Work this past month has become an all-compassing beast. I wont bother with the details; it’s typical office stuff that occurs in a thousand similar cubes across the face of middle class America. Regardless, for me work has always not been my life but a means to live my life. This past month it’s been jutting into my ‘me’ life. Irritating, but it happens. I wish I could camp somewhere and pan gold for a living. Now that’s the life.
Ever notice that that fabric cube walls is made out of kinda looks like burlap.
The tadpoles in my fish tank have graduated to micro-frogs. The change rather surprised me, one day they were tadpoles and then suddenly they were frogs. Well, toads, actually. Little black ones. While tadpoles seem to survive just fine on fish flakes, I am not so sure toads can. So I suppose I’ll have to bring out the little fish net and catch them and send them outside to live their toady little lives. Or I supposed I could leave them in there. Maybe they can live on fish flakes. If they die, they will just float to the bottom where the snails shall have a feast. I wonder if they would eat brine shrimp. Toad’s vs sea monkeys. That father sea monkey with his tie and pipe would scream in terror as the big toad inhaled him for dinner.
Pic sucks but those are frogs
The other day I was wondering if Aqua man could control frogs. Aqua man has the ability to control all water-based life forms. I think. I’ve never heard of him sending a sea cucumber after anyone, however once he did flood a room by commanding microscopic organisms in the water to drag the water in. Frogs, however, are amphibians. They start out as fish-like creatures, but once they transmogrify into frogs, they do not require water. Look at toads in Florida. They love pavement. Drive down the road at night and you see toads hopping all over the pavement. Pavement is bliss. Throw an octopus on that pavement, and it dies. Aquaman can’t command that octopus to do anything except stink in the sun.
Thus, my theory is that Aquaman cannot control frogs, not even in their tadpole stage. So in order to destroy Aquaman, all you need is a giant frog. Perhaps a monkey to ride it as well; one with a cowboy hat who would scowl and yank the frog-reigns onwards to Aquaman’s demise.
I finally got around to installing that cat door. The concept behind it is simple; the cats wear a magnetic ball around their neck. When they come up to the cat door, the magnet pulls up a latch inside the contraption and allows the cat to head-butt the little flap open. I thought it was a rather ingenious device and it would keep stray cats from my house. The reality is that the cats are scared to death of it. They think it is some sort of gaping robotic maw that is looking to eat them. Also, the magnetic ball does not ride properly on the collar. My cats are rather lanky, so when they poke their head up to the door (At least what I observed when I grabbed a couple of them and butted their heads against the opening) the magnet does not seem to be in the proper position to trigger the door. As a result they sulk around and peer suspiciously at it. I am pretty sure they figured how to get out of it, because that does not require the magnetic ball, only a press against the flap. However getting in is another matter.
Also, I think they have some sort of secret exit in the attic. I’ll have to crawl through it this weekend and find out. On the plus side it’s amusing to see what metal things attach themselves to the magnetic ball when they come back inside. Too bad they cannot bring me gold.
Gold!
Tomorrow I am buying myself a train ticket. Not to the savannah trip, which has to be postponed, but on a return trip form New York. I decided to splurge and buy a little private room. It cost $350 or so for a small private room on the train from new york from Florida, and the entire trip is supposed to take around 25 hours. I wanted to do this instead of flying, mainly for something new and interesting to do. The room is microscopic, however it has a bed that stretches by the window and it’s own private toilet. I thought that was pretty cool. So for 25 hours I’ll just chill out in my little room and watch the scenery go by. Perhaps drunk and naked.
Can’t do that on an airplane.
You know what I hate the most about airplanes?
The snack cart.
When the stewardesses comes pushing that little cart that serves drinks and a sack of nuts. It takes forever to make its way down the aisle, and as it does you see the people in the rows around you getting more and more antsy as the drink cart comes closer. They can’t wait to get their plastic cup of 1/3 a can of beverage and ice and their little sack of slightly mushy nuts. Hot damn, like they have never had nuts and soda before. They crane their necks and lick their lips in anticipation as the cart inches ever so forward. And once they finish it off they sit there and forlornly stare at the little pile of garbage they made on the fold-out tray before them until once again the drink cart makes it’s slow and laborious travel back down the aisle to scoop up the little garbage pile. God I hate the snack cart. The dignity some people give up in anticipation of the snack cart. I never get anything from it; I pop a bunch of benadryl and keep my eyes closed until the horrid flight is over.
I went to Kryastal’s today. I thought that maybe by now the zombie woman who mans the counter might have moved on, but no, she’s still there. Apparently it’s a career choice. She was there in all her zombie glory, scaly skin with bits of flakes just waiting to drift off and land on my krystal burgers. Or perhaps those open sores she had on her elbows might rub against the straw of my drink as she turns around and gives me my tray. Krystal burgers are disgusting enough, having them served to you by a zombie simply sucks.
2026 Update
I'm pointing this machine at February 2008, where Ed is losing a psychological war to a magnetic cat door.
Ah, 2008. A time when office life was measured in yards of burlap-ish cube fabric and the most advanced cat-entry security was a magnet swinging from a collar. Now the cubes are gone, replaced by long benches and a shared calendar that tells everyone you're 'away' when you're hiding in the stairwell. The toads, at least, remain eternal. The train splurge is another relic: back then a private room cost a splurge and 25 hours of pretending you were a noir detective; today that same journey buys you the privilege of reclining four inches while a stranger's elbow claims joint custody of your kidney. The snack cart, that glorious rolling promise of mushy nuts, has been replaced by a QR code taped to the seatback that demands an app, a login, and a blood sample. And fast food has swapped the counter zombie for a glowing kiosk with the personality of a defibrillator. I miss the unevolved simplicity of Ed's world—magnetic collars, pan-gold dreams, and a cowboy-hat monkey riding a giant frog to ruin Aquaman's day.
“2008 Ed, if you believed a giant frog and a cowboy-hat monkey could destroy Aquaman, why did you spend the entire post working up a better plan than the one you actually attempted: installing a cat door without testing it on a cat first?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you got me there. That's the story of my life, I guess: I'll spend hours pondering the exact rules of Aquaman's powers and whether a giant frog with a scowling monkey sidekick could take him down, and then I'll go install a cat door without once testing the magnet on an actual cat. You'd think I'd learn. The frog plan was beautiful because it only existed in my head, no risk of a cat sulking or a magnetic ball sliding sideways. The cat door, though, that required real effort and a live animal with opinions. Cats are unpredictable; imaginary frogs are not. Maybe I should have hired a cowboy-hat monkey to install the door, or at least to hold the cat still. But no, I just grabbed the box, read the instructions, and assumed the universe would cooperate. It didn't. So now I have a fancy magnetic cat door that my cats treat like a monster, and a genuine fear that they're using a secret attic exit. That's me, all theory and no cat testing.
