Posts tagged Cats

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Kitten + Sink = Addiction

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  It’s remarkable how quickly a three day weekend can go by. I spent most of this time off staying up too late, waking up too late, and doing some house work. I also managed to walk for about 2 to 3 hours this weekend which was nice and left me mighty sore.

  Since its rather late and I don’t really have anything planned to discuss today I’m just going to note that one of our cats has some strange addictions. The most unusual of them is her ridiculous obsession with our kitchen sink. Whenever we walk into the kitchen she will book it from anywhere in the house and leap up and into the sink. She’ll start head butting the sink head, meowing up a storm, and trying to nuzzle water out of it.

  You’d think we weren’t supplying them with water given how desperate she is for us to turn the sink on. However the vast majority of the time spent once that head is turned on is her batting at the water or running back and forth through it like she has her own personal water park.

  One of these days I’ll edit some video and upload it for folks to see. It’s the strangest thing, it’s like the sink is her best friend for all time. What I find most odd about the whole thing is the fuss she put up to get a bath back when she was sick, yet if you turn that sink faucet on she will play in it until she is utterly drenched.

  I’ve given it a Google and can’t find any reason she might be doing it other than just being an odd cat. Our other kitten is obsessed with underneath our bed, the drawers create a cave in the shape of a T, she likes to sleep in the spine of the T. I have taken to imagining that she is Batman and that she is researching criminals in the under bed bat cave.

  Our cats are also unstoppable when they decide they want to squeeze in behind the bed (where they can easily get trapped). We had to stuff pillows in the sides because they would dig out anything that wasn’t firmly lodged into place. I can’t tell you how many times I woke up to the sound of scurrying to just catch the ass end of one of our cats (usually Artemis) plopping down behind the bed. Next you’d hear a loud purring as she happily ran back and forth (switching on/off our power strip behind the bed), until finally she decided it was boring and the meows began.

  I’m glad we have quirky cats, they make it hard to guess how any day is going to go. The only certainty is that you sure as heck aren’t sleeping in. I think they just like to make sure we aren’t dead after not moving for so many hours, certainly neither of them sleeps for more than an hour or two at a time at maximum.

  So that’s that…got about 30 minutes before I’m off to bed and one of the busiest weeks of my year begins. Not looking forward to it, totally avoidable, just another punishing week fueled by poor leadership. For the sake of prying eyes, lets say its poor leadership in Croatia, and not my workplace. Yes, that should be a solid cover.

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Seemed only right to show Venus after babbling about Artemis.
(Taken with Flash, I heard scuffling in the middle of the night and took a picture under the table to figure out what it was).

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Minecraft – Housing and Exploring

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    I’ve started using Storybook in Earnest and realized something that I need to do. I’m going to draw the blueprint for every house or location used in the story. I need more visuals to help me with my writing. When I was younger I wrote some fairly silly stories for the Ragnarok Online Universe (well my story with the lore of Ragnarok) and I found that seeing the locations made it so much easier to keep up with continuity.

  Plus I like drawing, I’m absolutely terrible at it but it is something I really enjoy. If I get the inspiration I might look into a cheapish tablet and start drawing straight onto the computer. The only danger there is my evil kittens trying to march across the tablet as I draw. The delight they’d get from the lines moving in tow with their paws would probably be real fun for them though.

  On that train of thought, someone should make a DDR pad for kittens. You place it in front of the television and as they step on the buttons different things happen on screen. I know mine love to step on the keyboard keys and watch text fly across the screen.

  What else…well obviously Mitt Romney has become the poster child for unwarranted wealth in the united states. A man who made millions upon millions of dollars by firing people, that’s remarkably evil. He stands as the purest essence of capitalism. This man has made nothing and in doing so makes as much in 12 hours as I make in a year (probably even faster now). It’s remarkable, I’ll admit that at some level I’m disgusted in his wealth. I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money, I do know that sitting on it would drive me utterly insane.

