Merry Pasta-mas!

By His noodly appendage,
Merry Pasta-Mas, and happy Pastanukkah!

Interesting....

It's been a long time.
I keep reaching for my computer, and find no real need.

Not a lack of get up and go, but a lack of need.
Catharsis is my home, my life.
Employment is my purpose, and where I am now,
and the cat is NOT prompting me to toss her out the back door at the first heavy snowfall.

Hmmmmm........Am I happy again?
I mean REALLY happy?

I'm going to have to start writing without a spastic cat, and with joy.
Gads, I'm doomed! ;)

Survival Instinct

So,
it's been a little while...cat has been behaving.
At least this time I knew right from the start what it was; cold weather+cat=cuddle.
This, unfortunately, resembles the 'Daily Show' with a good president (or no election year). In other words, nothing much to write about.

Enter our Anniversary...or should I say Anniversary Weekend.
We decided, as we did not have a cake, that for our first anniversary we should revisit the pineapple drinks from our reception (made by Ohana's, a Disney resort).

The drinks rocked at our wedding, and had it not been for a late Maid of Honor we would have had many more...probably to our regret. They were liquid mana, nectar of the gawds, with rum... a whole pineapple, hollowed out, filled with fruit juice and alcohol...mostly alcohol. (did I mention the rum, there was a lot of it...I didn't think a pineapple could hold a fifth of rum by itself...I was wrong).

So anyway, we tried to reproduce these drinks.
We bought a bottle of rum, a small bottle of coconut rum, and two fresh pineapples (on Friday).
We went to a Halloween party on Saturday.
I was hungover Sunday...and Monday...and a little bit of today.
Needless to say, we didn't get to drinking them until today...I was HUNG OVER! The big one...high school level hung over. I wasn't touching SQUAT on Sunday (our actual anniversary)...and was still feeling it Monday.
So tonight...

The bottle(s) come out...
My Fileting knife comes out...
My wife goes to work...

and the kitchen gets coated.

From one end to the other, everything is sticky.
EVERYTHING.
Enter, the Cat.

She has never smelled pineapple.
She parks behind my wife (on a chair) and stares...and stares...almost demandingly.
I have a picture, of her looking over the back of the chair.
It looks expectant.
It looks petulant,
and it looks predatory...all wrapped up into one pint sized little glare.

We mix the rums,
with the cored mush,
and pour them in the pineapples...

We drink.
We think.
We spit...grimace...and whine.
they tasted like kerosene...

We discover why we are NOT bartenders.

At least we giggle.

When Roxz moves to throw away her drink, she fails to do so.
Not fails to throw it away,
but fails to move.
She is cemented.
She is stuck.

With much 'squelch'-ing, she pulls loose and frees herself.

We dispose of the evidence of our failure (unlike the marriage, with much sticky kissing and giggling we plot next year and how to make the drinks palatable, or at least consumable).
She cleans the floor,
with bleach.

As we kiss, saying how much we love each other, I catch movement from my eye.
It's the cat.

She is rolling on the clean floor. Opening her mouth over the tile, breathing deeply.
Eyes half lidded, she rolls again. At first we think 'pineapple', then realize the whole room reeks of bleach,
and it's concentrated where she's breathing.
She's huffing,
bleach.

We have a teenager,

and she's high...

This is my cat,
This is my cat on drugs....


my cat, like a teenager, has no survival instinct.

Employment....

So,
it's been a year...almost to the date it's been a year.
I haven't worked.

I haven't been unemployed longer than a week since I was 16.
Do I remember how to work? (lol)

I've been offered a job.
Lower pay than I'd like, and not 100% fulltime yet...but foot in the door and personal schedule management.
Only really lacking medical at this stage...and that will happen.

Have a drug test tomorrow. I know I'll pass that, I'm too paranoid for my own entertainment. (lmao)
Step 1) Pee in a cup
Step 2)...........
Step 3) Profit


Recommended by someone I think is a friend, but definitely strikes me as honorable.
I know part of it is to save his bacon, he's running ragged, but with everyone else out there looking for jobs he didn't have to point at me.

Am I not ambitious enough? I'm taking a fairly basic job, but damnit I like to work. I like being responsible, making money for myself and others, and WORKING.
I don't really care what I'm doing at this stage, but I wonder if I ever really did.
Did it matter before?
Did anything but paying the bills, having my dignity and supporting my family matter?

Am I settling, that I am this happy with just labor?
Or do I simply crave good old fashioned work...

I'm not as excited as I thought I'd be,
but after getting close (seriously close) two other times, I think I'm not going to get all happy until I actually get my first check.
But damn, I'm as close as I've been (but once) in a year.

I want to work,
and it looks like I just might be getting to do so soon!

Now,to make it an even better day,
who wants to take my cat!?

Why women outlast their men....

It's been a while...
I took a break, sue me! ;)

So,
My wife Roxz and I took a drive Friday.
She was in 'contrary mode', so the drive (to get lunch/take pictures of fall leaves at the dam) took 4x as long as it should have...
We passed the dam, twice, from three different directions (don't ask) before settling down to eat...grumpily.
Pizza...after all that running, she wanted pizza.
grrrrrr
We eat, her mood improves....mine just goes from starving to 'not ready to eat your face'.
She decides we still need to go picture taking.

We go to the reserve (damned dam had another dead skunk on the top...you know you can't get that taste out of the back of your throat for at least 5 miles)...
We drive down in, same leaves as last time...same pictures as last time...same flinging of leaves as the last time.
(actually, it's quite lovely this time of year. I wanted to go, but the food pursuits had put me in grumptacular mode...so it took some funsy pictures and giggling to get me outta my 'grrrrr' face).

I cheer up, we drive around a bit more and explore some alternate routes home.
Thank goodness we have a digital camera, we couldn't have carried as much film as she burned! :)

We unload the stuff we picked up at the grocery store (on a Saturday afternoon...the beginning of Mikey 'grumpface' McGee's appearance)...and she swings her purse about bouncing out of my car.

Fast forward 4 hours, darkness has settled.
I go to the Fridge, I want a Coke and Bourbon...I open the door...

I bellow across the house "So, did we forget something at the grocery, Dear?"
"Aw NUTS!" comes the reply from she who must be obeyed...(she thought the empty box in the kitchen wasn't for the recycling, was actually full)

I call my parents, painting a picture of desperate thirst and need...and brave the darkness and cold to walk across the street and claim a few cans of their soda.

I walk out the door, and as I pass my car...in the dark...I see a firefly in my front garden.
In October.
In 30+ degree weather.
A firefly.
It blinks...
I search...
it blinks again,
and I find....a pink Blackberry.

My wife's phone...has been in our wet garden for 4 hours. And she has not noticed it missing once.
In 4 hours. She didn't even notice.

Why was I surprised?
This is the woman who left her purse, with everything important in her life, at a McDonalds in Tallahassee Fla, and didn't notice for over an hour.
This is the woman that has now been told she MUST inform anyone she is with if she is hanging her purse on the back of her chair in a restaurant,
is not allowed possession of the checkbook,
and I SWEAR has managed to misplace her cat.

I, on the other hand, pat my hip to check for my phone...pat my pocket to check for my keys...and pat my butt for my wallet...when I'm leaving my own house, leaving my car or what have you. I have the Checkbook in a hanging bill holder where I can see it every morning and evening.
If I go 30 minutes without checking one (or all) of these things I start to feel lost...as though I have been dropped off in a foreign country and cannot read the road-signs, or am revisiting a bad experiment in high school.

So, I sojourn over to my parents with the phone now safely ensconced in my pocket. I return with beverage and I wait.
An hour passes, dinner is eaten...she doesn't notice her purse is devoid of phone.
Another hour passes, and I wonder at her casual knitting...enjoyment of the TV/cat uninterrupted by the void that would have been clawing at my subconscious after the 1st hour, much less 6.

Another hour, and I casually ask if she got any messages from a friend of ours visiting Disney. She doesn't even look up from her knitting...she just says 'Nope, haven't heard a 'bong' yet tonight!'
and continues to knit.
and knit.

My brain is screaming "all is NOT right with the world woman, your phone is in my pocket...but for all you know it could be in some Columbian drug lord's possession this very moment, found on the trails of the local park and immediately put to use pushing illegal substances...passed up the chain with a speed rivaling new music being violated by Napster...our bill could be 8,000.00 by the end of the month...I may have to start working for these dealers in order to pay the bill, AFTER they use the data to find me and blackmail me so you don't get blamed for the seedy deals they have set in motion. I may have to go out in a blaze of glory, like some moment out of "Matrix"....okay, more like "Pineapple Express", but meh. And you are just sitting there with a grin on your face, Zen-like peace with the click-click of your needles...I could have been headed down a path of DESTRUCTION because of your neglect....grrrrrr"

and all I say is 'Yes dear'.

An hour later, I hand over her phone...with a lecture about cost, about replacement, about other things...
and she smiles up at me,
and says "sorry honey"....
with a smile....
that smile that says 'you worry too much, you're going to have a coronary'...
I smile back and say 'okay'...with a look that says 'I HAVE TO WORRY TOO MUCH, I can't survive being a drug dealer!'

I am,
I'm going to have a coronary...
I just hope I can have a daughter first, so I can do this to some other guy!

Apocalypse Butt...

When they pick the Four Horsemen, my cat will be tapped for Pestilence.
They (it's always the ubiquitous 'THEY', but who really would be hiring?)will be hopeful, thinking this Apocalypse will finally work...the perfect team!

She will decline, citing that the job will not be challenging enough.

I may have hinted before, but I will re-iterate now, the ritual that is my cat's violation of all things natural and good.

Daylight Hours Preamble:
She suddenly gets cute and cuddly. As there are sooo many reasons she may be kissing up (food, fear of retribution, the temperature dropped below 70) we are never prepared for the inevitable attack.
She'll be next to myself or the Wife, on the couch usually, when suddenly her head will pop up like she's heard something. Still, no real warning as this is also normal behavior. It's like she sees a spirit.
(Now I know why Medieval societies thought they could look between the ears of a cat to see the dead walking the earth...well, that and Middle Ages peasants weren't known for their brights.)

