Just testing the Picasa's feature of "Blog This!" Probably a lot easier than fiddling through files and all that crap, while for Picasa I can just pick one and blog it right away. I don't like the lack of tags (they call it keywords), and no smart albums where I can group pictures with a specific tag. The one that comes with Vista is much better, however, no "Blog This!" feature. Oh the agony of trying to pick!

Long overdue

Aww! Don't they look cute with their tails crossed? That's probably the first time that I've seen that happen, especially these two.










When I paint, I leave my oil paints on a wax paper and add linseed oil to keep it fresh. Well, I left the door open, and look what happened. One of these two above cats did this mess.



I suspected that Hobbes did it because he can be very silly. I checked his paws...no paint. Guess who.

At least it's the colors of my Alma Mater, Mountain Lakes H.S.

Adopted deaf child returned...

I was reading up on forums, and I was appalled at what I read.

DeafMom explains it better than I do.

Basically, someone adopted a child. The child was discovered to be deaf. The child does not qualify for CI (I have no idea why though). The child was returned to the adoption agency.

All I can say is WTF?!

This pissed off so many people. Nice to know that they think deaf people are disposables.
The couple got pregnant and now they'll be loving parents. Excuse me while I gag.

Pleasure

You know, every once in a while, you just have to treat yourself. Whether it's a facial, a massage, a hot steaming bubble bath, a chocolate éclair, anything you want for little or no cost.

Today, I went to 7-11 to get some milk and ice cream. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my pleasure. I thought to myself, eh. Who cares? I got myself a nice 18" Slim Jim. I used to eat that all the time when I was working at cat-only hospital, and Eddie would buy it for me from time to time. I haven't had it in so long.

I hurried home, peeled off the ever so familiar wrapping, and took my first pleasurable bite into the skin, and biting into the meat of the Slim Jim. Oh, the pleasure!
And...it only cost me a buck.

I get hot steaming bubble baths all the time. Facials is not my thing. Slim Jim satisfied my need to have pleasure.

What's your pleasure?

Denied Shakes

http://deafmomworld.com/

Scroll down to the story how this Deaf mother of 3 deaf children was denied service at Steak and Shake (Midwest Fast food type of thing). She was on ABC last night. I've heard some stories like this from time to time. I've only gone through the drive through 3 times and only one time I had to say, "Yo, I'm deaf and all I want is shake." then the person on the speaker would keep talking and talking. I would just ignore him/her. Other times I would walk inside to order to avoid having this to happen. This mom just wanted 2 shakes. How difficult is that for an employee to do? I've worked at McDonald's and yes sometimes we get held up by rush hour, but we never deny people service. I know a friend that comes to my McDonald's all the time, and she has to bring a paper to the window. The little problem with going past the window is that the person behind the deaf customer will give the order, and if the deaf person gives the order through the window, it can mess up the order a little bit. Does that make sense?
Even though the deaf culture/deaf community and people that are deaf are increasingly becoming recognized, we still struggle through issues like this. Sure, there has been major issues with someone who is deaf and denied service/interpreters/medical issues and what not. The deaf mom did not deserve to be treated this way...especially when she is capable of speaking, and all she wanted was 2 shakes from her favorite place. She deserves free shakes for a year.

Bath Time

Yesterday, I went to UCC to start my new classes for the Spring. When I arrived, I saw that there wasn't a lot of cars there. I thought it was weird. I went inside, and proceeded to my classroom. The door was locked. It was 1:58pm, and I thought it was impossible that no one was there yet. Then I thought, perhaps they moved the room (which would be very odd because there's only two drawing studios).
I went up to where the class schedules are and the room numbers to check. I saw it says "Start: 1/24/08" Oh DUH! I got confused because I was told that classes start the week of 1/21/08. Whatever.

Roy gave Mocha a bath last night as she was flaking and having dry skin. She was very good. It wasn't until after the bath that I totally forgot about the Golden Rule...clip your cats nails before giving a bath. Good thing Mocha didn't fight!

On a sad note, it was sad to hear that Heath passed away. I thought he was so cute in 10 things I Hate About You. Life sucks sometimes.

Interesting eh?

Click here

I stumbled across this website. I was searching pictures of placement of the CI. Some are high above the ear and others are just right next to the ear. I guess it all depends on where is a good location for the CI to countersink in the skull.
Anyways, I came across this picture. I thought it was very interesting. I've always wanted a white cat with blue eyes, and I still do.
This is the first time that I've seen a CI in an animal. I have seen BAHA in a dog once, it's not the same as CI.

Interesting eh?

Cat Genie

Whenever people invent something to make human lives easier to deal with cats, I stray from it. Nothing is better than just a good old fashion litter box and a pooper scooper. That's what you have to deal with for cats. Same idea goes for dogs, you deal with poop.

http://www.catgenie.com/

It's much like LitterMaid, but ooooh...it's flushable! Oh wow I'm so IMPRESSED! *sarcasm*

Seriously, no, I'm not getting this litter box. I like the litter boxes that I have. One covered, one open, both XXL. This way the cats have a choice which ones to use.

Hobbes has the tendency to lift up his butt while he pees instead of just straight down like Mocha. I don't know WHY he does it, but that's how he takes a piss. Just like men take a piss in various ways. So, sometimes when he does that, there's a spot of pee on the wall of the litter box down to the litter. No big deal, after a month of using scoopable litter, I clean the litter boxes very well with mild soap and water, and it's good to go.

LitterMaid and Cat Genie does not have high walls. And God forbid that if Hobbes took a piss inside the hole where the "scoop" is.

If someone cannot deal with poop/pee, then DON'T GET A CAT! Simple!

