Can ya dig it?

I’m a cat person, okay? Independence and so forth over slavish love any day. That said, it’s come to my attention that there are some peculiar sites concerning felinity afloat about the net.

Bonsai Kitten

via Everything Burns. “Who has not been stricken with the expressive grace of Japanese Bonsai? Though once the sole province of Bonsai masters within Japan, Bonsai plants have been available to fortunate consumers throughout the world for some time. With this in mind, we are proud to now offer to you the animal complement of this art form; the Bonsai Kitten.”

Cat Boxing!

Reference forgotten. “Welcome to Cat Boxing.com! Blow by blow, swap by swap and growl after growl! Round after round of feline fighting!” Honest, much less scary than you think.

My Cat Hates You Dot Com

David Fortney referred me via email. Currently running competition to find “the EVILEST CAT” ever. “This cat hates with such a hot hate, she can’t even stand to be in the house when dorks come over. There are some loser-cooties that can’t be licked off or hocked up in a hairball.”

And, of course, who can forget the notorious Twisty Cats. Sadly for lovers of the bizarre and unfortunate in human behavior, the proprietor of the Twisties seems to have removed the great majority of the skin-crawlingly freakish and yet undeniably cute and harmless images of these triumphs of human intervention in animal reproductive activities.

My own cat, Chloe, wants you to know that there will be NO other cats allowed near her or in her house and that she, and she alone, shall be the sole feline in the house who is permitted to sleep on the bed. We try to ignore these rules when possble.

A letter to Summer

Dear Summer,

Why are you so fucking hot, summer? I hate your guts. You think you are so great, don’t you? Direct sunlight on your hemisphere. Big fucking deal. I can do that. I’m doing it right now, as a matter of fact.

There is much more!

I just received this hilarious spam (links deleted!). I found it about the funniest spam I’ve ever read. The lines concerning laziness are what made me laugh the most.

We are not looking for people who are self-motivated.

We are not looking for people who join every ‘get rich quick’ scheme offered on the Internet.

We are not looking for class presidents, beautiful people, career builders or even college graduates. We don’t even want union workers or trade school graduates.

We want the laziest people that exist – the men and women who expect to make money without lifting a finger.

We want the people who have a hard time getting out of bed before noon.

We want those of you who think that getting out of bed to go lay on the couch is an effort that is best not thought about.

If you meet this criteria, just click HERE and send us an email. BE SURE TO TYPE IN THE Subject Line the following words… “I do not want to work”. In fact, if you are so lazy that typing those words in the Subject Line is too much of an effort, than just type “work sucks” and we’ll get the picture.

2. In the body of the message, type your FIRST and LAST name.

3. In body of the message, type your email address.

Either way, we will be absolutely certain that you are the kind of person we want to be associated with and we will make sure that you get the information to bring you home with us.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we want the kind of people who DO NOT take risks. If you are the kind of person who will consider doing something that’s NOT a ‘Sure Thing’, then do NOT respond. This is too easy a way to make money and there’s no challenge in it.

If you can ever find the energy to make it to our website, you will be able to see the first home business in history that requires practically no work. NONE. By opting in and asking for the link to our website, you will be telling us that you want to make enough money that you can quit your regular job and sleep all day, not to mention some serious movie watching – if that’s your thing. We are not looking for a commitment from you and we don’t even want your money at this stage.

As a matter of fact, we don’t even want to hear from you if the idea of making lots of money with very little effort does not interest you. So my friend, this is the first and last email we will ever send you. Just click the link below and then go back to daydreaming or whatever your current hobby is.

So, if you haven’t heard (and I bet you have), wireless LANs are the Next Big Thing. So is Broadband.

For the last few years, wireless community networks have been popping up, which are all-volunteer efforts to provide wireless broadband internet access via public announcements of wireless access points and areas of coverage.

A related practice has been the development of wardriving (etymology: derives from old-skool hacker wardialing, the sequential automated dialing of huge blocks of telephone numbers in search of one hooked up to a modem), which entail driving or walking around a dense neighborhood in search of WiFi access points.

On June 24th, Cory Doctorow at boingboing posted a link to the warchalking proposal, a system to mark located wifi access points in public, explicitly derived from hobo signs.

On June 25th, Matt at the warchalking site posted his first pic of someone employing the symbology in the Real World.

Keep an eye on this.

At Radio and internet Newsletter, site scriveners Paul Maloney and Kurt Hanson publish a letter from legendary internet grump Mark Cuban, founder of broadcast.com.

It’s interesting reading. Cuban describes the deal between Yahoo (who bought Broadcast.com) and the RIAA as having been explicitly crafted to close down the indies. This is the deal that was used as a template for the stinkin’ no-good backstabbin’ lyin’ sorry excuse for a sack of potatoes “compromise” announced last week.

(via Seattle’s sweetheart, Wendy at Slumberland)

via RRE and the blog Spitting Image, “Shake Hard”. Flash-based.

Before Kirk shouted “K-H-A-AAA-NNN!” he cried “FINN-E-GAAAN!”

Apparently, fighting is in the genes. Chris, if you ever read this, I know a SHITLOAD of Irish tunes. Whyncha pick one out to take home (um, note: “Finnegan’s Wake” not included in this offer until I’ve had a chance to brush up “..mmmph hmm hmm irishman mighty odd… hmm hmm tongue both rich and sweet”…) Thanks for the hilarious stories (well, I thought it was hilarious, but then I can match your tale of physical violence, except for the tale part), and, I’m a tiny, short man that you OR your brother could squash like a bug. So please pick on my east-coast colleague Ken instead.

CHAPTER ONE

“Last night, I dreamt that I beat the shit out of Mike Norton in front of the Lil’ Peach. This marks probably the 250th time I’ve had this particular dream.”

CHAPTER TWO

“When we last left our story, Mike Norton was motioning for me to leave the safety of Lil’ Peach in order to receive what would probably be a thorough pummeling.”

CHAPTER THREE

“I walked outside and stood on the sidewalk in front of Mike Norton’s pick up truck. What followed was a classic game of ‘questions’, as popularized in Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“‘We’re fucked.’

Watching the truck back across the parking lot, it was all I could think to say.”

POSTSCRIPT

Too brief to excerpt.

via the ever-lovin’ Spencer Sundell: La Cucaracha – The Music Of The Spanish Civil War

I have a Christy Moore rewrite of Viva la Quinta Brigada that’s both moving and embarassingly cheesy. You know, folkie earnestness. Here’s links to a Christy Moore broadcast, “Christy Moore Uncovered, which includes his rewrite.

I also saw both Steve Gardner, a poet who mostly wrote about baseball, and JP Darriau, a professor of sculpture and a favorite teacher of mine, sing “Ay Carmela” at ages of about 65 around an upright piano at a party in Bloomington – apparently they both learned the song in NYC in the 30s when they were kids from parents and elder social acquaintances, some of whom had gone to Spain to fight in the Lincoln Brigade!

The Spanish Civil War will always be a part of European and 20th century history that holds special interest for me, becasue of my family’s long realtionship with Latin culture – I lived in Santiago, Chile in 1969, and was very troubled as a child by the military overthrow of Allende’s government, a US-sponsored act of state terrorism which was clearly and explicitly modeled on Franco’s initiation of civial war against an elected government in Spain.

My marriage to a child of Cuban emigrants further complexifys my realtionship to these events – my family itself is built on the history of revolution and war in the Latin world.

Observing the curious events in Venezuela recently led to some reflection on these matters – but no conclusions, only rumination.