Cats Hiding

That's what my cats do about 95% of the day while I'm at work. Heck, they sleep away probably 90% of the time I'm home as well. It amazes me on a daily basis how utterly lazy cats are. Can you imagine spending the majority of your life just sleeping? The only way I could see that being interesting is if you had some really kick ass dreams. Every now and again, however, I find my cats sleeping in odd areas that aren't my bed or the couch, which is where they usually are.

For example, as I was packing up for a business trip one day, I left my suitcase open on a chair while I did laundry. When I finally came back up to my room, I saw that Stitch had fallen asleep in my suitcase:

Either it was a really comfortable place to sleep or else my little baby wanted to come travel with me. I wish I could take him with to keep me company while I'm bored in hotel rooms.

Another time, again while I was in the process of taking care of my laundry, I found Pooh in a very intesting place, my underwear drawer!

For whatever reason, he thought it would be fun to burrow underneath my boxers and socks while I went downstairs to get my second load of laundry. I came back up, put my clothes away, closed up my drawers, and went to do some reading... at which point I heard meowing coming from my closet. When I went in, I heard it come from my underwear drawer, so as I opened it I noticed a pair of eyes in the back of the drawer.

What could possibly possess anything to want to sleep amongst my underwear and socks? I know they're clean, but still...

Colombus Day

Talk about a crap holiday. Do banks and post offices and government organizations really have to have the day off to celebrate Colombus Day? And if it is somehow a necessity that those places close down, why the hell can't we have all other businesses (especially accounting firms, like the one I work at) shut down for the day as well?

I call shenanigans. SHENANIGANS!!! This is unfair and I'm pissed. I want to be at home right now. I want to be vegging out watching the Upright Citizens Brigade. I want to microwave some Domino's pizza for lunch and then take a nap after I eat it. I want to sit around in my freakin' boxers and a wife beater. I don't want to be at work.

So in conclusion, screw you Colombus. You suck eggs, dillweed.

Getting Put In My Place

When I travel for work, I often find myself with chunks of time to kill as I wait for taxis, wait for planes, wait on planes, hang out in my hotel room, walk from my hotel to work, etc. In this time that I have to kill, I often take the opportunity to play on my PSP, which I usually don't get to goof around with otherwise. I just have other things that I'd rather be doing when I'm at home than play my PSP, but when I'm traveling it often becomes a #1 priority in my down time.

I am just getting through Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (I have like one level left) so I thought I'd start up a couple of new games, one of them being Maverick Hunter X, which is basically Mega Man X with updated graphics. I remember playing the Mega Man games when I was a kid and totally kicking tons of robot ass at them, but now, in my old age, I'm getting my ass handed to me by the robots.

Initially I thought maybe I just wasn't used to playing a game that required quick reactions since Syphon Filter and Popolocrois don't exactly require split second reactions, but even after turning the dificulty down and playing through levels a few times, I was forced to turn my PSP off in frustration. I was getting beat up on repeatedly.

So does this mean I'm getting old? Am I soon going to only be able to play RPG and strategy games? I sure hope not because I don't have time for RPGs and strategy games bore me to tears. Hopefully Maverick Hunter X is just one of the harder side scrolling games on the PSP, because if not, I may have to hang my head in shame and admit I'm just not as good of a gamer as I was in my earlier years. Getting old blows, kids.

Candygram for Mongo - The Red Pill CD Review

Cute name. Seriously. I’d rather see bands naming themselves after fun quotes from Mel Brooks’ movies any day instead of calling themselves some combination of dark, angsty words that really make no sense when put together. So the band gets points right off the bat for being named after a quote from Blazing Saddles. Sadly, those are the only points that this band will get throughout the course of this review.

You know Lemmy? That guy that can’t sing from Motorhead? Combine his no-talent ass with an even less talented version of The Ramones who don’t do anything more than ape some basic Circle Jerks riffs, throw them against the wall alongside some laughable punk-ized Beach Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers moments and you’d have Candygram for Mongo shooting out your stereo speakers. It’s like this band decided to listen to all of their favorite CDs, take the lamest parts of each one, slap them together, play it half-assed, record it, run it through Garageband on their home iMac, and sell copies of it at the local Legion on Friday nights.

There is no denying that this band is basically emulating their influences and trying their damndest to make a good tune, but there isn’t anything even close to maturity to be found in these simple, forgettable, and lazy songs. Yes, surely the band put a lot of time into creating this CD, and it is no doubt their baby, but when it comes to listeners spending their hard earned money… it’s just not worth it.

