21st Century Snow Day

The inept voice of the local NPR affiliate stumbled through a few
school closure announcements just as I was coming to this morning.
Rather than staggering around the cold, dark house looking for old
technology to find out if the little college on the hill was also
closed, I simply rolled over, grabbed the iPhone and surfed to the
local non-NPR radio station to read the list.

I am warm, comfortable and deciding what work I will do during this
gift of a student-free day.

Sent from my iPhone

Another round of the same

Greenies and Tuna Juice
"What's that?" I hear you cry. A new girl-group hailing from the northwest? The next great American novel? The latest menu options at Localvores R Us? No, no, nothing like that. Greenies and tuna juice are the only two things Mao will ingest. Her kidneys are failing—have failed?—and she doesn't have much of an appetite. However, since she is still ruling this roost, she needs to eat something, right? So we tried two special diet dry kibbles with no luck. Same success with the canned food. Heck, then I figured since she's dying why not let her eat what she wants. So out came the tuna. She'll eat the juice but not the meat. While the effect on her breath is the same, her ribs and hips are starting to protrude. At treat time when the other cats come running at the shake of the bag, Mao manages to get up enough momentum to peek her head around the corner. She'll eat about six greenies before sauntering back to continue her nap.

Sigh. The adage regarding it not being the fall that kills you but the hitting the ground is wrong. It is the falling that kills you.

What I Found Today

I'm fried. We're only three weeks into the quarter and mentally I'm toast. I have nothing else to say to y'all but wanted you to know I'm thinking of you and your internet needs. Enjoy these finds.

Three Philosophies.
Found at tweebiscuit.net

Honey, could you bring in some wood for the fire?
Found at the artist's site.


What happens when eBay, Amazon, Google and MySpace show up at a party....
The Internet Party, at Cracked.com

Old pictures, new taglines. Brilliant.
Married to the Sea


What I won't be doing on the long weekend: going for an infinite walk. Check out the movie to see how this path was made.


Either someone has too much time on their hands or some whiz-kid in marketing has earned a vacation and a promotion. Hilarious. Click to see the rest of the book, the newsflash, etc.

Two+ Hours I'll Never get Back

Resist the temptation to watch the Matrix trilogy. Stop after the second movie. If you feel the need to watch a trilogy, watch the second one twice. Avoid the third movie if at all possible. Clearly the dialog was all used up in the preceding movies but the fight choreographers needed to get paid.

What a waste of an evening curled up in front of the laptop.

Random

File under:

a) Things I never want to see again: a hot pink velour jogging suit. Those four adjectives never need be lined up again. Unfortunately, you can't erase your retinas.

b) New words in my vocabulary: negify verb to change the sign of a number. -ied -ing ex. we can negify +2 by changing its sign to –, thus obtaining –2.

c) Longest period of measurable time: the time period beginning when you know your new office computer has arrived on campus and the moment it is placed on your desk. I've aged weeks in the past few days.

d) Do I really want to think about this?

The basic facts: Toxo can infect many species, but it undergoes sexual reproduction only in cat digestive tracts. Once the parasite reproduces, the cat passes it in its feces, where the next unwitting host picks it up by digesting it (intentionally or unintentionally). Then the cycle starts again. In the long run, Toxo must find its way back to a cat’s stomach to survive. So the parasite has evolved a complicated system for taking over its hosts’ brains to increase the likelihood that they’ll be eaten by cats.
(c) New York Times Magazine 12/09/2007

I clean four litterboxes every night. I'm going to freak if any of the grrllzz start licking me.

We made it home!!! Oh joy! Oh fur covered bed! Oh blissful sleep! Oh
gawd, the quarter starts tomorrow. The wheels touched at 8, the car
was fetched by 8:30. A hot meal was had at 10. The roads were empty
the whole way home and sleep began at 12:03. I think both my ears have
finally popped back (the worst part of flying for me: deafness and
pain often for longer than the flight lasted) and the grrllzz are
draped all over the bed. I wonder if we have any food in the house...