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Since our previous attempt to acquire more feline house mates didn’t work out, we decided that we needed to start smaller–that is, with cats smaller than Edwin. The theory is that if Edwin can establish with newcomers that he’s Macho Kitteh without contradiction, he’ll accept them and everyone will get along. This is how it worked when we adopted him and Madeline: he was young and small, and hence learned quickly that Zed was Macho Kitteh and was not to be trifled with.

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce Garrus and Tali: read more

One of the best vision-of-the-future movies ever made, Metropolis, has been newly restored. 25 minutes of missing footage has been recovered from a copy found in Argentina. I think I’ve seen three different versions of it over the years, including the somewhat notorious Giorgio Moroder version (which was weird, yes, although the music that Moroder himself wrote worked pretty well), and I will certainly see this one.

The official site is here and RetroThing has a good write-up here about the film and its various restorations. read more

Yeah, it’s been a week since I last posted something here. Sorry about that; it’s been a somewhat unusually full week. Maddy and Edwin caught a virus of some sort and have nasty sore throats. This meant a trip to the vet and a course of antibiotics–not because antibiotics do anything for viruses, but because they started to show signs of secondary, bacterial infections. Edwin is very good about taking his medicine, but Maddy isn’t. The upshot is that we have to trick her into taking it by crushing the pills and mixing them with something that she’ll eat greedily enough that she’ll ignore the taste and texture of the pill. (If you know what penicillin tastes like, you’ll understand the challenge.) Happily they seem to be through the worst of it now and in a few days they’ll be done with the antibiotics also. read more

We returned Raymond and Robbie, the recent feline additions to the household, to whence they came this afternoon. It turned out that Robbie and Edwin had irreconcilable differences, the nature of which will never be completely understood by the humans that know them. It became painfully clear that Robbie just wasn’t going to be happy here, and the happiness of the cat(s) is what counts in the end.

So, sadly, Raymond and Robbie are back with Sue and George. I’m sure that they’ll be happy in another house; they’re both great cats and we’ll miss ’em. read more

The new cats in residence started exploring the house yesterday. I posted a dozen photos of them on my Flickr site here.

They’ve also met all of the other cats. Reactions have been fairly predictable. Tracie is currently trying to break the ice by showing them that they have common interests such as plastic things dangled on the end of a string. Raymond wants to play with everyone but the other guys aren’t quite ready for that and feel that some strutting and hissing must be done first. Edwin in particular is putting on the macho-kitty show; this is exactly what he did when Alfred arrived so we’re not at all surprised. It probably doesn’t help any that Tracie and I have a hard time not laughing at his posturing since he’s usually such an easy-going cat. read more

Yes, it’s true: as of yesterday afternoon we have two new feline additions to the household. They’re brothers, about 15 months old, and their names are Robbie and Raymond. Here’s Raymond:

Raymond is smaller and younger than Robbie, although I imagine that the difference in their ages is measured in minutes since they’re from the same litter. Raymond is also much more rambunctious; he and Edwin will be a good match. Robbie is more reserved:

They’re currently secluded in the spare bedroom so that they can adjust gradually to us and the house before meeting the rest of the herd. I’ll post more photos and updates soon. read more

If you happened to visit this site between around 5:00PM MST July 14 and 10:05AM today, you probably encountered an unhelpful “Internal Server Error” message. Sorry for any inconvenience or puzzlement. I was reconfiguring something on the server and inadvertently broke something essential. Naturally this happened shortly before some friends arrived for dinner, so I wasn’t able to address the problem until this morning. I’m still not exactly sure what I did wrong but I was able to restore the entire domain from an automatic backup. (Yes, there’s a little lesson there.) read more

Dear People Who Sell Me Stuff:

It’s okay for you to send me email about new products, sales, promotions, etc., particularly if I asked to be on your mailing list. However, once you send me one announcement of a sale or discount, it’s not okay to send me three to five more messages referencing the first announcement with Subject: lines like “In case you missed this!” I read it the first time, I promise. If I didn’t want to read your email I’d take myself off your list. I don’t need to be told again and again about the same thing, and I don’t need to be “reminded” about the impending cessation of the sale, discount, whatever. It’s annoying and, frankly, somewhat insulting. read more