Feb 062013
 

Fluffy’s Brother and One-Eye are incensed… they’ve been outside demanding entry for *far* longer than Marvin. But then, they don’t look like they’re close to death as Marvin did (although FloBro looked *awful* this last summer).

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Fingers is spooked, and just wants to run away, but the best she can do is stare outside.

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Raedthinn just wants everyone to shut up and leave him alone.

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Buttons tried to make friends, and got hissed at, growled at and whapped upside the head for his troubles.

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————-

I talked to the vet again today. The vet has revised his estimate of Marvin’s age up from 2 years to perhaps 8 or 9, but that’s tentative. Her teeth, lethargy, breast tumors and wobbly walking argue for being old. But her Xrays show no signs of age or arthritis.

 Posted by at 4:53 pm
Feb 062013
 

You know, if you’re an artist and you donate a large piece to a city, and that city gives it to another city which then decides not to display it due to liability concerns (instead keeping it in a municipal storage lot next to the garbage cans), and then someone comes along and chops it off at the ankles to sell it for scrap, and the theft isn’t noticed until an annual inventory, and not reported to the police for three months, and even though it’s insured for $175K the city decides not to pursue the insurance claim because it’s not worth the bother and the $10K deductible… well, that gotta kinda hurt.

Giant aluminum sculpture missing in Orlando, presumed scrapped

 

 

 Posted by at 4:22 pm
Feb 052013
 

USGS announced an 8.0 earthquake near the Santa Cruz islands  at 2013-02-06 01:12:27 UTC, north of Australia.

http://ptwc.weather.gov/ptwc/text.php?id=pacific.TSUPAC.2013.02.06.0149

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR

 SOLOMON ISLANDS / VANUATU / NAURU / PAPUA NEW GUINEA / TUVALU /
 NEW CALEDONIA / KOSRAE / FIJI / KIRIBATI / WALLIS AND FUTUNA /
 MARSHALL ISLANDS / HOWLAND AND BAKER / POHNPEI / TOKELAU

A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR

 SAMOA / KERMADEC ISLANDS / NEW ZEALAND / AMERICAN SAMOA /
 TONGA / AUSTRALIA / NIUE / COOK ISLANDS / INDONESIA /
 WAKE ISLAND / CHUUK / JARVIS ISLAND / GUAM / NORTHERN MARIANAS /
 PALMYRA ISLAND / YAP / JOHNSTON ISLAND / MINAMITORISHIMA /
 BELAU / MIDWAY ISLAND

Arrival times of the tsunami are given at the link.

 Posted by at 8:25 pm
Feb 052013
 

The 70’s were just… *weird.* A whole lot of paranormal nonsense… ancient astronauts, psychic powers, Pyramid Power, crystals, Bermuda Triangle, Noah’s Ark,  ghosts… bleah. From a rational standpoint, it was a whole lot of rubbish, right up there with lime-green polyester leisure suits and platforms shoes and white guys with great big Afro-perms. Still, if you’re of a certain age, some of it holds sentimental appeal. Right up front: “In Search Of.” This started out as a few hour-long specials narrated by Rod Serling, leading off with “In Search Of Ancient Astronauts.” I remember this being shown throughout the late 70’s and into the early 80’s, both on TV and on film at various functions for us kiddies. “In Search Of…” then became a regular weekly TV series; Serling was supposed to continue as narrator, but he had the ill manners to die, and so was replaced with Leonard Nimoy. I haven’t seen these shows in about 30 years, and remember them only vaguely, more like half-remembered dreams. I seem to recall that Nimoy creeped me out; I hadn’t seen much Star Trek at the time (remember, this was before DVDs, before Netflix, before YouTube, before cable TV had really made much of a dent in the market… you had three clear broadcast networks, one kinda scratchy PBS station and one UHF station that would come in, if the wind blew the radio waves just right), but apparently I’d seen him enough to associate him with being inhumanly pointy-earred.

So, huzzah! It turns out that the complete “In Search Of” collection has been released on DVD. It’s pretty pricey at $130… pretty good on a dollar-per-minute basis (at 3,600 minutes), but still a chunk of change. So, if a whole bunch of ya order it through this Amazon link, I’ll be able to buy it myself!

 

 Posted by at 1:07 pm
Feb 052013
 

A North Korean propaganda video:

[youtube HKWJSKYBDXE]

Where we get:
1) Muzak version of “We Are The World”
2) A dream sequence of a Nork soldier going into space…
3) On a “space shuttle” rendered on, apparently, mid-1980’s computer rendering technology
4) Images of a unified Korea
5) A nuclear strike on New York City

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UPDATE: Trying again with a different source for the video…

 

 Posted by at 11:10 am
Feb 052013
 

She’s still kickin’. I wish I could report that she’s showing great improvement, but she’s pretty much as she was a few days ago… except for not looking close to immanent death (which, admittedly, is an important improvement). She is still skinny, which should come as no surprise. But she acts perpetually *exhausted.* Some is surely due to being malnourished. But some… I dunno. If she’s standing up, she’s leaning against a vertical surface. When she walks, she walks kinda… drunk. A perfect day is one spent laying down *all* day (when for a normal cat, there’d be at least ten minutes of activity in the day). And she seems to have very little sense of smell; doesn’t notice catnip, barely notices canned cat food. I’m wondering if there’s neurological damage. Given the rather dismal photo below showing what remains of her teeth (not shown: she’s missing a bunch of the little tiny teeth up front, incisors and such), I’m wondering if in addition to getting shot with a BB gun, maybe she caught a boot to the face, breaking teeth and damaging her noggin. Dunno. She acts old.

Most disturbing is that the lump the vet found and declared a tumor seems to be bigger than it was just a few days ago. Part of it is hard, but most is squishy. My hope – based on years of absolutely no veterinary experience – is that maybe that’s where she got shot… the hard stuff is scar tissue, the squishy is just milk glands going goofy due to her changing status. But a tumor is of course entirely likely.

She doesn’t like the other cats, and they don’t like her, so she’s still segregated. Her space is slowly growing… she now has part of a hallway along with a bathroom. But she still spends her time on the cat bed. Except when I go and pet her… the photos don’t show the half of the desperate desire she has for human contact. Given what happened to her… I can’t explain that.

If the “tumor” doesn’t go away, she will require additional vet visits sometime in the near-ish future. I have no idea what procedures would be needed, and how expensive they’d be. So the offer remains open, if’n you want to donate… help a cat, help bribe your way to better karma, help buy your way out of time in Purgatory, however you want to look at it. I’ve uploaded about 190 megabytes of photos of Marvin for those who’ve donated, so it you want the very best in indifferent-quality photos of a miserable kitty, I’ve got you covered.

Paypal 

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 Posted by at 12:23 am