Types of litter is a different story. I have tried the following:
Johnny Cat - what a crappy litter. It's basically clay, and not good.
World's Best Litter - made out of corn. Many vegans/vegetarians are partial to this one
because if it gets stuck on the cats paw, it's okay. Plus it's flushable. However, for me - I could smell it through my apartment. If it was in the basement, then maybe. Expensive though.
Tidy Cat Scoopable - Better than Johnny cat, but has a sandy feel to it, very hard to vacuum from carpets, and doesn't clump very well
Fresh Step - very good litter, but for some reason, my cats hate it. (They wouldn't bother covering up their "messes", and when I had one box with Fresh Step and the other box with Scoopaway, they liked the Scoopaway better).

Scoopaway - Clumps very well, doesn't smell at all, my cats love it, and it's what I've been using for years.

I picked Scoopaway because my cats PREFER that way. It's like some people prefer an oval toilet bowl over a circle toilet bowl. I also use unscented because Roy is very sensitive to smell, so no perfumey smell anywhere. I think I like that better anyways, because if you smell perfumes or odor control stuff for the house, you can tell that something is being covered up.

Roy would love to try to teach Hobbes to use the toilet. But first, he has to teach Hobbes to STOP drinking from the toilet.

Gotta go pee now.

New Beginnings...

While I will maintain this blog as my personal blog, I have created another blog that focuses on my cochlear implant journey. I don't think I've been so excited about something in a long while.

http://cyborgqueen.blogspot.com

Since January 1st, my life has been so crazy. Running around getting things done. Cleaning up the apartment in between errands and doctor's appointments, and I thought December was crazy when I ended up in the hospital due to a seizure-like episodes. To this day, the doctors have no clue what exactly had happened. All the tests pointed out normal/negative. I still have to take anti-seizure medication. What a drag. For the first time, I have to take something twice a day, for a medical reason. Cold pills, birth controls, antibiotics doesn't count because they're not long term...well, maybe with a small exception of birth control. But nevermind that, it took a bit of pushing from Roy to keep up with my pills. Good thing that it's firmly planted in my head, and I won't forget. :-)

I went to my mom's house to get rid of all my "shit" as she calls it. No more storing my stuff at her place. She wants to renovate the basement so it's habitable. She wants to have a bar, close off the water heater, heating ducts, washer/dryer, make a panstry closet (what's wrong with the two they have on first floor? It's filled with shit). She wants to have a slot machine down there, and all the bells and whistles of having a furnished basement. I think she's slightly crazy, but it's her house, she can do whatever she wants. She ought to keep this in mind that the cats' litter box is downstairs, and that means she has to clean it EVERYDAY (instead of every other day or once a week?!), plus she needs to put TWO litter boxes. Poor Baby, 16 year old cat, trotting his big body downstairs just to take a piss. Yeah. We'll see how *that* goes. (Yes, my mother reads my blog, but doesn't comment. "Don't have time." She says. Sure.)

Anyways, the whole point is, I found over 150 VHS tapes of mine. Many have Reba stuff on it. Thank goodness for TViO, I can now transfer snippets of what I want on a DVD instead of putting the full 3 hours of CMA awards or something. Found childhood stuff, found my HS diploma, which I needed it for something. Sometimes it's nice to take a look through my stuff every once in a while, but jeez that's a lot of stuff. Then it hit me, I'm just like Roy.

2008 is looking to be a good year. I know sometime down the road I'll face an obstacle, but i think I can handle it.

Christmas

Christmas was uneventful. Nothing really special, just a simple Christmas with all of the families. Roy's nephew got a Wii from everyone, and he was pretty excited. Roy's brother bought the Wii like 4 or 5 months ago...and he was dang lucky.

I didn't get too much, so that's the good thing! I got Super Paper Mario, which I have been wanting for months. I was hoping to get Super Mario Galaxy...no biggie, I got enough gift certificates to buy a bunch of stuff that I want off Amazon. :-)

I'm playing Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. I'm giving this another shot. It's a helluva intensive game to play (200+ hours), plus you're not just stuck with one character, you can create dozen of others. First character I created was something that I found off the internet that sounded good. WRONG. She could do shit with melee stuff, and awful with people, it was just dumb. I started over again, after I put in about 4 to 5 hours in the first one. This time I thought was a little bit better, however, the skills were slightly better, but the major/minor skills were crap. I got a great weapon, Steel Sparkmauler (who the hell comes up with these names?!). Did very well, but for the life of me, I could not figure out why I couldn't slash and chop...I was just thrusting my weapons. Duh. Figured it out later. I was not satisfied with this character as well as I hated the major/minor skills system because I knew it would take me quite a long time just to raise my level. I put in about 10 to 12 hours total in this one.
Third time is a charm. I found a GREAT user guide to explore every single skill, every birth sign, every class, every race in detail. Because I like my character to be involved with Magic, but I also like to have some combat. The first thing the game asks me is a name. I wanted a fantasy name. Then I thought, Kahlan from Sword of Truth series. *sound of a light bulb turning on* I decided to mold my character to be just as similar as her. I had to modify my skills set slightly.
She is an Imperial Race, under the sign of Astronach, with good combat skills and good magic skills.
So far, I played about 4 hours, and she is fabulous. She kills mudcrabs very easily with one shot (while my other characters took about 3 or 4 shots to kill), and she will level up pretty quickly.

There are cheats out there to level up easily, but I ain't doing that! There are some players that can finish the game in 10 minutes. I ain't doing that either. Some hard core players will join every guild, every faction, and complete Main quests, and Misc quests, and THAT my dah-lings, I'm doing. :-) I ought to keep track of my hours....

If you're curious what this game looks like, just go to youtube.com, and search for Morrowind. Simple.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas.