The basic reason why we were supposed to wait with bringing Scarlett home to Sam was because she was supposed to get neutered as well as vaccinated. On Wednesday, Scarlett's breeder told us the vet couldn't operate on a kitten who got her vaccination package less than a month ago. And so, we waited no more; we signed a paper that we'll neuter Scarlett by the time she's eight months old, and took her home!



Her first night she spent in my room, curled up in front of my face and waking me up with purrs and demands whenever I dared flip in my bed...she even hurled herself sideways on my face once to get attention. Then she played excavators in her cat sand...I didn't get much sleep that night.



Isn't she a beauty? She's a lot more daring than Sam and jumps all over places (which Sam still can't, I have no idea why...) though whenever she find herself in a room alone she starts meowing miserably. Perhaps she's just used to always being in a room with people and other cats; she grew up with her brother, mother, father, half-brother and another breeding female. Oh well

Sam, curled up and sleeping


Now, despite careful planning, we let them loose together yesturday which didn't prove at all as a desaster. Yesturday the ineraction between the two mostly included Sam stalking Scarlett in a hunting fashion until Scarlett would turn around, give him a glare, and bristle a bit, which made him calm down bashfully.



Today she surprised him with a nose kiss, which he later returned (awwwww >.<) but they're still very sheepish and bashful around each other. They're very much like a couple of forth graders with an "ewwwwww, girls/boys are yucky!" but they're warming up to each other. Scarlett's usually the initiator because she has experience with boys, while the Sam knows very little about how to handle the ladies (save for letting them have their ways with everything).

Meeting in a sunbeam






Two cats, again, we have two cats! That's such a joy >.<


The lovely lady

Attack!!

Got my birthday present from mah sistuh in the mail today:

Not including the fluffy cat in a bowl, I got three Terry Pratchetts (Mort, Colors of Magic and Reaper Man), a set of stickers made by sis with sis' art, a scarf my sis made (it smells like your house, sis, it does!), two chocolate bars made of endangered animals helping to save endangered animals and fair trade and a lump of white chocolate with strawberry cream and another lump of black chocolate inside *drools* nice, no? Thankie sis!

Also this morning was extra energetic for Mr Sam Cat who went zooming in and out of his toy paper bags (don't ask me why, he just loves them) so I made a video of the little devil:

Books and general disgust with human kind

Spend the night shift watching video recorded lectures in Animal Behavior course from last year. Fascinating stuff to the bone, especially since the prof makes sure to present, for each theory, a proof of existence in the animal kingdom, and then a contradicting proof. Very nice.
Then again, he also spoke about how reflexes were checked and studied with animals who got their brains cut off from their spines. I've heard of very few worse things done to conscious, thinking, sensing living organisms, and those were mostly done in concentration camps and inquisition basements. Our infinite curiosity, which we so praise and admire and boast about, is so immorally fed it's disgusting. And then we go about saying killer whales tossing about a seal pup, or a lion preforming infanticide is horrible cruelty. We really should have stayed on treetops if that's what out big fat cortex's gotten us doing.

On a lighter note, I finished Hogfather. Quite, quite delightful. Even more delightful than I thought. If I'll speak any more praises on what I liked about the book I'd be spoiling you all, and that's not very nice. I'll only say that after a few Discworld books read, the whole mental picture of the world comes together as events mentioned are linked together from the various books and a real sense of a history to this imaginative world appears. The one following behind quite nicely on that department is J.R.R Tolkien, but when he tells of his world's history it's a lot like the olden times' history lessons with too many jumbeled names in your head and bits of history told too quickly or too briefly. Don't get me wrong, I love how solid J.R.R's world feels due to its creator's hard work, and the sense of a boring history lesson only makes it more linked to real life experiences, but Pratchett's lighthearted humor is for some reason a better anchor (in my mind anyway) to reality in my mind.

Am now reading Alan Levy's Nazi Hunter about Simon Wiesenthal, who's a bit of a hero of mine.

Also, In eight days we're getting out little Scarlett home, *squee*

Urban Nature

Went on my sportive walk around and saw two tawny owls standing on high wires apart from each other, watching over the fields stretching to the east of the town where I live. I was so surprised and pleased to see the first one I stared it into flying away and the other flew away to run down a small rodent, which I'm afraid my somewhat fangirl-ish staring frightened off of it. I did hear something screeching miserably, but the owl flew away with empty claws. Kinda makes me feel guilty, but it's been raining pretty hard all day today so the rodents are all out of their borrows looking for new ones and I'm sure the owl found another meal. Still, it was pretty fucking awesome seeing it run down that poor little rodent.

