A few days ago, the remodeling guys taped thick paper to the floor, because they were painting and didn't want it to get everywhere. I thought very little of it, other than the fact that, "Yeah, that's going to tear pretty quick, thick or not."

Last night, my cat discovered that if she takes a running start, she can slide across the paper like a slip'n'slide. She proceeded to do this, over and over, and I knew that if I grabbed my phone or a camera, she'd stop doing it. Her little fun ended when she went careening sideways into a bunch of tools and knocked them all down; after that, she refused to leave my room for a little while.

Me: Hey, kitty, isn't this picture cute?
Dagny: MEOW! FOOD NOW, MOM!
Me: You ate an hour ago!
Dagny: DON'T CARE.
Me: But look at this one!
Dagny: I AM UNAMUSED BY YOUR SHENANIGANS.


Boss-lady's computer is still not fixed, so no work today. Again.

Happy birthday, redsilkshadow!

*yawns* I should really be in bed, but my brain is too awake, and so is the cat -- who refuses to leave me alone enough to rest.

She picks up an odd, raspy sound at 2AM that makes me think of a drunk person flailing around and croaking about how much they want nachos.

...

It'd be nice if I could work a little writing into my schedule, instead of just being tired all of the time. My "D&D" game is suitably amusing and entertaining, and so is WoW, but between lab hours and assignments I barely get any writing done during a semester.

It's a habit I'd like to break.

I need to start using the cross-posting thingy more, it's just so handy.

Flight back to OC was uneventful and quick. I sat next to two young... gentlemen... who couldn't stand to have their TV interrupted for more than a second by normal plane movement. But, I put them out of my mind and watched Family Guy. Not a bad way to spend an hour. (At least my headphone jack worked properly this time.)

Back at home, I gave dad his belated father's day gifts (from San Francisco), unpacked, and survived a regular tongue-lashing from my cat. She was constantly poking me and meowing and running around everywhere. She's calming down a little more this morning, but not too much. She's going to hate me for running off this afternoon...

Not much else to report, although my throat is giving me hell. I hope I didn't catch something from a person on the plane. I woke up at 10 and was properly awake, however, which is hopefully the start of a new trend. I kind of like being conscious at this hour.

(Crossposted from Dreamwidth.)

The gift of ... CUTE!



I saw UP today, with wanzerfaust, and I really recommend it. It has a little something for every age group, the voice acting is fantastic, and of course the graphics are gorgeous. (David Kaye even provides the voice of the news reel guy, which is rather spiffy.) Then I came home and there was drama with my two-year-old niece, who had run across the street and gotten scolded for it. She absolutely hates it when Hugh scolds her in any way and starts crying, thankfully it doesn't happen too often.

The "don't run across the street without looking" skill is very important, kiddo.

Also, also, in other news -- we have internet again!

The Verizon guy came by this morning and did some fiddling and that was it, which honestly kind of pissed us off. He told us that another customer in our neighborhood had had to replace a major cable, and that had upset service with several other people as well.

Thanks for checking with your customers to make sure their service still worked (when you knew there were problems), jackasses.

So, I've been without internet for a day and a half. It's still not back on, I'm just at thespyder_1130's house. Hopefully it'll get sorted out, one way or another. :S

In lieu of internet, I've been watching movies and finishing rewatching Firefly. I love that show so much.

On Saturday I went to the beach with wanzerfaust and her friends and it was really fun. I did forget to put sunscreen on my nose, but it didn't turn too red. (Just more red than the rest of me, which only gained a little color. Sunscreen FTW.)

And yesterday, my sister, her fiance and her dog came to visit. Which was very fun. My niece, Sofi, was over and she and the dog, Clyde, pretended to be afraid of each other while also equally fascinated. At one point they ran away from each other in the same direction, side by side.

And then Dagny went out, late in the evening, to discover that Clyde was still there. I've never seen a cat literally go, "OMG WTF @_@!!!!!" before that moment, but she did. She ran right back into my room, and then stared at him from behind her cat door. It was a pretty adorable staring contest.

All in all it was a very, very good weekend.

School is over, and my dungeons & dragons campaign is also over, leaving me with a fair bit of time on my hands. I still have no idea what I'm doing over the summer. At some point I'm going back up to San Francisco for a bit, to sight-see, because there's a possibility that my sister's going to move back down here soon (YAY).

In slightly more bizarre news, my cat has started drinking from the toilet if we leave the bathroom door open. I could have just refilled her bowl, but no, she wants toilet water. Little fuzzy weirdo.

I'm having issues getting through No Country for Old Men, and I'm not sure why. I like McCarthy's style and the story is interesting. But for some reason, reading it makes me want to gouge my eyes in. Very strange.

(This entry has been an experiment in cross-posting from Dreamwidth; experiment is successful.)

KITTEN CHITTERING. I AM DEAD. DEAD I TELL YOU.



And to make it even more adorable, his name is Thor.

She is, however, catching some nice ZZs.



Goodnight for reals.

But before I do, here's a picture filled to the brim with cuteness from The Cute Project.

My cat, Dagny, finally sits still so that I can photograph her somewhat normally.

Been awake since 12pm and I'm already tired enough to crawl into bed and go to sleep.

Is there a vitamin that I'm missing? I eat lots of fruit, and eat what veggies I can get. I try to have a somewhat balanced diet, despite the sugar addiction problems.

For some reason, I'm just tired all of the time, even though I get 8 hours of sleep all the time.

I think that I just really exploded from cute.



Kitten 1: Whoa...
Kitten 3: Whoa...
Kitten 2: What are you guys looking at?
Kitten 1: Wiggly...
Kitten 3: Thing...
Kitten 2: You guys are so stupid.

Research into Dagny's breed has been pretty much ongoing. Today there was a larger breakthrough than most: she's a muted grey Tortoiseshell, which I already knew, but I can now say that she has a large amount of Norwegian Forest Cat. There's irony in the fact that I gave her a Norwegian name before I knew her breed.

I'm amused that, giving that both her coloration and breed have nicknames, I can call her a "Torti Wegie."

Next (harder) goal: to figure out what her other half/quarter is. :S Genetic puzzles ftw.

"I thought I told you to keep that thing away from me!"

Originally my informative speech for Speech class tomorrow was to be on the Ashera Cat, that "designer hybrid" of a serval, leopard cat and domestic house cat that goes for $22,000 from LA-based Lifestyle Pets. I thought it would be an interesting topic, since everyone else apparently picked diseases. Not that diseases aren't interesting to learn about, but three hours solid is a bit much.

But alas -- it turns out the so-called Ashera is a fraud. Not only that, the owner of the company has a long, long history of changing his name and forming fraudulent companies, not to mention disappearing.

In summary, this guy was buying the existing breed, the Savannah Cat (a serval-domestic hybrid), and reselling them for huge amounts of money. A Savannah breeder had the "Asheras," confiscated at an airport, DNA tested and they turned out to be his kittens.

So! If you're rolling in money, you can get your very own for a much lower price tag of around $2000-$5500. And they're just as cute, if not cuter knowing that they weren't the center of a scam.

Needless to say, my informative speech is now going to be on Savannah cats, with a footnote on this whole Ashera fiasco.

( Not convinced? See them side by side. )

Actor claims 'Self Defense' in Killing Girlfriend's Cat.

Awww, the poor 6'3" 200 pound guy, a 7 and a half pound cat trying to kill him.

...

If that could have even REMOTELY been the case, I would have helped. It's too bad that this woman had to lose her cat in order find out what a nutjob her boyfriend is.

This is one hell of a nail, in the coffin that is now this guy's career. The jealousy and anger issues alone are staggering.

"Mom, if I was doing drugs and you asked, so, what did you guys do last night? I WOULDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT THE DRUGS, WOULD I."

Impossible woman... thinks the worst all of the time, except she goes down to the worst event and not death, which is how my brain functions. (No, seriously. If someone is late or something my brain will automatically think "they died" before any other option.)

On the bright side of things: 1) I have a possible topic for my demonstration speech, so thank you corpse_child and madbonnycaptain for ideas, and 2) The cat's flea stuff came today and I've just put it on, hopefully ending her irritation over the past week.

Mom's parents are over, the ones that I can't stand. (Picture my mother's bad parenting and then multiply it by 1000 and you have my grandmother's style of parenting.) It's a pain in the ass because they just sit around and talk to her all day, so that I pretty much can't. Plus, they act like I'm a friggin' idiot, because for some reason they've never liked me past the first day I was born.

Also, the cat has fleas somehow. Blah.

Swimming class at 1:00 may be cancelled so that I have to go to one at 9:30am on M-W instead, which means that if people wake me up before noon on days I don't have to -- I will be pissed.

On an unrelated note, I like J. Jacques' commentary on World of Warcraft: "Today's comic title belies the fact that I stopped playing World Of Warcraft once I realized it was basically an unpaid part-time job." I have things to do which will actually matter in ten years (or, that's the hope, anyway). It's fun, but seriously, not the end of the world.