BDSM Cat

So I think my cat is into bondage.

In a previous post I explained how my cat only really likes to be pet when I'm in the bathroom. The first time that happened, I kept pushing him away, but the more I pushed, the louder he purred, and the more interested he was in being pet.

So I pet him. Aggressively, hoping he'd go away. That just made him even more excited. He purred, and meowed, and purrowed, and meowurred ... he even meowurrowed. Now I scratch his back, and his belly, or both at the same time. I pat him like a dog, hard enough to push him to the floor. He rolls left, I push him right, he rolls right so I push him left. I have even tried spinning him.

It just makes him more excited, and as soon as I stop he runs back and shoves his face in my hand for more.


I have a cat with multiple paraphilias...


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Bing sucks

Oh, my GAWD, do I hate Bing. When I 'use' Bing, it's by accident (some link I click being the Bing equivalent of "Google This:"), and every time I Bing, I get back a page that doesn't have my answer, but a lot more questions about my topic. If I click on one of those questions, I end up on ANOTHER page full of questions.

Case in point: this morning I clicked on a link that said, "The Voices behind the voice-overs." In the short article description it said, "Find out who voiced some of our most popular characters and commercials." So I clicked, partly to see who they thought were "our" most popular characters and commercials.

The first page was DARTH VADER. Now, I already know that James Earl Jones did that voice. But the page only said:

Famous voice overs

Search: Darth Vader

The actor who voiced the dark-side lord in the “Star Wars” franchise also voiced:

The tagline voiceover for Ted Turner’s news network.

The leader of African wildlife in “The Lion King”

His signature basso voice wasn’t always stellar. The Mississippi-born actor spent his early years ridding himself of a speech disorder.

Many of the key phrases were hyperlinks, and some of them actually pointed to a search for James Earl Jones. But the point is that I already clicked on something saying I was interested in knowing who the @#$! did the voice! GIVE ME THE F@$#@$NG NAME OF THE ACTOR! It makes me think that somehow Bing gets paid for every click on every page (maybe "paid" in the sense that they increase the number of clicks through their servers, therefore being able to report that they are the most clicked site.

Would it have been so hard to re-write the above page like so:

Famous voice overs

Search: Darth Vader

James Earl Jones, the actor who voiced the dark-side lord in the “Star Wars” franchise, also voiced:

The tagline voiceover for Ted Turner’s news network.

The leader of African wildlife in “The Lion King”

His signature basso voice wasn’t always stellar. The Mississippi-born actor spent his early years ridding himself of a speech disorder.

It's gotten to the point that when I click on a link and something comes up with BING on it, I just instantly close the page.

Anyone want to join me? As Lisa Simpson said, "We'll march day and night by the big cooling tower. They have the plant, but we have the power!"

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.

The odd thing about my cat ...

I don't understand why my cat will go to great lengths to avoid me when I call him and want to pet him, but gets very upset if I don't pet him while I am ... um ... "using the facilities." If I ever happen to walk by when he is using his cat box he gives me the evil eye, but when I go into my bathroom, he opens the door and throws himself at my feet, rolling around and meow-purring.

I have lever-style handles on my doors, so he learned how to open the door. I started locking the door, but the whole time I am in there, he sits outside, meowing as if he is in pain, so it became easier to just let him come in, especially since he comes running any time he hears noise in the bathroom (and you know how keen a cat's hearing is).

I almost feel sorry for him when I'm going into the shower. He runs in, thinking I'm headed for the throne, only to see me turn on that evil contraption. He looks upset, but stays fairly quiet, watching to make sure I really am going into that torture chamber. Sometimes, as I wait for the water to warm up, he sticks his face in, just to make sure that really is water shooting around in there. If I take a step his direction, he bolts back into the living room.

You'd think he'd be used to it by now. When I was in med school, after anatomy lab I would go home and get into the tub for about 30 minutes, hoping to get rid of the smell of formaldehyde and death. At that time I lived alone, and he would come in, stand on his hind legs meerkat style about 5 feet from the tub to make sure I was still alive.

Now he doesn't seem to care about my safety when faced with water coming down all around me. I guess he's pretty brave ... after all, a bathroom is a room totally dedicated to the use of water, mortal enemy of the house cat. Still, brave or not, it's a bit annoying at times to have to pet the cat while simultaneously doing my business.

I guess he doesn't understand the fact that it would be the equivalent of me rolling around on the floor in front of his cat box.

'Scuse me whilst I go poke out my mind's eye.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.

Safety Options

A terrible thing happened yesterday at a California High School. A 17 year old boy brought a gun to school. It accidentally discharged, and the bullet hit another boy in the neck, as well as a girl in the head. As a result, the school and the local police have decided to increase security.

This has been going on for years ... decades, actually. Long before Columbine occurred, security in public schools was a hot topic. I remember being surprised when I started high school (many moons ago) and found we had two campus security guards and one local police officer (armed). A few years after I started high school, we heard about the installation of metal detectors on some campuses in the LA area. At that time, my school went from "open campus" (we could leave school for lunch) to "closed campus" (no one was allowed to enter or leave other than at the start and end of the school day (unless they went through the administrative office. After I left, they took the lockers off campus (for fear students could store/hide weapons and/or drugs therein). Still, violence increased.

I remember when RoboCop 2 came out: the murderous drug lord in that was a 13 year old kid, and we all thought, "Oh, my gosh, that is so ridiculous!" Last year a 14 year old boy was arrested in Mexico and charged with being the most ruthless hit- ... um ... boy? person? employed by a drug cartel there. Life imitating art?

So we're going to, as they say, "hell in a hand-basket." What to do about that? How do we make schools safe again?

Option 1: Tele-commute. There are no schools. Everyone stays at home and has to log into each class live, via webcam (imagine the scene in Real Genius where all the students were just tape recorders recording the lecture being given by the reel-to-reel left by the professor, but substitute webcams and monitors). If a student disappears from their monitor for more than 30 seconds, they are considered absent, and absences are charged at $5 per class. Teachers get paid $1.95 per minute per student, but on the up-side, hospital stays are very short when you've been hit by a virtual bullet.

Option 2: Build 20 foot tall concrete walls around all schools, with doors that would make a bank vault jealous. Nothing is allowed to be brought on-campus. The official school uniform is a bikini for girls and a Speedo for guys. I know, it will suck in Denver in the middle of January, but that's the price of school security.

Option 3: Give up. Realize all security measures can be defeated (after all, a really determined thug going to the school in option 2 will learn to clench his or her butt-cheeks around that 9 mm). Any student using a weapon on campus is shot first, after which they are handcuffed and taken to wherever their medical condition requires. And isn't the fact that they are gunning each other down just part of nature's plan? It's just survival of the fittest, after all.

Hope some of this made you laugh, but I also hope it makes you think about what needs to be done, not in reaction to, but rather proactively for the safety of our children in public schools.

Until then, I think I'm putting my kids in Hogwarts. At least there the only one using Avada Kedavra is You-Know-Who.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
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Cats ...

So I don't understand why they say cats are a gay man's pet. It's not about being gay, it's about living in an apartment. I love animals, and wanted to get a pet, and I actually didn't live in an apartment, I had my own house. But my house had a very small yard, so I didn't feel right getting a dog.

I could have gotten a dog...though probably would have needed to get a small dog (tell me that doesn't scream "gay"). I prefer big dogs - I wanted an Alaskan Husky or maybe a Labrador. That would have been borderline cruel, trapping a dog that big in a house that small. Even if I took it out for a walk twice a day, the poor thing would be cooped up the rest of the time.

On top of that, my uncle died, leaving an orphaned cat, so I "took it in."

See? Nothing about being gay ... just about being considerate to your pets.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.

Love of Water Sports

Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm talking about boating, skiing, SCUBA, etc. I didn't even know about the other kind until my first year of medical school. I couldn't figure out how SCUBA diving was at all a risk for HIV. Someone had to explain it to me.

Anyway, I love the water, and my dad has owned several boats over the years. The first one we got was a rubber raft with an outboard motor, and the last one was a 26 footer with a queen bed and small galley.

I thoroughly enjoyed those boats, but I don't think I would ever own one myself. When we would go out, we had to hook up the boat trailer, check the lights, drive this massive thing down the freeway (another point: you'd better be going local, because it's not like you can have your 26 footer as "checked baggage" on your flight ... even on Virgin America), pay for the use of the boat launch, park your truck (another side point: have to have a truck big enough to haul your boat) and trailer, and finally you could enjoy the boat. Once the day was over, it wasn't really over, because then you had to take the boat out of the water, drive over to the boat rinsing area to give her a terse cleaning, drive back home, then give her a real cleaning (or else you have a stinky boat that may even start growing things, and if you went into salt water, you can't let that sit in the engine).

[gasp]

Then there's the fact that you had to buy the boat, and unless you are rich, you've probably got a loan on it, which means interest payments, plus vehicle registration, onto which they add a luxury tax. Don't forget you have to maintain proper, functioning safety equipment aboard, plus boat insurance, and we always carried Vessel Assist in the event of an emergency (we never had one, but we did cross another boat that was stranded - without safety equipment or a radio - and we radioed for help for them ... didn't envy their rescue bill, nor probable coast guard citation).

Bottom line, for as much as I would probably use a boat, it would be more financially sound for me to rent rather than buy. Not that I've tried to rent a boat ... though back in the day, my family rented boats for a week at a time out on Lake Mohave in Arizona. We weren't rolling in dough, so I imagine it wasn't Bill Gates-type expensive. I calculated it once a few years ago, and I found that I could rent a yacht for a week for what my dad paid annually to maintain his boat. Granted, then I'd have to crew the yacht, but the point is that owning is very expensive.

If you own a boat, make sure you use the hell out of it every year, or you're throwing money down the ... poop deck.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
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New Year's Celebrations

Happy New Year everyone!

What did you do at midnight New Year's Eve? Being a Los Angelino, I watched the big ball drop ... in Times Square ... at 9 PM.

What is up with that? I live in Los Angeles ... even if we allow New York to claim the spot as the most important city in the US, we have got to be the second. So why do I have to watch a re-run of the New Year that New York rung in at 9 PM???

So I was watching the festivities on TV, and after New York did their thing at 9 they threw it over to Nashville.

Really? I mean, LA is way more important than Nashville.

But apparently last year they thought, "Hey, New York drops a ball, why don't we drop a guitar ... a giant guitar made of lights ... The Nashville Guitar!"

And this year New Jersey got in on the action! They dropped Snooki at midnight. Personally, I think I'd have dropped her long ago, but that's me.

So New York has a thing, Nashville has a thing, Jersey has a thing ... when does LA get its thing? And what would we drop? I mean, what are we most known for? A giant silicon breast?

We're also famous for TV and movies...so do we drop a studio executive? A roll of film? Dropping film may be difficult ... it's almost impossible to get anything green-lighted in Hollywood.

Maybe we need to follow Jersey's example of dropping celebrities who need to disappear. I'd say maybe Paris Hilton, but she's already sorta gone. Las Vegas dropped her already. We still have Lindsay Lohan, though...she's a good candidate for 2011. Or maybe Mel Gibson. I'd say Charlie Sheen, but he always bounces back, and we'd have to do it all over.

This could be good. We could export this to other states, or even countries. El Paso can drop a giant gun pointed at Juarez. Meanwhile, Juarez can drop a giant lit up 15 year old Coyote with a target on his chest.

We're not even the first country to ring in the new year ... that really goes to New Zealand or Fiji. We're pretty much the last ... I mean, between Alaska and The American Samoa. I think maybe we should coordinate it so that the (whatever) drops are progressively more interesting, reaching a final climax with the last one of the 24 hour period.

Fiji, we could start off dropping a ... palm tree?

Beijing could drop an egg roll. Actually, I guess if they drop an egg roll they'll have to drop one every hour ...

London can drop an effigy of the queen.

New York can have their ball, then Nashville with their guitar. Mexico City will have to drop a Mariachi player. We'll need something for Mountain Time ... that could be Arizona, they can drop an illegal immigrant. Oh! Or a prisoner from one of Sherriff Joe's prisons! Or Wyoming could drop a cowboy. Or we could have Utah drop a Mormon missionary.

Okay, so then we have Pacific time, and we can drop a giant breast over the Staples center. Or maybe US Bank - you can see that from Pershing Square. Or that new Ritz Carlton/Marriott ... you can see that from the Staples Center. California is known for its water activities ... maybe we could rig it with a giant fountain to gush atop the Ritz Carlton at the New Year ... it already looks like a giant penis to me.

Of course, then there would be no topping that. After Los Angeles we pretty much have Alaska and Samoa. Oh, there's Hawaii - they could have a hula dancer hula her way down a pole. Still, there's that one last time zone that includes Samoa and some Alaskan islands. I don't think Samoa is going to get us too excited, so I think the last celebration of the year should be a husky frontiersman, and at midnight he fires a blast killing Alaska's giant pain in the ass grizzly momma, Sarah Palin.

Don't forget to check out the e-book at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32964
Hopefully I'll have a novella available by the end of this month! Tell a friend!
And please write a review on Smashwords and/or Amazon.com.