Mystical Musings

Geeks Meet Freaks: The Terrible Tale of Sloth Boy by Niles and Chee

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 02:20:00 +0000

My newest graphic novel review appears on The HomeWorld. Read about The Terrible Tale of Sloth Boy. Chilling!

Enjoy!

--->Susan

Book Review: Dead in the Family. Southern Vampire Series #10 Spoilers!

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
After the last book ended on such a dark note, this one starts out that way and pretty much maintains the atmosphere throughout, but there are some highlights as Sookie heals from her horrific torture and reconnects with her remaining friends and family members. The highlights are her continuing romance with Eric, her growing friendship with Pam and the deed she does for Bill that finally frees him from their tumultuous past.

Like the other books, Harris left you with wanting more, but again like the last book, the future isn't so bright. While you're hopeful for Sookie's future, her dark thoughts seem to be foreshadowing her ultimate fate as for the first time she serious considers what life as a vampire would be like.

--->Susan

View all my reviews >>

In Honor of Geek Pride Day...

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:27:00 +0000

Rachel's a big old geek herself. Go Copernicus!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

--->Susan

If this isn't proof that NASA is full of Geeks...

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:05:00 +0000

Ya gotta love it. First NASA names their first shuttle Enterprise, now they name their first "robonaut" R2 and it kinda looks like Boba Fett. I'll bet Mr. Lucas is happy.

Of course, you can't help but notice the blatant product endorsement.

R2 takes off for its permanent home on the ISS on Discovery's STS-133 flight scheduled in September.

--->Susan

Tony Bourdain: Traveling Sell-Out

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:10:00 +0000

No Reservations is a travel channel program hosted by bad boy misanthropic chef Tony Bourdain, who is famous for his feuds with Food Network chefs. His sarcastic commentary is refreshing and amusing and he is a joy to watch.

Until now.

I just caught the rerun of the Istanbul episode. Tony and his guide were eating at a restaurant, commenting on the food and finally Tony says, "Here, let me get this." And the camera zooms in on Tony's hand holding a Chase Sapphire credit card.

WTF???

Is this a joke, Tony? Did Chase pay you extraordinary amounts of payola because your image would generate this kind of backlash in the theory that even bad publicity is good publicity? No matter what the case, it still stinks.

Mario Batali, Sandra Lee, Rachel Ray...meet your new best friend, Anthony Bourdain.

A Canyon Within a Canyon

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:44:00 +0000

This photograph of the Mars Juventae Chasma canyon shows the different color variations in layered deposits of opaline silica and iron sulfates. The canyon is part of the large Valles Marineris rift which runs nearly 1/4 the way around the planet. The rift, so far the longest known in the solar system, is over 4,000 km long, 200 km wide and up to 7 km deep. By comparison, the Grand Canyon is 446 km long, 29 km wide and 1.83 km deep.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

News of the Odd

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:34:00 +0000

A funeral home in New Mexico is being sued by the family of a woman they buried...well, almost all of her. Apparently the home sent the family the woman's personal effects and someone accidently left her brain in with them.
Source

Scientists at Charles Darwin University in Australia were disappointed when their study to track the movements of tree frogs by implanting them with radio transmitters. Turns out the frogs had other ideas and moved the transmitters to their bladders and then pissed them out.
Source

A Washington couple is raising funds for their July 31st wedding by collecting aluminum cans. Their goal is to collect 400,000 cans, or about 5 tons of aluminum, worth about $3,800 when recycled. Their effort can be read at Wedding Cans.
Source

A Pomeranian named Sadie dropped out of the sky in the middle of a road. Fortunately the driver stopped in time only to notice a very large and very hungry owl landing in the road to retrieve its meal. The driver chased the owl and returned the dog to her owner.
Source

[blink]

Brrr...

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:15:00 +0000

Got Nova? NASA Don't.

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:22:00 +0000

Scientists have been predicting for decades that as a massive star's nuclear fuel runs out, it begins to collapse under its own weight and the resulting pressure causes it to explode. Well, seems that's not the case and something is missing from the equation because what actually happens is that gravity takes over and the star collapses with a fizzle instead of a bang.

Novae of smaller suns are understood, but in order to find out what really happens with larger, massive stars, NASA is beginning work on a new space observatory they hope will help them find the missing data. Named NuSTAR or the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, scheduled to launch in 2011 on a Pegasus rocket, its mission is to look inside a supernova as it explodes to observe the high-energy X-rays emitted. This will allow them to figure out what is happening inside the star and not merely on the outside.

NuSTAR's optics has special coatings and configurations that allow it to reflect X-ray energy on to new sensors that can tolerate the high energy of high-intensity X-rays. As an added bonus, NuSTAR will also be able to focus on the X-ray emissions of supermassive black holes and blazars.

Keep tuned to Mystical Musings for more news here on Earth and beyond.

Enjoy!

--->Susan

Source: Science@NASA
NuSTAR Mission Home Page

Just a Wee Bit Stiff

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:02:00 +0000

As previously commented on in Mystical Musings, cold-blooded iguanas have a charming habit of going into hybernation during cold temperatures and falling out of trees or lying like corpses along canals and lakes until the sun gets high enough to get their blood moving.

Last night, the temperatures here were in the low 30s and there stiff iguanas all over the place! As reported by CBS4 news, "Rescue workers from the SPCA Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale rescued at least two iguanas, one of which was 'stuck' halfway in and halfway out of the water at the edge of the lake. The iguanas were wrapped in towels in order to help warm them up."

Okay...the question is why is the SPCA spending valuable resources to rescue iguanas when they are an invasive species to Florida, have no business being here and cause all kinds of problems and headaches? State law claims it's legal to kill iguanas as long as it's done humanely. Letting them die from an unusual cold snap would definitely constitute a humane way to die.

So please...I understand wanting to save animals on the verge of death, but unless you're going to round up all the iguanas and take them back to where they belong, then let nature take its course. If it's too cold for them, that's too bad. Some will die, but most will make it. Don't waste time and money trying to help something that will continue to harm our environment in the long run.

Photos from Space

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Not much in the way of news today, so here are some photos to tickle your fancy.

Enjoy!

--->Susan

Artist's concept shows a cloudy Jupiter-like planet that orbits very close to its fiery hot star.

X-rays from Chandra are shown in blue and are overlaid on an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Chandra observations show that this object is a so-called ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX). An unusual class of objects, ULXs emit more X-rays than stars, but less than quasars. Their exact nature has remained a mystery, but one suggestion is that some ULXs are black holes with masses between about a hundred and a thousands times that of the Sun.

This image of a cluster of rocks labeled 'Rock Garden' is where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit became embedded in April 2009. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet in January 2004 for what was to be a 90-day mission, but which has lasted 6 Earth years, or 3.2 Mars years. During this time, Spirit has found evidence of a steamy and violent environment on ancient Mars that is quite different from the wet and acidic past documented by Opportunity, which has been operating successfully as it explores halfway around the planet.

This natural-color image of Mayon Volcano was captured on Dec. 15, 2009, by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. A small plume of ash and steam is blowing west from the summit. Dark-colored lava or debris flows from previous eruptions streak the flanks of the mountain. A ravine on the southeast slope is occupied by a particularly prominent lava or debris flow.

The Cat's Eye Nebula taken by Hubble. The nebula is in the constellation of Draco approximately 3,000 light years from Earth.

Death of a comet. NASA's SOHO observatory took these series of shots of a comet getting just a bit too up close and personal with the sun. Comet goes in, but it doesn't come out. Oops. One less dirty snowball in the solar system to worry about.

Kepler Scores!

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:25:00 +0000

As reported here in Mystical Musings the other day, NASA said there would be an announcement regarding the Kepler s pace observatory launched last March to search for terrestrial-type planets. Today, they announced that the mission is already a success and five new exoplanets can be added to our catalogue.

Named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b, the planets are all of high mass and extreme temperature and range in size from similar to Neptune to Jupiter and temperatures from 2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's a heck of a lot hotter than the temperature required to burn a book.

Kepler is expected to keep looking for planets until November 2012 and as the mission's head stated in the news briefing today, "The Kepler observations will tell us whether there are many stars with planets that could harbor life, or whether we might be alone in our galaxy."

Click here for more info on Kepler and its mission. The mission is named after German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer Johannes Kepler best known for his laws of planetary motion which led the way for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Kepler proved that planets moved around the sun in elliptical orbits and not the circular orbits proposed by Copernicus. Along with Newton, Kepler gave rise to modern astronomy and physics.

Enjoy!

--->Susan

Blue Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:54:00 +0000

Much was made of the New Years blue moon. It was pretty, but in other parts of the world, they had more reason to enjoy it with a 8% partial eclipse in Europe, Asia, Africa and parts of Alaska. The following are some photos from around the world. (Click on the thumbnail for the larger photo.)

Enjoy!

--->Susan

"The eclipsed 'Blue moon' rose over the Alaska Range just before sunrise," says photographer Calvin Hall of Palmer, Alaska. "It was a beautiful sight."

Anthony Ayiomamitis, Northeastern outskirts of Athens, Greece

Dave Parkhurst, Knik Arm/Cook Inlet

Denis Joye, St-Petersburg, Russia

Jean-Paul Roux, FRANCE

Bruce Chandler, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Andrew Wall, 30km West of Blanchetown, South Australia

2009 Year in Space

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:21:00 +0000

The year I was born – 1963 – was a very active year for space exploration with a flyby of both the moon and Mars, 70 orbital launches (24 by the USSR and 46 by the USA). Only late the previously year, President Kennedy gave his famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech, effectively throwing down the space race gauntlet. Now, 47 years later, we're seeing some amazing things that would have been inconceivable back then. Since I was mainly absent from the space news blogging this year, I'll issue one post to recap the highlights.

Today, the race for space is no longer limited to two bullies dueling it out in the school yard. Instead we've got new contenders in the game, including one that is keeping a lot of people up at night. Among the new entries are New Zealand, Switzerland and Iran, who launched its first homemade satellite into orbit. The telecommunications and research satellite is designed to promote "monotheism, peace and justice" in the world." Um, yeah. That'll give me a few nightmares.

The biggest news in the orbital launch category of 2009 wasn't one of the successful launches, but a failure. On April 5th, North Korea attempted to put a communication satellite into orbit. While the North Koreans insist the satellite was for peaceful purposes, the launch itself caused even President Obama to speak words as strong as his predecessor: "North Korea...has broke the rules...once again...by testing a rocket that could be used for long range missiles. Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread to these weapons. It is time for an international response to prevent the spread of these weapons."

In all, there were 78 launches, with 73 successes (as opposed to the 50 successes of 1963). There were 4 new rockets including the Delta IV by Boeing, a Taurus and one each by Japan and South Korea. The European Space Agency and the Ukraine retired two rockets.

There were 9 manned flights and a total of 46 people travelled in space in 2009. Some of those folks were women and I won't even bother hunting down the statistics on that, but it's interesting to note that 1963 was the year a woman first traveled in space. (She was Soviet – it took another 20 years for an American woman to accomplish the same first.) Among the more memorable manned flights was STS-125, the final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, certainly one of my favorite pieces of equipment in space (and BTW: the last person to touch the Hubble was a woman), and the 100th mission of the Soyuz space program to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station from the European Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. Truly the space race has become integrated.

Efforts in space exploration really shone during 2009, both close to home and at the outer reaches of the solar system. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched and already it is expanding our knowledge of the moon by providing detailed 3D maps to be used for future missions. More excitingly, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) has already detected the presence of water on the moon, which will help NASA decide whether or not to build a manned base on the moon.

The Kepler Mission launched in March will explore the exoplanets other star systems to find more Earth-like planets rather than the big gas giants more easily seen. The Kepler telescope, although smaller in size than the Hubble, has a larger field of view and can view 100,000 stars at the same time. NASA plans on announcing some new discoveries from Kepler in a few days.

The Herschel Spa ce Observatory will study light from not only without our own solar system and the Milky Way, but also galaxies beyond. It's looking at the small chemical composition of molecules and how they come together for form stars and galaxies. And the Plank spacecraft will study cosmic microwave background to test theories of the early universe and the origin of the cosmos. Both are projects of the European Space Agency. NASA and the JPL launched the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer to make a complete picture of the sky in the infrared spectrum.

In flybys, Cassini continues its mission around Saturn as recently reported in Mystical Musings. And speaking of mystical energy, Dawn used Mars's gravity to boost itself on its way to study the two largest objects in the asteroid belt Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. And the Messenger probe made its final pass by Mercury where it's been studying the planet from orbit. Messenger has discovered large amounts of water in Mercury's exosphere, dispelling myths that the closest planet to the sun is the driest. The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft performed its final gravity-assist flyby of the Earth on its way to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to help scientists unlock how the solar system looked before the planets formed.

What Comes Next?

The Space Shuttle will retire and test flights of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will commence. This little capsule is reminiscent of the old Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space crafts, but it can carry up to 7 people or people and cargo, depending on its mission. Designed to be used to transport personnel to and from the ISS, the craft will be the main tool for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program NASA will use to coordinate commercial delivery of crew and cargo to and from the ISS. In other words, the space race is quickly and gleefully being outsourced to private business.

Japan plans to launch a probe to Venus to study lightning and volcanoes. And China will conduct another mission in preparation to land a probe on the moon.

Nine manned missions are planned to and from the ISS for crew rotations and cargo delivery. These will mark the final tasks of the space shuttles Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery. In deep space, Cassini will continue its exploration of Titan and the other Saturnine moons Dione, Enceladus, Mimas, Rhea, and Tethys. Rosetta will fly by the asteroid 21 Lutetia and will hopefully tell us what it is made of and the Akatsuki probe will enter orbit around Venus near the end of the year. By the way, The Planetary Society is offering folks a chance to send a message to Venus along with Akatsuki so hurry and get yours in. I already did mine last month.

Keep an eyes on Mystical Musings as we journey through 2010 together in search of new and exiting space news.

--->Susan

Blog Rec

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:35:00 +0000

My buddy Dan, whom I absolutely adore and am firmly convinced he'll be president of the United States one day, is posting a wonderful series of blogs titled A Decade in Review, highlighting and summarizing the years since we changed from 19 to 20.

So go read and enjoy.

Now!

--->Susan

Here There Be Monsters

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:21:00 +0000

It's been a while since I posted about space news here. Things have been...well, hard enough here on Earth that I haven't been paying much attention to what's happening beyond our atmosphere, but this photo caught my eye.

It was taken by the probe Cassini and shows the reflection of the sun off of a lake of liquid hydrocarbons in the northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The lake is named Kraken Mare and is about 400,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles). By comparison, Lake Superior is 82,414 square kilometers (31,820 square miles).

No, it's not water, but it is exciting because it's proof that liquid does exist on the surface of a celestial body other than Earth. And that lake of hydrocarbons could represent an unimaginable source of energy that we'll be able to use someday.

Plans are already in the works to visit Titan and the Kraken Mare with the Titan Saturn System Mission, but liftoff won't be until after 2020.

The Cassini-Huygens probe was launched in 1997 and its primary mission objectives include studying the composition of Saturn's rings and the geology of Titan. So far, it has exceeded NASA's expectation and the 3.26B cost has been well spent.

The lake is named after the legendary sea monster. Tennyson wrote a poem about it:

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

In our lifetimes we may never know if monsters lurk beneath Kraken Mare on Titan, but at least we know liquid hydrocarbons do. And science is always more real than science fiction.

Cheers!

--->Susan

Hollywood HiJinks

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Hey! Didja know that the Mayans were "mankind's earliest civilization?" Yep, it's true! Everything that existed before 3114 BC was just practice. There must have been nothing in Mesopotamia, China or Egypt back then, because...hey, Hollywood said so! Don't believe me? Check out the trailer of the new Hollywood disaster movie 2012:

Okay, sarcasm aside, I do have to admit the movie looks cool and I love a great disaster flick, but I'm just worried that this crapola is going to cause more damage and panic among those who can't think for themselves. Remember Y2K?

One thing I do wish they had done different. A lot of "end of the world" movies Hollywood has put out has usually featured a black president as if to show that hey, it may be fiction, but it could happen. (Ex: Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact.) Anyway, now that we do have a black president in office, why not cast a white actor for the role? Hey, it could happen.

Oops, there's that sarcasm again.

--->Susan

A New Discrimination

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:46:00 +0000

I've been overweight my whole life so I've pretty much experienced every kind of discrimination our society has against fat people. But I've just discovered a new one, one that I've been fortunate not to have experienced until now. It's this:

If you're overweight, and you're hungry because you have no money to buy food, then that's a good thing because now you'll have to lose weight.

--->Susan

Pets aren't LIKE Family, They ARE Family

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:57:00 +0000

Skeeter died today.

Well, no that's not totally accurate. What really happened is that I had him put down.

Funny how we have almost as many euphemisms for death as we do for sex.

I first met Skeeter a long time ago. At the time I was working graveyard shift and my mom came into my room and woke me up by putting this little ball of fluff on my chest. I opened my eyes and looked into the most incredibly gold eyes I had ever seen. Mom said, "Look what we got! What are we going to call him?" And me, still half-asleep and looking into his eyes said without thinking, "Skeeter." He obviously had told me what he wished to be called and that was that.

Skeeter was not actually mine, not then. My step-brother had adopted him from the Humane Society of Broward County as a gift for my niece Rochelle who was a very young girl at the time. Being a child, Rochelle had no idea how to deal with a rambunctious kitten and after a nearly a year of her being scratched, my step-brother told Mom he was taking the cat back to the shelter. I said, "No bring him here. This family rescues animals from the shelter, we don't take them there."

Funny, I took Skeeter there this morning.

So at the tender age of one, Skeeter came to live with me and Mom.

We immediately ran into trouble. Skeeter, as previously mentioned, was rambunctious and my mother had two small lovebirds, two parakeets and a cockatiel. The war was on. Despite having had him declawed (my mom was diabetic so it was a necessary decision) Skeeter was determined to enjoy the birds, especially their different flavors. Mom had to give away the birds because there was no way I was giving him up. On the day he came to live with us, he crawled into my lap and started to fluff my belly. (Making biscuits, as Tamie liked to call it.) Talk about soul mates.

Skeeter was constantly in trouble and his nickname was CWA (cat with attitude). One time a stray cat got into the house and Skeeter nearly took its head off he was so pissed for someone daring to invade his territory. As I was pulling him off the other cat, Skeeter tore open my arm (with his back claws) and left me with a gash six inches long. He also liked to knock things off of tables and countertops, especially glass things that make pretty sounding noises when they hit the floor and he always waited until we were watching but were too far away to stop him. Sometimes his feistiness was a good thing, like the time a mother mouse decided to have baby mice under our washing machine. Skeeter spent nearly three days waiting for each curious little nose to poke out and after that we never had a mouse problem again.

Mom always complained that Skeeter didn't love her until the time she got sick and spent six weeks in the hospital. When she came home, he immediately crawled on to her bed and snuggled against her side and stayed there until she felt better. She never complained after that.

He was always trying to get outside. He loved the outdoors, but a city is no place for cats. One time I was carrying a citronella candle I had lit to grill our dinner and when I came in the back door he tried to make a dash outside. I tried to stop him and the candle was poured all over him. He wasn't burned, thanks to his thick coat, but he was covered in wax and oil and spent the next few hours in the bathtub, thanks to his thick coat. Another time I returned home after a three-day visit to Jacksonville and Mom said, "Skeeter got out." "How long has he been out?" I asked. "Two days," was the reply. Mom and Grandma were sick at the time and couldn't go chasing after him. I finally found him happy as a bug and eating bugs in our neighbor's back yard.

His behavior finally changed when he decided to swallow a penny and it got lodged in his intestine and blocked him up. By the time we got him to the vet, he was in pretty bad shape and it took them even longer to figure out what was wrong with him. Finally they showed me the x-ray with a perfect penny-sized spot. They had to do emergency surgery on him and I kept the penny for a long time, showing it off to friends as the "Miraculous $400 Penny."

Funny, I don't have the penny anymore either. It was lost when I lost all of my other belongings.

After that, Skeeter changed. It was like he took stock of his life, said to himself, "Okay, I nearly died, now I'm gonna take it easy" and with that decision, he became the most laid-back cat you ever met. You could hold him and he'd lie in your arms like a rag doll. The only time he ever complained was when you took him in the car. He hated riding in cars, probably because it was usually to the vet and he hated the vet. He even bit old Doc Schenholm one time and after that I had to sedate him before I was allowed to bring him to the office.

The main consequence of all this laid-backness was he grew fat. Really, really fat. I was too distracted trying to take care of my increasingly sick mother and grandmother so I'm afraid it was my fault. Not good and I'm ashamed, but that's what happened.

It was never a problem until about three years ago and he had a bad bout of constipation that required another emergency trip to the vet. During said visit they neglected to muzzle him despite my making a big fat check mark in the box that said yes to the question of "Does your pet bite?" I even circled it twice. This time the vet tech had to have stitches. Well, what did they expect? Can't blame the poor cat for biting when they stuck a tube up his ass and in all fairness I did warn them. Tamie (my partner who loved Skeeter as much as I did) and I were in the waiting room when from within came a really loud howl immediately followed by someone screaming "Ow Ow Ow!" Tamie asked, "What the hell was that?" I replied, "Skeeter just bit someone."

The vet told us that he was "pre-diabetic" and needed to make a radical change in his diet and behavior to prevent him from becoming diabetic. Tamie and I discussed it at great length and decided that rather than making his last few years utterly miserable, we would just give him lots of love and attention and let him be happy his last few years.

That's what I did. Other than drinking a lot and hence urinating a lot and unfortunately missing the litter box, he's been happy. Until a few weeks ago when he started to lose weight like crazy and grew increasingly frail. Being unemployed means no money for a vet so I couldn't take him. I expected him to go at any time, but his stubbornness won out and he just kept hanging on. Finally last night he could barely walk and he started to cry in pain so this morning I asked my roommate to take us to the Humane Society and they promised to 'take care of him.'

There's a euphemism again. Can 'euphemism' be used as a verb I wonder? Hmm...how about this? "I needed to write something about death so I euphemized a new word today."

Not long after the constipation scare, I had a nightmare that Skeeter died and I woke up sobbing. Literally sobbing. After today, I can safely say that reaction was pretty darn accurate.

Alex said that Skeeter will be even happier now than he was before because he's got Tamie waiting for him on the other side. If that's true, I guess he's got Mom and Grandma there, too because they loved him just as much as Tamie did.

Funny, it's a nice thought and maybe someday I'll even believe it.

But not today.

Skeeter Carr
1991 – 2009

Remember Y2K?

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:36:00 +0000

It's back...

Get ready for the hype people.

It's funny. I've had a countdown to 2012 up on Mystic Muse for years and no one's noticed. So, take a visit, scroll to the bottom and see how long we've got left. Personally, I'm gonna be laughing my ass off on December 22, 2012 just like I was on January 1, 2000.

But hey...the CGI looks way cool.

--->Susan

Some Days You Need a Little Inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:26:00 +0000

Check out this clip from Simon Cowell's Britain's Got Talent show which airs, strangely enough, in Britain.

Susan Boyle is a 47-year old spinster, self-proclaimed never been kissed, lives alone with her cat. The audience and judges give her the typical patronizing attitude, ready to write this woman off faster than Chuck Barris with his gong.

That is, until she opens her mouth and blows them all away...

Sometimes in life, it's wonderful when an old cliché like "never judge a book by its cover" proves true.

God Bless you, Susan!

--->Susan

Just the Facts...

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Breaking News! Iguanas Invade Palm Beach!

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:16:00 +0000

At last! Someone provides a valid solution to this menace!

Take iguana prima donnas in stride, Palm Beach

A fine day it is in these United States when two out-of-wedlock iguanas from South America — who probably came here illegally and haven't even bothered to learn the language — can cause all these headaches. We start pointing fingers. Who's to blame? A breakdown in family values? Deregulation on Wall Street? Lax border security? Bernie Madoff?

--->Susan

Life in South Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:48:00 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Dirty Bird Special

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Economic Crisis

Political Humor

The Capitol Beat: Why do Republicans hate America?

noreply@blogger.com (Truman Carr) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Some interesting insight...

The Capitol Beat: Why do Republicans hate America?

--->Susan