Thoughts of the SemiBarbaricPrincess

Buzz Privacy Fail

2010-02-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

Issues with Google Buzz

Google Buzz has a huge privacy flaw

Buzz: Privacy Nightmare

My own take on this is that the privacy stuff got really messed up, or perhaps wasn't thought through at all to start with. I coincidentally started to use Google Reader this week. It turns out that the following lists for Reader and Buzz are the same. I'm entirely uninterested in having a Buzz account. But I had been planning on sharing a few things via reader, and perhaps seeing what some friends on Reader were reading. Unfortunately I'm going to have to not do that. Anything that I follow in Reader gets auto-added to my Buzz follow list. This is not obvious from Google Reader. Especially since I had clicked that little "Turn off Buzz" link at the bottom of my gmail. However all that ink does is suppress the UI. It doesn't actually turn jack shit off. So I was happily adding people to follow in Reader and then I happened to read a hint of this. I just checked my Gmail Buzz, and I"m really really displeased to see that in the feature I though I turned off I am following a whole bunch of people.

Google Buzz Fail.

Balou wants

2010-02-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

I had to be at work at 9am this morning. Given my inherently lazy nature, this is damn early. Especially considering that it takes, at best, an hour to drive to work at that horrible traffic filled time of day.

Since we didn't get home any earlier than usual Balou and Trillian had a long and lonely day. Fortunately, despite being home alone for well over eleven hours the dogs didn't destroy anything. Well they did open a package of fire logs, but the fire logs are now burning merrily, so no harm done.

Anyway I have sat down to eat my dinner and Balou is happily lying at my feet. All Balou wants is to lie at my feet while I eat my dinner. He's perfectly content to just lie here.

Well, he wouldn't mind some pets.

All Balou wants is to lie here at my feet and get some pets. He's perfectly content to lie here and get some pets.

Well, he also wouldn't mind if I gave him some of my dinner.

All Balou wants it so lie here at my feet and get some pets and have my dinner. He would be perfectly content if I would pet him while he lies at my feet and feed him some of my dinner. Perfectly content if only I'd keep petting him and stop eating my own dinner...

Writing

2010-01-29T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have a bunch of things bouncing around in my head lately. I've been paying attention to the Proposition 8 trial. Work has been pretty crazy. I've been playing WoW, though not as much as I want to. The dogs have kept me busy. My ESO and I have been trying to watch some anime (Crying Freeman FYI). I've also been doing a fair amount of reading.

Since I'm actually kind of stressed from some of the above I've been using the rest of the above to do my usual escapism thing. Hence the reading and WoW and anime. As is usual with my escapism I've also been adding to the stories in my head. That might sound a little crazy. Perhaps it is. /shrug

But what I really mean is that I've actually been trying to write down some of the stories that I tell myself. Some of these stories are about my WoW characters. I've written the easier WoW stories down and am in the process of putting them out for people to see. If you want to you can find them. I warn you: I'm not that great a writer, I'm working on it, but I harbor no illusions as to my current level of skill.

I'm also trying to add to the other stories in my head. The ones I've had there for years. See, a long time ago I was told that the best way to get yourself to sleep was to tell yourself a story once you were lying down to sleep. In theory you'd get into the habit of falling asleep as soon as you got to a certain part of the story, and it would basically be self hypnotism. Well, it didn't quite work that way for me. Either I didn't get the memo that you were supposed to use a story that you already knew or it wasn't made clear that the goal was to sleep at a certain part. So whenever I have trouble sleeping I add to a story. Maybe I add more plot to the end, or perhaps I refine the characterization in the beginning. Either way these stories have been in my head for years and years now. I've written parts of them down, and I'm trying to write more. But since most of my work on them happens just before I go to sleep it's hard to remember the changes I want to make.

China export fun...

2010-01-14T01:41:00.000-08:00

Toxic Cadmium Swapped for Lead in Jewelry

.....

Manufacturers have been barred from using lead in children's products, such as toys and jewelry. And a new Associated Press investigation shows cadmium, an inexpensive, dangerous metal known to cause cancer, is being substituted for it.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, of the Department of Preventative Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, told CBS News, "It's a nasty toxic metal and, in my opinion, has no place in children's toys -- none."

The Associated Press bought more than 100 pieces of children's jewelry made in China and sold at Wal-mart and other retailers around the country. Twelve percent of the trinkets contained at least 10 percent cadmium, but Disney's "Princess and the Frog" pendants came in between 25 percent to 35 percent cadmium. In a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer charm, the level was 91 percent.

Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer, professor of chemistry at Ashland University, in Ashland, Ohio, called it "appalling" to find cadmium at those levels in products designed for children.

He added, "There's recent research indicating that it can cause learning disabilities and permanent loss of I.Q."

Liz Hitchcock, a consumer advocate with U.S. PIRG, a consumer advocacy group, says, "It's outrageous that an industry that's been told that it can no longer use a toxic chemical like lead in products turns to another toxic chemical, cadmium, a known carcinogen, to use in the same products."

As part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, cadmium in paint is banned from children's toys, but the law doesn't address cadmium in jewelry, which is how these trinkets are reaching the market.

The CPSC issued a statement, saying the agency is now moving swiftly to prevent foreign manufacturers of children's jewelry from substituting high levels of cadmium and other heavy metals in place of lead. The CPSC, Koeppen observes, is also investigating the jewelry cited.

......

Seriously? I can't even begin to follow the logic here. You're not allowed to use lead because it's too toxic, so cadmium is the substitute of choice??!?

Three Day Weekend

2010-01-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

I only found out today that we have a three day weekend coming up. I'm quite excited, because it's a three day weekend with Monday off, which is so much better than Friday off. My reasoning for this is as follows:

It's Saturday and you're kicking back, you've got a whole three day weekend before you. Not just the regular two days of weekend, but three whole days.

Now it's Sunday. Normally you'd think that you needed to rush to get the last few things you need done before the work week starts up again the next day. But not in this case! You have two days of weekend left, and it's Sunday!

Around comes Monday and you don't have to get up and go to work. It's still the weekend! Yay! Three day weekend!

And then, here comes Tuesday, you're back to work. But it's not so bad. You've only got to survive four days until it's the weekend again!

To The Robbers:

2009-12-27T22:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Robbers,

I'm not surprised that you stole the tv and dvd player and Play Station. They were all old and about to be replaced so it's not that big a deal that you took them. Though I am sad that they are missing.

I'm sad, but again unsurprised, that you took several jewelry boxes. I think most of them contained costume jewelry or things that weren't too important. But I can't remember and now I'll never know.

I really wish you hadn't taken my ESO's parent's anniversary clock. That clock was neat, and since it was an heirloom, irreplaceable for sentimental reasons.

But why did you take the power cord for the dsl router? You didn't even take the router itself. I don't blame you for not taking it, it's kind of a piece of shit, but why take only the power cord? The router is so old that we had to buy a whole new router. Taking the cord just renders the old one entirely useless. That's just mean.

Also, were you cold? Is that why you took the portable oil heater? I liked that little oil heater. It kept me warm on many a cold and WoW filled evening. I sincerely hope that the oil bursts out of the heater onto you and sets you on fire!

Die in a fire you thieving mother fuckers!

That is all.

Christmas Cards

2009-12-13T18:10:00.000-08:00

My ESO and I are doing Christmas cards. If you want a card and you don't think I have your address (you've moved in the last two years or I never had your address anyway) send me an email with your current address.

BMW

2009-11-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

A little over a month ago my ESO and I were driving South, to the LA area. It's about a 6 hour drive to where we were going. We were past the halfway point and I was driving. It was close to the end of October, and apparently in CA that is the time when CHP (California Highway Patrol) gets their budget set. So we'd already passed no less than 3 separate cars already pulled over. So I was only speeding a little bit. Moving at the speed of traffic, just keeping up really. No excessive speeding from me, no way no how mr officer. I was actually being rather careful.

Anyway I was passed by a patrol car. Fortunately I had just finished passing someone else and so my speed was acceptable. The patrol car went zooming on ahead. I figured that meant that either there would be a cop lying in wait ahead of us somewhere or there was some emergency that the officer was heading towards, just not serious enough to warrant lights.

So driving along shortly thereafter a BMW comes zooming up. The driver of this car isn't the most polite person ever. This unfortunately seems to be quite common to BMW drivers. I think it is something about the advertising that BMW does. It makes the drivers thing that just because their car has good handling they don't have to have basic manners or follow the rules of the road.

The BMW does zooms off after a little bit of tailgating and some mildly dangerous passing. My ESO and I both swear at the BMW and then continue on with our conversation. We crest the next hill just as we see the CHP light up and go zooming off after the BMW that had passed us earlier.

