well, play TAPS for the lil Wowser. It turned out to be a virulent horrible thing that kills kitties. Damn. That's one thing about adoption you have to be careful with the choices -- but!! Naughty Marie is more than worth it! (Any death isn't worth it but she has blossomed from a shy worried kit to a wonderful companion with a great sense of humor. She is beautiful!! She's a truly Naughty Marie, and is quiet a inventive and adorable child full of mischevious joy. She is also quite lovey, but you don't take her for granted, she sees to that. Gotta send picture.

EyowWWW! I didn't post this!!! I have kitties! I have two. a two year old female named Naughty Marie, and a yearling kit (boy) named Popo Wowser. He has been ill with a cat version of kennel cough. Marie came to me with mites in her ear. well we cleared the mites, but PopoWowser //////!!!! Pneumonia?? Today is Sunday. The nine-toed woonder will take him into vet.

Oh Boy; Life is so much dam fun.

I'm going on a rant. Forwarned. Now I dislike those who profess to read my mind, expecially in chosing that I am evil and think evil thoughts. Now,I don't think evil thoughts. I do think some thoughts that drift to me, are of evil intent (the business of bearing false witnesses and preconceived notions (my cat is ill, but not dead.)I prefer to think all people are good and honest in intention until they prove to me that they are not worthy of it. Sniping people and accusing them as non-Christians is such is hurtful and bears false witness...You get my drift? Then such individuals earn my "homo sap' award.

I knew this and did it in high school in the late 60s

Good news, doodlers: What your colleagues consider a distracting, time-wasting habit may actually give you a leg up on them by helping you pay attention.

Asked to remember names they'd heard on a recording, people who doodled while listening had better recall than those who didn't. This suggests that a slightly distracting secondary task may actually improve concentration during the performance of dull tasks that would otherwise cause a mind to wander.

"People may doodle as a strategy to help themselves concentrate," said study co-author Jackie Andrade, a University of Plymouth psychologist. "We might not be aware that we're doing it, but it could be a trick that people develop because it helps them from wandering off into a daydream."

Andrade's findings, published Thursday in Applied Cognitive Psychology, are an interesting wrinkle on cognitive load theory: The mind has a limited amount of attention to give and, once occupied, stops processing other stimuli.

Cognitive load is exploited by magicians, whose verbal and physical flourishes distract from sleight-of-hand. It also explains why driving while talking on a hands-free headset is no safer than driving while holding a phone. And it could be the reason why doodling is so much better than daydreaming.

"It takes a large cognitive load to daydream. That has a big impact on the task you're meant to be doing," said Andrade. "Doodling takes only a small cognitive load, but it's just enough to keep your mental resources focused on the main task."

Andrade's team asked 40 people to listen to a recording containing the names of people and places. Afterwards the people wrote down the names they could remember.

While listening, half of the test subjects were also required to shade in shapes on a piece of paper. Afterwards, they remembered one-third more names than test subjects who didn't doodle while listening.

"The exciting thing is that people actually got better while doing two things at once," said Andrade. "Doodling is not as bad a thing as we might think."


I did this often and a teacher called me on it, and I then pointed to various pictures and repeated his entire lecture back to him almost vearbatim!

Books, books --

Two I just picked up. One, is Nothing is Sacred by Lewis Black. Warms the lil cockles of my heart to see he is a peer of mine, raised in the fifties, reached adulthood in the sixties, and Lo, Looky here. Thinks like 90% of the other peery cowards out there who do not open their face or twiddle their voice. Silent majority I do believe comes in more colors than a Crayon 64 jumbo. or even 128? Did they ever get to 256? Anyhoo, I think they killed that chicken by Internet. Those who drool over new colors and made them an art form now dance on E-bay or Facebook, which by the way I refuse. Laugh my head off at the Martin Sheen commercial about how he's an alien and how our ipods, (don't got one) interface with t.v. through our pc's..yum yum rendering our collective brains to mush. Anyway. Black, if you can envision him talking to you, via his book and put in the pauses and emphasis in your mind's eye, Good stuff. Yummy.

Also 'nuther book by a chap by the name of Joe Hill. His lil sleeper is called Heart Shaped Box. Since I am a follower of his dad, I was laying in wait for this lil morsel, and he did not disappoint. A bit puerile, hey he's a kid, already ---but the chops are there, the humor and the weird juxposition of tender sweetness wielded with a razor sharp axe. He does write horror. And I hear his dad's voice, but tempered a bit by his mom's eye for the quirky undertones within a tale of 'aw shucks we are just normal, people'. Umm, it's in the genes i THINK and I'm just gonna follow this lil guy. Saw a picture of him in his book back and dang if he doesn't look like ol Steve too!!! Whoo hoo! Do I smell a dynasty here?

Read it if you like a rough ride through the macabre. It's like acid rock. Louder, flashier, harder, meaner, Daddy's more rockn'roll. but Joe after all, with the years under his belt is gonna give his pop a run for his money I think.

Mrs. Great Bird Of The Galaxy

Just a short tip of my hat to my past, a really gracious and kind lady Majel Barrett Roddenberry recently passed on. For those who remember, a moment. For those who don't, well, your loss.

Well the groundhog saw his shadow --

But I don't care. My crocus's is coming up. They are in a sheltered corner of the house so, they have a chance if we don't get any more below zero weather. Spring will come and with all the other doom and gloom predictions, which have gone on since the beginning of time --- it does a heart good. The basement is more or less done now, counters to be put in, doors hung, knobs and pieces and whatnot. Good. Soon or later all this nonsense will be gone and I can seek and find my cat. I hope to get a siamese or a siamese cross that has the points. (and voice). Being hearing impaired, I can tolerate a yappy yowler. I will go to the rescue place.

They have been putting slides of pieces of meteorite bits under microscopes and taking pictures. Beautiful stuff! The above illustration happens to be a many many micro blowups of CANCER! Shucks, looks like a mountain scene with a cabin. Goes to show, we often don't know what anything really looks like, and when we do, it sometimes is a surprise.

Know what I miss? Happy days of roaming around as a kid, playing with and turning over rocks. That does sometimes gives you a surprise too. Now if you are my age and sprawl in the dirt, people think you're sick and call and ambulance.

mullgullian stew

While I am 'retired' and no longer interrupted by a workaday job, I actually find myself knitting thoughts of various types. Others stick with knitting or crochetting but I insist on asking questions. Like why do we eat eggs? might it be an ancient memory of our reptilian origins? Why do Creationists deny our wisdom teeth, our gill slits as embroyos, our appendix? Why deny our physical behaviors, impulse to be pugnacious, and all other behaviors that are clearly Not of God's image? We are not the end of our evolutions either. There will be, (if we don't kill ourselves as a species or barring natural disaster) more changes within us and we will evolve further. Why deny the fact that some of us unfortunately by accident of birth are deficient in intelligence, deformed, born as conjoined twins, and come forth in infinite variety? Yes, I do. I do question. We are made to question. God in his infinite wisdom, knowing all did realize we were to taste the fobidden 'fruit' of knowledge of good and evil, knew full well we would. Therefore, He said, in effect -- if you desire to know it all, then realize the responsibility in that knowing. And we are learning yet today that lesson. Hmmm, I wonder if I'm gonna get some reactions to this. heheh.