Then she's off the couch, with a slight bottle-brush action going on, like something's startled her. Some portent of things to come, though she doesn't quite know it yet. We do now.
We didn't. First couple of times this happened we thought she really was a watch kitty...or retarded. Well, we weren't wrong on one count...but this wasn't the symptom.
She starts to pace, investigating, moving about the living room.

(When we were in Florida, where we finally came to understand the signs of the Apocalypse, it was a small apartment where we could witness this unfold before us in its entirety.)
She then starts to run.
Run likes she's fleeing something...
Run AWAY! (we know now, she was fleeing her butt)

She would get a few laps down around the small living room, thundering back and forth, gaining momentum.
She would go round, up onto the back of the couch, ricochet off the head of the recliner, and barrel under the work table. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...about 4 times.
Then she'd pull a 'Matrix' kitty move, go up a wall, pull a U-Turn in the air, and bolt into the bathroom (wherein was contained the litter box) without touching the ground.

There was fear in her eyes that whole time. Abject terror at first. (After her first six months it became a sense of fearful resignation, of inescapable pain that may, with any one of these 'episodes', end in her demise.)

The first time it happened, we thought it was hilarious...
Then she was gone...
for 5 whole minutes.

I know what the speed of Light means, abstractly and quantitatively.
I know what the speed of Sound means, literally.
I never really grasped what the speed of 'stink' was until I saw it first hand.

The cat moved at something akin to the speed of light, after rebounding off the last wall and heading for the bathroom doing her best 'Neo' impression.

I heard the digging, scraping, desperate attempt at burial...a process the feline attempted for 5 straight minutes, I think to a small degree out of shame but certainly out of self preservation.

Then I saw her slink out of the Bathroom.
This slink was not one of fear,
it was not one of pain nor of violation...
it was one of weight
she was weighted down...

Remember Predator, when the alien moved through the woods and caused a ripple effect...or the mirage on hot pavement in the summer?
I swear, before the smell hit me, that I saw a shimmer/ripple in the air rolling over and past the feline pressing her down...(I have now found the speed of smell is in direct proportion to the comedic effect it will produce)
This, the very first time our cat did this to us, the last (printable/intelligible) words out of my wife's mouth for the next 15 minutes were, "Aw, the poor little thing looks like she's sick...is there something wrong with....What...the...F##....ACK...KAFF...HURK".

That's when the wall of STENCH hit us. When I say wall, I mean wall. It was palpable, it would have been as easy to cut as the tension of a Republican Convention Michael Moore showed up to for the buffet.
It hurt.
My eyes watered.
My brain, desperate to preserve itself, attempted to exit my left ear..and my wife fell over the coffee table trying to get to the spray air freshener.

She sprayed, I opened windows, and we fought our way on to the front porch. (there was a brief traffic jam at the door to get out, she won by elbowing me in the groin...to this day I still don't blame her)

We heard mewling...and we didn't care.
We spent somewhere on the order of 15 minutes cursing, through the gagging.

We went back inside, the cat lay on the floor panting as though she'd given birth.
The stench had begun to subside enough to not prompt nausea...much.
My wife looked at me with a pleading expression, after walking into the kitchen to gather the tools of scoopage...and I merely shook my head.

She walked into that bathroom like a condemned criminal headed to the gallows. I saluted. The cat mewled.

I kicked the cat.....

The speed of Stink is a formula involving the level of noxiousness, athleticism of the victims, degree of surprise and direct value of the comedy...and will always, ALWAYS catch the unaware or observed....
ALWAYS.....

Pedestrian writing

I think I have grown a bit....meh?
in the last few days/weeks on Facebook.
I am divorcing myself from it for 2 days.

Sounds minor, but I find myself reflexively going there every opportunity I get.
Not an addiction, so much, as a filler.
This blog is limited venue, and more for me to put things into print I'm thinking of.
I won't draw attention to it on the 'book' for those days either, and may only occasionally from now on (haven't decided yet).

I think part of it is due to not having my 'home' and time to myself.
I love my Mother in Law, but I am a social creature.
Roxz and I made a new friend,
I reconnected with a number of old ones,
and I have now been without real contact with them for almost 2 weeks.

I am gregarious,
I am social
and I am stifled when this happens.

I have my games, my gaming buddies...but that's on a specific schedule and not really socializing. It's fun, a hobby and an outlet.

If I had a job, it would be one thing...
If we had money, and could afford to go do things every day...
or she really wanted to socialize, but she's the antithesis of me...introverted, shy, quiet and unassuming.

So my outward reaching nature has not been fed, for damn near two weeks.
I am getting crabby, needy and absorbed.
I can handle weather based cabin fever, but this is killing me!

If this seems to be unrelated to Facebook, it's because I have been using FB as an escape when I'm home right now...and a surrogate for human interaction.
I also seem to be commenting on the stupidest things, most innocuous, and losing sight of my writing to just 'fill'.

I don't know that it really matters, but it helps me put it into print...sort out how I feel.

I may have a job, talked to someone today about it.
Mom and Dad bought me a GPS to help with the work, lotta driving...
and I can't shout it from the rooftops, because it is a 'meh' job, and I can't go out and celebrate...how much does that suck?

Griping without humour, I am trying to avoid.
Lackluster I am starting to feel.
Pissy, bitchy or plain unappreciative I am NOT trying to be.
But I am feeling tedium, and tedious...

Muse

My muse has left me...
I just have no 'umph' in my typing.

The cat, damned beast that she is, has abandoned her normal vile behavior and actually been cute and tolerable.
She hasn't bitten my MIL in 2 days,
she hasn't broken anything,
and she hasn't woken me up.

My car is running,
the sun came back out today,
and Roxz and I are just kinda snuggly.

I don't have enough to complain about without delving into politics, and I'd actually become disgusted then!

Hrm...
well,
I'm bored...mostly...but not enough to bitch.

ugh...
I'm.... , perky?

What the hell's wrong with me!

;)

Taste of a Woman

Is a subtle thing.
A flavor oft missed,
misunderstood or unappreciated.

it is her scent
her voice
her very being

is what she does
how she is
and what she softly cries

it is ambrosia
honey and sunlight
all rolled into one

it reaches beyond the now
and grabs you
before and after

is what brings you back
to the font
and flavors of youth

the taste of a woman is
love
life
breath
lust
fire
hope

the taste of a woman
is what makes
all of us
alive forever

No, she's not like....

...her momma!

Some people think that the longer an owner has a pet, the more it will become like them.
My wife is sweet, slightly shy but constantly smiling.
She's warm, intelligent and affectionate to all people she lets into her house.
She loves her own mother.

My Mother in Law has been here for a week + now, visiting northern climes from sunny Flori-duh...(yeah, she's batty like me...she likes it cold).
I think this may have been the collective families way to check the layout, make sure I'm treating their 'baby' right...it's what I'd do if my daughter poofed 1000miles away suddenly. (I'd have been driving with a shotgun, but her Mom's nicer than me)

This woman loves animals, in all their forms. She loves em even more than my wife (who once held a job shoveling pooh at a kennel just to have more exposure to dogs).
She made a pet out of a scorpion she found in her bedroom once (much to the chagrin of her husband).
She has a dog, that she loves, that is a bit psychotic. When I say a bit, I mean insanely so.
I am, as far as I know, the only person that has spent any real time in their house and not been bitten by it.
It bit someone trying to rescue it from Hurricane Charley. It bit Kim (my wife's mum) on the face. It regularly sidles up to people for attention and petting WHILE growling...and then looks at you like you're an idiot after he bites you.
His name's Gizmo.
They fed him after midnight.

So far, my cat has scratched and bitten Kim at least 5 times this trip.
The ONLY time I have seen her bite someone was when my wife or I were bathing her/the first time we collared her.
She normally only scratches when playing rough, and usually bolts once she realizes her mistake. (this may be because if it's me...I'll chase the little git all over the house, but meh).
Kim is sweet, like her daughter.
Loves animals like her daughter.
Moves softly and quietly, like her daughter.

This cat doesn't even leave the room when Kim's around (like she does EVERY OTHER HUMAN she doesn't like)...she actually gets cuter.
Like she's baiting someone.
And like all humans with cute animals, we are still suckers...
pet, stroke...NOM! (bleed bleed...'no it's okay, I just spooked her')...

My cat is possessed, so I thought.
Hell, I even started to think Gizmo's sick with something, and Kim just brought it up with her.

No,
I figured it out.

Roxz's cat is getting to be more like her owner....and apparently that's not Roxz...

She's become a curmudgeon....
Should I be proud,
worried
or insulted?

there are times you should just write...
it's an imperative.

I went to Yellow Springs today, immersed in retro culture...hiked in the woods.
Spent time with the wife, and the Mother in Law.

Saw autumn in nature.
missed new friends, new traditions...
the Pub, possible movie.
missed cruel Tuesday,
new comics.

Got snubbed by old friends and distance, again.

Did I mention hiked, a lot, outdoors...
drank from a natural spring..tasted iron without getting punched in the mouth..haven't had a clean fight in a year...good outright venting of testosterone. Is it a good thing? that we don't feel these things out anymore? just haul off and punch someone...and then share a drink a little later and hash it all out?

Streams...water...leaves...leaf mold. Smelled it all. Thought of beauty, saw it. Saw a waterfall, without another photog focusing on my wife but my attention on it and her/them. really saw it this time.
walking, holding a grandparents walking stick in hand...feeling right.
Why did I leave?
Because I don't like one place for too long? I like travel with an anchor.
My anchor is people.
Don't lose me...I won't like it.
I lose myself easily enough.

Cat, how did I end up with a cat? that made no sense...they annoy me. Yet here she is, nosing for my lap. grrrr ;)

movie, what was it tonight?
Gaming...am I too old? is it an unhealthy escape or 'normal' hobby to keep me grounded?
did I assume too much of old friends? can they help me get a job?
is it really the economy, or did I outlive my usefulness 20 years too early?

Is it too late for us to have a kid?

My sons' going to college next year...full ride for something, either football or academic. Damn his mom done good! the boy's awesome. he's a bundle of smart and athletic. proud. of her too.
(sorry about punctuation, just typing out things right now).

Need to go back to school, or find a teaching venue of some sort. I feel alive when sharing knowledge.
I can, and I want to teach...we who CAN teach..not can't.

I like people, but hate humans...I am a conundrum without a clue...a rebel without a cause...a para without a duck...and an anachronism.
I flew too close to the sun...but my wings didn't work to begin with.

nonsense, but the words sounded good.

Did I screw up the first marriage? Or was it just that first mistake, the one we all seem to make, and I was too stubborn to see it for 11 years.
Seems like everyone else did before me? couldn't warn me, wouldn't have seemed the right place.
Does that make me an asshole for telling other people when it isn't mine?
I got lucky this time...did she?
Maybe I am playing with a bit of fire...burnt offerings?
Golden Apples of the Sun...
are my fingers going to be those offerings?

I didn't make it home in time...she died before I got here.

I loved her. Thank gawd for the pic in the kitchen.

Wanna come over for Tequila and Rock Band? you are always invited...

Jess, sorry I screwed it up...so glad you found the right guy at the right time...

This is me, I like to write...maybe for too long. But it's going to be me for a long time.
Is it already 40 going on 41?
Why do I feel like late 20's going on forever?
I like my quotes, I like my discordia, but do I define myself with them, or did they just contribute to my definition?

Life, I have too much of it to be depressed.
My MIL's sig O thought I was early 30's...
is that a compliment of vitality, or is it a comment on lack of maturity?
Have I been a child too long?

I want my son to be happy...thank gawd I think he is.
Is it wrong that I type gawd like that, and not God...that I don't want to offend...
and sometimes don't know that it really matters, that I think I'm wormfood at the end anyway, and that goodness is defined by what we should want to do, not what some ephemeral entity says we should?
I don't believe, but I do...I see the hand, but I think it's divorced.
Not cynically, or spitefully...not goth or like a revolutionary..or abandoned.
I think he/she/it/they created to further, and we are part of a greater whole...a cog..and that we are in a hands off state after creation, to follow our own path..and die. be done. contributors but not contiguous.
Does it really matter what I think?
I think not... :)
I think what matters is what you think!

But do I think that matters too much to me?
did I let go of the need, finally, to be loved by more than me?
did I recognize that I am not responsible for any single person other than myself, and by only knowing that responsibility and acting on it can I help the others?

I am sorry parents, for not living up to expectations.
I am sorry ex-wife, for the same.
I am sorry son, for not being there when I should have been...thank you for letting me back in.

I am sorry old friends, for leaving...

I can only do so much...and what I do may be flawed.
but I love(d) you all.

Words are tools...
do I use them correctly.
Do I wield them as weapons,
utilize them like scalpels,
or flail them about me randomly and without meaning or impact.

have I failed to learn their importance, while creating the impression of import?

do I know them, or just fake them...
do I know you?
do I fake it? would you know if I did? would you care?

I am 41 this year, and I don't necessarily know if I count,
and I don't necessarily know if I care?
I just want to know if those that I touched were better for it?
If I didn't help, in some small way, I need to figure out why not...so that I may help others later.
I love people,
I hate humanity...
this is NOT contradictory,
it simply is.


Love ya all...remember that!
:)

AAAAARGGGHHHH

Mother in Law now here for a week....
will be for another...
no inappropriate cuddling....for two whole weeks...

spleen rupturing...

arrrrgggggghhhh....(whimper)

(and now back to your regularly scheduled ranting)

Finally

Autumn has arrived...

I've been up since 2:30am...Wind blustered in 'round about 1:30ish, waking me on and off.
At 2:30, I heard what I swore was the sound of a badger trying to dig to china.
It was my cat.
Befouling the bathroom where her litter is contained...
and though it sounds appropriate..it isn't. She's VILE. We cannot compete. She was trying to bury it. She shouldn't have bothered. It was like trying to bury Chernobyl...

I was awake with the blowing wind, the crashing of limbs from trees and the noxious green cloud threatening the entire upstairs. I fled downstairs. I left the women-folk to their fate, seeing them as sacrificial canaries in a mine shaft. I figured if I started to hear muffled screams and then gurgling...I'd just burn the house down and start over.

I came downstairs, and the stinky beast followed (escaping her own atrocity I am sure) and started to putter (I love that word now). She pestered me for about 15 minutes, looking for handouts or a lap to warm up in. I ignored her.

I started to paint, and couldn't get motivated.
I started to write, and was unfocused.
I burned about 15 minutes getting breakfast set up to send my wife off with good school fuel (I was under the hopeful assumption she and her mother would survive the chemical attack).
I thought about starting the pot of coffee a little early. Rox had pre-set it for 8 cups at 6am.
It was 4am. Dammit...

2 hours...no coffee.
Cat had fallen asleep, no one to abuse.
TV too loud, interwebz boring.

And then it dawned on me...I was looking for something. I was fidgeting and unfocused because of something.
What was it?
What had me pacing, bouncing my leg and unable to sit for any leng...

Well hell, I was chilly.
I needed my robe and my slippers.

The cat woke me up with her vile stench,
and I wanted to kiss the little bugger...
I went outside, shivered in the breeze...and Inhaled deeply.

It was crisp...
It was clean...
It was beautiful (even at 0'dark-thirty)..

It is Autumn.

And even my cat's butt couldn't ruin this morning.
:)

Cat Faces VI

Terrified: curiosity with bottle brush tail..
What my wife sees;
Poor wittwe fuzzy-wuffins is scawed of da (dark/thunder/squirrel on the porch that won’t run away/my tromping down the stairs).

What I see;
I am setting up an excuse to claw your face off.
She always gets this bottlebrush ‘jabeebus’ look, and scrambles like the Cubans are invading in ‘Red Dawn’, or runs under ‘mommys’ feet and bristles up. It’s never anything clear, or defined. Half the time, I think she scared herself with something (or is about to get caught doing something).
She bristles, we take pity, somebody scoops her up to console her..and MRRRRROWWRRR…(It’s all fun and games till somebody loses an eye/finger/thumb/nipple).
I think it’s a setup…a ruse…an excuse. I really think she just hates us both.

Bathing in the light..

"Here comes the sun, du dn du du..."

It's rare, that I realize
What a creature of nature I am.
We grow disconnected, as people
with our I-pods and tv and facebook...

and then it rains...for days.
dreary, damp..deadening.
Not cleansing rain, like a storm in the summer
or one that cleanses the smell
of wildfires

cloying
beating
draining

Then it lets up.
the oppression is lifted
the damp starts to recede from your bones...
you might not even notice it at first
just kind of wake up a little

I didn't catch on,
not till I was driving home today...
tap tap tapping on my steering wheel
smiling, thinking of wife, friends, bubbles
and home..

I didn't catch on,
till I caught myself singing
with joy in my heart
I'm such a creature of nature,
thank gawd I remembered!

"Here comes the sun..."

dammit, but George sang it right!
:)

5 days....

of this dreck...

Now I remember why I hated Sitka.
I try to write, the paper's limp.
I try to dry off with a fresh towel after a shower (that leaves me feeling sticky and humid after getting out) and it's humid and limp.
Fresh sheets, tacky and limp.

Even the cat's limp and sticky...

blech.

the world needs;
the rain to stop,
a sauna,
and a viagra....

Cat Faces V

5-Stoopid look: big eyes, but ears back…
What the wife sees…the poor little thing was fooled, misled, or just doesn’t get the whole ‘real world’ thingy because we keeps ‘da precious’ inside all the time.

What I see…a sympathy ploy. Usually she’s done something terribly wrong, but it only involves MY property (ie;my hobby or some such). If it’s household, or the wife’s, she just runs and hides…quickly. If it’s my stuff she’s molested, how she reacts is dependant on who’s home. Just me, and she runs like hell…the wife home, she acts like she ‘scared’ herself with the noise(impact/what have you) and runs to the mommy with ears down and bottle brush tail ‘mrowping’ to beat the band and tucking in behind her mum’s legs.
It’s self defense…she knows what she’s done…but she knows how to play the stoopid look and get sympathy from the ‘sucker’…
It’s kept her alive this long, so it must have SOME merit?

Feline Fail....

So,
I'm sitting here reading a blog...(it's always at the computer, JEEBUS I gotta get a life)
When I hear a galloping of wifely feet.
(or so I hoped, either that or the cat had gained 100+ lbs...NOT an event I wish to consider).

I wonder, as she has gone upstairs exhausted after having class and then entertaining her mother with shopping(an event that always raises my blood pressure)why she has returned to the land of light, and consciousness.

I turn, to see her round the corner, and as I register she holds a bag of biological doom...and a look of terror...then smell hits me.
The cat has perpetrated another atrocity.
This is normal, but not usually so bad that the smell can reach across a room out of a plastic bag and assault my sinuses.
The same sinuses I inherited from my father.
The ones that don't work right.
The ones that can't smell ammonia capsules waved under them.

It is palpable.
It is physical.
It is not merely odor.
I swear I see it reach across the room for me...

I didn't process the smell in the first half second, but my eyes starting to water of their own accord led me to believe what was about to happen was NOT good...by any stretch.

The wife, looking quite cute in her sleep shirt, held it out to me to dispose of...me being the only fully dressed one in the house..as she approached with her own look of anguish.
My body (in that last half second before my brain processed the forceful chemical assault coming from ill-used nerves in my sinus cavity) recoiled in reflex fear.

Behind the wife came the cat, trouncing around the corner with a spring in her step...as though she'd lost weight...
She had...
It was vile.

I grabbed the bag, and nearly threw it AT the cat...
What stopped me???
the wife, gagging through the miasma of 'stink' that followed her down the stairs...
"Don't throw that *kaff..hurk* at my cat..."
(this almost didn't stop me...then she finished)
"the bag might explode!"
Nothing could have arrested my flinging of the litter bag faster...

And the cat just looked up at me with cute 'innocence'...
"mrowr?"


Do domesticated cats have no sense of smell?

