So I’m seriously lacking in my posts about Zoey. Here’s one.

Zoey’s packing on the pounds (nine of them, to be exact). Soon, he’s going to need those cat stairs for cats that can’t jump up on the couch any more.

We’ve been throwing around talk of getting another cat; but we may not need to if Zoey keeps growing. He already weighs as much as Franny, and just looking at the two of them, you can tell that there’s no way he’s supposed to weigh as much as Franny. But for a cat whose main “cute factors” are lying on his back with his stomach exposed and eating frequently, this isn’t very surprising.

So forget cat prom. It’s time for cat Sweating to the Oldies. We need some cat Tae Bo (Billy Blanks says “meow”). And we need some cat salads (without dressing). It’s high time we whip this little guy back into shape. Zoey, I expect to see a vast improvement.

So Janelle and I are cat-sitting for Jon and Mary this weekend while they go visit Mary’s dad. Sam arrived at our house last night in his carrier, hissing and growling like I’ve never heard. Apparently, the carrier freaks him out to the point of violence. Now, Franny and Sam are old friends from when Franny stayed with Jon and Mary while we were out cruising the Caribbean. So Franny remembered Sam and came around sniffing the carrier (which was still closed). Sam kept hissing.

As soon as Franny backed away a little, I opened the carrier to see if Sam would come out. He didn’t. He just kept hissing and growling. I made the mistake of trying to console him by petting him. When I reached in, Sam tried to scratch me with a flurry of blows. I got my hand out in time, thankfully. But not before Franny leapt into action! She jumped over to the carrier door and started batting back at Sam. She wasn’t scared of him—she had just showed that—she was actually trying to defend me! Anyway, Sam has been under our bed since last night and is still growling and hissing whenever we go into the room.

Franny actually had an eye infection a while back. We took her in (we know of a cat that actually lost its eye due to an uncontrolled infection) and got some eyedrops to give her. She hated them. I had to hold all four of her paws while Janelle put the drops in. The infection gradually spread to the other eye as well, so we were putting drops in both eyes. After ten days, the eyes cleared up and she was back to normal. Or so we thought. The infection came back. We took her back in and they gave us eye ointment. That’s right: ointment. It’s the consistency of Neosporin, and we’re putting in into her eye.

Anyway, her eye started clearing up, but then she began having dry heaves. Like, numerous times. We took her back in again, and they gave us an antibiotic to administer by mouth.

So imagine how I felt last night when, after her heroic feat of of daring love, I had to hold her down and force-feed her medicine and put ointment in her eye. Well, actually, don’t imagine that—it gets worse.

I got home tonight and Franny’s eye was really bad again. She greeted me on the stairs, as she typically does, and I pet her for a while, since no one’s been home since about 8:00 this morning. As we both walked up the stairs, I noticed she had a piece of poop stuck to her butt. She occasionally gets those, so we just remove them. I went and got some toilet paper and discovered that Franny had wandered off. She had gone to the bottom of the stairs. I went down there, sat down, and reached down to get the poop. She ran back up the stairs. I followed her upstairs, reached down to get the poop, and she ran back downstairs. I chased her upstairs and downstairs one more time before finally grabbing her and trying to get the poop. Normally, when we grab her, it means we’re going to give her medicine, trim her butt fur, give her a bath, or some other horrible thing. So she’s assuming the worst.

I grab the poop with the toilet paper and pull away. *Smoosh!* The poop just went to total mush in my hand. This is a worst-case scenario. In turning to mush, the poop embedded itself in quite a chunk of her long, white fur. This means a bath is in order. I got another chunk out, but at this point, it was smeared all over her back-side, and I couldn’t hold her any longer. She escaped and ran upstairs. I went upstairs to get some more poop, and she was sitting in the windowsill, looking out. I called her name, and she turned around and gave me the most pitiful look I have ever seen—with one eye! I just couldn’t do it.

She knows a bath is in order, though. She’s trying to get the poop off of herself, but she knows she can’t get it all. So when Janelle gets home, it’s bath time for Franny. Usually, after a bath, she disappears behind a couch or refrigerator and grooms herself and then re-appears an hour or two later, groomed, if a little perturbed. As soon as she emerges, we’re going to have to grab her, force-feed her medicine, and put ointment into her eye.

Is this not the saddest thing you’ve heard all day?

isitchristmas.com has a new RSS feed.

Franny just turned 1 in November, which places her at about sixteen or seventeen months. In cat years, that actually works out to about seventeen years old. Holy smokes, that means our little girl is driving! She’s almost old enough to vote! She’s almost old enough to go to war and die for her cat country. This is so depressing. I’m just glad she’s going to an in-state college.

We’re going to be hosting Sam (another cat) for a few days for Jon and Mary. So I was thinking we should have a little cat prom for Franny. (Zoey’s too young for cat prom.) Of course, Sam is 25 in cat years. That’s kind of like me and Janelle, so I guess it’s okay. We’re going to take prom pictures. Just you wait and see.

In other news, I’m now getting anywhere between 20 and 40 spam e-mail messages a day at my work account. And it’s not like I’m signing up for services with this e-mail address—I only use it for work e-mails. So you have to wonder, where do they get these work e-mail addresses? It took me a little while to figure it out. I work in the affiliate marketing department for my company. So the people I work with are generally the get-rich-quick, make-a-fortune-from-home kind of guys. The kind of guys who would sell my e-mail address to spammers. Nothing says “I’m not satisfied with our business arrangement” like signing someone up for information about penis enlargement pills.

I just started making a list of some of the subject lines I receive in my inbox every day at work, but I couldn’t do it. They’re just so outrageously inappropriate that I couldn’t do it. Here’s a typical stream of e-mail consciousness:

• Our i-frame isn’t working!
• These posting instructions are wrong!
• Do you have a variable set aside for sub id tracking?
• I can make your penis larger!
• Anyone up for lunch?

Incidentally, if you want any designer watches or Russian brides, I can forward you a few e-mails.

Remember newpaper comic strips? The ones that aren’t really funny? Here are some improvements:

Garfield Minus Garfield – It’s amazing how much funnier these are when you just remove that silly cat.

Peanuts Meets Marvel – What Spiderman, Captain America, and a host of others would look like if drawn by Schultz.

Dysfunctional Family Circus – So wrong, but some of these are way too funny. (Warning: very crude!)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Existentialball.

There are no teams in Existentialball—each player is free to choose to play to whatever goal he or she wants, and each player is responsible for creating meaning out of their existence as a player. Similarly, there are no uniforms. In fact, points are knocked off for players wearing the same thing.

Score is not kept in Existentialball. Instead, points are awarded based on how well each player uses his or her freedom of choice and takes responsibility for actions on the field (since each player is ultimately responsible for every play on the field). This of course means that there must be a ball and goals, and that the ball must be put into the goal at some point, but points are awarded based on style by a panel of judges.

Players are not necessarily aware that a game is going on, or even that they’re players. That’s okay—they’ll be graded anyway.

Instead of cheerleaders, there will be a group of attractive women who chastise players for not thinking for themselves. This group is not called the Cheer Squad, but is instead the Independence Squad. While not chastising players, they will give speeches reminding the audience that life is not fair.

The set of rules is sparse because no rule will apply in every circumstance. The main rules are:

1. Someone must be doing something with the ball at all times. If a player ceases to be a player, he or she will be deemed absurd and removed from the field.
2. If players consistently follow the rules of another sport, play will be halted and players will be scolded by the Independence Squad.
3. Players who complain that other players are breaking rules will be docked points for not putting a stop to this themselves.
4. No eye-gouging (except in Germany).
5. Absolutely no quoting Hegel!

Expect to see this on network television in the next few years!

I just saw an advance screening of 21. It’s oddly fitting that a movie about predicting things could be so predictable. It’s still worth a see, though. One, it’s got great characters (both well-written and well-acted), and two, everyone loves a good con.

I didn’t know this, but if you record any part of an advance screening and you get caught, you go to jail. They search everyone on the way in for recording equipment, and they watch the audience throughout the move—with night vision goggles! Scary stuff!

Sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got to get to bed before I turn into a pumpkin. G’night!

I’m not really a dog person. I never really liked the fact that you need to go home and let them out. Also, most are too stupid to be trained to do anything useful (unlike, say, cats).

Well, for all the people out there like me, here’s a dog you can love!

Make sure to watch until they actually kick it.

… of college basketball.

Since a business can’t very well promote drinking on a Monday night, PlattForm celebrated St. Platty’s Day today. The company brought in a can of beer for every employee and we all designed flags, played games, and slacked off from 3:00 on. (PlattForm celebrates holidays in style.) This is awesome for three reasons:

1. Because of the beer and games, you’re a star employee if you get any work done.
2. Because no one is working, you actually can get work done.
3. Because you have time to get work done, you have time to go into the SEO office and jam on their guitars and congas.

Our flag consisted of a Star Wars poster with various managers’ faces pasted over the lead characters. (Guess who designed it.) We had Brian on Princess Leia, Rebecca on Luke Skywalker, and Pete on C3-PO. We also replaced Luke’s lightsaber (which he is holding up in the air) with a large knife with a cartoon snake wrapped around it. Also, we replaced the words “Star Wars” with our team name: “The Rotten Eggs.” I’ll try to get send a copy of it to myself and post it here.

Our game consisted of carrying eggs on a spoon across a grassy knoll. There wasn’t quite enough beer involved to make this interesting. Other games included Post-It fencing, paper airplane throwing, and Riverdance. We also had people in remote offices send in videos of them re-enacting the games in their remote locations. (We didn’t ask for this kind of slackery—it was freely offered.)

If you want to see some creative advertising, go to AdobeCards.com. Adobe is the company that puts out Photoshop and Flash, among a myriad of other creative programs. You’ll have to drag the little bar on the bottom to the right to get it to play.

Yikes! Got to get to sleep. Good night, folks!