  Tens of millions? Good lord, once you have a house and a couple cars what else is there to buy? You could go on a cruise once a year for the rest of your life in the nicest suite they have without putting a dent in it. I could buy a hundred copies of every magic card every printed and not see a dent in my bank account.

  I could pay people to play magic for me. But they’d have to look really intense or they didn’t get their paycheck.

  Seriously, at what point does anyone just look at their bank total and say “Alright. I’ve beaten the game, what else to do?” Because I know when I play city builders it is about the time I have so much wealth I could renovate the entire map without flinching that I completely lose interest.

  Is it even fun anymore? He’s effectively got the money cheat on spam and just resting. Worse he has kept much of his wealth because of painfully low taxes that his own firm (alongside other extremely wealthy firms) viciously lobby to protect. Immense balls, that’s what it takes to say “I only pay what I’m told I owe.” without mentioning that his own fierce fighting is what has kept him paying basically what I do.

  Which is extra upsetting when you realize that he makes almost double what I do in a year, in a day. Not much of a surprise that the US is having funding problems when that kind of money is being removed from the market without it getting pumped back in (unless we count campaigning).

  Plus its upsetting because he’s one of two major choices in the Republican party at this time. You have a twice cheating, thrice married, family values candidate and a tax manipulating multi millionaire who earned his fortune crushing the lives of thousands of people.

  I’m not huge on Obama, while I don’t feel Presidents have an immense amount of power I do think he could have made a pretty big stand in government had he just been serious about it. But look at that competition? (Again Ron Paul is an Independent who runs under the Republican Banner, Democrats have a few Independents who run with them). These are terrible human beings, legitimately terrible people, few things do I dislike more than habitual hypocrites. We all act against our words from time to time, mostly because we are all evolving.

  But when every second sentence out of your mouth is blatant hypocrisy it becomes overwhelming. These men aren’t fit to run an Applebee’s, much less a nation.

  This is beautiful, in terms of timing. We are witnessing some of the worst examples of humanity, ignorance, greed, hypocrisy, and we are seeing them at their purest essences. This is all happening at a time when the government is trying hard here and abroad to cripple the only possible avenue for escaping the cycle (the internet).

  The timing could not be anymore perfect, the candidates couldn’t be anymore perfect, if this were a book I’d call it cliché and unbelievable.

  Now you might be saying to yourself, I thought the title of this was about Minecraft? You’d be correct and the title is about Minecraft. It just so happens that when I stepped into lava in the game and watched all my progress consumed in front of me that it immediately reminded me about Romney. When lava reminds you of somebody it is probably time to banter about it for a bit.

  Here are the images I’ve got for today, unfortunately the snow did not let up through most of the images.
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My little house on the frozen lake.

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Smelting, Crafting, and Cooking. That’s a cauldron beneath the torch.

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My rooftop farm, provides my guy with most of his nutrition. Oddly you can find quite a few chickens living in the forests around my house.

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The top floor, Bed, and storage for my food, crafts, and other non mining materials.

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The view from outside the bedroom floor. Not too shabby. Off on the left is some lava, you don’t want to play around there more than you need to. Skeletons have a tendency of ambushing you and knocking you into it.

  So now that you made the journey through a long tired rant, some story news, and minecraft shots you are still reading? Probably not, but for the few of you that have made the great journey and are looking for something extra. But what?

  I’m thinking a magic card. But lets step it up for today only. I’m going to show you one of my favorite current magic setups. I should put out the list for this sometime for folks who want to build it. This is the ideal hand, but there are dozens of combinations that work just as well. The only essential piece is 1 of the 7-8 mana generating elves, some elves, and Genesis wave. Here is my personal favorite hand. I’m going to use Magic Workstation to run how it goes.

Turn 1:

ForestArbor Elf

Turn 2:

Draw Elvish Harbinger. Tap Forest + Arbor Elf for GG.

