Sick Xandir;T-shirt and camcorder shopping; The God Who Wasn't There; crazy kittens
This probably won't be my best work, but there are some things that need to be said and I'm getting a headache trying to coalesce them into anything coherent. As a consolation, I'm including photos which are always very popular.
First, our terribly gay ferret Xandir has been terribly sick for weeks now. Sick enough to stymie a ferret specialist in New York that Tery has been corresponding with. We believe he has some form of IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) that's giving him diarrhea and alarming weight loss. Tery is barely sustaining him on a repulsive diet of raw liver, raw egg and goat's milk mixed in a blender.
He went into the hospital yet again for another day of IV fluids, and Tery asked how I felt about her bringing the machine home to keep him hooked up overnight. The machine in question is a fluid pump, which is coincidentally also the bane of my existence working overnight as it is the machine that alarms constantly every time the animal moves and causes an occlusion in the line. So you can imagine how thrilled I was at the prospect of having one in the relative peace and quiet of our home.
But the other problem was devising an enclosure for Xandir. With a catheter stuck in his veins, we couldn't have him running about free-range as our ferrets do. We dashed to Target in search of some sort of baby playpen. We were almost big enough Polacks to shell out $40 for a crib-like thing, before Tery came to her senses and discovered the storage bin aisle, with a large $13 tub that would do just as nicely.
Fortunately Xandir wasn't moving much so we weren't subjected to the interminable beeping that I put up with at the hospital. He was miserable stuck in the tub, while all the other animals were doing their damndest to jump in and join him.
He's doing a little better now, but it is quite demoralizing.
~*~
My check has been cashed by the State Department, which means it's a fairly safe assumption that my passport application has been approved. In anticipation of my trip to England, I'm suddenly craving new T-shirts. I think I deserve them -- I wear boxers and wifebeaters the rest of the year and besides, nothing says American tourist like tacky novelty T-shirts. But I think these are actually pretty cool.
First, this Serenity shirt which I love the most:
Second, this awesome vintage Cure. I think vagynafondue should buy one for herself and one for Chooch, who WILL grow up to be a Cure fan if he knows what's good for him:
Lastly, and sadly out of stock currently, Shaun of the Dead. Which, on a trip to England, might be a bit like wearing the band's shirt to the concert.
These shirts and many, many more can be found here.
~*~
I love eBay most of the time. What I don't love is when there's a million of something available, and some berk outbids you on your auction just because it's ending an hour sooner. I believe there are enough auctions of any given item that everyone can have one, but some people would much rather ruin a total stranger's day.
I mention this because our old Sharp Hi8 camcorder died out of the blue a few weeks ago, leaving us not only without access to scads of home videos on 8mm tapes, but with a tape trapped in the camera itself. Without knowing whether the problem was with the battery or the charger or the camera itself, I thought the safest bet was just to get a used, really cheap 8mm camcorder for the purpose of playing our tapes one last time so we could convert them to VHS.
Well. Camcorders, it turns out, have a very high resale value. There's a veritable feeding frenzy going on as we speak on camcorder auctions. There's even a power seller with a constant stream of camcorders up for auction, all beginning at 99 cents. The catch is the seller comes right out and admits that the cameras are "as is" and they don't even run a basic test on them before putting them up for sale. Almost every one of these auctions finishes between $80-$100! I've made some foolish purchases in my time, but if I ever pay $100 for a camcorder that might not even turn on, feel free to suspend my internet privileges.
The upside of this is I could probably get $30-$50 for our completely dead Sharp, unless we have to resort to forcible means to extract the tape.
After losing several auctions I thought no one else would possibly be interested in, in frustration I took the next Buy It Now offer I came across. I probably should have shopped around a little bit more, but I can only take so much failure before I just snap.
~*~
Finally, my new icon is from our latest rental, The God Who Wasn't There. This was a recommendation from my London friend Jeffy, who felt sure such a movie wouldn't even be available in ultra-conservative, radically religious America (I smugly informed him how wrong he was). This is a refreshing change from all the Evangelical Christian documentaries we've been renting. It's more or less scientific proof that Jesus never existed. It was a little too MTV style for Tery's tastes, with flashy graphics and music, but I enjoyed it. One of the most compelling arguments is the similarity "The Greatest Story Ever Told" bears to multiple pagan myths, like Osiris, Dionysus and Odin. "Ah, but OUR resurrection story actually happened, that's the difference," the Christians argue. O-kay.
Also the fact that Jesus fulfills 18 out of 24 of the mythic hero criteria. He's even kind of low on the list below Hercules, Oedipus and Theseus. Also there are a number of other deities who were thought to have been born on Dec 25. The list goes on and on.
Features the superintendent of a Christian school filling our children's heads with all sorts of garbage getting argued into a corner and fleeing the interview, as they always do when they run out of bullshit to spew.
It's only an hour, but some of the juiciest interviews are stuck in the bonus features for some reason, lasting longer than the movie itself. I think you'll agree from this icon that it's worth a looksee.
~*~
One last picture: Kitten Mitten suffering a bit of an identity crisis. Tery thought I shoved her in there for the purpose of this photo, as if I would ever traumatize my baby just for a picture for my blog.
This igloo is zoned for ferrets.
~*~
As an addendum but far from an afterthought, HAPPY BIRTHDAY kavieshana!!!!!
First, our terribly gay ferret Xandir has been terribly sick for weeks now. Sick enough to stymie a ferret specialist in New York that Tery has been corresponding with. We believe he has some form of IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) that's giving him diarrhea and alarming weight loss. Tery is barely sustaining him on a repulsive diet of raw liver, raw egg and goat's milk mixed in a blender.
He went into the hospital yet again for another day of IV fluids, and Tery asked how I felt about her bringing the machine home to keep him hooked up overnight. The machine in question is a fluid pump, which is coincidentally also the bane of my existence working overnight as it is the machine that alarms constantly every time the animal moves and causes an occlusion in the line. So you can imagine how thrilled I was at the prospect of having one in the relative peace and quiet of our home.
But the other problem was devising an enclosure for Xandir. With a catheter stuck in his veins, we couldn't have him running about free-range as our ferrets do. We dashed to Target in search of some sort of baby playpen. We were almost big enough Polacks to shell out $40 for a crib-like thing, before Tery came to her senses and discovered the storage bin aisle, with a large $13 tub that would do just as nicely.
Fortunately Xandir wasn't moving much so we weren't subjected to the interminable beeping that I put up with at the hospital. He was miserable stuck in the tub, while all the other animals were doing their damndest to jump in and join him.
He's doing a little better now, but it is quite demoralizing.
~*~
My check has been cashed by the State Department, which means it's a fairly safe assumption that my passport application has been approved. In anticipation of my trip to England, I'm suddenly craving new T-shirts. I think I deserve them -- I wear boxers and wifebeaters the rest of the year and besides, nothing says American tourist like tacky novelty T-shirts. But I think these are actually pretty cool.
First, this Serenity shirt which I love the most:
Second, this awesome vintage Cure. I think vagynafondue should buy one for herself and one for Chooch, who WILL grow up to be a Cure fan if he knows what's good for him:
Lastly, and sadly out of stock currently, Shaun of the Dead. Which, on a trip to England, might be a bit like wearing the band's shirt to the concert.
These shirts and many, many more can be found here.
~*~
I love eBay most of the time. What I don't love is when there's a million of something available, and some berk outbids you on your auction just because it's ending an hour sooner. I believe there are enough auctions of any given item that everyone can have one, but some people would much rather ruin a total stranger's day.
I mention this because our old Sharp Hi8 camcorder died out of the blue a few weeks ago, leaving us not only without access to scads of home videos on 8mm tapes, but with a tape trapped in the camera itself. Without knowing whether the problem was with the battery or the charger or the camera itself, I thought the safest bet was just to get a used, really cheap 8mm camcorder for the purpose of playing our tapes one last time so we could convert them to VHS.
Well. Camcorders, it turns out, have a very high resale value. There's a veritable feeding frenzy going on as we speak on camcorder auctions. There's even a power seller with a constant stream of camcorders up for auction, all beginning at 99 cents. The catch is the seller comes right out and admits that the cameras are "as is" and they don't even run a basic test on them before putting them up for sale. Almost every one of these auctions finishes between $80-$100! I've made some foolish purchases in my time, but if I ever pay $100 for a camcorder that might not even turn on, feel free to suspend my internet privileges.
The upside of this is I could probably get $30-$50 for our completely dead Sharp, unless we have to resort to forcible means to extract the tape.
After losing several auctions I thought no one else would possibly be interested in, in frustration I took the next Buy It Now offer I came across. I probably should have shopped around a little bit more, but I can only take so much failure before I just snap.
~*~
Finally, my new icon is from our latest rental, The God Who Wasn't There. This was a recommendation from my London friend Jeffy, who felt sure such a movie wouldn't even be available in ultra-conservative, radically religious America (I smugly informed him how wrong he was). This is a refreshing change from all the Evangelical Christian documentaries we've been renting. It's more or less scientific proof that Jesus never existed. It was a little too MTV style for Tery's tastes, with flashy graphics and music, but I enjoyed it. One of the most compelling arguments is the similarity "The Greatest Story Ever Told" bears to multiple pagan myths, like Osiris, Dionysus and Odin. "Ah, but OUR resurrection story actually happened, that's the difference," the Christians argue. O-kay.
Also the fact that Jesus fulfills 18 out of 24 of the mythic hero criteria. He's even kind of low on the list below Hercules, Oedipus and Theseus. Also there are a number of other deities who were thought to have been born on Dec 25. The list goes on and on.
Features the superintendent of a Christian school filling our children's heads with all sorts of garbage getting argued into a corner and fleeing the interview, as they always do when they run out of bullshit to spew.
It's only an hour, but some of the juiciest interviews are stuck in the bonus features for some reason, lasting longer than the movie itself. I think you'll agree from this icon that it's worth a looksee.
~*~
One last picture: Kitten Mitten suffering a bit of an identity crisis. Tery thought I shoved her in there for the purpose of this photo, as if I would ever traumatize my baby just for a picture for my blog.
This igloo is zoned for ferrets.
~*~
As an addendum but far from an afterthought, HAPPY BIRTHDAY kavieshana!!!!!