coverguy

All I write about is cats. Cats, cats, kitty meow meow whatever.

So two cat-centric things happened in the past week:

Cat Fancy 1
After three or four years of stove use, Miko finally decided to walk across a hot burner. He's fine, but there was an iffy evening of me worrying and him hissing at his paw. Lots of moist, cool compresses and petting, and the little guy seems okay. I think it stressed him out, as his activity level resembled that of when his diabetes wasn't under control, but he's back to running around and mostly sitting on his butt.

Tidy Cat 2
One of the two cats has been doing the following: hanging their butt off the edge of the litter box when they urinate; or 2) pooping, and then moving the poop (with copious amounts of litter) outside of the box. It could be one cat, or both, but either way, it forced me to buy this gigantic-sided litter box...which failed to stop the behavior. So last weekend I procured and impossibly contained litter SYSTEM. It is enclosed and has a friggin' door, so the shit should stay in.

I did my usual cat-to-box acquaintance procedure: assume control of the cat (pick up), orient the cat within structure (shove their ass in there and refuse their escape attempts). Funny, funny, and funny. Miko put up more of a resistance to go in there than he does for the vet-visit cat-taxi device; he literally did the "paws on the borders" cartoon bit. Ridiculous.

Bounce Cat Treat Bonus (shake-shake-shake)
DEVO's latest album came out this week (super-good) and to promote it, they threw a cat party for 12 hours. This video stands as evidence and testimony of their genius. Enjoy.

Yep, I've got another method of updating. Of course, this endeavor satisfies two initiatives: 1) creating avenues for for writing; and 2) spending money on apps for things I could already do for free. Present status on both initiatives is active, and successful!

So...anyone else pre-ordering the next iPhone, or will I be relegated to Dick Tracy style video chat with only co-workers?

Location:Work

Star Date 2010.0608 -

At the moment of first wakefulness, my ability to rationally interpret my surrounding decreases by a good 50% (minimum, and entirely speculative).

I awoke at dawn on Monday morning, which is a very rare occurrence. As I opened my eyes, I saw my cat Miko lying beside me, so I petted him and noticed two things: 1) he was very cold; and 2) he didn't move at all. Both concerned me, so I shook him, to which again, no movement from him at all.

My heart sank because, in my half-awake mind, this all added up to dead kitty. I was horrified about a dead animal in my bed, sad because he was a treasured pet and then flooded with guilt, "if only I had taken better care of him somehow" . I sat up in my bed as quickly as I could and shook him again, utterly terrorized, and the little jerk squints at me a yawns. Ultimately, either my own perception of my actions is flawed when less than awake, or my cat sleeps so deeply that shaking does not readily wake him. Either way, what a way to start a week, right?

I can't imagine this kind of thing is unique though. Has anyone else derived strange conclusions when first awaking in the morning?

Sent with Captain's Blog.

Star Date 2010.0604 -

What a hectic week! Shamefully hectic, in fact. However, from the ashes of the inevitable oh-shit-why-is-it-not-working storm of update-hatred, I am thus reborn bitter and sleep deprived. You can call me Garga-Michael, because I'm about to go all ape-shit crazy on some blue Belgian midgets. I mustn't dwell on work though. I do other things aside from work all of the time. Fun things.

And I love me some dashes, by the way. I have used...nine, thus far!

A few weeks ago I went on a fairly-short, but well-welcomed mini-break to Disneyland with friends, and was a lot of fun. I did a good share of the planning too, which engendered a very minor sense of accomplishment. The trip provided an opportunity to step out of the routine and not worry about anything.

Not escape: reprieve.

It can be curious how we can remove ourselves from our environment and a different perspective can be acquired. New goals can identified, and the means to achieve them, start to fall into place. For me, I just want to create again. It's not like there is anything stopping me, and I am certainly surrounded by just about every contrivance you could think of. I'm just starting to get that little spark again. The little voice inside me that would ask "what if" or "wouldn't it be cool if" and I would reply back "yes, and this is how it would go" .

I am starting to dream again.

...

Also, I am starting to punctuate outside of double-quotations when the quotation itself does not contain its own terminal punctuation. It's not an American practice, but it's interesting to look at, isn't it?

Sent with Captain's Blog.

From Beautiful Tarot
27 May 2010 2:51 PM

Past, Present, Future: Three cards showing the flow of time

The Past

Past influences and events, the background and foundation of the present.


Ten of Wands: A card of many significances, and some of the readings cannot be harmonised. I set aside that which connects it with honour and good faith. The chief meaning is oppression simply, but it is also fortune, gain, any kind of success, and then it is the oppression of these things. It is also a card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows, and if it is a question of a lawsuit, there will be certain loss. Difficulties and contradictions, if near a good card.



The Present

The current situation and its influences, both good and bad.


Three of Swords: Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration. For a woman, the flight of her lover.



The Future

Hopes, growing influences, the unknowable that is to come.


Five of Cups (reversed): Return of some relative who has not been seen for long. News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.




Interpretive text has been adapted from Wikipedia and the public-domain work A Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, published in 1910 (via Wikisource).

http://cryptogram.com/tarot

Star Date 2010.0503 -

As a preface, I've purchased a new iPad app that mimics the super nerdy cool computer interface from Star Trek: The Next Generation and it likes to prepend star dates and other Trek-ish things to entries, but it can easily post to livejournal, so you're going to have to deal or cry about it. You can also be jealous; that would be an entirely acceptable reaction too. As an aside, iPads are wonderful things. After using a Kindle for so long, the iPad is such an upgrade that the former is all but obsolete now.

In the work sphere, life is grand. I have been so completely satisfied with my career as of late that I almost have completely forgotten what it was like to not enjoy one's work. Aside from launching the new main site, I have also generated three supplemental micro-sites to support the Sales department: all of which was done in record time. In truth, I completed them so quickly so I can get back to working on the new site. We've already targeted the next two builds of the site, so I need to do some prep work so I can make the proper recommendations for critical fixes, as well as feature enhancements and whatnot. Lots to do there, but it'll be loads of fun with plenty of challenges to overcome.

The second article of the series based upon our the site has come out as well. This one contains my "interview" question. More or less, I answered and then it got the spin treatment by Marketing, which is fine by me. As much as I can speak about the development, they wanted it portrayed a certain way and they are far more adept at teasing out the bullet points. My accompanying picture was ridiculous though. Everyone else's photo was staged with good lighting, but the photo of myself and the engineer was taken in my cube, and we were clearly talking as the editor took the photo. Still, I can say my toy robot collection has been published now, right? I'll take it as a plus, for I'm sure there's a community out there that would pump their fists in celebration at the prominent display of Unicron amongst assortment of Grimlocks and Darth Vaders.

In the personal sphere, life moves on. I do my best to find pleasant new distractions, and my cats do well to exploit this with renewed interest in feather wands and toy mice. Also, they both curiously located the largest spider I have seen in some time. It was about inch long, toe-to-toe, with a body about 10-11mm long. Observation and a quick reference indicates that it was likely scotophaeus blackwalli (mouse spider). A very neat specimen, it was large enough I almost considered keeping it as a pet. Ultimately, it was released into the chud's yard.

I really must say that there is nothing quite as suspicious as a pair of cats calmly watching a wall intently. Their attention was well deserved though. I could clearly see it 20 feet away despite not having my glasses on.

Also, my unnamed guppy of two years was finally devoured by Newtron (my fire belly newt). It was in my possession for such a duration that I practically considered it a pet as well. However, I guess it nibbled one too many of Newtron's fingers, and the amphibian had his revenge. To fill the carrion scavenger void, I have introduced five ghost shrimp. They are pretty neat and neither they nor the newt will look upon each other with hungry eyes.

Anyway, if you are attempting to take the void of anything non-pet related as indication of a somewhat less interesting personal life, then you are wrong: I do stuff. Cool stuff...

Not really though. Aside from fairly regular Street Fighter socializing, I am not doing too much that isn't work related. I would feel worse about this, but it is leaving me financially augmented.

I did finally watch Simon Pegg's Spaced, which was very, very funny. Everyone should go watch it. Unless, everyone already has, in which case I lambast you all for not recommending it to me: you are thus jerks! If by chance you did recommend it to me, you are absolved of jerk status immediately.

Today I had my cubicle upgraded with some stuff I stole scavenged perma-borrowed imperialistically acquired from another workspace. So I stood there as one of the guys from the warehouse installed it. As he struggled to lift the mounted filing cabinet and I just stood there, I thought to myself "man, I feel kind of bad that here is a man that has to work hard all day installing stuff into cubicles like mine, which are filled with more toys and gadgets than work paraphernalia," and it was kind of humbling.

Then I thought about how, while I don't have to perform any manual labor, my mental efforts assist the company to make profit which in turn provides him gainful employment. So I'm like his hero ninja master Jesus or something.

Then I felt really humble.

The Manager of Operations came by to see how the installation went, but he (and now everyone) has realized I only wanted the extra space to mount my fully-automatic Nerf gun in a place where I could hit everyone in the hallway from my seat (which is really convenient).

Also, new DEVO song!

I'm pretty sure if I could have any super power in the world, the I would choose stealth katamari. I want to be able to roll people up into giant balls of random clutter without being seen nor heard.

That would be pretty awesome.

Another overdue update. I suppose that's just my nature with this thing; have things to write, not write them for weeks (but will make ample time to post YouTube videos). Shame on Michael, indeed.

As far as news goes, there's very little in concrete detail, but so much in development that I really am resistant to share (for concern of cursing or dampening the momentum). Oddly enough, it all appears to converge within the next 8 days with a mighty culmination upon my birthday. I have had no thoughts regarding any celebration for the day, yet there could be much to celebrate indeed—none of which I will share in any explicit detail until it is rightfully accurate.

I feel as if I could use some good news though. My life has become work; work has become my life. The nature of the site I am creating means that there will really never be any respite. In fact, I am writing this now during a break from work that I truly ought best to do instead. I can rationalize it easily, as it is the weekend, but the work cannot really end: there will always be something new; always be a better way to do something. Hell, the new guy we're hiring could possibly know of entirely different, but better methodologies than that I have deployed, thus ushering a seamless background revamp of all main functionality. I am both excited and frightened by the prospect of another programmer on the project. My code is strong and very new school, but he could far be more experienced (faster). I think I fear professional confrontation the most, and I am way too close to this project to not take it personally.

Speaking of the new guy, the Engineering VP is giving me 30-45 minutes with each candidate to assess their expertise and determine if they are someone I would like to work with personally. At first, I couldn't imagine what I could talk to them about for that long, but after thinking about it, I'm not sure if it will be enough. If they are talkative, it won't be enough time. If they are too quiet, then I will be forced to take stealth pictures of them with appended Office Space jokes. I have been forewarned to expected introversion out of all of them, but we are all nerds in the room, so it could go either way.

In other news, I have been experimenting with my health to startling positive results. At this rate, I could hit first-level goals by March, and second-level by May. I also shaved my head, and was silly enough to be surprised that people would notice. I love the way the rain feels now. It has been very much like I have rediscovered weather, and it's spiffy.

I have only three present media amusements: reading, Netflix and videogames. I cannot seem to manage more than one a week. Progress on all fronts severely diminished. I start numerous things, and finish none of them. Accept for Mass Effect 1, which I finally beat after two years of ownership. Really neat ending, even despite my dorky-ass character I created.

Otherwise, my real life is just sort of moving on. It is so weird, but all I want is to be a better person. I really don't know how, so I keep going with the flow. My career is going well, which is good, but I fear that by sacrificing everything else I have made myself less valuable as a personality. Sure, I exemplify the overworked-corporate-worker very well, but who really wants to know that guy? Why am I so willing to play the part?

I post are music videos now...



So apparently all of the good synth-pop is coming out of Britain now. La Roux's self-titled album is a great listen, and very good for a first synth album (where typically you get 3-4 solid tracks, and then 4 tracks that are basically the same song with different lyrics). There's definitely some playing around going on, and it's just super. I also love how chippy their sounds are—I can practically see the 8-bit jet flying over a landscape blowing up little alien hearts!

Check out the associated channel for a few more of their videos. I dig the 90's themes.

Edit:
Yes, the singer is female. Admittedly, she does look a little masculine (and angry!) in that video. Here's the video for their first British single: