Rannie has had kidney issues for a while now.
I'd hoped that last Friday's horrible nighttime vomiting incident was just the occasional normal bout of cat horking triggered by a combination of a hairball and overindulging at the water dish or food bowl, but she seemed worse over the last few days.
She was barely picking at her food, not drinking regularly, and seemed to be having a hard time pooping. This was pretty similar to the situation that had her taken to the vet in January.
During January's vet visit, the doc explained this was a likely consequence of a flare-up of her kidney issues. They gave her subcutaneous fluids and sent her home with a prescription for Miralax and Gabapentin.
So, this morning it was off to the vet again for Miss Wu.
She was poked and prodded and palpated. The vet said that her colon didn't feel full, but there was something she was feeling up in her intestines that the vet didn't like the feel of. At all.
An ultrasound was scheduled for early next week and subcutaneous fluids were administered, but I know the sound of a vet who's hinting that I'm not going to like the results of the ultrasound, yet trying to not sound too negative until she's sure.
When she got home, Rannie perked up a bit from the fluids, and was cuddly and affectionate for a bit, before heading to the futon to curl up on a quilt.
We'll see how she does with dinner here in a bit.
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Friday, June 28, 2019
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Faux Fujifilm...
Given the nature of eBay and other more-or-less global marketplaces, this is worth passing along if you're a retro film-shooting hipster like me...
Apparently there's fake "Fujifilm" circulating out there. Worse, it's a 35mm movie film stock that can't be processed in C41 and could contaminate the chemistry if someone tried.
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The Shallows
As far back as 2013 I noted how my reading was being impacted by the fact that I was doing most of it via the Kindle app on an iPad.
But avoiding the distraction machine is hard. Worse, the distraction machine itself alters the way you think.
When your job requires extended focus, especially on a creative task, for hours at a stretch, tearing your mind away every fifteen minutes to chime in on a Twitter conversation or answer an email can really put a stick in the spokes. Marko threw his hands up and punched out of social media pretty much altogether. I don't blame him at all.
Unlike Marko, FB is still my primary means of communication with rather a few far-flung friends. (Twitter was never a problem for me, because I use it as a repository of throwaway one-liners and don't keep a feed open all day.)
I tend not to have really strong reactions to people being dumb on the internet; if they're annoying enough I just block them. But I definitely noticed the corrosive effect on my focus and concentration. How do I keep up with those friends and not see myself reduced to a rat obsessively checking Facebook for that latest food pellet reward?
A couple days ago I decided that there'd be no social media from 9-5, and when I hit the bed every night, it's just books and no Bookface. I've done pretty good so far. I was weak at lunch on Tuesday and spent five minutes looking at FB before shaming myself into closing it.
It's kinda like quitting smoking in some ways, in that there are a lot of linked behaviors. Sit on the toilet and out comes the smartphone; "My thumb was headed for the icon all by itself" is the digital "I had the lighter out and the cigarette halfway to my lips".
In that time I've written more, including more of the multi-paragraph blog posts of the sort I used to write. I've read an entire novel for fun in the last two days, something I hadn't done in eons. (Master and God by Lindsey Davis. Highly recommend.)
If this holds up, it should do wonders for productivity, which in turn should help with the endless funk in which I've found myself mired. I can still jump in for a quick FB discussion in the evenings or in the morning over coffee, and the people who need to get in touch with me during the day know how to do that.
I'll let y'all know how this experiment goes...
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"[T]he difference between reading on the iPad and reading a regular book is that on the Apple product, the distraction machine is built right in. Reading a history book and encounter something that tickles your hindbrain? Wikipedia is a button press and screen touch away! And while you're in there, better check your Facebook and Twitter, and see if anybody's posted in that forum thread you replied to, and your email account just chimed, and... where were we? Oh, yeah... page three. Still."In and of itself, ebook technology is a marvel; your whole library in your pocket!
But avoiding the distraction machine is hard. Worse, the distraction machine itself alters the way you think.
When your job requires extended focus, especially on a creative task, for hours at a stretch, tearing your mind away every fifteen minutes to chime in on a Twitter conversation or answer an email can really put a stick in the spokes. Marko threw his hands up and punched out of social media pretty much altogether. I don't blame him at all.
Unlike Marko, FB is still my primary means of communication with rather a few far-flung friends. (Twitter was never a problem for me, because I use it as a repository of throwaway one-liners and don't keep a feed open all day.)