Save your money to buy a couple of $5 tickets to the local punk show for you and your lip ring sporting girlfriend. You’ll be glad you did.

Gluttony

So I saw the epitome of gluttony while at caribou. There was a guy so fat that he had his shirt tucked in and the way his belly hung over his pants it looked like he had stomach boobs because his belly button depression was at the bottom of his overhang. And it jiggled like a couple of sacks of pudding were in his shirt.

You always see the weirdest people at the airport, don't you? I know I do. I often wonder if anyone actually imagines I'm a technology specialist for an international company by looking at me, mostly because I don't dress in my dress work clothes while I fly.

When I fly I wear baggy ass jeans, a t-shirt, and usually sandals. For entertainment I people watch, email on my blackberry, play my PSP, and read the oddest assortment of crap, usually boring books and graphic novels. Doesn't sound like your usual business class person, does it? So when I people watch I like to imagine every scrubby guy or gal is well off and every business person is a poseur wishing they were as well off as their clothes made them look.

Traveling

Well, I'm off to Chicago in a little bit for work. I'll be there the rest of the week. I'm hoping it's nice out while I'm there so that I can spend some time in Millennium Park. If not, I'll probably just end up sticking in my hotel room working and watching DVDs. Trying really hard to finish off the fourth season of X-Files. Seems like I've been working on it forever, but then again I took a break to watch the second season of The Office and the first season of Boston Legal. Watching two complete series in the middle of the one you're working on can make it seem like you've been working on it forever.

I think I'm finally starting to get used to flying, but I obviously don't like it any better than I used to. Really, what gets to me now is being away from home and living out of my suitcase. I hate packing, unpacking, repacking, and all that jazz. It's like getting punched in the face over and over again. Eventually you get used to the pain and then you simply get annoyed by having a bloody nose all the time.

I hope Stitch will be ok when I'm gone. His ear has retained a little blood in it and is still drooping, but is hasn't swelled back up. He's been taking his meds pretty good, but today and yesterday he was not wanting to eat his pill wrapped in cheese. Maybe Jared will find a clever way to get him to take his drugs while I'm gone. He also doesn't like the ear goop that I have to give him. I actually have to sit on him and hold his head to do it. Let's keep our fingers crossed he doesn't give Jared that much trouble.

Anyways. Me. Travel. The rest of the week. The end.

SJU Homecoming 2006

Homecoming... the yearly reminder that I'm yet another year further away from college. Hard to imagine sometimes that I've been out for nearly 3 years. Regardless of the melancholic feelings it routinely induces, it's still good to go back, if for no other reason than to see what has changed since I've left.

There've been a few changes to St. John's and St. Ben's that are new since the last time I'd been on either campus, which was probably quite a few months ago. There are some new buildings going up on both campuses, living residences at SJU and a new bus stop structure (I believe) at CSB.

Anyways, the homecoming game... It really brought to light how old I am, developmentally and age-wise, in comparison to the kids who are currently attending SJU. Sitting in the student section with Jared, his sister, and Kristi it was amazing to listen to the conversations that were going on around us, as well as getting solid eye fulls of people watching.

I don't know if it was this was when I was in school, but it seems like the majority of the students we were sitting around were so vapid, vain, high maintinence, and shallow that it was almost painful to listen to them talk. Every 2 minutes girls had to take pictures of the people they were with doing hugs or something, not to mention doing it over and over again and then looking at how they looked and if it wasn't perfect, they'd have to do it again. They need to look good on Facebook, you know.

Which brings up another interesting change since I've been in college. It seems like almost every conversation had mention of Facebook, or even revolved around the social networking website. Students would talk about putting pictures on Facebook, what someone said on someone else's Facebook, what was meant by a certain update to someone's Facebook profile, how they needed to go home and join a new Facebook group, or how they hadn't spent enough time browsing their friends' Facebook profiles. Come on, is it that hard to actually get together with friends and talk with them? I don't even want to think about how much time kids in college nowadays are spending behind computer screens tweaking Facebook profiles.

When I tuned everyone out, however, it was pretty easy to enjoy the perfect day that mother nature graced us with. The football game was the usual--a Johnnie win. Jared got some good pictures of the game and the beach, which I stole and put below. I'd take pictures myself as well, but I can't find my damn battery charger...

Two More Movies

Here are a couple more movies to add to the Movie Thread.

Jackass Number Two (8.5/10): How can you not laugh your ass off at 90 minutes of guys doing ridiculous crap, beating the hell out of each other, and all in all just getting hurt in hilarious ways? I know I couldn't stop myself from constantly laughing... and laughing... and cringing... and then laughing some more. If this movie were graded simply on laughs per minute, it would be an 11 out of 10.

Steamboy (6/10): I had some really high hopes for this movie, but it was weighed down by an overly heavy-handed theme that was beaten into your head repeatedly. Yes, I get it, technology should be used to help mankind, not used for wars and conquest. The animation was phenomenal, however. There are some great battle scenes and lots of nice steampunk imagery.

Vets are as Bad as Doctors

About a week ago, well, a little over a week ago, my roommate noticed something was weird about my cat's ear. After examining Stitch, we found that he had either an abscess or hematoma growing on the outside of it. I didn't think too much of it because these things will tend to heal themselves up if they don't get too big. I'm pretty sure that from as much as my two cats fight, they've given each other small hematomas here and there, but they heal up fine.

This one was different. It kept growing. I still felt that it would eventually heal itself, especially since it didn't appear to cause Stitch any pain. It was more of an annoyance for him walking around with this gigantic blood pustule on his ear. Eventually, however, it got so big that it was pretty much closing his ear shut completely and was pulling his ear down it was so big.

This left me with three choices--take him to the vet, let it keep growing, or do some surgery on it myself. Each had its upsides and downsides. I thought about it for a day while I was at work, not knowing exactly what would be the best.

If I performed the surgery on his ear myself I would get it taken care of and it wouldn't cost me anything, but I'd have a cat who would be significantly pissed off at me, I'd potentially get bit and scratched apart, and we might have a cat flinging blood all over the place after I openned up his ear.

If I let the hematoma take care of itself, there was again the added benefit of not spending any money for vet fees. I would also not get bit or scratched. However, Stitch would be pretty uncomfortable and his ear might heal up all funky weird, hurting his ability to hear for the rest of his life. That wasn't very appealing.

The last option was the vet. I'd get everything taken care of by a professional. Stitch wouldn't hate me. He would heal up better than if I did it. There wouldn't be blood all over the house. But I'd have to shell out a nice chunk of change for what is a pretty simple procedure.

I went with the vet. My pocket book took a $154 hit, but Stitch seems happier. His ear is still healing and has some blood still in the gigantic skin pocket that had formed, but he's getting along ok. We have to give him steroids twice a day in a piece of cheese to help him heal up, as well as put some cream in his ears since they found he had an ear infection while they were working on him. He doesn't mind the steroids, but the cream isn't so much fun.

The first couple of times he didn't seem to care that I was squirting a bunch of goo in his ear and rubbing it around, but it has gotten to the point where I now need to sit on Stitch and hold his head down while I apply the goop into each ear. He's really getting sick of it, but it should hopefully be helping him heal.

So, in the end, it was good to get Stitch taken care of so he could get better, but I made the decision that next time I'll brave the claws, teeth, and cat fury to take care of the hematoma myself, especially since the vet said once a cat gets one, the likelihood of him getting another at some time would be increased, especially if he fought. Great. I'm preparing myself for the future bloodbath...

Flatulence Bear

I think I very well may have stumbled across the absolute bestest teddy bear ever invented, ever, in the history of teddy bear invention. It's a teddy bear that, when you press a button on a remote control, makes farting noises. How is that not the frickin' coolest thing in this universe? Or any universe for that matter? The awesomeness embodied in this bear supercedes the boundaries of the cosmos.

And right now, at this link, you can buy it for less than the price of a stuffed crust pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut... which, incidentally, is also so awesome that its tastiness supercedes any taste boundaries artificially imposed upon it by the vast cosmos.

This teddy bear does raise some highly philisophical questions, however. For example, if you click the fart button and the bear is in a room where no one can hear it, does it still make a fart noise? And does the bear have a soul (stemming from the postulate "I fart, therefore I am")? Where do we draw the line when it comes to creating beings that possess A.F. (Artificial Flatulence)? Today it's a teddy bear, but tomorrow it might be a Barbie. Can we handle that?

Regardless, someone created a remote controlled farting teddy bear, and that is undeniably awesome.