Lightning Greaves

Turn 3:

Draw Spawnsire of Ulamog (Darn). Tap Forest + Arbor Elf for GG.

Priest of Titania

Lightning Greaves on Priest of Titania.

Turn 4 (I’m playing against Slivers if you were curious):

Draw ambush Commander. Tap Arbor Elf, Forest, and Priest of Titania for GGGG.

Elvish Archdruid

1 G floating. Attach Greaves to Archdruid and tap for GGG+G.

Elvish Harbinger

Her ability is used to put a Elvish Visionary on top.

Elvish Visionary

Move Greaves to Visionary. Tap her for G+G (Floating 1).

Eladamri, Lord of Leaves

  Move Greaves to Eladamri, Lord of Leaves. He now has shroud, all other elves have shroud. At this point unless they have a mass removal you are one turn away from extreme pain.

Turn 5:

  On my opponents turn they just hit me for 15 (and once before for 3), I’m now at 2 life. I lost Eladamri blocking their Sliver Legion. But this turn I draw the Visionary and play her. I drew a wirewood lodge. Which, with the loss of Eladamri is some beautiful luck!

  Wirewood Lodge

  I had to tap my Arbor elf, and my forest to play the Visionary. It was the draw from putting the Visionary into play that netted me my 2nd land (terrible land draw this game).

  So now I’m going to tap the Priest of Titania for 5, Tap the Archdruid for 5, take 1 from the 10 in my pool to use the lodge to untap the druid for another 5. I’m now at 14. I’ll then Genesis Wave for X=11. (This is less than ideal, I prefer to generate 15 Mana so I can Genesis wave for X=10 and have 3 left over to pay for a Mana Leak).

Genesis Wave

  I now draw the top 11 cards of my deck and put them into play if their casting cost is 11 or less. I drew a Nissa Revane, 2 Nissa’s Chosen, 1 Visionary, Drew an Extra Forest, Put 4 forests into play, 1 wirewood lodge, 1 Heedless One, and 1 Elvish Harbinger.

  I use Nissa Revanes +1 to give me 2 life for every Elf in Play. I’m now at 24 Life. I play the Ambush commander from my hand. With the cards in play I can generate 27 mana (3 shy of my goal) but since I have a heedless one out I’ll just use it on her. She’s currently a 13/13 with Trample. My enemy has 1 Darkheart Sliver and 4 tapped slivers. This means they can generate 15 life. I’m going to take that 27 mana and summon the Spawnsire of Ulamog.

Spawnsire of Ulamog

  I’ll then take the remaining 17 and generate 8 Eldrazi Spawn with him (it?). I then equip the greaves to my Heedless One and swing for 13. My enemy takes it bringing them down to 4. I move the greaves over to the Spawnsire just to be safe.

  Turn 6:

  I tried to start my infinite draw chain on the slivers but ended up just getting a bunch of slivers that neither gave me haste nor did I draw an Intruder Alarm. So sadly my last chance for recovering with Slivers is over.

  On Turn 6 I generate 20 mana (easily) and use the second ability of Spawnsire. Normally you want to do this right after the Genesis wave on the same turn Spawnsire comes into play. With it I summon the following 3 cards from my sideboard.

  It That BetraysAll is DustEmrakul, the Aeons Torn

  It That Betrays lands first, then All is Dust is cast causing all colored permanents (everything but lands and my Lightning Greaves at this time) are Sacrificed, all the slivers on my opponents side join my side alongside my Eldrazi. Emrakul then drops and gives me an Extra Turn. On this turn I swing with Emrakul wearing the Greaves for 15. My opponent Sacrifices his 4 lands leaving him with nothing in play and no life remaining.

  I like this deck because the previous turns, even worst case scenario (1 land for 5 turns) turned out pretty good against slivers. Admittedly it came down to luck, had I drawn hearth sliver the match would have ended on Turn 5 for Slivers.

  What makes it extra cool is we just relived the story. Nissa unleashed the Eldrazi and all was sundered in their wake. The only survivors were those that gave themselves body and soul to the Eldrazi lords.

  This is not a deck I can really play in multiplayer Sad smile. Because everyone starts eying me the second I put down so much as an Arbor Elf.

  Thanks for your time…have an ice night. I’m off to read or draw for a few minutes then bed.

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Cats and Kids or “Why your internet is cats.”

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  I’m incredibly disappointed in the internet right now. Let me tell you why, when I was in college we read about the psychology of the “Crazy Cat Lady” and some theories behind why (mostly) single women can find themselves growing old with a house full of cats.

  The main study that seemed most reasonable to me was that the symmetry and rough location of the cats various facial features, nose, eyes, and mouth are all roughly in the same place you’d find them on the average human child.

  So for women without kids, and even those who have children but the children have moved out, cats can become proxies to help satiate the genetic motivators that lead people to become parents in the first place. What I’ve found most interesting with the internet over the last few decades is just how quickly the feline has dominated it.

  The vast majority of animal images I’m presented across the internet are cats. Sleeping, walking, prowling, yawning, or in the case of YouTube “talking”. But these images appeal to both genders, one would suspect that if it was only women (such as was suggested by the studies) that we’d see a dominance of women sharing the imagery. At least anecdotally I see an even distribution of people across both genders replicating and spreading these images across the net.

  Now to clarify, the reason I’m upset with the internet is that for the life of me I can’t find the studies we researched. It’s borderline infuriating, if I search for anything with cats in the name I’m hit with arts and crafts, ICHC, or other totally unhelpful data. Perhaps I need to expand my search engine pool.

  The theory is interesting however, while I’m going to bet the primary goal of domesticating cats was to have them around to kill things that would otherwise have a grand old time Reminds me of Venus, Except the evil toe biting is more Artemis.killing people (rats, snakes, and so on), I can’t help but wonder if the structure of their faces lead most people to produce the same hormones that they would when presented with an infant.

  Basically I’m thinking that cats have become so widely adored because they push our genetic buttons. Don’t get me wrong though, I have no problem with things that excite dopamine release or hinder uptake. In this particular case I imagine a cat is much healthier than Heroine or Tobacco. Frankly as one of our kittens sleeps against my leg and I look at her snoozing face I’m certainly feeling pretty darn good.

  So yeah, something to think about. Perhaps if you find the study work drop me a line, I’d like to add it to here.

My Cat–The Evil Genius

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  I just came to the startling realization that of our two kittens, the quiet one, is quite possibly evil. She has a very consistent desire to chew up anything rare in your house. Got a stack of penny business cards? Meh, this is not acceptable for my pallet. But this, this rare gold leaf from the depths of King Tut’s Tomb? Oh I will chew this, I will chew this with the delight of a thousand children dancing in a ball pit.

  Our cats like straws, in fact I’d say they love straws. But Venus doesn’t just like any straw, she likes your straw. Anytime I have a drink she can be surrounded by 30 straws and look up at me, silently planning her assault.

  She’s exceptionally good at getting straws out of cups, both from open top cups and the coffee cups with the tiny slit in the top which I jam a straw through. (I’m told you shouldn’t do this, hot liquids + plastic equal chemical leakage).

  The thing that lead me to write this was what I just realized tonight. A few times in the last few months she’s knocked over cups of water in the middle of the night. I thought it was because of how fluffy she is and that she was just bumping them. Today I saw the truth with my own eyes!

  She looked up at my cup and said “This moisture shall be mine!” Put her paws right up on the rim and tried to pull it over.

  So all this time when she’d knock over cups, it wasn’t an accident, it was pure evil genius.

