Important safety tip

While a fully armed cat is sleeping on your lap, it is a Very Bad Idea to use compressed air on your keyboard.

The ensuing Four-Pawed, Full-Clawed Panic Leap is Double-Plus Not Good.

Being Prepared, Some Observations

Some of the things I've learned/noticed/realized since I got the Preparedness Bug a couple of months ago:

Ordinary chlorine bleach is very useful stuff.

72 hours' food and water for a single person (and a cat) is actually quite easy to do.

72 hours is a bare minimum.

Large trash bags are also very useful.

It's amazingly easy to roll duct tape around a business card to make a flat pack.

Commercial First Aid Kits all seem to lack critical basic components.

I believe I could walk home from work with the bag and water that's in my car. I could even spend a night outdoors on the way home. But what if I can't go home? What's in the car is all I'm going to have.

And what about when I go farther from home than that?

Preparedness is indeed a Journey. Every stage I achieve seems to open up another one.

Some people think even a small, 1-1/4" Swiss Army Knife is a deadly weapon, and carrying one makes you a potential mass murderer.

Double Standard

Driving to work this morning, I watched a Highway Patrol vehicle change lanes twice, then take an exit, without a single signal.

Yet if I did that in front of him, I bet I'd have a citation now.

Edit 10/27/09:

Don't get me wrong. I respect and admire the people who choose to become Law Enforcement personnel. The vast majority of them are honest, honorable persons, doing a job I'd never choose to do.

But they are also very visible, and when they don't follow even basic traffic laws, it sets a poor example for us all.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't go to the theater any more unless I am certain I will enjoy the movie. Or it's Star Trek. (Unfortunately, those didn't overlap for a while. Fortunately, they do again with the reboot. But that's another post.)

Anyway, I don't go to the theater very often. I also don't do 3-D movies. The constant changes in parallax without a corresponding change in focal distance give me headaches. Bad ones.

So I only just saw Monsters vs. Aliens. And if G-rated movies don't give you hives, if you like any kind of monster movie at all, and especially if you're a fan of old, b-grade monster movies, you need to see this.

It's fun, and entertaining, and nicely sprinkled with old-school monster movie references and in-jokes.

Rent it, pop some corn, and have fun. Kids optional.

Gettin' cold at night

Here in San Diego, it's starting to get a bit nippy at night. And I'll tell you, every time I see people outside in heavy jackets, walking their dogs, the more I appreciate my indoor-only cat.

I said to her this morning, "I'm so glad I don't have to take you outside for walks."

She looked up at me and went "Mrow!", as if to say "Damn straight!"

Why?

I swear, I'll never understand people.

Why go to the trouble of taking the empty toilet paper core off the spindle, and then put the spindle back without putting a new roll on?

If you don't have time to finish the job, why even start it?

New rolls are right there. Literally 6 inches away from the holder. On an open rack, in plain sight. They had time to take the spindle out with the old core on it, and put the spindle back empty.

Why not take another few seconds to remove the paper wrapper from another roll and put it on the spindle? They aren't even in more difficult to remove plastic wrapping. They're in standard commercial paper wrap. Comes off in two seconds, tops.

I don't get it.

I probably never I ever will.

Unplug your shredder

Browsing through the archives on another blog, I came across the story of a home fire started by a paper shredder.

While sitting idle, the motor shorted out, throwing sparks into the nice pile of tinder shredded paper below it. The fire grew quickly, but the owner was able to contain it, fortunately. The smoke and debris damage to his home is a story in itself.

Me, I've moved my shredder so I can reach the plug easily, and I'm only plugging it in when I'm actually using it. The rest of the time I'm draping the cord across the feed slot so I know it's unplugged.

The odds of an electric motor spontaneously shorting out and throwing sparks is minuscule, and it's not something I normally worry about. But a shredder motor is pretty hefty, and has all that nice tinder right underneath it. So this one, I'm going to be a little more cautious with.

Nobel for Obama

Okay, I waited, hoping it was a joke, or a delusion, or that they'd recognize their folly.

Looks like it's not going to happen, so I'm throwing my on log on the bonfire:

The Nobel Prizes are awarded for outstanding efforts or performance in the preceding year!

So Mr. Obama has been given the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his outstanding efforts to promote world peace in 2008?

I'm not very politically observant. In fact, I try to ignore it as much as I can. So what did he do in 2008 that I missed? What countries did he go to? What cease-fires or even truces did he negotiate? What did he do in 2008 that makes him more deserving than anyone else in the entire world?

That's all I want to know.

Playing with the cat

The two best cat toys you can have:

A laser pointer.

A 3' flexible stick with 3' of string fastened to the end.


The secret:

Let her catch the toy frequently. Have you ever played a game and figured out that you could not ever, EVER win? Either because you just weren't good enough, or because it simply wasn't possible to succeed? How long did you continue to play the game after that?

Same thing for your cat. She's not going to stay interested in a prey she can't catch. So let her catch it frequently, and she'll stay interested.

Letting her catch the string is easy, but how do you let her catch a dot of light?

Simple. As she's pouncing on it, turn it off. Point it somewhere behind her, turn it on, and bring the dot up onto her back and hold it there. She should be looking at her paws, thinking she's got it pinned. Watch for her to let up a little bit, then bring the dot forward, across her paws.

She'll think it just got out from under her paw and is getting away, and will chase it that much more intently.

This technique may not work as well with more then one cat. Putting the dot on one cat may just produce a pile o' cats. In that case, just keep it pointed near her paws. When she starts "checking", turn it on and run it away from her paws, same as above. And just let whoever caught it last be the one that "triggers" the escape.

Note: NEVER let the laser hit her eyes. Cats' eyes are much more sensitive than ours. An irritating flash to us is a blinding explosion to them.

Movie: Behind the Mask

I am NOT into slasher films, but I am into good, suspenseful horror films, and films in either genre with originality and creativity.

"Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon" is one of those. Google it, read about it at IMDB, and then watch it.

Friday the 13th on Tuesday . . .

No big deal. Carry on.

Dreams come true

When I was a kid, one of my dreams was of having my own theater setup where I could watch any movie I wanted to whenever I wanted.

I gotta say that, between a nice-sized LCD TV, Netflix and local rental stores, and living alone meaning I can sit close enough to that TV to make it Movie-screen sized if I want to, that dream is fulfilled.

Still waiting, though, for the day an ordinary person can buy a ticket to orbit . . . .

Lost

Even if I don't know how to get where I'm going from where I'm at, even if I'm not exactly sure just WHERE I'm at, as long as I know how to get back to where I started, I'm not lost.

Just "misplaced".

Climbing on the bandwagon

C'mon, c'mon, there's still room. Scoot over, you can fit another one!

So: Polanski: Pardon or Punish?

Well, let's see. Person pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to reduce his sentence. Person then fled the country before actual sentencing. Person then evaded extradition for thirty-something years, maintaining a not-exactly-low profile while continuing his chosen profession, and collecting full benefits of said profession. Finally, in a fit of stupidity, he allows it to be known that he will be in a country with an extradition treaty far enough in advance that they can actually get the paperwork done in time.

Bring him back, hold to the original plea bargain, and then slap on additional time appropriate to fleeing the country.

He hasn't "suffered enough" because he hasn't freakin' suffered! Oh, gosh, he couldn't go back to the US, or to any country with an extradition treaty. Yeah, like that's a hardship.

"She's forgiven him." Good for her, but so what? He plead GUILTY! He agreed to take the punishment for it! It's not a question of "is he guilty?", it's a matter of taking the lumps he said he would. AND the ones he incurred by skipping town.

Stardust

Yeah, yeah, I know it came out 2 years ago. For some reason, it struck me at the time as another crappy "alien falls to earth" movie.

Then I saw a description of it that made it clear that wasn't what it was. So I netflixed it.

And I really enjoyed it. Original fantasy with entertaining characters. VERY good, well worth seeing. If you like Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings, see it.

Silly Cat

I have a silly cat:

Got a bit warm even in the house last weekend, and she flopped in front of the fan for over an hour:

She likes to do yoga on the back of the couch:

And, like most cats, she can be comfortable despite obstacles:

"What lamp?"

Saw a donorcycle on the way to work this morning

Guy on a motorcycle; 55mph in a 65 zone (and most people doing 70+); 3rd lane instead of the outside lane, he's pissing people off; one of those barely legal minimalist helmets that don't do any good at all, and he's riding down the center of the lane, right on the oil stripe.

Sure hope his donor card is up to date, 'cause he's going to need it driving like that.

I've only been on a motorcycle once, as a passenger, but even I know better than to drive on the oil strip in the middle of the lane.