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It's all spinning wheels & self-doubt until the first pot of coffee.

2025 Week 50

TL;DR: Missed home during work travel, managed Catsby's 7 medications with 3D-printed organizers, got deeply affected by two books about outsiders and robots, accidentally won at Fortnite twice, set up the BBS ADVENT calendar, and collected musical earworms.

Metablogging

I'm still puttering with the format in these posts. There's a lot here - I'm trying to remix & repurpose bookmarks and posts from throughout the week. And I was thinking about adding more about reading and music. That ends up being more stuff than I expected. Maybe going back to a few smaller posts every day or two would work better, even if I just ended up spewing them out at day's end? Hard to get a daily habit going though.

Cat Updates

On weekends lately, I've been sleeping in a lot. It is, alas, illegal to get up when Catsby is snuggled up and comfortable. During the week, though, I was away for a work trip. So, no naps with my cat. But, I got updates from home.

A sleeping cat (Catsby) curled up on a red bedspread, with a quilt and pillows in a cozy room. Light filters through wooden blinds, and a wooden door is visible in the background.

An orange and white cat (Catsby) is curled up and sleeping on a red bed, with a white blanket partially covering it. The background features wooden elements and light streaming in from a nearby window.

A cat walks along a pink patterned rug in a narrow hallway. The walls are painted green, and there is wooden trim and flooring visible. The hallway leads to a doorway in the background.

An orange cat is standing on a wooden floor, wearing a harness and leash. It appears to be looking back, with a toy in its mouth. Nearby, there is a small table with a lamp, a bowl, and some items on display.

A ginger and white cat is partially visible under a piece of furniture, holding an orange toy in its mouth. The floor is wooden, and there is a pink quilted item on the left side of the image.

A ginger and white cat sits on a wooden floor, near a toy mouse. In the background, there is a chair on wheels and a partially visible bed or blanket. A power cord and a fan are also present in the scene.

Three cats are lounging on a white blanket. One orange-and-white cat is sitting upright on the left, while a fluffy gray cat and another white-and-orange cat are sleeping curled up on the right. Colorful pillows are stacked in the background.

And here's an especial flashback to 2017 with Cosmo kitten & Catsby big bro posing for their album cover:

Two cats are sitting on a windowsill. One is primarily white with light orange markings and a yellow collar. The other is mostly orange with white and has a green collar. There are colorful curtains in the background and a small potted plant nearby.

We're trying to keep Catsby as healthy and comfortable as possible in whatever time we have left with him. Right now, that means a regimen of 7 different medications, split between AM and PM doses. Each one needs to be whole or 1/2 or 1/4 of a pill. All of them cause him to foam at the mouth if any touch his tongue.

So far, what's been working to keep it consistent and easy are these two 3D-printed pill organizers and lots of empty gelatin capsules. I do all the pill cutting, then repackage everything into neutral capsules that seem to bypass his sensitivity. The combo's been giving him rather good days, so it's been worth it.

Two circular containers, one orange and one purple, are displayed on a wooden surface. Each container has compartments filled with small variously colored pills. A white plastic screw sits beside each container.

Additional view of the pill containers

BBS for the Holidays

I'm 11 days late, but I finally got the MiSTiGRiS ADVENT calendar running on bbs.decafbad.com 🎉 (It's under Games & Apps (X), Favorites (1), MiSTiGRis Advent (6)). My BBS is enormously neglected, but every now and then I remember it and do something fun.

ADVENT calendar menu screen

ADVENT calendar art

ADVENT calendar interface

More ADVENT calendar art

Accidental Fortnite Champion

Like I mentioned last week, I've been playing Fortnite again. The dopamine's held out longer than I expected!

I even got a Victory Royale. Figures it'd happen when I was doing everything but trying. I spent a good 15 minutes driving around the island in cars honking the horn repeatedly. Also rode a hot air balloon around for a while. Then all of a sudden there were 3 people left and I ran the other two over while they were in an intense firefight.

I'm not saying I'm actually good at the game—I'll probably never repeat this. But I am also that guy who tried to get the Splatter Spree medal as often as possible in Halo by mowing everyone down zooming around in a Ghost.

The next day? Another Victory Royale. This time, I was hiding in a bush like a coward and a Godzilla came sliding into the bush with me. So, I shot Godzilla in the ass and he exploded. 🎺🎺🎺

Reading

I skipped a work function this week to hide in my hotel room and stave off a nascent migraine. While hiding, I read The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners by Rami Kaminski MD in one sitting.

All the validation made me weepy. Later I downloaded my Kindle highlights to Obsidian and apparently captured half the dang book (6,664 words, 41,529 characters).

Then at the airport, I finished reading Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz in basically a single go. That got me teary again, desperately hungry for noodles, and wanting merch. The story of noodle-making robots and found family hit me right in the feelings.

Music

I just last night realized that it's Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly of The Breeders singing on "You and Your Sister" from This Mortal Coil's album "Blood"? Like, I always thought the voices sounded familiar, but I never looked the song up? 😱

Also, while listening to DJSlave1 on Twitch, "Sin" by NIN came on. There was the line "I gave you my purity, and my purity you stole" and I was like wait, which is it Trent? Did you give it or did I steal it? Is this like an inverse cake-and-eat-it-too scenario?

I've seen so many drum solos from Neil Peart. I'll never get tired of seeing drum solos from Neil Peart. Here's one more where he "blew the roof off the dump" on Letterman:

And, finally, having "HERE COMES THE HURRICANE, BITCH! KATRINA KATRINA KATRINA" stuck in my head apropos of nothing before a work function makes for a challenging headspace to simulate a professional persona for the day.

Miscellanea

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