Kitty Torture

The fun thing about Minion is that she enjoys almost any toy, so I'm more willing to take a risk buying more expensive ones.

For example, I bought a little tunnel from Canadian Tire and she's in there ALL the time. I'll post pics later.

I finally caved and bought the puzzle box. You're supposed to put balls in it, and the cat tries to hunt them out. Well Minion got out the balls that came with it in about 2 minutes. (I'll try rollier ones next time.) Since she and Haley are both highly-food-motivated I put in her daily tooth-cleaning crunchies instead, and that took her more time to get through.


But now I alternate, and some days put Haley's tooth crunchies in it. Haley's not a dumb cat, but Minion seems to be above-average in intelligence, so it took Haley a little longer to get the right paw technique down. But she seems to have the hang of it.

Why do I torture my kitties so? Well I figure an indoor cat needs her share of challenges, if only to fend off dementia. Plus they eat slower! (Which doesn't stop Haley from puking up her meal anyway. She has the tiniest stomach! But hey, at least the meal is easier to catch the second time round.)

loo loo part too

Well that wasn't so hard. Last time I'd filled out Gail Vaz-Oxlade's budget sheet, so all I had to do was enter a new (lower) income for myself and then play with the categories until I balanced.

Now I have to make the little jars, because Fernando is demanding jars. To my credit we had something like the jar system many moons ago, only without actual jars. Fernando insists it's the only system he's willing to follow. ;-)  Gail must have won over his heart.

Looo looo looooooo

Ohhh budget-making. Yuck!

Don't get me wrong--I like making spreadsheets and such. But if I spend a few years figuring out what we spent last year, figuring out categories, budgets for this year etc., and then don't use the information right away... when I return to my sheets a couple months later I have to comb through and figure out how I calculated it all. I guess I just make them too complicated, because I like lots of detail.

Mehhh. So when I know I need to return to my budget sheet, I procrastinate. Like I'm doing right now.

I went to the health food store for more winter vegan supplies today. It must be the Prairie girl in me, stocking up for the long winter. (Then again, real Prairie girls probably don't mind a 10 minute walk to the store in -15 Celcius.) My ice box is filled with vegan cheese and Tofurkey sandwich slices. But they didn't have soy nog this year! Can you believe that? It was the main reason I went. But to be safe I bought silk tofu in case I have to make my own.

Christmas Unpicks: It'll make you ho ho ho

I'm looking through the Christmas albums on sale in iTunes. I see Bob Dylan's masterful comedic work Christmas in the Heart is listed. It's become a warm holiday tradition of mine to sample this album once per year and have a nice laugh. What joy Dylan brings.

Only one song's been uploaded to iTunes, which means it's either heavily protected, or so Blatantly Wrong that no one dares post it. I only found this video of a guy playing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to people on the street.


And of course, the youtube comments:

bucketofoatmeal

1 month ago

you fuckin prick - his Christmas carols are the best the ever were

TheAnimelover39

2 months ago

way to be a dick mother fucker

Vandefruits

7 months ago 2

The man's the greatest genius of our time and I think he understands what Christmass is all about better the most people

And let's not forget the most powerful argument ever to be used in the history of art critique...

JLRfalconpunched

10 months ago

It's pretty cool to make fun of a legend for having one sub par song. Would like to see the interviewer do better.

Random quote re yea aulde vegan topic

Interesting comment from the dude who left Vegans of Color because he ex-veganized:

Should more vegans be engaging in direct action and animal liberation?
I think if vegans are serious about their holocaust and slavery comparisons. If they truly believe that humans and non-human animals are beings of equal value, then they should be doing everything in their power to stop the genocide. Or they can keep posturing. I believe folks who engage in “animal enterprise terrorism” are the only ones who have not just thought, but felt that animals are equal. (From an interview on Let Them Eat Meat.)

I imagine this is what a lot of non-vegan animal rights activists/animal rescue-ers feel.

Biggest grossing movies, the right way

Now this is more like it -- finally a list of biggest grossing movies but adjusted for inflation. The rest of the list is here: Box Office Mojo.

DOMESTIC GROSSES
Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation*

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio	Adjusted Gross	Unadjusted Gross	Year^
1	Gone with the Wind	MGM	$1,606,254,800	$198,676,459	1939^
2	Star Wars	Fox	$1,416,050,800	$460,998,007	1977^
3	The Sound of Music	Fox	$1,132,202,200	$158,671,368	1965
4	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial	Uni.	$1,127,742,000	$435,110,554	1982^
5	The Ten Commandments	Par.	$1,041,450,000	$65,500,000	1956
6	Titanic	Par.	$1,020,349,800	$600,788,188	1997
7	Jaws	Uni.	$1,018,226,600	$260,000,000	1975
8	Doctor Zhivago	MGM	$986,876,900	$111,721,910	1965
9	The Exorcist	WB	$879,020,900	$232,671,011	1973^
10	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	Dis.	$866,550,000	$184,925,486	1937^
11	101 Dalmatians	Dis.	$794,342,100	$144,880,014	1961^
12	The Empire Strikes Back	Fox	$780,536,100	$290,475,067	1980^
13	Ben-Hur	MGM	$779,100,000	$74,000,000	1959
14	Avatar	Fox	$773,179,400	$760,507,625	2009^
15	Return of the Jedi	Fox	$747,772,300	$309,306,177	1983^
16	The Sting	Uni.	$708,685,700	$156,000,000	1973
17	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Par.	$700,727,700	$242,374,454	1981^
18	Jurassic Park	Uni.	$685,336,400	$357,067,947	1993
19	The Graduate	AVCO	$680,292,600	$104,901,839	1967^
20	Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace	Fox	$674,365,200	$431,088,301	1999

Roasted Over the Raw Vegan Flames

A post by Quasi-vegan has led me to a post by a woman (Shazzie) who is apparently one of the most prominent raw-vegan-ers in the UK. For any of you interested in veganism, I highly suggest reading the post. Not just for the information she provides--about the risks of raising a child on a raw vegan diet (something she is attempting, but is very firmly not being dogmatic about)--but because of the tone she's had to adopt.

She just wants to tell the truth as she understands it, but knows that in doing so she risks being (at the LEAST) internetally flamed. And she's seen it happen to others.

One of the comments I've commonly been reading on vegan sites, re. the Vegan-No-More, is that when VNM says she knows of vegans who are eating non-vegan foods but hiding it, she's just trying to divide the movement, cause dissent etc. and why doesn't she name names?

Well it's obvious why she didn't name names, and neither does Shazzie--to protect the privacy of those people. As more stories emerge about people who aren't doing well on a vegan diet, and when you see the reception they receive, I can believe that there are vegans out there lying about what they eat, or about the state of their health. "Coming out" sounds pretty scary to me, if you're a prominent blogger.

I think it's unfortunate that such an atmosphere of fear has been created in Vegan Land.

[Aside: For the record, if someone willingly accepts poor health for the sake of their beliefs, I'm not against that. But you should be able to admit that your health is poor, and that maybe veganism is the cause, if that's what you suspect. Without being FLAY-MED. And on the flip side, I admire Shazzie for addressing her fears, even though she might be FLAY-MED.]

Read the post. Here's a tiny exerpt:

if we claim to have more knowledge about health than the average person, then our children should be more healthy than the average person. Poor growth and rotten teeth in a child is not detox, wheatgrass deficiency, emotional parental energetic genetic issues or anything else, it is intentional malnutrition, and that is CHILD ABUSE.