Slowing down. Turbulence.

Things are not in reserve but I have them scattered about.

Have Mrs. Reynolds in her car.

Here is Mrs. Reynolds in my chair. I don’t dare move her when her eyes do that.

More later if I get permission to post something awesome.

But first a Richard Bach quote or two… Three I hope to teach my kids, actually

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.

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Just a damn cat.

Well, the vet said she hadn’t been able to call us because the dummy had slipped his breakaway collar.

Few days ago he’d gotten hit by a car and when he was brought in she said there wasn’t any way she could save him – he was too badly banged up.

Damn, Amazon.com has EVERYTHING…

So much for head-butts when I come home and catnaps on my lap with a 15-16 lb monster.  Damn cat.

Rest in peace, you Big Dummy.

Now we have to figure out how to tell Lemurita and HackerBoy.

****

Addendum:

It has now been 1451 days since the Tessa WoW Chainsaw-Seal Death Threat.  “Club a WoW Seal Today!”  Thanks to Rabid Alien for randomly saying something that reminded me of it.  It put a funny spot on an otherwise shitty day.

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The Bunny-Deere Coincidence.

Years ago, Cruel Wife ran over a nest of baby bunnies with a mower†.

Not a hare one a single one of those bunny heads was harmed, but it shook her up miserably for the afternoon.  She was distraught with the possibilities.

Possibilities?  Two words:

Wabbitburger Helper

Actual cuts of meat would have been impossible at that point.

Why bring it up?  Because it is almost Easter, that’s why.  I’m still going to suggest cooking either a rabbit stuffed with a chicken or a chicken stuffed with a rabbit.   Hasenchicken.  Chickabun.  Flopsycock.  (Scratch that last one, eh?)  Not sure how to sell that to the kids in a way that won’t cause discord.  Perhaps blended-meat meals like Turducken should remain apart.

Are we doomed as a culture since so many of us laugh at the above strip?   Are we just bad actors in the theater of history?

Nah.  That’s funny.

† We do not own a John Deere, although I can dream…

****

Still no sign of Jack L. Katt.  Flyers go up tomorrow but I’m not going to get my hopes up.  At this point if he comes home I’ll kill him for making me worry about his furry dumb ass.  Damn cat.

Archival Photo:  Jack L. Katt after transplantation to HackerBoy’s bunkbed without rejection.

****

An e:mail chain at work involved a discussion about “esperanto” and synthetic languages.  At some point Klingon was debated because it did not show up on a list of synthetic languages, starting when Black Lab on Methamphetamines said:

Klingon isn’t there either.  It’s a list of constructed languages meant to be used, not all constructed/fictional languages.

C0-worker Inscrutable Half-Breed replied:

I’m always astounded by how many geeks and nerds I’m surrounded with at all time.

<sniff>  I love you guys…

And characteristic for my attitude this week, I responded:

I don’t.  I don’t love you guys.

How about “I really intensely tolerate you guys”?   Is that good enough?

It’s been a long couple of weeks, actually.

I’m taking Monday off, handing the kids off to the sitter for a few hours, and going with Cruel Wife to go look at a high-end antiques store purely for the enjoyment of it.

****

If you can handle “disturbing sports injuries”, then may I suggest you scroll down to #1 on the list at Cracked.com?  That must’ve taken balls.

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Damn Heisenberg.

Easter is around the corner. I am probably a bad man for thinking Laconic Pup’s forwarding of this picture was the high point of my week.

In other news, we have looked – 3AM last night around the neighborhood, through the house last night and today, CW walked the neighborhood today, and I walked the neighborhood just as soon as I got off work. No sign of Jack L. Katt. I keep looking out the windows and back door but no sign. We thought he was just power-napping hard and now we have no idea where he is. I wish cats were crappier physicists.

Sigh. He’s just a damn cat for fuck’s sake. Damn cat.

Meanwhile, I check the doors and the windows when CW isn’t looking and imagine him meowing outside the window of the room I am in.

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Lemur King has a Lemur Subject!

It dawned on me that what I really wanted was a lemur, not a cat.   Lemurs are legal, just not nearly as maintenance-free as cats.  What to do, what to do?

So… with the proper bleaching compounds for most of her fur and select rings around her tail, and a few hair dyes for really accentuating certain parts – viola!  Stage 1 is complete.  Next will come Stage 2, with extra bleaching when the sores on her body from the bleaching solution heal and then Stage 3 where finally frosting will make it all blend in.

Here is Melody after her final rinse.  A bit wet still but looking good all the same – just like a little lemur.  Yes, a faux-lemur but I am ok with it.   I have a few hundred really good scratches from trying to keep her held still while we bleached her and all but it’s worth it, as you can see.

****

If I had to pick the ways that I thought I could nail down a comprehensive “Total Lifetime FAIL Award” strategy, I don’t think I could have done it quite so well.  It’s old news but I haven’t addressed it yet.

Cross-Dressing, Show-Tunes-Loving Connecticut Priest Busted

for Selling Meth and Laundering Money Through His Sex Shop

Okay.  Pretty impressive.  Shows a certain spontaneity.

Following news that one of their former priests was arrested earlier this month for his alleged involvement in a cross-county meth ring, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, released a statement expressing “shock and concern” for the “gifted, accomplished and compassionate” Monsignor.

His sex shop still seems to be listed.  His diocese stuck by him to the end… my wife would not stick by me through this stuff.

The Diocese stuck by Wallin even after he became the owner of a North Haven sex and smoke shop called Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place shortly after leaving the priesthood.

For all I know this is what you have to do to leave the priesthood… behave so thoroughly badly that they just finally let you go.  A lot of them put up with ped-priests for far longer than they ever should have (which I deem to be about 15 seconds).

At least Pope Benedict was allowed to say how he felt and then step down.  Hat is off to him for the guts that it took.

****

Now we have tutoring programs where it is ok to say “black kids only” because while we are here for the children, we’re more here for the failing black children than the failing white ones.  Because failing black children need help more than failing white children.

A school principal said no white children were allowed at an after-school tutoring program, and now some parents call it discrimination.

The principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora sent a letter telling parents the program is only for students of color. Parents CBS4 talked with said they were shocked to see, in this day and age, what they consider to be segregation.

Of course once black principal Andre Pearson got wind that his crappy behavior wasn’t universally loved he quickly sought to contain the damage.

Before Cox could complain to the school, Pearson contacted her directly. His voicemail only seemed to reinforce the segregated tutoring idea.

“This is Andre Pearson. It’s focused for and designed for children of color, but certainly, if we have space for other kids who have needs, we can definitely meet those needs,” Pearson told Cox in the voicemail.

Pearson declined to comment on camera, but a district spokesperson claims it was all just a big misunderstanding.

“I think what the answer is, is that he made a mistake,” Tustin Amole with the Cherry Creek School District told CBS4.

The new tutoring program was started by parents of minority students to help bridge the achievement gap.

The district is now clarifying that the program wasn’t meant to segregate anyone.

“But we have had lots of students sign up for the tutoring. Many of them are white and we will be accepting all of them,” Amole said.

“I just want everybody to be treated equally,” Cox said.

The new tutoring program began Wednesday. CBS4 was told a letter would be going out to parents to clarify the error that was made.

Sorry, but that wasn’t an error.  They fully intended for a coloreds only group.  It was not a mistake or a misunderstanding.  It was yet another case in a long line of folks who think it ain’t racism if it forms their own groups to exclusions of others.

Show me one minority/disadvantaged group that wouldn’t gladly turn the tables if the situation were reversed.  Go on, show me.

 

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Random Stuff in Passing.

Bear with this posting  there’s some good nuggets of gold in it.

First, enjoy a kitten.  Sure she’s not quantum tunneling at the moment but she just had her shots.  I walked by her three times w/o noticing her because she blends into my jacket.  She was not phasing in and out but she was running about 3 degrees above normal.

Next, the remodel.  It is coming along.  Spaced Diode helped me rewire the upstairs with grounded circuits after Cruel Wife nagged and nagged and nagged.  “I don’t want anyone dying because there wasn’t a grounded circuit.”

Sheesh.  Like electricity is that dangerous.  It’s not like it has ever killed anyone or set fires or anything.

Next, enjoy some redneck wallpapering.  In the oldest part I cut out plaster and lath so we could get insulation in the walls.  Notice the wallpaper on the inside face of the outside wall, including the joists.  This sucker was an open wall and left long enough that wallpaper was deemed a good thing.  It’s like a bad episode of Redneck Rampage™.   It truly is as if a layer of purty paper protected these folks from whistling cold Michigan winters.

 

None of this is designed to gain back readers such as Mitchell and veeshir, who are at this moment boycotting this blog because my retrieval of their remarks from Spam Hell is not quite fast enough.

Ask Cruel Wife if I am busy enough lately.

For grins, look at a mirror that I showed Cruel Wife at my company.  I simply call it “My Precious”.  Won’t tell you who made it, who they made it for, it’s exact specs, etc.   I will say it is 24″ x 18″ x 3″ thick, flat, honeycomb inner construction, and coated for multiple wavelengths.   All pictures were taken using while light back illumination but at different angles to the surface.  Same piece but a dielectric Reflectivity enhancement coating looks very different from all angles.  It’s complicated.

So a co-worker gets ahold of the pics I took, fires up his copy of PhotoShop (Gimp, truth be told) and tweaks it… now My Precious is truly one mirror to rule them all.

Lemurita just watched LotR with me Sunday night, saw that last image and laughed and laughed and laughed.  That’s my girl.

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Much work has been done.

Walls have been torn down, electrification has been improved, half-walls of sheetrock has gone up, and we merely wait to fill the walls this weekend with light and fluffy gossamer down, mixed with goose feathers from foie gras geese and leftover fur from clubbed harp seals.

In the meantime, the kitten is growing, and she is a delightful little lady.

Kids are good and my daughter is displaying a wicked sense of sarcasm – AND – she watched LOtTR with me.   Pics tomorrownig of the remodel, of the kitten, and of a giant mirror (my precious).

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Lemur King Never Left the Building.

Mitchell may predict doom and strife over remodeling but this is going well.

Downstairs the ceiling was due to fail.  It got some attention.

\

Upstairs (our new room) the walls and ceiling needed to go so we could put in insulation behind the lath and plaster – and that cheap shitty particleboard they put over the top of it.  It’s awful stuff.

Spaced Diode is going to come over Saturday and let me do all the work but he’ll tell me what to hook up to what in order to have my house not burn down.  Yes, it looks like a scene from HellRaiser.  We’ll put a few switches in on another circuit, drop a junction box, and destroy as much as we can get our hands on.

Here is Melody Song, lookin bigger badder and rougher than ever before – 2-1/2 lbs of pure ass-kicking dynamite. Yes, she steals from the bigger cats (15lbs and 14lbs) while they are eating.  She knows she’s got them cowed.   My nickname for Melody is is LBB (Little Black Bitch).

Ferrofluid, which I saw up close and personal and am going to make when I am able…

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White-Out.

Yes, I am still sick.  I don’t think I’ve ever had every joint ache this bad before.  Sleep is crappy and you end up drenched in sweat.

Cruel Wife is on the mend.

****

Bill Mahr said:

“If you’re thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you.”

Let us be perfectly clear:

I do not care who you are – if you think you are going to threaten me with violence in order to get me to vote the way you want, I encourage you to test your theory.  Try, just try, to endanger me or mine for voting in whatever way I see fit.  I will not threaten violence except in defense of myself and my family and I promise that you will have cause to reflect upon the wisdom of your choice if you try to harm anyone under my roof.  And in that, I am completely color blind – threats to my family will be dealt with regardless of who you are or what you look like.

Under no circumstances will I riot if Romney loses.  That’s the difference between me and those threatening violence and riots if Obama does not win.

So there, Bill.  “Plea” or threaten all you like, this is one vote that won’t be swayed by threats.

One tweeter said:

F R A N K L I N @ChangeMy_Name

If Mitt Romney wins, nighas gon riot like when Dr. King died. It’s gon be a sight to see.

Wait a minute here… MLK died after championing a world where color blindness is a virtue, and the loss of a Presidential election for a black guy and a win by a white guy is cause for riots?

The double-standard here is astounding.

Oh, by the way… any bets on how many days New York and New Jersey delay the election?  Just think how many votes can be fudged in ten to twenty days.

****
Halloween pics, as promised.   Pics may or may not embiggenify.

The obligatory cannibal pumpkins.

Flaming pumpkins through the liberal application of 1/2 gallon of kerosene.

Flaming green pumpkins through chemistry.

Pumpkins using road flares.  Who knew that pumpkins were so flammable?  I actually did have to caution kids “Do NOT look directly at the pumpkin!!!”

Halloween needs the obligatory black cat…

She has “Data” eyes.  Kinda spooky.  She also steals my chair all the time.  As do the other two cats and Lemurita and Hacker-Boy.

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Quotables and Kittens.

I would do a longer post if I were not in the throes of a wicked migraine.  Not the worst by far but it takes creativity and leaves it hollow – a papery husk left over after the soul of a living creature has been sucked out by greedy parasitic vampires.

I was doing a keyword search through my e:mail and ran across this one.  See if you can guess where it came from.

Surrounded by dickwads, we pressed onward, through the fog of idjitry.

