As if there was anymore evidence needed, all cats love boxes:
That’s actual my “photo album” he is in, and I brought it up from the basement so Shawn and I could laugh at old stuff. Clearly, right now, it is a pretty solid bed.
Dad seems to be doing well, and there is, as of yet, no sign of a heart attack, but I hope he is kept over night just in case.
*** Update ***
Mom is on her way home, and dad is fine with no signs of cardiac issues. I know he is fine, because I told him everyone on the website wish him well, and his only response was “Will you stop using that damned wbsite as your diary?” He’s gonna be fine.
Hawes
Step one: you put a hole in the box…
schrodinger's cat
Cat sized black hole discovered in WV.
kindness
Parents mortality issues suck. Went through it with both my folks. I’m hoping your Dad isn’t there at all.
Love that cat.
Citizen_X
Glad to hear your dad’s doing ok.
ellennelle
just asked john about this weird issue i’ve experienced here, and he suggested i post as a comment to see if anyone else has encountered it.
just recently, every single time i arrive at the site, immediately comes some ad piping in with annoying noise, typically thus spake zarathustra? can’t locate any visual, just the audio.
don’t get me wrong; i love that music. but it’s clearly an ad, i don’t want to stay long enough to find out what, so i refresh. so far, that gets rid of it.
anyone else had this happen?
Villago Delenda Est
My cat is a box lover, too. Anytime anything comes into the house in a box (or a bag, for that matter) she MUST investigate it. The rather thin and long box my Lightsaber replica came in she actually got about a third of her into before she figured out that it was very long and had a closed end and was a tight fit.
jl
@ellennelle: Yes. From what I can tell, sites are putting ribbons and bars and little pop-ups in various places where you normally scroll over to do some navigation between applications, or so some system thing. They are set to go off as soon as you scroll over.
Wish I could get some ad tune as classy as Zarathustra.
Edit: and the ones I get are often hidden and hard to find out where the thing is.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t remember meeting a cat that didn’t like boxes. The best illustration is this classic.
SiubhanDuinne
@ellennelle:
@jl:
It is especially annoying on the iPad, which is pretty much all I use. The thing is very sensitive to touch, and frequently frightens me.
NotMax
That isn’t a cat.
That is a muff with eyes.
TaMara (BHF)
Gonna need a bigger box.
My newest cat love bags….licks them…in the middle of the night. Oh well. Here he is playing “let the cat out of the bag.”
TaMara (BHF)
@ellennelle: Yes. Though never that much fun, usually just a loud ad. Like you, I refresh and it goes away.
jl
Forgot: thx for pet pix.
Would the cat like an empty box better, so as not to crush your old photos?
Of course not, he’s a cat.
Maybe that was a stupid question.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
Wish I could track down the photo or video of a full-grown tiger squeezing himself into a smallish cardboard box. I guess the instinct cuts across all feline spices.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
SPECIES, goddammit. Not spices. Jesus Fucking Christ, autocorrect.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
If the six hour troponin shows no significant delta (change) he should sleep in his own damn bed.
ETA No such thing as tropoonin.
Hill Dweller
The rocket scientists who work in the Tennessee VW plant reject forming a union.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Maru is the deal. There are so many videos of this cat and all of them well done. Also other than the small black spot on the nose Maru looks exactly like on of my landladies cats.
Bill E Pilgrim
I liked that cat’s first album better.
@SiubhanDuinne: I thought you were just using a more formal term for “catnip”.
Schlemizel
Glad to hear your dad is OK. I ever tell you about my son’s Maine? Looked just like your big boy except he was a tawny gold. With that great mane he looked like a lion. Absolutely the sweetest most loving cat I ever knew. You got a gem.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Great cats in boxes.
Yatsuno
Okay, who had Ellen Page on their next coming out bingo space?
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
You do know that you can turn off autocorrect don’t you? I use the suggestions to help me with my spelling which it does great. Autocorrect just gets things wrong. It was enough that I had to pay for a computer, I’m not going to apologize for the damn thing as well.
Gravenstone
My cats must be outliers as they assiduously ignore the sundry boxes which are available. They will toy briefly with bags, but with nowhere near the ardor of most other cats of my acquaintance. They do, however love the dividing wall between my kitchen and great room. So I get lorded over by fat boy and derpy cat (who particularly seems to enjoy going into monorail cat mode atop the refrigerator enclosure).
Gravenstone
@Yatsuno: For some reason, I thought she’d already been out. Ah well.
raven
My facebook is exploding with reports of an earthquake in Athens!
Gravenstone
@Hill Dweller: Hopefully VW will reward their efforts by awarding the new SUV platform to the Mexico plant.
Gravenstone
@raven: Athens, GA? Or Greece?
raven
@Gravenstone: GA, and reports are coming in from all over the northern part of the state.
Schlemizel
@Gravenstone:
I have never had a cat that was big on boxes. My cranky old girl loved bags though. When we go home from grocery shopping she would hang around until we put a bag over her. She would then sneak a paw out and swipe at toes passing by.
jl
A blogger is not without honor, save in his own family.
But, glad Cole’s dad is fine and at home.
raven
Felt earthquake M4.4 in GEORGIA, USA 14 minutes ago
Jebediah, RBG
@Yatsuno:
So I guess I need to cancel my Ellen Page crush. Oh well.
jibeaux
@Yatsuno: As long as Nathan Page stays in the hetero column she can do what she wants.
MattR
@raven: Was just going to say. 4.4 centered near Edgefield, SC (just switched out the link to a detail page for this earthquake)
@Jebediah, RBG: Why lose the crush? You have just as much chance now as if she was straight :)
MomSenss
John, very glad to hear your Dad is OK.
Steve is gorgeous!
Citizen_X
@Hill Dweller: I dunno. I’d start to wonder about my vote if every fucking Republican in the state were sticking his nose in to issue threats.
I mean, I’ve never seen such an anti-union campaign from people that had nothing to do with the shop in question. If the Republicans could have threatened the workers with transvaginal wand probings, they would have.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
I would, but it perversely amuses me.
max
I know he is fine, because I told him everyone on the website wish him well, and his only response was “Will you stop using that damned wbsite as your diary?” He’s gonna be fine.
I can see where the cranky bits came from. Glad he’s not having a heart attack though.
As if there was anymore evidence needed, all cats love boxes:
Cicero in a box.
This one is funnier. He’s so embarrassed at being caught playing with the cat tree.
max
[‘Someday the snow the will melt.’]
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Epicenter looks closer to Augusta but you could well have felt it in Athens.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Heh.
chrome agnomen
will you stop using this damn website as your diary?
Cassidy
Michael Morones’s condition has improved for anyone following that story.
The men’s figure skating today seemed full of suckitude. Curling was more exciting.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Everybody I know, including my bride, felt it but me!
And if Athens, Geogia slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
raven
Day after day
More people come to GA
Hey, don’t they know
The whole place slippin away!
Poopyman
@ellennelle: I get audio for a Hyundai ad, but never have found anything on the screen. Lasts maybe 15 seconds. Doesn’t repeat when I reload the site, IIRC.
MattR
@raven: Thanks for reminding me I need to book my flight to GA. Heading to the corporate office the week of St Paddy’s day.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I hadn’t been to FB in a couple of hours. Checked it out just now and the entire state of SC plus Gainesville and Winder, GA, are kinda freaking out.
raven
@MattR: The idiot drunks will be happenin in Savannah.
NotMax
Not sure beautiful is the right term, but certainly visually mesmerizing.
There’s also a free music player download which visually animates any MIDI file.
MattR
@raven: Yeah. I hear it is pretty wild there. But I have passed the point where I can enjoy that type of atmosphere.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: We’re having a good time over here. Lot’s of double entendre from all the smart peoples!
raven
@MattR: No desire when I did drink and that was 20 years ago!
burnspbesq
That was pretty clever on the part of the TN Repugnicans: lie about the small SUV project at a time when VW was legally prohibited from responding. Despicable, but clever.
Congratulations, VW workers of Puebla, Mexico. You’ll be getting a big new project.
I just hope people in Chattanooga have long enough memories to take revenge on Corker when he runs for re-election in 2018.
burnspbesq
Who else is taking advantage of today’s offer (expires at noon EST tomorrow) and downloading De La Soul’s entire catalog for free?
Poopyman
@SiubhanDuinne: Clearly, it’s God’s warning to the people of South Carolina.
MattR
@raven: The last time we had one in the NY area, one of my friends felt terribly because she felt the tremor, yelled at her kids to stop rough housing upstairs and then didn’t believe them when they denied doing anything.
@raven: I think it took one St Patrick’s Day in NYC before I was sick of the craziness (same reason I never did Times Square for NYC)
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
“Did the earth move for you?”
Yatsuno
@Cassidy: He breathed on his own for two hours today. Not even the doctors thought he would ever do that.
grishaxxx
Very glad your Dad is doing OK. He can relax about the diary issue – they’re all destined for publication, eventually.
