In Case You Missed It

You'll have another chance this evening. Thank goodness for P.M., huh?

At eleven minutes and eleven seconds after eleven o'clock on November 11, 2011, it is:

11:11.11 11/11/11

Oh Well

I had to remove the "What I've Been Reading" module from the right-hand column.  Google Reader recently updated and the share feature to add it to the module is gone.  I can still re-post articles to Blogger or on Facebook, but the ability to add it to my reading list is gone.  They now have a feature to add it to Google+, but I don't use that...and doubt I will. 

Oh well, I had too many modules anyway.  I probably should do away with one of the "counters", but Feedjit shows what people are looking for when they arrive while the Flag Counter shows a total of visitors per day/month/year, plus it's cool. 

I COULD get rid of the weather module, but I like it.  This blog is, after all, about this area.  I'm sure people don't visit just to see the weather, but I like to think my friends look at it now 'n then and think "Wow, I bet Mike is cold/hot/wet!"

I could probably do away with the Trivia module, but I've noticed several people come directly to the blog to then go to the quiz.  I've got the quiz bookmarked, but I don't expect others to do so.  I also would like to keep the Word of the Day, Quote of the Day and Today in History modules because I always look at them every day.  I could probably do away with the Dallas Cowboys headline module, but again,  I like it, even though I visit that website every day anyway.  I think I'll keep the news because it's local.

So, maybe this blog will load a little quicker for a while, until I find some other module to slow it down.  Blogger keeps adding things and I haven't checked them in a long time!

Cat Food For Thought

Up until last night I "liked" a Facebook page, "And My Cat". I don't know why I ever subscribed to the feed because it was mostly full of people posting photos of their cats. I love cats, but the attitude of *some* people regarding their cats really irks me. (never been a fan of "cutesy", y'know?) Pets can be a child substitute, but they're still animals. (and so can be some children, but that's for another rant)

The post that made me "unlike" the page was when the creator of the page wrote that she had recently discovered that Amazon sold cat food and that she had signed up for Amazon Prime and scheduled regular deliveries of Fancy Feast^TM. I've also thought of signing up for regular shipments, but of McCann's Oatmeal. Anyway....

I didn't think deeply about the post; that brand of cat food is OK, I suppose...it's a little too expensive for my budget and frankly, the Beej will eat it but seems to prefer the WalMart brand or even the discount store kind that's about 40% cheaper. However, when I visited the post again because I saw there had been 40+ responses, I got a little angry, then a LOT angry.

Most of the posts immediately following were thanking the page owner for the information, while others mentioned their own cat's preferences. Then came the self-righteous asshats, saying that the cat foods being mentioned were garbage, that THEY bought such and such brand. I took an hour or so to research the brands being touted, even pricing them through various online outlets.

All of the brands were outrageously expensive, costing from $30-40/case. Whoa! At first I was a little ashamed of the cheaper food I bought my cat and even more ashamed when I read some of the comments on the 'net about it being garbage. B eats it up, though, and I can't see any ill-effects from him eating the "garbage". I'm happy he deigns to eat it, being one of the more finicky pets I've ever owned. He prefers the pouch food to chicken or beef that I buy for myself at the supermarket deli.

Reading more about cat food, I perused an article about how dry food is bad for cats - how cats were genetically programmed to eat "wet" food and that's how they get the bulk of their water. Hmmmm....the Beej drinks quite a bit of water; in fact, all cats I've ever owned drank a lot of water. (I once noticed his water was a little dirty from food falling off his mouth into the bowl, so I changed it with fresh. He then wanted outside and went directly to a mud puddle in the driveway to drink) I also read about "no-no" foods for cats - grapes were one, which I found odd - and that milk wasn't good f/ cats, either, same for tuna.

THEN I read another few articles that said hard food was GOOD for cats and that - unless the cat has an obesity problem - owners should have hard food out f/ their cat all the time. That's what I do w/ a gravity feeder, plus feed a pouch or two of wet food daily. I also read that tuna isn't bad if fed in moderation. I feed it to the Beej on the weekends - "Sunday dinner", I joke to myself. I also will mix a bit in w/ the types of food that he doesn't like as well as others just so it won't be wasted.

What I found out was there is a LOT of contradictory information about cat food on the 'net. I really wasn't all that surprised, but one poster in the Facebook page said she had done her research and insinuated she was right and everyone else posting was wrong.

(And you probably know there are "facts" on the 'net that "prove" 9/11 was an inside job, the CIA killed Kennedy and that we really never landed on the moon)

Then came this guy that said "It's sad to see so many people in this thread that don't care about their cats."

It made me wish I could magically transport myself to where he was just so I could slap him. I cannot stand self-righteous people. It's OK to have strong opinions, but his statement crossed the line. I don't think it's abusing your pet to feed them a cheaper food. What's abuse is not feeding them at all, or keeping them tied up in the back yard, or kicking them when you're angry. My cat might eat cheap food, but he eats better than a large percentage of people in the world. He certainly eats more regularly than I do!

I just can't stand the jerkwads who feel the need to criticize others for something that - considering the massive misery in the world - is so trivial. We should gather all these holier-than-thou people together, then grind them up for pet food.

On second thought, probably not. I bet the Beej would turn up his nose at them.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

From one of my Facebook groups, True Conservatives.

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“Conservatives” who preach against government intervention in our domestic economy praise the very same government when it sanctions, invades, and militarily occupies foreign countries. “Liberals” who criticize a Republican president for war crimes and the destruction of the Constitution turn a blind eye when a Democrat does the exact same things, instead giving him a pat on the back while writing a check for his reelection.

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And this is why I now consider myself a "small L" libertarian. I agree with much of what the Libertarian Party stands for, but certainly not all.

Ron Paul 2012