And no, it is not from “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

Here is a picture of Jack Katt not mentoring Melody the kitten but rather wondering if he could eat her in one bite or two.  The fact that he isn’t actually trying to do so is a testament to the power of the Kitty Pheromonizer-ator™, the plug-in air-freshener thingy loaded with Happy Kitty Squeezin’s.

And never let it be said, wiccapundit, that I am not willing to throw up a picture for you to enjoy.  I’m sorry it is blurry but the kit won’t sit still long enough to snap a decent pic.  The profile is classic.

 

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Melodious

Our kitten broke free of her prison last night – it was a complex scheme she hatched in order to do so.  She “pushed the door open and walked out”.   Wild, huh?

I looked down and saw a bottle-brush tail and said “Oh hi, Melo… uh oh.”

I knew that she had either been discovered by Jack-Katt and Jilly-Boo or was soon to be discovered.  I had visions of little pieces of kitten lying all over the house and the older cats gnawing on soft little kitten bones while hacking up dainty little furballs.

No, instead the kitten decided to do a charging “YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?  HUH?” maneuver repeatedly until the older cats backed down.  Below is a snapshot of her when Jack-Katt (who outweighs her by roughly 12 to 1) hissed at her.

You ate the last of the cookies?!! You BASTARD.  And WHERE ARE MY OTHER THREE BOOTS?

That little ball of fluff bluffed her way into the pecking order of the house and is totally at ease going wherever the hell she wants.  The big cats still hiss and are kind of put out but they’ve agreed to co-exist.  Jack-Katt even retreated enough to sit in a box and observe the kitten as she charged him.

Melody Song Boo Lemur (Lemur is not her real last name and the name with the addition of “Boo” sounds like socks on a chicken but the kids wanted it)

I do chalk it up to some stuff Cruel Wife found and that was confirmed as being effective by Crazy Cat Lady from work – it is a natural kitty pheremones Air Wick™ type of product.  You plug it in and it gives off HappyKitty pheremones.  It really seems to have calmed them all down.

I wonder how many cats they have to squeeze to get the quantity of pheremones contained in the bottle.  Oh well, if it promotes Good Feelings between the felines in my house I’m willing to sacrifice any number of other cats to obtain said pheremones.

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A Melody… a Song… Not Dr. Who.

Meet Melody Song, the newest member of the Lemur Household.

She’s seven weeks.  Cried out when we drove her home only when accelerating or going around corners.  Not homesick at all and very comfortable in the upstairs (quarantine until shots kick in).  She was the runt of the litter but does not act it.  Wonderfully happy kitten.

Here she is tucked in my jacket.  She was purring very loudly and when I pulled it closed she did an ultra-purr as if a giant inflatable hotdog deflating (PUUUUUURRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr) and then fell asleep instantly.  Jack and Jill are obviously distressed.  Oh well.

I am already smitten with this kitten.

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There a Name for What is Wrong with You?

Meet Jack.  Jack was curious, probably because he’s a cat.  Here, he was observing me as I was giggling and wrapping the handle of my tactical tomahawk with friction tape.

No, that’s not a euphemism for something sordid and nasty.

He’s such a calm cat that he sat there patiently as I scrambled for my camera.  He said –

Don’t worry, I’ll sit here while you get set up.  No trouble.  But was wondering, and you don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to, but… what exactly is wrong with you?  Is there a name for it?  Perhaps a support group you could get in with?  Would some exercise help?  No, I know you are bored, and I know that you’re a stone’s throw away from stepping over the border from Reality into the Land of the Cuckoos, and I know that you are itching to get rid of your Precious-es, but have you thought about trying…  something different?  Talk to me.  I’m sure it will help.

He’s a smart cat.  Too smart.  He has tipped his paw and I now see him for what he is.  He is not a pretty cuddly house-feline who cares for me.  He is actually wanted to push me over the edge so the house is his.  Oh, I know these things… I KNOW.  He just wants me to start talking to him so someone will see me talking to him and they’ll judge me because of that when they don’t even realize that he can talk and that he’s not the innocent thing he appears to be.   Believe me.  I know.

Jack gets much bigger when you click on him.

Enough about the damn cat already.

As you’ve probably guessed I am nuts about helicopters.  Wanted to be a pilot when I was growing up but I had to face the fact that a substantial hearing loss closes doors when it comes to becoming a pilot.  Oh well.  I’ll get my kicks some other way.

Santa brought me a stocking stuffer for Christmas morning (bless her heart).  It’s laser-cut shimstock and you pop the pieces out and insert/bend tabs to put it together.  I’m experiencing a flare-up of my decision-making disorder, trying to decide which to build first – this helicopter or the dual trebuchet kit.   Oh the humanity.

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