Are you a "dog person" or a "cat person"?
You know, you have to choose, right? Or can you be both? Are there people who are neither?
Has the rivalry between dog people & cat people been around since the domestication of both animals?
I heard someone recently claiming that a cat is not considered a domestic animal. Another claimed that cats were domesticated farther back than ancient Egypt, and certainly farther back than dogs.
I read that under the law, at least in Pennsylvania, not only are dogs & cats considered "domestic animals", but also horses, cows, and the law seems to suggest that any wild animal held in captivity as a pet is considered a "domestic animal" under the law.
I recently heard a "dog person" claim it was perfectly legal to bash a cat's skull in, in broad daylight, on the streets of downtown Scranton. But not legal to do so to a dog. The person who claimed this, agreed that's the way it ought to be. I have found neither confirmation nor denial on the law regarding this claim. Do a lot of "dog people" feel this way?
I once heard a "cat person" say that it was perfectly legal to leave poisoned raw meat outside to poison dogs on the loose. The person who claimed this, believed that's the way it ought to be. I have found neither confirmation nor denial on the law regarding this claim. Do a lot of "cat people" feel this way?
Who ever heard of "a good watch cat"? How many young children have been mauled to death by "attack cats"?
Do more dogs piss on the rug than cats? Do more cats mess with neighbors' rubbish cans more than dogs? Are dogs higher maintanence than cats? Are cats more independent than dogs? Which is more lovable a pet? Which is more likely to misbehave and cause trouble?
Which makes a better pet - a dog or a cat?
Exactly what is the controversy?
I stopped at a gas station mini-market around Allentown, Pennsylvania, (Sunday night)... And I regret to say I didn't have my camera ready... but I'm sure it's a vivid image if you think about it...
I saw a young man at the check-out wearing a robe as an overcoat.
I don't mean he was wearing a religious-esque robe like the Polyphonic Spree or a coat that was robe-like...
I mean, this guy was wearing a terry cloth bath robe as a winter over coat.
Sign which reads 'The one rowing the boat is never the one who rocks it.', outside a church in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. November 15th 2004.
I'm not quite sure how clever this is, or what exactly the message is supposed to be either. But this church sign is known for some peculiar and dubious messages on the sign. WP - If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with
Title: "Washcloth on Toilet"
4x6 & 5x7 b&w glossy prints
Think of how your life will be enriched, and your friends impressed when you have this high quality, avant garde encapsulation of urban domestic bathroom life, hanging over your very own toilet.
Payment accepted via Chloe's Amazon Wishlist. (Personal checks, and especially shipments from candy companies, considered in special cases.)
Okay, so I stole the idea for this post from Alison: asteriskhere - help support fine art - 'Sock on Radiator'
Hey, mine is a fair bit cheaper at least.
I had some time to walk around Pittston while my car was at the garage getting a dodgy wheel fixed & snow tires put on. Main Street in Pittston has several diners. But I was surprised to notice that not only was Central Lunch closed, but also the "Good Eats" sign was gone! I guess the diner is closed. And the "Good Eats" sign gone forever.
(But at least the historic sign is here, still available for your viewing pleasure.)
Central Lunch diner on Main Street in Pittston, Pennsylvania. April 8th 2002
Central Lunch diner on Main Street in Pittston, Pennsylvania. October 7th 2003
And then it's gone...
Central Lunch diner on Main Street in Pittston, Pennsylvania. November 16th 2004
A tragedy!!
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Horrors (Bed Reckoning) E-mail collected on the Internet: "This photo was taken in a hospital after the patient was in an accident where he was responsible for a young woman's death. It is said that when you receive this image and do not send it to at least five people, the woman will look for you during the night to collect your soul. People in Laredo, Texas, received this image and did not send it and were killed outside a bar; it looked as if this woman killed them. Send it to five people or the woman will look for you."
The truth has far less to do with murdering ghosts than it does with movies: the picture came from a 2003 Thai horror film variously titled 'The Mother' or 'The Unborn' or 'Bangkok Haunted 2: The Unborn'. The spooky image was used as the DVD artwork for the film. The sleeping person in the photo is not, as the e-mail would have it, a man but rather Thai actress Aranya Namwong.
If any of my friends sent this to me, I don't know what I'd think. The woman in the photo doesn't look like she's capable of looking for anyone. And the photo even looks like a movie photo, not like a snapshot someone took with some mysterious unexplained exposure anomolies. And people getting killed outside bars is not exactly something bizarre that makes one suspect the paranormal.
I have, however received 2 other bogus forwards this week from friends... The virus warning hoax "a virtual card for you", and the rumour of Starbucks refusing free coffee to soldiers in Iraq.
If everyone had Snopes.com bookmarked, it would probably save a heap in e-mail bandwidth usage.
CNN.com - 'Virgin Mary' sandwich back on eBay "Diana Duyser put the sandwich up for sale last week, drawing bids as high as $22,000 before eBay pulled the item Sunday night. The page was viewed nearly 100,000 times before being taken down. 'How could eBay do this to me?' Duyser said Monday, hours before the online auction was supposed to have ended. On Tuesday, the Web site allowed bidding to resume, with the top offer reaching over $16,000. Bidding is scheduled to end Monday." Yahoo! News - Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Back Up on EBay "She said she took a bite after making it 10 years ago and saw a face staring back at her from the bread. Duyser, 52, put the sandwich in a clear plastic box with cotton balls and kept it on her night stand."
I definitely think the old Jesus face on a tortilla is more convincing than any of these newfangled religious images on lunchtime food products. I wonder what happened to the old tortilla from 1977 anyway.
My friend Lesile is the one who first told me the story about the Jesus face on the tortilla, just a few years ago. I seem to remember my pal Jason telling me about a Mary face on a cheese sandwich, or some kind of a sandwich, a couple of years back, though I'm not sure if it's the very same cheese sandwich - but how many could there possibly be? (Though apparently everyone's jumping on the ebay cheese sandwich bandwagon, according to Mike Z..)
It's got me thinking... A couple of months ago I came across a guy who was drawing a Jesus face on a styrofoam cup. It was quite a fine rendering actually. I think he may have thrown it away! And to think...
The next time I see 'the Jesus face on a styrofoam cup guy', I'm going to thrust another styrofoam cup & indelible pen at him, and beg him to draw another for me, so I can post it on the internet and try to sell it. No point in using a middle man like eBay, so not to worry, you'll see it here first! And hey, I'm tellin' ya, his drawing was a heck of a lot more aesthetic than the Jesus face on the tortilla or the Mary face on the cheese sandwich, and a styrofoam cup will never rot and never need to be stored with moth balls, but it is still a mealtime item! I think I'm onto something here! (CNN link via Mike Zeller's Weblog)
Update: 27 November 2004
Fred Whan kept a fish stick in his freezer for a year, and now apprently he's thawed it out hoping to cash in on the lunchtime religious icons bandwagon.
The thing is, I think the 'face' on the fish stick looks more like Kris Kristopherson than Jesus. azcentral.com - Man says fish stick has Jesus' face "An eastern Ontario man is hoping to make a bit of money by auctioning a fish stick he says looks like Jesus."
Yahoo! News - Car-Chasing Wild Turkey Stops Traffic "Commuters say a wild turkey nicknamed Jake is causing a daily traffic hold up in this eastern Iowa city.
Jake stations himself next to the road, ready to run off any vehicle that slows down for a better look, said Melissa Davidson, who lives nearby. "He's out here every morning," she said. "People get out of their cars to shoo him off the road, and he just circles the cars. It's really funny to watch. He's not afraid of people."
This turkey must be suicidal... to be doing this sort of thing so close to Thanksgiving, let alone playing in traffic.
Walking like giant cranes - Dont Knife Children! "I saw a safety label of one of my Daughters clothes and it said this. And I'm not joking, and I'm not hiding the names here: Marks & Spencers - 'IN THE INTERESTS OF SAFETY, IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP YOUR CHILD AWAY FROM FIRE OR FLAMES' ... ... Maybe clothing labels are going to be like fortune cookies."
This reminded me of the sign at the Scranton Cultural Center: WP - 'It must've happened once'
If clothing labels do become like fortune cookies, I will refuse to read the tags inside dresses, considering my history with fortune cookies: WP - Sexist fortune cookies
It also reminded me of the last time I was at the laundromat, a woman who was using one of the gargantuan washing machines said there was a little label on the washer that said something about not putting kids or animals in the washer, or something like that, (I didn't actually read the label myself). She got quite a kick out of the sign.
A building in which I used to live had a dryer in the laundry room with a warning label that actually made sense: WP - Why I hang my clothes on a line to dry
SignOnSanDiego.com - Girl in pinata found during border check "But inspectors at the Tecate Port of Entry discovered a new twist recently when they encountered a little girl meticulously sealed inside a pinata... ... The large pinata carrying the little girl appeared to be a representation of a "Powerpuff Girls" cartoon character."
It got me thinking whether or not I could fit myself inside a PowerPuff Girl and smuggle myself to Australia or something.
Chloe with Buttercup & Bubbles of the PowerPuff Girls, at the Viewmont Mall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, January 13th 2001.
Yeah, I think I could fit... (thanks to the other Michael for the link) (link is also posted at BoingBoing)
American workaholics just don't want to crash their cars
MasaManiA - photos of sleeping Japanese on the way home from work "I want to tell you how much Japanese business man is tired."
The reasons you wouldn't see a whole lot of photos of Americans asleep on their way home from work is not because Americans don't get sleepy. I think most Americans drive their own cars to work and back, and therefore it would be inefficient in the extreme to sleep on their commute. The ones that do use public transportation live in big cities and are far too cautious and cynical to trust sleeping on it... As noted on BoingBoing, where it's also noted that in Japan, people actually have to be issued warnings to watch out for pickpockets.
Also, Americans are pretty overindulgent, and if we get sleepy, we just get hopped up on caffeine.
Anyway... I want to tell you how sleep inducing it is waiting around while on jury duty.
Michael R. naps while awaiting to be called during jury duty at the Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, September 23rd 2002.
See, Americans sleep in public.
I've been called for jury duty twice now, (at my young age - yes twice already), and have spent about 3 weeks of my life not working and at the courthouse for jury duty, just waiting around... and waiting, and waiting, and waiting around... and waiting around... Talk about getting sleepy! (MasaManA link via my.bicycle)
Support Hunting with Zombies Association "The Support Zombie Hunting Association is one of the UK's most prominent pro-hunting organisations, now incorporating issues related to Urban Herding, Barricade Demolition and the Banning of Shotgun Shooting."
This is As Above's parody of the Support Fox Hunting web site.
I can't resist jokes about zombies. I love the use of "Rubbish", for some reason that seems very amusing. (link via bluejoh)
Another stroke of advertising [something] by Ollies
I don't actually shop at Ollies very often, probably not enough to make a shoppers' card worth it, at least. (I prefer Big Lots, actually.) But I signed up for the 'Ollies Army Bargain Battallion' card just so I could have one, because I thought it was so amusing.
A guy I used to work with always poked fun at the Ollies advertisement pages, because they were so jam packed with information you could barely read it, at least not without going bug-eyed. (Their goal presumably to fit as much information in as small & cheap a printing package as possible.)
Here, they've gone for another cheap shot at advertising... in true Ollies form. I think it's even more entertaining.
ABC News: Vt. Man Devours 19 Lobsters in 35 Minutes "KITTERY, Maine Nov 8, 2004 -- A Vermont man took home the top prize in a lobster-eating contest by devouring 19 of the crustaceans in 35 minutes. Barry "Tink" Giddings of Chester, Vt., won the Weathervane Seafood Restaurant's third annual lobster-eating competition. As the newly crowned Lobster Maniac of the year, Giddings, 50, won a trip aboard a working lobster boat out of Kittery and up to 100 pounds of the day's catch. He said the only previous speed-eating experience he had was when he won a watermelon-eating contest when he was 8."
See, people in that part of the country engage in this type of thing...
I could probably give this Tink guy some competition actually... mostly in the watermelon department.
Watermelon & honey dew melon on the coffee table at Marc's apartment in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, September 2nd 2004.
Back in September, I shocked & awed my friend Marc when he invited me over to watch Hidalgo, and I brought an entire watermelon to his apartment, and proceeded to eat almost the entire thing, plus some honey dew melon, while watching the movie.
ABC News: Company Again Touting Weird Soda Flavors "Jones Soda Co. takes the idea of a liquid diet to a new low. How does Green Bean Casserole Soda strike you? And how about an aggressively buttery-smelling Mashed Potato Soda? Even the creators of the fizzy concoctions at this small Seattle soda company can hardly stomach the stuff. But last year's unexpected success of the Turkey & Gravy Soda means another round of bizarre food-flavored soft drinks. As an added bonus they're calorie-free. This week Jones Soda Co. launches a full meal deal of five Thanksgiving soda flavors, from the bile-colored Green Bean Casserole to the sweet but slightly sickly Fruitcake Soda. Last year's Turkey & Gravy is also back on the menu.
If you think it sounds less than appetizing, you're not alone.
"Oh, man, I can't drink that!" cries out company chief executive Peter van Stolk, after pouring himself a drink of mashed potatoes.
Probably just an excuse to jump into the lion's den
MSNBC - Man tries to convert lions to Jesus, gets bitten "A man leaped into a lion's den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts."
