Elayna's back!

Yay! My little girl is home! She's grown about half an inch, and is missing two top teeth, and is just as adorable as ever! I'd forgotten how much I missed her hugs.

We all went out to Maggiano's last night, and she had shells and tomato sauce while the rest of us gorged ourselves, and then we came back and watched home movies of her singing and dancing and being adorable.

She's matured in a few ways -- she now takes care of all aspects of her bath by herself -- and is still just as capable of throwing a tantrum as always. And she now loves the Teen Titans cartoon!

And she adores the new cat, of course (even if Jack has already accidentally scratched her once).

Cat update

For those wondering, Max checked out just fine, in spite of not having a check-up for years. He got his shots updated, but seems to have forgiven us.

Jack's eye infection and his skin condition both seem harmless (they sent a culture of the latter out to see if it was ringworm, but it didn't show any fungal signs when under a black light, and the pattern isn't exactly ringwormesque, although it's close). They think that both are the result of some variant of feline herpes that Jack might have had in the shelter. They did give us an ointment for the eye, and suggest some fungal cream treatment for the patch, just in case.

Otherwise, he's healthy and fine.

And big. When we first took him in (on June 29), he weighed 3.2 pounds. Now, he's up to 5.5 pounds. I verified this today, when he decided to hop on me and climb onto my shoulder. He spent ten minutes perched on the back of my neck while I typed, and wouldn't get off, even when I went to wake shadesong. I had to stoop over to prevent him from just digging claws in. I can safely say he's a chunk heavier now than before (and if you think two pounds doesn't make a huge difference, trust me, you're wrong).

We don't need no stinkin' Checks and Balances!

Today's slouch towards Bethlehem (which was so underreported in the press that news.google.com doesn't even acknowledge it):

The Supreme Crock Court has refused to hear the Jesus Castillo Texas Obscenity case. This is the case where a man was convicted of selling an adult comic to adults, purely on the basis of the argument that comics must be for kids. Yes, that was the "logic" used in TX, and upheld by a jury of twelve of the stupidest people alive. And anyone sitting there and thinking that this isn't setting a nasty precedent is out of their gourd. The same standard that allows a medium like comics to be declared "kids-only" will just as easily allow animation to be declared kids-only (welcome to prison, Stan "Stripperella" Lee). And it won't just affect fringe comics. If MiracleMan ever gets back into print, I don't doubt they'll put out an APB on Alan Moore and forbid him from returning to the US for his depictions of (*gasp*) a woman giving birth, in explicit detail. Not to mention every creator for the Vertigo line (wonder if Neil and Garth are regretting emigrating).

Beware of anyone who says that a law is being passed "for the children." That's a code that signals that they actually want to fuck you up the ass with a garden rake. Which, come to think of it, is what the Texas prosecutor and his pet jury deserve.

Well, I got to keep it going, keep it going full steam

Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean
On the tough guy style I'm not too keen
To try to change the world I will plot and scheme

Yeah, MCA just summed up my whole fucking life.

I need asshole lessons. The world's not changing fast enough. And not for the better when it does.

More lyrics

Bad Religion, American Jesus:
( Cut for those who who think Avril is punk )

Ghost writing

Two tidbits, both courtesy of Mark Evanier:

The New York Times obit for Bob Hope was mostly written by Vincent Canby, their late film critic, who died in June of 2000. And the Newsweek obit for Hope was mostly penned by drama critic Jack Kroll, who died in April of 2000.

It's not a total shock -- obits are almost always pre-written and on file for any major celelbrity -- but there's something ironic in outliving the folks who write your obit by that long.