Update on my life

Friday, July 4th, I was off from work for Independence Day, so I celebrated my independence from clutter by cleaning my room all day. I found some of the most interesting things, including a couple of rolls of film that I'd shot some time ago and just had developed (because I had no idea what they were). One of them was of a family wedding; the other was shots from GenCon 2006, and I've put that one up on my Flickr page.

It was amazing how much junk I was able to throw out. I rediscovered a few things I had thought lost (though memory of exactly what they are escapes me at the moment) and discovered that yes, Virginia, there is a carpet under there. I boxed up a bunch of stuff to take to the Salvation Army, and even pulled all the stuff out from under my bed. (I vacuum there tonight.)

I spent all of Saturday playing City of Heroes—after Friday, I really needed a break. Then Sunday, my Mom & Dad came up for a visit and dinner, bringing with them a storebought roast chicken. Mom handed a ring to Dad to keep safe for her while she did the dishes. He put it in his pocket. Then I showed him an episode of Get Smart, and we went to watch the movie. However, we discovered that the website I'd checked was wrong, and the movie's showtime was an hour later than I had expected. We also discovered that the ring Mom had given Dad to keep safe was no longer in his pocket.

We came back to my place to look for it, but no matter how and where we searched, we couldn't find it. On the bright side, at least it wasn't her wedding ring.

Mom & Dad didn't want to stay as late as watching the afternoon movie would make them, so I pulled out my DVD of Jackie Chan's Project A and we watched that instead. It was a fun film, and the last time I had seen it was something like ten years ago while I was living in Columbia. The plot was basically a flimsy excuse for stringing together comedy, fights, and stunts, but it's not like you expect anything else from an early Chan film.

I'm still working on cleaning my room, and plan to vacuum and spray it for fleas sometime soon. After that, it should be ready to meet and greet the new cats, whom I will be getting Friday evening. I can't wait.

It turns out that Benjiman, the bengal I was talking about adopting, is an F3 rather than the usual F4—that is, 1/8 wild rather than the usual 1/16. The rescue center lady assures me he is very social and friendly, good with other animals and with kids (including her five-year-old). It's just that he's very big. And I'm happy about that. I've always wanted a big cat; there's more of them to love. :)

Now it's time to go be tutored in the black arts of invoice auditing at work. More later!

USENET kookery—it's the cat's meow!

I've been reading rec.pets.cats.health+behav lately, in preparation to my cat adopting—and boy is there some serious anti-love going on for breeders over there. In fact, just about anyone who asks a question about breeding one's cat is apt to get his head bitten off by one of the anti-breeding brigade who feels that nobody has any right to breed new kittens while there are still cats being euthanized in shelters, and anybody who supports any breeding at all in any way, shape, or form is Evil with a capital Eev.

One of them has this big long list of health problems to which purebreds are more susceptible than average, and he likes to wield it like a two-by-four upside the head of anyone who dares suggest that people might have reasons other than snobbery for wanting a purebred. He also seems to believe that if all the purebred breeders closed up shop, suddenly everyone would immediately go to their local shelter and adopt a moggie. (In a way, it reminds me of the whole Napster/BitTorrent thing—the belief that if people couldn't pirate a particular album or movie, they would all march right down to the store and buy it instead.) And they show the classic behavior patterns of USENET kooks, including unwarranted crossposting. Sheesh.

Once again, I reflect on how aptly King Solomon was able to predict the Internet.

Evening report, with cat pix and flix

After work today, I headed down to the Animal Care Center on South Campbell to visit with Diva, the orange moggie I will be adopting on Friday. I took some photos; here's the Flickr set. While there I asked the vet about her background. Apparently she used to belong to a family, and they had boarded her with the vet, then for whatever reason not been able to pick her back up again. (The vet suggested they might not have been able to pay their boarding fee, but he didn't sound too certain about that, and I would hate to think that a boarded pet might get "repossessed" for nonpayment. Makes me feel kind of dirty.)

I also took some low-rez cellphone videos, which I have put on YouTube.

( Diva #1: Enter Diva )

( Diva #2: The Laser Pointer )

( Diva #3: Exploring )

After that, I headed over to Wal-Mart to check their pet supplies, and to look at snagging a few things like towels for liners for the cats' beds. I was disheartened to find that even their cheapest towel was $2.75. I did see a decent-looking cat tower for $35; the only problem being you have to assemble it yourself. I'm a bit hesitant to consider something like that for fear of what might happen if it turns out not to be sturdy enough. Benjamin is going to be a pretty heavy cat. After that, I headed on over to PetSmart to take a look at their pet stuff. There were some great pre-made tall "cat condos" there—and I really want to get a tall one, for Benjamin to climb on—but they were all in the $100 plus range and I'm not sure I can afford that.

I was going to go up to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to see what their towels cost, but first I checked out the local Deal$. (Or, as I like to call it, "Deal String") At first I wasn't too sure I'd find anything worthwhile; ever since they stopped being an "everything $1 or less" store and turned into an "everything $5 or less" store it's been a bit hard to be sure you're getting as good a deal as you hope you are. They had some towels for $3—even worse than Wal-Mart's. But then I noticed something in the next aisle over, and discovered some wonderfully soft 30" x 30" baby blankets for $1 each. So I bought four of them: one for each cat bed, and a spare for when I'm laundering the first ones. Two of them say "Giddy-Up" with a little horseshoe or "Ride 'em Cowboy" with a little cowboy hat, the other two of have what is either a dog or a cow standing on a little circus pedestal with one leg in the air and juggling, but I'm sure the cats won't mind. I also picked up some ceramic food/water dishes and a Hamtaro DVD, among other things.

In Deal$'s grocery section, I saw something I could not resist photographing: some cheap Oriental instant noodles with rather…interesting packaging.

I didn't get much shopping done tonight, or any room cleaning either, but I guess that can wait for tomorrow. I don't have too much more to do—just shove everything out of the way, vacuum, and spray.

In some more annoying news, I dropped off about six sets of negatives at Walgreens today for transfer to a photo DVD. They charged me $42 bucks for it—but when I got it back home and put it in my drive, I found it only had about one roll's worth of prints on it. I'm going back tomorrow morning to give them what for. In the meanwhile, I went ahead and uploaded what photos there were to Flickr (along with a bunch of photos I'd been meaning to transfer up from my cellphone for quite a while).

Well, off to have some dinner and then crash in bed.