sbukophile

Jack was cat of the week a while ago

Just so you don't think I have favored Niobe this whole time, Jack was also cat of the week on edhat a couple months ago. He's already much bigger and looks older than the photo.

Niobe was Cat of the Week on Edhat

During my self-imposed yet unannounced hiatus from blogging, Niobe made it onto Edhat as Cat of the Week! Don't worry, I am submitting Jack's photo as well--I don't play favorites--it's just so much harder to get good photos of Jack for some reason!

Answer to the weirdness with animals

Finally, I have a better image of what was going on with this guy--although "better" might not be the right word.  Maybe I missed the full details because I've cancelled my subscription to the Santa Barbara News-Press.  The "News-Press Mess" is constantly in the LA Times these days (here, here, here, etc.) and a frequent topic on Edhat and Craig Smith's blog. Craig certainly seems to have all the scoop on it!  One article that has me in utter disbelief is that Wendy McCaw's lawyers are telling Edhat to cease and desist linking to the free obituaries--and all without checking that the links were to a free section of their site!

Oh, and Vanity Fair even did an article on it this month--though it was the same issue as the Suri Cruise photos, which made it embarrassing for me when I purchased it because I didn't want people to think I was buying it because I HAD to see the photos of the little sprog (but of course that was the very next article I read after the one about the News-Press).  The booksellers at the register seemed to think that people were about evenly split on their reasons for buying that issue (I got the last issue in the Santa Barbara Borders!) 50-50 between Suri Cruise and the News-Press.

So, do me a favor, if you're living in or visiting Santa Barbara--PLEASE boycott the News-Press and do not buy it!  The owner is evil and I want the paper to fail if she is not willing to change the way things are being run.

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Changing topics again quite randomly, THIS is my all time favorite website to view (it's especially good if you are procrastinating).  I don't know WHY it's so fascinating to me.  I mean I've seen TV programs of wild animals.  But just the thought that the action is happening right now makes it so cool!  Last year I saw a lion on it.  Sometimes you just hear them roaring in the background.  It's kind of fun to have it on as background noise while you're working.

Then there are all the panda cub cams. The newest arrival is in Atlanta. The two cubs born last year are in D.C. and San Diego.  I was obsessed with them last year.

No cable tv for you!

The Ruggedly Handsome Husband and I do not have cable TV.  Nor do we even get any TV channels at all.  Of course we have the actual appliance, we just don't have it hooked up to anything but the DVD player.  I think a lot of people find this weird, except of course our friends who do the same thing.

We do however instead do Netflix. We found that having 5 DVDs out at a time is the right number for us.  When we first started with 3-at-a-time, we were quite often finding ourselves having none on the weekends, the time when we had the most free time to watch them!

We get to watch all kinds of TV shows still, just not right when they first come out.  We don't have to sit through commercials or anything though!  Also, there's the internet now for news and even entertainment, National Public Radio for news and interesting stories, and of course YouTube for interesting viewing.  Then there are my current favorites for local news and tidbits.

Quite honestly, it's very rare that we miss having cable.  The times that we miss it most are for the footie (soccer) games, and when two of my nephews stayed for a week for Surf Camp (we had to plan very carefully to select DVDs that would arrive in time for the age-appropriate viewing by two 11-year old boys with very different interests from each other--at least Surf Camp wore them out, so it didn't end up being a problem).

I have to admit, the other channels besides good soccer channels I would love to get would be HBO, BBC America, and the Animal Planet.  Of course those are all in different tiers so would cost us an arm and a leg to get--and we'd get all the other crap channels too.

The problem with all the other crap channels is, I can't help but turn on the TV and sit and watch the crap!  Even though I'm not interested in it!  So, at this point, it's better to miss some of those other things that we can see in other ways.