This is genius

Best cover I've heard of any song in a very very long time. (Courtesy of my friend in SF, who I think prefers anonymity.)

Pat calls her 'Shitty Kitty'

He also calls her "Jorge Georgio," but that's another story.

She hasn't slept in here for the last couple days, so she might be over whatever it was that was making her do it. I'm still wary of letting her sleep on my pillow, but sooner or later I'll forget she doesn't mind sleeping in her own shit and she'll be back in her spot.

Tweet tweet

A number of my work friends Twitter, so like the sheep that I am, I jumped on the bandwagon. I joined more to follow my friends than to update people on the things I do because frankly I don't do anything. I may Twitter my Scrabble victories, but other than that I've got nothing spectacular going on.

That's a lie. I do. Or my cat does. Anyway.

So a couple weeks after I moved to J'ville, I adopted two precious little kitties — Bess and George — from the Jacksonville Humane Society, and we've gotten along fabulously. They can be little shits sometimes (like kids!) but they're also darn cute and really sweet (unlike kids).

They both have their own little quirks and weird things, but they're mostly endearing. Except this new behavior from George where she sleeps in her litter box. In. The. Litter. Box. On her and Bess' poop. It's slightly cute but mostly gross.

I did some Googling yesterday, and all the discussion boards suggest three things:

1. She feels most secure in her litter box because she's been spooked by something or feels threatened by another cat. I don't think this is the case because it's brand new behavior and she and Bess are sisters and have always seemed to get along well.

2. A lot of shelter cats slept in their litter boxes because it's the softest place in their cage. I just switched litter, so the new stuff might be similar to what they used at the Humane Society and she just feels like it's more homey. A very likely explanation.

3. She's sick. Some cats will indicate that they don't feel well by just hanging out at the litter box all the time, whether they're actually using it or not. She seems to be using it normally and isn't feverish or anything, so this is possible but not likely. I should take her to the vet but can't afford it. Donations?

So yeah, anyone know any cat-behavior experts? I could use some help, here.

It's a missed connection, a canceled show

Something I do when I have unfettered Internet access and plenty of free time is read Craigslist. I know, that makes me slightly uncool, but the "best of" makes me laugh more often than not, and sometimes I like to shop real estate or look for jobs in more politically progressive cities. But one of my favorite things is reading the "missed connections" section.

I didn't think lots of others did it, but my friend admitted to doing it so I don't feel so alone anymore. Now, I don't read them because I hope against hope that some strapping young man missed a connection with me. They're thoroughly entertaining, though, because someone is always a "vision," particularly if she is the leggy blonde with whom Mr. Connectionless made eye contact as she brushed past him in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. Mr. Connectionless wants to know what color her T-shirt was and what kind of cereal she was reaching for when The Moment happened, you know, just so he can make sure it's actually Ms. Wheaties and not some wacko who thinks he's actually her man.

I also get a chuckle when they're asking for a specific person. The headline is often something to the tune of "Looking for KELLY SMITH. where are you? i miss you?" and the poor girl is, like, the customer service specialist he spoke to when calling to inquire about one of his credit cards. Her voice was angelic. There was something, but he was afraid to act on it.

Actually though, I think it's all in vain. What are the odds that Ms. Wheaties will actually think, "Oh, who was that stunning single man who was trying to decide between name brand and generic raisin bran? Why didn't I talk to him? [Pause as she brightens, realizing there is hope.] Maybe he went looking for me on Craigslist! WHERE IS A COMPUTER?"

I think Mr. Connectionless creates this post in a desperate hope that some lame, single female (do not judge) reads these for giggles, sees his ad and instantly wants to have his children. That seems like greater motivation than actually finding Ms. Wheaties or KELLY SMITH.

I would like to find some statistics on the success of missed connections with the people who actually missed the connection, not the people who wished someone would a miss a connection with them. To be totally honest, it is kind of precious that Mr. Connectionless does this. Maybe he just didn't have the nerve to make a move when it would have mattered, you know? But really, I can't say I would be inspired to go get coffee or have dinner (or any other number of "dates" they suggest) with someone who used Craigslist's missed connections as the way to find me. I think I'd be really creeped out if some stranger tried to find me, period, but that's a different story.

Maybe I would sing a different tune if that actually did happen, but I'm just going to hope and assume it's not.

The great wall of ... idiocy

This weekend I stopped by Publix to get some cat food and other sundries, and while I waited in the line to check out, I noticed that the new issue of Time was out, so I picked up a copy. The main headline was "The Great Wall of America," and the story was about the wall going up between Mexico and the U.S., something I've been following for a while.

I put all my stuff, including the magazine, down to be scanned, and the check-out was doing her thing, when she picked up the magazine and exclaims, "America has a great wall? What?!" At first I thought she was kidding — people joke about things like this, I suppose. But she kept going with it, and then the girl who was bagging pulls the magazine out of the bag she just put it in and goes, "I thought only China had a great wall! What are they talking about?"

At this point I felt like it was only fair for me to intervene, so I told them the story was about the wall between Mexico and the U.S., and they looked at me in utter disbelief. They didn't seem to know that, yes, a wall/fence/barrier of some sort is being constructed in order to "reduce" illegal immigration. 

Check-out girl laughed a puzzled little laugh, and bagger girl says, "Can't they just hop the fence? They think nobody's going to climb that wall? People's crazy and they'll climb anything!"

At that point I'd paid and attempted to gather up my stuff, but they were STILL carrying on, so I just stood there for a minute then said I had to go and walked away.

This is just so blatantly idiotic I don't even need to make fun of it. It takes care of itself.

Guns don't kill people; yes they do.

This week, some students at the University Tennessee will wear empty gun holsters to protest the laws and campus policies that prohibit the university community from carrying handguns on campus. Even if someone has a concealed handgun carry license, he or she still may not bring the weapon on a school campus.

Some students want to be permitted to carry a handgun as a form of self-defense, and "the only time you're authorized to shoot is when someone is attacking you," Nathan Robinson, a UT senior, told the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Poetic.

Guns are just a bad idea on college campuses in so many ways.

Students are young and thus pretty irresponsible. So are most non-students, yes, but if thousands of foolish, brash 20-somethings can be prevented from carrying weapons, then I think they should be.

Put those guns in the context of any number of campus parties that take place on a weekend. At any given point on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, hundreds of students can be crammed into a fraternity house, a bar, a dorm — what happens if someone get belligerent and whips out a gun? What if someone's gun goes off accidentally? What if someone's gun gets stolen without them noticing?

If we lived in an ideal world, maybe concealed carry would be OK. But we don't live in an ideal world. College campuses are rife with drugs and violence, whether anyone wants to admit that. Add guns to the mix, and that's a scary climate. People get drunk all the time, people smoke or do other drugs; who's to say they're not going to get completely trashed, lose most/all/some sense of good judgment and shoot someone for the hell of it? What about petty bar fights? Or arguments that may not be very serious but could escalate quickly if someone pulled out a gun?

But then there's the other side: Would those 25 (reported) rapes on Tennessee campuses have occurred if the women had guns? (Would they have become more violent if the perpetrator did too?) Would killing sprees like the one at Virginia Tech be headed off if a student or professor could shoot an aggressor in self-defense or to protect others? Would robberies continue to decrease if people knew there was a greater threat to them for stealing something?

It's really naive and presumptuous, Mr. Robinson, to say that you're only authorized to shoot when someone is attacking you. That would never happen. It doesn't happen in the real world; why would college campuses be any different? Carrying guns won't add to campus safety; it would just make people more wary and on edge.

Vanderbilt has about 6,000 undergraduate students. If just half of them chose to carry handguns, that's 3,000 deadly weapons in the hands of irresponsible young adults in a very, very small area. Add to those numbers graduate students, faculty and staff, and the concentration of weapons would be pretty scary.

Allowing members of campus communities to carry guns just doesn't seem like it would reduce the risk of violent crime, theft, anything. If anything, it seems to me that it would increase an atmosphere of discomfort and just heighten distrust among students. The laws keeping guns off campus are there for a reason, anyhow.