Thursday
Today’s highlight was watching Sissy and the twins play in the backyard. It was the first time that we have let the twins out; I’ve let Sissy out a couple of times. The kittens were very hesitant about “that place on the other side of the sliding glass door.” It’s one thing to look at it through the glass or the screen… being out in it? That’s an entirely different subject. But they ran around and explored. And played. Lightning chased a couple of bugs; Presto discovered a gap in the fence that leads to the front yard. (She just walked around the house and came in on the other side of the yard.)

While outside, I finally saw why one of the patches of grass has been turning brown: It wasn’t getting an adequate amount of water from the sprinkler. This was even more baffling since the sprinkler head is right next to that spot. *boggle* The sprinkler was spraying over that section of grass and the water that it was getting from an adjacent head was negligible. I may wind up replacing both heads.

Mary came by for a visit. She showed up as we were preparing dinner, so she stayed for a bite to eat and some after-dinner chat. And, I finally gave her the satellite dish that I’ve been meaning to give her for three weeks.

NPR and Other News
Morning Edition: Reducing Indoor Allergens Helps Kids with Asthma
Morning Edition: U.S. Traffic Dramatically Worse Since ’82 (Fuckin’ UDoT!)
Morning Edition: A Pint for a Pint (Leave it to Cleveland…)
Morning Edition: Cornerstone Festival: The Art of Landscape Design
Talk of the Nation: Islam in America
Day to Day: Math Puzzle Solution Could Impact Encryption Codes
Day to Day: The Gathering: Preserving the Sacred Healing Arts
All Things Considered: Civilization Is a Warm, Furry Pet

CNN.com: “Instant Karma’s gonna get you…” (thanks, )

WFIE: Baby Diaper… with two kinds of crack!

Stray Toasters

  • forwarded a link to: Vod-CA.
  • The Future Dictionary of America
  • Lightning had what Mary referred to as a “poo emergency.” It could have been FAR worse than it was. And, to be honest, after it was over… it was pretty amusing.
  • From the “Truth, Stranger than Fiction” file: Big John Toilet Seat
  • Seanbaby’s Super Friends Page

    The Super Friends somehow stayed alive for 10 years by hiring people who could talk to fish, match a cape to their underwear, and turn into a bucket of water. They fought everyone from supervillains to dolls from space to insane altruists who decided that making giant unstoppable mutant fish and running the Earth into a comet was the best way to solve our “food shortage.”

  • Another poker tournament. I came in 539 out of 5572 total entrants.
  • Sissy is sprawled out – and asleep – under my desk.
  • I got a message on IRC from an online friend with whom I’ve not chatted in a long time. We’ve maintained intermittent contact over the past few years, but nothing like we used to do when we first chatted with each other. It was a pleasant surprise.
  • If I come up with a power supply, I’m going to build another PC. Nothing major, just a rig to run a *nix OS and use as a firewall/gateway.
  • Margot Kidder is set to become the third alumn from the Superman movie franchise of the 70s/80s to join the cast of Smallville, along with Christopher Reeve and Annette O’Toole. She’ll be playing the assistant to Reeve’s Dr. Swann.
  • A tip of the hat to Heartless Wonder for pointing me to Kingdom of Loathing. (Like I needed yet another online distraction…)

Quote of the Day
[01:20] : some people go off the deep end, [name]‘s just hit the bottom of the marianas trench.

And that’s all.

Namaste.