"Dear Daddy, IOU 1 Poopy"

I'm an organized guy. When I leave my desk at work (when I have a job, that is) you'd think the desk was ready for some new guy to start sitting there on Monday. Only the computer items and the phone are on the desk. What is there is straight, well-aligned, and symmetrical.

My home desk is pretty much the same way, except for the neatly folded paper towels, which seem to multiply like tribbles.

Knowing this, it will come as no surprise to you that I keep a CatLog posted on the inside of the bathroom door. I track litterbox use by excretion type and quantity (what I wouldn't give for an automated system that would create a timestamp for each visit) and scoop the potty out of the box probably four times a day.

Too much? No. Our house does not smell in the slightest of cat potty. You can come into the house, yea verily into the bathroom, get on your knees and sniff the litterbox and you'd still be hard pressed to determine whether or not we have a cat.

Using the chart, I also track any health or behavioral issues - why not? I have the chart already posted, broken down by day. It's an easy thing to jot down "threw up dinner @ 8:30pm" or "ate only 1/3 of breakfast" or "right eye watery - pollen allergies?" or "very vocal today" or "grumpy" next to the potty info.

Day to day, the information probably isn't very useful, but it will be handy if and when something health-related happens, I'll have a history that might actually be useful to the vet. Questions about kitty's potty activity, diet, and behavior habits are easily answered. I enter all the data into an excel sheet at the end of the month.

Hey, here's a cat-question: Ours has never thrown up a hairball. She's a shorthair, if that matters. Is this normal? She's our first cat.

According to my data - on an average day, our kitty pee's twice and poo's once. Every third or fourth day, a poo is skipped, and I need to have some friendly but stern words with the kitty.

"Where's the poopy? You owe me a poopy, Little Miss! You get your fuzzy butt in there and get digging!" No, of course it doesn't work.

Holy Shit!

Did you hear that Wal-Mart is instituting a dress code starting January 2008?

On the no-no list:

flip flops
slippers
curlers
'wifebeater' undershirts
jammie pants
anything made from lycra
thermal underwear
low riders
halter tops
sleeveless shirts
shorts

Ok, you got me, I made it up. I couldn't do it with a straight face. It would be nice though.

Real Life Conversation # 16

Look at that little pickup truck! Why does it need such huge tires?

Um, I dunno. Maybe it needs to be dock-height, for work purposes.

Grr. I doubt it. It's just silly.

- - LATER THAT DAY - -

Look at that cheap tart! What's with those heels? And that skirt!

(With permission now given, he looks at the tart, whose skirt is barely containing her cheeks, and whose four-inch heels result in a jutting rump angled just so, in animal husbandry terms it's known as "presenting".)

Maybe she needs to be dock height, for work purposes...

Just Wrong

Have you heard? The Volvo S80 has a heartbeat sensor built in -

The Personal Car Communicator (PCC) is your car key's smart connection with your Volvo S80 applying the latest in two-way radio technology. When in range, you'll always know the status of your car. Locked or unlocked. Alarm activated or not. If the alarm has been activated, the heart beat sensor will also tell you if there is someone inside the car.

You just know hoodlums will be planting little speaker-circuits on these cars, programmed to constantly play a heartbeat.
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GnawUms! From EtchCo!

There should be chew toys for humans.

Sometimes you just want something sweet, salty, bitter, or sour -
(also known as food).

We need something like an adult teething ring, but with flavors. Instead of having a bag of chips for a salty experience, you'd use the chew toy.

Such as, when I play video games, I like to eat nachos. As I boot up a game, I get an urge for nachos - it's an association thing. I could simply masticate me some EtchCo GnawUms .instead!

Of course, the texture experience would be lacking... But most of the time, the palate is just hankering to balance the most recent taste. A salty meal makes me want something sweet, for instance. GnawUms. could provide that, without all the evil carbs in cupcakes. Just think of the caloric savings!

Maybe it's just me

Have you ever wanted to disappear mysteriously?

Your spouse comes home to find the front door ajar, stew bubbling away on the stove, fresh green bananas on the counter, a scattering of solo-sex paraphernalia on the desk, while freaky bovine/reptile porn is looping on the computer...

...and a broken window.

You're nowhere to be found. Your car is in its parking spot. Your keys, wallet, shoes - all personal effects are in their proper places. You have vanished, seemingly wearing only your underwear, never to be seen again.

Ancient Egypt on a Dollar a Day

She was actually pretty hot, as zombies go. She a whole undead-sheik thing going. The trailing linens were braided into a fashionable, if haphazard, fringe.

Gordon hauled Zack to his feet and dragged him through the doorway just in time to avoid the falling statue of Ra.

“Kit-ty. Kitty.” The zombie droned, over and over.

Zack and Gordon made it out of the temple just as Meg was pulling up in the Range Rover.

For a few long moments, it seemed the zombie was unable to leave the temple. She swayed in the doorway and drew back, like a cat unwilling to dash out into the snow.

Meg scrambled up the steps, barely noticing the huge gash on Gordon’s head. She ran past them just as the zombie left the temple.

“Kitty… Kitty…” The zombie muttered. She seemed to be getting bored with the whole thing, as if she’d rethought it all, realized that her 5000-Year high school reunion was coming up, the best she could do was chasing some idiots through the jungle, and decided ‘what’s the fucking point?’.

Meg plopped the cat carrier down directly in the zombie’s path and backed away. The startled mews of the two kittens inside broke her heart as she hurried down the steps. Bullets hadn’t slowed the thing down – maybe giving it what it was asking for would do the trick.

She joined Zack and Gordon in the Range Rover, just as her walkie-talkie chirped.

“Meg?” Debbie’s voice crackled over the radio. “Meg, damn it! ‘Kitty’ is Egyptian for ‘meat’! Meg, are you there? Is this thing on? Damn it Francis, how do I…”

Just then, the zombie reached the cat carrier. She stooped down in a startlingly human movement that seemed almost gentle. She tore the top off the cat carrier as if it were made of aluminum foil, and the two kittens sprang out. Their eyes were glowing an unearthly, evil blue, their coats were matted and bloody. They floated up and hung suspended in midair, one over each of the zombie’s shoulders as she continued down the steps toward them. Their tails flicked with sinister intent. Also, with the hissing.

“Aw shit. Zombie kitties.” Meg rested her forehead on the steering wheel in defeat.

“It could be worse.” Gordon blinked, looking at Zack.

Zack nodded, dripping blood on the upholstery. “She could have been saying “Cows…Cows…”

Baby needs a new pair of something

We don't exactly have our own water heater.

It seems that the entire building (4 apartments) shares one or more of them, it's not really clear. No matter the time of day, you never know if you're gonna get hot water. It's rarely cold. Usually it's warm.

I caught myself starting the shower this morning with a "Come on, hot water!" as if I were shaking dice in my hand, praying for a hard six so I could pay the mortgage.

Wait, maybe a roulette comparison would work better. Yeah, I could work in a Russian Roulette reference in there, and then segue into something about the Russian winter, and the death and whatnot.

Let's just pretend I did that... I have to iron my shirt and get going.

Extra Spicy, of course.

I was sitting in Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits (no apostrophe) chowing down on a three piece with fries, thinking - food is never is good as you remember it. I'd been dreaming of Popeyes for the past year, and never got around to going. It was ok.

While eating, I was reading a book (The Paris Review #164 - Winter 2002) and in this book there was a story (The Man in the Back Row Has a Question VIII) and in this story, a group of writers were interviewed.

The question: What is your favorite crime in literature?

Ann Arensberg:
"Murder in a cathedral...(or other) ecclesiastical setting. Universities... The presence of a corpse is most shocking in enclosed societies which represent stability and lofty moral ideals."

"MmMm... Turbulent"

The cat has decided that she no longer cares for wet food - maybe there's just something off about this batch? She'll lap up the savory juices and then eat a few bites, and that's it.

I am washing her dish - the dishwasher is running at the same time, and the smell of the soapy dishwasher liquid is hard to miss. It smells like a mixture of bleach and semen - neither smell is very pleasant. I've tried four different brands, and they all smell the same.

The smell also takes me back to 1990, when I was a dishwasher at a Grand Canyon cafeteria. We had this handy dish-sprayer gizmo that hung down from the ceiling and let you spray off all the large chunks of food before sending them through the auto-rinser. There was some sort of solution automatically added to the water, and it has that same bleachy-seedy smell.
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One of the most disgusting things you have to put up with as a dishwasher is when people put out their cigarettes in the gooey goo of eggs over easy. The stub isn't so bad, it's the ashes.

