Annoying the Cats for Better Breathing

Learning Digieridoo May Help With Snoring

As I have sleep apnea, and I think the dig' is cool, this is interesting me. This falls squarely into the "or I could go to New Zealand*" category, true, but a truly ugly digiridoo can be made for a few bucks. Lessons would be the hard part. I know a local dig' player; I wonder if he's still local, and does he teach? Must ponder.

*We currently have family in Wellington, so we're saving up for a trip. This causes a behavior pattern: We consider buying something, then put it back on the shelf as we say "Or we could go to New Zealand". Very therapeutic.

Mr Connors' Latest Obsession

I am a serial hobbyist; traipsing from one interest to the next as the mood and brain chemistry take me.

Fortunately, I have a finite set of interests, so I keep looping around from music to graphics to the SCA to kayaking and back to music and so forth. So I have started yet another blog to keep track of it all:

Mr Connors' Latest Obsession also contains an archive of this very site. It and the archive will move over to patrickconnors.com soon; details when that occurs.

Three More Years! Or less, maybe...

1096 days left and counting. Maybe less, if we elect the right sort of Congress this fall.

Not that I'm crossing my fingers. The sad fact is that my Congressional district will likely remain conservative Republican. I ought to go cast my vote in a close race somewhere; logistics will likely make that impossible, but it is tempting.

Run, Cow! Mooove it! Run!

Or: Sane Cow Disease

Up in Great Falls, Montana, a cow escaped from the slaughterhouse line last Thursday and evaded authorities for three hours:

As police scrambled to head off the cow on the west side of the river, a veterinarian rushed to the scene to administer tranquilizers.

Reaching the shore, the heifer ran across Bay Drive to the railroad tracks.

She turned north and followed the tracks for a while, eventually becoming cornered at a chain link fence near Central Ave. and Interstate 15.

Breathing heavily and foaming at the mouth, the animal juked an approaching animal control officer and, like a skilled running back, turned on the speed and ran through the perimeter set up by officials.

Now it looks like she'll be spared:

A spirited cow that jumped a slaughterhouse gate and evaded capture for six hours has drawn clemency pleas and may not be doomed after all.

Appeals to spare the life of the 1,200-pound heifer came from across the nation after she fled Mickey's Packing Plant on Thursday. She had several near-death experiences before walking into a makeshift pen and then a stock trailer.

She was nearly struck by road and rail traffic, she almost drowned while crossing the Missouri River and she refused to be subdued by three tranquilizer darts.

Stories here and here.

Mirabilis! Wonderful! Astonishing! Back!

I've linked to Mirabilis for a long time, but now it's roused from slumber, and nicely redesigned as well. If you subscribe to Smithsonian or NationalGeographic, Mirablis is your kind of blog.

Welcome back, Christine!

Pop Culture Artifacts

Do we need another site full of pop culture artifacts?

Do we need another site?

Neil Gaiman advises that the Fabulist is back, shinier than ever. Go look around, then decide for yourself.

In Between...

Between Doing Things, there was Not Doing Things, between bouts of Health there were knock-down fights with Illness, and between Holidays there were endless nanoseconds of the Day Job, which were themselves between microscopic eons of Commute. Also a trip to the Edge of the World.

And so, while I have indeed been snarky, between all of that and the occasional (well, all right: daily) Lunch, there was No Holiday Cheer here at the Village. Yet still we live. There could even be flaming torches.