Je suis un espion mauvais

Does anyone remember that commercial—where the tourist is in France and can’t speak French? He is in a police station, trying to look everything up in his French-to-English dictionary, and tells the policeman ‘Je suis un espion’? It was hilarious. Not that I remember what it was advertising, or anything. It’s really not a leap; it’ll make sense in a few minutes…

Butsoanyway.

I am having to fight to get some things done for a meeting tomorrow; it’s not hard, but it *is* tedious. Very tedious—rather like counting grains of sand, which is oddly appropriate, seeing as how right about now I am feeling like the mama of all vampires; I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in…christ—a week? Longer?

All of my pets are just fine, though Squooshable is feeling a little subdued (he’s actually coming up from feeling subdued in the past few hours), ‘cos the day before yesterday he spewed everywhere, and I realised he’d been eating hair (mine) again. I guess I’d become negligent about how well I cleaned my drains. So he barfed it all up, but I gave him Laxastat for two days in a row just to make sure it all came out one end of Squooshable or the other. :-) So he was pooping a lot though by this point, as often as he gets it, Mr Squoosh probably thinks Laxastat is one of the five main food groups. Along with Squooshchow, hair, Kitty Kissers, and rubber toys, of course. Silly cat.

I explained this in a comment, but comments don’t count, so: I stuck a tirade about Clavamox (and if anyone reading it knows better, PLEASE correct me—let me know somehow, and I will fix whatever I have wrong) down there because I hadn’t checked my hits in months (I originally started tracking them to see if anyone from Eviljob had wandered onto my blog, either by keywords or IP), and when I checked I saw that I had a large amount of hits regarding Clavamox turning bad because it was left out. And just like I cannot sleep thinking about Little Scruffly One being out there right now (but the gated complex is currently locked), I can also not sleep thinking about someone surfing the Internet and deciding to give their cat bad Clavamox ‘cos they’re confused about what they are reading (and I have to believe that if they are wandering here, it’s because they aren’t finding an answer elsewhere). And I do know that I sound bossy, but that’s how I sound when I am not joking; I have to do it intentionally. It’s one of the (many) drawbacks to having a ‘sweet’ voice (no, I am not trying to sound conceited, just aware of my limitations; I can do ‘diplomatic’ just fine—doing ‘serious’ or ‘urgent’ requires barking out orders and sounding like a bitch) and therefore having no one realise when I am being deadly serious and not offering any options for behaviour. :-) DO NOT GIVE YOUR CAT BAD CLAVAMOX! DID I STUTTER? {giggle}

And I admit that I have my own blonde moments, like last year—I was (I think) too embarrassed at the time to blog about this one—when I mis-read the expiration date on Squoosh’s Clavamox (it looked just fine, I am simply insane and unreasonable at times; I am overly-cautious, and that has its good and bad points, I guess. This was a bad point). The box had the expiry date of something like 04/06, which I (mis-) read as DD/MM, or 4 June of—of course—2005. ‘SHIT!’ I thought, ‘this stuff is expired!’ And so I phoned Dr Vet and told them that they had given me an expired box of Clavamox, and I was on my way to pick up a new one. Dr Vet is VERY fastidious and particular about that (which should have been a clue, but no…I am the living definition of a version of penny-wise and pound-foolish at times), and he got on the phone himself and asked me to please bring the box, ‘cos he was going to find out who let that slip. Oblivious to my own stupidity, I hustled over there and was given a new box they’d just mixed at no charge. Dr Vet came out to get the ‘expired’ box, and I looked at the new one at the same time; it had the same date—04/06 (or whatever). Still in the throes of retardation, I told them that this box was expired as well; Dr Vet looked at it and as he opened his mouth to explain (as one would to a really, really, REALLY stupid person) how to read an expiration date, it suddenly hit me: That’s MM/YY, not DD/MM. God, I am so stupid.

Of course I paid them for the new box. And at least Dr Vet had a good laugh over me (yet again).

Butsoanyway.

I found a website that has a gicunda list of Hawaiian names: Gicunda Hawaiian Name List

Okay, so I am not creative.

Now—back to Squoosh for a second: he is so cute! Whenever I put the Laxastat on him, I hold him like a baby, and put it on his paw (he won’t eat it voluntarily); he just holds his paw still while I do this with one hand, so accepting, with this look of, ‘oh, no…not again.’ But he doesn’t pull away, squirm, or give me any crap about it. I love that little baby! And I found out today that Squooshable can count! No, I am not kidding. He can count to four, and I know this because I give him vitamins (from Dr Vet’s—PetTabs, or something), only they are too big for his little Squooshmouth, so I break them up into fourths. Well, I wasn’t paying attention when I set the quarters down on the counter, and one rolled off—neither Squoosh nor I saw it drop (I know he didn’t, because he would have just jumped down and eaten it if he’d seen it), and after he ate the three quarters, he looked up at me, expectantly. And I had *no* idea what he wanted, so I gave him a Liver Kitty Kisser and told him he was a good cat. He ate that, and went back to looking at me expectantly. I knew he had food, so I gave up, turned around, and stepped (barefooted) on his last vitamin quarter. I didn’t smoosh it, so I picked it up and gave it to him—once he’d eaten it, he quit looking at me like, ‘Hey! You forgot!’, jumped off the counter, and ran off to play.

Now I’m an empiricist, so I might try this again, but this event was totally hypothesis-worthy. I think my Squooshable might be able to count to four.

‘One…two…three…wait a damn minute! Hey! You’re gypping me on food here!’

:-)

And—just as a side quickie, ‘cos I got all sidetracked looking up something in a one-thing-leads-to-another way and was reminded of this: Curiouser and curiouser!

Viral marketing is a good guess, but that’s a huge way to go for just any old viral marketing. Another Beast is of course what I’m hoping. Heh—as if I had time for a Beast anymore. And that’s just my personal daydreaming, anyway. Blinkenlights sounds most believable, however. Relatively boring (in comparison to the more exciting possibilities), but believable. And of course Blinkenlights would deny it; should they admit it, any planning they’ve put into it is then worthless, ‘cos they’ve lost everyone’s attention because the ‘mystery’ has been solved…uhhh, duh. Let’s, though, be realists about this; it’s cool to think about and play with, but probably isn’t anything.

Though it *is* very exciting. Well, in a wholly fantasy-driven way. :-D And there is a fourth one. But in the spirit of adventure, who knows—it could be some idiot trying to play Fidrmuc. If that is the case, that’s not too very bright, but it could be. And in that case, see? It’s *good* I have no free time, else I’d be offering to be Ostro 4.

Ummm…dog’s barking, can’t fly without umbrella? Don’t worry; I’ll get the hang of it soon. I *am* the inventor of ROT26, after all. :-D

Oh, shaddap; I believe in being up-front and honest, even in war. Plus, it’s marvellously easy to remember; I can reduce training time to mere minutes with my cipher!

‘Lookit; I’ll phone you, and tell you—ok? Or I might send it by mail—got it?’

See? Simplicity itself.

I am *so* easily amused…just rent an anonymous phone line, hook up an answering machine, play numbers station crap, and I’m your hopelessly-fascinated bitch.

Sad, iddnit? What's really sad is that I just found out that in all the time I haven't had to keep up with this, it done got solved. Well, the third one, at least. How...mundane and boring. I need thrills.

Ok…it’s really time for sleep.

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Update (after the post above, but...what the hell--who's actually keeping track of all this brilliance?)

Back to this, then; the more I am thinking about it, the more I am thinking that it's most probably something like a Fud student (spelt phonetically, of course) doing something really similar to what I am suggesting in the above post--looking at the collective approach to solving this problem. Maybe the message is gibberish, maybe it isn't. But one could write the aforementioned Beast into your DURR (governing body which is charged with approving Stuff Like This) paperwork as an example of how this has been done before with (insert appropriate word that means teeny tiny here) risk, and as an example of why, erm...obfuscation is necessary, and etc...

Looking at what, though? I dunno. Maybe looking at the approach being taken, not the results. Maybe looking at the limit for frustration, max of interest given the lack of immediate reward/feedback, limits of patriotism, use of the medium as a secure channel...I don't know. Yet. But I am still thinking about it.

As if I could not. Right. Sure.

I think the *why* is a key issue here.

I currently am in a maximally boring meeting, but at least I don't have to worry about anyone looking over my shoulder. Yay. :-D I had to laugh out loud that the first email I've received today begins, 'You are indeed a peculiar and interesting woman. ; )'

Ok, that's funny. And no; I try to be normal. I really, really do.

No, really!

Oh, shaddap.

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