Birthday post, Sam silliness and movie reviews

Happy Birthday, Nicole!! Good luck with that exam, huh *nudge nudge*

A couple of days ago Sam was folding himself feline-ly in the glass bowl mom used to use for decoration on the living room coffee table (and which is now a Sam bed) but was somehow unable to obtain his balance properly so he fell. The little guy was in a smeared state so he just spilled onto the table, folding himself up only when me and dad laughed enough. Here is the documentation of said event:



Starting to gather his self dignity back


"C'mon, you guys, leave me alone, will ye?"


A perfectly elegant "'Gat a problem?"


Watched:
1. Eastern Promises - Nice movie, though the plot's logical existence hangs on too thin a thread for my comfort. I liked how the movie insisted on showing everything as realistic as possible from slit throats to newborn babies and a fight scene with Viggo Mortensen completely nude (which was, I admit, distracting, like all nudity). The best thing was how the hidden world of the Russian mafia and its symbols were not views in a kind of tick-the-box way of characters naming every tattoo on each other to give explenations; the only character who explained tattoos was a coroner and explained only two tattoo's meanings, for the audience to understand that tattoos do mean something. There was no obvious effort by the script writer to say "Look! We did research 8D". Very not-Hollywood, this film, which was very refreshing.
2. Stardust - Can't say that many praises on this film as I did for the previous one, sadly. The plot was very interesting, despite the already well chewed subject of fairytales with princesses, magical creatures and witches, there were small details you just had to love, like the literally blue blooded princes or the lightning catchers. The film didn't lack its bursts of creativity and cleverness. The dialogs, however, could have used some more working on and some plot twists were just too abrupt, as if the plot's been crammed into too short a film. I mean, come on, if audiences tolerated films as long as Lord of the Rings, they can tolerate a slightly longer but better told plot, especially when the plot's much thicker and vital than LoRT's. The most unpleasant thing, however, were the final showdown with the witch (which I will not ruin but it's sufficed to say it could have ended wonderfully without her death) and Captain Shakespear's character; the stereotypical description of his behavior linked to his preference (trying not to spoil you guys) is insulting, really. Too Hollywood, I say, on this movie.

Last but not least. I've learned of a new animal today! The Binturong or bearcat. Look at that animal! Isn't it quaint?

It's Fun Link Time!!

Fun Link Time, the time of gathering of fun links to share:

1. Featherlight-skulled dino had a vacuum-like mouth of tiny teeth, and paper-thin vertebras! Grazing on grass and horsetails like modern day cows, study says. Whenever I see these reanimations of dinos I have to wonder where the artists who drew them took the colors from. I mean, once I saw on Walking with the Dinosoars about this dino who flushes blood to bony plates on his back to startle predators. I mean....c'mon, guys, how do you know that? How can you tell, from a bunch of dried bones, that this is what they'd do against predators?

2. Crazy scientists invent robotic sheepdog for cockroaches. Just kidding, it's a tiny robot wrapped in roach-smelling paper (FTW? and where can I get me somma dat) that's used for studying swarm and herd behavior. The guys say they're not interested in their future conclusion's implications on human behavior, that's the spirit, boys!

3. Marc van Roosmalen's amazing work in the Amazon deep reveals new mamal species yet unseen before. The guy actuaqlly found a new big cat, if that's not mindboggling I don't know what is, it's just amazing, isn't it? That man's book is SO on my next birthday's wishlist!

4. New record broken on cat-worshipping as humans drives to pick up traveling cat by car each morning. Ladies and gentlemen, we can get any more sucker-y than this when it comes to cats, can we? When it comes to new tricks cats teach us to do, it seems that the sky's the limit.