Squirrilla Warfare

So,
as per the norm I was sitting in the kitchen working on something.
(It's always something, and never really qualifies as work according to my spouse...just puttering...when is she going to be old enough for me to accuse her of puttering?)

My cat was on the shelf at the window above my chair.
I have yet to figure out why this animal, who hates me enough to torture me day in and day out, thinks it's safe to hover over me while painting...but she does. And amazingly enough, my paint work is the ONLY thing she has never destroyed. She'll mutilate my finished work, but leave it out with the paint pots and tools and she won't touch it (maybe figures it's worse to annihilate finished work, I dunno).
Anywho, she's at the window when the wife asks "look out there and see why she's so absorbed..and twitching her tail".
After the skunk raid on the carport (later story) and the squirrel raids on other parts of the carport (again, more on that later) I assume we have a vagrant animal about to visit an atrocity upon my property...I was right, but not in the way I expected.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw another cat. A big cat. I mean BIG. This chunky, low slung and mean looking black and white looks like it could have taken an enraged walrus home as a meal.
My cat was looking out the window acting like she wanted to play...I wanted to let her out (she'll be skinned alive and served up as a late night snack by this beast) but the wife was present, and I would have had no excuse...cats just have bad timing, I swear.

So this cat was stalking. It was in the grass, doing that impossibly slow paw over paw ninja-commando low crawl. I looked for an intended victim, and sure enough...on the edge of the carport, there was a squirrel.
Now normally these squirrels are quick on the uptake and twitching their tales in warning (before bolting up a tree) long before any neighborhood cat gets within 20 yards...but this one was within 5. It was pawing around in the grass near where I had spilled some bird seed, so I assumed he was absorbed in eeking out the last remnants of seed from the ground.
I watched, as that cat continued to crawl...foot by foot...paw by paw...ever closer.
It got closer, and started doing that little pre-pounce butt wiggle (you know, the tense 'heap big hunter' wiggle your house cat gets right before assassinating a lightning bug) all cat owners adore. My wife had, at this point, joined me at the window after a quiet hand waving over. I'm expecting a sudden burst of speed and a run, one that NEVER results in a caught squirrel but a chagrined cat...my favorite kind (ok, filleted is my favorite, but polite company and all).
She gets closer, and closer...slower and slower. She's within 5 feet now, right next to the front tire of my CRV, and I start to raise my hand to knock on the glass (I like squirrels, even when they are attempting to raid my bird feeders I like em...I grew up with them as part of my nature, playful little spirits. I don't like cats, evil feline mischief causing beasts. Knock on the glass saves a squirrel and pisses off a cat, win win)...
My wife stopped me. 'watch' she says quietly, and pointed.

As I notice that the 'victim' squirrel actually looked over its shoulder at the cat, I also see what my wife sees. To the immediate right of the cat, on the top of my car's front tire, is another squirrel. Two feet from the hunter. As I saw the squirrel, the cat also seemed to detect something, and looked over the other shoulder...to see the OTHER squirrel stalking IT.
My wife, Roxz, giggles and points again...behind the cat. In the grass, about 15 feet away, is another pair of squirrels.
At this stage, the 'victim'(I mean bait) sits up, and looks at the cat.
The one on my tire hops down and sits up, looking at the cat.
The two behind sit up,
and the one we did not even see on the ROOF of the carport scampers down into the grass...and they all sit up and stare.
I swear I heard the sound of a switchblade...
(so help me gawd, if Al Hitchcock had seen this, there would have never been 'the birds'...it would have been the 'squirrels')

The cat's tail twitched...
It looked about.
It's wasn't happy.

And the 'bait' twitched AT her.

I blinked,
the cat was halfway down the driveway still picking up steam on the way out...
The bait's tail is swishing in the sudden breeze.
The cat wasn't touching the ground, but It was still accelerating.
I don't think it made contact with the ground for the length of the driveway.
I haven't seen it since...

I wonder if I fed my cat to the squirrels, the wife would know?

Unemployment

So,
I'm TFG, livin off 'da man!

Honestly relieved, Unemp was extended...
I don't have to eat the cat...yet...

I THINK that's a good thing, though it would solve some problems. ;)

Cat faces... IV (as in an I.V. for my tranquilizers)

or 4, as in the 4th face...not sure at this stage. :)

Denial: I meant to do that.
What the wife sees…embarrassment. Often on the end of a jump gone wrong, an attempt to secure a flying nom or just plain skidding on a floor coming around a corner too fast. Elicits pity from the wife.
What I see…I am going to find a way to pin this on you. Please be smart and check your shoes for the next few days, I have a present for you.
This one is where I equate cats to women. Don’t take this the wrong way ladies, we men are complete dolts when it comes to self inflicted pain, but we just let ourselves look stupid and either think it’s funny, or think no one noticed.
But cats (and women), wow…there is nothing in those feral little eyes that has anything but disdain for you noticing. It’s less a refusal to accept responsibility (which IS there) and more a ‘how DARE you laugh/giggle/even look!’ If you noticed, you are at least partially responsible for her embarrassment, and must suffer. If you laugh, she won’t believe for a minute (no matter evidence to the contrary) that you didn’t set up the series of events to cause her this humiliation…and you shall suffer. If you laughed in front of witnesses, check your shoes for a month.
This look IS very much directed at me. She’ll just walk off if her mommy giggles, but if I do…well, have you ever seen a cat glare? I know I have…it’s a bit frightening.

The Enemy...

...is not my cat.
As much as I may wish it to be the case, it's age.

I am getting greedy. With time.
I don't like to sleep.
It's all the little things that race about in my head as I close my eyes.

The hamster in the wheel is on about 5 pots of coffee, and burning out the axle.
I don't think it's normal, to hate sleep.
I see it as an enemy, consuming 3-5 hours of every precious day that I have. (should be 8, "but I have a cat see...and she's evil see...and she helps my insomnia see"...said in a bad early Chicago mob accent).

I see my life-clock, and I know that carousel is coming...but I don't want to embrace Renewal.
I want to squeeze every drop of potential out of every waking moment, and I want more of the moments to be waking.
I need a job. The longer I am without, the more difficult it is for me to squeeze.
Maybe I should take up criminal activity, to support my nefarious desires to live! :)

I have a wife who actually knows, and loves, ME. (poor girl)
I live in a house that has been in my family for my entire life.
I have a family across the street for moral support.
I have a home, a roof over my head, and am rediscovering lost friends and family.
Why am I fighting something as simple as sleep?

If I had a fellow insomniac to share these late night ramblings with, I could enjoy it more.
All I have is a shat-tastic cat! :P

Kitty Gold

Okay,
the measure of a child is how expensive the gift is vs how much fun they will have punishing their parents by only playing with the box.

The measure of a cat is what she won't eat, but make sport with it's garbage. My cat does not like milk.

My wife, Roxz, had informed me (in the cat's first month in our home) that they sell little plastic rings like those that hold your cap on your milk jug as cat toys. You know, those little flexible plastic rings with the little teeth on them, that keep your milk 'safe' from prying fingers (or at least warn you if some errant 5 year old has drunk from the jug on the store's shelf). I called her a liar. She then took the next little ring off the jug, and tossed it at the cat. It occupied her for an hour, till she lost it under the stove the 4th time and I wouldn't get it out.
KITTY GOLD!

Fast forward to a year later...and about 500 lost little rings of plastic in an old apartment and new home (note:if you leave them under your stove, where the cat deposits them, they WILL breed. neuter your trash).
I am in the dining room, after watching 'Kill Bill part I' with the spouse...debating on watching part II...writing about the 'Mouse Wars', when a whirlwind roars by.

A flurry of fur, fangs and destruction.

A fan is capsized, a note is sucked off the table next to me into the vortex, and I nearly lose a toe.
Imagine, if you will, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.

The path of destruction moves into the kitchen.
It bounces off the cabinets under the sink, ricochets off the fridge and piles into the secretary. It stops for a moment, image of a cat frozen in mortal combat with something menacing...rises up into the air majestically to pounce once again...and sounds of a tornado start back up.

Under the kitchen table...
around the base, knocking Rox's purse off the chair it hangs on...
back out toward the dining room (I pull my foot under the computer desk quickly)..

She collides with the small rug at the foot of the sink (she managed to miss it when she bounced off the cabinet...I am STILL trying to figure out how).
She tangles. It is an abrupt halt. It is a halt with little dignity, and limbs pointed everywhere. Nothing is more humiliating to a cat than splayed limbs that do NOT involve bathing and exhibitionist impulses. She manages to get her head out of the mess, and glare up and at me.
I get up and start digging, looking for whatever moth may have gotten in, and whether it is mauled or able to be rescued...and I find a small blue plastic ring with many little teeth marks.
I hold this up, shake it at my wife (who is giggling to beat the band) and say, "I blame you...oh I blame you"...

While I am doing this, the cat disentangles herself, and bites my toe...causing me to drop the kitty-gold.

The whirlwind resumes.

I shall not sleep tonight.




(anybody got a good recipe for cat?)

3 blind mice....

Okay,
3 dead mice.

For those of you that don't know already,
I have been waging a war against the field mice that occasionally invade my kitchen.
It's an old home, a drafty one, and has an old basement with a wine cellar and storm door access.
I see this as a home improvement project in the making, the mice see it as an invitation to a smorgasbord.

I implemented strategies, lost some minor skirmishes (my thumb still remembers the 2nd trap reloading) and have drawn first blood.
I even tried to secure plutonium for radiological battle...no results, other than temporary baldness (fingers still crossed on the 'temporary' part). But I continue to wage a war that our resident feline should be waging for me!

In keeping with the theme of my writings I will find a way to make this at least a bit about my cat.
In addition to her lack of concern for the invasion, desire for the peanut butter on the traps (oh the temptation, but I have behaved) my cat managed to catch fleas from the vermin. 3 weeks, 4 baths, a flea collar and a 50$ package of advantix later...and we still haven't gotten rid of the parasite...but the fleas are gone.
(If you think me cruel, or inhumane, keep in mind a few things...my cat has had fleas since the invasion began a little over a month ago. If you have not had a flea ridden cat trying to share a bed with you constantly, you cannot understand the hatred I have acquired for rodents...you just cannot. It's not the fleas, they don't like me. It's the shaking of the bed, as she scratches. The clawing at the floor if we close the bedroom door. It's the jingle of her collar, or the thumping on the floor, as she scratches...and scratches...and scratches. It was her or the mice.
My vote was for her...I was out-voted by my wife.)