  She’s the cutest super villain I’ve ever known. I look forward to seeing what other devious things she’ll unveil upon us in the future. I suspect she might be one of the smartest pets I’ve ever lived with. Then again Artemis knows how to open medicine bottles…

  Tomorrow we’ll get back to other stuff. Sometime soon I’ll post pictures of these cute little fuzzy children. From back when they were little living blips on the floor to the nearly full grown kids they are today. The internet can always use more cat pictures.

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Pets in the Home

  It’s remarkable how much something I had been avoiding for so long has improved my life. As a young boy I had a myriad of pets from all sorts of animal kingdoms. I had a cat for a short while, two dogs, ton of fish, a few birds, Gerbils, and even some spiders and beetles.

  In general terms I felt that the saddest of the pets were the birds, taking an animal that should be out flying the skies and dropping it in an EXTREMELY small cage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bird cage that didn’t look far too small. Just the size of the cage compared to the animal itself was unreal. If there is a hell I imagine it is being a bird inside of a bird cage for your entire life.

  It is a terrible practice and I can’t recommend it to anyone anywhere, I’m a bit mortified when I see birds in cages. At least the pet store cages are kind of big. Next saddest tended to be the fish for similar reasons. A tiny meta habitat inside of the human habitat was very weird for me, same could be said about the gerbils. It was the cats and dogs that made sense. I spend the vast majority of my time indoors and so if I feel the area is big enough to make me happy I figure an animal many times smaller than me should be quite pleased.

  Likewise they have no predators to deal with, an endless supply of toys to play with, and some suckers to pet them and cuddle them all the time.

  During my childhood there were deaths, many events that made me astoundingly sad. When I was living alone and it was just me and my last dog it was something that haunted me. If I could go back in time it is a period of my life I would relive differently and I generally try to not think about it very much. But there is a long period of time before the downward swing of death that is cherished, years of fun moments, (admittedly one sided) conversations, and compassion.

  Even if much of the interaction is anthropomorphized, I don’t mind, it is an illusion I’m willing to accept. These are tangible beings that have so many wonderful signs of their emotional state, and to see them rest soundly is a wonderful feeling.

  It was those late tragedies that caused me to shun the idea of a new pet. But ironically it appears that these mistakes in my young life are why I try so hard with our new kittens. We did tons of research to make sure they only eat the best cat food possible, a list of ingredients that are likely to show up in a cat’s actual diet. I’ve tried my best to find the little that is least likely to have chemicals but also not be a dust cloud of death and mayhem.

  Their toys are all highly rated and safe, nice beds, the best cat tower we could find (that they use often), and they are using vet recommended anti-flea medication alongside getting all their shots and their routine checkups. These two kittens were even fostered together so we adopted them both to make sure they weren’t separated.

  Coming home to them is something otherworldly and satisfying. You spend an entire day dealing with the mundane, routine cycles of the same processes that lead to the same results in an endless wheel of stagnation and only simulated progression. In the business world the only people seeing and true improvement are at the top of the tower, everyone else is just resetting the clock every 28-31 days.

  But with this I have friends, sort of like little furry children. They get into mischief, play, grow, learn, and I see wonderful advancement. They have become a calendar of sorts, progression of joy and ever greatening brightness. There have been a few scary moments (Artemis got quite sick as a baby) but otherwise it has been unending cuteness and compassion (which is unusual for cats, I’m guessing Artemis will grow out of it but I think Venus might be a lap cat for life).

Leonin Skyhunter  Someday if I find myself with a big house and a nice yard I just might get a dog. I don’t know however, having never had a cat for long (we gave ours away quite fast, I guess scooping poop was too intense) so for me this is something new, these cats are not competing in a spot of me that is held by another. They also don’t threaten to remind me of my own weakness at a separate point in my life.

  I guess that’s all for today. I should close by mentioning my great disappointment in a lamp I bought, it doesn’t work. So I might not have a lamp for this weekend (I really need some light in this place, California doesn’t believe in putting lights on the ceilings of their living rooms, totally archaic state).

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