Deer, oh deer

A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I watched the first episode of last season's Grey's Anatomy on DVD, which involved Izzy saving the life of a deer that had been hit by a car. The deer was played by a cheesy animatronic deer until it jumped up after Izzy zapped it with the paddles. Then it was played by a real one.

We recently started watching the first season of Crossing Jordan from 1991, and the episode we just watched involved the exact same animatronic deer. Seriously. The EXACT SAME ONE! There must be a limited supply of animatronic deer, because I don't even think that they are on the same networks. It was lying on the table in the morgue moaning and weakly lifting it's head, and I kept yelling, "Zap it with the paddles! It'll be fine! Zap it with the paddles!"

Unfortunately they generally don't have crash carts in morgues, so they had to wait for someone to sing Love Me Tender to the nearby dead Elvis impersonator, which apparently has the same effect.

CLARIFICATION: The Elvis impersonator was dead; he wasn't impersonating dead Elvis. That would just be gross.

UPDATE: Someone pointed out that there could be numerous identical animatronic deer, which could just give the appearance of there being only one. Maybe each network has one.

UPDATE 2: Bill pointed out that the Crossing Jordan episode was from 2001. I've never been very good with subtraction. Unless my son reads this, in which case, I am GREAT at subtraction and I use math in my job EVERY DAY

Theme music

Bill had just spooled up Bones on the DVD player while I was in the kitchen getting something to drink. The theme music, composed and performed by The Crystal Method, was playing softly in the background, and apropos nothing, Bill commented, "Don't you miss theme songs?"

I immediately started singing:

Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's Company, too.

Come and dance on our floor
Take a step that is n....

At this point, Bill turned up the Bones volume and drowned me out.

Atheist Nexus

I just told Brother Richard at the Atheist Nexus that I would help out the site however I could, so here's a start, anyway. He is asking for atheist bloggers to promote and represent the site. I added the badge at the left - obviously I need to figure out how to either make my sidebar wider, or shrink the badge...

I picked that particular badge because at the time I copied it it had a picture of Andrew of the blog Artificial Habitat- the first person who ever commented on this blog!* The badge apparently updates with the most popular members, so I can't guarantee he's still on there. I actually "talked" with him today in the Nexus chat room, which was fun, if a little odd. Odd, mainly because I'm not used to chat rooms, not because he is. I don't think he's odd, anyway, although he does have the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. Oh, wait. So do we.

I have really enjoyed the website so far, and definitely recommend it to any atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and Pastafarians out there. It must rate highly with me. I put it above the Obama photo!

*Kia of A Blog About Everything was a close second, but even though she was my blogging inspiration, I didn't tell her for a few days because I knew she was a Christian, and I wasn't sure how she would feel about my blog. Of course I shouldn't have worried...

Cats o' four tails

Cats are wonderful, and great to have around on a cold winters night (note my ubiquitous fuzzy red blanket - aka, the cat magnet)

But sometimes they have to be disciplined. An Engineers Guide to Cats gives some really good examples of discipline, and in fact, Bill feels that Corporal Cuddling should be used daily - just to keep them in line.

Here, Isis and Smokey are having a minor tiff in which they are repeatedly whacking each other in the face. This often escalates until one leaps on the other and pins her to the ground.

When this happens, I have found that separating them and sending them to their box works well. Sort of like when I used to send my son to his room, except smaller.

Here are Isis and Alice being punished. They hate this, you can tell. Alice is taunting Isis in the first photo, but it wasn't long before it was her turn.

(Yes, those are Foyle's War, Battlestar Galactica, Fiddler on the Roof, Family Guy, Star Trek: Enterprise, Gilmore Girls, and Penn and Teller's Bullshit DVDs)

Here, Alice is trying to get away with what I call 'the half-box.' She's sitting on top of all Twister's bandages.


Occasionally, they do something so egregious they get sent to sit next to the DVD player.


And things like this very acrobatic leap by Alice to the top of the wall unit warrant a time out on top of the TV.

Here's Bill shoving Alice in behind the TV while Isis taunts from below.


The red fuzzy blanket and I are much sought after,

but sometimes you've just got to settle for Bill and the comics section of a newspaper.

This is Kitty. Apparently nobody cared enough about her to come up with a a real name. She is our only indoor-outdoor cat and is a gnarly, nasty, toothless 14-year-old whatsit who bites and scratches. She pretty much gets away with everything. Corporal Cuddling can only be done occasionally and very carefully if you don't want blood poisoning. As you can see, she usually just gets The Comfy Chair. She beat up and chased all the other cats for years, but they have figured out that she has lost her teeth, so for her own protection, she now lives in our bedroom and the backyard. She is definitely an example of what goes around comes around.


For really really bad infractions, they get sent to...THE FISHTANK! (gasp!)

Maybe they're worthwhile. At least during the winter. As long as I don't want to see the TV.

My bearma ate your dogma

I used to work with a rabidly Republican young scientist who I'll call George, although his real name is Andy. Anyway, An...I mean George, is an enthusiastic outdoorsman and hunter - and Bush supporter. He seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Bush idiocy, although he probably thinks I have a blind spot when it comes to Bush brilliance.

My husband Bill is 58, and leans so far to the left it's a wonder he doesn't fall over sometimes. He always has. I, of course, also lean a long way left, but am young enough to keep my balance...I only fall occasionally while skiing. Or walking sometimes. Definitely while roller blading, unlike some people...but I digress.

For some reason, even though we were at opposite ends of the political scale, and I don't even like to kill ants, Andy....George and I got along like a house on fire. One of the things we had in common was the HBO series Deadwood, although it irritated Andy because he watched it in realtime, while we only watch shows on DVD, so we were always a season behind him. I mean George. I'd come into work and say things like, "Well, surprisingly, nobody was fed to Mr. Wu's pigs on the episode we watched last night" or "McCall killed Wild Bill Hickok last night*," and Andy would be able to guess the episode.

One day, we were talking about our respective spouses, and Andy declared that all he would have to do would be to take Bill deer hunting** with him for a few days and he could convert him into a Republican.

When I relayed this to Bill, he stated that what would actually happen would be that he would come staggering out of the woods a day or so later yelling, "A bear killed Andy! A bear killed Andy! It was horrible! I tried, but I couldn't stop it! The bear couldn't take him spouting Republican dogma anymore and it beat him to death with a tree branch!"***

Andy thought that was hilarious. That's why we got along so well.

*Not giving anything away. You knew that had to happen.
**Bill would NEVER hunt, by the way, although he does kill ants. Someone around here has to sometimes.
***See why I married him? I try not to tell him I think he's funny, though. It just encourages him.