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Monday, November 9th, 2009
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Light Echo, AKA My Friends Say Quotable Things on IM, an intermittent series. Starting with a bangpunintended using V838 Monocerotis, variable star and temperamental camwhore of the neighborhood. Monologue supplied by the illustrious ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) alexpshenichkin.
Workin' on the mashup, very slowly. Real life has intervened somewhat in the past week. Sugar the foster cat went to his new home, arctangent's juggling two plays, his involvement in one of which ends tomorrow night so that he can miss their final weekend in order to open the other one, which is driving him crazy because they're having trouble pulling everything together in the...four days they have left. Community theater is crazy hard, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
But hey, I bought a large squash, a close relative of the pumpkin, and after much cursing and grunting and a couple of destroyed dollar-store knives and waiting for Arthur to come home turned it into four batches of squash chocolate chip muffins.
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
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"A Glorious Dawn" dude stole my bit! (srsly go listen it's catchy as hell)
Okay, so it was really his bit first and I just asked to borrow it, but JEEZ, he hit every single one of my ideas along the way. Neil deGrasse Tyson. BILL NYE. USING FEYNMAN'S BONGOS AS THE DRUMLINE. Admittedly, he used different clips than the ones I was going to, but I feel like the master's already come in and shown us how it's done, why retread that?
So I'm setting my goals even higher.
I'm going to mash the two songs together.
FOR SCIENCE.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, October 16th, 2009
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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
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10/13, coming out of a four-day weekend
10/14, night two of really shitty sleep
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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Does anyone in the DC area needwant a couple of twin mattresses, excellent condition except for the frayed spot on one where the foster cat won't leave it the hell alone? (If so, do you also have a way to transport them?)
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
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I need to remember that I'm not just doing this because I'm an attention whore, I'm doing this because my daily-life memory is crap and I don't want to forget everything.
( chronicling )
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Sunday, October 11th, 2009
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There is all sorts of stuff going on in my life right now and I really need to write about it here at some point but major MAJOR thing that needs to be mentioned right now:
In ten days I and 34 other lucky people are going to be at NASA HQ downtown chatting directly with two astronauts - Jeff Williams and Nicole Stott - on the International Space Station.
I need questions to ask and topics to bring up that are not lame.
Examples of lameness: extremely technical questions about the workings of spacesuits, anything involving religion, and anything that can be easily answerable with a quick Google or a visit to Wikipedia. (Durr how do astronauts poop in space lol??)
HALP SUGGESTIONS PLS. I'm thinking possibly something about the Ares launch system which is currently in development and how it will affect the training of future astronauts, though any question would have to be a little less broad than that, obviously.
EDIT 10/12: jamison: Ask them if the windows open
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Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.
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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
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Hooooleeee shit, you guys. Watch this. Watch it now.
I just sat in a room with six astronauts who as recently as two months ago were floating in space and this was still more inspiring.
(I will entertain the possibility of cumulative effect but JUST WATCH IT ALREADY)
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Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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| Subject: | Remembering |
| Time: | 12:37 pm. |
| Mood: |  working. | | Music: | The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love. |
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( WIP )
If I'm not careful I'm going to be typecast as that chick who always puts talking animals in her stories, even though this is the only other one I've started since Friends in Need. Guess I'll send out some other stuff first.
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Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
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I got in bed early last night due to extreme tired and Arthur came in to chat for a while. We still hadn't put a lid on the hamster cage because the lid was pretty powerfully attached to all the tubing that normally leads to the upper cage, and we didn't want to give Conan a direct escape route. I had, however, put a cardboard box that formerly held sandwich baggies into the cage to give him a new house, since he hadn't built a new nest yet and the sunlight and then lamp-light seemed to be interfering with his sleep.
Arthur left to go back to his computer in the living room and immediately started swearing and rummaging through the papers on the kitchen table. I came out to help and we quickly determined that he couldn't have gone far. Indeed, he was on the floor under the table. We cornered him easily and captured him again.
As far as we can tell, he waited until we were both out of the room, then immediately stood on the box, jumped up, hooked his paws over the edge of the cage, and chin-upped himself out. I knew all that wheel-running wasn't just to get rid of nervous energy - obviously we need to revise upward his estimated jump height.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, September 14th, 2009
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The hamster escaped sometime yesterday or the night before. Cinnamon may have been trying to alert us, but we couldn't separate any particular warning from her usual pay-attention-to-me meows. This is Conan's third escape, and the first one involving more than one step - I left a top vent on his upper cage open, stupidly thinking that airflow was more important than the tiny chance he might be able to jump that high. Conan pushed his plastic hidey-log over to that corner and stood on that to jump up and climb out the vent. I don't think he was dumb enough to drop directly to the floor again (at least I hope not), and there were other ways off the desk that both involved much smaller leaps to squishy pillows and couch arms.