Ahh Karma. :D

Phone calls

2009-11-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

I had a realization tonight. I've always thought that I was uncomfortable talking on the phone to people I didn't know. But that's not the case. I'm perfectly happy to talk to pretty much anyone as long as there is some reason for me to do so. This applies to friends, customer service, and ordering stuff. As long as I have a purpose to the call it's fine.

However, the class of people that this doesn't apply to are telemarketers. I have no reason to waste my time with their stupid questions. I will politely end the conversation as fast as I can. I don't want to waste my time, and I don't usually make it a habit to be rude to people. Well, unless they are rude to me first.

Of course one of the ways to be rude to someone is to waste their time. So if a telemarketer starts to be annoying and won't accept my polite attempts to end the conversation I have no issues being rude and hanging up.

Anyway, this realization came after an ill-fated phone call this evening. Over the past week I've gotten several phone calls from (866)887-7682. The first 3 I didn't answer because I don't answer phone calls from 800 or 888 or 866 area codes, usually they are telemarketers. No message was left and the number kept calling me.

The fourth call I answered. The man calling me asked if he could speak to Clara Lee. I asked him who was calling and he promptly hung up. This made me angry. So I tried to call back, the number was on my phone after all. The first time I called back it rang 3 times and then hung up on me. The second and 3 times I called back I got a canned message saying "the next available representative will be with you shortly" and then it hung up on me. The next six times I called back it randomly swapped between those two responses.

Tonight, when I saw (866)887-7682 appear on my cellphone screen, I picked it up. The lady on the other end asked if she could speak to Clara Lee. I said "This is she". Which I have said ever since my Mom answered yes to a similar question and got her phone service randomly changed. The lady then asked if she could ask me a few questions about the car dealership that I most recently took my Civic to.

Now, as you may be able to guess by my writings up to this point this phone number had quite severely annoyed me. They had wasted my time with spurious phone calls. Their behavior of repeatedly calling while not leaving a message and immediately hanging up when I finally answer and ask who is calling had definitely achieved the rude level.

I was not in the mood to answer any sort of question about my current car maintenance needs/work. So I told the lady how annoyed I was with the previous behavior of people calling from her number. I emphasized how displeased with their bad customer service I was. She apologized perfunctorily and then launched into the sales pitch.

Her: "...blah blah Deals from Honda blah blah... so do you know the mileage on your civic?"
Me: "Yes, I know the mileage."
Her:"...and it is?"
Me:"Oh! You want to know? I don't want to tell you. I'm perfectly happy with the car service I got, but I really don't like the customer service I've had to deal with. I don't want to talk to you at all. Bye!" /click

Almost I hope that they try to call back again. I would enjoy being rude. But really I hope this exchange puts me on their do not call list. This sort of shit wastes my time. Next time I get my car serviced I will threaten the dealership with loss of my business if they try this sort of time wasting bullshit survey again.

Bones

2009-10-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

We feed the dogs raw. This means raw meat and bones, with a few veggies thrown in. I've talked about this before but I'm too lazy to find and link to it.

Anyway, when we first got Balou he was used to kibble. He was perfectly happy to switch from kibble to meat. He took to the ground meat and veggies quite easily. He gave me a look the first time I gave him a frozen chicken foot, but they quickly became his most favorite treat ever. Balou seems to prefer chicken and turkey to lamb and beef. And it seems that his giant head is sensitive to cold. So for a while he would growl over his chicken backs and take forever to eat them. But either I've been defrosting them for longer now or he has gotten less picky and sensitive about his food.

It used to be that when I gave him a lamb neck bone and he'd look at me with a look that clearly said "Why you give me weird food??" But he'd slowly and surely eat it. And if I gave him and Trillian beef rib bones... oh, that just didn't work. Balou knew it was tasty goodness, but he just had no idea how to eat it. He tried chewing through the whole thing: fail. He tried biting off part of it: fail. He tried gnawing the meat off: fail as he didn't brace it and the bone slid away. He just couldn't seem to separate the bone from the tasty meat. So he'd guard it, and get growly. And of course by this time Trillian would have finished hers, including cracking part of the bone for the marrow. So she'd be nosing around him and he'd really guard it then.

