Why the Rich Live Longer

More fodder for the proposed upper-middle-class punk rock band.

Of course, since some catching up is in store, let's go for a $100,000 family car.

--gh

MoveOn.org: The movie the White House DOESN'T want you to see...

According to MoveOn, the Bush White House does not want you to see "The Day After Tomorrow."

Okay, I think this is proof that MoveOn.org has completely gone off the deep end, or in my opinion the web page has been spoofed. Is MoveOn in the pocket of Twentieth Century Fox? Where was MoveOn.org when it was time to promote these other disaster films?
-The Core
-Independence Day
-Towering Inferno
-Earthquake
-Dude, Where's My Car?
-Gigli (I am just following a band-wagon that says this movie must be made fun of... sorry.)

I thought MoveOn.org was about real issues facing this country? If they want to get a movie full of obvious fallacies more attention, they should follow M.Moore's lead and win at Cannes... (How did Fahrenheit9/11 beat Shrek 2 anyhow?)

--gh

Cute Stationary

To prove that I could find ANYTHING in an image search, I searched for dogs in diapers. Actually, there were four pages of it using a google image search.

Then, I came across this adorable picture:


It came from a collection of stationary from Dewdrop, Inc. Notice that ALL of them appear normal, except for the "Dog in Diaper" example.

--gh

Google Image NAME Search

Okay, here is the Google Image NAME Search game.

The rules of this game are simple. Use the Google Image search utility to find names that yield consistent results, such as nerdy, redneck, and extremely hot, or uglyish. No, this is not a particularly nice game, and it plays into stereotypes of self-image. But, you could also look at it as an interesting sociological study. Oh, a variant of this game is to find VERY INCONSISTENT images that range from ugly to hot. Also, a side-game is to find common names for pets. (Note to society: Pets should be given names like Rex, Wishbone, and Spot, not Samantha.)

W A R N I N G
You need to select SAFE MODE ON before playing this game. I am not responsible for nekkidly results, otherwise.

Example:
At first, you might think that a name like Alessandra is FAR too hot for reality. Well, just notice that many of the photos are similar. There is a model named Alessandra Ambrosio that will skew these results. (Too many pictures because she is popular.) So, use the minus switch (-ambrosio) as a search modifier to reveal that even all the normal Alessandra's are still above average.

Mark emailed me today with a new hot name, Verena.

This morning I just heard of an 37-year-old Arkansas women who gave birth to her 15th child. Father's name was JimBob. It is hard to find a JimBob that does not look like a redneck. I know that this is from a joke page, though:


--gh

No 'Saddams' among Iraqi babies

I was playing a game that Mark and I made up using the Google Image search to find consistency among names. Some names yield consistently hot, nerdy, or weird images. I will have to blog on that with more details later.

However, I came across this story from Aljazeera. No one is named Uday, Qusay, or Saddam since the war began. Even funnier, you used to get paid if your birthday landed on Saddam's (April 28), some kind of Iraqi lottery or something.

Could this be used as a gage of Iraqi sentiment? No one has named their son Saddam, so he is clearly unpopular. No one has named their son Bush, either. However, a man in Falluja did name his son UBL...

--gh

I'm addicted to Toqer

Finally got a fat pipe into my home. Actually, this is the first I have ever had the Internet in my home. Pretty odd for someone who has been teaching online for over five years.

Now I can devote much of this 'blog to sharing the junk that I find on the web. First, I have found that the best use of a 24/7 broadband connection is to waste it with non-stop Internet radio and Internet TV.

That's where Winamp, the 7 Bamboo Karaoke Lounge and Toqer come in. This self-professed Internet-Karoke-Geek is so bad, he is awesome. Just search the Winamp Intenet TV channels for Karoke genre, or Toqer himself...
--gh

Friendster Alternatives

The personalities on TechTV were complaining that Friendster is so five minutes ago. Check out these Friendster alternatives for other social networks.

And don't laugh about the TechTV thing...
--gh

I hate Red Rocks

I have never been to a concert at Red Rocks.

But every time I see a preview for a concert that is pay-for-view, or even the DirecTV FREEview at that place I get irritated.

I think I hate ANY concert taped at Red Rocks. Every commercial seems to imply that the location seems to add to the concert. Well, whatever that exhilarating experience is, it does not travel through the airwaves.

This week it's Blues Traveler. Sure, that guy is cool. I just HATE RED ROCKS.

--gh

End of the cat story

Okay, here is the conclusion to yesterday's cat tales:

When I went home, it was two hours later than I should have. The Vet said to feed the cat every two hours, and it had been five or something. But it was fine, and sleeping and stuff. I fed it from the bottle again, and it picked right up. My wife and I later wondered if newborn things have adrenaline or something in them that makes them want to live so bad. A three-day old kitten might actually not survive that kind of neglect, but a 12-hour old one just keeps plugging away.

My daughter tried to get us to agree to keep it forever, which is not in my plans. We already have a dog and don't need any more anuses in the house. (Sorry for the language, but it gets the point across.) After dinner we had to head to the boy's ball game, so we talked to our neighbor, Kathy, about finding the mother and seeing if it would take the kitten back. We did finally find it, it was a very young cat, one of those teenage pregnancy things, I guess. Kathy already found another kitten in her yard all stiff and with its mouth open. She had disposed of it in her garbage can. I finally felt better that I maybe did not decrease the kitten's chances the previous night, it was destined to be the feline equivalent of a crack baby or something.

The mother had no interest in Weeness the kitten. In fact, she tried to bite it. She did like some balogna and cheese that we gave it, though. She had no milk sacks going anyhow, so it was a real lost cause. We asked Kathy to watch this kitten for us while we went to the game.

When we got back, we heard the rest of the story. I don't want to belabor this, it's actually quite funny.

First, the kitten that was thrown away was not dead, the warmed up trashcan revived it. When Kathy picked up some garbage from the yard and opened the can, kitten #2 had crawled to the top and wanted out. It's hard to believe these kittens were less than a day old. Now there are two kittens to save.

Kathy went to my other neighbor's house, the actual source of these cats to try one last effort. She enlisted the help of a "veteran" mother, a 7-10 year-old cat named Oreo who took care of eight kittens last summer, and only 4 were hers. Well, Oreo lived up to her obligation as uber-mater, and licked the kittens, and took them to nurse.

So that is really the end of the story. I might have actually saved the kitten by beating its mother on the head with a shoe because Oreo is a wonderful surrogate mother.

I took note of a few tell-tale spots on Weeness, so maybe I will write about him again this summer. Probably won't make it through next winter, though.... not my problem.

--gh

BigChurch!

Saw this while trying to join a Yahoo Group. I could not get into the Yahoo group, because I am a yahooo or something.

On this website you can choose "Man seeking a Woman" or "Woman seeking a man" with a random scripture verse below. This is somewhat limiting, so I am planning on sending an email to them with my suggested additions:

"Man seeking pet"
"Woman seeking any relationship that is not abusive"
"Hermaphrodite seeking acceptance"
"L337 us3r s33k1ng n3wbi3z!"
"LOTR fan seeking life"

--gh

Meow Culpa Part Two (Mew)

Read below to see how I got here...

Okay, now I had a wet, near-dead, scrawny kitten and two children up and about. My son and I searched for the mother and potential litter, while my daughter rubbed the kitten dry and warmed it under a lamp.

We never found mother, but saw 5 other cats giving me the eye.

My daughter wanted to call in sick to stay home from school to take care of it. I promised that I would do my best, so after dropping both kids off at school I visited the Vet. She said that the chances are slim, but sold me powder milk and a bottle to feed it.

I was able to get about 10ml of milk into this kitten, and it made its first bowel movement. By 10 am it was strong enough to climb my shirt as I sat in the recliner. Also, I had it next to Terra and it tried to nurse off of her. She gave me this pitiful look as if to say "why do you do things like this to me?"

It has been about two hours, so now I should go home and check on it. Either it is dead, or it is even stronger.

Despite my daughter's protest, I will try to call it WeeNess. Since that is Haddock-slang for making water, it is kind of a cruel name. I am also tempted to name it Dusty, since that is the name I gave to several other kittens that I tried to take in and care for (but died in 20F nights). Maybe the name "Dusty" is a curse, so I will stick with Weeness as long as I can.

I wonder if Weeness is hungry again.

I really do not want a cat.

--gh

Meow Culpa

Okay, this may be a multi-day series of posts, or it may be concluded quickly. Let me begin with my mea culpa: Yes, I scared off a cat who was giving birth, subsequently abandoning a newborn kitten. Before you hate me, let me explain.

If you have spent any time with me, you may have learned that my patience with the cats next door grows thin. Three years ago, there were 40+ cats. Now there is about 7-10, but two or three are pregnant this spring, so the numbers may rise again. Some of these cats give birth twice in a year. And these are very healthy cats, good tabby stock, only winter and cars seem to kill them off.

The past few weeks I have become agitated with some of these cats stealing baby rabbits out of a den, and then playing with them letting them squeal, etc. I hate that part about cats, maybe because it is the part of them that reminds me of human nature. Last night, I heard this squealing, and as I was letting the dog wet the grass, I decided to do something about it.

The corner was dark, but I can tell there was a cat, and it was working on something that was squealing like a caught rabbit. Having enough, I hit that cat with my shoe to make it give up. The dog just stared as the cat hissed and then ran off. Either she knew what was going on, or is too bored with the cats to give chase. (I suspect the latter.) Expecting to find a rabbit, and wondering if I could really re-connect it with its family, I was surprised to find a kitten with four-inch belly-button attached to the placenta. This was just born!

I set the kitten out in the yard for a 1/2 hour, listening to it mewing, but its mother never returned. It was about 40F last night, so I did not expect the unfed, uncared-for kitten to last more than an hour or so. When I went and checked on it, I thought it was dead.

By now it was 2am, so I brought it inside, perhaps to find a shoebox to bury it in. I owed that much. However, with some rubbing of the cold damp fur, it responded, and started mewing again. I detached the placenta and tube with some scissors, wrapped it in a blanket, and put a few drops of water into its mouth, which rejuvenated it more. I hoped it would get loud enough to call its mother, but I also feared that mother was off giving birth to the rest of the litter and had written this little guy off.

Feeling guilty, but not knowing what else to do, I set up a crate, more blankets, and put the kitten near our neighbor's porch. I thought it could last at least another hour this way, buying time for the mother to scoop it back up. I never touched the kitten, so I hoped this improved its chances.

In the morning, 5 hours later, I retrieved the crate. Mostly, I did not want my neighbors to think that I was up to no good or anything. The kitten was still damp, cold, and a little stiff. Surely this animal had passed on in the night, never remaking its mother's acquaintance. But, it woke up.
--gh