cats are funny people

Is nostalgia good or bad?

The real answer is probably both.

I will say this, though, it seems to grow more potent as you get older. This makes sense, as you have longer to look back, and more chances to trigger that nostalgia. I find this is especially true of music, since I probably bought more music in my 20s than at any other point in my life. I was in my 20s from 1984 to 1994, so the music of that era can send me off in a reverie pretty quickly1Excluding excessively cheesy synths and that weird snap drum sound that sounds extremely 19080s now.. Also, this decade saw the rise of rap, hip hop, grunge and R.E.M. probably my favourite band.

I may have more on this later. In the meantime, have a cat:

I love this cat

Once upon a time on a forum I used to post to regularly, someone posted something that was absurd in that way that makes you stop and stare, as if you have witnessed an accident where you can’t quite figure out what happened.

In response, I found and posted this animated GIF. It’s just about perfect, really.

Happy Friday the 13th!

I’m not superstitious–at least about numbers or dates–and it’s pretty weird when you think about how people can be spooked by a certain date falling on a particular day.

But people are pretty weird as a rule.

More importantly, Friday the 13th gives me the perfect excuse to post an image of a scary black cat!

Well, scary-ish. Okay1I still can’t decide whether to type OK or okay. Maybe I should do a poll on the internet., not really scary at all, but actually cute.

October cat

Yes, when all else fails, it’s time for cats. Fortunately, the internet is filled with them.

The pleasant fall weather is looking to pause for a few days beginning tomorrow. Pausing is still better than six months of The Rains, though.

Prime Day shmime day!

When Amazon started its “Prime Day” deal a few hundred internet years ago, it was obvious what would happen if it became a success:

  • Amazon would expand it to be more than just a single day to better milk it. (Done. It’s now spread over two days.)
  • Other stores/sites would shamelessly copy it and cleverly call their versions something different (“48-Hour Sales Event”, “Black Friday in July”) but you totally know it’s their version of “Prime Day.” (Done. Two-day sales are everywhere now during Amazon’s event.)
  • Amazon would start to make the deals worse because now they have the inertia and know people are going to look and buy, anyway. They’d also start making it harder to get good deals by making them time-limited (even within the two days of the sale) or require you to reserve a spot to qualify to give them your money. (Done and done.)
  • Every tech (and many other) sites would report on “Prime Day” as if it were legitimate news. It is not legitimate news. (Done x1 billion.)
  • A lot of those same tech (and other sites) would be filled with articles on the “best deals” for the entire two days, crowding out more interesting content. Or just any content. (Done. My favourite punching bag, engadget, has 17 hits for “prime day” on its main page–which actually seems on the low side!) EDIT: Just for fun, The Verge has 10 hits, Ars Technica has 2.
  • I would complain about “Prime Day” in a blog post and refuse to write it without surrounding it with quotation marks, implying I’m saying it with sarcasm. (Boy howdy, done!)

Here is an image of a prime cat for your viewing pleasure:

A small list of symptoms: Day 9 of Whatever this is

Mentally, I feel I am mostly recovered from this flu/hell I’ve been suffering from, and my energy level is mostly back, too. For posterity, here are the lingering symptoms I’m still feeling nine days after the plague hit me:

  • Nose is still slightly stuffed up
  • Chest is still slightly congested
  • Ears are still slightly plugged

It is all slightly annoying, which is a vast improvement over last Sunday where my brain felt like it was in some kind of hell fog, while my body felt like it was alternately on fire or being plunged into invisible ice, all coupled with the ability to only sleep uninterrupted for minutes at a time. That was fun!

Anyway, here is a glorious kitten battle: