Selkie

Nice site, Pru. Sorry it has resulted in validating the saying "no good deed goes unpunished."

Sounds like you need to visit the Happy Things thread!

Thanks for the hug, Red. These days, I can use all of 'em I can get. Bad, bad stuff going on here, and no end in sight.

GOK="God Only Knows"

No Asterix yet.

Best wishes for a happy birthday to both of you!

I know what the other IT was. Jersey Devils (Illinois Devils, in this case).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good one! :happy: I'll tell you, having what appeared to be a large animal moving almost silently toward me at a high rate of speed sure as heck made me believe in Illinois Devils! I'm absurdly grateful it wasn't a coyote or a raccoon, both of which are known to come into our yard and either of which could well have ripped my dogs to shreds in front of my eyes. If I hadn't initally seen the rabbit at the zenith of its leap I don't think I would have been as startled - it sure did look like a BIG animal.

Will PM you in a little bit.

What was it? What WAS IT??

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Forgive me for being oobtuse - I'm just too tired to think straight. Which "it" are you asking about? What my SO said? If so, I'll PM you rather than post the specifics to a public board.

Lost_Johnny- must...resist...urge...to..photoshop...Ninja..greyhounds.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Resistance is futile. You know you want to do it. You know we want you to do it. Heck, even Angel wants you to do it.

_______

Speaking of Angel, we've gotten the first of the obstacles to her returning home removed from her path. Now her family needs to find $800 to pay the vet, who is (uncustomarily, in my experience) refusing to let them pay in installments.

___________________

Meaner's encounter with the donkeys has, in some cosmic way, resulted in my own heart-in-the-throat encounter with unknown creatures in the darkness. I'm sure this would not have happened had I not read his story, so other STHers, beware!

Q: Just how dumb is a young cottontail rabbit?

A: Just slightly smarter, or dumber, than an elderly greyhound with respiratory problems.

Midnight. No lights on in my yard or any of the surrounding area. I escorted my two greyhounds because my old black greyhound has a respiratory problem and is too stubborn to come inside when she can't breathe.

Both girls trotted to the back fence, and WHAMMO - suddenly there was this THING racing toward me at quite a distance off the ground, elderly greyhound in hot pursuit. I didn't realize she could still gallop that fast! The THING nearly ran full tilt into me, but veered off at the last minute and headed for the front gate, at which point I could see its cotton tail. Bad move - it was cornered. As it rocketed back toward me through the tall plants by the back door (an only slightly smarter move, as that area restricts small rabbit-sized leaps), I tackled the old greyhound, and watched it headin the general vicinity of the younger, faster, and even more predatory dog (a move so dumb it requires no explanation). Fortunately the pitch black saved it from her jaws, as best as I can tell. She tried to re-flush it, but I assume it left the yard entirely. The older hound sounded like a badly tuned locomotive after the experience, but is still very much alive. Once my heart palpitations subsided, I determined that I was alive too.

Did this young, dumb, rabbit not get the memo that Greyhounds have sharp pointy teeth and a taste for lagomorphs?!

_____________________

Have had several recent talks with my boyfriend-turned-friend-turned-GOK-where-our-relationship-stands. Why is it that the world tries so hard to crush the spirits of the few good people in it? (No, I'm not the good person in question - far from it) He said something to me the other night that leaves me wanting simultaneously to cry, shake him, and hug him.

Actually, this thread was intended to cheer everyone up, so I'm glad to hear it's working for more people than just me. 8-)

The Woodsman : My bro rented this and...well...ok.  The lead (Kevin Bacon) is a convicted pedophile who returns home to start a new life.  Ok, step one - he moves in right across from a school!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh great Og, is this another "realistic" movie that demands I accept an unbelievable premise in order for everything to work? House of Sand and Fog is one of those. It's a very emotional movie, but the critical legal premise that sets the events into motion is so obviously flawed that it's difficult to overlook.

Note to filmmakers: in the U.S., convicted pedophiles are subject to lots of legal restrictions on where they may live and work, and across the street from a school is a definite no-no.

Akhira: Congrats on the new job! Best of luck to you, not that you need it.

Lost Johnny: Your suggestion of a ninja greyhound rescue squad amused me to no end. :ph34r: The fact that the greyhound in question is solid black only adds to the mental picture.

Meaner: As if I weren't smiling at the concept of the ninjas, your story left me in stitches. Thanks for the laugh! If it's any consolation, llamas aren't exactly the most pleasant of beasts, so it's not as though your terror was completely baseless.

Charlie: Oh goodie, zoo pictures! I love the Detroit zoo (I assume that's the one you went to), especially the Amphibiville exhibit. Nice to see some distant relatives - according to family tradition, I hatched from a frog's egg - being given such first class treatment. I can just imagine Lou II saying the word sushi - adorable!

And be careful what you offer, because Angel the greyhound lives a lot closer to you than she does to me.... (Don't worry, I'd never ask).

Against all odds, I managed to make it to a performance of The Lion King this afternoon. Driving into downtown Chicago is never a picnic, but the performance being on a Sunday afternoon helped a little, and for once, I got a good spot in a parking garage that was both inexpensive AND near by. The performance was every bit as good as I remembered it being, which is quite something because I have very warm memories of it. The actress playing Rafiki was just amazing in every way. How the producers et al. managed to turn a boring, by-the-numbers movie into such a terrific play is a mystery for the ages.

In other news, I'm trying to help an elderly family whose greyhound has been, um, "misappropriated" by their daughter-in-law and a "rescue" agency get their dog back. The whole situation makes me boiling mad on several levels. :icon_evil: If they do what I've outlined they should, but I'm not sure the person they need to rely on (because they can't drive) has the backbone to do it. Nothing I've told her to do is remotely illegal or inappropriate, but she's something of a confrontation wimp and may back down even though she's in the right. This hound has a troubled past, and her family worked with her for months to get her head reasonably straight. Losing her human family would devastate her and her people, and it's all because the DIL did something illegal, and quite probably lied to the rescue group to boot.

What did I miss?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A troll re-worked my post about missing the act of kissing to include every sexually based profanity it could think of.

Anybody else want to see a video of Mark's happy dance?!

Keeyah, your pup's wiggly greeting reminds me very strongly of the bulldog I grew up with. She had no tail, and you wouldn't think that bulky, if muscular, body could wiggle very much, but she always managed.

My ferret has an infected tooth. I'm feeding her mushy food and taking her to the vets in the morning. Hasn't stopped her racing around so I'm thinking she will be fine!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Poor ferret! Kyrrah sends healing vibes to a fellow furry predator.

wolvy, I'd have a serious chat with grandma about the trench digging. Yikes.

Have been sick as a dog on the latest round of medications, so spending most of my time on the sofa feeling sorry for myself - and watching season 2 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which I've never seen before. Made it through all six discs in three days, which doesn't sound too impressive until one considers that the drugs make me lose whole chunks of the day.

Anyway, this whiney post isn't about Buffy per se. It's about the fact that watching the nearly constant smooching on that show really makes me miss kissing someone special.

I don't know what's happening to me. I am so not the kissy, huggy, cuddly type it's not even funny. I have never in my life felt a physical intimacy void, but now I do. And it's weird. And unpleasant. I don't even have a guy to kiss. There's still someone kinda special in my life, but our relationship is no longer the kissing kind - and the fact he lives 1400 miles away moots the point anyway. In my present condition, it's not even like I'd be safe for someone to smooch anyway.

But damn, out of the clear blue, I miss kissing. :icon_cry:

Little things, big things, even just plain cute things - as long as they are personal to you and made/make you happy, they're fair game.

Have at it! (Pretty please?)

Wait a second, Shouldnt Lou and Charlie have gone insane from seeing you, selkie. I thought the stories of anybody who sees Cthulu goes bat-fuck insane.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Would anyone have been able to tell the difference?

(snip)

 

I've *got* to ask... *What* is that cat in your avatar doing?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I refuse to limit the creativity of anyone on the board, particularly the male members of the board, by revealing the truth about the photo. Besides, I'm sure the story that came with it was inaccurate.

I've got to admit, I'm a bit relieved at the cancellation. Maybe the filmmakers had plans for what would have been an amazing movie, but the odds were against it from the start. Watchmen's got to be almost unfilmable, and the last thing the comics medium needs is an embarassing adaptation.

I'm glad there was going to be a Watchmen movie, though, because I'm sure that's what motivated DC to publish the upcoming oversized HC with improved coloring and scads of extras. I'm already price shopping that one and it's not even out yet!

Cinderella Man is not "Seasbiscuit with a boxer" as the ads would have you believe. It's a loving, glamorized depiction of the brutality of boxing that goes on, and on, and on. Boy, those filmmakers didn't meet a spraying bodily fluid or X-ray of breaking bones they didn't like. I don't like boxing and never have, but I'm not necesarily opposed to watching them - "Girlfight" comes to mind - if the focus is on the human interest angle. This one wasn't, no matter what the marketing team says. There are a lot of good points to the film - the costuming and set design are excellent, as is the acting all around. Paul Giamatti in particular is a standout. Unfortunately, those elements weren't enough to save the film from it's point of view.

I understand the filmmakers looked long and hard to find dirt on Braddock so he didn't come across as too perfect, and failed. OK, I'll acccept that's what he was really like. I still found it terribly difficult to root for him to injure the "other guy." The script, to try to force the audience's sympathies, took the "Rocky IV" route by making his most fearsome opponent out to be a one-dimensional brute who slept with multiple women and yelled at them, had a terrible temper, and set out to kill his opponents in the ring. Had they actually portrayed him as a decent guy haunted by the men he'd accidentally killed (as, I understand, was actually the case), the movie would have been far more interesting.

At one point, Braddock gives a little speech about how being killed in the ring is a risk in his "profession", but it's no greater than the risk of death working third shift on his other job down at the docks. That argument works to a point, but still doesn't win me over because (a) dock workers do their best to avoid injury and death rather than deliberately seeking it out, (b) at the point Braddock gives the speech he's already apparaently gotten his family out of debt, and while financial matters are presumably shakey it's not as though he has to face a killer in the ring to keep them fed, and © it's death for entertainment purposes. The movie raises glimmers of class issues, but backs away quickly every time. I would have found the film much more engagin if they'd teased out those class issues, and portrayed the fighters as struggling working guys forced by circumstances to fight, potentially to the death, for the amusement of the very classes that put them in those situations. No such luck, unfortunately.

Kyrrah - the cat - sends her thanks to everyone who wished her well. She's fine. The vet was able to remove the offending claw, which had grown so long it pierced her toepad to a depth of at least 1/4" inch, without surgery. Almost as amazing is the fact that all of the staff survived the procedure along with her. She's rather, um, feisty, particularly when she's in pain. They wrapped her leg up to the elbow in the hopes of keeping the injury site clean, so not only were her eyes shooting venomous daggers, she looked like a peg-legged pirate. Even as the vet was explaining how to remove the wrapping - an event planned for Wednesday - I couldn't restrain my guffaws. Kyrrah had it off in three hours.

Now I get to squirt antibiotics down her throat her the next ten days. That's almost as funny as thinking the pegleg was going to last.

Would everyone think good thoughts for my 16 year old cat? In the midst of my misery, I missed an important health problem in her that I suspect is going to require surgery, and at her age the anaesthesia can't be a good thing. She sees the vet in a few hours, and I'm nervous. We just celebrated our 16th anniversary together (she was eight weeks old when I got her) and I can't bear the thought of losing her, let alone the thought of losing her because I was too sick, and she was too clever, to notice what was wrong until midnight last night.

Moral query of the day: Is it wrong for a man of nearly 31 to be dating a girl of only just 20?

 

Just wondering.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When I was 20 I was dating a man of 37. Go for it.

I wish I had corrosive vomit like alien blood. Then I would hold people down and puke in their face and watch their skin fall off.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So, basically, you want to become a Peter Milligan X-Foce character?!

I suppose that argument makes sense, in a Millarworld sort of way. I think they miss the point, and how easily that argument could be dismissed, but hey, as you said, it's Millarworld.

I am so glad I left that board and never went back.

At the risk of revealing a basic inability to comprehend, why would Millar et al. be worked up about getting female creators to speak out against the article? Perhaps I misread it, but it seems to me that it was comic readers who were the primary target of that article. As such, I'd think the opinions of an articulate female comic fan would carry just as much weight as that of a creator (who could arguably have a financial stake in the discussion) in rebutting the stereotypes presented.

Mind you, as poorly researched and badly written as that article was, I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's worth the time and effort to rebut.