8.01.2009
REST IN PEACE MAXIMUS
Unknown-08/01/09 [15-20 yrs]
In 2004 my mother died and I inherited a cat. An 18lb orange tabby my brother had named Maximus on account of his size. You see my mother had adopted him from some Ironton trailer trash. Being recently separated from a longtime feline friend (another neutered male), he was needy. He would hug and use his mind bending purrs to achieve his goals of unending massage.
I promised my mom that I would look after the cat when she moved into the hospital/hospice and soon after became his owner. He has been my roommate for the past 4 yrs. Best cat eva. I once turned down an offer for $2500 to sell him. This was no ordinary cat. Regal. Expressive. Sometimes pissy and abusive. Other times almost courteous. I don't understand it.
Last week the vet explained he had "water around his heart". I had specifically not heard that phrase since it was used to explain my mom's condition in her final days. The x-rays showed heart failure / liver cancer and he was sent home with a diuretic Rx and no eta but terminal nonetheless.
Only a matter of time.
I had underestimated my attachment to this animal. Did Max represent some vicarious connection to my mother's memory? Or was it just that I was used to having him around? Or was I just being a big baby?
Whatever the cause I was prone to random bouts of tears on the bus, all day, and often when I would leave work in the morning trying to gauge his breathing.
His last week was spent dining on wet food and getting as much attention as he desired.
As the week went on I began to realize there were no viable taxidermy options, and max was slowly deteriorating. I set the appointment 2 days ago. The lady called it 'euthanasia'. A word I had subjectively ascribed to referring to human death of some sort - not animal. I considered the implications of our pets being allowed a painless death while our relatives our made to suffer and wallow? It made me want to go back in time and feed my mom the best key lime pie.
Last night his breathing became much worse and jerky. He made it through the night without crying but wouldn't eat this morning. I knew termination was the best thing for him.
My cabbie got wind of the situation en route to the vet. He proceeded to tell me about how his 19yr old dog had a stroke and died 3yrs later the same day that his dad died of stroke. WTF. Also his cancerous 10yr old feline was on holistic meds. Suddenly my story didn't seem so pitiful. Somehow this helped me to once again regain that pragmatic lens.
Literally my only question for the tech was "Can I push the syringe myself?".
"No, I'm sorry." she replied.
Unknown-08/01/09 [15-20 yrs]
 |
| From Maximus' Last Day |
In 2004 my mother died and I inherited a cat. An 18lb orange tabby my brother had named Maximus on account of his size. You see my mother had adopted him from some Ironton trailer trash. Being recently separated from a longtime feline friend (another neutered male), he was needy. He would hug and use his mind bending purrs to achieve his goals of unending massage.
I promised my mom that I would look after the cat when she moved into the hospital/hospice and soon after became his owner. He has been my roommate for the past 4 yrs. Best cat eva. I once turned down an offer for $2500 to sell him. This was no ordinary cat. Regal. Expressive. Sometimes pissy and abusive. Other times almost courteous. I don't understand it.
Last week the vet explained he had "water around his heart". I had specifically not heard that phrase since it was used to explain my mom's condition in her final days. The x-rays showed heart failure / liver cancer and he was sent home with a diuretic Rx and no eta but terminal nonetheless.
Only a matter of time.
I had underestimated my attachment to this animal. Did Max represent some vicarious connection to my mother's memory? Or was it just that I was used to having him around? Or was I just being a big baby?
Whatever the cause I was prone to random bouts of tears on the bus, all day, and often when I would leave work in the morning trying to gauge his breathing.
His last week was spent dining on wet food and getting as much attention as he desired.
As the week went on I began to realize there were no viable taxidermy options, and max was slowly deteriorating. I set the appointment 2 days ago. The lady called it 'euthanasia'. A word I had subjectively ascribed to referring to human death of some sort - not animal. I considered the implications of our pets being allowed a painless death while our relatives our made to suffer and wallow? It made me want to go back in time and feed my mom the best key lime pie.
Last night his breathing became much worse and jerky. He made it through the night without crying but wouldn't eat this morning. I knew termination was the best thing for him.
My cabbie got wind of the situation en route to the vet. He proceeded to tell me about how his 19yr old dog had a stroke and died 3yrs later the same day that his dad died of stroke. WTF. Also his cancerous 10yr old feline was on holistic meds. Suddenly my story didn't seem so pitiful. Somehow this helped me to once again regain that pragmatic lens.
