Scrappy Blog

Was sitting at the edge of the cat-apault (formerly known as the treadmill) putting on my sneakers, when I felt something tickling my arm.  Sure enough, there was the Koshka cat, exploring the treadmill.  She seemed remarkably unconcerned.

K says she was smart enough to realize that it wasn’t on, and that she’s safe if the motor isn’t running.  I am not certain he’s right, but she did skedadle when I stood up to stretch.  So hypothesis 1 is that she understands the on/off thing.  Hypothesis 2 is that she thinks it’s safe if I’m sitting next to her but isn’t willing to try it on her own.

Interesting to watch her make new connections about the world in that furry little brain of hers…

I stopped at the grocery on Thursday night – I was in the mood for something fresh for dinner.  Standing in line with my little basket of veggies and meat, I observed the customers around me.  The four other people in my line were young men between the ages of 20 and 35 (I’m guessing).

Bachelor #1 was buying:  Two large boxes of Wheaties.  A jug of milk.  A half-gallon of ice cream.
Bachelor #2 was buying: Two foot-long premade sandwiches.  Two 2-liter bottles of diet Coke. A bag of corn chips.
Bachelor #3 was buying: Large box “success” brand rice. Large-size can of something (couldn’t quite see what).  Large bottle generic cola.
Bachelor #4 was buying: Bottle wine.  Two packs beer. Box Hamburgur helper (no actual meat – assume he has some at home?)

Made me wonder what bachelors ate 100 years ago, before there was so much pre-packaged sustenance food available…

So I’m doing my routine computer hygeine maintenance stuff (backing up files, etc) – long overdue, of course.  I was reminded by this AM’s thunderstorms.

And I keep coming across all this stuff about the various ways you can keep your PC/Windows machine all clean and spiffy.  I never see stuff like that for the Mac.  Do Macs have problems with registry errors, spyware, malware, etc?  At minimum I’d think a sniffer for duplicate files would be useful. 

Any Mac users out there, who can point me to good Mac hygeine tools?

Several of my flist have noted they simply don’t want to discuss this topic because they are upset – so I’ll put my post behind a cut.

Title on a draft for a journal submission, written by someone whose English is known to be a bit questionable:

“On the importance of G Strings for strong binding”.

Hmmmm….

We put our new treadmill in place weeks ago, but today’s the first time (after lots of sniffing, watching, hovering around) that the cat stepped onto the moving belt.

The results were pretty much as you’d imagine…

… was sleepwalking because she dreamed someone was about to drop her baby.

Managed to trip and give herself a skull fracture.

Wow.

So my job  changed slightly a few months ago (same job, same people, slight change in title) and supposedly I was to keep my insurance just as it was.

But didn’t have a reason to check that out until recently; went to fill a prescription.  They inform me my insurance is expired.

HR tells me it’s because I didn’t attend “New Employee Orientation”.

Um, guys, I’ve worked for you in one capacity or another for… well, around ten years now.  You’ve made me attend new employee orientation four times already, so far.  I already hold the department record for most times required to attend new employee orientation!

No matter.  I have to attend if I want health insurance.  

SIgh.

I saw a new patient today, who’d made an appointment for evaluation of headaches.

In the course of the conversation his wife mentioned he has episodes where he “hears voices”.  He’d recently lost a job because he spent too much time talking to those voices.

I asked whether he can tell the difference – for example, could he tell the difference between my voice and one of those voices.

“Oh, sure,” he said.  “Those voices are different. They’re like… you know, when God talks to you.”

“You think that the voices are God?”

“No, ” (looks at me like I’m an idiot) “It’s just that they sound the exact same way that it sounds when God talks to you.”

I just gotta say, I didn’t find this reference helpful, ’cause I’ve never had a personal conversation with God. Obviously, my background is insufficient to really relate to this man’s experience…

Yeah, I know everyone and his brother are commenting on that. I can’t help joining in.  Thoughts:

• Natural death… or murder?  If he was going to die under the strain of it all, why not when the guilty verdict was first passed?  Alternative explanations might include suicide, or murder – is it harder for lawsuits to get their hands on money that’s been passed on to his wife?
• Boy, I guess that gets someone out of the nasty job of figuring out how to sentence him.
• Legal fees paid?  I bet his lawyer has invested a lot of hours in his civil and criminal suits, was it pay-as-you-go?
• Will the public now turn to Skilling as the demon du jour, since their favorite whipping boy is gone?
• I can’t find anything on the web about it, but supposedly one of the Colorado papers had a headline “God pardons Ken Lay”.  Snicker.