In which I approach milestones

On November 23, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

This is my 2996th post, and I am just over 1500 words away from writing my millionth word on this blog. I’ve been keeping track pretty carefully over the last several weeks because I want them both to happen on the same post.

…I, uh, probably ought to start figuring out what I’m doing with that post, shouldn’t I? 🙂

The cat remains unnamed; current frontrunners include Gordon, Hup, Tyrion, Hodor, and I just suggested Hercules. I don’t understand why this is so difficult.

Name this cat

On November 17, 2019November 17, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn life9 Comments

So New Cat has been living in our master bathroom for a few days now. At the vet’s suggestion, we have expanded his range to the laundry room as of yesterday. He is about three years old, which is about what I figured, an unfixed male, which was obvious, and unchipped. As of yesterday he is flea, worm and ear mite free and we’ve confirmed that he does not have FIV or whatever the other disease they make sure to check cats for is.

He is a friendly soft cuddly boi. Technically we can’t call him our cat or get him fixed until fifteen days have passed since reporting that we found him, so we’ve got a bit more time on that. I suspect an unchipped and unfixed male that was wandering the neighborhood is almost certainly not someone’s cat, however, and he’ll be ours soon enough. He knows what a litterbox is, so he probably got dumped by somebody.

We are having a hell of a time picking out a name. On one hand, this maybe isn’t a bad thing, as he’s not our cat yet and it’s always possible his owners might claim him, and renaming him before he’s official is putting the cart before the horse just a bit. On the other hand … it’s just not that damn likely. We may as well.

Possible options include:

Gus, which was my brother’s initial choice and seems to fit him. However, my wife has bad associations with a cat named Gus in the past (don’t ask) and so this is highly unlikely to be the final name.
Walter. He is a dignified-looking cat, and I feel like Walter sort of fits him.
Chewie. If I had been able to create a new cat out of thin air he would have been an orange boycat and we would have named him Goose; I feel like Chewie is too Captain Marvel-adjacent (Chewie is the name of the flerken in the comics that became Goose in the movie) to name this cat when the appearance of a Goose in the future is still possible.
Mochi. The Great Old One is literally from Japan and is named Mizu, which I have always suspected was supposed to be Miso but spelled wrong by the people at the shelter I got her from. I had a cat named Moro who passed away several years ago who was named after a character in Princess Mononoke, and our current kitten is named Sushi, which was my son’s decision. So we have a previously-established pattern of naming cats with 1) Japanese names starting with M and 2) Japanese foods. Which is a weird accident, because otherwise I display no weeaboo tendencies. Mochi fits both.
I have mostly been calling him “Big boy” or “Buddy,” and honestly I think “Buddy” works pretty well as a name for him but my wife calls our son that all the time and I’d rather not get that mixed up. I don’t like “Big boy” as an actual name but as a temporary nickname it works.

So far, I think Mochi is probably my favorite choice, but nothing has stuck yet. Suggestions?

In which I don’t know the rules

On November 11, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

How long do you have to feed the local stray before it’s your cat?

This is why I have an iPhone

On December 25, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography2 Comments

My wife’s phone just … created this video, and offered to share it with her? Which means that Google is combing through her pictures to find photos of cats, without being asked, and then just … making stuff?

Sure.

How to Christmas with a kitten

On December 18, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

The tree has lights but no real ornaments (the boy hung some toys on it) and the vacuum is right next to it, plugged in. If the kitten touches the tree, we turn on the vacuum.

Works really well.

It has been a rough day so here is a kitten

On November 18, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography3 Comments

In which Amazon is still being assholes, and I try to read a book and fail

On November 15, 2018November 15, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

So Amazon’s still fucking with me. I don’t really want to generate another 6000-word post right now but the latest is that they’ve pushed back the delivery to Friday the 23rd– another two entire weeks— and that 1) their Twitter help team promised me a phone call within 24 hours that never happened, then 2) I got back on online help and actually got someone who seemed to know what KDP was who promised I’d get a different response within 24 hours, and then two days later I got a response that was in such broken English that I can barely comprehend it that basically boiled down to “it says they’re getting delivered the 23rd, what’s the problem?”

None of these fuckers know what KDP is. It’s their service. They are literally the people printing the books. There’s no way it takes this long. And most of the time the people I’m corresponding with don’t even seem to know what the service is. Clearly I need to move my entire production over to Ingram Spark, because I can’t have this happen again. Redoing all the files is going to take a lot of time and cost an obnoxious amount of money so I’m not looking forward to it. Hell, at this point I don’t even know who to gripe to at Amazon. I need a motherfucker who lives in America, speaks English, and knows what the hell KDP is to get my shit moving, and hell if I know how to get ahold of that person right now.

91mF49yIKmL You ever feel like you’re being unfair to a book because of your timing while reading it? I loved The Traitor Baru Cormorant, ordered its sequel on the day it came out, and started reading it almost immediately, only to hit a massive goddamn wall when I realized that 1) I didn’t remember the first book all that well, what with having read it three years and probably 280 books ago; and 2) I just have not had the brain space for the last couple of weeks to read something with the complexity of a Seth Dickinson book.

So I’m like 100 pages from the end of Monster, and I can barely tell you what it’s been about, and I should have just put it back on the shelf a week and a half ago until I had the time and the headspace to reread the first book and then go straight into this one. It’s not a bad book, but it’s going to prove unreviewable because I can’t trust my own impressions of it. Trying to read this thing the same month as the election has just completely undone me. I’ll probably finish it this weekend and four-star it just for the hell of it, and I need to reread it cover-to-cover before the (I assume) next book in the series comes out. And then I need to spend some time reading, I dunno, picture books until I get my brainmeats back. Because right now, I’m not reading this book. I’m just looking at the words. It’s a shame.

Someone has decided I’m done blogging for the night, so … yeah. Have a good evening.

In which awwwww

On October 22, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn life7 Comments

I came home from work, played Spider-Man for a bit, ate dinner, and since then I’ve been staring at the wall with a kitten sleeping on my stomach.

The kitten had a vet visit today. She has ear mites and kitty lice. Her parents were both feral and we got her from a farm, so none of this is terribly surprising, and yes, we’re still isolating her from the Great Old One until all of the various parasites are taken care of. Apparently other than that she’s in stellar health and, luckily for us, apparently ear mites and kitty lice aren’t especially prone to being transferred to hoomanz.

I did not take her to the vet today– my wife took care of that– but she was apparently the unhappiest kitty in the universe after her ear treatment today. Look at how pathetic and sad she looks: