Oh those naughty people at the Onion! Looky what they did:


You'd think they'd been peeking into my brain and taking notes! I am laughing my butt off, thanks to the inimitable Glenn for sending me the link.

A friend sent me this. It cracks me up (click to see it in its large glory)!


And--my god! It's only three days until Book Day! (Although I'm informed by the marvelous Joshua Palmatier that he's already spotted Underground at his local Waldenbooks.)

This is making me laugh my physics-groupie ass off. It appears a few physics freaks at Cern have made the CERN Rap on Vimeo--a cheesey and delightful bit of silliness explaining the large hadron collider and basic particle physics in a very fun way. It's much more fun than A Short History of Time.

This post from the discussion of The Dark Knight that's currently going on at my favorite noir reading list makes me very happy:

I think that the idea that a super hero story can't be noir simply because it's a super hero story is one of the most intellectually retarded things I've read in a long time. There's enough grief, loss, and ruin in The Dark Knight to give Cornell Woolrich geek-wood, and that's saying something.
--Mark Finn posting on Rara Avis

That's beautiful: "enough... to give Cornell Woolrich geek-wood." Were Mr. Woolrich here today, he'd be writing for DC Comics and loving it (the sick bastard.) Thank you Mark Finn!

Well, since the subject keeps coming up lately, I've decided to have my first ever LJ poll: the Office Supply Lust Poll!

Note that "Pre-published" means you write, but aren't yet published, not that you have a book or story in the publication process that's not on the shelves yet--that's "Pro" for purposes of this poll.

Personally, I adore office supplies of all kinds and it goes back to way before I started writing seriously, when I fell in love with the staple-extractor... although I always wrote stories, so... hmmm... maybe not. Oh no! Chicken-or-Egg! Help!  (But Oh! those cute little staple-biting jaws!)

If you want to read the funniest rip on a bad film ever--or at least on Night of the Lepus--hit the recap at Agonybooth.com. You won't be able to stop laughing, especially at such zingers as "giant toupees wrestling with horses."

Starry-starry night...

of the Lepus!!!

And the glossary of bad movie terms.
Oh the joy!

It's been so hot in Seattle that giant red octopi are crawling onto boats looking for food!!


*Dexter's tail is a little hairless due to adrenaloma--normally ferret's tails are furry.

According to the Superhero quiz:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 70% Spider-Man 65% Green Lantern 65% Wonder Woman 60% The Flash 60% Robin 50% Hulk 50% Catwoman 50% Iron Man 50% Batman 45% Superman 40%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I'm not so sure about the lean and muscular part....

Do you love books? I'll bet you don't love them as much as Buddhist Monkey does in Happy Tree Friends' Books of Fury. (Warning: cartoon violence and gore.)

*Thanks to the evil Jeff (aka: Motorcycle Man, Voice of Sunday Funnies, Ima-Tow-Your-Ass) Cavanaugh for the link.

No, this is not a plug for the Linux operating system. Just a note that I'll be the guest blogger at Penguin's Roc/Ace SFF blog all next week. And since I take the blogging so very seriously--as you know--I'm writing up my fabulous bloggeries right now! Be sure to check 'em out!

But definitely a day in Purgatory.

At 07:30 local, Mr. Kat's alarm goes off. Which I try to ignore, but can't.

Just as I am rolling over to try and go back to sleep, I hear Dexter the ferret crawling into the litter box... and then crying. This is not a good sign in a geriatric male ferret with adrenal disease.

I get up, I look at the ferret. He gives me a dirty look and hops back into bed. OK: not dying, just having a hard time peeing--which is, as I said, not a good thing in geriatric male ferrets... blah blah.

While my hubby tries to dress, I call the vet--whom we just saw last Saturday with the assistance of the very able and long-suffering cmpriest --and ask for a call back as to what I should do. Then I take a shower and put myself together so I can have breakfast, deal with some other stuff and hope to get some work done before...

My mom calls to ask if we are still "on" for lunch or something after her post-surgical check up with her specialist. I say "yes, sure" assuming the vet will call back with simple instructions or maybe a Rx. Mom's appointment is at Noon, so I say I would like to hook up with a friend (the extra-cool blackaire ) who is signing books at Seattle Mystery Bookshop simultaneous with Mom's appointment and then we can hook up afterward. Mom is OK with this.

I do some work and notice it is getting latish for a call back from the vet if I am going to catch an appropriate bus to downtown, so I call the vet again. Quick discussion with Kim, the fabulous vet assistant, results in "get the ferret back in here." I hmm and haw and ask if this is a "right now" emergency or a "tomorrow" emergency and they say tomorrow is OK, but today would be better....

So I make an appointment for Saturday, just in case, but start trying to figure out how to get Dex to Kirkland (on the far side of the big lake) today if possible. Finally, I call my mom and apologize profusely for raining on her parade, but can she take me to Kirkland for the ferret's sake after her appointment? Mom is good with that, but it does kind of wreck plans for a relaxing afternoon.

Nothing else to do until then, I give the ferret the meds he still has from last time and head out to catch up to Caitlin.

Small signing, but much joy at SMB and finally waving Caitlin good bye about 13:20 while I camp in the Seattle's Best Coffee up the hill from SMB to wait for Mom. Not knowing what's going on in Mom land, and being beset by fire engines (tending a fire a block away), and then by four full-lights-and-siren police cars rushing past, my paranoia-meter is pegging and I drive my poor Mom mad by calling every 30 minutes to find out how she is and where.

Finally Mom and Eileen pick me up and we return to Ballard to fetch the ferret, then drive across the lake just ahead of rush hour, in a rainstorm, to get to the vet an hour-and-a-half early. But they take us early, too.

Ultrasound examination of the pee-less Dexter--who is suddenly less pee-less, but very unhappy about being touched "there," results in big drugs to make the litter box duty less painful.

Yes my friends: I have a dope-fiend ferret. Dexter is on morphine for a week.

Needless to say somewhere in all of this, I had no lunch and my recently-surgeoned gums are aching, but I soldier on and we have dinner with Mom, who is doing well, for a woman in her sixties who has recently--as she put it--been hollowed out like a canteloupe, and cannot walk more than a half block without something giving her a red light. But the Dr. says that's normal and she's doing very well--for a woman in her sixties, who... etc....

So Jim and I take Mom and Eileen out for dinner while Dexter sleeps off his fix, and my vet dreams of "ferret fetish" novels about rehab from the POV of the ferrets: "I would kill for FerreTone!" "Ferret-crack! Yes! To hell with 12-step programs, I just need the one: give me Morphine!"

Needless to say, writing did not get done, today. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? (Instead of dim sum or MWA meetings--which I'd love to go to, but can't eat with the surgery stuff and desperately need the word count. oh my....)

How well do you know your Holiday songs? Take the Chicago Tribune Carol quiz and find out!

I got 96%--damn that Jingle Bells! I'd never even heard that verse. (Hrmm....)