the un-imaginary blog

my cat eats spider webs

2007-04-11T17:57:00.000-04:00

I have a small black cat named Coalette. She recently started eating spider webs (and presumably, the spiders within their webs). The first time I saw her do it, I was in the bathroom where (for reasons unclear) she has always followed me with great interest. There was a largish cobweb in one corner near the baseboard, and I watched her in fascination as she enthusiastically tucked in. Wow, I thought. Is this a cat thing? Until fairly recently, I've only had dogs, so it seems I am always observing new curious, uniquely feline behaviors. But then a dark thought occurred: some spiders are poisonous. Coalette is a mighty small cat, and probably couldn't take much poison in her system.

So I yelled. Let’s just say that I was in a compromised position (you’ll recall I was in the bathroom at the time), and yelling was the only option available if I was to save her life. Experienced cat people just chuckled as they read that sentence. Yelling at cats is about as effective as shouting “turn off!” at a running faucet. As soon as I was able, I scooped her up and away from her new culinary delight. Little gossamer strands stuck to her whiskers and she purred in contentment.

Disturbingly, this became a pattern. Coalette follows me into the bathroom, seeks and destroys all spider webs by ingesting them. I try to convince myself that it must not be harmful, because she seems hale and hearty enough. But then… maybe she just hasn't happened on one of the poisonous spiders yet. I am thankful, though confused, by the fact that she only eats webs in bathrooms. What does it all mean??

Over the course of a few days the situation has become stressful enough to me that I thoroughly de-web all three bathrooms. With a certain amount of smugness, I watch her the next time she prowls a bathroom, looking for her new favorite snack food. She makes a few circuits of the room, and then settles into a corner and begins to lick the baseboards free of dust. It isn't idle tasting mind you, she is licking the baseboards as though it were her job.

*sigh*

Call in the team of kitty psychiatrists.

Hieronymus Bosch action figures

2007-04-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

I am chuffed; the sun is shining, the birds singing, and I've received my first un-imaginary blog comments!

how do you know they are un-imaginary, blogAnon?

*shoulders sag* Crap. Is that a cloud passing in front of the sun? And where did all the birds go? Time passes as I doubt. I thought I'd put all that imaginary blogging behind me! But then, aha! In a flash, I know with certainty those comments were absolutely, positively un-imaginary. And the proof? It's simple. I'm just not clever enough to have made foosa's witty paradox remark. Perhaps paradoxically, my lack of cleverness brings a smile to my face. I have two authentic blog comments after all, damn it!

On to business. Yesterday, as I was sprucing up the place with links to my favorite authors and artists, I happened on something ever so cool. Parastone, a company located in the Netherlands, creates a series of miniatures inspired by paintings by artists like Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Breughel the Elder, and Salvador Dali. Parastone refers to their pieces as "sculptures," and a museum store in the US called them "figurines" (eeks—visions of Hummels!). However, since they are mass-produced from resin (which is basically plastic, right?) I'm thinking of them as action figures. ;-)

But no matter what you want to call them, you need to check out Parastone's site to see the entire line! Aren't they the best? They are like McFarlanes for intellectual and/or artistic snobs. Oh, and just so you can feel really superior to the unwashed masses, you pay about twice as much as you would for one of those low-brow McFarlane figs.

Since it's unlikely you've bothered to click on any of the convenient links above (yeah, I'm talking to you), here's a picture of one of the Parastone Bosch figures next to a detail from Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights so you are forced to ponder its coolness:

I want them all.

an imaginary blog

2007-04-06T11:32:00.000-04:00

I have been posting to an imaginary blog for about a year. However, it has recently been brought to my attention that modern search engines are as yet unable to trawl our biological neural networks. Imaginary blog posts cannot be found in a Google search!

I see the shock writ large upon your face. I share your dismay and sense of betrayal. Those pithy, insightful, and at times life-altering revelations of mine? Lost forever.

Oh no. Now you look positively gloomy. Please cheer up. Let the sunshine in. Turn your frown upside down! It has been boldly suggested that I begin anew and create an un-imaginary blog. That would make it a real blog, right? If not, then I am off to a very shaky start. I'd hate to find myself in the same pickle another year from now. Isn't that a splendid idea? No, forget about the pickle, silly. I mean isn't the un-imaginary blog concept brilliant?

But before putting this whole imaginary blog debacle behind me, I want to point out that I was not the only person taken for a ride on this one. No way, baby. Just do a Google search on "imaginary blog" and check out the hits.

Oh hell, you aren’t going to do it, are you? Egad, people used to wake before sunrise, plow the fields all day, beat their clothes clean on river rocks, and go to bed hungry. Nowadays you ask someone to waggle their fingers a bit while they sit comfortably in a climate controlled environment, and they turn all "as if" on you. *sigh* Here’s a link for the "imaginary blog" search, Lazy Bones. At any rate… as of 6 April 2007, there were about 28,700 hits for the term "imaginary blog". It would seem that imaginary blogging is the snake oil of the 21st century! Certainly a 60 Minutes exposé is in the works. Just remember, you heard it here first.

So long as I am exposing tech-related hoaxes—what’s up with Google’s convention of rounding off results over 1,000 (as in "Results 1 - 10 of about 28,700 for 'imaginary blog'")? Come on, people! The word "about" has no business in a computer’s vocabulary! Am I right? Google knows precisely how many results there are—don’t let ‘em tell you otherwise. *sniffs the air cautiously* Uh-oh. Could that be the foul stench of the Patriot Act? Or is it that even our computers have become lazy and are essentially telling us "screw you, I’m tired of counting and you're too stupid to know the difference anyway"?

oh my… *fans self* I really must apologize for the wellspring of negativity. From whence did it come? And for that matter, when did I start using the word "whence"? Satan get thee behind me! Rest assured that this will not be the norm. Please join me again tomorrow (or thereabouts) as the bright, shiny, search-engine friendly, and wholly optimistic future of the un-imaginary blog begins!