Curse of the Day:
¤ May kitty develop strange hungers.

Word of the Moment:
¤ Word: Janky (adj)
¤ Usage: "That movie sucked.  It was hella-janky."
¤ Synonyms: Crappy, inadequate, lame, or to a lesser degree, just different than how you want something.
¤ Deviations: Jankalicious, jankitude. Frequently paired with "hella".
¤ Origin: Unknown/pop culture.  Malaya was using it regularly when I moved up here in mid-July and I'd heard it before, but hadn't really incorporated it into my vocabulary until hearing her use it frequently.
¤ Notes: Currently in heavy rotation, frequently used for comedic effect. Can be made to fit virtually all situations. -- August 5, 2003

My first couple of weeks living here were misleading, since the temperature was very high most every day, and the area I live in now and Malaya's condo were practically as hot as my old apartment in San Diego and the La Mesa area I was stuck in there. I was worrying that it would be that hot for months, until October or November and the promised fall (I've not seen an actual Autumn season in decades, living in San Diego) arrived.  Well, after a couple of weeks of hot weather, 90's at the worst, it's been just gorgeous every day since then.  Highs have occasionally been in the low 80's, and we've had to run the A/C while driving around in the day, but it's been in the 60's or less every night, making for great sleeping/snuggling weather, and most days it's been in the 70's with negligible humidity, making it very comfortable to be around the condo or out and about in shorts and sandals, with the option of going up to pants and shoes at night, though there's no reason to think about a jacket if you're under 70 or over 5.

True, I'd prefer it in the 60's since I like to wear long pants and shoes and maybe even a jacket from time to time, and I like rain and it's been bone-dry here, but since my main dislike is hot weather, I must give it up for the Bay Area.  Even the generally-hotter inland portion of it where I now live.  Malaya tells me that this is very typical weather for the summer here, and that we had a heat wave during my first week+, and given how nice it's been the last 2-3 weeks, I'm beginning to actually believe it.

And of course I'm practically salivating with anticipation for the fall and winter weather, when it's said to be actually cold here.  I never even had a need to turn on the heat my last two years in San Diego.  Remember this and slap me if I'm bitching about the cold and rain come January, okay? 

First off, here's my favorite email of the day.  It came to me at the D2 site and was in response to a news item I posted about several new guest articles on Saturday.  I'll just quote the guy's mail, which opens with a quote of part of my news item.

"The first article on this page is by An'yee and in it she talks about which elements of Diablo II actually correspond to the Christian mythology as presented in the Bible."

Us Christians (and I'm sure we form a huge part of your readership) don't like having our worldview refered to mythology (and the implication that comes from the label of mythology: as in many of the things mention in the Bible never actually happened or will happen). I'd appreciate it if you, when reporting on dii.net, would speak neutrally when dealing with extremely important topics such as this.

In Christ,
Tyler

I love this sort of thing.  There is a vague thought in the back of my head when I'm typing out such an update that someone, somewhere, might actually manage to take offense, but I so seldom actually see it that I tend to despair of it.  Which is why I'm overjoyed when it actually does happen.  Not that I wrote it to cause upset or distress; that would be easy to do.  I just wrote it in what I thought was a relatively objective manner.  Of course objectivity ends when it butts up against someone's faith.  That's by definition; I mean the definition of "faith".  Here it is according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary that lives on my computer.

faith: something that is believed esp. with strong conviction; esp : a system of religious beliefs syn see belief

in faith : without doubt or question : verily

The "without doubt or question" part is what draws my eye, when it comes to evaluating something objectively.  My reply to the guy is as follows, and you'll note how I got in my point and then immediately smoothed the semi-jibe over with a flattering request.

Since our site readership is worldwide and encompasses a wide variety of belief systems (or none at all), I do try to phrase things neutrally. If the article (hypothetically) discussed how the Druid was clearly based on a figure in the ancient Quran, I'd call it Islamic mythology. Since it was a discussion of early Christian myths and legends, I thought that calling it "Christian Mythology" was appropriately neutral. Your definition of "neutral" seems to be "from a Christian viewpoint, since of course that's the Truth", which I think is very far from "neutral".

Perhaps you could submit a guest article on your views on playing D2 and the fiction and legend and history of the game world, while commenting on how you feel about it as a man who takes the Biblical stories as literal truth? (At least I'm assuming that's how you fell, though admittedly I have just a short email to base my assumption on.) I can't promise to post it (or any guest article, before I've read it) but it seems like it would be an interesting topic to write about, and if it was well written it would likely get posted in the future.

Flux
Diabloii.net

He replied, but it was very short and just a half-hearted restatement of his initial mail, followed by a "thanks for the invite and I'll consider it" conclusion.  So no big "Jesus loves me more" flame war, unfortunately.

I will be chuckling over his "you said that the bible wasn't all true; you should be more objective" logic for a while though. He had an argument if he'd gone for the "you should be more sensitive (coddling) to the religious/superstitious of every type" angle.  By which he could have meant that I should pretend that every belief system has validity and should be respected and taken at faith value.  I think that's silly, personally, but I can see that it's a valid way to go at it, especially if you were primarily trying to not offend anyone.

I suppose you'd still get some people who were upset by you acting as if a religion other than theirs was true, especially since most religions directly contradict major parts of each other (no matter how much people of faith tend to try to gloss over this, realizing that other believers are more their allies than non-believers).  Like if I'd talked in my news post about how Christianity was the one true religion, maybe some Buddhist or Jew or Muslim or hell, Wiccan, would have crawled out of the woodwork and objected to my coddling the infidels, but I wouldn't bet on it.  At least not re: a post on a gaming website about a basically Satanic game.

But since posting things specifically to avoid upsetting some religious person out there somewhere is not exactly at the top of my "to do" list, even when I'm posting on that there basically-Satanic gaming website, this is unlikely to happen.

On a related, and yet entirely off-topic subject, I just interrupted Malaya's viewing of our newest DVD addition (Life is Beautiful, starring that annoying Italian guy who starred in the most hated children's movie in recent memory) to ask her two questions: Whether she thought that Diablo was basically a "Satanic game" and if she knew where the phrase "coming out of the woodwork" came from.

She said no, it wasn't Satanic, and no, she didn't have any more idea of what "woodwork" was than I did. So I looked it up.

wood•work \-'w€rk\ noun (1650)
1 : work made of wood; esp : interior fittings (as moldings or stairways) of wood
2 : a place or state of concealment, seclusion, or anonymity

So it's wood in a house, like a stairway or a wall molding, and also a place of concealment.  I assume the term alludes to insects, like say termites? Sort of a variation on "crawled out from under a rock" but one that's less-insulting, at least in the common usage.

There is no point to this, it's just what I was thinking a minute ago.  That's why they call this a blog, after all.

I've been snapping away lately.  Not to the "I have a digicam and no life" extent I used to be reduced to in times of boredom back in my former life in San Diego, but since I kept seeing things around the condo here and thinking, "that would make a good photo," I've been trying to actually get some of them on film.

Well, digital film.

I suppose that technically it's "data storage medium" which I then transfer to "hard drive" and then upload to "web server" which you then view through "browser cache" but that's hardly got the same "get them on film" ring to it.  Hardly.

Digressions aside, recent photos have focused on the kitty, and the back patio.  Yes, just like practically every other photo I've ever taken since moving to Northern California.

First off, we have a couple of shots taken just a few days ago, of Dusty in the cute little purple Ikea chair.  He lies/sleeps in this chair pretty often, but not so often or exclusively that I can safely call it "Dusty's chair."  Not that we ever call him "Dusty" around the house anyway.  Mostly it's Bongie of late, for Tagalog-derived nickname reasons that are too convoluted to get into at this time.

I don't think he has any more claws or toes than the average kitty, but since he's black all over with pale ivory claws, and his toes are a sort of lighter shiny black, he always looks like he's about half-wolverine when he lies with his feet all together. He looks very clawy and toothy, at times, with the lighter-colored sharp parts protruding in somewhat-threatening fashion.  He's not at all afraid to get physical either, and enjoys a good hand-swiping if you poke at him when he's busy mauling his string mousie.  So no, the claws are never too far from visible.

He never gets wet cat food, and is fine not eating it, and while he sort of begs, he's not very good at it.  He tends to stand around nearby when cans are opened, but he's got no idea what is a can of peas and what's a can of tuna, and even with tuna he's far from insistent.  He never gets up on the kitchen counters, so you can leave a plate of chicken out overnight and it will remain unmolested, but he tends to circle and lick his chops a lot when Malaya or I are eating on the couch.

What's weird is what sorts of foods he begs for the most.  He does have interest in cheese and meat, but he's far from obsessed with it.  He likes the smell of meat, but hardly knows what to do with it if you give him a scrap. We don't eat much meat here, just chicken or shrimp from time to time, so I have no idea how he'd do with an actual hunk of steak, but I suspect there would be a bit of licking before a confused retreat by the non-carnivorous kitty. He leaves whatever we try to give him half the time, licking at it a bit before giving up when he discovers that it requires actual chewing.  It's not like he can't chew, he pretty much lives on the crunchy Friskies, but somehow when the object to be chewed is small but not crunchy, he gets all confused.

I've given him bits of sliced turkey and stepped in it 30 seconds later when I turn around to find him gone and the meat left on the floor.

So what does he eat?  You might think Malaya is slipping his gobbets of raw liver in the photos here, like he's some sort of feathered raptor.  You would be wrong.  Those are actually tiny slivers of watermelon, which he loved, eating half a dozen of them before losing interest.  He also likes broccoli, of all things, and tends to show more interest in bits of vegetable than meat, much of the time.  I find it all quite disturbing.

The funny thing about feeding him is how wimpy he is about taking it.  Perhaps all cats are like this, I haven't had one for a pet in like 15 years, and I've had rats for the last decade, so I've grown to expect that when I hold forth a choice tidbit to a pet, said pet will literally snatch it away from me and devour it with great greed, or at least bounce off to hide it behind something in the closet. A single rat, weighing something like 1/20th what kitty weighs, would out-eat him by 500%, when it came to little tidbits of veggies and meat and cheese and such.  I'm sure kitty eats far more total mass, since he spends a few minutes of every hour gnoshing on the Friskies, all day, every day.  But when it comes to bits of scrambled eggs or rice or left over chicken or bread or even kitty's confirmed likes, such as watermelon or lunch meat or broccoli, any random rat would out-eat him by far. And be a hell of a lot cuter doing it, I might add.

And yet here we see three kitty eating watermelon pictures, and no rat eating anything pictures.  You might say I'm pussywhipped, eh?  And while we're on the topic of bad jokes, you'll note that at no time was there any mention of kitty's color in relation to his watermelon habit.

So to answer his unspoken request, and further bore all the rest of you, here is one more photo of the back patio.  Click it to see it double this size, and finally, with any luck, get some decent perspective on things.

Again, for the record, the lowest aquarium is the main rat tank, with a metal mesh over wood chip bedding.  It has a bed in the lower left corner and the exercise wheel fastened to the metal mesh.  In the back left corner of it there is a metal mesh platform and above that there is a hole in the roof, which connects to the metal stovepipe-like tunnel that runs up the entire left of the bookshelf, then turns and connects to the top of the smaller plastic rat container on top, next to the big plants.

The middle aquarium is where the ball python lives, and you can't see him in this photo since the silk greenery is covering the bottom of his enclosure.

You can see one of the rodents, the white one is in the bottom cage, just to the left of the orange dry food dish.  Her dark brown sister is probably perched on the cage lid where the opening to the tunnel is; she likes that spot.

Occasionally when it's warm, the snake is hungry, and the rats are in the top of the tunnel, Snakers will start climbing up to the top left of his tank and sniffing around, drawing in the delicious scent of rodents on the hoof.  Not that he can get anywhere near them, and I doubt he could eat a full sized rat anyway, but that doesn't stop him from sniffing.

Which reminds me, I need to thaw out a little rat and feed him tomorrow.  Her horrified fascination at the spectacle of him eating is the only thing that keeps Malaya at all interested in us having a pet snake, after all.

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