About a week and a half ago, I found another casualty. My second victim.
I re-baited the trap (without personal injury, I was so proud) and waited. After a week plus, I was beginning to think there were no more invaders. The huns had been driven back. The Moors out of Europe. The Vikings from the shore. I left the trap, checking dilligently (twice a day, with hope) to no avail. Had I won? Had they been driven out?

With no thought for the front-lines, the rodents or the cats negligence, my wife and I sat down to have pizza (a treat, as my girth has caused me to partake in a diet...when you view celery with blue cheese dressing a treat, you've gone too far) and watch a movie or two. We chose an action thriller.

In the midst of a fight scene, we hear a 'CLACK' from the kitchen. My head pops up, my hand leaps out and the pause button is pushed. As the cat is not in eyesight, I assume something has been dislodged in the kitchen. I listen, my wife Roxz listens, the world pauses. Uma Thurman is frozen with a snowy background in mid spin with a sword, the clack having coincided with a sword clash I begin to wonder if I was hearing things.
Not trusting the feline to not be trying to outsmart us (assuming she actually thinks that far ahead) I get up slowly and quietly, and tiptoe into the kitchen.

The dim light casts shadows about, the kitchen is empty. No cat hunkers on the counter next to a tumbled utensil. No cat hides under the table atop a pilfered tool. No cat, in fact, stares back from any corner/nook or surface. I start to spin, to go back to my film, when an idea hits me (okay, my wife's forhead...I spun around to fast).
I look at her with this thought foremost, and she reads it in my eyes, "The trap?" she asks.
"Couldn't be that lucky" I respond.

I step to the cupboard under the sink, where my weapons of war are arrayed, and open up. I close it, I turn, and I gloat. My wife accuses me of looking at her with "Pride and boyish glee" in my eyes.

3 down.... :)

When I go to hell, do you think they'll bait man sized traps with pizza?

40k Germanic Tribes Celtoi

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s1/Roxzelle/P1010961.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s1/Roxzelle/P1010961.jpg

So,
Gil was right....
I'm going to play the flavor of the month.

See, I have these Dark Angels...Deathwing. And I (and others, some on your end even) have all come to the conclusion, it's time for us to play the way we shoulda been....so....My stargate army is about to get interesting.
For one thing, the WHOLE thing has been repainted. Split scheme that Erik came up with..he did a better job of course. I've repainted the whole thing. Deathwing, Ravenwing, Foot guys and vehicles...and now have started to add to it.
Here's my "Thuner-Bear Rider". Started on him this morning...he has alot to be done still, but I kinda am very happy with his direction.


I had liked the Idea of a Space Marine equivalent to Bloodcrushers, but I think the upcoming model looks...well...a little ghey.
Not so, the bear!

(and since I'm having trouble with the pics, please just past the links into your browser till I figure a better way out!) :(

Wives, cats and Circuit Breakers...

I think...well, I don't know.
I think the Grand Architect may have been a woman, and decided she doesn't really like men.
Why else would you make Woman, give her Man...and then provide cats.
Case in point.

Again, I am at the computer...

You know, I've noticed that a lot of the posts occur while I am 'at the computer'. Let me correct a few misconceptions.
My wife and I got outside, yes we do! We do not blink blinded-ly at exposure to sunlight. We are not pasty, and we have social skills. In fact, if I we don't tone those social skills down sometime soon, I will give up on sleeping weekends completely...
I also do not 'bogart' the computer. We actually share this cursed machine. I don't like it personally. I prefer human interaction and the hum of an electric typewriter. But she loves it. She's a 'modern' woman, I'm a anachronistic curmudgeon.

So,
I am at the computer.
I am typing away, when the wife discovers the cat's banana toy has be 're-discovered' by the cat.

This toy is scary. Not to an adult human (well, in the middle of the night when you step on it and it's cat slobbery...what can I say), but should be scary to an animal. It is long, yellow, has eyes and a jingly bell. It dangles from an indestructible stretchy thread from the door knob, and makes obnoxious noises. No animal with a lick of sense or survival instinct should be anything but frightened of it. Enter 'the feline'...
She loves it. She's an idiot.

So my wife has taken this fruit-like abomination off the door handle and is running it around the floor like a snake with potassium venom.
The cat is chasing it, like she can't see the human and the string. Or she's just that dumb. I vote for the latter.

Wife is going on about how she's rediscovered the joy of cat toys, how the cat is so cute, and how I should look.
I mumble about cat toys, maiming, and violin strings...
Wife giggles and says I should look.
I say 'in a second'...

You know how most people have a circuit breaker, the little one in your brain that flips when you are about to implement a plan that will result in disaster (or a brief hospital stay...)? My wife doesn't have one.

I am ignoring her cat, when said vile little beast is being cute.
She's not cute normally (ever as far as I'm concerned, but normally to my wife) so she sees this as an event worth celebrating. I'm not celebrating. I must be drawn into this 'event'.
I am sitting on a chair, in front of the computer, that has a cloth armrest, a cloth back-rest, and runs up to the back of my head.
She runs the banana up the armrest, and up the back of chair to my head.

The last time she did something like this, the cat actually fit on the armrest.
The last time she did this, the cat was 4.5 lbs. She's now 8 lbs.
The last time she did this, the chair was actually differen, and larger.
This is the last time she'll do this.

Recently, Roxz read Heinlein's 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls'.. (I had turned her on to Heinlein with SIASL, Grok?).
In that book there is a cat that climbs its owner's leg with 'little pitons'...slowly.

Up my side...fast.
Up my arm...fast.
Into my neck...fast....
Up my entire left side, hadn't had a claw clipping in weeks. Cat had been sharpening them (in anticipation for this kind of opportunity I am sure) on an old rug we leave out just as a scratching surface not 15 minutes earlier.
Talons penetrate into my Kidney (anybody out there have O+ blood, gonna be needing a transplant)...then quickly up the rest of my body to my spine.

On first contact, it's abrupt and sharp...then she finds purchase for greater speed and launch...searing burning evil death sharps pain is run up my side.
I scream....I claim it was a bellow of pain and anger, my wife thinks it was more like a schoolgirl...it's all about perception.

The cat's response to the scream, to launch off of my neck and from the dining room all the way into the living room without touching the floor (owwwwwwwwwwwwwww) and disappear for the next 6 hours...
My response, to glare at my wife for the next hour...
Her response, to duck my glare and apologize while trying desparately to not giggle at my bear-like grumbling and grousing.
I don't know who to blame here, and it's frustrating...

If your spouse doesn't have a circuit breaker, install one...
If you can't find one, install SOMETHING!

Cat Faces... III

And the third face...

Evil look: mischief will be accompanied by sharps.
What the wife sees…we did something wrong, and she is upset. We’ve failed the cat somehow. Failed to feed her, pamper her, or generally love her.

What I see…property destruction.
It may be furniture, it may be my leg, but something will look like hamburger quite shortly.
The cat has found an excuse (albeit as minor as not scritching an ear while we are toiling over a hot oven) to mutilate our property OR a good night’s sleep. Usually we don’t see this coming beyond an aloof refusal to allow petting or interaction, or clawings hidden as play with a loose sock. Then the night comes. This is generally Gender non-specific, as I have seen the damage done to my wife’s toes as much as my own.
Objects destroyed, body parts maimed and clothing ruined…par for the course. I don’t understand how these animals survived their domestication…I think they feel the same way about us.

ROUS

Okay,
so I succumbed, didn't want to interfere with the spouses first Monday morning of classes, and took a sleeping pill last night.
I went upstairs, lay down to read...and 15 minutes of staring at the ceiling later, my wife asks me why I'm still wearing my glasses.
"You wanted me to read you a chapter of McManus" I said, while rotating my head a little to follow the ceiling fan...dizzy while laying down, wondering why I couldn't focus on the moving blades, and whether they would fly off...why they wouldn't focus...how many blades there were...if those were multiplying...if they took off would they fly, or just chop off my toes...if they flew off would they get the cat before my toes...where's the cat...I don't hear crashing in the house...why they wouldn't focu....zzzzzzzzzz

As I've said before, when I take these pills, my cat takes note. Normally with glee and cunning, and a bit of spite, she takes note.
She begins to plot...
But this isn't a story about my cat. She doesn't figure in this at all. It's about my wife.

I was gone, just out. I looked at the clock as I laid down last night (muzzily, with glasses on...not sure why the glasses were still on till the wife asked me WHY...remember why when she asks, and promptly passed out), it read 10:30.
I'm an insomniac, I don't sleep more than 3 hours straight naturally, ever. Even on ambien I usually wake up PRECISELY 4 hours after I take it. If not shortly thereafter. I typify the quote from Fight Club "when you have insomnia, you're never really asleep...and you're never really awake:.

At 5:00, I woke up...abruptly. Not startlingly, just 'I'm awake'. Calmly, laying there with warm snuggly, the window open hearing the sounds of truly early morning, I'm awake. I get up, shuffle to the 'facilities', and shuffle back a minute later. I kind of stand there for a moment, realizing that was no 'demand' of nature just a ritual. Nothing to have drug me out of bed.
I listen, trying to sort out if the cat has been up to some mischief downstairs. Trying to figure out why I'm awake. Nothing. Just awake. Languidly, despite the temperature, softly.
No newspaper drop off loudly, no loud construction noises...just up.
Hell, the insomniac just got almost 7 straight hours of sleep. And he's calm and fuzzy enough, he's gonna get another 30 minutes before the alarm goes off (remember,wife early day) and cook her breakfast/have coffee! WOOT!
So I climb back into bed for a little hour (or less) nap, dig into the warm and start to drift.
And then I feel a wiggling of legs next to me...you married folks out there know the type, you pulled the covers a bit, spouse is unconscious with chilled toes and reflex takes over...poorly...and feet do a little flutter kick to pull it back...poorly. As I am awake, and know that this will bring someone to consciousness unhappily and poorly, I quickly pull blankets and adjust to make sure she's covered. I even looked. She's covered, totally.
I lay back, snuggle, and begin to drift...

