of a couple days’ work to get our decorations down and stored away. That corner of the living room looks naked with the tree gone, and poor Joey no longer has a prime place to lurk and fantasize about glorious ambushes. On the other hand, we can now see the book cases in that corner, and we’ll try moving the stationary bike there. The bike will either get us motivated to exercise while we’re watching television, or will be a great place to hang laundry on while folding it.

We all know what the Vegas line on that bet is.

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Filed under Cats, Christmas Lights, Space

December 23, 2013 · 21:59

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Monday, December 23rd

‘Cause I’ve been putting up more lights all day and I’m sore, that’s why.

  • Nope, still can’t remember that really, really wise and juicy chunk o’ wisdom that I forgot in the middle of writing the post on December 9th. IT’S HAUNTING ME!
  • Um, yeah. Yesterday was Sunday the 22nd, not Sunday the 21st. It’s so tough getting good help.
  • Does anybody like the “Cherrios dust” that fills the bottom of the bag when all of the Cheerios are gone? That stuff is nasty!
  • It’s one of those times of the year when the International Space Station is making lots of very bright evening passes. Here in Los Angeles we have excellent passes on Friday, the 27th, at 18:34 and on Saturday, the 28th, at 17:45. (At least I believe those are the correct days of the week and dates of the month – you might want to double check that.)
  • I have started using Google Calendar a lot and for the most part I like it. But… Is there a way to “copy” or “clone” an appointment? By that I mean, can I pick an existing appointment, “copy” it, then go to another day and “paste” it with just the date changing? I know that there’s a way to set up repeating events (for example, a meeting every Monday at 9:00), but what I want to do is take a meeting or event that happens at irregular times (Tuesday at 16:00 one week, Thursday at 10:00 the next, and so on) and cut and paste, then just update the details that are different. Can this really be that hard?
  • If you’re off work tomorrow morning and your Christmas shopping is all done, tune into NASA-TV to watch the ISS spacewalk. I could watch that all day!
  • That tiny nihilist in me finds it so amusing to see staid news organizations like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal with headlines about the Russian punk band, “Pussy Riot”. I listen to punk, I’m about 99.9999999% sure that they’re not referring to cats.
  • I get that there’s this whole meme about cats and how they dance across your computer keyboard and keep you from working and they’re supposed to be more “cute” than annoying. Sorry, I’m going to stick with annoying, as in, EXTREMELY. Cute will only take you so far, especially when I’m on a deadline.
  • If anyone just won the lottery and is looking for the perfect last-minute present for me, I would refer you to this article from a few days ago. Thanks in advance! (Hey, if you don’t ask, you can’t be told to take a hike!)
  • Tough to decide which is cuter, snoring cats or dogs twitching and “woofing in their sleep” while having a doggie dream.

Remember, if someone gives you a holiday greeting, take it in the spirit in which it was given, even if it’s not the holiday greeting YOU use. If you greet people with “Merry Christmas!” and someone says “Happy Holidays!”, it’s not the time or place for a rant about some imaginary “war on Christmas” that Faux News dreamed up. If you’re Jewish and someone says “Merry Christmas!”, it’s not the time to start a holy war. If you burned candles on the solstice but someone says “Happy Chaunakah!”, say “Mazel Tov!” and smile. Let’s be nice to one another out there, folks!

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Filed under Cats, Computers, Dogs, Juicy Chunks, Space

December 21, 2013 · 21:46

Emergency Cat Pictures

Shazzbatt! Look at the time! Look at how few functioning brain cells I have at the moment!

Quick!!!

Time for EMERGENCY CAT PICTURES!!!!

004 smallJoey Chan, in her window, absorbing photons by the trillions so she can later re-radiate them in the near infrared.

134 smallJust how close-up can the iPhone take pictures of her fur when she’s on my lap (with the shadow of the ear)?

Mañana!

(Geez, how did I make that so freaking huge? Time to play around a bit and expand my somewhat limited knowledge of HTML…)

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Filed under Cats, Photography