The Catfood Men

Well, from a sampling of online newspaper editorials, it appears that I'm far from the only American who's happy that the 'Dream Team' got humiliated by Puerto Rico. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/18/sports1854EDT0648.DTL is a representative article.

They make a valid point about playing style as well. I grew up in Indiana, and I know what basketball looks like. What the NBA plays these days isn't good basketball - it's just silly showboating.

I'm kind of bummed that they managed to edge out Greece. Still, it was a marginal victory over a team that they should have disposed of with ease. When they get to the harder opponents, I think they'll find themselves in trouble.

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One and Two and Three and Five!
Today's the day that I'm alive!
The Rabbit Princess wields her knives,
We kick at the walls helplessly.

Twelve versions of the Catfood Men,
Stand in line to be my friend.
While Nixon tells his lies again,
We spin in circles endlessly.

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I now have a photobucket account at
http://photobucket.com/albums/v462/xolo/ , although nothing's there yet.

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Autumn's coming, and I'm still in Ohio. Life could suck worse, but it could also be much better.

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Morphicon has really, truly been eating my time. We used to have little events once a month or so here, generally organized either by me or by Trickster. That's not been happening since late 2003, and people are missing them. Basically everyone who's got the skills and self-confidence to organize something has been sucked into Morphicon. One of the panels this year will be about how to organize successful events.

For the moment we need to get some cheap social event put together to involve the newbies. Lots of new furs here since last summer.

Sucks to be SCO...

Sucks to piss off IBM...

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040818183723609

(no subject)

So, the other day I was dumping on NBC's Olympic coverage to Loganberry. I'm pleased to say that they've made an incredible improvement since 2000. They're actually showing the events, instead of athlete bios and 'inspiring' stories. They're also making an effort to show some of everything, and not just concentrate on the American athletes. Right now I'm watching South Korea and Pakistan playing field hockey :)

Part of what I enjoy about the Olympics is the ritual aspect of it. Many of the sports are ones that I'd never bother watching (or even have an opportunity to) outside of the Olympics. It's the fact that it's the Olympics that's interesting, and that I get to see stuff like Pakistan playing Korea in field hockey.

Now the Pakistani fans are all making some strange arm gesture in response to a penalty which I'm sure from context must be extremely rude, but which just looks sort of strange to me :)

Our Stoat Fair's not Jim Groat's Stoat Fair!

Now I've got a place to host my snapshots, and I can do the Austin Dern thing. So, anyway, Saturday I went to the Ohio Stoat Fair. A good time was had by me.

In some ways, the Ohio fair is more like an amusement park than a state fair. One whole section is given over to the DNR. They've got a settler's cabin, an Indian teepee, a meadow, a swamp, animals, etc. These young Swans were part of the swamp, as was the bizarre Duck Rocket. Allegedly it's a nesting box for Ducks, although it looks more like some cruel practical joke from a Warner Brothers cartoon.

They've got an excellent Rabbit Barn. It's an old machinery shed from about the 1880s or so, open on all sides so that the Bunnies are out of the weather, but get plenty of air.

The Gourdkitty didn't win a prize, which I thought sucked. I'm partial to Cat-shaped bric a brac, though.

I love the fair at night. I've got a longstanding thing for coloured lights. There's an ariel tramway running right down the middle of the fair. At night, the cars move along mysteriously, silhouetted against the sky, faintly lit from below.