For absolutely no reason, other than sex

Just because Suicide Girls are hot; Burlesque is hot; Brunettes are hot; Tattooed chicks are hot; and this lady in particular blends all of those things to a phenomenal level of hotness.

Enjoy. 

Scientology lets the evangelizing begin

Crazy Tom Cruise approves of this fund-raising strategy

Oh, L. Ron Hubbard, whence has your little cult of lucre, craziness and cupidity gone? Scientology, in the wake of several well-publicized disasters, has decided that its best bet is to move out of the coffee-shop magazine racks and strip mall spirituality and into the "mainstream"*. So, what could be more mainstream than building new "Ideal Orgs" (e.g., "churches" for Scientology that they want to put in "every community" and "every neighborhood"). The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, in this video disseminated to the faithful begging for money....

That's a lot of crazy ass white people

A note on the verbiage used in this bizarre-ass pitch: "Com Line" is presumably a communication line; "psychs" aren't psychotics that are coming to get them, it's psychologists and psychiatrists; and "clear" is the neophyte stage of a Scientologist's existence, so named because they've shed any gray matter and you can now look clear through their skulls.

I think, in all of this, perhaps the funniest part is to contrast this desparation with Hubbard's own words, as a Gawker commenter rightly points out: 

"When buildings get important to us, for Gods sake, some of you born revolutionists, will you please blow up central headquarters. If someone had put some HE (high explosives) under the Vatican long ago, Catholicism might still be going. Dont get interested in real estate. Dont get interested in the masses of buildings, because thats not important." - L. Ron Hubbard, 31 December 1960 lecture, The Genus of Dianetics and Scientology

 

Xenu is my homeboy.

Saturday loves it some Horrorcore

Better known as "horror rap"; here is Esham's "American Psycho", released on Halloween 2007. A classic of the genre, although, admittedly not for everyone

Israel: Because this makes TOTAL sense...

These homeless Palestinian orphans were pushed out of their village by Israeli "settlers"...

The illicit nation of Israel is at it again*, speaking out of both sides of their mouths, and spreading human misery. To the absolute surprise of no one, the most recent outrage involves a gang of thuggish "settlers" (e.g., invaders).

Suspected Jewish settlers today attacked a mosque in the northern West Bank, burning holy books and spraying threatening graffiti in Hebrew on the building, Palestinian officials and Israeli police said.

Extremists broke into the mosque in the village of Yasuf, near the city of Nablus, and burned Muslim holy books and prayers carpets, while sprayed slogans on the floor reading “Price tag – greetings from Effi.”

I think the "settlers" misunderstood Happy Gilmore

What is "price tag" you ask? It is the practice whereby "settlers" vandalize, destroy, assault, and otherwise terrorize Palestinians and/or their property and religious institutions in retribution for their own governments actions to curb their land theft. That's right, when the International community condemns them, when the U.S. tries to end occupation, when their own country says "hey, time to curb the settlements" these goons attack the very people that these actions were intended to protect.

 

When your government tells you stop, attack a third party...Makes perfect sense to me.

So, what brought this about? Seems that Benyamin Netanyahu, Isreali PM, recently agreed to tenatively curb the West Bank "settlements", prompting the above irrational acts of lunacy. Did the rightist government have condemnation for the perpetrators? Of course,  ultra-rightist Likud-nik Ehud Barak did, but -typical for his rightist ilk- is was all about his people, not the damage this does to innocents: "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future,"

As we all should; as we all should.

Finally, why do I say that the government is "talking out of both sides of their mouth", thus encouraging actions like this? Seems that no matter the agreement reached between the U.S. and Israel, no matter the lip service paid by Netanyahu and Barak, it's all bullshit. As Netanyahu himself stated five fucking days ago:

"Israel would resume building in settlements in the occupied West Bank when a 10-month moratorium expires next year...construction will resume...This is a one-time and temporary decision, not a freeze of unlimited and infinite duration."

Expect more of the same. More of the same. This is, after all, a nation that elected a war criminal** and civilian murderer as its head of state.

Violent occupation, murder, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide aren't made prettier because you say you do it in the name of God.

 

* I am emphatically not anti-Semitic. I am anti-Zionist. Zionism is a relatively recent political philosophy, less than 100 years old, that espouses racial hatred, religious intolerance and imperialism of the worst kind. Those who doubt that there is a distinction owe it to themselves to read "Beyond Chutzpah" by Norman Finkelstein. I have no problems saying that the Israeli government is immoral, illicit and in contravention of the basic laws of international human rights. The problem is Zionism, people, not Judaism...although, I tend to think the problem with most of the world's ills lie at the feet of religion, but that's a subject for another day.

 **Ooops, seems we did that too.

I do hate me some republicans...

Unknown fact: 95% of all Republican pregnancies are caused by very awkward, arythmic Missionary sex. Just say no. Just say no.

Very old, very good, and forever true:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issed by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic and Fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

your Country is Fucked: Yemen

See the Northern Border? That's the "Empty Quarter" of the Saudi Kingdom, the Yemeni side is roughly translated as "place of death"...enjoy your stay.

Welcome to Yemen, nestled in the extreme southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and also encompassing 200 islands in the surrounding Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. This is a poor, poor nation, with half of its 23,000,000 residents living on less than a $1.25 a day. It's not that it's small: Yemen is twice the size of Wyoming; it's just that there's nothing really to export. Yemen's only real natural resources are rock salt, quartz and fish.

 I think I'm forgetting a major source of revenue...

And oil. Though not a lot of oil. Yemen exports about 23,000 BBL/oil per day. Not too bad, and surely enough to keep the economy afloat right? Actually, no. Like Saudi Arabia, Oman, the Emirates, and other nations with black gold, Yemen relies heavily on an exported work force and the technical expertise of westerners, mainly from the U.S. All told, the native workforce engaged in construction, oil, labor, services --and hell, even farming-- accounts for less than half of the Yemeni population. As you can imagine, this imported workforce doesn't please the locals; an Allah-besotted Wahabbi state.

Why yes, I suppose Yemenese Jihad does count as employment...Expect our bill for the U.S.S. Cole to be arriving shortly.

So, now we get to the crux of one of the main problems. Yemen is bustling with terrorists. As part of the Arabian Peninsula, it is -apparently- a sacred duty to ensure that there is only "one religion" on this sand-humped, oil-laden font of misery. This injunction is one that the ill-educated locals took a bit too seriously, and --like the Qutbist/Wahabbi Saudis-- believe to mean "No Christians, Jews, Animists, Wiccans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Taoists, etc..." One such Yemeni native holds this belief:

You? Again?

Despite the relatively recent news of Yemeni nutsy-ness; this is a very, very old place. Allusions to its main city, Sana'a, exist in the literature as far back as the 2nd Century BCE. The city itself is believed to have sprung up in the 6th Century BCE, and natives claim it is the oldest city in the world. It might be.  However, nothing was truly ever "Yemenese", it was always a part of something else.

Sana'a...just because it's cool.

Per the good ole Wiki, since the 6th Century BCE, Yemen has always been a part of another dynasty or empire: Sabaean, Awsanian, Minaean, Qatabanian, Hadhramawtian, Himyarite, and then Ottoman. And, it wasn't poor, it was filthy rich, mainly because it was part and parcel of the lucrative spice trade of its imperial masters.

Not that spice, although I guess Yemen could be part of Arrakis.

Following Yemen's release from the prolapsed Ottomans in 1918, Yemen promptly decided to split into two sections: South Yemen was under Communist regimes, while the North became a staggering republic under the British yoke. After flirting with civil war for a few decades, in 1990 the Yemeni decided that what binds them is stronger than what seperates them, and they unified to form one of the few Republics in Arab world.

Damn Yemen. Don't you know that self-respecting republics don't go around publically executing people to satiate clerics with Shari'ah on the brain?

 

And, give them their due, despite being bombarded with Somali refugees, beseiged by fundamentalists, drowning in imported Westerners, having absolutely noo border between it and the Saudis, and being drastically poor, the fucked Yemens are still giving it a go.

 

Long term prognosis? Wondering when some other country, far scarier, will come swallow it up.

 

 

 

Friday is feeling creepy

Der Schatten reminds you this Holiday Season that, like Christmas, Halloween is in your heart. The creepy atonality of the Halloween themse sticks with everyone. Take a bow, John Carpenter, for both the film and the score: it's a deserved legend

The economy has people scared...

Idle hands, and all that....

The economy, as you undoubtedly know, has everyone terrified and scared. Losing your job, your home, your transportation, your health care, trying to make ends meet, trying to put food on the table, all of that can be real-life, for-real-ass scary stuff. Oh, you weren't talking about the 1/6th of Americans without work, or the 40% without insurance, or the 1/4th in poverty or the 20% on food stamps?

  

Might want to put those Benjies away, son....

No, it seems the people that are scared now are precisely the ones who ought to both be afraid, and deep-down disgusted with their cupidity, stupidity and greed. Seems some enterprising people, royally fucked over the by the Capitalist lie, are taking wealth redistribution into their own hands. 

A Los Angeles lawyer who had represented a failed subprime mortgage lender is found dead outside his home, having been shot in the head.

Three men allegedly invade the home of a former subprime lender, and are arrested after reportedly injuring three people inside.

Vandals target the home of the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, smashing windows in the banker's home and car.

This isn't good folks, but it's what happens when you play fair in a world of bastards that don't. Ever heard of anomie-strain theory? Life kicks the shit out of you, and you have very few options to kick back, and eventually people explode. It's only going to get worse from here people: Explosion, thy time is now.

It might not get you out of foreclosure, but apparently it makes you feel better....

 

Facebook & Politics Don't Mix

Tens of millions of Americans have a facebook account, I am no exception. If you've played any of the interactive games, you will notice a company called Zynga. They are responsible for some of the more addictive games, such as Mafia Wars, Farmville, Yoville, etc.

Stop me before I click again....

These are devilishly addictive little applications, when, in all likelihood, they shouldn't be. You click through selected "jobs" and build a farm, an aquarium, a criminal enterprise and have predetermined goals. However, to get to the higher levels of achievement, you can exchange virtual gaming dollars for your real-life, hard-earned ducets. This is how Zynga was able to make a $250 million dollar profit last year. 

You mean this isn't legal tender?

  

Some people, however, are too cheap to pay X amount for a few widgets or peppercorns, and prefer to just pace things out and let the game progress (for free) --your truly among them. However, for those really, really impatient tightwads, there are other ways to get the bonanza, loot, bushels or whatever Zynga is peddling...off-site "sponsors".

These sponsors sites and services are usually free; the mark goes to 3rd Party site, and agrees to fill out a survey, form or review, and in exchange, they are given virtual dollars to spend at Zynga's site to in turn purchase bric-a-brac for the Facebook game. And, everyone is happy.

Internet win, hooray!!!

"Surely",  you're thinking to yourself, "this is fairly benign, and couldn't possibly be used to manipulate public opinion on any pressing, serious National issues, right?*" You would be wrong. Enter the always-shady, always-sheisty Republican Party. One third party outfit, Gambit, has "partnered" with the GOP, hospitals and insurance giants to manufacture "grassroots support" for destroying/delaying/confusing health care reform; a practice known as "astroturfing" because of the fake "grass roots" campaigning.

True fact: The only thing that frightens children more than Republicans are demonic, flesh-eating clowns.

How does this work? Adults, teens, adolescents, and children as old as 13, click on the Gambit site to earn free Mafia/Fish/Farm-bucks. They enter their name and email address and press "click", and at the end, they are duly rewarded. However, unbeknownst to them the site automatically generates an email to Congress, in their name, that reads as follows:

"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

Holy Bait-n-Switch Batman! Who are these "grass roots" organizations and individuals that 15 year olds are throwing their support behind? It's the "Get Health Reform Right" people. With a name that Orwellian, you'd think it would be mega-billion dollar corporations...and you'd be right. GHRR is composed of:

• Association of Health Insurance Advisors
•  America’s Health Insurance Plans
•  American Benefits Council
•  BlueCross BlueShield Association
•  Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers
•  Healthcare Leadership Council
•  Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers
•  National Association of Health Underwriters
•  National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors
•  National Retail Association

Fat Capitalist Pig says "noooo, don't look behind the curtain"

Thus you have it, another ethically-challenged, predatory tactic by the 22% of dead-enders to stymy change, meaningful reform and end measures approved by 75% of the U.S. population. Please, Zynga/Gambit**, leave Mafia Wars alone and go back to mere monetary predation of idiots with a PayPal account.  Addictive clicking is just that...addictive clicking to slake the thirst of boredom, it's not an opportunity to manipulate public opinion, especially when the public does not have that opinion, and is unaware --in any event-- of what teh hell you're doing.

*Maybe that's just me

** Zynga and Gambit have allegedly removed the GHRR "survey" from their offers. 

Thursday = Cold

Brrr...digging out of a blizzard here. 15 inches in 2 days...air temps below zero, windchills at -30. Mother Nature is a "Stupid Girl"

Japan continues to kick ass, take names

Whatever she's having, I'll take two.

 

You are not patient...

This is the head of a pin, long considered the best ballroom for dancing angels...

Got 25 years of utter boredom? Feel like killing that time as you wait for the icy scythe of death to take you? That's just what happened in 1880. A convicted forger was serving his time in Sing Sing prison, and had nothing better to do with his time, so he fell back into religion, long the staple and comfort of the condemned.

 

Really, what else are you gonna' do?

Mr. Shiller didn't just spend his time in idle contemplation and navel-gazing over the Trinity. No, he was an active fella'. When his body was found dead one morning on his cell floor, a search of his corpse revealed seven standard pins: 6 silver, 1 gold: All were about 2 inches in length with a pinhead about 1.17 millimeters. That's not necessarily outstanding or too worrisome. However, upon closer inspection, it was revealed that each of the seven pins had been engraved with the full 65 word, 254 character Lord's Prayer using an instrument too small to be seen by the naked eye....

Shiller went blind making each of the 1680 strokes required to engrave each one of these...taking 25 years in all.

The moral of the story? The next time you're bored, just think, it could be a lot worse....

 

Wednesday knows it's a cold day in Hell

Good ole' Tori Amos*, live in '96, with Father Lucifer from "Little Earthquakes". I've seen her live a few times, and she is undoubtedly talented, holly-shit hot, and very very fucked up.
Needless to say, I named my daughter after her :)




* This one's by special request, and, since I've complied, I'll pass this along --with a big hug-- to my lil' meathead. Love you, Kiddo.


 

Americans: Clinically fucking retarded

Situation normal: we are a nation of incredibly fucking stupid people.

I am generally misanthropic, and particularly am down on the mental capacity of my fellow-Americans, who are allegedly-sentient members of h. sapiens sapiens.  Lately, they have only reinforced my inner curmudgeon, and have given me absolutely no basis for hope or belief in the future.

Take this story, by the Pew Research folks: In 2007, 77% of Americans believed that A) the climate was changing and that B) human activity was at least partially to blame. As usual, the same group of 22% vastly represented the denier camp. Today, a mere 18 months later, only 37% believe that human activity has anything whatsoever to do with climate change...and barely half (56%) even think that climate change is occurring at all.

I understand how half of America can disbelieve something they can see with their own eyes, and measure with empirical certainty...such as the melting of the fucking Greenland Ice Sheet.

Contrast that lunacy with these fucking scary numbers:

• 57% of Americans believe they are protected by guardian angels
• 25% say that God has personally spoken to them
• 20% have witnessed miraculous healings
• 18% have been the subject of a miracle
• 8% "speak in tongues"

Sorry global warming; I win...because I am the product of imagination, cannot be measured, am not demonstrable in any sense whatsoever, and rely on people's dual need for wish-thinking and fears of  their own death and insignificance. Is that logical? Make sense to you?

I wish I could put this in more flowering, billowy language, but I just can't. Americans are perhaps the most credulous, least engaged, least intelligent, educationally-impaired, superstitious, deity-besotted group of people in the "civilized" world. And, the world (particularly America) slide slowly into senescence and ignorance; as our planet becomes more polluted and less habitable; as fear and tribalism and theocrats dominate us; and, as the lights of industrialization dim...we'll have no one to blame but our damned selves

Don't blame me...I voted sanity

 

Your Country is Fucked: Mongolia

By far and away, one of the most interesting places on the planet...

Meet Mongolia; a sparsely-populated, Alaskan-sized, backwater, landlocked chunk of Northern Asia: Owing to the climate, and it's horrendous neighborhood, the Mongols have long-been fucked...but occasionally, even the most fucked countries grab the strap-on and start giving as good as they've got.

 

Dear Xi Xia, see you soon.

Love,

Chinggis

No discussion of Mongolia can begin without understanding its climate: It is an exceptionally arid nation, with vast semi-desert grasslands and steppes covering much of the country. Add to that, large mountainous regions in the west and the frickin Gobi Desert in the south...oh, and the Tundra in the North. This is a very hard place, that begat very hard people...it makes Afghanistan look pleasant.

Look, it's South Dakota! 

Actually, it's just the frozen plains of Mongolia....

 

Wyoming? Afghanistan?

Nope, the Altai Mountains. Mongolian too...

 

Saudi Arabia? Bakersfield?

Nope, the Gobi Desert. Again, in Mongolia... 

I think you're beginning to get the picture: This is not a place for the meek, or conducive to the soft farming life of Europe and the Mediterranean. You can't grow a fart in Mongolia if you tried...the only thing that really can survive are hardy grasses, sheep, and shaggy ponies. These are a sheparding, nomadic people, as you'd expect. And, to this day, the Mongols still rely on sheep, horses and the open grasslands to survive. Especially the sheep, who provide food, clothing, and felt to make the yerts (ger, the reasily dis/assembled circular tents, covered in felt, that still dot the landscape).

Sheep a/k/a Mongolian Buffalo.

 

 

And the neighbors with whom the Mongols were always fighting? Sheesh. Take your pick. You had the ancestral enemies of the Mongolians in the North; the Russian Tatars (just like white Mongolians, but even colder). To the South and East were the other ancestral enemies in what is now China: the Xi, the Jin, the Song and the Han. And to the West were the Turkic tribes (Uzbeks, Khazaks, etc). To top this all off, old Mongolia was rife with internecine conflict and constant tribal bickering. Until one kid named Temujin had just about enough of that, and through sheer will (and not an insubstantial amount of bloodshed) hammered the tribes into a unified nation. Perhaps you've heard of him?

Temujin (Ghengis Khan) is not impressed with your civilizations.

You know the story from here: With a nation just shy of 100,000 people, Ghengis grabbed the ponies kicked the hell out of the sulky tribes, and then they crossed the Gobi Desert and smashed the Xi. Somewhere along the way, he discovered seige warfare, and then decided to decimate the Northern Chinese (the Jin). Then, because of some treachery to his ambassadors, he crossed the Altai Mountains, and the Hindu Kush, and into the Persian Kwarezm empires (present day Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Khazakstan). The results are much the same, and the Muslims fared no better.

 

This is all that's left of the former jewel known as Otrar. It was taken apart, brick by brick, by the Mongols, and everyone inside was put to the sword. Just some helpful advice: When Ghengis sends ambassadors, you might want to hear what they have to say next time.

When he died (still mysteriously uncertain), his empire was divided among his sons who, unsurprisingly, continued the advance. Perhaps you've heard of his family? Ogodei, Tamerlane and Khublia are just a few of the old Mongolian emperors. But, it wasn't all bad, along the way, the Silk Road was opened from Persia to Asia, Mongolian culture advanced into Persia and China (and vice versa), and trade boomed throughout the Eastern World and into Europe...in under a century.

Marco?

Polo. 

 

After 400 years or so of Mongolian imperial expansion, and contraction, the Mongols did something few conquerors ever had...they just retired. They got back on their ponies, and went home to the frozen Steppes and Tundra. But, it was a helluva' 400 year ride, eh? However, retirement was not to be a peaceful one, and in the 17th century whatever was left of the Mongolian Yuan empire soon became subject to the powerful Chinese Qing dynasty, where they would remain until Russia made them a satellite communist state in 1924.

Mongolia, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Following the collapse of communism in 1990, the Mongolian people peacefully deposed their own communist leadership, and founded a republican system of government. However, as of today, most of the leadership are composed of the same old faces that dominated the government twenty years ago. Not that it matters terribly. Mongolia has almost no natural exports, aside from metals and mining. Even then, it is not like they export a lot of it without the Soviet system propping them up. Less than 1% of the land is arable, so they can't even subsistence farm or produce their own energy.

Nothing's changed very much in about a millenium, and that's just the way they like it.

So now, the Mongolians do like they always have; they herd and they raise ponies. The compete in archery, and wrestling and equistrian competitions. In short, the do as they always have: they ride the inexorable waves of history; some of which. they themselves created. Thus, while Mongolia is exceptionally poor, and remains fucked as always, I wouldn't say it too loudly; these are a patient people with a long, long memory and a well-honed sense of themselves.

Who are you calling fucked? We'll be keeping an eye on you.

Tuesday's fighting a blizzard

And, living in this godforsaken land of Scandawegians, blizzards and cornfields, I am reminded that I am very much an outsider; a misfit. As the jelly shooting water pistol, so too am I.

Okay, whining over. Enjoy the best scene, and best song, from the best Christmas flick, ever.

Cat People: One of many reasons I am a dog person...

Cat people, especially the crazy cat lady. No way to sugar coat it: These folks are psychotic...

Okay, actually I don't mind this crazy lady.

There is much to recommend cats. In their favor: Cats are barely domesticated, and are -as nature panned out- the perfect predators for a terrestrial environment. They take care of themselves perfectly well, don't require much fawning or attention, and certainly don't require nearly the maintenance of dogs.

Unknown to most people, 100% of cats do this 99% of the time.

  

But they are also intemperate, mean, hiss-y, claw-y, they shit indoors for no good reasons, piss on things for no good reason, shed like a shih-tzu in chemotherapy. And, to top it all off, I'm allergic to them, which is a sign from the gods that I don't need to be around them anymore.

Sure, it might eat you, but admit it...you want to pet this puppy.

But dogs? Dogs and humans just got together. When you have a little kid, what do you get it for a companion? A puppy naturally. Our species are codependent, and have been for tens of thousands of years. Long ago in the primordial forests, the first wolf overcame it's fear of fire and approached people eating. We decided to give the starvin' fella' a hanuch of meat. In exchange for lowering itself on the pack order, the wolf protected our encampment through alarm or teeth, became part of the pack, and gave us affection. In return, we gave it affection, food, warmth and removed one if its only predators. Us.

Puppies and Babies: Like peanut butter & jelly, everything else is a poor derivative.

So, yea, I love dogs. And, more to the point, I detest crazy ass cat people. We've all known the crazy ass cat lperson: lonely, pitiful, too weak-spirited to take control of their own pack, absolute betas in a world ran by alphas, socially awkward, and always doting on their animals to the point of madness.

You know who I'm talkin' about...

Today, via Emails From Crazy People, comes just one example of what we all know to be all-too true. This email from the sociopath may be long, but it is definitely worth the read. (emphases mine)...

Hi Rob,

Thanks so much for taking care of Rosie and Simba while I am gone! Please follow these specific instructions for their care.

On Saturday morning please open a can of food for them (I will leave the can out on the cart in the kitchen). Put half the can of food in one of the bowls (I will also leave the bowls on the cart) and the other half in the other bowl. It is very important that they are EXACTLY equal amounts it there is any variance at all Rosie get very upset and becomes inconsolable. And you know what that means.

After you have put exactly half of the can in each bowl and then put one bowl in my bedroom on the green floral place mat for Rosie and the other bowl on the green floral placemat on the floor in the kitchen next to the Platinum Drinkwell water fountain. At this time check the fountain to make sure it is working properly. You may want to take a taste yourself to make sure it is at a cool enough temperature.

After the cats eat (at this time they are allowed to fraternize together in the liviging room but please leave Rosie by herself in my bedroom with the door closed when you leave otherwise the cats get into fights.) anyways, after they eat they like to be burped. This can be done by holding each cat like a baby on your shoulder and patting them gently, not too hard, until they burp twice. Each cat must burp twice. Sometimes it helps if you sing to them.

Next, it is playtime! You will find a basket on the floor in the livng room with lots of fun toys. Try not to become overly excited and please remember that these do not belong to you and that I will be taking inventory of them before I leave so I will know if anything is missing.

 Playtime should last plus or minus 3 hours or so. It is vital for the cat’s health that they get this exercise so please, don’t cut this time short. I ususally like to start with a warm up of running after stuffed mice followed by chasing bits of string and wrapping up the last hour with stretching and a little more mommy and baby yoga. For the yoga, there is a video that I will put in the VCR for you and all you have to do is push play on the remote.

You might want to start the session with rose since she’s only 10lbs and then work your way up to Simba at 15lbs. The video will show you how to perform each exercise and please don’t skip the massage portion because that’s their favorite part.

Before you leave please scoop the poop and pee out of the litter and put it in one of the trash bags you will find in the blue bag hanging on the wall inside the huge closet that I will clearly label “Litter closet” for you. On your way out deposti the poop/pee bag in the trash room which is directly next to my apartment.

They will expect you to kiss them each on the nose and give them a hung before you leave and don’t forget to put Rosie back in my bedroom with the door closed so she doesn’t get all homicidal on Simba while I am gone. Please lock the deadbolt on your way out.

I will probably call you two or three times while I am one to check on their status. I will put your $25 on the kitchen counter next to the can of food. Try not to spend it all in one place.

Thanks again!Kelly

Wow. There is nothing I can add to that...Nothing. But, the Combat Dog reminds you...

T

That is all.