5. In memory of my beloved Mr Poopy Pants who has definitely falled victim to Sam's curiosity and bottomless apetite (mom caught him nibbling on Poopy's plant leafes so he's definitely the culprit) I give you some Photogenic Caterpillars and other lovelies of the Thai forests. Poor Poopy, I'll never forget you *sobs*

6. The city of New Delhi is facing a new enemy as thousands of monkeys overrun it, injuring citizens and overtaking buildings. The monkeys are sacred to the hindus and therefore any violent acts to fight this problem is out of the question, gatta love that too, huh. However, as the monkeys start meddling with local politics stuff gets serious. Good luck, Indian friends!

7. Beautiful jellyfish pictures taken in the Osaka aquarium and some in the open sea. Such simple animals, the jellyfish, yet they're so splendid <3

8. A lovely description in art of the human body as a machine. I particularly love the brain bit and the brain stem.

9. Ever thought your language has cool phrases? Well, think again, because some languages have the coolest phrases out there, check it out!

That's all for today!

Birthdays and books (and a rant)

It's happy birthday time for my good, wonderful, amazing, lovely and talented friend from Bohemia, Kiki, happy birthday, girl!

EDIT: my father advised me to remove the ranting bit about the research. Let us just say that one day I'll have my own lab and will be able to freely do what I wish to do. Ta, dad.

I meant to write a post about books, so, yeah. Books!
Finished Winston Churchill's The Second World War's first volume; The Gathering Storm. Lovely book, not only because of Churchill's writing style but also because of the way the translators to hebrew made an effort to upp the language level as much as possible. This being a book printed around the 50s here (the whole series belongs, actually, to my uncle who got it for his bar mitzva and never laid hand on it even once IMO) it means the language is already archaic. The result is a highly stylish and delightful to read extremely detailed account of the war.
I have to admit I didn't read all of it; Churchill spent the first few months of the war commanding the navy, which he loved with all his heart, and which I care very, very little of. I skipped a chapter or two, but the most I read quite happily.

Am now reading Hogfather which is the usual Pratchett delight; same old writing tricks pulled but ever new and entertaining. Talk about it when I'm done ^_^

BTW, I haven't seen Mr Poopy Pants in a couple of days now and I suspect Sam's got a paw in this; he'll hunt flies to such extent the little thing'd eat them dead off the floor, let alone a caterpillar...

Birthday post

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeee *takes deep breath* happy birthday to me!

How did I celebrate the birthday? Well, last night I worked the night shift at the call center (where I work, BTW, helping people with leased company cars do all kinds of stuff to repair their stupidity's result with their vehicle). My old high school friend, Aran, came around with his laptop to make the night go faster as we played Bubble Bobble and first addition Prince of Persia until the morning.

Then, as I came home, me and the parents drove our ass to some half-remote new neighborhood in Jerusalem to go see Sam's new girlfriend, Scarlett The Lovely. I have to say it amazes me how clever these particular creatures are; both her and her brother had such piercing, investigating, looks in their eyes as we pranced around them (we're a cat-worshiping family - we prance around our devotion's subjects), like they were trying to understand what we were saying to them.
So, I promised pictures and I deliver!

Here's the lady held by her human mom;


And here's dad with his catch, Scarlet the Lady;


And now for a report of the most important part of birthdays; getting things from other people! This birthday the theme was on books and here's a full list:

From parents:
* Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
* Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
* Witches Abroad & Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Day Watch & Twilight Watch by Sergey Lukyanenko

From Cait, the lovely beta:
* Ouran High School Host Club vol.1 by Bisco Hatori
* Hellsing vol. 8 by Kouta Hirano
* An End of Education - Redefining the Values of School - by Neil Postman

From myself to I (sad, I know):
* Following Alice - A Journey to the World of Lewis Carrol - by Haim Shapira
* Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr
* History, Memory and Propaganda - The Historical Discipline at the Beginning of the 21st Century - by Yoav Gelber
* The Golden Warrior by the delightful-to-read Lawrence James
* Homosexuality & Civilization by Louis Crompton

AND there are more coming from the sister soon ^_^ all in all, quite a good catch, I'd say.

And now I think I'll get back to gaining back some sleeping hours...

News...

1. Well then, it seems I have a new friend; a caterpillar took one of my cactees and decided to make it its home, awww. So far it's eating its little head off and pooping it all out gloriously (why am I telling you this?!) which earned him the name Mr Poopy Pants:


And here's the source of his name:


2. Sam's going to have a girlfriend!! Yes yes, a ragdoll like him only bicolor and mitted - which puts her under the title of 'pet' and not 'show cat' because such a mix is not something to put in competitions (you don't really love your cat if that's how you see 'em IMO) but that's OK because Sam's got four or five white hairs at the tip of his tail which is also aught to make him lose points in competitions. Bullshit, who gives a damn about cat shows, anyways?
Here's the little critter trying to get my attention as I fumble around Mr Poopy Pants. The sign under the plant says "Do NOT touch the caterpillar" aimed at mom who's a little sensitive about creepy-crawlies.


3. Winter started!! Yesturday it rained for the first time this year, which is mighty reasonable since it is my birthday this Saturday and my birthday always heralds the winter time. I hope this winter will be better than the last one where the rains only really started way into January...

4. Look what I made, it's a bracelet (it was supposed to be a necklace...>.>;;):






5. To the the right of this screen you can see the link bit, where there's a new link to my new flickr account. So far it contains only some of my pictures and I will be adding more monthly (what is up with this silly monthly allowance on pictures?!) so, enjoy them.

6. Oy. The research. I have so much to say - most of it swear words, most of it relating to the Death Railway and other Japanese war crimes in WW2 - about the two Nip bastards who invented the melanin characterization method by spectrophotometer, for choosing Soluene-350 as their solvent. You see, the bastards have enough founding for buying it (hell, they have their own homogenizer) and enough lab equipment for handling melanins for HPLC. I don't and my attempts to sort out the different chemicals for it hit a dead end because of the 16-lettered chemical that's missing and is a big part of the mix. Damn Nips didn't even say why they used that material of all things, they just put it in their protocol and they haven't replied to the emails I sent them both, asking if they found or heard of another solvent.
Spoke to the proff a few minutes ago and I'll be working with photoshop on scaling the hyrax coat colors to see if dominant individuals are more red...damn it, it's anything but what I wanted and it's SO SMALL and meaningless. After Lee, the doctorant who's helping me with the paper, got me all worked up about how an article could come out of this, I was so happy! Great, juuuust great; not only do I hardly need to get to the actual field of study (the field study season is in smack in the middle of the second semester and its test season) but the whole thing just got downscaled like fuck...that sucks so bad, everything I thought my research is going to be is practically gone *le sigh*

Bo-ring!

Mixed toluene with hydrogen peroxide.

It did not fizz. It did not bang.

Well, poo; I was looking forward for a bit of sparks *sigh*

My prof was as excited about this attempt at explosion as I was and had glitters in his teeny moleman eyes, as he babbled about what not to mix with hydrogen peroxide (which included what the germans used for their V2s) but no such luck happened as to give us the entertainment we wished to unleash upon ourselves.
Apparently, Prof has been mixing and fiddling with chemicals since he was a kid. Suppose all geeks start like that but it's only those who survive the explosions get to university to make great people of themselves. Survival of the luckiest, I guess.

Shark rescue

If you ignore the hysterically screaming female in the background, this video will seem to you like anything BUT thoughtless human kindness, but it isn't



This is the story behind the video, told by a brave young man showing the bright side of fanatically believing in god.

Dreams...

Last night I dreamed a plot like I haven't for a very, very long time. It wasn't for something for the stuff I already have but of something new; something between Ratatouille and Keane, with an obsessed young man (who was a Jim Carry-ish Jonathan Rhys Meyers) running around between kitchens on this gigantic far-future ship (not a space ship, an ocean ship) in some sort of a semi-Mau-China regime, trying to order people around on how to cook properly and constantly getting chased around by security guards. Very strange, but very interesting.
I think my brain's trying to tell me it wants to put this lecturers' strike to more creative uses aside from the research.

And speaking of the research, I've hit another, small, step forward; I found out what was the 16-letters-named chemical that is 20-40% of the hair solvent. It's got an only slightly-saner name and it's on Sigma for a reasonable price which is lovely. Now all I need is a chemist to help me mix the damn thing together without exploding the whole faculty...he he he...in fact, it seems this sunday I'm off trying not to blow myself up with toluene and hydrogen peroxide.

Our little wonder boy, Sam, has got a mild throat infection and has been spitting contemptibly taking antibiotics now, again, after having to spit contemptibly take another antibiotics for a small stomach problem the poor bunny had when we got him. Here's the little thing ruining mom's coffee table decoration: