Saturday, November 24, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Mutts Shelter Stories

Every year, Patrick McDonnell, the creator of the “Mutts” comic, does series of strips called “Shelter Stories”.  They’re about pets waiting to be adopted, and pets which have been adopted already.  This year’s series started with a very poignant Sunday strip about dogfighting, but then continued through the next couple of weeks.  You can see the strips on the Mutts website… just start at November 4th and then click forward to subsequent days.  The online strips are available two weeks after their print publication date, so the latest strip available is November 10th, two weeks prior to today’s date.  Just check back on subsequent days to read more, or sign up for a free subscription to have the strips sent directly to your email.

Patrick is going to put out a new book containing only his shelter-themed strips, and it will be called Shelter Stories: Love. Guaranteed.  It will be released in April 2008, and if you pre-order it from Amazon now, you’ll save 5%.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/24 at 03:42 AM
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Friday, November 23, 2007 , late morning

What I did on Black Friday

I admit it… I did a bit of shopping.  Flippy‘s parents gave us a Thanksgiving check to be thankful for, so I did a bit of shopping online at Kohls, Staples, and Office Depot.  That pretty much completed my holiday shopping, so I feel relieved.  Now I just need to mail it everything I bought!  The biggest shopping disappointment of the day was Amazon.com, where they had some “lightning specials” that we stayed up for, but the Amazon backend had problems so the lightning sales were delayed by hours.  There are lots of unhappy Amazon customers today, although I just moved my browser and spent my time buying discounted Carters baby clothes from Kohls.  I hope the baby doesn’t read this and spoil her Christmas surprise!

It’s been a long couple of days.  I’ll try to get back to posting normally tomorrow.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/23 at 11:57 AM
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Thursday, November 22, 2007 , late at night

Remember last year’s Black Friday?

I send you back to this blog entry, November 2006.  Flippy and I attempted to tackle Black Friday, and we lost.  This year we’ll do no such nonsense, especially after reading this article in Motley Fool about how seriously Best Buy takes Black Friday shopping.  And in case we were tempted, we drove past Best Buy tonight at about 8:45pm, just to see if there were any signs of any people waiting outside.  I was shocked to see that with still 8+ hours to go, there were about 200 people lined up with lawn chairs, blankets, even tents.  It was already 45 degrees outside, and windy, so they’ll definitely earn whatever reward they come up with tomorrow.  I had trouble standing outside to pump gas for three minutes, so I could not survive a night outdoors.  I’ll just have to work harder and earn more money.

There are some Black Friday sales online, if you look around.  Amazon.com will be having some stuff for sale (they already have one page of pet products on sale, with some decent bargains), and for the rest of the stores, you’ll have to find those yourself.  I’m afraid I’m going to pack it in for the evening, so I leave you to find all the best deals (and to brag about them in the comments!).  Good night, all, and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving day!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/22 at 11:25 PM
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007 , early afternoon

Where’s my summer?

Yesterday, around early evening, it started to get… autumnal.  Now it’s chilly.  And windy.  Almost “brisk”.  Our master bedroom has plummeted to a pneumonia-causing 73 degrees, and outside, it’s merely 52 right now.  52!  It was a pleasant 75 yesterday.  I even wore shorts to the mailbox last night.  How dare the weather cause me to need a jacket.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be under the electric blanket, cuddling up with cats for body heat.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/21 at 02:25 PM
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Deep thoughts (unfortunately)

There’s a blog written by someone who works in animal rescue, and while I used to enjoy reading it, I had to stop a couple of years ago because it just became too much.  The woman who wrote it was always inflammatory and angry.  She would never listen to anyone else’s experiences or opinions.  She was sure she was right about everything, and she make statements like, “Landlords should be forced to allow renters to have pets!”, and then she’d tear your throat out if you disagreed with her.  Not only did she hurt my feelings more than once, I started to figure she was mentally ill, and it wasn’t doing me any good to stay and be abused by her.  I removed her from my blogroll and haven’t been back in two years.  One of her favourite subjects to lecture about was her claim that euthanasia technicians are the people who carry a lot of blame for the animal deaths in this country.  If those people would just refuse to do their jobs, then the country would get together and figure out a new solution to the overpopulation problem (her solution would include banning all breeding).  She never, ever look at the tech as “good guys”—she figured they were all animal haters.

I know there must be a handful of techs who chose their line of work to get their jollies.  They are few and far between, however, and obviously in short supply because if you look at the “jobs available” list on the HSUS website, there are euthanasia tech jobs available all over the country.  I’ve read that on average, a tech works for two years and then can’t take it anymore.  I’ve also read that many of the people who take the job are animal lovers, who want to ensure the animals a comfortable and safe passing. 

All the above came to mind today when I stumbled across this article from the Alabama Press Register.  It’s about euthanasia, why it’s needed, and how the people responsible for doing it deal with the emotional side of things.  It’s really sad, but I think it’s good to be reminded that these good people are out there every day, facing a job neither you nor I could probably do.  And I don’t think the pet overpopulation problem would disappear if they walked off the job, either.  I’d last one day on the job, and I’d forever be able to tell you the name and description of every single animal I helped depart.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/21 at 05:42 AM
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007 , early evening

We sell domain names (and we’re a dessert topping)

Lately, I seem to be all “buy, buy, buy”, when I’m not being all “complain, complain, complain”.  Sorry ‘bout that.

Flippy and I have had a domain name resellers’ account since 2002, and it never occured to me to mention it here until now.  If you need to buy any sort of domain names or features which go with domain names (like hosting), you can buy them through us by going to CynicalDog.net.  If the interface looks at all familiar, it’s because we “rent” our reseller business from the same company which runs GoDaddy.  All the features we offer, all the customer service, and the hosting, etc., is run just the same as if you’d purchased it from GoDaddy.  The only difference is that any small profits would come to us.  If we ever decided to go out of business, your account would automatically revert to a GoDaddy/Wild West Domains account, so you’d never be left hanging.

Flippy and I bought the reseller’s license because we own so many domain names for various jobs and pursuits, we saved a lot of money by purchasing them with our own license.  I always set the sale prices for all domains, renewals, and other features as low as they can possibly go.  I’m limited in how high and how low the account prices can fluctuate, and I set them as low as possible!  I just reconfigured them tonight, as there was a price change, so you’ll now pay $6.95 for a domain name (new or renewed).  In terms of commission from one sale of that size, we make about 40 cents.

We’ve had many friends and family using the service and have had no complaints.  One nice thing is that if anything goes drastically wrong with your domain registration, we can probably help you look up the details if you can’t find them yourself.  We try to provide good customer service smile

So, if you want a domain name, I hope you’ll think of us.  I can say with a great degree of certainty that almost every profit we make from anything ends up being spent on the pets!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/20 at 06:19 PM
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The whale hunt

The annual Japanese whale hunt technically started a couple of days ago, with the Japanese hunting boats leaving harbour in Japan.  They’ll travel south to waters near Antarctica to hunt, and they’ll stay there until the hunt ends next April.  This hunt is different from other years… this year, the hunters will be killing 50 humpback whales, normally a protected species.  They’ll also hunt about 1000 smaller whales.  They say they’re hunting the humpbacks for “research”, i.e., “you can’t understand them until you dissect them!” It’s a huge lie, it’s all about money and the price of whale meat, and I think it’s disgusting.  The humpback whales can live for over 100 years, and they live in family pods their entire lives.  The Japanese say that killing 50 whales won’t disrupt anything because there will be plenty of whales left, but it will sure disrupt the whale pods where death occurs.  Can you imagine if someone came along to your home, gunned down a few members of your family, and then said it didn’t matter because there were “still plenty of humans left”?!

Greenpeace will be out at the hunt with their own boats, causing trouble and disruption.  I applaud them.  IFAW sticks to less radical but still effective protests by taking battles to international courts and whaling unions and the places where this hunt can be banned by people Japan will listen to.  They’ve been extremely effective, and recently Iceland announced it would stop hunting whales, but Japan is still a battle left to win.  If you care to mention the hunt on your blog, you can send your readers to the Song of the Whale Blog to find out more.  That blog will also let them sign up for text messaging alerts about the hunt.  And hey, I’m writing most the entries for NaBloPoMo, so come by and help save a whale or fifty!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/20 at 02:32 AM
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Monday, November 19, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

Buy my iPod Nano(s)?

I would like to sell the two third-generation iPod Nano mp3 players I won at Blog World Expo.  We’re trying to get me home to Canada for Christmas, and we need all the bits of income we can get.  This is an official fundraiser!  Money raised here will also be used to care for Pinto and the other Bean if they end up getting pneumonia.  They really don’t sound very good at all.

Anyway, these two Nanos are each 4GB.  They’re silver.  They’ve never been out of their packages, so have never been touched by human fingers!!! (except the ones that packaged them in the first place).  They play both music and video, so you can listen to music from you own CD library, music you purchase online, and free audio items you can find online, like podcasts.  Even the least-important Podcaster usually uploads their material to the iTunes store, and you just download it for free.  Regarding video, you can load your Nano with video you shot yourself (of your kitties doing something cute!), or you can again download files from the iTunes store, including entire movies and TV shows.  Free things you can download include video podcasts.  If you like books on tape, the Nano is compatible with Audible audiobook “rentals”, and again, there are books to purchase from iTunes.  Maybe they even sell groceries. 

Other things your Nano can do (according to what I’ve read), include storing thousands of cute photos of your cats and dogs, playing a few games (guess where you buy those?  Have you been paying attention?), and it has handy features like a calendar, world clock, stopwatch, and contacts list.  Flippy would say that the best thing about it is that you can choose from dozens of super-cute protective cases for it.

The Nano has a suggested retail at the Apple store of $149.99.  It sells at Amazon.com for $139.99.  I will sell my Nanos for $129.99 each, and will pay for free Priority Mail Shipping and insurance.  I will also give a free pink brushed metal protective case (it’s pretty!) to the first purchaser who requests it (I only have one).  And one more bargain—I’ll send you a $5 iTunes gift certificate via email to go along with your new toy.  I’m going to list these on eBay as soon as I get around to it, but thought I’d offer them here, first.  If you’re interested in buying either of them, just send me an email and we can work something out.  Thanks!

Oh, here’s the Nano itself:

iPod_Nano_4GB

And here’s the pink brushed metal case:

pink_case

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/19 at 04:31 AM
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Kitty love

Can you look at this picture and not automatically go, “awwwwwww”?!  It’s a totally unposed snapshot of TJ and Dobby sleeping together early Friday morning.  I had to take the picture quickly so I didn’t wake them.  TJ is an amazing cat ambassador (he loves all cats, but not people unless he’s sick), and Dobby has a huge crush on him.  I guess I should write a Dobby update in the next few days, but briefly, she’s mostly feral while downstairs, but likes to be petted and played with while upstairs.  We don’t know why, either.

TJ_and_Dobby_love

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/19 at 12:17 AM
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Sunday, November 18, 2007 , the wee hours

It’s Pinto and Shiner, Skyler, Bean, Garbanzo, yada, yada

I don’t know what to rename Shiner.  We’ve found it easy to call him “Garbanzo”, but he definitely looks like a freakish little Bean, too, and he’s so disturbed he might not react well to a total name change.  I’m a bit concerned about him, because he’s very skinny and boney, while Pinto is a bit flabby.  Here’s Shiner the Garbanzo Bean, looking like a serial killer (the fact that he’s shaved doesn’t help).  He’s the one who bit the vet tech:

Garbanzo

Here’s Pinto, who seems to like me and will approach me and purr.  I unfortunately have to pill him twice a day because of his upper respiratory infection, so it’s not the basis for a really trustful relationship yet.  I’d also like to add that Pinto bit me today, for no apparent reason and without warning.  He broke the skin, but it looks more like a scratch than a puncture, so it should be fine with just some Neosporin:

Pinto

To summarize, we ended up with two cats with URIs (Pinto is worse than the other), one cat who’s abnormally thin and one who is too fat, both with large hair mats (the vet’s office was supposed to shave Pinto, too, but didn’t for some reason), and both who’ve bitten people in the last week.  I want Greg and Spiderman back (but I’m sure I’ll grow to love these guys, dammit)!  I still haven’t had time to look into ways to transport them to St. Louis, but I appreciate the suggestions from the previous entry and will definitely follow those up when I stop writing blog entries.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/18 at 12:33 AM
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