10 minutes later...
kickity-kickity-kickity...(little flutter kicks, barely noticeable, I almost don't figure out what wakes me). Okay, it's just a running dream...no whimpering, so not a nightmare...and she's stopped. Lay back...drifting offfff....

kickity-kickity-kickity. Okay, now this is entering snoring realm. I gently jiggle her, it stops. I start to drif...

kickity-kickity... I open my eyes, I look at her face and I listen to her breathing. She's not faking, she's not distressed. I jiggle...she stops. It's 5:30.
I decide to try again...lay down...5 minutes of waiting, start to let go...
kickity...
Softly, so as not to startle her awake, I query "Hon, what are you running from?"
"mmfff dunff knof" snuggles in to my chest, starts to breath normally again. I lay back....
kickity-kickity...jiggle..."hon, you okay"..."MFFFF"(irritated 'why are you waking me' tone).
repeat one last time, doze/kickity/you okay/angry 'mfff'...

Okay, no big. I really am well rested. I gently extricate myself, and go downstairs.
I putter (i have decided that I am no longer too young to putter, and since I am not a natural in the kitchen, in that environ puttering is about all I can aspire to) around in the kitchen, make sure breakfast supplies are out (I have been tasked with making eggs to go with the coffee...have I mentioned I am the egg gawd?) and sit down on the computer to putter a bit more (I'm not great with technology either, I am LUCKY that my computer use is only referred to as puttering, not violating).

I hear the alarm upstairs go off a little bit later, and stumbling (with an indignant MROWRP from the feline...she doesn't understand underfoot is dangerous in the morning), and the shower.

A bit later, the spouse comes down.
We kiss, she settles into coffee as I wrap up some online rambling and jib-jabbing (she provides me with a cup).
I get up and start making breakfast.

As I stand next to her cooking, while she reads the remnants of the paper and sucks Java like it's mana from heaven,
I describe my glorious nights sleep, the perfect out like a light, up the next morning, and nothing in between moment...that thing that never happens.
I then describe the wonderful feel of looking at the clock, seeing another hour of sleep coming to me, and knowing that I would love it!
I am giddy. I describe all this because I have been bouncy since she has come downstairs. Happy, warm, energetic...so NOT my normal morning self.
I was singing, I was dancing, I petted the cat happily...(okay, the dancing was not had)
I return to the whole 'looking forward to another hour of glorious sleep, that I NEVER get'....
And then I confronted her about the sabotage..

I asked...
"So, were you having a nightmare, or just a running dream?"
"Huh?"
"This morning, when you drove me out of bed, what was up?" I asked, accusatory tone heavy..intimating intent on my good sleep and sanity.
I then described the sequence of 'kickety-kickety-kickety' (doing my favorite 'Quagmire' impression voice from Family Guy) and the muffled responses.
She stops, and thinks..hard. She is trying to recall the morning dreams...(I can smell the burning rubber as she tries to engage the drive of her 6am brain...it hurts, I know).

Then she started to giggle.
"I was dreaming of rats of abnormal size...they were nibbling on my toes, and I couldn't get em to leave me alone," she titter through this...I say "kickety-kickety"...she's getting closer to uncontrollable giggling..."I knew you were there, it wasn't real, but I was convinced...and they were just nibbling, I couldn't get em off!"

R.O.U.S.'s..........she woke me up because she dreamed of ROUS's...she kicked me, because she dreamed of ROUS's...

I think my wife has gone quietly batty...

Cat Faces...hiatus

Today is Sunday
I am tired
I am lazy
and I want to be outside,
so I have decided that today, my cat has no face. She is beneath my creative juices ( may have even dribbled those on her in spite).
A tabula rasa...
I am ignoring her, and her 'it's cold again daddy, cuddle me' cuteness...
she is Cypher



(and toting the Lion Sword ta boot!)

Cat Faces...

Cat looks mark 2

Sphinx Look:sophisticated, all knowing

What the wife sees…sophistication and proof of her deserving of treats. Somehow this woman, who proved to me to be quite intelligent in her choice of spouse, sees this look as innate natural wisdom…I then ask her to share the medication.

What I see…proof that the Pharoahs were right to bury the damned things with em, it was their last revenge on the feline and the wife. This look is one of superiority. I wonder how an animal that has to beg (well, occasionally claw) for food shelter and litter changing, can be smart. Then I realize that maybe, just maybe, the fact that I get up to answer these demands indicates intellect is on four legs, not two.

Cat Faces...

Cat Looks #1;

Curiosity Look: eyes the size of quarters, mischief afoot.

What the wife sees…curiosity and inquisitiveness. This look convinces my wife, regularly, that there actually is something going on in her head. (I don’t get it either)

What I see…deadly intent on anything of mine that is small and valuable…as I collect and paint miniatures and jewelry…this is 90% of what I own.
This look is usually followed (more often after I have retired for the eve) by crashing and shattering sounds throughout the house…or paddy-pawing noises on the dresser near my jewelry box. It once presaged the cat flipping the lid on my pistol case and nestling down for the night in the lid of my .357 container.

Too bad it wasn’t loaded...

Cat and the Sleeping Pills

11:24 pm.
Roxz's first day of class tomorrow, and I have decided to make her breakfast.
I am the egg gawd. If you can do it with an egg, I can do it better. If it's been done with an egg, show me how and I will reproduce it...and shortly be able to do it better.
So, in order to assure that said breakfast is made on time, I took an ambien. The same sleeping pills I weaned myself off of a week ago.
I took it at 9:45.
It kicked in at 10:00
I am now downstairs at 11:24.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake me up when I am drugged? Much less drugged with a whiskey chaser? It is NOT simple, easy or common. not until the 4-5 hour mark has passed, and the filthy sleeping pills suddenly decide they no longer wish to work. At that point I return to normal Mikey, who's world is loud and disturbing, and non-conducive to sleep.

The cat has figured out the formula for this. She knows, by my rapidly degrading performance downstairs prior to rushing upstairs, that I have taken something. She behaves. She even nuzzles.
She knows she shall have fun.
She starts making noise. To date, I have yet to identify these specific 'wreck his night's sleep' noises. these are different than her 'oo, shiney....must break' noises. Very different from the 'it's moving, I must destroy half the house to kill it' noises. Or the 'I can climb ANYTHING no matter how un-tenable my balance shall be' noises.
No, all those have been identified with years of my life lost to excessive adrenal use.
No, these are new noises...noises that fit nothing. To the non-cat owner, they sound like stomping of a peg-leg on hard wood...or the thumping of a body being drug up the stairs. Occasionally, a hand slipping as it lowers an inner window to the floor and drops it those last few inches.
A collection of sounds that, to the uninitiated , would be perfect for a suspense/thriller/horror movie.
To a cat owner, they are normal noises that an owner only becomes SLIGHTLY concious for...long enough to identify it, and plan revenge on the feline in the form of a bath the next day while drifting back to blessed sleep.
To a person on sleeping pills, it IS every noise from EVERY horror film they watched as a young teen. Every film that ever gave them the heebie-jeebies is coming to life. And it's slow. It digs into your unconscious mind and prompts nightmares of home invasion, body snatchers and kidney thieves.
You finally awake, enough, to register that no one is actually in your room. You stagger up, trying to desperately be quiet...body betraying you as though you'd been on an all night binger..(doesn't help the steady susurration of a rainstorm making your hearing fuzzy and questionable...was that a footstep downstairs?)
In your addled mind, you grab the first thing that comes to hand...coulda been a gun...coulda been your wife...ends up being your long lost uncles hockey stick.
You stumble downstairs, a downstairs that is now eerily quiet. You are flipping lightswitches as you go...you've moved into an older house, with older flourescent fixtures...they flicker on, coming to life slowly and hesitantly, like the lights at a murder scene or in a mad scientists lab.
The bring stark and unwelcome light to a room not disturbed...the next one, it'll be a mess...they couldn't have made noise and not done SOMETHING.

You get the next one, and the next one...each as willies-causing as the next...
then you see her.
In the last room is the Cat. Pulling the Yoga routine licking her unmentionables in your general direction. Looking up with a 'why the hell are you disturbing my bath' kinda look. At her feet, some trinket. A thing of little value (else it would have broken, identifying the noise instantly and bringing wrath down upon the cat's head, not fear throughout the house)...something innocuous, but loud.

You pull your weapon, death in your drug addled mind, and realize that the Sig O would make you a Sig Zero if you committed this act of retribution....so you whimper, stagger back upstairs, and hope that for revenges' sake...you can remember this in the morning.

One of these days, I will actually grab the gun by mistake...and the cat's gonna get hers....one-na these days!


(this is not an after-action review...I am typing this now....and take my word for it, with the typos and slow typing and re-reading...this has taking FAR too long for any sane/sober man...the cat shall suffer, oh yes she shall!)

Proof of De-Volution!

So,
we've established my wife's cat (hereafter referred to as mine, because I end up suffering most of the indignities the beast heaps upon us in the house...but NEVER mistake who brought the vermin...I mean cat...into MY house!)...anyway, my cat is dumb...dumb with a capital DUH...

I cannot truly express how an animal with a little bit more than a hindbrain could be this dumb. If we unplugged her life support (ie:put her outside), she would expire. The flying, running, climbing or just plain SITTING noms out in the world would simply outsmart her.
Or she would dehydrate because there wasn't a leaky bathtub or toilet...I mean water dish...to be had.
Or, frankly, with no litter box she may simply explode randomly one day (if she managed to find a food source slower and dumber than she...). The only positive thing to say about the little twit, she won't use anything BUT a litterbox.

So anyway, per the norm I digress.
The moron.
We're sitting at the table, minding our own business, I trying to ignore the cat, the wife reading, when I see sudden movement out of the corner of my eye.
Sudden is abnormal in this house, unless it involves food. Neither the wife nor I have supplied new food to the bowl gawd, so I wonder...and look.

