Cat Stories

July 20, 1999

Notify List Stuff: Remember, if you want an e-mail every time I update my journal, go here. Plus my notify list might get extra little tidbits from time to time. If you want to get an e-mail every time I upload something Real World related, go here. You can be on both mailing lists, one or the other, or neither. It's all up to you.

I spent a lot of time working on a possible design scheme for the new supergush web site yesterday. It's here, if you want to check it out, and feedback is welcome. I hope to do a few more schemes and then the guys can pick which one they want. But today I need to work on my internship web site. Then, once the summer is over, I want to redo this site!

I have a few more thoughts on the aftermath of the death of JFK Jr, his wife and sister-in-law. I don't get the people who are MAD that some people are upset that he died. I mean, I thought the whole thing was sad, but there ARE people who are really upset. See, to some people in this country, especially a lot of Irish Catholics, JFK Sr. was just short of a deity. In the 1960's, in homes all over the country, there hung a crucifix, a picture of the Pope and a picture of JFK like some sort of holy trinity. And those feelings extend to the entire Kennedy Clan. Now you may not agree with or even understand those feelings, but does that mean you have to disrespect those who feel that way? I just say all of this because there was a HUGE flame war on Diary-L over the weekend, and I quit reading it after a while, but the gist of it seemed to be Side A saying, "I'm upset" and Side B saying, "It's stupid to be upset about some snotty rich kid." And my side is this: If people want to be upset, that's their right. Who are you to tell them they're stupid? And why does it make you so mad? Even if you don't care about the fact that he was a Kennedy, he was someone's brother, someone's nephew, someone's son-in-law, someone's boss and someone's friend. Isn't that enough reason to mourn his loss, or at least show some respect for the dead?

Now if you want to talk about how ridiculous the media coverage has been, that's another thing. I think you can separate the incident itself and the media coverage of that incident. But then again, they wouldn't show it if people weren't watching.

OK, I'm off the soapbox now. To lighten the mood, I want to share a tale of two kitties (see what I did there?) from this morning. The scene opens at about 5:00 this morning, in my bedroom. Jim and I are blissfully slumbering, and I was probably slumbering. Suddenly, I feel a cat jump onto the bed, not an unusual happening at said place and time. I open one eye and see that it's Mia, and wait to see if she is going to come up and try to sit on my head (again, not uncommon and it's good to be prepared). She seems to stop at the foot of the bed, so I close my eyes and hope to drift back off.

Suddenly, she jumps straight up in the air and starts running around the bedroom like a chicken with her head cut off. She manages to knock over the stack of clean clothes sitting on the chest at the end of our bed that I should've put away last night. She manages to knock over the fan that had been sitting on the floor next to the computer. I hear her running around the house, and then coming back into the bedroom. Up on the bed, over me, over Jim, a pause to hop on my feet, onto the dresser, stretches up and runs her claws down the wall (not unlike scraping fingernails on a chalkboard), runs back down the bed and out. OK, now I'm scared because she appears to be out of control (this happens with Mia from time to time). I try to hide my feet so that she won't pounce on them and claw the crap out of them. I hear her run back into the bedroom and I'm all tensed up thinking, "Please, not on the bed". Of course, she hops up on the bed, but this time Grendel is with her, and they start fighting on top of Jim. I was worried that one of them was going to gut him by accident. I hear lots of hissing and yowling and then I think Jim sat up a little and they realized they were on top of a person. They both run out.

This continued for about an hour and a half, until Jim had to get up for work. I was still awake, despite the fact that I went to bed at about 3:30 AM (I got sucked into a Brady Bunch Marathon on Nick at Nite). I grabbed my headphones and hoped to fall back asleep while listening to Howard Stern. Mia was still on the prowl though, so I ended up getting up at 7:30.

Of course, as soon as I got out of bed, she hopped into my spot and went to sleep. I swear to God, she planned it. Grendel is sleeping under the loveseat, her preferred spot in hot weather.

It's supposed to be less hot today. Thank God. Jim has softball tonight, which he is not looking forward to, for many reasons. But I think there's only 4 more weeks. I have to admire him for sticking it out in the face of adversity. Way to go, Jim! Also, he is celebrating one week of smoke-free living today. I'm trying to get him to do a guest entry, but so far no luck. Why don't you e-mail him if you'd like to hear from him? Wouldn't you like to get his take on some of the stories I tell?

Warning: clicking on these links will launch a new browser window.

This site isn't quite the furniture site I was looking for, but it's cool: furniture designed for surfing. Hey Jim, my birthday's coming up and I really want this chair! I don't know how much it costs though.

Why Amazon is on the way out. I hadn't thought about this, but it makes a lot of sense. Do I really need to be able to buy all those things in one place? And can one company possibly do a good job presenting all that different information? I think I would rather shop from a site that specializes in one thing, but with the customer service and security of Amazon.

The Church of Latterday Saints' Step on how to overcome masturbation. I wish I had seen this when the two travelers stopped by my house last week. They were nice guys though, so I blew them off politely. I have to wonder how many conversions they get from that.

Militias are funny. But scary. Both of these links came from Cam.

Hachette Filipacchi (magazine publisher) is committed to continuing to publish George magazine. I think Jim said Hachette is run by Saddam Hussein or someone like that. I'm sure he will correct me, and I'll print a correction tomorrow.

I'm learning Javascript right now, and this article tells you how to steal it.

This site generates Javascript for you to do Window Pop-Ups, like I did with that entry a few days ago for the picture of Pocket the dog.