Monster Cat reminds us that Freedom is to be treasured - Freedom from Tyranny, Freedom from Religious Oppression, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Plastic Cones around our Heads.

It was a little over a year ago that he went through the hilarious yet traumatizing ordeal from which this comic was born. I’m not sure the actual anniversary is important since Monster Cat didn’t become a regular comic until January of this year, but it’s interesting to note that every once in a while Tennyson still walks with a rather pronounced limp. It doesn’t last more than a few steps usually so I’m not worried. He could be just a little stiff from time to time… or he could be faking it for attention.

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I’m sure this will be going straight to Mr. Paw’s head.

Exciting observations about the trip? Traffic was light - the volume of cars seemed slightly lower. I didn’t get hung up in miles and miles or hours and hours of traffic in the usual spots between Philadelphia and Maine. Also, there were many fewer speed demons on the road. Usually I seem to see a lot of idiots doing 80-90 mph on any given highway. This trip I was often the fastest thing on the road at 65-75 mph. I was not driving for ideal gas mileage. It’s hard to talk myself into saving a few cents when I have a long drive ahead of me. Note the 7.5 hour trip from Maine to Philadelphia on the way home - sure, I didn’t hit any significant traffic snags but I also didn’t dawdle at rest stops or putter along at 55 mph on the highway.

The road trip math came out something like this:

1067 total miles driven
42.302 gallons of gas purchased
25 miles per gallon in the 1998 all-wheel-drive Subaru Imprezza
$171.02 spent on gas
~$25 spent on tolls (approximate because EZ Pass is my friend)

Gas prices were best in New Jersey at $3.989 on the Garden State Parkway coming home. I paid $3.999 per gallon in Brattleboro, Vermont on Friday. Prices in Windham, Maine were okay at $4.099. And the price at home at the cheapest station went from $4.079 when I left up to $4.159 when I got home. (Holiday week increase perhaps?)

I brought my own water and road food (most of which was very healthy!) so that reduced my number of stops as well as the amount of money I spent on food at rest stops. I think the only food I bought was lunch on the way home yesterday - $8 on pizza at Sbarro’s at the north end of the Garden State Parkway.

All in all, I would estimate this trip cost me about $30 more than it did in December 2007. Gas has gone up, some tolls have gone up, food prices in the rest stops have gone up. However, with all the hype about gas prices, I was expecting the increase to be much larger. I fell into that media trap, I guess! I love to drive but I’m still very lucky that I just don’t have to drive much.

But seriously - if you’re planning to drive to Pennsic, gas prices are about $1 higher this summer than they were last summer. If I were going in my car, the Pennsic trip would only cost me about $14 more each way from Drexel Hill to Butler, PA. That definitely sucks but it’s a lot less scary than the media makes it out to be.

Your Mileage May Vary.

Opening August 22nd: there’s a (sort-of) remake of Death Race 2000 coming called Death Race. There’s a trailer up here. And yes, that’s Jason Statham, saint of driving and eternal hotness. It looks like they’re spending a good chunk of money on this remake/sequel and the trailer actually shows promise. I won’t be getting my hopes up too high though - it’s unlikely that Death Race will jump from “Death by Double-Feature” to “international blockbuster”. It does look like it’s going to be fun and explosive.

Jason Statham really does do a lot of driving movies, doesn’t he? Transporter 3 is in post-production according to IMDB, as is Crank 2: High Voltage. (Okay, I admit to having contributed to the box office success of the terrible movie that was Crank, but it mostly because it involved Jason Statham. I probably won’t spring for Crank 2 in the theater.) And finally, The Brazillian Job, the third movie in The Italian Job series, was announced a few weeks ago. (The Bank Job, out earlier this year, didn’t actually involve much driving but it was a hoot.)

So Mr. Paw is taking a quick break from his grueling interview schedule to do a little grooming. He really does love being brushed, though he doesn’t always cooperate in a way that’s actually helpful. It’s hard being a cat in a big fur coat all summer around here! Now he has put himself directly behind my (rolling) desk chair, sprawled on his side as spread as possible. Always the clever lounger, he is aligned perfectly with the fan.

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I arrived in Drexel Hill, PA at 3:00 p.m.

I love my car.

My car is mostly unpacked, my office air conditioner is on, and the next order of business is to switch from sneakers to sandals.

There will be a fuller accounting later.

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

What’s a superhero without a sidekick? Okay, yes, there have definitely been some. A lot, perhaps. But anyway, that’s not the point. I guess we’ll see what Monster Cat comes up with for options.

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It may be time for breasts to start pulling their own weight.

This week a very interesting topic came up in the Technology section of Slate: Breast Power! No, nothing like that… get your minds out of the gutters. We’re talking about green energy - harnessing the kinetic energy of the common breast! (Well, uncommon breast since you would probably need larger-than-average breast to make efficient use of the hypothetical system.) “Victoria’s Circuit: Harnessing the untapped power of breast motion” is both an amusing and technical article. Our future will probably come from this type of daydreaming about better ways than plugging into the grid to get energy. And if that future includes turning my breasts into a power plant, well, finally they’ll be making up for the high cost of quality bras.

“Per sotto, per farli combaciare,” meaning: “For the hair down there…to make it match.”

So here’s something I never thought of doing: coloring the “hair down there” (as the Betty Beauty website cutely calls it) pink or blue or any other color. The blue is specifically marketed to brides for their “something blue.” Personally, I imagine it would be a hoot to surprise one’s spouse on the wedding night with neon blue… and the options for embellishing are extensive. Betty Beauty also sells “CharmCils” for shaping the “hair down there”. I think it would hilarious to see the look on some guy’s face when suddenly a bright pink peace sign is unveiled where there was nothing but natural before.

It’s probably telling that I look at color for the “hair down there” as a means to mess with a significant other rather than a means to achieve sexy hotness. No, I will not be doing a product review.

[All links in this post are safe for work… assuming you don’t mind getting caught surfing frivolous hair color sites and Slate at work.]

I noticed the ad last week when dreda linked the video. I went back today and somewhat unsurprisingly… it’s still there. Google Ads is useful and pervasive, but there’s a reason a lot of big advertisers don’t want to take the chance of advertising on pages containing "user-generated content"…

So kudos to the McCain campaign for trying to reach out to the small donors one might find randomly on the Internet… but a bonk in the head for not doing it quite right. It did make me giggle a lot, so thanks guys. Oh, and when I was done giggling, I marveled at how some people stay employed.

YouTube Video pictured above - it is not safe for work and contains offensive language: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo

As a random coda to this story, this morning I received a junk IM from a known spam source that simply said, “John McCain is aware of the Internet!”

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That’s right… my video card died. Annoying and money I didn’t really want to spend, but it could have been so much worse. This is actually the first real maintenance I’ve had to do to my desktop Mac in 3.5 years. (Okay, I did upgrade to Tiger last year sometime and I repaired a problem with the hard drive on Thursday night, but the latter was an attempt to fix what turned out to be the video card. I haven’t actually pulled over my iPhoto library from my backup drive yet since the versions don’t match. I’m hoping to get through the next bunch of episodes with what I can shoot in the next few days. Of course, I’m going away the end of this week and will need to line up some extra episodes in advance… Good thing I enjoy a challenge.

And don’t think Monster Cat won’t mock *YOU* if you don’t do your back-ups regularly and get bitten in the but for it.

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The plan for today was to draft a pattern on junk fabric for the viking apron dress I want to make for Pennsic.

Unfortunately, the video card in my desktop went kaput sometime over night. For the record, a Mac desktop tower is very heavy. Carrying it through the Mall was rather foolish and I have the bruises on my forearms to prove it. It turns out the Apple Store has a loading dock - I’ll use that next time, really. Anyway, so the Mac Genius confirmed my suspicions about the video card. Unfortunately, there are a limited number of cards still available for my Mac since it’s 3.5 years old. They’ve ordered one for me and expect to have my Mac all happy and fixed within the week, but probably later rather than earlier. *sigh* Luckily my laptop is almost as cool and I have back ups of most of my data so I can do almost everything on the laptop until I get the desktop back.

I admit, I almost didn’t repair it. I’m saving for a new desktop but, as with every major purchase in my life, I’d been having 2nd thoughts because my desktop really is chugging along nicely for what I do on it. I just can no longer do as much at once. I think if I slap another 2 gb of RAM in it though… and maybe another external hard drive… Much cheaper than any new Mac.

To console myself for the loss of my Mac and most of my afternoon, I came home and made a plate tomatoes and mozzarella with basil.

Alas, I do NOT have a backup of my photos for the past month. I need to take a lot of photos of Mr. Paw this weekend to ensure I have enough material for the next 5 or 6 episodes of Monster Cat. Luckily, I didn’t have any plans for adorable kitten flashbacks again until late summer.

I did plant a rosemary plant I’d picked up earlier this week. I also got to play with the hose and water the raised beds. And I cleaned my desk a bit and vacuumed my office. These things were technically in my plans for the weekend, so I guess the day isn’t a total loss.

Yes, I’ve been traveling a bit the past week or so. Don’t tell Mr. Paw, but I’m leaving again next weekend for a few days on a road trip. He’s already chimed in on one conference call this morning… if he finds out I’m traveling again so soon he won’t leave me in peace!

Of course, now that I’m off the phone, he’s snoozing quietly on the rug. So cute, almost innocent and sweet, but I know he is just waiting for me to get on the phone again so he can “help” with our next meeting.

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• Finding out information too late to save time for yourself and others. Twice.
• Having to force people to answer your questions directly rather than deflect. Twice.
• Getting stuck on an annoying, soul-sapping conference call without much hope for extraction.
• Not having any tasty pudding-yogurt left for lunch.
• Needing to go grocery shopping desperately.
• Being exhausted and fearing the grocery store and therefore procrastinating it. (good and bad really)

Bonus round that almost makes up for the day:
I put in the deposit for our new yurt. It’ll be ready in a couple weeks! Sadly, we’re only getting it in time for Pennsic because someone else had to drop out of the yurt queue… but at least we can give their yurt a happy home!

• Beautiful weather
• Not getting caught speeding on the way to the airport (rental Subaru + no traffic = fun… it was an accident, I swear)
• Free wireless Internet at the Providence airport (FREE!)
• An e-mail from the new yurt guy (we should be able to get a new yurt for Pennsic!)
• An on-time departure of my flight (remarkable!)
• A rather exciting, high-speed landing… also on-time
• Finding my car in the parking garage with no trouble
• Popcorn for dinner (shhhhh! don’t tell!)
• Dairy Queen for dessert
• Home

Bonus round:
Indicator #31 that summer has arrived: the soft, smoky smell of questionable substances wafting across the street from the group of teens hanging out on the church steps.

Poor Tenny - I really did tease him. Sunday night we got home from Las Vegas after midnight. Monday afternoon I left again for Connecticut. I will be home again tonight sometime after 9 pm, so hopefully he won’t feel too neglected. I’m bracing myself for a monster glare when I get home…

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New England is finishing out a lovely springtime. Last night the weather was gorgeous. Just before dusk the air was gently insistent with an impending thunderstorm. It was fabulous and then there was an amazing thunderstorm. Awesomeness.

I had Chinese food last night - I love my happy tofu. Fortune cookie duo of entertainment:

You are more likely to give than give in.
Let hatred turn into friendship because of your existence.

The fortune cookie factory apparently believes me to be some sort of powerhouse of nice. I can deal with that I guess.

Sorry to spring such adorableness on you on a Monday… oh wait, no I’m not sorry. If it’s any consolation, this is one of the comics I finished before going to Vegas when I should have been sleeping or remembering what I forgot to pack.

(It’s technically Monday, so this episode is going up early to make up for the late posting on Friday. Yes, we’re back from Vegas. No, we are NOT married. We did see 2 Elvi and many other fabulous things. I think i should go fall down now.)

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat