Time to let me know if you want a holiday postcard! (And yes, of course I’m happy to send cards to other countries!) Send your name and mailing address to hollydays@gmail.com .
I’ll take names and addresses until December 20th.
If you’d like to send me a card as well (never ever required, but always appreciated – I don’t keep track of who does and doesn’t send a card, I promise!), send it to: Robyn Anderson, PO Box 461, Athens, AL 35612 USA.
I have a Kindle related question for you… I was in Barnes and Noble over the weekend, standing in the checkout line, when I heard the Nook guy going on and on and on about how the Nook is better than the Kindle. That’s fine. I have a Kindle and I like it, but I’ve heard nice things about the Nook too, and I’m sure it’s a fine fine product. However, then the guy started talking about how you have to pay extra for storage on the Kindle and how Barnes and Noble believes that if you buy an ebook it’s yours and blah blah blah. Having missed most of the conversation, and not being entirely sure of the facts, I didn’t jump in, but it really annoys me. I bought a Kindle 15 months ago, I’ve read 175 books and I still have tons of space. I know with the Kindle Fire you can download movies, etc, so I’m sure that takes up more space, but that’s kind of a different issue isn’t it? Is it true that if you get over a certain limit on books, they’ll charge you? I couldn’t find anything specific to books, although I did see that music storage is free.
Mostly, I think I’m just annoyed at the Nook guy. They just about mug you when you walk in the store anyway to tell you about the wonderful Nook. To make up shit just aggravates me.
I hadn’t heard anything of the sort, so I’m no help on this – anyone out there able to shed some light on this for us?
Just wondering how you are liking or disliking the Kindle Fire? My hubby got me one for Christmas and I’m liking it enough to keep it. How are you doing with yours?
I’m really liking it – like I mentioned, I use it mostly to read books, blogs, and to check my email when I’m not near my desktop computer. I also got caught up watching a streaming episode of Arrested Development the other night (CHICKENS DON’T CLAP!) and it was really crisp and clear and I didn’t have any problems streaming it. The Fire will never replace my desktop or even my laptop (I have too many computer-type things, clearly), but I really really like the size and the weight and everything. I wish I could play Snood on it, but that’s not available yet (the Snood guys are “working on it”, I hear, and that’s been the word for at least a year), but other than that I like everything about it at this point.
NO WAIT. I really really wish – even more than I wish I could play Snood on it – that the Kindle Fire had a camera built in. I imagine that’ll be coming down the road a ways, but I think that would make it just about perfect for me.
If you were a newbie to the e-reader world , what e-reader would you get? Thinking about it.
When I was a newbie to the e-reader world, I chose the Kindle because it was pretty much the only e-reader around. These days, there are tons of them out there, but I’m such an Amazon whore that I’d still stick with the Kindle. But since I AM such an Amazon whore, you can’t go by me. It seems like you’re either a Kindle person or a Nook person, and never the twain shall meet. Fred’s sister is hardcore Nook, and when we showed her the Kindle Fire she was NOT impressed.
(Side note: they should make a Kindle/ Nook hybrid and call it the Nookle.)
So really what I’m saying is that you should handle both the Nook and the Kindle and play around with them a bit to see what works for you. I believe that Best Buy carries both of them, so it might behoove you to make a trip there.
Anyone who wants to weigh in on the topic, jump right in!
I has a question…how do you select your quotes for previous entries? Randomly? The one line that makes you guffaw? Because on some days, taken together as a paragraph, they’re hilarious, almost as if you planned it that way.
Usually I skim the entry and if I read something that either makes me laugh or even just smile, I’ll use it. For the years before 2010, I just cut and paste the code from the bottom of 2010’s entry to make life easier for myself.
There are some quotes – like this one, from 2005: “Well, GODDAMN,” I said. “NOT NOW, I won’t! I was GOING to, but now that I know you’d be sitting there all horrified about me reclining my seat in front of your parents, all worried that they’d be thinking ‘Good christ, look at her over there, so fucking LAZY she can’t expend the ENERGY to sit upright!’, I won’t! I wouldn’t DREAM of reclining on my OWN couch in my OWN home, I would HATE to embarrass you!” – that I immediately know what’s in the entry. And then there are others that catch my attention and I have to go back to read because it doesn’t sound familiar to me at all.
This is post #3,050, by the way. I sure do have a lot to say, don’t I?
Been thinking about this all day.
“her blowhard husband irritates the shit out of me”
How do you handle people like this in real life (which includes the internet, but not reality TV)? If I were to make a list of “Favorite People Ever,” about half of them would have a spouse who’d go on the “Fuck Off And Die Now” list. It doesn’t seem like it’d be very productive to ever say, “I adore you, but please don’t ever mention your husband in my presence because just the thought of him sours my day,” but (with two people in particular, one f2f friend and one internet friend) I’m finding myself spending less time with them, because they either talk incessantly about the spouse or invite him along to whatever we’re doing.
I’ve tried looking for and focusing on the good qualities in the obnoxious spouse and reminding myself that I’m no prize either, but increasingly I think the only option is to limit the time I spend with the Wonderful People, and that makes me sad. Which I suppose is the only reason for this comment; I don’t expect anyone to have any actual tips other than the obvious (limit time together, change the subject, get over your dumb self) but sharing always helps.
Y’know, that’s a good question and I don’t really have any suggestions. Fred and I really almost never do anything with other couples due to his reluctance to do anything social, so most of my interactions with real-world (married/ coupled) friends is with just one of them. I even have a couple of friends whose husbands I’ve never met.
The two instances where I’ve had friends with spouses who I absolutely hated, both couples lived nowhere near me so I only saw them every now and then. And at this point, both couples are divorced, so I don’t have to deal with the irritating spouses at all YAY FOR ME.
So which duck did you name Peanut?
The one on the left, of course.
How do you keep the ducks on your property. Have they tried to fly away?
The ducks are Rouen ducks, and Rouens don’t fly because they’re too heavy. These particular ducks are so attached to their current home that we can hardly get them to go out to the pond – I imagine that if they somehow managed to escape the back forty, they’d all just stand at the fence and look sadly at the coop ’til we let them back in.
As for Charlie:
I love Simon’s Cat SO SO SO much. He always gets it spot-on, and that kitten acts EXACTLY like Charlie – and about a million other kittens we’ve had.
I just love sweet Charlie Peppers! What color are his eyes now? They look almost turquoise in these pictures!
They are kind of turquoise-y. They’re still not at their permanent color, I don’t think, but in the meantime they’re bluish-greenish and very very pretty. Fred helped me get a picture of Charlie’s eyes yesterday. Charlie was less than thrilled by Fred holding him still so I could get the picture, but lucky for us he forgives easily.
Who is meowing in the video? Sounded like a “whatcha doin?”
I believe that that’s Everett meowing in that video. I’m not sure why he didn’t join in on the tail-smacking game because that is a game he loves a LOT.
Re: heating pads, do you use crinkle blankets? Like this one they have this crinkly layer inside that reflects kitty’s body heat back to her. My vet turned me onto them, my cat *loved* it, and no electricity involved.
Oddly enough, I just got a couple of those EXACT blankets (in blue) and a couple of these as well. They’ve been enough of a hit that I’m likely going to switch over to the blankets and put the electric bed warmers away.
In the past, the only thermal blankets I could find were in a hideous pattern that I didn’t like. Now that they’re available in different colors and patterns, I think they’re awesome!
That first picture of Bill reminded me of Oskar, a blind kitty (he made the front page of Reddit yesterday). His owners have a video of him first playing with toys:
A sillier one shows him battling a hair dryer when he’s a bit more grown:
They’re worth watching if you haven’t seen them. Couple more cute ones on their channel, including Klaus.
What a CUTIE! When I first watched the hair dryer one, I thought it was adorable, but felt like it was kind of mean. Oskar’s owner said in the comments to that video, though, that Oskar comes running when he hears the hair dryer turn on, and that the hair dryer is running on cool, not hot. I figure, hey – if Oskar’s happy, I’m happy. 🙂
I have 17 and that’s what it looks like when I feed them each day. Mine are pretty good about not getting hissy when its food time too.
Much in the way that other people use me as their “How many cats do you have?” defense (“Not nearly as many as Robyn! She’s got THIRTEEN!”), you, Renee, have become my new best friend. From now on when someone asks “How many cats do you have?”, I will immediately respond with “Not nearly as many as MY NEW BEST FRIEND RENEE. She’s got 17!”
I think it’s amazing that cats who hiss and smack at each other on a regular basis (Kara and Corbie do not care for each other at ALL) can be seen rubbing up against each other when it’s time for their snack. It’s like the prospect of food makes them temporarily insane.
Any updates on how Buster’s doing?
Buster’s still at Petsmart waiting for his forever home. I’m afraid it may be a while for him – he really isn’t crazy about other cats at all, and of course grown cats generally take longer to be adopted than kittens. And currently, adoptions seem to be practically at a standstill. This happens every so often; I’m hoping that adoptions pick up again SOON. Molly’s still the only one of the Peppers Gang who’s been adopted. What’s up with THAT?
So, how much does Alice weigh in at these days?
Alice Mo, who – let me remind you once again – the vet told us would probably not get much over 7 pounds is currently weighing in at 10 pounds, 5 ounces. Not the tiny thing we thought we were going to get, let me tell you. TOTAL SCAM.
I’m amazed at the number of cat beds you have. We USED to have a whole bunch but one of our cats is a bitch and she pees in every single one of them! I would soak the hell out of them and wash them and as soon as I put them back she would go around and pees in all of them! So my poor cats have no beds.
We’re lucky in that every once in a while a bed gets peed in, but for the most part they prefer to sleep in them, thank god.
Is it just that Patty wasn’t opening her eyes all the way, or are they really set at an angle like that? I wish I could make hand gestures on the computer because I’m not sure how to articulate what I mean. It looks like, if you drew a line under each eye heading to the nose, the lines would form a wide-angled V, instead of a more or less straight line like on most cats. It’s beautifully exotic, but I wonder if it’s just the way she was looking at you.
They really are kind of tilted, which gives her a bit of an exotic look. She sure did turn out to be a pretty girl, didn’t she?
Have you ever tried the K&H Outdoor Heated Kitty Camper? The neighborhood kitty (she’s about 2 years old and floats between neighbors – and one takes her to the vet when needed) is spending more and more time with me and sleeps on my porch a lot. Now that the temperature is dropping at night, I worry that the makeshift tent I made her on my rocking chair is inadequate. I’m thinking if I buy the camper I won’t be tempted to bring her in at night and upset Jinx and Trixie (who cry and shoot “eyes of het” at me through the windows when I sit with Stalker in my lap!).
I haven’t tried that exact outdoor house, but I’ve tried other K&H products – in fact, I have this unheated cat house, right here (which is currently unavailable at Amazon, apparently there’s a big demand for it) – and I think that they make pretty good products (I have a thermal cat bed in that house, and Newt uses it every night. Maxi uses the other house, the one with the heated bed in it, and she’s not much for sharing.)
I think that the Heated Kitty Camper would probably be a good idea for your shared kitty – it’ll keep her warm on those cold nights. Actually, it’ll probably keep her warm on those warm days, too – sometimes I go out on the porch when it’s 55+ degrees out, and Maxi comes strolling out of her heated house. Spoiled rotten kitty.
Chuckles and Miss Patty, playing on the stairs.
“WHAT YOU DOIN’, LADY?!”
Carrying the teaser up the stairs.
Watching one of the big cats.
Charlie interrupted a Jake/ Tommy lovefest the other night. They didn’t let it bother them, though.
“What kitten?”
“No kittens here!”
Corbie in a basket!
Corbie on a bed!
Corbs, beautiful Corbs!
Corbie on a stump!
And one to grow on.
Previously
2010: I like the color, but let me point out that the purple isn’t quite as eye-searing as it looks here.
2009: No entry.
2008: Pics from around Crooked Acres.
2007: Forbidden Love.
2006: No entry.
2005: Ha on her! I DO have a kid! AND a husband! AND 6,000 cats! Look at me, I’ve got it ALLLLLLLLL!
2004: The internet just ROCKS, doesn’t it?
2003: Her date (”But not a DATE date!”) was more dressed-up than she.
2002: I did mention that I have airhead tendencies, did I not?
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: I am obviously not one to wallow.