Every once in a while a flying insect gets in. The going out, the open windows to look at the birds, what have you. At these times, the normal response for the cat is to ignore said insect until it finds it's way into our bedroom sometime between 11:30pm and 4 am (anything earlier or later would not be disturbing enough to circadian rythms).
At this juncture, the cat either decides some part (well, multiple parts) of my bed, my body and my pillow are launching points for airborne assaults on the winged invaders (you shoulda seen her for Lightning Bug season...that's another little story) OR she decides that walls (usually with her face) are good objects to arrest her forward momentum with when dealing with particularly fast or maneuverable foes (anything that is self motile usually qualifies compared to her). This results in very loud and usually unexplainable thumps, followed by upset (and loud) mewling.

So, after explaining how this is her normal modus-operandi, you should be as surprised as I to see my lazy little git of an animal shooting straight up into the air like an angry Jack Russel Terrier on drugs. I'm talking air time Michael Jordan would have been proud of.
These antics are significant enough to get my attention, so I look up from my painting to observe...and I get a glimpse of what she's chasing. A small wasp. Not those evil beasts of paper, or ground hornets or any such thing, but one of the small black ones that hunt spiders and generally don't make a nuisance of themselves...and sting a little more than a sweat bee.
Well, somewhere along the line it angered my cat. I would like to say that she saw it as a threat to us (okay, my wife..not me) and was trying to save us...but there isn't a noble bone in her lithe little body.

Futilely, I actually said (after her 4th failed leap to catch it), "Cat, this may be one of the dumbest things you've ever done...you might wanna stop". She looked at me, detecting the note of warning in my voice, realized I was not getting up to pursue her for some transgression she does not understand (such as mauling 300$ worth of miniatures, minor little things like this), and continued to bounce, leap and cavort after this THING that had invaded HER airspace!
I repeated my warning, to no avail. I was (as per the norm for the women in my life) ignored. I poked my wife, telling her the cat was going to regret this...she mumbled incoherently and continued reading (something like 'yes dear'...isn't that my line?).

Having done my duty, I relaxed to watch the show.
Watching this animal attempt to catch most things is akin to watching a retarded ant-eater try to invade and consume a fire ant nest. It ain't pretty, but it's sure entertaining!
She spent fully 5 minutes proving that millions of years of evolution CAN be undone with about 3000 years of human meddling. She bounced off counters, the fridge, the chair, the wall and me. She ran, she slid (linoleum) she bounced and she flipped. All this noise finally gets my wife out of her book and she looks up...she doesn't ask what's going on, she just watches for the fun...not realizing that for me, the fun is just beginning!

Leap,
knock down,
pounce,
nose
"MROWRP!"
(up and back, like she had been loaded onto a mini trampouline...I don't think I saw the legs move, she just bounced...)
she then had the gall to GLARE at me, like I'd done this...I look up and the wife looks at me, "what the hell was she chasing?"
"A wasp?!"
"why did you let thi..."
"MROWRP!" (while we were having our little discourse, retardicus decided she wanted to go another round and pounced..I looked up in time to see another levitation..a good 4 footer)...
"shhhhh, it's a damned little one, she's learning a lesson that won't hurt her"...(much)

She's not injured it enough to not fly, but she's stunned it. She stares, while licking the paw (I assume what got nailed). She stares, and the tail twitches with anger. It has engaged her honor now, and must be disposed of. It orients itself and revvs the engine for take-off.
Now begins the next 5 minutes of her lesson.
She does not spend it proving her grace, or improving her skills as a hunter....she spends it proving that she is dumb.
5 minutes of...scamper***leap***bat***nom-MROWRP!-levitate***glare....(lather, rinse, repeat).
At one point she disables it's flight apparatus, but she did not realize that did not equate into disabling it's 'fight' apparatus...producing about 10 seconds of 'nom-MROWRP-pause-nom-MROWRP-glare-glare-nom-MROWRP'.
At this point, she is starting to look up at us...with an imploring "can you make the sharps go away".
I take pity (and a cue from my side in the form of a wifely jab) and murder the marauding insect with a book. I lift the book up off the floor to scoop the body, and POUNCE! She assaults the corpse, quite likely to take credit for someone elses kill...and learns her final lesson...MROWRP! (a stinger ain't dead just cause da bug's squisheded!). Somehow or another, this got me a final "bite me" look from the cat, as though once again I was responsible, and a swish of the tail as she left me to go to her 'mommy' for treats and petting...she had, of course, rid the house of the 'flying-sharp' and wanted her due reward.

I think the honest matter was the cat was trying to kill me...I have never surpressed that much laughter for my own health (I think Rox woulda hurt me if I'd giggled at one more MROWRP...) in my life. She's trying to give me a stroke!

Cat's...just why?

So,
it stopped being cold...
she stopped having fleas...
chronicle of Friday night

Get home from Dave and Stacey's.
1:00 am-Cat tries to trip me on the way up the stairs to use the restroom.

1:22 am-Cat leaps up on the back of my chair while typing, in the dark, wife asleep upstairs and YOWLS in my ear. This is after sneakily, silently, paddypawing her way up to behind me. I was typing. I was focused. I needed new underwear and a crash cart. Cat logged airtime similar to first Wright Flight...maybe longer.

3:00 am-Wound down from adrenal rush, drifted off. Sheep have actually stopped leaping over my fence and started to saw wood in the cinema that is my demented brain.
'bada bumpa bada bada thump CRASH..."mrow?"..."mrow?" tumpatumpatumpa'
down the stairs, up the stairs, impact on hall mirror..confusion...down the stairs.
I'm awake...plotting now, whether or not they make Rat Traps large enough for a cat.

4:00 am-been asleep now for about 45 minutes, last misbehavior only woke me...no adrenaline.
'CLANK'...sound associated with large metal objects colliding, but coming from the bathroom. Drift up, nothing follows, drift down...zzzz
"slurp slurp slurp slurp"....have you ever heard a buffalo with a cleft palette drinking from a large bowl...next to your ear? Neither have I, but it sounds like that when the cat starts drinking from the bathtub drain (VERY slow leak, she's decided it's her water dish now).

4:30 ish to 6 ish...
various impressions of noises waking me up enough to look at the clock for this time frame.
Hard to focus on it due to the pink elephants and low flying land mammals that are starting to cloud my vision.
I know the auditory part of this ensemble is real, as it's coming from various parts of the house (accompanied by the now familiar tumpatumpatumpa THUMP tumpa up and down the stairs)...unsure of the elephants veracity though.

6:30 am-
"kaklunkat-CLANKCRUMPACRASH!"
I log airtime...I am up, across the bed, and halfway to the bedroom door before my feet touch the floor...I manage this act of gymnastics without making contact with my wife, or disturbing her (though I credit that to her complete comatose state when sleeping, not to any great skill on my part as I was cursing soundly).
I am out the bedroom door, picking up my Mace (the footmans kind, not the spraying kind) before I am even fully conscious. I am thinking (at this stage) of my old apartment on the ground floor, not my 2 story house.
It sounded (to my addled brain) as though someone has knocked a screen in a window, or a picture off a wall, while breaking in.
I achieve 'AWAKE' as I come into the hallway...and find the cat (bottle brush tail, ruffled ridges on back and pupils the size of a small country) racing out of the guest room...
She sees me, attempts a U-Turn (being more awake than I, she thinks I am going to come to the correct conclusion before she can escapt)...realizes her error (maybe more credit than her addled mind can manage, but I'm being nice) in cornering herself...pulls a Matrix-Kitty up the wall and races sideways past me and down the stairs....(all this in three of my steps towards the guest room that is obviously being broken into by loud Huns..hell, they even scared the cat).
Two more steps, and I am almost to the guest room door...and my synapses start to fire.
Crashing
Cat
Paintings
Ledge near window above guest bed, next to dresser with old paintings on it....I slow down.

Needless to say, I couldn't find where the cat was hiding downstairs after an exhaustive search...one that I never once laid the Mace down during.

9:00am-
in my ear
"MROWR" (translation, food dish empty...feed me).



I am reminded of a quote from LOL cats...

"don't you nice kitty me, you no longer has a NICE kitty"...
I'm just still trying to figure out where I went wrong....

Rodent Wars

Running log (and my wife has said "this can only end in tradegy!")

To set the stage, the cat's been run off the kitchen counter repeatedly in the last couple weeks...
She's been nosing around things oddly, and blamed for the flipping of ant bait traps that were supposedly out of her reach...
and then one day, 'while i was shootin at some food!' (okay, really making coffe with breakfast), I noticed the little mouse poos next to an ant bait, and the other ant bait, and behind my coffe can.
Oh no MOTHA LICKA, IT'S ON! Damned rodents into my coffee fixins, dirtying up MY counters! oh HELLS TO THE NO!
and so, we begin the Mouse Wars Chronicles! (taken from facebook blurbs to begin with)...

Sept 1st;

And first blood in the Mouse Wars has been drawn.

Mice-0 Traps-2

(my finger was victim #2 while re-baiting)

(little bastards SHALL die my pretties...oh yes...they shall...muwahahahahaaaa!)

Sept 3rd;

Adults aren't supposed to have nightmares...but oooo boy they do!

Running battles with mice, cat catching one larger than herself, scenes of 50's housewife reaction in my kitchen...

latent guilt? Nah, fears justifying mouse-icide!

They got into my COFFEE! (okay, so there's only been a few, but de-toxing off carbs makes teh Mikey WEIRD!)

Sept 4th;

All's quiet on the WESTern front...

I think the rodent's may be smarter than I originally thought. Evidence found in a new place, far from trap(s). Implementing new strategery...

will an elephant gun ruin my kitchen?

Sept 6th;

No new rodent kills.
Implemented new tactics on Friday...
do you know how hard it is to secure plutonium?

(side note; male pattern baldness setting in suddenly.
Thought this was inherited through the Mother's genes? must research further...)

Feline Tom-Foolery...

...or why I was mistaken when I thought all pets are good.

So,
as I said in my last post...the cat's been good lately.
She's been cuddly, she's been cute.
She got fleas from the mice, that wasn't a fun thing. Visions of the black plague abound, wishing it was restricted to cats.
(as an aside, this does provide one of my most favorite forms of feline torture...drownings...whoops, I mean flea baths...DUNK)
The mice may have been contained, or may have been a single rogue rodent (seeing as how the kill count is now 1 trap, 1 mouse AND one thumb...)

So I reload the trap (two attempts, with much loud cursing. see aforementioned third victim), and stick it back in the cabinet next to the feeder line (gonna plug that hole, as soon as I murder a few more piratical coffee raiders).
A few hours later, I note the cat nosing around the cabinets...she seems 'intrigued' to say the least.
Behavior similar to right before she got 'da fleas'. I am thinking, 'she hears the little bastards...'
Duran Duran music goes through my head "she's on the hunt, she's after you!"
Pride swells in the Daddy's chest, his little girl's growing up to be a CAT! (why I consider this a good thing I don't know, but I was caught up in the moment).
She sniffs here, she sniffs there. She stands up and looks at the drawers. Roxz comes round the corner and I shush her... "look, I think she hears them".

"Mike," with patience(the kind you reserve for the demented), patronizing sympathy and humour all dripping from her voice, Roxz says "you baited the trap with peanut butter...she's smelling that. She wants it".

Fucking Cat...
how I hates her my precious...
grrrrrrrr....
I'm getting a cat-eating dog next...

Cats....why do we do this to ourselves?

So,
My Sig-O's cat has been particularly cute for the last week.
She hasn't eaten any of my figs, knocked over any of my cases or chased any moths across the bed (or up and down the stairs) at 3am.
She has been waking us up as the sun rises, and not demanding food but attention.
She's been letting us pick her up and hold her, without sudden decisions of 'free me' that are expressed by the 'pointy bits' across our chests/forearms.
She's been purring, loving, needing and behaving. I haven't pulled the air cannon out once in the past week except to show Missy's kids...

I've been loving it, she is actually living up to her hype (the same hype that convinced my wife to get the cat regardless of my desperate pleas for sanity and restraint). "But she's cute, and she cuddles, and can't you just feel the PURRRRRR!" was the mantra through the pet store they were running adoptions out of that day...(note to spouses, don't pick up food for ANY pet at super-petz when the sign out front says 'adoption day'...it can end badly.)

So I've been enjoying this little bundle of fuzzy joy, this loving beast...this wonderful kitty...

And then Rox points out something...it got chilly the same day the cat got cuddly. Shit, she's a woman... ;)

I hate this effing animal!

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM....SPAM!

Okay, so I love Bell of lost Souls, I really do.
They have a good healthy attitude of 'whole hobby' play.
But when a desperate need to defend their event overflows into an attack on a style of play, while lauding their own AFTER attacking other's for attacking theirs...(yes, quite a circle there, hurts my wee little brain too)...well, blech.

read their article here
SPAM, why it's not just a monty python bit anymore... (okay, so my title is more interesting than theirs)

and you might understand my take a little better.

First, Spam as a definition...
BigRed, you're not wholly correct.
Spam in the 'good' player's lexicon is redundancy for assurance. If two melta-units are good, 3-4 are better. NOT all units. NOT units to exclusivity.
I don't know a GOOD player out there who says you should only play with ONE unit in your army repeated over and over.

By intimating that spam is wholly negative, and a crutch for the weak minded, you neglect to recognize the inherint skill in both identifying the units that should be spammed, the units that need to support it, and where the DRT (diminishing return threshold) is reached.

By stating it's a crutch only for noobs, you denigrate the players who hone their list over time to the point where they know PRECISELY where the DRT is reached, or over-reached, and tune in supporting elements/excess from their. Or the shifts in play environments/new codices to identify when that particular SPAM element is no longer as viable/becomes stronger.

By creating an overall sense that 'generalists' are superior to 'spammers' you are generating a hostile environment to a play style in favor of your own pre-conceived notion of what is fair/creative. This seems to be counter to the 'flavor' from this site that I have gotten over time. Maybe I was wrong?
A generalist may have a desire to maintain his 'hobby' (a desire to field models he loves/prioritize looks over efficiency), a different play environment at his 'home' store that makes his particular build effective there or simply a different view on what is or is not spam.
By the more general definition of SPAM(larger numbers of superior units vs ALL of them), wouldn't your Overall Winner of BoLScon be considered a 'gaunt spammer?
He had arseloads of them right? He also went for 'fex/'rant/zoie redundancy (from a points perspective it looked like tyrant spam).

Also, when a 'spammer' wins an overall event, does this mean he was a mediocre player with a good list? What about said spammer running up against the rock to his scissors and still winning?
By your description of a generalist approach, a spammer that makes it through an entire tourney massacre after massacre shows a better acumen. Why, because he would have HAD to have had at least one unfavorable matchup if the environment was actually mixed. If not, then he would have had to have played (after round 1) a string of players with his own level of skill and army/rules understanding.
But reality is, spam laid down by a good player/general/list builder is not pure spam. The player recognizes weaknesses, strengths, and the most efficacious ways to fill those gaps.
Also, a 'spammer' has redundancy/duality in all his unit roles. A melta-spam guard army should have flamer support/flamer anti-horde transports. A THSS spam army should have vulkan support, and Hvy Flamer/Melta speeders for anti everything work in addition to av-14 transports.
A fire dragon/falcon/serpent/DA spam army has everything covered just with that little bit there, and mobile tarpits/anti horde with Destructor 'locks.

SPAM is a four letter word, but not a bad one.
All armies, generalists to spam (to everything in between) have elements that people take in excess regardless of common sense. They also all have 'bad' players that think their way is the right way till the get their arses handed to them...I have had 'fluffybunnies' tell me that the only way to play is without named characters, or anything resembling a net list. Guess what, I have been playing for so long that every one of my armies has gone from great, to mediocre, to shite and back again...It just so happens my love for rhinos and dreads has turned my 'meh' 3.5/4e army into spam...my mech guard into chimera/melta spam and my 'Zilla into strangler spam. But my 'generalist' solid 3.5/4e Eldar army, Necron army, Ork army has fallen by the wayside...and I don't care. They'll get played and tweaked for a while till the next edition, when they can become the new 'spam'(whatever it'll be called then for vilification) and I can actually say.."I played these when they SUCKED!"

:)

Why did he choose Palin?

He could'a been a contender!

I lauded a dem for telling a woman talking to her would be like 'talking to a couch'....
so I have to give McCain credit where credit's due.

He stood his ground, talked to the people even when they were railing (had the woman that wouldn't let him get a word in edge-wise escorted out...but at least the bat-shit crazy republican woman in the other town hall meeting let a dem talk).

And he even pulled a 'let me put on a surprise face' moment, pointing out that someone was being insipidly obvious, referring to his support from some health care providers.

This man has class...he is NOT a waste of skin, or politician. Too bad he bowed to his party and stepped up with the bitch Palin....
too damned bad. :(

(have I mentioned, regardless of policy issue disagreements, I like McCain...I really think he's one of the few out there that cared about doing the best thing for his country. Our opinion on what that was just didn't jive)

Speaking of Death Panels and all things fun....

Betsy McCaughey and YOU!

(please look at this link soon, it's Hulu so it'll be gone shortly)

You know, if anything convinced me that I love this man...
and that the right wing agenda is to skew information solely to undermine a sitting president WITHOUT cause, this would be it...
well, okay...they didn't need help with that!

But the woman who started the ball rolling, whether she used the phrase or not, really buys into her own propaganda. Watch the whole interview, she doesn't even hear the words coming out of her own mouth.
Or she speaks a different language than I do.

I know this is a little late, but without cable I get these episodes on Hulu. So if you saw it, sorry...re-watch it for the entertainment. If you didn't, you need to for even further in depth exposure of idiocy.

And jabeebus, but don't get John Stewart on a roll...he's gooooood!

Make Death Advertise for YOU!

I don't know what the hell I was thinking watching this television channel for the late news, but DAMN...
ABC 22 News SUCKS.
They showed more shots of this craft store's owner, interior of the store, and frankly I learned more about this woman's involvement with this store and a California company she made displays for, than I did about the poor woman herself.

I saw a pic of her daughter, learned she was a runner and was 40, and that she was recently a grandmother.
I then saw the silver SUV that ran her down, and a picture of her in a runners line.

Then I learned about the craft shop,what she bought and what the shop's interior looked like. I got to see what she bought for halloween,what the displays she made for the window looked like. They showed the blog she wrote about with the crafting she did (apparently, according to this story, she was so busy crafting here and running there that her daughter must have raised herself)...oh, and only a quick blurb about 'gushing' over her husband on the blog (note, this is the ONLY mention of her husband)....fuuuuuuck...just plain fuuuuuuck...
and the woman at the craft shop shamelessly, and with little remorse in her eyes, seemed to plug her shop and the dead woman's involvement in her place as a quick blip-vert...just ouch. I will not shop a SINGLE craft store in beavercreek on the off chance this bitch might get some of my money.
This was NOT a story about the woman who was run down, this was an insensitive attempt to fill time that resulted in the cold-hearted delivery of a bad ad in the guise of a barely tolerable eulogy.

And thus my email to the channel...


"I was just subjected to a rather disturbing story for the 11pm news (Aug 24th 2009).
I am trying to sort out why the handling of a woman's unfortunate and early demise was reminiscent of an advertisement?
If you review your story relating to the beavercreek jogger's death, you might realize that it appeared to be more an interest story in a craft hobby shop.
The proprietor discusses 'halloween scrapbook' purchases in the piece, and the fact she's known the woman for less than a year (or so it was intimated).
Instead of coming off as short and ill-researched with desperate filler to seem topical, maybe a more accurate, if terse, story with a more in depth follow up tomorrow would have been more appropriate.
Think of the cold and calculated feel a story like this may have on your audience?

Between this, and poor editing involving regular interruptions leading up to it with bad blip-verts for your own news (overlapping on at least two commercials for movies I was curious about) I am beginning to think the limited time I spend in front of the Television may better be served with a different station.

Please evaluate how you deliver your stories a little less cursorily in the future...it may serve to fool the public into thinking you are more concerned about the story than the commercials."