"Captain Jack, do I have a pirate name?"

Arrrr, every man-jack (and woman-jill) of ye has a pirate name!  Just set sail for http://www.piratequiz.com/ and answer the questions (be sure to tell the truth now or I'll have your guts for garters!)  Once you know your pirate name, stop by and say, "Ahoy!"  Mad Bess and myself like to know who we're sailin' with!

Thirteen years of pillaging and plundering together

Arrrr, mateys!  T'was indeed 13 years ago that Mad Bess and your Captain pledged, under the eyes of God and Cthulhu, to permanently ally our cutlasses and sail the seven seas together till one or both of us rests in Davy Jones' locker.  Today we celebrated by plundering Last Chance Thrift Store... we had a coupon for 50% off everything, so we'd have been idiots not to... and while Bess and I may be many things, idiots we are not! 

Afterward I drew my cutlass (and by cutlass I mean credit card) and stormed Bawarchi restaurant, making off with their cargo of delicious Indian grub.  Meanwhile, Mad Bess kept the S.S. Magnum idling, for a quick getaway (that is, it was idling so the air conditioner would stay running... after all, the humidity here in the Horse Latitudes is less than pleasant, ya scurvy dogs!)  Later we enjoyed the spoils of our raid, with a hearty bottle of grog (Almaden Moscato, purchased plundered from Publix) whilst watching Live Free or Die Harrrrd.  Aye, t'was truly an anniversary that would make any pirate proud!

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"One day, mateys... one day..."



Remembering friends

Just wanted to take a moment to remember yet more friends who will be waiting for Mad Bess and myself at the Rainbow Bridge...

April 26 would have been Taffy's 25th birthday.  Taffy was a grey squirrel with razor-sharp teeth who I never actually had the pleasure (?) of meeting, though Bess spent many quality months with him, bottle-feeding him, raising him from a baby, and fondly recalls the times he bit through the flesh of her fingers "right to the bone"... aww... what a little imp!  Even after he grew up and she released him, he kept coming back to her, presumably because he had a taste for human blood.  He lived to be six years old, which is actually pretty good for a squirrel in the wild... Bess' blood must have nourished him particularly well.

April 25 would have been Sam's 15th birthday.  Sam (whose registered name was Jemchipsa Skytarget) was a purebred Ocicat, and was one of the six cats that Mad Bess brought with her from Blighty when she fell for your Captain's quirky yet apparently irresistible charms.  How can one sum up Sam in a single blog entry?  Can't be done.  One of his many aliases was Mr. Moleskin because of his unusually smooth coat texture.  He had approximately 50 other aliases describing the many facets of his looks and absolutely unique personality, too numerous to even touch on here.  For instance, he liked to open cupboard doors, climb inside, and sit silently in the dark for half an hour or so, staring into space, just chillin', having a bit of a meditate.  He had "territorial issues" which no amount of medication seemed to alleviate (which is all Nicky's fault but we won't open that can of worms right now... will we, Nicky?... Will we???)  Sam didn't say, "Meow," like a normal cat... instead he said, "Muhhh!" in a voice I've never heard any other cat use.  He just wanted to be a friend to all the other cats, even the few who for some reason shunned him, and liked nothing better than cuddling up with them on the sofa or wherever.  Sam died at the far-too-young age of 11 because of a blood clot... I can still feel his silky moleskin fur though.  Later, buddy.

Maximilian Schell: Hollywood's Creepiest Father Figure?

Mad Bess and I watched Deep Impact tonight, for the third time... took us back to the dawn of our dating days and made us both cry and all, just as it did both times before.  Also Robert Duvall proves he is just as much a stone cold badass action hero as Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, or Liam Neeson (OK, maybe not Liam Neeson, but ol' Bobby does his best in this film, God love him!)  Seriously though, Hollywood, could you not have found someone less creepy and sinister than Maximilian Schell to play the protagonist's estranged father, who we are apparently supposed to empathize with?  Yeesh... I kept expecting him to reveal that he had engineered the whole comet disaster scenario as part of his world domination strategy, he comes across so much like a damn Bond villain!  He and James Cromwell should have traded roles; if I were Tea Leoni I'd much rather spend my dying moments hugging affable James Cromwell than creepy old Max Schell!  Gah!!

Daddy!

"If onlys and justs were candies and nuts, then every day would be Erntedankfest." -- Dwight Schrute

If only I had just remembered to plunder some raw cashew nuts from Wright's Nutrients on my way home from work, then I could have roasted them and been eating them right now and it would be like Erntedankfest in April.  But sadly your captain is an idiot and so is going to bed hungry.  It's just that they're so much better than the salty oily expensive canned ones (Planter's, etc.) that I can't bring myself to buy, sorry, PLUNDER, those inferior commercially-packed ones anymore since I tried roasting the plain raw ones myself... sorry, just no comparison.  Try 'em... you'll see what I mean!

Captain, we've sighted Friskies!

Put a fair few nautical miles on the S.S. Magnum this evening, sailing from Dollar General to Dollar General, plundering their booty of Friskies cat food (and by plundering I mean taking advantage of this week's particularly good coupon offers.)  Got some sweet deals on air freshener and hair dye too, matey!  Arrrrr!!!  Mad Bess Feral and I celebrated by plundering (i.e., paying full price for) delicious veggie subs from Subway, and watching Calendar Girls (which was of course filmed in Bess's native Yorkshire.) 

The remarkable thing was, the checkout girl at the first Dollar General that I plundered this evening, and the checkout guy at the Walgreens (which I happened to plunder some hair spray, Pepsi, and sinus medicine from) BOTH complimented me on my "Tesla Is My Co-Pilot" shirt, which Mad Bess designed and uploaded to Cafepress and presented to me for my birthday a year or two ago.  They were, like, the fourth and fifth people that I had ever met in my life who knew who the hell Nikola Tesla was!  It seems that the schools are FINALLY acknowledging Tesla's contributions to science and technology, nearly 70 years after his death... so SUCK IT, EDISON!!!

We don't need no noisy firearms...

If you're anything like me, then you're constantly getting into long-winded discussions about what weapon would be most desirable when the inevitable zombie apocalypse finally happens. It's kind of surprising to me that so many people still favour firearms, even though we've spent the better part of two years seeing what kind of havoc Daryl can wreak among the undead with his crossbow (which is quiet so it doesn't attract more of them, unlike guns which draw them from miles around!) Plus, ain't nobody manufacturing ammo anymore, yo (the workers all staged a shamble-out in case you hadn't heard) but you can always fashion your own bolts/quarrels from whatever is around, and even reuse them if you're careful about open cuts and whatnot. That said, I think this dude has come up with the weapon I would most like to have when everything goes to shit... a repeating crossbow (like the Chinese had 2400 years ago but not as accurate as theirs)... with some refinement and practice I think it would be a very effective (and stealthy) weapon against the walkers, especially if we're in this for the long haul (and you KNOW we will be)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0FXZe2_64

Bonnie

26 years ago today I said goodbye to my beloved foxhound-collie mix, Bonnie… what a sweet girl… hope that Rainbow Bridge has some strong supports because there’s going to be an awful lot of my friends waiting there…

Thomasina

About 8 years ago three kittens were born under our house.  Two of them (Blackie and Mean Eye) are living in our back yard "Serengeti Preserve" but we were never able to catch the third one.  We called him Thomasina because we originally thought he was a girl, but even after we found out he was a boy, the name stuck because he was so timid and gentle.  He often stopped by our yard to eat, and whenever a new female cat would show up with a litter of kittens, he would care for the babies and guard them when the mom was away; it didn't matter whether they were his or not, he loved them regardless.

Last Saturday, Mrs. Feral and I got to stroke Thomasina's fur for the first time... he had been killed by a car.  We buried him in the garden next to his mother Thumbelina, half-sister Yoda (also hit by a car) and fellow feral Mangy.  See you at the Rainbow Bridge, my dear gentle friend...

 

Nirrti

Nirrti and her three brothers were born under our house in 2006.  When they were old enough to walk, we captured them and their feral mother, and she raised them in our spare bedroom.  The mother cat now lives in our cat-fenced back yard “preserve” while Nirrti and her two surviving brothers live in the house.

Even though I had known Nirrti since she was about three weeks old, for the first few years of her life she was inexplicably terrified of me.  If I so much as made eye contact with her, she would cringe, squint her eyes, and race away into another room to hide.  I never understood why, since I had never done her any harm.

Then came the day Nirrti was diagnosed with megacolon, which would require “pilling” twice a day… surely an impossible task with this cat!  Nevertheless, it had to be done, and eventually I was able to catch her and pop the capsules down her throat (mainly because she was frozen in terror, that first day!)

After the first couple of days, however, a strange thing happened:  Nirrti stopped being afraid.  Within a week, she not only quit running away from me, but actually started letting me pick her up and cuddle her for the first time ever… apparently she viewed having pills shoved down her throat as an enjoyable bonding experience!

Today Nirrti is a big fat fluffy happy cat.  She never tries to spit her pills out -- this has earned her the nickname “Daddy’s Best Girl” (much to my wife’s amusement!)  If I sit on the floor, she’ll waddle over and curl up on my lap or drape her great bulk across my legs… quite a change from the feral who ran away in terror every time I glanced in her direction, and all it took was a life-threatening health disorder!  Thanks, megacolon!

Pictured: Abject terror