Two Cats Plus One

This morning, Ruth sighted Lexi the cat, the missing cat out of the three cats. While Ruth was downstairs, she looked up and saw Lexi on the stairwell. Lexi said "meow" as a greeting, but when Malcolm noticed her he went upstairs as to say hello.

Lexi disappeared again. But at least, she's alive and that's the important thing. We'll continue to leave up food out for her.

Schroedinger's Cat

Currently, we are cat-sitting for our friends during Thanksgiving day. They brought three cats for us to watch: Nickel, Bella and Lexi.

Nickel is easy to watch. Nickel is simply too big and too tough to give a damn. If he senses that our two cats are being too aggressive, he'll hiss at them. He hops on the desk and expects to be petted while I'm typing. He's basically a bigger, slower and less enthusiastic version of our kitten Malcolm.

Bella hasn't been seen much. She learned how to hide up in the ceiling - JOY. However, she does come down to steal food, and occasionally to run around in the basement. She's eating the dry food and using her litter box, so we know she's not starving. However, she refuses to socialize with the other cats and barely socializes with me.

Lexi has not been seen. AT ALL. Ruth believes that Lexi might have been in her room at sometime last night, but it was 3 am and she didn't see anything specific - it might have been Bella, and Ruth's night vision is not too good. If Lexi is hiding in the ceiling I've never seen her.

Is Lexi here at all? Where the hell is she? I'm worried, but then again, it's been a long time since I've owned a cat.

The Politics of Cat Football

Things that I have to know for work:

* That Georgia defeated Tennessee 41-17 in football. I should know three things beyond the score. Let's see:

** Georgia is 2-4 and 1-3 in the SEC.
** They play Vanderbilt next
** Quarterback Aaron Murray had a good game: 2 TD passes, 17-for-25 passing, and a touchdown run.

* That Georgia Tech defeated Virginia 33-21.

** Georgia Tech is 4-2 and 3-1 in the ACC. Easy to remember. Turn the Georgia numbers around and you get Tech's numbers.
** They play Middle Tennessee next
** RB Anthony Allen: 195 yards, 3 TD runs.

* Georgia State is 4-2. I don't need to know any more than that.

So what does this have to do with work? Well, for one, it allows me to have a conversation with one of my cubicle-mates who follows Georgia football. It allows me to have something to talk about with the other jockish guys. I really don't give a damn about college football one way or another - it's the same to me if Georgia is 6-0 or 0-6, but to thousands of people in the state it's a freaking crisis or a cause for celebration.

* The Simpsons had a great line in this week's episode. Lisa is feeling down because Springfield Elementary's only Yale graduate - and only Ivy League University graduate (what, Ralph Wiggum couldn't get into Cornell?) - has criticised Lisa's list of extracurricular activities which is clearly not extensive enough for admission to a school like Yale.

Lisa, seeing her chances at an elite education disappearing, is consoled by her mother who believes that Lisa can go to McGill University - "the Harvard of Canada". Lisa answers with something I'll call "Lisa's Law".

Lisa's Law: "Anything that's the 'something of something' isn't the anything of anything."

* The ASPCA's commericals are horribly ineffective. The idea is that they'll guilt-trip you into contributing. There is nothing wrong with guilt-tripping people into giving to an organization - it's a great approach to any charitable commercial.

The problem is that the entire commerical is sad looking dogs and cats in cages. It's too sad - it's so unnerving and horrifying that people change the channel the very second they figure out what the commercial's about...and no one ever gets to the message at the end. Sad dog + Enya = channel change.

* Today's Cat Evil: we put out some frozen chicken to thaw before dinner. Ruth goes out shopping. I go out for a 40-minute walk. I come back and Malcolm and Eartha are eating the frozen chicken!

You can't turn your back for a second before the cats have your food. The cats slept most of these evening. No wonder. All that protein.

* There's a gubernatorial election in the state of Georgia this year. Two guys, both good old boys (or at least, they can talk the lingo), both running the same commercial about two old goobers in Georgia ruminating about...

"Did you hear what Candidate X said about Y?"
"Really? That ain't Georgia home spun wisdom!"

This makes me glad that most of the stuff we watch is recorded, and I can speed past this crap. After this, the state goes back to sleep for two years.

* Political thought exercise: stolen from another blog.

There's an election of some sort. A voter has four options: vote for D, vote for R, vote for I, or don't vote all. Assume that voting for I and not voting at all have equivalent effect, i. e. I is the kind of party that no one votes for.

Furthermore, assume that D is always a better choice than R. (Or, likewise, R is always a better choice than D.) The inequality sign has no bar underneath.

Questions: If D is always better than R, how bad does D have to get before you won't vote for D?

* Planning to see Casablanca on the big screen sometime this Friday. Will write about that later.