Literally my only question for the tech was "Can I push the syringe myself?".
"No, I'm sorry." she replied.
6.01.2009
Absolute best summary of the MN Senate recount, and election challenge up to date through 05/31. Warning! 19min.
credit to theuptake.org
credit to theuptake.org
4.14.2009
Required viewing!
Reminds me of old Counting Crows before they sobered up and had children.
"one day I'll wake up and I'll be 38
doing the things I used to hate
the trick to forget the bigger picture is when
you look at everything in close-up as often as you can"
also recommended:
Milow sings a song about a Priest
Milow 50cent cover
Milow impromptu Snoop cover
Reminds me of old Counting Crows before they sobered up and had children.
"one day I'll wake up and I'll be 38
doing the things I used to hate
the trick to forget the bigger picture is when
you look at everything in close-up as often as you can"
also recommended:
Milow sings a song about a Priest
Milow 50cent cover
Milow impromptu Snoop cover
3.28.2009
I always enjoy Matt Taibbi's writings and recently he face planted the new Corpro-Financial-Political overlords in the RS article The Big Takeover. I have to say that we will be dealing with this for a long time if we don't put it down quickly. The problem is approaching the threshold to be preventable by pitchfork. All of us might be well served to self-educate at this point.
Some excerpts:
If you simple can't take 20 minutes to read the full article (slowly, and re-reading the heavy parts) then consider the insight of the great George Carlin on the real owners of this country. And yes, its in easy to digest video format.
"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking." - George Carlin
Some excerpts:
...When one considers the comparatively extensive system of congressional checks and balances that goes into the spending of every dollar in the budget via the normal appropriations process, what's happening in the Fed amounts to something truly revolutionary — a kind of shadow government with a budget many times the size of the normal federal outlay, administered dictatorially by one man, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We spend hours and hours and hours arguing over $10 million amendments on the floor of the Senate, but there has been no discussion about who has been receiving this $3 trillion," says Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It is beyond comprehension."....
...In essence, Paulson and his cronies turned the federal government into one gigantic, half-opaque holding company, one whose balance sheet includes the world's most appallingly large and risky hedge fund, a controlling stake in a dying insurance giant, huge investments in a group of teetering megabanks, and shares here and there in various auto-finance companies, student loans, and other failing businesses. Like AIG, this new federal holding company is a firm that has no mechanism for auditing itself and is run by leaders who have very little grasp of the daily operations of its disparate subsidiary operations.
In other words, it's AIG's rip-roaringly shitty business model writ almost inconceivably massive — to echo Geithner, a huge, complex global company attached to a very complicated investment bank/hedge fund that's been allowed to build up without adult supervision. How much of what kinds of crap is actually on our balance sheet, and what did we pay for it? When exactly will the rent come due, when will the money run out? Does anyone know what the hell is going on? And on the linear spectrum of capitalism to socialism, where exactly are we now? Is there a dictionary word that even describes what we are now? It would be funny, if it weren't such a nightmare....
....There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below...
If you simple can't take 20 minutes to read the full article (slowly, and re-reading the heavy parts) then consider the insight of the great George Carlin on the real owners of this country. And yes, its in easy to digest video format.
"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking." - George Carlin
3.07.2009
well we got some chess on the first day.
5 euros per game!
5 euros per game!
2.13.2009
2.08.2009
Songs will be sung about this day. Credit to TrekMovie for this
The televised version is only funny because the newscaster says "Trac" like an idiot.
The question is did this guy indeed use a bat'leth or some other kind of fantasy weapon/dagger thing? Consider the following. By far the most common incarnation of this weapon throughout the series looks like this:
Notice how the blade arches inward, the sharp part being the inside of the half circle not the outside.
Our perps blade seems to be sharp on the outside, like this ebay listing claiming to be Lursa's weapon:
But the problem with all these weapons is they are much too big. Our perp's weapon can't be much longer than 25" while a standard bat'leth wouldn't fit through a 7-11 door sideways. After some searching I came across this:
The Sacred Sword of Kahless
Which seems more likely though 43" is still unlikely.
I then stumbled on this great analysis from Squid.org
They were able to narrow it down to a cheap one handed dagger knock-off calling itself "Klingon". This kid could have acquired it at a county fair for all we know.
He might not even know what a Klingon is. He is without honor.
But what is even worse is the media portraying it so simply. Compare the Squid debunking with the Dever Post coverage. Bullshit.