But about a week ago I decided to try again. I made sure the beef ribs were nice aand defrosted. I planned that we'd work up to them. So dinner for dogs wa some chicken backs for each of them and when those were all gone they each got a beef rib. Both Balou and Trillian ate their chicken backs with no delay. Balou didn't stop to guard his from the dog in the fireplace (his reflection). He just chomped the chicken right down. Balou seemed happy to get the beef rib, he did a tiny bit of guarding but mostly he just went to town on eating it. Trillian was still finished much faster, but Balou ate all the meat off his bone.

So the past couple of nights I've given them both bones as the last item of food they get. They are both happy over this. Though once they are done with the meat there are small arguments about who gets to gnaw on the bone itself. They will each try to steal from the other. But the bones do keep them occupied and happy for quite a while.

Me and Balou

2009-09-30T21:30:00.001-07:00

I'm around Balou all the time so it's hard for me to remember that he is a huge dog. He's over 125lb right now. When I pet him I don't bend over, I lift my hand up a bit and put it on top of his head. In the mornings he'll jump up on the bed and lie next to me. When he does that his head is at my armpit and his butt is at my knees. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures.

Here is happy Balou. I'm petting him, and all is well.

Here is Serious Business Dog.

Caffeine

2009-09-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

My preferred form of Caffeine ingestion is via tea. I've been quite fond of green teas lately. My work has a nice Hojicha Green that I've been quite happily imbibing every afternoon. When I go to Peet's on the weekend I'll get genmaicha. I very much like the flavor of the toasted brown rice.

Sometime in the not too distant future I will have to take a break from Caffeine. While in college I would always save the caffeine for midterms or finals. That way when I needed the extra alertness it was available. I view Caffeine as a powerful drug, and one that should be used carefully. It was a lot easier to keep my caffeine intake infrequent when the main way of drinking it was soda or Redbull. I don't find either of those drinks particularly appetizing. But since my switch to tea I've been drinking more.

So, I'll take a break for a bit. Probably a week when I'm already feeling crappy.

Dog Repellent

2009-09-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

Today as we were walking Balou and Trillian after work the people 2 houses up came outside and gave us what for. Apparently Balou peeing on their bushes is Not OK. Despite the fact that their bushes are perfectly green they are displeased about him doing that. In fact they are so displeased that they have had to put out "Dog Repellent." And could we walk the dogs on the other side of the street so their bushes don't get damaged.

This is all a load of crap. Their bushes are fine. We have been walking various dops past their house for years at this point and their bushes look just the same as they always have. The real issue is that the woman who lives there is afraid of dogs. Hence the asking for us to not walk in front of their house.

So now I have done some research on the dog repellent. I'm seeing wet piles of little green granules by their bushes. I think it looks like this product. The active ingredient here is methyl nonylketone, which according to this site isn't harmful to humans. It's a commonly used anti-dog chemical. However I'm not actually seeing any info on its effects on dogs. Hopefully it's not actually harmful to dogs and cats, but given the crap that happened with cat food I have no guarantees of that.

Honestly I'd like to take Balou to leave a giant crap on their lawn every morning. Then they'd understand that really their bushes were fine before.

The Guild

2009-08-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

I have been watching The Guild roughly since Season 1. I had lost track of it for Season 2, but I follow Wil Wheaton's Blog, and he is going to play a character in season 3.

Anyway, for the release of Season 3, there is apparently a Music Video. I'm so amused I may have to buy the mp3.

*sings* Do you wanna date my avatar? *sings*

Dog Park

2009-08-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

This morning my ESO and I crawled out of bed. It was very hard. Bed so comfy! And ESO so snuggly. But The alarm had rung and I'd hit the snooze button a couple of times and Balou was doing his wakeup song and dance. So we crawled out of bed and pulled on clothes. We didn't feed the dog, instead we made sure we had cookies and poo bags and piled both dogs and both people into the SUV.

We drove to Ft. Funston. As soon as I opened my door Trillian had opinions. She was sniffing everywhere and trying to fit her head between the seat and the frame so she could get out. When I shut my door and went to the back of the SUV to get Balou out she whined a lot, at least until my ESO opened the side door and let her out.

Once both dogs were out of the car we started our walk. We didn't meet any dogs until we had gone up the stairs. But Balou had to sniff and pee on everything. His aim is still terrible. Trillian just had to sniff everything over. At the top of the stairs there were a whole bunch of dogs. Most of them off leash. Balou and Trillian were pretty well behaved. There was a bit of butt sniffing. Balou still thinks that he is the sexiest thing since sliced bread, which occasionally makes it hard for other dogs to figure out what he is doing.

After we extricated ourselves from the group of dogs at the top of the stairs we followed a medium-short path around the area. Balou and Trillian got to sniff even more things, and we had a very nice view of the cliffs looking over the ocean.

There was another large group of dogs at the fork in the trail that would lead to the cliffs. We headed back to the car, but we had to make out way through and past all the dogs. Again Balou and Trillian were pretty good. There was one wiry haired male dog who got in Balou's face. I'm not sure if he or Balou started growling first, but the other dog got called off by his owner as this is apparently not new behavior for him.

We passed that group and were walking with a lady who had three off-leash dogs with her. Her dogs were all very mellow and calm towards Balou and Trillian. It was rather amusing, her dogs wanted the cookies my ESO and I had, while our dogs just wanted to sniff the other dogs'. But either way it was a good chance for Balou and Trillian to just chill out with other dogs around.

After that my ESO and I headed back to the car. There was a nice stretch with just us on the path, and we made it back to the car with no bad experiences. So overall it was an excellent dog park walk.

Addendum

2009-07-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

I'm proud of myself for breaking up that dog fight this morning. It took a non-trivial amount of strength and coordination to separate the two dogs. The Pit was speedy and swinging a 50lb dog one-handed is no easy task. Especially when I'm pretty sure the reason he let go of Balou was so that he could turn and try to take a chunk out of whoever (me) was grabbing his leg.

It's kind of funny how walking with Balou I really have no care for my own safety. I just don't need to. I mean, aside from looking both ways while crossing streets, there isn't anything that is going to hurt me when my 130lb uncut male Rottweiler is with me. Of course all the cares I would normally have for myself translate into worries for him plus extra. This is a prime example. I was not at all worried about the Pit attacking me. The Pit was clearly more interested in attacking Balou, but even if it hadn't been I am confident that Balou would protect me. I love my giant puppydog. I hope I didn't miss an injury on him. :(

Dog Fight!

2009-07-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

This morning my ESO and I were doing out usual dog walk before driving off to work. We were just going to go around a few blocks and then head home since we both needed to be at work for meetings.

We were about halfway done and the dogs were both behaving quite well. There had been some attempts to chase a cat at the beginning of the walk but they had settled down after that. Balou was even not pulling against the leash. (Pulling against the leash is something that we're working on not doing.) I had just commented to Shari how nice it was to have Happy Balou.

We had passed a house with their garage door about three quarters up and were halfway past the next house, when a brown and white Pitbull came charging out of the garage door. This Pit was barking and growling and charged straight at Balou. In dog language this is practically a declaration of war. Since I didn't want to have this dog bite Balou in the butt I couldn't bodily drag Balou away. So they met face to face.

The Pit more or less leaped to meet Balou and tried to start chewing on Balou's neck. My ESO told me later that the Pit was probably trying to bite Balou behind the ear, which is a nice soft kill spot. Balou, quite understandably, was none too pleased about this. So they start to fight, though mostly it is the Pit trying to bite Balou and Balou trying not to get bit, and me trying to break them up.

By this time the Pit's owner has run out or the garage chasing after his dog. I'm not really paying attention to him. I try to grab the Pit's collar so I can hold both dogs apart. But the Pit and Balou are both moving too quickly and too unexpectedly for me to be able to grab it. Then I remember what a friend of mine told me about breaking up dog fights. She said that her boyfriend broke up a similar situation where a Pit was trying to chew on their dog by grabbing both of the Pit's back legs, pulling and then swinging the Pit away. I only had my left hand free so I grabbed the back right leg of the Pit and pulled/threw while using my right hand and leg to pull/push Balou in the opposite direction. Fortunately this was enough to break whatever hold the Pit had and get the dogs separated enough that the Pit's owner could grab his dog.

So then we had a small detente. We held all the dogs apart. The Pit continuously lunged and growled at Balou. Balou intermittently lunged and growled at the Pit. I did my best to see if Balou was bleeding, and fortunately I didn't find any blood. My ESO was holding Trillian back at a safe distance from all of this. Trillian was continuously lunging and growling, because she has issues with light colored dogs. The Pit's owner was apologizing profusely. And a neighbor across the street comes out to yell at the Pit's owner. Since Balou appears to be unhurt my ESO tells the Pit's owner to get some training for his dog, and we carry on with our walk.

Once we're home and the leashes are off I do a more thorough check of Balou. Fortunately I still don't find any punctures. Though I do find a bruise on one of his rear legs. However, I don't know if that is from the fight or from him bruising it while jumping up on the bed.

Now I need to profusely thank my friend who told me about how to break up a dog fight.

Anime

2009-07-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

My ESO and I have been watching anime for a while now. We initially tried to set up one night a week where we would only watch anime. However, that didn't work so we changed to a couple of nights a week where we would play some WoW and then watch an episode or two of an anime. This seems to work better so far. We watch all the anime in Japanese with English subtitles.

We're currently in the middle of Blue Seed. It's rather silly to start out with, but I'm enjoying that the characters are growing and developing. They aren't just static and going through an adventure. They are maturing and learning and changing. It's pretty neat, and it's an interesting story. I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to look up all the stuff I see on the internet. I don't want to spoil the story, which I know I'll do if I go search for every little bit of lore that shows up in the anime. But I know I'm missing a lot, not only am I missing the cultural references, but, like any translation, not everything comes through from spoken Japanese to written English. I'll look up all the stuff about Susano-oh after we finish watching the series.

We've already finished watching Noir, Trigun, and a couple others which I can't spell without the cases right here in front of me. I've really enjoyed watching all of them. Though I do have a limit of how much I can watch at a time. I have a limit of about 4-ish episodes of a new show before I need to take a break and digest all the story stuff that happened. In that way it reminds me of watching all of the Buffy and Angel Seasons when I first moved to CA. I'd bring a disc home and watch either 2 or 4 episodes at a time. It was a lot of fun, but this is even more fun since I get to do it with my ESO next to me.

Steam Cleaners

2009-07-17T16:04:00.001-07:00

I think I am calmer now. I'm not sure about it but I hope I am. My calmness was drastically increased this morning when the nice guys from Stanley Steemer showed up.

By the time they arrived I'd already gotten most everything off the floor, and we only had to put the gate up to keep the dogs in the kitchen. It took them about an hour to steam clean the carpets in the living room, hallway, office and our bedroom. They were quite effective. And I think the house smells less like skunk than it did before. I'm not really sure since I think my nose is still on strike. Even if it still smells skunky the carpets are cleaner.

Currently both dogs are sacked out in the kitchen with me. They seem quite happy on the piles of dog beds from every other room in the house that I had to transport into here. Trillian in particular seems pleased to be lying on a 6 deep stack of dog beds and other blankets.

While the steam cleaners were still here both of the guys were quite appreciative of the doggies. And I was so pleased that I got both of them to give each dog a cookie. I think it helped Balou stay non-growly when they did the section just on the other side of the gate. He doesn't like vacuum cleaners, and in the past he has barked at the steam cleaner/vacuum thing. I think it also helped that just as they were doing that section I gave both dogs a chicken foot, so he was suitably distracted.

When it rains it fucking pours

2009-07-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had started to write a "poor me" post, about all the shit that is going wrong right now. It was about how the cat was sick and our 3rd housemate was incompetent and broke her leg while standing up and all the trials and travails involved in someone who is incompetent on crutches. I didn't finish it because it was just too whiny, and I didn't see any way of not being completely whiny. Hell, it even sounds whiny in one sentence.

Now however, I don't give a fuck. On top of all the shit that has been happening this week Balou got skunked last night. At 3AM. My ESO and I only woke up when he came into the bedroom. This was AFTER he had run around the rest of the house dripping skunk slobber and rubbing his skunked face on everything.

So I smell terrible. The house smells terrible. My ESO smells terrible. Balou smells terrible, and will continue to smell terrible for a while. The skunk shot him in the face. The noxious crap hit him mostly on the right side of the face but a bunch also went up his nose. I wiped off his face. He appeared to appreciate the damp cloth on his eye. But there is no way for me to clean out his nose, so for the next month, if not more, he will reek.

The word of the day is miasma. Or perhaps funk. Possibly it is also noxious. As in: the noxious miasma fills our house and sticks to my clothes.

The steam cleaners are coming on Friday. They will bring deskunking chemicals, so our house will smell a bit better, I hope. Until then my nose is trying to commit suicide. Possibly it already has, I can only smell really bad whiffs of skunk odor...

4th of July

2009-07-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

My ESO and I had a three day weekend for the 4th of July. We had Friday off. Unfortunately some of the teams that my ESO supports at work are useless pieces of shit. They are entirely incapable of planning or understanding what their requests actually mean. So one team insisted that she needed to have some stuff done for them. This resulted in her working on Friday. :( Suck. I hate that team.

Anyway, Saturday was the 4th. We spent time gardening and mostly watering the lawns. I felt bad doing that because CA has a drought. However, Pacifica allows fireworks. Allegedly there is a restriction on the size, but in practice anyone can get any firework or firecracker they want and fire it wherever they are. So we thought that while it used up water to keep our lawn green/wet it was less water than would be used if the fireworks set out lawn on fire. Especially if the house happened to catch too. Fortunately our lawn watering efforts were not in vain.

This was also Balou's first 4th at our house. It is quite clear that he had not been exposed to fireworks or firecrackers before. He was very disturbed by them all. So while my ESO and I watched Bubble Gum Crisis and then played WoW, we took breaks quite frequently to calm the Balou down. He was like a ping pong ball. A 130lb black and tan, barking and bouncing ping pong ball. After a couple of hours he tired himself out and put himself to bed in his crate. Poor puppy.

On Sunday night there were still a few left over fireworks. And we were in the office then. After a bunch of barking and bouncing he then wedged himself under my desk and laid down at/under my feet. He was clearly asking me to protect him from the bad loud noises. It was quite adorable, though a bit sad.

Balou

2009-06-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that it's been a while since posted any pics of my Balou dog.

Here is Balou lying across the foot of the bed. These two pics were taken at the same time. And it's a queen size bed. He is a big dog. :D

Rottweilers

2009-06-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

My ESO and I watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight last night. Possibly we should have gone to bed instead of staying up for the second movie. But neither of us had seen it and, well, the DVD player was right there...

Anyway it was good to see Batman Begins again. Both movies were quite well done. The Joker freaked me out in a couple of places. It's also pretty clear that they are setting up for the next movie, what with Two-Face and all.

However I was actually really sad to see that the mobsters' dogs were all Rottweilers. I know, I know, one of the police dogs was a Rottweiler too, but he was on the screen for all of ten seconds. Most of the police dogs were German Shepherd Dogs.

It makes me sad to see Rotties portrayed as vicious all the time. If they are mistreated they can be, or if they are trained badly. I know Rotties can be scary, they have a big bark and are big dogs, but it just bugs me that they are always portrayed as vicious dangerous dogs. If you give them love and attention and training they are wonderful pets, just like any other dog.

Powers

2009-05-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

I was talking with Wendelina and we came upon the subject of the powers of cats. I believe that cats are born with a number of powers. The decision of if these are super powers or not is left to the reader.

So cats start out with a few basic powers. You've got "look cute", "get hair on things", "sleep", and "heal".

Cute covers a lot. You've got the basic kitten cuteness that gets them adopted. This doesn't always stay with a cat their whole life. Sometimes it morphs into a cuteness that stops them from getting kicked off the bed when they take all of it, and sometimes it just stays an adorable cuteness that gets them food or cuddles all the time.

Get hair on things is a skill that varies from cat to cat. Aurora for example has only a middling good skill at this. She gets fur on everything, but she doesn't have to be too picky, since she is a calico and no matter what she lays on her fun will show up soms. Lily on the other hand is almost pure white. Her "get hair on things" skill is excellent. She has hair that shows up very well, and she is quite good at picking colors that will show her white hair the best. Also I hear she is stubborn about putting hair on things.

The sleep skill is best seen in cats when you're supposed to get up and just as you're finally motivate to do so the cat plops down on your lap or, if you're lying in bed, on your chest. After that point there is really no point in trying to get up so, under the cat's influence, you just pass out. It's fairly common to all cats, and I haven't seen a whole lot of variation. It can also show up as with the cat settling on your feet or behind your knees just before you pass out for the night.

Cat healing takes a number of forms. Most cats have the basic healing. They lay on you while you're sick, between the warmth, the purring, and their innate skill you feel better. Some cats are better at this than others. And some cats are only good at predicting the end of health.

As cats get older they also gain the "comfort" ability. They hop up on your lap and purr at you when you're feeling bad. Or you come home from a long day at work and they rush to the door to greet you and get pets.

Twitter

2009-05-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

Is anyone who reads this on twitter? I am, username: Khyrie. Follow me if you want, if I can figure out who you are I'll even let you read my updates and I'll follow you.