I'm going to assume he had just finished reading the story of Daniel & the Lion's Den.
Someone told me about this a few days ago, (though I can't remember who), and I promptly forgot about it until I received the link just now in an e-mail. (Thanks to Amy G. for the link)
I just saw "The Grudge". And I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was a whole hell of a lot better than "The Ring", which was a plot full of holes for one thing.
I think the makers made the right choice in setting "The Grudge" in Japan, even though they were making it an American movie. And the atmosphere of the movie had the Asian horror feel to it as well.
My only issues with the movie were, 1) Sarah Michelle Gellar gets slighly Buffy-ish towards the end. (Maybe she can't help it, or maybe the filmmakers were pandering because of her success in that role.) But it's just at the end, and doesn't seem to ruin the movie. And 2) they do leave a bleeding obvious segue for a sequel. (I always think that's dorky.) But it's pretty hard not to have a horror movie with a really bad ending. Most horror movies have such shitted up endings it's unbelievable, but this movie isn't one of them.
I had recently seen "The Eye" on DVD, and I pretty much liked it.
But my all-time favourite Asian horror movie was "Horror Hotline Big Head Monster". My friend Leslie & I saw it a few years back at the Philadelphia film festival. It was amusing, and had some funny stuff, without sacraficing the startling scares and spooky atmosphere.
It looks like Kerry/Edwards has won my state - Pennsylvania.
My voting experience was very easy, compared to what I've heard about people having to stand in line for hours & such. The poll was very quiet when I arrived, despite the fact that the area has apparently had a record voter turn-out. There was a steady stream of voters at the poll, just no waiting - at least not for me.
I will say one peculiar thing that happened was that the elderly woman working at the pool, upon looking at my voter registration card, behaved as if she'd never seen a registered member of the political party I'm registered as. (I'm not a registered member of either major political party. Though that doesn't necessarily determine who I voted for today.)
Later I went to the Kerry Wilkes-Barre campaign headquarters (in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) to visit my friend John D. who was working there. At 6:45pm they were still sending people out to "flush" neighborhoods... which was explained to me to mean they were going out into the neighborhoods and knocking on doors urging people to go out and vote if they hadn't already. Someone was knocking on doors in my neighborhood in the afternoon.
(John was looking harried and Frankenstein-ish, because of a respiratory infection and lack of haircut & sleep, so there were no photos.)
Everyone there was quite enthusiastic though. And they had every reason to be, since it looks like Pennsylvania is going to Kerry, despite the enthusiastic volunteer work of my friend Kristen on the Bush campaign in Wilkes-Barre.
I noted a lot of people with Kerry/Edwards signs set up casually on every corner on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Scranton during rush hour... and no Bush signs. But later, on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, there were several people with Bush signs yelling "Vote Bush!" at the cars.
(I'm deliberately vague about exactly where I live, exactly where I voted, and exactly who I voted for, but if you're really curious, you can leave a comment, and I'll tell you privately.)
Here are photos I took of John Edwards' visit to Wilkes-Barre in September: John Edwards in Wilkes-Barre
Here is a site that's collecting a gazillion voter experiences: kottke.org - How'd your vote go? "So if you've voted today (or earlier by absentee ballot), I'd like to ask you: how did your voting experience go?"
If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with
Sign which reads 'If you can't have what you want, then let you want what you have.' outside a church in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. July 9th 2004
This was on the sign in front of a church... that has a different quote on it every week. Last week it said something about a frog when I passed the sign, but I was too weary to see what it said about the frog.
superficiality >>If the facade is what's important to you, all you wind up with is an illusion. Disillusionment is the gift of substance.
-- Chloe<<
(more)
I had some time to walk around Pittston while my car was at the garage getting a dodgy wheel fixed & snow tires put on. Main Street in Pittston has several diners. But I was surprised to notice that not only was Central Lunch closed, but also the "Good Eats" sign was gone! I guess the diner is closed. And the "Good Eats" sign gone forever.
E-mail collected on the Internet: "This photo was taken in a hospital after the patient was in an accident where he was responsible for a young woman's death. It is said that when you receive this image and do not send it to at least five people, the woman will look for you during the night to collect your soul. People in Laredo, Texas, received this image and did not send it and were killed outside a bar; it looked as if this woman killed them. Send it to five people or the woman will look for you."
I definitely think the old Jesus face on a tortilla is more convincing than any of these newfangled religious images on lunchtime food products. I wonder what happened to the old tortilla from 1977 anyway.
Update: 27 November 2004
