My Cat is an Asshole

So... in case you weren't aware, I have a remote that operates hardware inside my head. 

In case you weren't also aware, I lose things on a basis which some people might describe as consistent, quite often, or... all the fucking time.

So when my remote went missing, I wasn't terribly surprised or worried -- at first. I mean, I don't often leave the house, so it was in here somewhere. It was just a matter of where. And, really, unless I desperately needed to change the settings - I was good. Still had the charger, which is much larger, and harder, though not impossible, to lose. 

But, all the normal places were a bust.

Which started to worry me a lot, because this is not something I can go to Best Buy and replace. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars to replace.

I found it today.

You don't get to bring my shit home
with you without asking, cat.

I've been well aware of how weird Poe is for awhile. Eccentric. She plays fetch, so she thinks she's a dog. She hoards with the best of reality TV, so she thinks she's a packrat.

THESE ARE THE OPPOSITE OF THE THINGS ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE.  


I'm going to have to Clockwork Orange her ass with Tom and Jerry. 


Poe doesn't appreciate my pop culture references, which just makes her more terrible. And I'd explain it to her, but then it wouldn't be funny anymore.

Poe. You've been sitting on my lap for days, in between the times I've gotten up to look. You could have spoken up anytime, but nooooooooo.


What. A. Jerk.

Happiness in Small Doses, Cyanide Not So Much

Happiness is not a state of being that lasts forever and ever. You can be overall happy in your situation, and still have some atrocious days and moods that weave their way into your smiley face tapestry. Most of us take it where we can get it.

I feel like this is some sort of shrink exercise, but what are the small things that make you happy? What completely random happenstances make you content, even if just for just the moment?



For me:

Those rare days when I can drive my car. Because despite it not being some super special classic, or an expensive Italian sports car, it is shiny and blue. These are seriously my qualifications for liking my car. I’ve said it before - I’m a simple woman. But driving it means independence, and complete control of the radio.

Used to be Prussian Blue, after the oil paint color.
When Prussia got sufficiently phased out, so did the name.

The kind of blue so abidingly deep that looking at it too long makes you feel like your retinas are being pulled forward out of your head. The closest you could get in the Crayola coloring box was Midnight Blue. What I actually mean is cobalt.

 

Actual mail. Not bills or junk mail. But actual mail. And really, I don’t even care if it is a package I ordered myself. I still get that feeling of “Yay, it is here!".

Thatched-roofed cottages on rolling green hills. The lavender fields of Provence, France.

Doors and windows with whimsical or ancient architecture. 

 

The fact that one of my cats (Poe, who is alternately ingenious and kinda stupid, and in doing so probably lives up to her namesake), who ‘monorail cat’s’ my leg.

Not my cat. This one looks much smarter,
and, considering the ledge, more like a Sylvia Plath.

I prefer it when she lays on my leg, because sometimes she tries to lay on my back if I’m turned over. This is as close as she comes to being a lapcat with me. If you’re sitting down and provide her an actual lap, it’s like it confuses her. Or perhaps she just has standards about how much leg you give her to lay upon.



Making people laugh. Can’t. Do it. Enough. I don't even need to try and be witty to fulfill this; simply sharing something I know will delight someone is enough to bring on a solid moment of happy.

11:11 = happiness,
for symmetry as well as notions about wishing.

The Muppets will always make me happy. Their latest movie seriously almost made from cry from nostalgia overload.

Just a tiny bit of Muppetry here for you. Muppets + Queen = Win.

Headshots and Shotguns

Here are a few of the things that have happened in the last couple months....

A Miami man ate another guy's face off. We're not talking about om-om-om and you get a few stitches. We're talking missing eyeballs. The police shot the guy, he still kept coming, they had to keep shooting.

Also in Florida (of course), a guy who was an actual doctor, started bashing his head open after being pulled over on a DUI, and then spat blood at police.

Did I mention that a hissing hazmat drum washed ashore in Florida, and people were told to "escape" if they could leave safely?

On May 30th, a guy in New Jersey stabbed himself, took his intestines out, and THREW them at the SWAT team which was trying to get him out of his barricaded home.

In Massachusetts, a 79 year old man killed his wife and ate her forearm.

In Texas, a woman killed her infant and ate part of the baby's brain. I can't even process this. 

In Maryland, a student killed his housemate and ate his heart and brain.

In China, this past Tuesday, a man ran up to a stranger's car, starting trying to bash in the windshield, then attacked her and started eating her face.

And this one has been going on for awhile, but there's a disease in Africa which hits children, causes them to zone out completely, have violent seizures, try to bite their way free of restraints, and become pyromaniacs. The CDC has no idea what is going on.

Hold up, hobos. Deep breaths. Here's a kitty.  

Let any feeling of impending doom be soothed by the fuzzy.

I realize that horrible, terrible, crazy things happen every day. I'm sure there's lots of unpublicized blood spitting and craziness that happens in mental institutions, or other situations, every day. So it is coincidence and an issue of news reporters choosing to focus on these stories, rather than doing their goddamn job and performing actual investigative journalism on other topics. They depend on the the fact that the public is going to rubberneck for the tragedy, and we do. And I know this.

But I have to admit, the above stories, the sheer volume of how many there have been since May... it makes me wonder.

And it makes me want to get a sawed off and stock up on ammo.

A Round of Valium for Everyone!

Today the Supreme Court announced it was upholding Obama's healthcare law.

I find myself conflicted, hobos.

On the one hand, I agree with the principles of universal healthcare, although I'm not really on board with all the aspects of the new healthcare plan. I do think there needs to be improved access.

If a mother is working two minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet, and can't afford or isn't offered insurance, it's a problem. This isn't about giving it away to people who aren't willing to work or pay for it. A mother should not be forced to choose between dinner and antibiotics for her five year old.

If you had cancer and lost your job and insurance, ... but by a miracle you got better and tried to get insurance at a new job -- they should not be able to deny you a policy, because of a preexisting condition. That's bullshit.

So, obviously, changes need to happen.

On the other hand...

We cannot afford this as a country right now. I realize, it makes it more important than ever to have, but we do have to acknowledge cost when our entire country operates on credit.

It is the same thing as needing a car to get to work. Your old car is hemorrhaging you money, and you barely have enough money to live on week to week, struggling to pay your credit card bills - so what do you do?

Do you take on the debt and responsibility of the newer car? You'll get to work reliably. You won't be paying huge bills when your old engine dies yet again. But you'll have that monthly payment, a payment that you're not sure you'll be able to handle.

Or do you stick with your old car... fix the fanbelt with pantyhose, slap on some duct tape, and pray nothing bad happens. You've dealt with it this long, right? And you know that if nothing bad happens, you'll be able to pay your rent this month.

It's a tough choice.  


And I'm not sure throwing more money at healthcare is going to change a goddamn thing, because the US gov't already pays the absolute highest in healthcare costs, while being toward the lower-middle of the pack when it comes to how successful they are in actually caring for people. 


And it very likely that most of the money for this program does not go toward healthcare, but the administrative salaries and pensions that will be created for middle management. Middle management who will get better government funded insurance than the government funded insurance they're planning to offer to the populace. That's how our country rolls, folks. 

The third hand (I won't tell you whose hand it is, I won't incriminate myself. Ignore the axe in the corner)...

The third hand is Torchwood: Miracle Day.

Fuck yeah, Captain Jack Harkness.

For those unfamiliar with it, basically - a day comes when everyone stops dying. And at first, everyone is thrilled. But people are still getting sick, still living in pain - and things start piling up. Where do you put all those people? How do you prioritize who gets care? How do hospices deal when no one is dying, but everyone still needs to be cared for? How do nursing homes deal? Hospital ICUs?

Governments in this show actually used death camps, which is a horrifying idea. But you'd have a person who you could not save - such as a victim of an explosion, but was still somehow surviving - and the population count rising rapidly everyday, leaving less resources for everyone.  Designated care facilities barely provided care at all, it was more just to keep the sick people out of the way of everyone else. And pharmaceutical corporations had a clear stake in everything.

For a sci-fi show with a really shitty ending, it was eye opening about the problems of health care management.

Obviously, our situation is not the one on this show. BUT..

We have this idea of saving everyone. And people live longer now, survive more diseases now. We also have a huge increase in diseases where people need chronic care: autism, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's. Not all of them are going to have families who can or want to take care of them, which means society is going to have to build more care centers, funded by more subsidies, managed by more middle management.

And by no means am I advocating killing people, I just worry about the fact that since we try so hard to let no one die -we might be making it harder for everyone to survive. We're heading towards having a strong majority of the population completely dependent on others for care, children, elderly, disabled.

We can't really tell them to fuck off. Because that would be wrong. And a more important reason - chances are most of us will hit at least two, if not three, of those categories in the course of our lives. So we'd be telling ourselves to fuck off. Our society is better at self-interest than having a moral conscience, let's face it. Anyway, it seems like we're going to have some hard choices on the horizon about what kind of care we can afford to provide.

I'm a TV Whore - LOST, pt 1

It’s been hard recently to string cohesive thoughts together and/or type at a computer, read words. Reading is definitely fundamental, hobos, don’t kid yourselves. Feeling sorta-kinda-better, and have been going through a few shows I need to catch up on. 
Last time I posted, I talked about how hard a time I was having finding things to write about. Why I haven’t yet talked about TV is 50/50 - me not thinking of it, me not wanting to talk about TV/movies that are pretty recent. However, there are probably some TV/movies that I have been remiss about watching that are long past their expiration date which are safe to talk about. 


Since there will probably be more of these, I’m starting the TV Whore/Movie Whore category. 


-----

I confess, I never finished LOST. Or.. really, I watched almost three seasons of it. That was many moons ago, hobos. Many, many moons. Hopefully those moons would be Somerhotter/ Crazy Eyes Salvatore’s (Boone) or Meriadoc Brandybuck’s (Charlie) behinds. Or, more importantly, the Scotsman’s. Who I am sure HAS a real-life name or a pithy-type nickname I could give him, but I can’t get past the brogue to think that far. 


At any rate, here are my thoughts while watching - roughly translated:




(Note: This show ended two years ago and has been running since 2004. This removes your right to any of the spoiler tantrums I see on my twitter feed on occasion. Consider yourself warned. 


That said, I have just admitted I haven’t gotten past S2. I was completely void of any social media up ‘til a couple of years ago. I have no idea what happens the majority of the rest of the show. If you spoil me, my spoiler tantrum will be epic. 


Why do I get to have a spoiler tantrum, while you can’t? Let’s all say it together now: IT IS HER BLOG. So, them’s the breaks, cupcakes. As another reason, I do believe this blog declares me Queen of the Hobos. I’m a GREAT Queen, because I don’t ask you to make with the genuflecting. But if you want to that’s okay. [Best. Sovereign. Ever.]


At this point, consider yourselves excessively warned.


[At the time of posting, I am now unspoilerable.])






1. Plane crash. Jack goes rushing towards an running plane engine with his tie on, as it sucks in air. He kinda deserves to die in the pilot, just for that. But he was just in a plane crash, which I'm told can be a smidge disorienting, so I’ll let it slide. 


2. My version of this show would have had no one useful on the plane at all. How often do you get so many hardened criminals, gun/hunting experts on one flight? My flight 815 would have been mostly tourists. Instead of a soldier who can make anything electronic work? Someone who has 80th level paladin on World of Warcraft. Instead of an extremely well-trained surgeon? A mediocre podiatrist. That’s all you get folks, sorry. 


3. That was a polar bear.... And then they end up way more scared of The Others. Honestly, I think they would have been less scared of The Others if they’d been called Those Dicks. 

“Shouldn’t we head to the caves?"  

"Naw, don’t worry. It’s just those dicks from the other side of the island. Focus your fear on the giant invisible tree-stomping monster that eats people. Priorities, man.”

4. All this time and Boone dying still fucking crushes my soul in places. I think I still have dents from the first time I watched this. I like him so much better on this show than on The Vampire Diaries. (For those folks who might judge me watching TVD? I won’t say anything about you watching wrestling, reality TV, or whatever guilty pleasure shows you have for which I would laugh at you.)




5. Getting back on topic. Boone. Yes, crushed. Both he and I, actually. He gets 4 and 5 on this list, because they dragged out his death and burial three episodes. Which I liked, honestly. I’m not complaining. It made the death of the first major character have impact.

However, ABC gave this show 25 episodes the first season. THE FIRST SEASON. How often does that happen EVER?! Especially back in 2004, when they weren’t handing out extra episodes like candy at Halloween. But even now, that’s usually to 30min shows.

My point is, maybe they wouldn't have had to do 25 eps in S1 if they'd consolidated some of the story just a little. 


I guess this is what happens when your ratings are through the friggin’ roof. Which is what I’m hoping will happen with the Kripke/Abrams show coming up in the fall. (However, NBC - if you put Revolution on Wednesday nights at 9pm, I will cut you.) 




6. Okay, Boone’s death gets one more, but it is only an off-shoot. Does it not occur to anyone else that on an island where massive injuries happen kind of a lot, the large quantities of heroin sitting there might be pretty useful for pain relief. I’m not talking the whole I-Twisted-My-Ankle type of pain, but that whole I-Got-Crushed-By-A-Plane-And-You’re-Thinking-About-Amputating-My-Leg sort of pain. Anyone else think that? Or is it just me... 

"Go grab a poultice, I need to take his leg off with this door."

7. I don’t know what my emotions are doing, because this show keeps including super joyous occasions with deaths. Claire has a healthy baby? Sorry, Boone is dead. Jin and Sun reunited after she thought he was dead? Sorry, Shannon is dead. Right after Sayid told her he loves her.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. SHOW?

Supernatural has been accused of having mood whiplash, but this show is taking the fucking cake.




8. I figured out why I dislike Walt so much. He’s basically Carl from The Walking Dead, except he’s way more of an asshole. 

Yeah, I'm talking about you.

Although, Walt is much less useless, because apparently he gets premonitions and can kill birds with his death glare. This is a trope I kinda hate... the whole Children So We Can Have A Plausible Burden and Tender Family Moments In A Dark Setting. 

Breaking Bad has actually handled this well, but - well, Breaking Bad is fucking awesome. Also, they live inside a suburban house, far away from Meth Culinary Academy. Walt Jr. could probably have a crutch slip on some drug money, I guess.




8. Hot Scot. Desmond, I hope to multiple deities that I’ll see you in another life, brother. 

Or this life. This life would be preferable, actually.

9. Smoke monster. It was a monster and it was made of smoke. I don't have a lot more to say about it. Get Sayid to start making those miniature fans for everybody. 

Weapon of choice.

(more seasons later, folks - this ends part way into S2 I believe...)

Not Dead Redemption

I talk a lot about people being a whole host of negative things. This is generally because a) They are, and b) Anger tends to motivate me more to spew words onto a page. I feel like I should maybe examine this, but I do believe that there can be humor in vitriol. I try and make that attempt, and I'm not sure that I always succeed. 

At any rate, while sometimes being part of humanity feels a bit soul-crushing, there are moments where I feel hope for the future. 

A 15 year old won an award in a science competition. This by itself is rather bland. You figure that most high schools have science fairs. But, no - he won the award, because he developed a test which detects pancreatic cancer in its early stages. And is better and cheaper than any test currently made by the scientific community. 

The extra cookie. You earned it.

I really, really hope some 15 year old girls are throwing themselves at him in the name of scientific discovery. 15 year old girls, you should do that. 

I think back to what I was doing at 15 and am staggered by the sheer amount of awesome in this story. 

Humanity, my faith in you has been redeemed. I can't promise that this will last longer than the time it takes to write this, so enjoy it.

Trudging Onward

I need to keep writing just to keep writing. Even if it ends up being nothing more than the odd wee comment about something in the news. Or just random stream of consciousness. Or a picture of a chinchilla. 


Entry for today = This


Out of Mormon College, we have a study that says that in teen literature, the characters portrayed with the filthiest mouths are those who are successful, rich, popular. 


1. There is something inherently funny to me about a group of Mormons counting exactly how many "fucks" they can find in the likes of any adolescent novel. 


2. I assume (or hope) this translates to reality somehow, because that means that hopefully this will pay off, and I've been making money since around middle school. Y'know, around when a sheltered suburban girl realizes that shit won't s'plode if you utter a four letter word. Unless the four letter word is somehow wired into a bomb as the trigger device. 


Best. Bomb. Ever.


Although, really, the best bomb ever would probably have candy and confetti for shrapnel. Less of a bomb, and more of a piñata.


A piñata that opens when you say fuck. 


Best. Birthday Party. Ever. 

It's an explosion of delight! Unless you're
using hard candy, and then it is probably a
concussion of delight. But there is delight!

Note: 
A couple things here. When searching for piñatas on Google, the donkey-shaped piñatas that we all think of as iconic aren't what come up first. But a unicorn one did, so that sort of makes up for it. And really, unicorns are sort of like donkeys who carry a shiv. For those people who feel that a donkey piñata doesn't seem like enough of a challenge. 


Also, there are places that sell piñata bats. Be resourceful, people. Do not get suckered into buying a piñata stick. I'm sure that most people can find something around their house to break open a piñata. If you don't have something, use your fists. If nothing else, it would be terribly amusing to watch kids OR adults try and punch open a festively-colored animal. If using your fists somehow goes against your gentle nature, mayhaps you should reconsider your piñata purchase and have a tea party instead. 


Note 2:
ALT + 164 is the code for an n with the tilde. You're welcome. 


Note 3:

Chinchilla. Fuck yeah.