Disjointed Digression

We were at Target, doing a little shopping, when I came across something that I could use to get Zaida to be more of “my” dog. It was a doggy shirt. I used to say that people that dress thier pets are crazy, crazy I tell you! Wait a second, I am crazy, aren’t I. .
But I just thought it would be a good “fit” to turn the dog to the dark side. As you may or may not know I have a pirate flag hanging in my computer room.

So I thought it was very fitting to get a pirate shirt for Zaida!

Zaida likes to let you dress her, according to Candy, but after a while, Zaida get tired of it. When we got home, I put the shirt on her. What is kinda funny is that form the front it looks like Zaida is wearing a muscle shirt.
Being the freak that I am, I had to try to to get Queue into the shirt. It looked like it would fit. Candy was very much against me trying to put the shirt on Queue. But I couldn’t help myself, it just looked like it would fit on the cat too!
Me: “This will totally fit on the cat!”
Candy: “I’m not going to be a part of that! I am not helping you traumatize the cat.”
Me: “Awww,come on, he’ll look really cool!”
Candy: “He will claw the living shit out of whoever tries to put that thing on him.”
Me: “It’ll be worth it, he won’t claw that much.”something
Candy: “You go ahead, but you better not bleed on the carpet.”

So I grabbed the cat, calmed him down, then quickly stuffed the cat into the shirt. Oddly enough the cat didn’t scratch me once. But he was VERY unhappy about being in the shirt.

As you can see from the cats ears he is very pissed off. Taking the shirt off him was pretty easy, and again, he never scratched me. My cat puts up with my shit so well!

I’ve found a few movie trailers of films that I’m looking forward to seeing:

Watch the trailer! ’nuff said.

This looks goofy/funny and violent.

Spider-man 3. Venom!

I was not a big fan of the original Fantastic Four movie, but the Silver Surfer just looks soo fuckin’ cool!

BTW the pics are links to the trailers.

A little bit of oldish news…
Oct 2nd I started a new job! No more working nights! I really like my new job. I’m my company’s computer guy (so to speak). When I left my old job, my immediate supervisor (who had only just started) was pretty upset. I’m really glad I got a new job, I was not very happy with the manager at my old job. So, I’ve been at my new job almost three months and I still like it.

Another bit of old news, Queue has had the collar off for a long time. He only wore it for four days, by the end of that time, his scabs had gone away, He tried to scratch himself a few times, but he has healed fairly well.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Queue was scratching his head too much. We tried giving him allergy medicine, but that seemed to have no effect. We decided to get Queue one of those collars that will not allow him to scratch. One of those cone type things….
We came home, found the manx on the top of the recliner, one of his favorite perches. I held him down and Candy snapped the collar on him.

Needless to say, he was pretty upset about the situation. He hopped off the chair, and immediately started to freak out! I think he was seeing the cone in his peripheral vision and didn’t know what it was, so he kept backing up from it. After a few minutes of going around the room in reverse, he decided that he could not get away from the new blue thingie, so he started to cautiously walk around normally. Well, mostly normally, on every other step he’d bob his head as if he was trying to duck under something. If he bumped the side of the cone into anything, he’d back up or jump. Of course every time he bumped into something Candy would laugh. After a few dirty looks from me,she would just giggle, and finally the cat’s pitiful plight only made her snicker.
The next day I came home for lunch and to check on my poor manx. I was fearing the worst, thinking that somehow the cone was caught on the gate as he tried to jump over or something else that was extremely improbable. He was fine, but was moping. By his second day in the collar he seems to be adjusting to it, but still is not anywhere in the general vicinity of happy.
We hope that after a week (or less) the scabs on his head will have healed and he will not feel the need to scratch his head so much that he causes scabs. I guess if he goes back to scratching we’ll need to take him back to the vet and see where we need to go from there.

So I decided to check out Google Reader. It’s a RSS reader, you can collect all the blogs/news sites you read there an have them in one place. Of course you need to have a Google account, but you can make one on the login screen. Of course, if you have a gmail account you can use that to login in. I dropped Candy’s blog into, Dubious Quality, and Lifehacker to try it out. I think it’s pretty cool. I bet it has more features than use, but I think its a good app. If you use firefox, you can get a plugin/script to include google reader into gmail.

Queue has been scratching himself so that he makes scabs on his head and neck. So I took him to the vet. The vet thinks it might be an allergy so we decided to start simple and cheap. The vet suggested we change his food and water bowl from the plastic bowls he was eating out of. Also she told us to give him some over the counter allergy pills. I was even given a little device to shoot the pills down his throat.
We decided to go with an alternate method of getting the medicine into the manx. We crush up the pills and mix it into some wet cat food. Since we have to give him the medicine ever twelve hours, Queue has begun to anticipate his twice daily “treats”. He has began to hang out under the table about an hour before he thinks he should get his “treat”. And when his “treat” is being prepared he is constantly under foot in the kitchen and meowing. Zaida also goes into the kitchen anytime anyone heads into the kitchen.
I came home the other day and Candy told me about how Queue was hanging out under the table, and looking at her, looking at the kitchen. She said if he had a watch, he would have been glancing at it. Tonight, we were in the kitchen I began making Queue’s “treat”, Candy was making something for herself to eat, therefore Zaida was in the kitchen too. Now keep in mind that our kitchen is not very large. About the third time Candy almost tripped over one of the animals, in frustration she said “It’s like a furry obstacle course in here!”

