Cat Reality TV Show

From the BBC

Ten cats are competing to find their perfect owner on a reality TV programme being shown in the US.

The feline competitors, who all come from animal shelters or rescue groups, are being filmed in a New York shop window until 23 June.

As on Big Brother, the cats will have to complete tasks, and will be graded on purring and catching toy mice.

Call Me

Fabio wants to phone you. All you have to do is enter some bullshit information. I didn’t actually get to the call part as it would difficult to explain to my lady why a former romance cover model was calling me you should give it a try.

My favorite line from the process was when I reached the point at which I was to fill in the information about State. Fabio growled. "Which state do you live in? Me? I live in a state of euphoria."

Wii!!!!

If you want to find me this weekend I’ll waving my arms wildly in front of Nintendo Wii. Seeing as it was damn near impossible to find the thing I ended up paying a little too much on eBay for it. But come on, it’s the only video game system I’ve drooled over since I saved up my flyer route money when I was a kid to buy the original Nintendo. The good thing is that anyone who plays the thing, gamer or not, wants one immediately. Toot toot!! Next stop: Nerd city.

Man’s Work

Ashley Hames is back in a new series called Man’s Work. In an article in The Guardian he writes:

I am a 35-year-old bloke who drifts through life. But I have spent the past six months travelling the world, taking on some of the toughest and most "manly" jobs known to, well, man. I have battled the elements on a king crab fishing expedition in the Baring Sea, fought fires in Canada and in the Australian bush, and joined the Colombian police force in their fight against drugs. I have been an opal miner, gaucho cowboy, football manager and a crime scene cleaner.

Why? Because men like me have lost sight of what it means to be a man. I wanted to discover what man’s work really is and find out what real men are like. I wanted to know what it was like to do a hard day’s work, to break a sweat and experience true job satisfaction. It was also, if I’m honest, a chance for me to grow up a little and bring some substance into my life, having done little of real merit or note in my career to date.

I’ve been a fan of Ashley Hames since he did the series Sin Cities a few years ago. It was a fantastic show and still airs on Showcase in Canada late Friday evenings. Man’s Work is similar in the sense that he puts himself in a different kind of perilous situations; like being an Alaskan king crab fisherman – a job so dangerous that on each trip 1 in 200 will not return or an anti-narcotics officer on the streets of Columbia. That being said, any man who allow his body to be grievously harmed for the sake of entertainment is either very brave or quite mental. I think he’s a little of both. You have to be.

Man’s Work is currently airing on Bravo in the UK and on the Outdoor Life Network in Canada. If you want to catch a glimpse, you can watch episodes in a tiny, tiny window from the Bravo site.

My Funny Valentine

From Mark Steyn’s article on the song "My Funny Valentine":

Likewise, we’ll never know how Richard Rodgers hit upon climbing an octave higher for the dramatic climax of the lyric yet avoided the usual big-note bombast and instead captured all the ache and yearning of the words: “Stay, little Valentine, stay!” A love song is a very fragile thing, and the false tinkle of the wrong word on the wrong note can tip the thing into absurdity. Perhaps that fine line is something you can only understand instinctively, but it doesn’t stop publishers cranking out a gazillion books on how to write smash hits with titles like If They Ask You, You Can Write A Song (that’s a Rodgers and Hart allusion, too).

Loosening the ropes

I’ve allowed registered users the ability to create polls and forum topics. For real. Look on the left-hand side under "create content". Be nice. Don’t be an asshole. I’ve also discoved you can add a profile image under "my account" so you can add a face to your entries or comments. Also, if anything isn’t working correctly, let me know.