Since my hands were wet all day, I'd end up getting all sorts of little cuts and scratches on my hands and arms. Since my hands were wet all day - with water and the solution - the cuts were very slow to heal. The spray went all over the place, and within a couple of hours of starting work, I would be thoroughly damp. By the end of the day, even my underwear was damp. I only had the job for two months, and somehow I never got around to getting a waterproof apron. There were no stores that sold them nearby, it was 85 miles to the nearest town.

We wore uniforms provided by the company. We wore white shirts and the pants had a pattern of tiny black and white squares on them - they looked gray from a distance. One of my coworkers looked exactly like Popeye's long lost brother. He was a seasonal employee, he spent half the year in Alaska working in various fisheries. Nice guy. No teeth.

The dishes were very hot when they came out of the auto-rinser, but your hands toughen up to it. Even then, you have to let the silverware pieces cool for at least 30 seconds before you grab em. Butter knives are especially hot.

There were two different rooms - the dishes/silver room and the pan room. The pan room was neat to work in because you could save money on food. This was food from the pots, pans, and steam trays, untouched by customers. So at the end of the breakfast period, they'd bring back a whole pan of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and so on. A big guy named Charlie usually worked the pan room, unfortunately.

Overheard

"The worst part is how often the damned eternal flame goes out. Talk about embarrassing."

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I did not make this up

This came in the mail a few weeks ago...

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Click here for the full image.

Actual Job Postings # 2

Job includes pay roll, invoices, daily cash flew

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Person for front & back duties

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25 hours per week. $10/hr plus free Pilates classes

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Candidates must have at least $6,000.00 open on a major Credit Card.

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a leading engineering firm in the Northeast seeks Constriction Inspectors
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Nerdiest Conspiracy Theory EVER

From Wikipedia:

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) was a comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994, providing the first direct observation of the collision of two solar system objects, not including collisions involving Earth and other objects. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and SL9 was closely observed by astronomers worldwide.

SL9 was in pieces ranging in size up to 2 kilometers in diameter. These fragments collided with Jupiter's southern hemisphere between July 16 and July 22, 1994, at a speed of approximately 37 miles per second. The prominent scars from the impacts could be seen on Jupiter for many months after the impact, and observers described them as more easily visible than the Great Red Spot.

Sounds reasonable enough, right?

But what if it's all a lie? What if the entire spectacle was engineered as a distraction? Almost every telescope on Earth was focused on Jupiter for those 7 days, which makes you wonder -

What was going on with Uranus for that week? What was taking place that was so important to distract everyone's attention to the other side of the solar system? A space battle? Liftoff of a giant freaky mothership? The opening of an ultra-top-secret wormhole to the marshmallow nebula?

We'll probably never know. Scary, yes.

Who knew?

I'm sure you've all seen the rainbow gay pride stickers on people's cars. As I've mentioned, advertising my sexuality, politics, or fandom on my vehicle is not for me. But hey, whatever boats your float.

Yesterday, as we were sitting at a stoplight, Wise One Cindy explained another sticker for me - it was black and blue, with a little heart in the corner. Apparently this is an S&M sticker - why ould anyone advertise that?

It's like they're asking for it. Cruising for a bruising. What is this guy, a glutton for punishment?

Oh, right.

Surprisingly, she's not a Lilian J. Braun fan

It seems the kitty has been working her way through the bookshelf (and I thought she was just napping there).

I wonder what she could do with a bigger canvas?

Real Life Conversation # 15

...and we worked together all day, we talked, it was cool. She said I was selfless.

Aw, that's nice honey.

...?...Tell Me I'm Selfless!

Ok! You're selfless!

Showering With Mike

I stopped using bars of soap a few years ago - the liquid body wash and scrubby poof method is just faster and better.
There's a wide range of liquid body wash types out there, (have you tried the new Irish Spring liquid? Love it!) and most of them have a serious design flaws:

1) The bottle top captures about a tablespoon of water during a shower. While this doesn't impair the function of the bodywash bottle, it does come as an unwelcome shock when cold water from yesterday's shower sprinkles across my naked goods.

Yes, those goods.

That's just bad design, people! You know these bottles will be used in wet environments - is it really a good idea to collect water? All they have to do is put in little decorative holes or slots to let the water out - they'd end up using less plastic that way and save money on production costs.

2) Many bottles are not designed to sit upside down. Since most body wash liquids are fairly thick and slow-flowing, once you've reached the half-a-bottle or less stage, you either have to store the bottle upside down or shakeshakeshake it to get the contents to come out. Bad design.

3) Screw-tops. My hands are wet, you dinks. At least put some raised texture on the tops and bottles so I can get some grip.

4) Screw-tops with the little press-open tilty top - bad because the opening is usually too tiny and you have to squeeze really hard to get the thick liquid to come out. Also, my hands are wet you dinks, if I squeeze the bottle hard, it's likely to pop out of my hands. And fall on my foot.

5) Pop-tops with teeny little grooves to pop them open. Please do not assume that I have fingernails. I should not need a swiss army knife to access my bodywash. We're not talking a can of baked beans here - this is soap.

6) Those squeezy-pouchy bottle designs. They have pokey corners, and hello I'm wet, naked and vulnerable here. When your skin is wet, it's more fragile.

7) Right-side-up-only bottle design with a narrow base. Sure, it looks stylish - but it's gonna get knocked over and fall - domino effect results, and you have five bottles swishing around your feet. Bad.

8) Giant Tub of Paste design - not hygienic for multiple users, big lid to unscrew, remove, and drop. Awkward. Can drop giant tub on innocent, unsuspecting toes.

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Recommendation - get yourself down to Bed Bath and Beyond and find a nice liquid soap pump - something with a wide base. I'd recommend a plastic or stainless steel version - avoid the ceramic models.

Eeep!

Cindy discovered a creepy new tenant outside her office window recently:

I offered to just open the window and knock the nest to the ground (it was a new one, only about the size of a walnut) but she wouldn't hear of it. I was sent to the store for some long-distance wasp spray and some traps for the patio.

The "27 foot range" spray made it about 20 feet up - coming within about 5 feet of the nest - just couldn't quite reach from the ground. However, there must have been enough chemical smell to ward off Ms. Buggy, since I didn't see her for the rest of the day.

I opened the window and knocked the nest down. Cindy was sure that it was certain death to open the window, which is odd since she grew up in Florida (with its billions of bugs) and I didn't.

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Speaking of the great outdoors - does this stuff grow near any of you?

It's Spanish Moss, which of course isn't moss at all - it's in the same family as the pineapple, who knew?

Anyway, this stuff is growing all over the place here. It does find some uses in arts and crafts and gardening, but it seems like it's missing its true opportunity - organic, biodegradable packing-filler material! No more styrofoam peanuts.

The only thing is, it doesn't have much shape or oomph right off the tree. It would need to be stiffened (which perhaps simple drying could accomplish) and shaped into something more spacey, like cylinders (just wrap em round some curlers while they dry... and maybe a quick spritz of AquaNet).

I wonder if there are any shipping companies interested in becoming more green? I'll bet there are. I smell an EtchCo product!

Sure, there could be a long-lasting negative impact to the environment due to spreading an epiphyte to new areas, but this is all about big business.

Less than fresh

Ha ha ha!!

Check out this commercial. I'm afraid to think what other liquids lie in our advertising future.

How about a new type of pregnancy tests based on not wanting to get pregnant?

OH SNAP!

WHEW! THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE!

YOU'RE SCREWED - (L&F)

YOU GOT LUCKY

DROP OUT NOW AND GET A JOB

Can't spell harass without Har!*

My Dad loves to wheedle, tease and harass all of us constantly. It's his way of being attentive and playful, and unfortunately for Cindy and the kitty, I have inherited this behavior.

Fun for me, constant antagonism for them.

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*Or Ass.

Exactly what is a cahoot?

Why is my shower curtain wrinkled? With those daily steam treatments, it should look crisp and smooth!

Perhaps a conspiracy of the Diabolical Shower Curtain Society, to convince me to buy UltraMist Showering Curtain DeWrinkling Spray.

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Cahoot - per Dictionary.com:

1. go cahoots, to share equally; become partners: They went cahoots in the establishment of the store. Also, go in cahoot with, go in cahoots.

2. in cahoot or cahoots,
a. in partnership; in league.
b. in conspiracy: in cahoots with the enemy.

Origin: 1820–30, Americanism; perh. Fr cahute cabin, hut, equiv. to ca(bane) cabin + hutte hut