The Dream Quest of Unknown Me

I've come across two interesting ljers. One is ursulav who writes extremely funny posts often about her adventures in gardening which is really a foreign world to a city-dweller like me. The other is simplykimberly who has kittens!! Lots of cute kittens and the sad but heart-warming tale of Micro-kitty. As a catless ailurophile I'm in 7th heaven as I'm vicariously getting my feline fix.

Remember those reality shows where a bunch of people share living quarters and are slowly voted off? Well now Meow Mix has created Meow Mix House, a feline version airing on the Animal Planet. There are 10 cats from animal shelters and eventually one will become the MM cat while the others are adopted. I know it's really one glorified commercial but it's so purrfidiously cute.

In Greenwich Village, Molly, an eleven-month old cat, was rescued from the crawlspace where she'd been trapped for about 2 weeks (read more here). At times like these I just love humanity.

CHUM, a Canadian media conglomerate, is making a TV series called "Blood Ties" from Tanya Huff's Blood novels featuring Vicky Nelson, a private investigator and Henry Fitzroy, vampire and bastard son of Henry VIII (read more here). I have read and enjoyed the books and what intrigues me is that like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Comte de Saint-Germain, Henry Fitzroy actually existed and suffered from a mysterious end. I can just imagine other writers who would like an historical vampire scouring history books and googling for the perfect person to be "vampired" *g*.

There's a photographer named Gregory Colbert who has a show called Ashes & Snow with the most gorgeous photos of encounters between humans and animals. Take a look.

Well I've been web-surfing and I found 2 sites with "Lost" timelines: here and here. They do help make sense of all the important trivia floating about.

With Tom Cruise and his Church so much in the news I found this very interesting site Operation Clambake: Undresssing the Church of Scientology Since 1996 and its very funny Scientology Illustrated. Is it just me or are there an awful lot of gullible people out there?

Sweet piccies of a baby monkey and stray kitten are to be found here

I just came across Cute Overload with a bounty of photos of cuddly hamsters, kittens, puppies and other adorable animals.

Just gakked this lj from dolnmoon. It's ted_the_cat another feline POV lj--how may are there out there? Any dogs? horses? wombats?

Once upon a time The Gordons wrote a book called Undercover Cat that Walt Disney turned into the original "That Darn Cat" with Hayley Mills. Now truth has copied art with a real "undercover cat" *g*. Read about it here.

I've been reading about Gohan and Aochan (here). Aochan is a 4-foot long rat snake and Gohan is a hamster who was placed in the snake's cage to be it's next meal. The snake decided not to eat the hamster and they have shared the cage ever since. A friend has a 5-foot long corn snake (close relative to the rat snake) and I cynically think that the hamster is simply too big for it to eat--at the moment. One day there may be a follow up announcement of Gohan's demise at the jaws of the snake. On the other hand I hope it's true, that it's a case of cross-species friendship--I love such stories whether it's hamster/snake, hippo/tortoise or human/vampire *g*

A very sweet fic is being written by spikes_heart and liliaeth. It's called Heartsongs. It's post-NFA and Spike has shanshued and become a human child growing up as Angel and Nina's adopted son. A lot of characters from both series are present. There's some plot and angst and schmoop and great writing. Check it out.

One of my cousins and I went to the New England Mobile Book Fair which is this humongous discount bookstore in the area to buy a couple of birthday presents for me. We saw this adorable children's book about Owen the baby hippopotamus orphaned by the tsunami and Mzee the tortoise who befriended him. It was such a sweet book that when we returned to my cousin's house I googled and found a couple of links: an e-book Owen & Mzee and a website of Lafarge Eco Systems, the park they're living in . I just love heart-warming stories like this. Check it out.

On Friday nights I often watch a couple of Britcoms Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By on PBS. The former features Hyacinth Bucket (she pronounces it Boo kay) as an infuriatingly pretentious social climber. I sit there picturing a postscript story where her husband Richard will finally break and strangle her and all the people he used to work with will say "But he was such a quiet man" and wonder what drove him to do it while all those who knew the couple would wonder how he was able to restrain himself for so long. Ideally Hetty Wainthropp would investigate with her Hobbit. BTW anyone else think think that Geoffrey Shawcross might have changed his name to Charlie Pace?
I adore "As Time Goes By" which stars Dame Judy Dench and a cast of actors who look amazingly like real people. It's a sweet little series made up of moments in the lives of these endearing characters focusing on a couple in their 60s and their relatives, none under 30 and some actually over 80.
I believe that unlike "Till Death Do Us Part" which became "All in the Family" and "Steptoe and Son" which became "Sanford and Son" these shows are untranslatable just like "Absolutely Fabulous" (I hear that Roseanne bought the rights years ago and to this day there's no sign of an American version). American shows tend to focus on the young and/or gorgeous so it's refreshing to see something a bit closer to reality.


If you're in a quirky mood go to the ljs of miroza_cat (The City Journal of an Irish Cat) written from a cat's POV and her apprentice shandri_cat.