I tend not to have really strong reactions to people being dumb on the internet; if they're annoying enough I just block them. But I definitely noticed the corrosive effect on my focus and concentration. How do I keep up with those friends and not see myself reduced to a rat obsessively checking Facebook for that latest food pellet reward?
A couple days ago I decided that there'd be no social media from 9-5, and when I hit the bed every night, it's just books and no Bookface. I've done pretty good so far. I was weak at lunch on Tuesday and spent five minutes looking at FB before shaming myself into closing it.
It's kinda like quitting smoking in some ways, in that there are a lot of linked behaviors. Sit on the toilet and out comes the smartphone; "My thumb was headed for the icon all by itself" is the digital "I had the lighter out and the cigarette halfway to my lips".
In that time I've written more, including more of the multi-paragraph blog posts of the sort I used to write. I've read an entire novel for fun in the last two days, something I hadn't done in eons. (Master and God by Lindsey Davis. Highly recommend.)
If this holds up, it should do wonders for productivity, which in turn should help with the endless funk in which I've found myself mired. I can still jump in for a quick FB discussion in the evenings or in the morning over coffee, and the people who need to get in touch with me during the day know how to do that.
I'll let y'all know how this experiment goes...
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Island of Misfit Toys...
Boy, if you thought the opening rounds of the 2016 GOP primaries were a veritable Lollapalooza of longshots, weirdos, and narcissists, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
I hadn't intended to watch Wednesday night's session, since Thursday (featuring Harris, Sanders, Biden, and Buttigieg) looked more interesting. I'm glad I did, though, because there was at least one moment that was like Tumblr Come To Life.
For the most part, there weren't many surprises. Klobuchar was composed but bland and staked out the Sensible Centrist position (Delaney kept trying to, but his inability to shut up didn't help him) while most of the rest of the stage galloped hard to the left. Gabbard came across as very genuine, which unfortunately tends to translate as "bad on television". Beto took a beating at the hands of Castro.
But the mayor of NYFC managed to come across as a stereotype of a New York F#&@ing City mayor. In addition to running over time on nearly every question, he interrupted every chance he got, and then had the unmitigated gall to drop this howler:
Twitter, predictably & justifiably, lost its collective mind...
I hadn't intended to watch Wednesday night's session, since Thursday (featuring Harris, Sanders, Biden, and Buttigieg) looked more interesting. I'm glad I did, though, because there was at least one moment that was like Tumblr Come To Life.
For the most part, there weren't many surprises. Klobuchar was composed but bland and staked out the Sensible Centrist position (Delaney kept trying to, but his inability to shut up didn't help him) while most of the rest of the stage galloped hard to the left. Gabbard came across as very genuine, which unfortunately tends to translate as "bad on television". Beto took a beating at the hands of Castro.
But the mayor of NYFC managed to come across as a stereotype of a New York F#&@ing City mayor. In addition to running over time on nearly every question, he interrupted every chance he got, and then had the unmitigated gall to drop this howler:
“Something that sets me apart from all my colleagues running in this race and that is for the last 21 years I’ve been raising a black son in America,” said de Blasio, who is white, referencing his son, Dante. “I have had to have very, very serious talks with my son…including how to deal with the fact that he has to take special caution.”Cory Booker was visible in the shot and just going off his facial expression, I was kinda worried dude wouldn't be able to finish the debate due to having bitten his tongue off. I think the moderators lost a shot at great television by missing the expression that flashed across Booker's features and not immediately allowing him to rebut.
Twitter, predictably & justifiably, lost its collective mind...
BILL DEBLASIO JUST BROUGHT UP THE FACT HE HAS A BLACK SON NAMED DANTE RIGHT AFTER BRAGGING ABOUT RUNNING THE LARGEST POLICE FORCE IN THE COUNTRY. he just i-have-a-black-friend-ed the democratic debate.— your supreme, dj franzia (@hawillisdc) June 27, 2019
I— pic.twitter.com/tNjKFa6ysy
I keep thinking about Bill DeBlasio saying “I’m the only one up here with a Black son” and Cory Booker—the only one up there with a Black body—looking like 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/d8aWzGM3CI— Ja'han Jones (@_Jahan) June 27, 2019
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Amazing
"...take two pins or sewing needles and, at arm's length, cross them. The small square where the two pins overlap is approximately the visual area represented by the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photograph."Wonderful and awesome in the most literal senses of the words.
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The opposite of a polar vortex?
I guess this is a "Equatorial Burp"...
Advice from @EU_ENV and @eu_echo:— WMO | OMM (@WMO) June 25, 2019
By 27 June, the #heatwave is expected to peak, with extreme temperatures all over the continent, with many values over 36°C and locally above 40°C. Avoid fire hazards and take care of your health health. Daily map at https://t.co/M35bZjG4SG pic.twitter.com/lrQt3yMA2q
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
According to Aquiles Hopkins, president of the Confederation of Associations of Agricultural Producers of Venezuela, national production currently covers only 15%–20% of the country’s consumption needs. “Socialism is what you have in Norway, in Finland,” said Hopkins during an interview in his office in Caracas. “This is an autocracy.”No, socialism is not what you have in Norway and Finland. What you have in Norway and Finland is largely capitalism with generous social safety nets and public services supported by very high taxes on extremely productive economies (and North Sea oil revenues in the case of the former.)
This can work okay in a culture with strong social taboos against both ostentation and freeloading. How well it can continue to work with large influxes of people who don't have those same taboos remains to be seen.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2019
I warned you! But would you listen?
"We identify monkey stone tools between 2,400 and 3,000 years old and, on the basis of metric and damage patterns, demonstrate that capuchin food processing changed between [approximately] 2,400 and 300 years ago, and between [roughly] 100 years ago and the present day."Right now they've progressed from using little bits of quartz to get at the good parts of seeds and fruit to using bigger rocks to crack cashews. What happens when they progress to even bigger stones to eat people's faces?!?
This moves them up the threat matrix past vampires and werewolves to rough parity with killer space robots. At this rate, they'll be passing pirates and ninjas before you know it.
"If the monkeys follow a similar evolutionary process to humans, they will develop nuclear weapons at some point after the year 3,500,000.
We’re glad to report that the nightmare scenario of (another) nuke-crazed ape species running wild on our planet is unlikely to come to pass."
Odd Vessel
Pretty funky.
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Ripple Effects...
So, the first gun shop I worked at did probably 90% of its business with two wholesalers.
Chattanooga Shooting Supplies provided most of our ammo and a regularly restocked consumables like cleaning supplies. They weren't the cheapest on a strictly per-unit basis, but their truck came by once a week and kicked the boxes off and the convenience and savings on shipping for heavy items made up for that.
The other was Ellett Brothers, whose tagline "As Big As All Outdoors" was descriptive of their inventory. They carried pretty much everything. That's a lot of creditors...
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Chattanooga Shooting Supplies provided most of our ammo and a regularly restocked consumables like cleaning supplies. They weren't the cheapest on a strictly per-unit basis, but their truck came by once a week and kicked the boxes off and the convenience and savings on shipping for heavy items made up for that.
The other was Ellett Brothers, whose tagline "As Big As All Outdoors" was descriptive of their inventory. They carried pretty much everything. That's a lot of creditors...
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Still Running the Bluff...
Given the mountain of evidence that Chicago authorities have released, either Smollet is the cheekiest individual to walk the face of the earth, or he's pathological.
"Alright, Jussie, let's see them cards. I'm calling your bluff."
Jussie smiles confidently and fans three cards out on the table in front of him.
"Okay, let's see here... You've got 'Black', and 'Bisexual' and...wait, this isn't a card! You've just taken a 3x5 piece of cardboard and written 'VICTIM' on it in crayon!"
Not blinking, Jussie continues to smile and radiate confidence...
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Today In History: "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of police action!"
On this date, sixty-nine years ago, North Korean troops launched attacks across the 38th parallel, triggering U.S. involvement in the first of our many post-WW2 not-a-wars.
Our military, shrunken from its WW2 size, was oriented on Europe and mostly configured with an eye toward nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Russkies.
Our initial response was haphazard and piecemeal, and included the stinging defeat of Task Force Smith, followed up by the 24th Division's HQ getting overrun and its commander captured by the Norks. The 24th Division's resistance at Taejon likely did buy time to get enough troops into Pusan to fortify the perimeter, though.
It was not the most auspicious of starts.
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Our military, shrunken from its WW2 size, was oriented on Europe and mostly configured with an eye toward nuclear combat, toe-to-toe with the Russkies.
Our initial response was haphazard and piecemeal, and included the stinging defeat of Task Force Smith, followed up by the 24th Division's HQ getting overrun and its commander captured by the Norks. The 24th Division's resistance at Taejon likely did buy time to get enough troops into Pusan to fortify the perimeter, though.
It was not the most auspicious of starts.
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Sunday, June 23, 2019
Automotif CXLIII...
In the years since, I've occasionally encountered writings from motor journalists who hail from the other side of the pond lamenting that the Viper could eke more power from less displacement by using this or that technique...all of which misses the point that the whole idea behind the Viper is that nothing exceeds like excess.
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Saturday, June 22, 2019
Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!
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| A proper Viking sendoff will have an open range. |
It was a long and bittersweet, happy/sad day today.
There's a common saying that states if you want to know how irreplaceable you are, look what happens if you put your finger in a bucket of water and pull it out.
"See how long it took for the water to fill the hole left by your finger?" goes the theory, "Well, that's how irreplaceable you are."
Today was a reminder that it takes longer for the water to fill in some people's absences than others.
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Friday, June 21, 2019
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...
I was awakened at 3AM by the sound of my elderly cat, Rannie, being violently ill somewhere in the house.
I found multiple sites where she had horked on the floor and cleaned those up and, deciding I was a little parched, had a can of diet ginger ale & lemonade before flopping back into the bed.
I tried to get back to sleep to no avail. Not even reading through the last few chapters of Russian Roulette could help me doze off, and I had barely drifted back to sleep when the alarm went off.
Despite having vowed to not laze about in bed this morning, there was no way I was going to try to function on that short rest, so I set alarms on the iPad for 7AM and 8AM and figured to get another hour or two of sleep.
This let me drift into a vivid and lengthy-seeming dream, one part of which involved staying in a hotel where the rooms were just depressions in the tops of this really tall mesa, connected by winding arroyos that served as hallways.
At one point I was trying to take a shortcut from one room to another by going from the "balcony" to the "balcony", which essentially meant hand-over-handing across a 90-degree inside corner over a yawning drop to the ground below. This is obviously something I would only do in a dream.
Anyhow, I got my foot stuck in a crevice and, as I was pondering how to get it unstuck without plummeting to my death, I woke up. So that was convenient.
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I found multiple sites where she had horked on the floor and cleaned those up and, deciding I was a little parched, had a can of diet ginger ale & lemonade before flopping back into the bed.
I tried to get back to sleep to no avail. Not even reading through the last few chapters of Russian Roulette could help me doze off, and I had barely drifted back to sleep when the alarm went off.
Despite having vowed to not laze about in bed this morning, there was no way I was going to try to function on that short rest, so I set alarms on the iPad for 7AM and 8AM and figured to get another hour or two of sleep.
This let me drift into a vivid and lengthy-seeming dream, one part of which involved staying in a hotel where the rooms were just depressions in the tops of this really tall mesa, connected by winding arroyos that served as hallways.
At one point I was trying to take a shortcut from one room to another by going from the "balcony" to the "balcony", which essentially meant hand-over-handing across a 90-degree inside corner over a yawning drop to the ground below. This is obviously something I would only do in a dream.
Anyhow, I got my foot stuck in a crevice and, as I was pondering how to get it unstuck without plummeting to my death, I woke up. So that was convenient.
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Wednesday, June 19, 2019
The 2020 race kicks off...
"Our Radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage. They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country, as we know it."
POTUS was on the stump last night at a rally, talking about the platoon of Democratic Party candidates fixing to duke it out...
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How To Social Media (and How Not To)
This is the best timeline...
Hi Point set up a “Name Our New Gun” contest on social media. “YC-9”, for “Yeet Cannon”, got the most votes.
So they put up a short list of finalists, and “YC-9” wasn’t on there. The backlash on Hi-Point’s FB page was swift, and included this post from HK USA’s official account:
Bonus: Check where the web address "YeetKanone.com" resolves...
HK USA's social media game is fire.
PS: Hi-Point, I absolutely would buy a "Yeet Cannon 9".
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Hi Point set up a “Name Our New Gun” contest on social media. “YC-9”, for “Yeet Cannon”, got the most votes.
So they put up a short list of finalists, and “YC-9” wasn’t on there. The backlash on Hi-Point’s FB page was swift, and included this post from HK USA’s official account:
Bonus: Check where the web address "YeetKanone.com" resolves...
HK USA's social media game is fire.
PS: Hi-Point, I absolutely would buy a "Yeet Cannon 9".
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Monday, June 17, 2019
Taste Sensation...
In all these years, I had never tried the Italian beef at Fat Dan's Chicago Deli before.
This past weekend, they had a French dip sandwich, and it was delicious. Today I went there for lunch and ordered an Italian beef, hold the giardiniera peppers and add Swiss cheese. The result was an excellent French dip!
This past weekend, they had a French dip sandwich, and it was delicious. Today I went there for lunch and ordered an Italian beef, hold the giardiniera peppers and add Swiss cheese. The result was an excellent French dip!
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