Anyway. We figured the apartment is pretty well-sealed and he would turn up eventually, and were pretty sure we could hear him under the fridge, so we left well enough alone for the evening. I took the opportunity to dump out his bedding and scrub down both cages. I put new bedding into the aquarium but left the rest of the reassembly for tomorrow; I strained my back somehow a few days ago and wanted to go easy. Everything remained on the floor for the night.
This morning I crawled out of bed and went through my groggy morning routine. Sometime in the middle of eating breakfast I suddenly looked over at the aquarium and saw Conan pressed against the glass, peering at me with his angry little beady-eyes. He had no food and water but was securely back in the cage, and had probably been stuck there for hours.
I didn't waste time thinking about it at first - I just gave him some food, which he ate, and water, which he drank, and moved the cage to the kitchen table. I figured Arthur had gotten up in the middle of the night and stumbled across Conan foraging for catfood bits, then deposited him in the cage for safekeeping. But Arthur has denied all involvement, and this would be a weird prank even for him.
Catching a wary and unwilling hamster and putting him in a safe place is a little involved for sleepwalking, but the aquarium was on the floor, and it wouldn't have been difficult for a quick-but-not-hungry cat to catch Conan and drop him in there. The problem is that the only cat around here is Cinnamon, and I've said before that I consider her to be dumb as a box of rocks and not particularly nimble. She does carry toys around in her mouth when she's playing, but she's never demonstrated the speed I imagine one would need to corner and detain Conan.
The only other thing we can think of is that he went back in there willingly, but unless he's learned to teleport I can't imagine how he got in there. There was nothing close enough to jump from and no way to climb the outside.
Conan appears uninjured (as always) and is already plotting his next escape. Cinnamon is lying around (as always) looking pleased with herself. The mystery may never be solved.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, August 30th, 2009
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Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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Alex tamed the kitten in the two days I stayed home. She still panics when you come into her room and try to handle her, but it seems to be more out of habit than anything else, since she starts to purr as soon as you pick her up. On the living room couch, she sat next to me and on me and on my keyboard and purred like a little motorboat and made multitudinous blissed-out faces. Tonight was the first time she licked my fingers, and the first time she unambiguously butted my hand for more scritches. As neither Mamacita nor Cinnamon are cuddlers, this was a great comfort.
If you put her on the floor she snaps back into feral mode and zips off to find somewhere to hide, but this might be because Mamacita doesn't like her much and she may feel intimidated. We fished her out from under the bed several times - she would zoom under there and then give us a confused "Did I just do that?" look. She moved away from Alex when he tried to reach under and get her, but just sniffed my hand and let me drag her out by her scruff. She loves Mommy more. <3
I'm suddenly going to Lexington on Friday, so Cinnamon's going to miss this adoption fair, but Alex will still take Sasha over. She's going to steal the whole show, I can tell already. She's not going to be ours much longer.
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Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
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All my pictures of the rescued kitten have been crap, but Alex finally took a good one. Sasha looks all DEATH FROM ABOVE, when really she's just hiding in the window frame behind the blinds because humans are kind of scary.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, August 24th, 2009
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EBAY LISTING IS LIVE - CLICK TO SEE.
Auction will run for 7 days starting right now. For the love of all that is D, tell your friends. Crosspost! Bring it up in random conversation! ;)
So I posted a while back about winning some sort of Engadget giveaway of a mysterious nature. Long story short, I got in a flamewar with an artist I admire from afar about what Americans could be reasonably expected to do in support of the Iran election protests, given that direct involvement could potentially harm more than it helped and not everybody is a proxy wizard.
He and I both walked away super-pissed in spite of being ostensibly on the same side; twenty minutes later I got the email saying I'd won the giveaway. I declared there and then on Twitter that I'd set aside something from the mystery grab bag for an ebay Auction For Iranian Democracy.
But first, let me tell you the tale of Engadget: The Unboxening.
( Warning: image-heavy. )
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Friday, August 21st, 2009
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Someday I will post pictures of Conan the Hamsterian, imprisoned lo these six weeks in the Dungeon of the Evil Giants.
He is the pinnacle of all hamsters, enormous and muscular and I'm sure quite virile, judging by the way his testes make up at least a third of his body.
He is also considerably smarter than my past several small pets, and maniacally driven. This has led to one escape by climbing out an open lid-hole that previous occupants had simply been unable to reach, after which he was promptly recaptured; and a second escape by lifting a supposedly-secure cover off one of the unused tube ports in his secondary cage and surviving a 5.5-foot drop onto a stone floor, which lasted several days and led me to construct an elaborate pit trap baited with peanuts, his favorite treat, and which he obstinately refused to fall into. (He ate the peanuts, though.)
Both times I have been alerted to his presence by the ever-faithful Cinnamon the Foster Cat, who has no front claws and the feline instincts of a wet log. She gets very excited when he's loose on the floor but does nothing but follow him around, occasionally letting out a particularly emotive chirp and batting at him playfully. This last time she chased him into the bedroom and I heard him scrabbling around on the cardboard boxes stacked under the bed.