The other day as I was perusing digg.com, I found an interesting article. The title was “Xbox 360 (with Hardrive) $339″. I thought maybe Microsoft had decided to lower the price… But wouldn’t they go to $349.99 instead of $339? Seeing how I don’t have an Xbox 360, I figured I’d check it out. The link took me here. In the event that sit goes away, it’s a deal site, one that tells you about good buys you can find from various websites or sometimes brick and mortar stores. This deal was for 15% off at Overstock.com. 15% off a $399 Xbox 360 = $339. Just the day before I had thought about buying one at a local Gamestop or Bestbuy. So I figured I can’t pass up a saving of $70. There was a catch, of course. You had to buy something that was not entertainment related with the Xbox 360 to get the discount. The site had some “filler” ideas. One of which was a cushioned mailer for 88 cents. So I raced over to Overstock.com via the link on the site and added an Xbox 360, a second wireless controller, a game and an 88 cent cushioned mailer to my cart. I hit checkout and BAM! $75 off. I had all of it for less than an Xbox 360 (+ tax) at a local store. Now I had a feeling that it was going to a mistake on Overstock’s part, that I’d get an email saying “Sorry, we won’t sell you the Xbox 360, but if you really want that cushioned mailer…”
No such email came, instead I got an email confirming the purchase and later one saying it had shipped.
Jump forward two days, I’m getting ready to go to sleep so I can get up in the evening and go to work, when there is a knock on the door. It’s the UPS man! He has a sizable box! It says Overstock.com! I barely contain myself as a scribble my name on the LCD tracking pad thingy.
I rush back in the house and open the box… See the contents below

I began to laugh hysterically.
I had gotten the first of 2 shipments. A box that was about 1 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot with a cushioned mailer in it. I had a great laugh at the situation.

You know I joke about putting the dog into the microwave to let her lick up any mess I make, not to cook her!
I have never acted on it of course. Unlinke this guy who proposed taping a piece of bacon to his cat…
Bacon on a cat!

[Listening to: Cat Scratch Fever - Pantera - Detroit Rock City Soundtrack (3:47)]

I just finished reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest.
Let me start off by explaining why I picked this book to read. To be completely honest, I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. About a month ago, I saw a trailer on Geekdrome for The Prestige. The problem with seeing a trailer on Geekdrome, is that you cannot hear it, due to the too guys talking about it. I stopped Geekdrome and downloaded the trailer. That day I ordered the book from Amazon. I have a bad habit of wanting to read a book before I see a movie. For some reason I cannot do it the other way round. Now, I had not seen the trailer for a few weeks, when I started the book, unfortunately I had see advertisements for a similar looking film called the Illusionist starring Ed Norton. Thus in reading the book, I was constantly imagining Ed Norton as one of the characters, even though the part is played by Hugh Jackman in the film. But I digress…

The Prestige is an interesting book. It is all about magicians at the turn of the 20th century, but it never gives away any magical secrets. That was not the reason I was reading it, I wanted a good story. I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, but I will admit that in the end, I felt like there should have been more. The story is in a general sense about a feud between two families, and about how it starts with two stage magicians in the late 1800s. Most of the story takes place in the late 1800s, and is told from the point of view of both magicians via memoirs. Not wanting to reveal too much, I will say that the story is compelling, but in some parts it could get bogged down.
I recommend reading it, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

After I finished the book, I went back and re watched the trailer for the movie. Already I’m seeing some differences in betwixt the novel and film. The film still looks good, but it also looks like it has been “hollywoodized”. Regardless, I think the movie will be good. I hope I can come back in a month or so when the movie is out and vindicate myself. Knowing my luck though…

Wanting to take a break from playing Warcraft, I popped in a DVD. A rented DVD. Hoodwinked! to be exact.
I rented it, because… well, um, I guess I the reason I rented it was because I think Patrick Warburton is a pretty good actor in odd roles (a la the live action Tick series). That and I giggled at a trailer where the squirrel says dynamite as D Na Me tay. Let me just say that I’m glad I rented it.
The movie is moderately ok. There are references to many other movies, some that the younger audience will probably not get. There is a big Fletch reference or three. XXX (The Vin Disel movie) has a few references too. A few other references are in there, I’m sure, but they escape me right now. And that’s not a big loss. This movie is mildly amusing. The best parts are in the trailer. Yeah, it’s one of those movies. The computer animation was great, in 1998. But compared to some other recent CGI/cartoon movies, it left much to be desired.
The story is contrived and obvious from the first few minutes. The voice acting was not bad. Pretty much a B-list (or lower) cast of actors provide the voices. Not that I dislike any of the actors, and they all seemed to be ok in the movie, but when the main characters are voiced by Anne Hathaway, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, Andy Dick and Xzibit it’s downhill from there. I got the feeling that when this was made, it was either rushed, or had a small budget. The thing is that it tries to imitate a Pixar or disney movie and it comes across that way. It comes across as a cheesy imitation of something good.
If you simply have to see this movie, either watch the trailer, borrow it, or rent it from the dollar for 3 weeks bin.