Sweet Catastrophe

I love when my mom sends me pictures.

She fell asleep…

Rio and I have been talking back and forth for quite some time about setting up my appointment to get my tattoo for Pete. I haven’t been talking about it because it’s all been so indefinite, and I hate talking about getting something done and then it not happening. I was trying not to get myself too hyped.

Wednesday was my first attempt. I went brain dead and realized I needed to take her a picture, but my printer was completely out of ink so I was frantically searching for someone with a working printer. I finally gave up, and as I was walking to my car—DUH. I own about 5 million things with the Phantom mask on them. Gah!

So I get up to Ink Addiction only to find that Rio’s sick as a dog and not there. (She doesn’t currently have a phone, or my number, so she couldn’t contact me about it.) Damn. So back we go to the Facebook messaging!

The new plan was for today, and today was a winner.

The white coloring and the shading all look funky right now. Rio assured me the white would be a little brighter and the shading would fade a tad and it’ll look fabulous =) I learned today that white ink makes you bleed a lot for some reason! lol Which is why my phantom’s mask is pink right now!

I always told Pete I’d one day back a production of Phantom and he’d be my Erik (Phantom). Now he’s my Angel of Music.

“Think of me
Think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye
Remember me once in a while, please promise me you’ll try

When you find that once again you long to take your heart back and be free
If you ever find a moment spare a thought for me.”

In two weeks I’m heading to Oklahoma! It’ll definitely be the farthest I’ve gone from Georgia. Previously, I’ve only visited Florida, Tennessee, and Lousianna. Why on earth am I going all the way to Oklahoma? My brother James is getting married!

^^^That’s just a reenactment. I believe he busted in on one of her last classes to officially propose. They’d already decided they were getting married and were waiting until after graduation to make it official, but he just couldn’t wait. How cute

My mom and step dad were the only ones from his family that were going to be there, so I decided that since there wasn’t any real reason for me not to go, I might as well. I think he’s really happy I’m going.

But this means a 15 hour ride. Luckily, my iPod was upgraded when I got a new one, so now I have a video iPod. Which means I’m open for suggestions! I need movies to watch, people! I’ve got all 3 seasons of The Office ready to lock and load, I just need some movies to watch as well. Any suggestions?

At the beginning of every Fall semester, we have this event called “The Happening.” In the quad, local businesses and student organizations have tables set up to give out info, get you to sign up for mailing lists and such, and give away free crap! I almost didn’t go this year because it’s just so hot and I didn’t feel like walking over, but Catie was nearby so I decided to see if she wanted to meet me over there. She’d never been so she reluctantly agreed; I think she was satisfied.

Talk about a ton of free stuff. I’ve got keychains, highlighter, koozies, buttons, stickers, magnets, a stress star, chap stick, a ton of pens, 8 cups, a fan, a 128mb jump drive (!!!), letter opener, mirror, etc….I also got a t-shirt, a mocktail (it was yum), a popsicle, and an icee. I entered into a drawing for a Wii too. Wouldn’t that be great?

These guys made their own advertisements! It’s just a balloon filled with fine sand. Tada! Instant stress ball! All they did was use a sharpie to write their name on it! Isn’t that great?

Catie gave me a ride back to my apartment, but we stopped by her place first so she could change before work. There, I picked up my Phantom poster she brought home for me! It used to be in her mom’s classroom and it has a really great story about why it’s got a hole in its eye. I love it! I forgot to take a pic, but it looks like this:

And that’s all the crazy free stuff I got today. I’m really excited about the jump drive. I need one for class and I can’t find mine!

What’s wrong with you people? We’ve graciously asked for your help, yet, you’re not quite flocking to help us cure Fab of his sick obsession. I’m fully aware that Colleen has a sweet ass, but Fab’s focus on this has caused irreversible damage on his already frail psyche. Help us stop him from further slipping into his own reality where Colleen’s sweet ass roams free.

Skeet, Cass and I have already done our part. Now, even these sweet animals who’ve probably been attacked or molested by Fab in the past have literally put their asses on the line:

What’s holding you back? He’s slipping further every day and you’re just sitting there, letting it happen. Even worse, you may actually be contributing to it!

An ass is just an ass.

Skeet needs our help, and bless her soul, she’s not asking for herself! This is the big one; this is what it’s all been in preparation for. It’s time to cure Mr. Fabulous of his psychosis. It’s time to cure him of his obsession.

What obsession? How to cure it!? His obsession with Colleen’s sweet ass! Skeet’s done it; she’s gotten to the bottom of Fab’s insanity and she’s absolutely right! It all begins and ends with Colleen’s sweet ass!

But what can you do? Firstly, no matter how much he begs, no matter how many sexual favors he offers, do not give in to his pleas to add the phrase, “Colleen has a sweet ass,” to your blog! Just by mentioning that Colleen has a sweet ass, you’re fueling his obsession and undoing any progress that might’ve been made!

I admit, I was tempted to splatter my blog with hidden messages stating, “Colleen has a sweet ass!” All in hopes to find myself in Fab’s good graces, but we’ve got to take a stand! Just say NO! You remember that from elementary school, right? It still rings true today.

What else can you do? Bring on the proof!!

See Fab? Skeet’s right. An ass is just an ass. Keep repeating.

If we unite in our quest to cure him, maybe one day Fab will be a productive member of society again…just maybe.

“Head of a Man,” Van Gogh? For seventy years, the answer would be an undoubted yes, but today, art experts are saying it was more likely a painting by one of Van Gogh’s peers.

I’ve been looking at quite a few articles on the matter, and it seems that a lot of writers are taking the dramatic approach of calling it a forgery, but the experts feel it’s important to stress that there’s no reason to believe this to be a forgery (a work created with the intent of passing it off as a Van Gogh) but simply misattributed to Van Gogh.

As a Van Gogh work, the painting was valued at $21 million. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent answer on its value now.

As disappointing as it must be for the art world, I live for stuff like this! Over 70 years, the creator of this work has been unquestioned, and now, we find it’s been wrong all along.

The only two history based classes I’ve ever enjoyed in my entire academic career were taught by teachers who reveled in teaching us all the things we thought we knew, but had always been mislead on.

After tonight, I’m off work until next Tuesday. I think I’ll spend a good bit of time researching mis-truths. It’s been a while since I’ve done that.

Do any of you have any interesting tidbits of things the general public thinks they know, but really have no idea?

The big Harry Potter weekend has come and gone, and I survived! We picked up our books at midnight when it was released and headed home to read. Well, we’d all had pretty long days, so I don’t think we made it quite to 4am before we decided to call it a night.

Saturday, I got up around 11 and read almost non-stop until 4:15. Off to work for a few hours and back home by 10:45. At that point, I sat and read. I think I moved from my spot on the couch twice before finishing the book around 6am. My neck was cramped! Luckily, I had just been given some samples of Freeze It, a gel for muscle, joint and arthritis relief. Now was the perfect time to test it out!

I was thoroughly satisfied! Within ten minutes I could feel the tension leaking out of my aching neck. It could’ve been a sleepless night, but luckily, Freeze It eased me into a blissful nap–and yes, I mean nap because I had to be at work at 10am that morning! Oops!A few days later, I decided to have another go at the Freeze It on my feet. See, I work on concrete floors, and no matter what anyone tells you, you never get used to that. You grow more accustomed to it, and you have less aches, but try taking a few days off and coming back–it’s as though you’ve never had to endure that before! Occasionally, I’ll end up at work in a pair of Chucks, without checking to see if my inserts are worn out. Well, this was one of those days, and after a longer shift than normal, my feet were crying!

I decided to really test out the Freeze It. How much was it really helping? So I pulled out another sample and applied it to just one foot, taking care not to really massage my foot or anything, as that would obviously help and not necessarily be attributed to the product. I was actually a little shocked at what a difference there was between the two. I even walked up the stairs once to note the difference; the same cringe-worthy feeling was left in the uncoated foot, while the Freeze It foot was doing just fine! Needless to say I hustled to coat my other foot and enjoy the relief!

I’ve got a lot of unusual knee pain as well. It’s been getting much worse lately; it’s to the point that I’d like to go consult a physician about it as I know it’s being caused by the concrete floors, but for this level of pain, I think there’s something not quite right somewhere that’s just being agitated by the concrete floors. I’ve decided that I want to really put Freeze It to the test and try it on my knees tomorrow night. If it helps that, that’s it, I’m off to the store to stock up!I’m totally sold on this stuff! I think my favorite part, aside from the pain relief, obviously, is that even though initially you get that strong menthol smell you’d expect from a gel like this, it clears out almost immediately. I was concerned about being able to sleep with the smell the first night I used it, but my fears were quieted when I noticed the smell was gone by the time I’d finished applying and dressed for bed. You just can’t beat that.

Ripper would be my iPod. Cleverly named after Giles’ nickname (from Buffy the Vampire slayer…my cat’s name also comes from there ) and ‘ripping’ songs off cds to put on my iPod.

Anyhow, I’ve had Ripper since 2005. Last year, a problem developed–it’d be in the middle of playing a song; the song would suddenly stop, and the screen would say “no card inserted.” When I back out to the menu, it was in photo import! Guess what–my iPod is not a photo iPod; it’s not even color!

Well, it got to where it was happening quite often, and generally when it’d start happening, it’d happen frequently–every few songs. I couldn’t figure out what the deal was as it was never the same situation (after so many songs, or certain songs, etc) and it started skipping over songs as if the files were missing.

I bought the Best Buy warranty when I got my iPod so I decided to take it in. I may have this out of order, but when it was returned, it had a new processor, but I think this was the time it came back to me as an iBrick–meaning it wouldn’t do anything. Well, I take that back, I think it worked for a few days before I got the dreaded sad iPod screen.

My heart seriously sank. When you get this screen, it means the end. There are two ‘fixes’ you can attempt, but if neither works, enjoy your iBrick! Thank God for that warranty, eh? So back it went since it was obviously not fixed properly, and this time it came back with a new harddrive, but when I got it home, it wouldn’t sync with iTunes. My computer recognized there was a device, but iTunes didn’t recognize its existence. Well, that doesn’t do me any good, so off again!

Finally my Ripper came back to me with another new harddrive and a new LCD screen–I’m guessing they damaged my old one during the repairs ’cause it was perfectly fine. Overall, the ‘invoices’ for the repairs showed parts that, if I had paid for them all, would’ve totaled more than I paid for the iPod in the first place.

It’s now been less than a year since I took it in. I believe this all started in September last year. A few months back it started doing the photo import deal again, and one day when I turned it on I got the image of a folder with and exclamation point, telling me to go to apple.com/support. Luckily, a soft reset cleared that, but the photo import thing has become a daily annoyance. It always seems to do it when I find a song I really wanna listen to…

My Best Buy warranty expires in January, so I decided to go ahead and take it in, as there’s obviously a problem. The thing is, being my 4th time sending it off, supposedly there’s a good chance I’ll be getting a brand new iPod. Of course, it all depends on the technicalities, and they may not deem this to be truly the 4th time since the second two times the iPod hadn’t been properly fixed in the first place, but I really hope they send me a new one. I can’t afford to buy a new iPod this time next year when this one starts having the same problem all over again, ya know? And I certainly can’t do without my iPod. I know that’s really materialistic, but I listen to SO much music…I don’t even own half my original cd collection anymore! I’ve given a lot of cds away because I’ve got them ripped and on my iPod…or I’ve bought them online!

It’d also be really nice, considering I’d be getting an upgrade.

This is my iPod. It’s the 20gb, U2 Special Edition. I love black and red, which is why I got it. I’m honestly not a huge U2 fan, I just really didn’t want a white iPod, and at the time, you didn’t have all these iPod covers and such. See, they stopped making these, but they have a newer one. It’s a 30gb color, video/photo U2 Special Edition, and if they send me a new iPod, supposedly that’s what I’ll be receiving, as they no longer carry the old ones. Now, I’m not dying for an upgrade. I wouldn’t really use the video or photo aspect very much, but I certainly won’t deny a 10gb upgrade would be really nice. I’m pushing the max on my 20 gigs as it is! I wouldn’t mind being able to throw a movie or two on there for long breaks between classes either. It certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings!

So here’s hoping I have a new iPod in the coming days!!

Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom. From atop the desk in the doctor’s charting area, the cat peers down the two wings of the nursing home’s advanced dementia unit. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts. Slowly, he rises and extravagantly stretches his 2-year-old frame, first backward and then forward. He sits up and considers his next move.

In the distance, a resident approaches. It is Mrs. P., who has been living on the dementia unit’s third floor for 3 years now. She has long forgotten her family, even though they visit her almost daily. Moderately disheveled after eating her lunch, half of which she now wears on her shirt, Mrs. P. is taking one of her many aimless strolls to nowhere. She glides toward Oscar, pushing her walker and muttering to herself with complete disregard for her surroundings. Perturbed, Oscar watches her carefully and, as she walks by, lets out a gentle hiss, a rattlesnake-like warning that says “leave me alone.” She passes him without a glance and continues down the hallway. Oscar is relieved. It is not yet Mrs. P.’s time, and he wants nothing to do with her.

Oscar jumps down off the desk, relieved to be once more alone and in control of his domain. He takes a few moments to drink from his water bowl and grab a quick bite. Satisfied, he enjoys another stretch and sets out on his rounds. Oscar decides to head down the west wing first, along the way sidestepping Mr. S., who is slumped over on a couch in the hallway. With lips slightly pursed, he snores peacefully — perhaps blissfully unaware of where he is now living. Oscar continues down the hallway until he reaches its end and Room 310. The door is closed, so Oscar sits and waits. He has important business here.

Twenty-five minutes later, the door finally opens, and out walks a nurse’s aide carrying dirty linens. “Hello, Oscar,” she says. “Are you going inside?” Oscar lets her pass, then makes his way into the room, where there are two people. Lying in a corner bed and facing the wall, Mrs. T. is asleep in a fetal position. Her body is thin and wasted from the breast cancer that has been eating away at her organs. She is mildly jaundiced and has not spoken in several days. Sitting next to her is her daughter, who glances up from her novel to warmly greet the visitor. “Hello, Oscar. How are you today?”

Oscar takes no notice of the woman and leaps up onto the bed. He surveys Mrs. T. She is clearly in the terminal phase of illness, and her breathing is labored. Oscar’s examination is interrupted by a nurse, who walks in to ask the daughter whether Mrs. T. is uncomfortable and needs more morphine. The daughter shakes her head, and the nurse retreats. Oscar returns to his work. He sniffs the air, gives Mrs. T. one final look, then jumps off the bed and quickly leaves the room. Not today.

Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. She is surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren and one from her wedding day. Despite these keepsakes, she is alone. Oscar jumps onto her bed and again sniffs the air. He pauses to consider the situation, and then turns around twice before curling up beside Mrs. K.

One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar’s presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk. She grabs Mrs. K.’s chart off the medical-records rack and begins to make phone calls.

Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, “What is the cat doing here?” The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, “He is here to help Grandma get to heaven.” Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices.

On his way back to the charting area, Oscar passes a plaque mounted on the wall. On it is engraved a commendation from a local hospice agency: “For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat.” Oscar takes a quick drink of water and returns to his desk to curl up for a long rest. His day’s work is done. There will be no more deaths today, not in Room 310 or in any other room for that matter. After all, no one dies on the third floor unless Oscar pays a visit and stays awhile.

Note: Since he was adopted by staff members as a kitten, Oscar the Cat has had an uncanny ability to predict when residents are about to die. Thus far, he has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families. Oscar has also provided companionship to those who would otherwise have died alone. For his work, he is highly regarded by the physicians and staff at Steere House and by the families of the residents whom he serves.

Original Article

This fascinates me to no end! I’ve seen a lot of people remark at how creepy it is, or scary, etc, but I think it’s nothing short of amazing. After all, we’ve heard plenty behind the case of dogs being able to sniff out cancer and animals can always sense when something’s wrong; so it just doesn’t seem like such a stretch for me to see. As far as being creepy, I think it’s absolutely endearing. I suppose a lot of the talk about it has sort of taken the route of making it sound as if the cat is choosing who’s next, such as in this lolcat pic (which I think is hilarious) from icanhascheezburger from yesterday:

I feel more that the cat senses it and chooses to be there with the person during their final moments. It’s comforting. I teared up a little when I read the part in the above article when the parent told the child Oscar was there to help Grandma get to Heaven.

So here’s to Oscar–a spectacular creature =)