utenzi

This is an experiment in psychology, I guess. Of the two pictures below, which one do you like best? One shows a tortie with eyes closed and one with her eyes open. Since it's a cat, it's obviously an annoying critter but we're addressing aesthetics here, not inherent levels of evil. There's a reason, after all, that cats are traditionally associated with witches and fellow travelers. Not that I know any witches with cats, of course. Or maybe I do! Oh, I don't know. My memory isn't what it used to be. My choice of the photos is the one with the eyes shut. In the second picture it's just too obvious that this cat is plotting something, and something nasty, I'll bet. Which reminds me of that movie Cold Comfort Farm and "I saw something nasty in the woodshed!"

Isn't that a cute little kitty in that picture below? As you can probably tell, that's the neck of a t-shirt. But before you think I'm getting soft on my anti-cat stance... Examine the shirt more closely. Here's the shirt, and as you can see--it illustrates birds getting revenge on those mean ole kitty cats, to quote Tweetie-bird. Or at least the birds are trying--so far the cat is only tempted by that fish dangling in the air. In any case, that's the shirt I'm wearing right now. I think it's important to let everyone else know where you draw the line. And I draw my line at cats. Speaking of lines, another is Windows. That crappy OS is trying to reboot my laptop and it's really starting to annoy me. I can't wait to replace Windows with Linux on my laptop---but unfortunately as long as I need it the laptop at work I have to stick with damn Windows. At least on my desktop at home I can use Ubuntu. BTW, does anyone reading this watch the TNT show Levera...

Like I mentioned yesterday, tonight was "meet the parents" night for me. It's been a while since I've had to do this. My last few relationships have been remarkably relative free. But no longer---Julie's parents have a house just a few miles from hers, her sister lives right around the corner from them and one of Julie's brothers is just a half hour away in Wake Forest. Eeeek. That's the start of a bean dip that Julie put together after work for the family gathering. Three of the attendees had recent birthdays and one of the brothers, the one living in CA, was married 3 months ago. Lots of reason for some celebrating, eh? This is a cat. I don't approve of the species but do admit they often are photogenic. We promptly grilled him up after this picture was taken. Only evil animals were harmed in the making of this post. We promise! The name was Tifa, aka Cream. RIP. (btw, I didn't detect even a hint of cream taste---just goes to show, don't ...

I discovered a new species of Kiwi yesterday. And on the railing of my deck, no less. The picture above shows what the kiwis already known look like. According to the webpage where I found that photo , all three kiwi species are restricted to New Zealand, with the great and little spotted species found only on South Island. They prefer a forested habitat with high rainfall. Below you'll find two pictures of my new kiwi. His beak is a wee bit small but I figure that he's young and it'll grow in eventually. Given the terrain near here, I'd say this species doesn't need New Zealand or forests and especially not high rainfall. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things. :-) I've not decided on what I'll name the species---any suggestions? BTW, dissenters are not welcome. And that means YOU! The people across the street from me seem to have moved out---I've not seen them in over 3 weeks---but they left their cat. So, I suspect that soon...

Yes, it has a name but despite having heard it several times I don't have any idea what it is right now. Cats just strike me as slightly attractive annoyances so it's hard to bother with remembering their names. And since cats don't bother to learn their names either, why should I?

Today after work I went to visit Jules. I'd not seen her since early this year---though according to her it'd only been since May. In any case, it'd been at least 6 months (that's girl time--it was 9 months in normal time). I was responding to a call for help. Jules had bought a dresser at Target and decided she needed help putting it together so she called me. LOL Yes, she must have been desperate 'cause anyone that knows me knows that I have little patience when it comes to building things. Just ask Renee! She and I had some cross words passed back and forth while on home building projects. As you can see by the box to the left, this was a rather large dresser for a kit. We had our work cut out for us--especially 'cause my boss kept me at work an extra hour looking at some slides with her. As a result, by the time I'd driven up to Jules' house it was already past 6:30pm. And to broach an entirely different subject: it was damn cold today. It even sno...

Here's three more pictures from Thursday. I posted yesterday about the red-alert causing smoke here in the Triad area of NC. The first two pictures below illustrate what it looked like in my back yard. This first picture looks over from my backyard to my neighbor's side yard (behind the hedge of trees). The yellowish aspect of the atmosphere in the picture was real. The air looked like that. You can see just a glimmer of the sun through the smoke. The low light made it seem more like 8pm than 5pm. This second picture illustrates how the visibility dropped off with distance. You can see the trees in my backyard quite clearly, the shed in the next yard starts to get fuzzy then the neighbor's house across the street is fuzzier still. And the trees behind that house get quite indistinct. Not quite pea soup but the effect was as strong as the morning fogs we get here most days. ...and for those crazy folk that like cats, this one belongs to my neighbor across the street from me....

Cats are evil. That's one of my basic premises in life. However, that said... ...sometimes you have to placate the evils of life. Here's one example: At left you see the exhibit, known as "Buzz," a moment before he jumped up on the chair in front of me. I was waiting on a deck Sunday around noon, you see, and the owner of the house had not yet arrived. In that annoying way that cats have, he insisted--with some volume--that I scratch his head and stroke his neck and back. Given that the evil critter is a predator that is well equipped with teeth and claws I saw little wiggle room in the negotiations. Yes, I gave into evil and did its bidding. Wouldn't you have done the same??? This is the face of evil after it's been placated. Look upon this visage and shudder--and hope you never have to face such a horrible choice yourself.

What happens when a lovely candle lit Sunday dinner gathers in an unwanted guest? See if you can figure it out from these 3 pictures!

Cat owners, by and large, are a gullible group. They believe their cute little kitty to be all peaches and cream. So sweet that butter wouldn't melt on their little tongues. Well, I'm here to set you straight. Check out exhibit one over there to the left. Goes by the name of Roscoe and looks harmless enough. Even pleasant, perhaps. But beneath that seemingly nice visage is the collective nastiness of the depths of Hell. Be wary! I know this is going to be a hard sell. Too many people have been brainwashed by felines. Minds that were once sharp are now out buying catnip and little feathery toys and not clearly remembering why such things are a high priority now. I tell you, the cats are in charge of many households. Be very wary! Here's the proof below. I caught this picture in an unguarded moment. Maybe the demonic agent was reporting back to his masters way down below--I do seem to remember smelling a faint bitter odor of brimstone--but for whatever reason the mask was of...

For some reason the Bush Administration is making me edgier than usual today so I'm posting about this picture of a kitten as my way to avoid pissing people off by ranting about treasonous behavior and dereliction of duty. Isn't it a cute kitten? My girlfriend's youngest son brought the little tyke home one day. He'd found it out behind a gas station all dirty and starved looking. Not long after that he became Mom's cat--otherwise he'd have been all dirty and hungry once again, just in a different location. LOL I took this picture because I'd never seen a cat eat a sandwich before. The novelty of the action was enough to get me to go retrieve a camera to take a picture instead of the more logical activity of tossing the damn cat out the door. It's amazing how far a little cute fur can get you in this world. Maybe if Bush had fur I'd appreciate him more. Of course he'd still not be cute--he always reminds me of a leprechaun that just got away with...

Nothing too serious today. Just a couple of pictures I took this weekend. This first one is a heart that I made out of peppermints while laying in bed bored. My girlfriend was on the computer playing some silly game. So, I--left alone with chocolate--just did what came naturally. I played with it. I hadn't been eating chocolate for most of February due to that diet restriction I was on and so the bargain candy I bought after St Valentine's Day was languishing in a drawer. This was the first bag I attacked. Chocolate! But I did pause long enough to make pretty shapes with the mints---the shiny red foil was too gosh durn pretty not to play with--before stripping those covers off and eating them. :-) Here's a picture of a black... cat. Ha! I bet you thought I'd use some other word but you're wrong! ( I did think the other word tho ) It's a boy and the most recent adoptee by my girlfriend. He's something like 5 years old and the people that used to own him (as...

Cats. Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows I have a love like-hate relationship with cats. For one thing, they make me sneeze, itch, sometimes even wheeze. The other thing is that a pet is supposed to worship you--gotta love dogs for getting that right--and cats decidedly don't do that. No, not even a little. What brings up this subject of cats and allergies is an article in the January Issue of The Scientist titled Felis Enigmaticus . Cute title. The article lightly reviews the science of producing "knock out" animals and more in-depth goes over the claims of Simon Brodie and his company Allerca . This is the company which made headlines last year with their claim that for $4,000 you could buy a hypoallergenic cat from them in the near future. That claim resulted in Time Magazine awarding Allerca's cat with one of Time's honorable mentions as the Best Discovery of 2006. First of all, it's important to know what a knock out animal is. We use t...