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"oh no, not again"
Aug. 20th, 2007 11:20 pmMage has had a minor recurrence of feeding fussiness. He was clearly hungry & clearly interested in wetfoodz, but would not touch it until I gave it him in imperial isolation.
No out-of-catbox experiences, and he seems temperamentally normal, though a bit subdued (which I had chalked up to the others being away).
No out-of-catbox experiences, and he seems temperamentally normal, though a bit subdued (which I had chalked up to the others being away).
falsus in advertisium
Aug. 19th, 2007 10:46 pmEither there is no truth to the tale that cat pee glows under black light, or the bulb I have that the packaging labels "Black Light Bulb -- For Parties!" is not in fact black light[tm]. I sort of suspect the latter, because a white T-shirt wasn't looking funky under the bulb either. Snarl.
[Context: One of the cats, most likely Mage, expressed unhappiness during the recent unpleasantness by several rounds of peeing on the bedroom carpet. There is at least one spot, based on smell, that I didn't manage to find either when fresh or by lucky aim of the Nature's Miracle since. And the carpet is sufficiently shag and pale to not show it up. Hence, other forensic methods are called for.]
[Context: One of the cats, most likely Mage, expressed unhappiness during the recent unpleasantness by several rounds of peeing on the bedroom carpet. There is at least one spot, based on smell, that I didn't manage to find either when fresh or by lucky aim of the Nature's Miracle since. And the carpet is sufficiently shag and pale to not show it up. Hence, other forensic methods are called for.]
Saturday: A Day of Much Perfection
Aug. 19th, 2007 09:14 am...in spite of it starting at 5am, for to drive Steve to the airport.
I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elibalin at South Street Seaport at 1pm (after a few errands, false starts and minor setbacks); our quest was the eponymous museum, which I'd passed by a thousand times and never visited. Boy, had I been missing out. There was all the expected seagoing impedimentia--which I will make a side note could use much better curacy; most items had little to no provenance--which was well enough in itself, but there were also various special exhibits of great interest to us. One was a photographic record of the Lower East Side neighborhoods that Robert Fucking Moses *ptui* bulldozed to make more ugly box-housing and highways that accomplish nothing; another was on Irish-American boxers, of all things. It contained the decomposed right arm of a boxer of the 19th century. Long story. Creepy. But nifty. These were the kinds of things I expected to see at the Museum of the City, and didn't; I'm just glad I could go somewhere for 'em.
Sorrows and vexations:
1. The usual moment of silence for the passing of the North Star.
2. The realization that that had just been the first salvo in a war of cultural heritage: Every interesting, cool store on that strip has been replaced by some chain store. INCLUDING THE SEAPORT MUSEUM STORE afkfhjlf;jdskfda;s. Which is now a Met Museum store; and okay, yes, those are nifty, but if you want to buy something from the Met you can just hop uptown and GO TO THE FUCKING MET. The Seaport Museum store carried all sorts of cool, interesting, unique articles; things you can't get anywhere else in the city, as far as I'm aware. Not to mention it'd be nice to get some stuff associated with the exhibits we'd just seen--! There was a video playing in one of the halls, of which the film itself had been taken during the Peking's passage around Cape Horn in 1929, but the audio commentary was added in 1980 by a fellow who'd been a very young sailor on that cruise, telling you what the heck you were looking at. I was eager to pick up a copy for Steve--he'd love it--but no. Not Yours.
We did not, alas, have time to look at the other galleries & ships, other than the Peking, they have around the area because we had to walk west to participate in a spot of merry chaos. It was grand and delightful and good-natured and everything I could possibly have hoped for. Afterwards, much tuckered out, we hied ourselves to Tea and Sympathy for a well-deserved pick-me-up, then went our separate ways. I came home, fell down a bit, then picked upsweh for joyous snuggles and movie-watching. And so, to bed.
I met
elibalin at South Street Seaport at 1pm (after a few errands, false starts and minor setbacks); our quest was the eponymous museum, which I'd passed by a thousand times and never visited. Boy, had I been missing out. There was all the expected seagoing impedimentia--which I will make a side note could use much better curacy; most items had little to no provenance--which was well enough in itself, but there were also various special exhibits of great interest to us. One was a photographic record of the Lower East Side neighborhoods that Robert Fucking Moses *ptui* bulldozed to make more ugly box-housing and highways that accomplish nothing; another was on Irish-American boxers, of all things. It contained the decomposed right arm of a boxer of the 19th century. Long story. Creepy. But nifty. These were the kinds of things I expected to see at the Museum of the City, and didn't; I'm just glad I could go somewhere for 'em.Sorrows and vexations:
1. The usual moment of silence for the passing of the North Star.
2. The realization that that had just been the first salvo in a war of cultural heritage: Every interesting, cool store on that strip has been replaced by some chain store. INCLUDING THE SEAPORT MUSEUM STORE afkfhjlf;jdskfda;s. Which is now a Met Museum store; and okay, yes, those are nifty, but if you want to buy something from the Met you can just hop uptown and GO TO THE FUCKING MET. The Seaport Museum store carried all sorts of cool, interesting, unique articles; things you can't get anywhere else in the city, as far as I'm aware. Not to mention it'd be nice to get some stuff associated with the exhibits we'd just seen--! There was a video playing in one of the halls, of which the film itself had been taken during the Peking's passage around Cape Horn in 1929, but the audio commentary was added in 1980 by a fellow who'd been a very young sailor on that cruise, telling you what the heck you were looking at. I was eager to pick up a copy for Steve--he'd love it--but no. Not Yours.
We did not, alas, have time to look at the other galleries & ships, other than the Peking, they have around the area because we had to walk west to participate in a spot of merry chaos. It was grand and delightful and good-natured and everything I could possibly have hoped for. Afterwards, much tuckered out, we hied ourselves to Tea and Sympathy for a well-deserved pick-me-up, then went our separate ways. I came home, fell down a bit, then picked up
sweh for joyous snuggles and movie-watching. And so, to bed.National Usenet Breakage Day
Aug. 13th, 2007 03:43 pm...Or something. I didn't seem to get the memo, so I'm guessing.
Prequel: the primary reader crashed Friday night. Rebooted, no big deal. However, since then the natives have been woeful, noting that posting times are increased--that is, you post the article and it takes anywhere up to a minute and change for your newsreader to come back and get on with its life. At first I thought it might be related to said crash, but it was happening on both readers, and with any news client, including just talking directly to the NNTP port. (Which I still remember how to do, because I am awesome.) And thensweh reminded me that, even though it doesn't look like what's happening, when our users post to the readers it doesn't actually post the article per se; it gets passed through shogun and then fed back to news-xfer which actually posts the article, so logically the nose goblins must be on news-xfer. But how does the article get there since it's not through the usual method?
I keep expecting someone whose job title officially says "sysadmin" to deal with the deep magic of news-related troubles, but that keeps not happening. I am in fact the one with the biggest INN clue except for El Jefe himself, and although he had a wizard's knowledge of it in the day, he hasn't actually touched it in years. So here am I with the leader badge.
The hunt goes through dark places, because our news setup is weird and mystical and somewhat ill-documented: that is, parts of it are meticulously documented, and others were Not Got Around To before the people who knew them left. Happily for me, many of those people are still around my world. So I gotjdev's help on ktrace and ktruss, and 5tonsflax kindly spent 40+ minutes on the phone with me as we unravelled the silliness together. And as often happens, the solution is very simple once you know where to look: the history database had gotten frightfully bloated (even for modern history databases), because expire hadn't run in $SOMETIME, because for some reason /news/db had become owned by root. None of the files in it, mind you, which I woulda noticed. Just the directory. Which is the more odd because the mount point in the dist structure is correctly permissioned, so this breakage should have been fixed at any of the times we've disted news-xfer in the last $SOMETIME (including this morning).
So, fixed that, was about to run expire when I realized there is probably not enough space on the partition. Phoned El Jefe. He thought there was, because he thought that the re-written database would be smaller. I didn't think it would be smaller enough. What a stupid time to be right... It's now running and dumping the new copy in a really silly part of the filesystem that nevertheless has scads of space, and hopefully it will finish in time for me to make sure it is all okay before I GO HOME.
Also, some Usenet performance artists are splashing their poo on various walls, and making a clumsy attempt to joe-job Supernews with it. Anyone know if "usenetserver.com" takes action against this kind of crap? And had to explain some basic newsgroup functionality relating to this to a guy who says he's been moderating for 11+ years. THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT I AM TELLING YOU, BUNKY, AND YOU SHOULD NOT ACT LIKE YOU KNOW MORE THAN ME BECAUSE CLEARLY YOU DO NOT.
Prequel: the primary reader crashed Friday night. Rebooted, no big deal. However, since then the natives have been woeful, noting that posting times are increased--that is, you post the article and it takes anywhere up to a minute and change for your newsreader to come back and get on with its life. At first I thought it might be related to said crash, but it was happening on both readers, and with any news client, including just talking directly to the NNTP port. (Which I still remember how to do, because I am awesome.) And then
sweh reminded me that, even though it doesn't look like what's happening, when our users post to the readers it doesn't actually post the article per se; it gets passed through shogun and then fed back to news-xfer which actually posts the article, so logically the nose goblins must be on news-xfer. But how does the article get there since it's not through the usual method? I keep expecting someone whose job title officially says "sysadmin" to deal with the deep magic of news-related troubles, but that keeps not happening. I am in fact the one with the biggest INN clue except for El Jefe himself, and although he had a wizard's knowledge of it in the day, he hasn't actually touched it in years. So here am I with the leader badge.
The hunt goes through dark places, because our news setup is weird and mystical and somewhat ill-documented: that is, parts of it are meticulously documented, and others were Not Got Around To before the people who knew them left. Happily for me, many of those people are still around my world. So I got
jdev's help on ktrace and ktruss, and 5tonsflax kindly spent 40+ minutes on the phone with me as we unravelled the silliness together. And as often happens, the solution is very simple once you know where to look: the history database had gotten frightfully bloated (even for modern history databases), because expire hadn't run in $SOMETIME, because for some reason /news/db had become owned by root. None of the files in it, mind you, which I woulda noticed. Just the directory. Which is the more odd because the mount point in the dist structure is correctly permissioned, so this breakage should have been fixed at any of the times we've disted news-xfer in the last $SOMETIME (including this morning). So, fixed that, was about to run expire when I realized there is probably not enough space on the partition. Phoned El Jefe. He thought there was, because he thought that the re-written database would be smaller. I didn't think it would be smaller enough. What a stupid time to be right... It's now running and dumping the new copy in a really silly part of the filesystem that nevertheless has scads of space, and hopefully it will finish in time for me to make sure it is all okay before I GO HOME.
Also, some Usenet performance artists are splashing their poo on various walls, and making a clumsy attempt to joe-job Supernews with it. Anyone know if "usenetserver.com" takes action against this kind of crap? And had to explain some basic newsgroup functionality relating to this to a guy who says he's been moderating for 11+ years. THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT I AM TELLING YOU, BUNKY, AND YOU SHOULD NOT ACT LIKE YOU KNOW MORE THAN ME BECAUSE CLEARLY YOU DO NOT.
last-minute Doing Stuff
Aug. 12th, 2007 12:54 amMe, my mom, elibalin and possibly sweh are going to the Museum of the City of New York tomorrow. I daresay we'll get there around 11:15 or 11:30. Please join us! Text my cellphone if you are meeting up.
elibalin and possibly sweh are going to the Museum of the City of New York tomorrow. I daresay we'll get there around 11:15 or 11:30. Please join us! Text my cellphone if you are meeting up.Crossover cooties
Aug. 9th, 2007 10:07 pmGoddammit, there is ANOTHER month's worth of Amazons Attack pukefest in my Teen Titans. This had better be the last of it. And there would appear to be Countdown spooge in Superman. (Haven't cracked Nightwing yet; it appears to be innocent of editorial poop. Probably because they're excercising that need with whatever stupidity is going on with Outsiders right now.)
Blue Beetle remains awesome, as does Daredevil--in which this issue suddenly explains why I've been liking Milla less and less as time went on. The reason isn't what I thought, though. Or who.
Blue Beetle remains awesome, as does Daredevil--in which this issue suddenly explains why I've been liking Milla less and less as time went on. The reason isn't what I thought, though. Or who.
Cat alert downgraded to "guarded"
Aug. 9th, 2007 06:12 pmHimself has been all NOM NOM NOM with his kibble for several days now, and that in preference to wetfood. (He seems to swallow it whole.) I think we can declare this crisis weathered.
Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts, suggestions &c. I appreciate it more'n I can say.
Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts, suggestions &c. I appreciate it more'n I can say.
nom nom nom!
Aug. 3rd, 2007 06:13 pm"Nutro MAX Gourmet Classics Ocean Fish Flavor" for the win! Once back from the hospital, Mage glorphed down some 3/4 of a large-size can.
(Hospital has taken blood, will let us know what if anything they find.)
(Hospital has taken blood, will let us know what if anything they find.)
Slight intimation of non-dire catness
Aug. 3rd, 2007 03:29 pmContext: Wednesday night, Steve and I went out to the Pet Megastore Thingy and got a huge array of different brands & flavors of wetfood, in the hopes that Mage would be tempted by one or another, and then we could buy lots and lots of that. So far, he's mostly been snubbing them, except the aforementioned kitten food which he aforementionedly horked up the next day.
Mail just received from Steve (who is working from home today, and monitoring the cat situation) (turns out hospital visit is scheduled for 4pm):
Mail just received from Steve (who is working from home today, and monitoring the cat situation) (turns out hospital visit is scheduled for 4pm):
Pookie, Good news about people coming over. By the way, something about a lot of these fancy-ass cat foods: none of the cats like the damn things! The ones Mage wouldn't touch, I tried on Fizzy and Ranger and you'd think I tried to feed them old tires. :-P Steve
State of the cat: not good
Aug. 3rd, 2007 10:26 amSteve is taking Mage up to the animal hospital. He horked up everything he'd eaten last night, and has been hiding and not taking any food since.
Open Pool Weekend
Aug. 2nd, 2007 10:29 amThe pool is Open this weekend. (That means, feel free to drop by and swim, and grill, and lounge in the hammock, or whatever; but we are under no obligation to feed or entertain you, and either or both of us may crouch in the lair playing CoH if we are cranky.)
It's nice to let us know if you think you might drop by, but not necessary.
It's nice to let us know if you think you might drop by, but not necessary.
The coaxing of the cat
Aug. 2nd, 2007 07:01 amIn which we learn that Mage will take approx. 1.25 ounces of Hill's Science Diet "liver & chicken entree" kitten wet food if:
- it is presented before him with great showiness
- I stay with him while he eats it
- other cats are not in the room
- he is brought back to the dish after the first time he figures he's done and moves away, licking his chops
He took that much in the evening, and that much this morning, with great eagerness (once the above requirements were met). Now, if a cat is living solely on gooshyfood, they're supposed to have about 9 oz per day for a 10lb. cat. (He's 11lb.) So this is nowhere near enough. But on the other hand, he might still be gumming kibble on the side; no way to tell. Webcam aimed at the dish?
- it is presented before him with great showiness
- I stay with him while he eats it
- other cats are not in the room
- he is brought back to the dish after the first time he figures he's done and moves away, licking his chops
He took that much in the evening, and that much this morning, with great eagerness (once the above requirements were met). Now, if a cat is living solely on gooshyfood, they're supposed to have about 9 oz per day for a 10lb. cat. (He's 11lb.) So this is nowhere near enough. But on the other hand, he might still be gumming kibble on the side; no way to tell. Webcam aimed at the dish?
State of the cat
Aug. 1st, 2007 07:05 amHe turns up his nose at the wet food we currently have. He'll eat a little tuna, but not much (e.g., he did the Feed Me dance when we got up, but only took maybe a quarter of a 6oz can). And he'll eat a little bit of kibble soaked in tuna water, but not much.
I don't know how to tell if he's getting enough foods.
Correction: Yesterday he ate kibble soaked in tuna. Today, he's trying to cover it over. *headdesk*
I don't know how to tell if he's getting enough foods.
Correction: Yesterday he ate kibble soaked in tuna. Today, he's trying to cover it over. *headdesk*
On helpfulness
Aug. 1st, 2007 06:26 amStaying up til Holy Shit O'Clock to help Beth finish this new dress she's been working on for ages seemed like a much better idea last night.
We are the worst. pet owners. ever.
Jul. 30th, 2007 09:44 amTook Mage to the vet this morning, because it seemed to us that he was losing a bit of weight, and when I put down their kibble dish he would just toy with a few pieces then come beg for people food. And we figured it was him being all glutton-whorish again, that he'd gotten spoiled by eating Fizzgig's kitten chow, and I wanted to get some of the magic appetite stimulant so he would eat his own food properly.
Imagine my shock, awe, and huge volumes of shame when the vet pointed out that he is probably having trouble with kibble because MOST OF HIS TEETH ARE GONE.
Now, admittedly, a cat's molars just look like ridges of bone. I don't take much note of them under any circumstances, and even on the rare occasions I've had cause to look at them they always look sort of weird and not-right to me, so even if I'd been giving him regular inspections I wonder if I'd actually have perceived the problem. But! Gah. Feel horribly, utterly, completely sucky.
He is fine and healthy otherwise. The vet postulated that maybe he had a brief gum infection or something that loosened the teeth, but the gums seem perfectly normal at this time. This just means that Mr. Mage gets what he always wanted: a wet-food diet. And we are both feeling sufficiently guilty about our Ultimate Fail that we're more than happy to give it to him.
Imagine my shock, awe, and huge volumes of shame when the vet pointed out that he is probably having trouble with kibble because MOST OF HIS TEETH ARE GONE.
Now, admittedly, a cat's molars just look like ridges of bone. I don't take much note of them under any circumstances, and even on the rare occasions I've had cause to look at them they always look sort of weird and not-right to me, so even if I'd been giving him regular inspections I wonder if I'd actually have perceived the problem. But! Gah. Feel horribly, utterly, completely sucky.
He is fine and healthy otherwise. The vet postulated that maybe he had a brief gum infection or something that loosened the teeth, but the gums seem perfectly normal at this time. This just means that Mr. Mage gets what he always wanted: a wet-food diet. And we are both feeling sufficiently guilty about our Ultimate Fail that we're more than happy to give it to him.
My bus is the shortest bus of all.
Jul. 27th, 2007 05:51 pmHad to email some hundred users to let them know that the particular phone numbers they are using are going away, and they should select from the vast smorgasbord of our other modem numbers for their dialup needs. This is not a big whoop; some few years ago I'd banged together a quick script that takes a list of addresses, a file containing a form letter, asks a few questions about headers, and bang! all are mailed yay.
Only it's been awhile since I used it, and I failed at reading comprehension, and therefore the list of users got fed as the form letter and the form letter got fed as the list of users.
Sole saving grace: the words in a form letter about dialup numbers are not words commonly chosen as usernames (even by our wacky populace).
Only it's been awhile since I used it, and I failed at reading comprehension, and therefore the list of users got fed as the form letter and the form letter got fed as the list of users.
Sole saving grace: the words in a form letter about dialup numbers are not words commonly chosen as usernames (even by our wacky populace).
Seek and thou shalt find.
Jul. 26th, 2007 03:50 pmSince Albion was lost to us, we have had but meager pickings for our dancing pleasure. I've periodically made the rounds of my spies to see if anything's come up that might replace it, but it's always "no cakes today". Finally, motivated by I know not what, I did some digging of my own. And behold: a club in NJ, even which has "80’s/New Wave/Alternative/Goth/Industrial/Electroclash" and "Goth/New Wave/Punk/Death Rock/Darkwave" on Fridays, and "Future Pop/EBM/Industrial/Synth-pop/New Wave/Goth" and "Goth/New Wave/Darkwave/80's" on Saturdays.
Of course, it's in Newark; and deepest Newark, at that. Suck. But! Still may be worth it.
Let this serve as public record that I have promisednaudia she and I will go try this place (regardless of the lameitude of our menfolk) within two weeks of her return from points west.
Of course, it's in Newark; and deepest Newark, at that. Suck. But! Still may be worth it.
Let this serve as public record that I have promised
naudia she and I will go try this place (regardless of the lameitude of our menfolk) within two weeks of her return from points west.