SuperHrefna
Yay for Papa Cole! It seems that the grouchy acorn didn’t fall far from the grouchy tree. :-)
Has anyone seen UK Gold? It looks like a fascinating documentary on corruption in the City of London and it has a stonking original soundtrack by Radiohead and Massive Attack: http://www.theukgold.co.uk I think I’m going to have to buy it, looks too good to miss.
Cassidy
@Yatsuno: Really hoping his brain is okay.
Thor Heyerdahl
@burnspbesq: I think you’re right about VW reducing work (and possibly closing) the Chatanooga plant.
The German State of Lower Saxony has 20% of shareholder rights in the Volkswagen Group. Works councils are the law in Germany. It’s not going to put up with a sore thumb in the US South messing up their business model.
Congratulations Tennessee – Mexico thanks you for the new business.
Karen in GA
@raven: I wanted earthquake coverage added to our homeowners insurance when we bought the house, but never bothered. Maybe I’ll regret that one day.
Glad you survived the ice, the earthquake, the fires and rivers of blood — oh, wait, the fires and blood river are next week. Never mind.
asiangrrlMN
ADORABLE!!! Sir Willie Whiskertons III was made for that box, Cole! Good luck to Papa Cole. May he be a clumsy grump for many years to come.
@Hawes: “Better than a dick in a box” was my immediate response.
Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t feel it and I’m right near Winder. I always miss all the fun.
mainmata
Your Maine coon (?) cat is awesome coming from a family with two very weird cats.
Moving on: Bill Maher’s show featured Bill Nye the Science Guy. The interesting part of Bill Maker’s show is often “Overtime”, which is online and not TV. This Overtime was especially interesting because it really threw out the fact that our current political system is totally rigged and is designed not to solve basic problems. Yes that. Not surprising, of course.
trollhattan
@TaMara (BHF):
That’s actually a refrigerator box. Scale is very important.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Karen in GA: But before that…the locusts and boils!
BGinCHI
Cole, glad your pops is fine, your friend is getting his diet shit together, and that you are making a difference in someone’s life.
You are a good human being.
Sending you a big manly hug.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jebediah, RBG: No, just figure it will be just as unrequited as it would have been if she were straight.
? Martin
@raven: It was a 4.4. That’s big for GA, but it’s small for anything resembling an earthquake. Exciting, but not damage-inducing.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
Who doesn’t like being in a nice box?
trollhattan
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Hmmmm….
Say, is that where Boxing Day came from?
BGinCHI
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: A nice, warm, friendly box is nothing to sneeze at. Although if you do, use a tissue.
? Martin
@Karen in GA: 4.4 would depend somewhat on where you’re situated. If you were walking, you might feel slightly dizzy, but nothing more. Sitting in your car, you wouldn’t feel it at all. In a cushy chair, probably not either. In a hard chair, you’d feel it. And more likely to feel it on the 2nd floor than on the first.
It’s right on the edge of ‘everyone notices’ earthquake size. Sometimes you hear ones that size but not feel them. You get up to 5 and pretty much everyone will feel that.
? Martin
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Not sure Stalin is enjoying it.
BGinCHI
@trollhattan: There is almost no sex with so many sales. Especially in Canada.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: When I do drink, I don’t see any point to doing it in the company of people who are trying to relive that one great St Paddy’s 30 years ago when they made out with that drunk girl before they hurled. I can’t stand the drunks of NYE or Paddy’s Day.
sempronia
4.4 is wimpy!
:D
– native Angeleno
Bill E Pilgrim
New House of Cards, no plot spoilers here but I notice that it’s full of politicians nobly pushing for “entitlement” reform, to raise retirement age to 68, saving capitalism for our grandchildren and so on — and those are the Democrats.
There’s also a line from a hard bitten supposedly typical reporter who tells her journalism class that George H.W. Bush seeing the supermarket scanner and being amazed/impressed was an urban myth, that he knew all about them and was just being shown a new type and was impressed with the “improvements”. Her point is that the truth is easily twisted.
Which is complete crap, it’s a popular right-wing myth, that the original was a myth. There are videos of it, of him running a milk carton across the scanner, looking amazed, and asking “This is for checkout?” The “new models” story was made up by his campaign apparently to try to salvage the thing.
Good old “liberal” Hollywood, you betcha.
BGinCHI
@Bill E Pilgrim: Watched the first episode.
No spoilers but holy shit the bed! Game the fuck on.
Roger Moore
@raven:
If you can’t feel it, it’s not a big quake. 4.4 is pretty wimpy.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” When I do drink, I don’t see any point to doing it in the company of people who are trying to relive that one great St Paddy’s 30 years ago when they made out with that drunk girl before they hurled. ”
Before they hurled? Yeah if you’re going to hang out with prissy finicky wimps, that would put a damper on the evening.
I knew a guy once who told me about the awkwardness of hurling onto girls he got home with once or twice. He was a wreck in other ways too. Hope he survived to clean himself up.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl: Irish foreplay.
It’s okay, I’m Irish. Card-carrying.
Debbie(aussie)
Don’t you guys get confused. I mapped so I could see where Athens Ga is and lo and behold there are Athens all over the place, is nearly every state, not that far apart.
Wonderful news about your Dad, like father like son (old grumps), bet your Mum isn’t grumpy at all :)
You are a great friend John, don’t ever stop being you. Hugs to you and Shawn and the critters. Must learn to load pictures of my two.
Very big surgery for me in about three months. Must lose weight first, so far six kilos in four weeks.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: The night they were trying to repeat was the before they hurled night. I ain’t saying they didn’t have other ones.
rikyrah
Glad to hear about your father.
tybee
@raven:
you rang?
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Hmmm… self-hating Irishman, I see. This guy was German heritage (no, it twarn’t Cole)
I am half Irish. but cannot drink much at all. I am asleep long before within range of hurling.
Omnes Omnibus
@tybee: Well played. Or not.
Gex
@Yatsuno: I thought we already knew about Ellen Page. Or maybe that was inside the club information. I always get confused when that’s the case and I end up thinking everyone knows.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Closest thing I have to Irish ancestry is great…. great uncles who were junior officers in the New Model Army. I keep my mouth shut about ancestry in mid-March.
@Gex: I had no idea. I also wasn’t paying attention. Also too, nor do I care that much.
Svensker
Why DO cats love boxes? They just do, but why?
Good news about your dad, Cole. Best wishes for continued good stuff.
Gex
@burnspbesq: Me. Downloaded it all.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jl: Actually I’ve seen more widespread hurling per capita in London than anywhere else, especially before they relaxed the 11 pm closing rules a little. Buy five pints at 10:45, hurl them all onto the sidewalk at 11:05. They have more expressions for it than anywhere on Earth. “Calling God on the white porcelain telephone” may be my favorite (“Oh God….”)
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: The fuck you say? Where?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: Driving the porcelain bus. Technicolor yawn. Calling for Hughie. Etc.
ETA: My fave may be “shouting at your shoes.”
MikeJ
@Yatsuno: I had a lot of luck with LUGs in college so I’m not giving up yet.
Jebediah, RBG
@MattR:
As sad as it is true.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s kind of like “The Eskimos have many more words for snow” I guess. Except I also read somewhere that that one isn’t true, that they have about as many as we do (slush, sleet, powder, and so on).
NotMax
@Bill E Pilgrim
High on the short list of things which makes friends grit their teeth and go “Grrr” is that I am one of the lucky few who, no matter the quantity or frequency, doesn’t get sick from overindulgence of alcohol and never, ever suffers anything even in the same ZIP code as a hangover.
Karen in GA
@Thor Heyerdahl: One can only hope.
Jebediah, RBG
@burnspbesq:
well, I’m going to now, now that I know about it
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: As a skier, I could go into detail about terms for snow.
@NotMax: I am not sure that staying drunk counts.
Jebediah, RBG
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s true, of course, and fits a life-long pattern of developing crushes on lesbians (in each case not knowing they were until after )
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Ah, one can dream….
Had a roommate in college who never had more than one beer or one drink as he had a morbid fear of vomiting, claiming that he had never thrown up in his entire life.
Bill E Pilgrim
@NotMax: They should study you.
Actually I wouldn’t really know, I haven’t had one in years. A couple of bottles of wine with dinner* is about where I max out, but not because I become stumbling drunk, just seems to sort of be enough. Different style though where I’ve been living, the drinking to get drunk thing is not a Latin trait, most of the people who do it are in Anglo pubs in fact.
* Edit: Between two of us, I meant.
Karen in GA
@? Martin: The weird thing is I’d swear I felt one a few weeks ago — the house felt like it made a couple of quick little bounces. The last time I felt anything like that was during a small earthquake in Atlanta maybe 10 years ago. Nothing on the news, though.
So I only feel the ones that don’t happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jebediah, RBG: Ms. Page is lovely. If it makes you feel better, I have nearly an equal chance to have a relationship with Eva Green as you have with Ellen Page.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus: How many words can you think of? That would be fun to hear.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
That triggered memory of an occurrence at a ski resort.
Over the loudspeaker: Conditions today are just like skiing on a walnut sundae.
I ambled over the the desk and innocently asked, “What are the walnuts?”
Answered the clerk (in a furtive whisper), “The rocks.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: There is a difference between Anglo country’s drinking habits and those of Continental Europe – Scandinavians on holiday being an exception, given the booze taxes up there.
@Bill E Pilgrim: It wouldn’t be words, but rather short phrases.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus: Most definitely. For years whenever I heard out the window the telltale arglebargle and hollering of drunks coming by at 2 am, I could pretty much guarantee that you’d hear English as they got closer. Almost never French.
Changing though. Kind of a big problem, a hotel owner near the Campo Fiori, this wonderful big square in Rome, bitterly told me that it used to be a completely different place before the English/Irish/American pubs and bars, which I sort of remember in fact, now it’s a lunatic asylum. It’s Italians also, but this guy was really pissed off that young Italians were now acting like Anglos in that way, he thinks they were infected basically.
Jebediah, RBG
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, at least I’m in good company!
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: When I was in Europe, I never hit the English/Irish/American pubs unless I was a bit homesick or interested in an easy pull. Sad, but true.
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Traveling around Scandinavia and the Baltics, the English blokes or hooligans or whatever they were, were the worst. I remember on a ferry from Finland to Stockholm, everyone was either relaxing or partying, but the partying was more or less under control (and I have strict standards for ‘under control’ since I am a sissy when it comes to drink and party).
But there was this one group of young dudes who were totally out of control in every way imaginable, other than straight out assaulting people and getting arrested.
So I was doing some relatively sedate Swedish cowboy music dancing with some Swedes and Finns, and then it was late so they started the disco. So we were at the bar watching and this crowd of out of control dudes swarm the dance floor, and start doing lewd dances. Two guys were miming b*tts*x, and a couple of others got into a scuffle, and one guy was getting sick, and it was a true mess. I couldn’t understand what language they were speaking, though the music was loud and I didn’t feel like going over to them to get a good listen.
So, I ask, innocently, ‘Who are those guys?”
“Oh, can’t you tell? Those are the Brits.”
Edit: In Tallinn the Finns and Swedes kind of stayed in their hotels until the sobered up. I remember first time I visited around 2000 there as a ‘Finn hotel’ and a ‘Swede hotel’. I guess there are more now, but haven’t been over in a few years.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sad really, to me anyway. I tend to avoid them too, as do several friends who are from Ireland (I’m not, just dual passports). Samuel Beckett said somewhere in an interview in Paris eh, if I were back in Ireland I’d probably just be getting drunk in a pub.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Never been to a rugby party, have you?
@Bill E Pilgrim: When I do go, the waitresses tend to be almost pathetically grateful to run into a native English speaker who is polite and not grab-assy.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” Never been to a rugby party, have you? ”
How did you guess?
Suffern ACE
@Bill E Pilgrim: my last trip to the Low Countries, I came to really avoid Young Scots Abroad. “I just need sum munnie. I’m tryin’ to git huuume.” Jeebus, five times in three days.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: I’ve been to more than a few rugby parties. Shit happens. Boys who really like boys get a chance at the parties – so good for them. The rest of us get to sing vaguely transgressive songs, drink too much, and stumble home.
joel hanes
Cole: re “old stuff”
Get yourself a flatbed scanner and scan those prints before they degrade further. Email them to the culprits. This will make them laugh.
ex-SP4 Hanes
RoonieRoo
Not that you will read this Cole but you have made this cat overweight. That is not love. You claim to have so much deep, deep love for your animals yet you are destroying their health by overfeeding them and making them obese.
What you are doing to the health of this beautiful cat is appalling. I hope it pisses you off that I keep posting this whenever you post pictures of this gorgeous animal that you are destroying due to your own selfishness of not bothering to do one iota of research and your love of “having a fat cat”.
Do some damn research into what you are doing to his health and consider how much that is love. Every cat thread with the pictures of what you are doing to destroy the health and well being of Steve makes me more and more disgusted with you. Done being polite or nice about this.
You are doing amazing things helping out your diabetic friend while you do your best to make sure that Steve becomes a diabetic cat and you kill him slowly. Fuck you Cole.
Susanne
Hooray for your dad, Cole. And your mom. And you. Hope you all stay well. Also, it’s nice to know that “curmudgeon” is heritable.
PurpleGirl
That is one floofy cat. Glad to hear your Dad is okay.
ThresherK
Glad to hear about your dad and mom.
gogol's wife
@RoonieRoo:
You are a pain. Mind your own business.
Jane2
@RoonieRoo: Long-haired cats can look overweight but are not. My Izzy looks much like Steve girth-wise, and the vet always gives me the stink eye until Izzy is weighed, because she is within normal range with floofy hair, not body.
So maybe you shouldn’t be so sure of your conclusions based on photos.
As for Cole’s dad, good news.