You have to understand, we named him in jest, playing off his great size and strength, but the name's proved too apt. Conan watched me apply duct tape to the port covers, tested the one he escaped through previously to confirm that he could no longer lift it, and turned immediately to Plan B, gnawing on the inside of his plastic tube. When someone comes over to look at him he will stop what he's doing and stare out through the glass walls of his prison. Arthur and I feel like movie villains.
(1:02:44 AM) Eliza: I CAUGHT CONAN
(1:03:05 AM) Eliza: ALSO I DUCT-TAPED THE COVERS DOWN SO HE'S GOING TO HAVE TO BE CLEVERER THAN THAT NEXT TIME
(1:03:09 AM) Arthur: Ha!
(1:03:14 AM) Arthur: And that brings an end to his saga of heroism!
(1:03:16 AM) Arthur: For good, I say!
(1:03:20 AM) Eliza: MUHAHAHAHAHA
(1:06:01 AM) Eliza: Well, he had the run of the apartment for several days and was either too lazy to leave or couldn't.
(1:06:22 AM) Eliza: So I guess if he escapes again we don't have to worry too hard.
(1:07:02 AM) Eliza: I can totally see him just setting up under the bookshelf in smug male hamster fashion, though.
(1:07:16 AM) Eliza: "I claim this Stone Desert as my rightful territory!"
(1:08:52 AM) Arthur: Cinnamon foiled him again.
(1:08:54 AM) Arthur: You two make a good team.
(1:08:56 AM) Eliza: Yeah.
(1:08:59 AM) Arthur: "Someday I will slay that great beast!"
(1:09:04 AM) Eliza: She is the watch-monster.
(1:09:08 AM) Arthur: "Without its powers of scent the Evil Giants are helpless!"
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
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Kitten is female, and was very sweet at the vet. Took her shots and dewormer like a little trooper with no hissing or struggling, and seemed frightened but still extremely curious about the car ride there and back. She spent a lot of time watching the trees pass overhead. Perhaps growing up in a parking lot has given her some basic familiarity with car sounds.
I still don't have pics uploaded, sorry. I'm very tired. "Sasha" has gone into the vet records and is her name until she's adopted, though it doesn't feel especially fitting. Next time around I'll have a list of names prepared for surprise guests.
The vet said her tail is probably an "old" injury (though at 12-14 weeks there is very little that can be said to be old about her). It's completely healed and doesn't seem to bother her. She's very healthy, astonishingly ear-mite-free, and negative for all the bad stuff - FIV/FeLV, etc. This combined with her seemingly good-natured adaptability bodes well for getting her adopted quickly. I can't visit Alex every single night, and I don't think bringing her over here would do much for Cinnamon's disposition - she seems to want to latch onto one person and not share them with anyone or anything else.
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Spent several hours in the kitten room last night. Kitten shot out from under the futon when I sat down and spent some time glaring at me from the windowsill. Eventually it moved from there to the upright TV box Alex had stored in there. This worked great for about an hour until the kitten shifted, slipped, and fell inside.
There was no way to get it out without pulling the whole box from behind the stored furniture and dumping its contents, so I got a clean towel and hauled the kitten out by the scruff. It howled bloody murder but didn't struggle. I figured since I had it in my power, I might as well use the chance, so I gave it a quick once-over.
Found: Flea poop, couple of fleas, probable vagina. I still don't trust my kitten-sexing abilities 100% so I'm just going to say "it" until the vet confirms. Solid-orange tabby females are somewhat rare - lots of females carry the genes but the end result gets overwritten by other color types such as tricolor (calico). Given that her/its mom was also an orange tabby, I guess the conditions were right in this case.
Kitten appears to have no tail at all. What I thought was a broken stump was actually a tuft of fur. It has the tiniest nubbin the width of a chopstick, about proportional to the tailbone on a human, which it can control just enough to curl over its butthole. I still have no idea whether this was a very early injury or a birth defect; there's no sign of a wound.
I decided to further push my luck. I wrapped the kitten securely in the towel and sat with it in my lap, stroking its head gently and talking in a low voice. It made angry little grumbling sounds for a while but eventually quieted and may have briefly nodded off. Eventually it relaxed enough to notice the fresh food on its plate a couple feet away and look longingly toward it, nostrils flaring. I tried to see if it would eat while still in my lap, but eventually released it to see what it would do, which ended up being "zip back under the futon". Still, I feel that we shared a Moment.
Any gains I made last night will probably be erased in the process of cramming it into the cat carrier and taking it to the big scary vet this evening, but I feel it's coming along splendidly. I have a few bad pics but was too tired to upload them last night.
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lethargic.
infuriated.
drained.
tired.
refreshed.
aggravated.
cranky.
groggy.
grieving.