"Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. - Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." - Winston Churchill

If a dog jumps into your lap it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing it is because your lap is warmer. - A. N. Whitehead

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. - Garrison Keillor



Cats' hearing apparatus is built to allow the human voice to easily go in one ear and out the other. - Stephen Baker

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence. - Will Cuppy

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind. - Cleveland Amory

A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not. - Ernest Hemingway

If animals could speak the dog would be a a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. - Mark Twain

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through. - Jules Verne

This past week I changed my desktop picture and my screensaver. I didn't intend on changing either, but I zigged when I should have zagged and *poof* it was gone. I thought I had it saved where I could retrieve it...I didn't. I thought I could remember the website where I obtained it...I couldn't. Somewhere lost in the ethernet is the desktop picture I used to have and some day...may have again. In the meantime I am using the above picture as a desktop and a slideshow of Maxine cartoons, and pornographic vegetables as a screensaver. No...I am not going to explain that, at least not today.

I didn't intend on posting today, I planned on having a life. Unfortunately Hubby borrowed the car, leaving me with his van so my day has been seriously curtailed. His van is full of tools and plumbing supplies necessary for his jobs. His work takes him, in many cases, miles away from plumbing supply stores. So he keeps an inventory of frequently used fittings, piping, faucets, sink drain baskets, and shut off valves stored in the back of his van. Those items, along with thousands of dollars in tools create quite a bit of weight, and noise. They are caged off from the cockpit of the van, and crash and clatter when turning every single corner. It's not a situation that I am used to, and one that I choose not to tolerate when driving except for short hops. Besides which, I simply cannot park the damn thing. Ahhhh, the truth will out. I am challenged when it comes to backing up using side view mirrors only. I'd prefer not to run over anything, thank you.

Even having my day curtailed did not change my intention to not post. I have ample tasks around the house to do that will constitute having a life, and then Maxine popped up on my computer screen. "If you woke up breathing today, CONGRATULATIONS, you have another chance". I may not be entirely awake yet, but there's a statement with significance if I ever saw one. My first reaction when reading it was..."at what?" Another chance to mop floors? Another chance to do laundry? Another chance to mow lawns? What is it I have another chance at? Then the light dawned, or the coffee kicked in, whichever you prefer. I suddenly realized that I have another chance to be or do anything, anything at all.

So, I asked myself what do I want to be today? Is there something that I am not that I can change? After carefully taking inventory of who and what I believe I am, I decided that there were a few things I could improve upon. None of those things require much of anything except to take a few moments to be thankful for the second chance I received this morning when I woke up breathing. Today is Fathers Day, and while it is a bittersweet one for me because Dad is gone, I can be thankful that I have this opportunity to remember him today and every day that I wake up breathing. I can be thankful that I have 2 angels in heaven watching over me.

Just because I can't post music doesn't mean that I can't talk about music on a Saturday, now does it? We have a warm and humid "summer" weekend predicted for today and tomorrow, so telling you about a CD I have entitled Ultimate Summer Rock should fit right in.

I have a number of "various artist" compilation CDs because I walk for exercise. I usually go to the same place and walk a track or actually roads in a cemetery but because it's the same thing over and over I find music helps me stay motivated it also gives me a beat which sets my speed. I have 6 or so of these compilations so that I have a change of pace.

I purchased this CD at Walmart, so I would say it's a legitimate CD and I never paid attention to what the disc looked like except it's orange, and the CD case is blue. The information on the case includes the songs listed on the CD so I've always called it Ultimate Summer Rock. Yesterday I ripped it in to my music file and the title came up as something called "Various Artists...More Sunsplashin", which is actually the title on the CD. I never noticed the difference. The "new" title appeals to me more because while I like the CD, I wouldn't call it the "Ultimate" Summer Rock. The Songs on this CD are:

1. The Heat is On...by Glen Frey
2. Listen to the Music...The Doobie Brothers
3. California Girls...David Lee Roth
4. LaBamba...Los Lobos
5. Groovin',,,The Rascals
6. Follow Your Daughter Home...The Guess Who
7. Wild Wild West...The Escape Club
8. 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)...Harper's Bizarre
9. Summer In The City...The Lovin Spoonfuls
10. Freeway of Love...Aretha Franklyn
11. The Tide Is High...Blondie
12. Electric Avenue...Eddy Grant
13. Wonderful World, Beautiful People...Jimmy Cliff
14. Good Vibrations...The Beach Boys
15. Sugar Magnolia...The Grateful Dead
16. Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance)...C&C Music Factory

Before the summer is over, I'm going to burn myself a CD of MY idea of the Ultimate Summer Rock songs, and it would include some of the tunes from this CD. I'd probably have a whole lot more tunes on mine than this and it would include the Doors, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Sam and Dave, Rod Stewart, Bad Company, Guns N Roses Stevie Ray Vaughn, Van Halen and come to think of it, I'd have way more than one Ultimate CD.

Do you agree that any of these tunes belong on an Ultimate Summer Rock CD? If you were going to burn yourself an Ultimate Summer Rock CD, what songs would you have on it?

A short selection of summertime tunes can be found in my comment page, provided by Mouse. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday while swimming in the stream I found a short note on Nursey's blog "I'm Ticked Off" about Imeem.com and their 30 second previews of music. It appears that they are only allowing 30 seconds to be played unless you purchase and upload the music to your own profile. I hadn't run in to that problem last Saturday, but the 30 second samples did exist for certain songs so I thought it was an artist preference. I went yesterday to check it out and she's right. We appear to be unable to provide music for our blogs unless we have that music uploaded to our imeem accounts.

I haven't the ability to upload any music to my account because I have dialup. The minimum MP3 speed is 128kbps and I only have 50kbps, so I won't be able to post music on Saturday unless I get lucky and find one that hasn't been switched yet. I can rip from my own CD's, music in MP3 format to upload because my computer has that capability, I just can't upload it. So, I will be looking in to the various DSL plans in the next week to see what I can come up with so that at some point I will be able to participate in the blog crawl.

During the research into the DSL plans available to me I discovered something. It is really important that you read the fine print. In big bold letters Verizon ADVERTISES that you surf at speeds up to 758kbps, but hold on. The fine print tells you that during the first 12 months you are only going to get 128kbps, plus at the end of the contract you pay for the wireless router. Also buried in the fine print is a disclaimer that covers their butt if you can't get on at all. Which I understand happens now and again. It apparently depends on how many people are online in my area that are using Verizon DSL, plus whether or not your telephone line will support the digital process. In other words, if your inside wiring isn't newer, you may have problems. Mountain Man, my "tech support" says don't worry about it he can fix the problem. I admit he has managed to help me fix every other problem I have had, so I guess I should listen to him.

Having DSL means I won't have to pay for the designated phone line, so that would decrease my internet expenses. That might be a plus during the winter month when Hubby's business dies. There's positives and negatives to everything in life, I guess it just depends on how you learn to handle the frustration.

Valkyrie from "The Sword of Justice and Other Stuff" has left today on her 10 day vacation in...Hell, MI. I told her she needed to take her long johns with her, but I don't think she believed me.

The following is allegedly an actual question given in a University of Washington chemistry mid-term exam.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their faith, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can reliably project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1.If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.

2.If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell
freezes over.
So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my freshman year that, "it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls,leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being, which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God!"

(Allegedly this student received the only A.)