Cameron on Fun and Safety

Hey, Cameron here.  After our Saturday post on the internet and cats, Buddy, Merci & Sam said they are going to do a post on the internet and dogs. So never fear rumpydog, the dogs are on the internet too.

The dogs think they're going to help us with world domination. heheheHA!

For the fun part of this post, I have a cute leaf-diving dog video for you.  My woofie siblings could never play like this because Jan is too lazy to make them a play pile.  When she gets around to it, she makes a big pile on the curb.  Well, what fun would it be to dive in one end and come out in front of a moving vehicle?  Jan just has no sense of fun for furries.


If the video doesn't play, click here.

It's never inappropriate to have a reminder about Internet safety.  Cat Patches recently posted a good piece on having gmail or blogger hacked - no, not how to do it but how to avoid being hacked - and we'd like to share the information with you.  It's called Thought You'd Want to Know. If you haven't read it yet, take a minute to drop by. You might learn something helpful.

The link to "this article" in Patches' post is to Computerworld and an ad will open before you can read the article, but it's okay, you're not hijacked. :)

We're in drought here and are finally getting some rain. Our weather radio is beeping about a bad storm coming so we're trying to finish up here. Rain is expected for the rest of the week. This is both good news and bad. We need the rain. But will Jan's clunker run in this weather without leaving her stranded?

If not, I guess she can hike to Wal-mart or Petsense and carry our food home. We have to eat and she needs more exercise. What better exercise than carrying a 36 - 40 pound bag on one shoulder and a 16 - 20 pound bag on the other? Jan is soooo lucky! What would she do for exercise without us?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Jan finally updated our jff designs blog yesterday. I don't know why she's complaining about enough hours in the day.  But she added 5 posts on Halloween so visitors can get a better idea of what they look like.  She's going to do some more posts today, if the weather cooperates.  Just click on "Halloween" in the tag list in the left sidebar.  If you like them, tel your friends.

Cats and the Internet

We decided to take Nikita of Opinionated Pussycats up on his challenge today to write a blog post on What is it about the Internet and cats?

The question was asked by a contributor of the popular site (although we'd never heard of it before) The Slacktiverse.

Well, we're a bit confused (a not unusual state for us around Jan). What's not about the Internet and cats? We're everywhere! As well we should be; we're just so darned awwww cute, innocent as American pie, cute as a button, floof and fur and ... did we mention all-fired cute?


We're playful and fun, as our lovely Cyndi demonstrates with the nip-scented candy corn toy Sam the dog ate, leaving only a tiny scrap of yarn and subsequent piles of vomit as evidence of its demise.

Like Jell-o, there's always room for one more of us. Our matriarch Cotton demonstrates how little room we take up.

We're self-confident, crafty and intelligent, often mistaken for being smug. Here is Rusty celebrating with a smile after putting one over on Jan. He convinced her he was sorry he misbehaved. And she fell for it. Again.

We're inquisitive, always checking out everything that comes in the yard or inside the house. If it's edible, it's ours. If it's not edible, it's still ours. This is Percy checking out the furry intruder Jan made from our fur for National Hairball Day. We decided not to claim this messy mass. Jan made it. She had to clean up after it.

We're photogenic. Notice we're photogenic but the photographer must have been tipsy. Jan cut off the top of Rusty's handsome head as Rusty poses with his likeness on a canvas print.

Jan would probably classify Percy here as a "nosy Parker" or buttinsky. Notice how Percy managed to finagle his entire head into the foreground of Rusty's photo shoot. But, hey, we just want to be where our humans are. **wink, wink**


We're friendly, loyal and companionable. Here is Cameron snuggled next to his best friend and companion at the time Merci. Things changed a bit when hyper Buddy and then Sam arrived, but Cameron and Merci are still friends.

We're also very relaxing to hang around with. Here's Percy just chillaxing and snoozing. Doesn't this design relax you humans and make you yearn to imitate him? It does us, so it's time to wrap this up for a nap.

We could go on but we don't want to brag and discourage the woofies. But you put these marvelous traits together and we belong on the Internet. We should rule the Internet. We're everywhere. And we're organized. Together, via the Internet, we're plotting and planning world domination.

(s) Cotton, Cyndi, Percy, Cameron & Rusty

Momo, Labor of Love and Red Flags

Hey, Cyndi here. Jan is running in circles mumbling about being behind something or other (we know it isn't us because we're keeping out of her way) and needing to get the computer back to play catchup. We don't understand the rush. If she's just going to play a game, why can't we keep the computer?

Uh-oh, she's circling closer. Better hurry up and get this finished.

Today is "Granny" Momo's Birthday/Gotcha Day and she's having a weekend party at her place. She will make a donation to the Cat Protection Society for each visitor. So stop by and leave a comment to help the CPS.

Momo is at least 14 years old, so let's help her celebrate in style. Visit her at the Meow blog.

This is also Labor of Love for ML (of the Cat Blogosphere and Missy Blue Eyes' blog) weekend, so stop by and let her know you appreciate all she does.

There have been a number of blogs red flagged and blocked lately.  If you see Reported Attack Page, click on "Why was this page blocked?" in the red banner.  This will explain the problem.  Basically, one or more blogs were hacked and  distributing malware and any blog with a blogroll linked to the hacked blog also gets red flagged.  Deleting the link should solve the problem but a number of us have just deleted our blogrolls at least temporarily. 

After deleting the link, clear your cache (we would delete cookies too) and then go to your own blog as a visitor.  If the red flag is still there, you will need to go to your dashboard to webmaster tools and let Blogger know so they can check and clear the red flag. 

FYI, it's a whole lot easier to contact a blocked blog if other bloggers have your email address since your comments are blocked too.  We found a means to leave a comment on a red flagged blog without actually visiting there but received no response.  Folks can't let you know there's a problem if they can't contact you.  So pretend you're old and feeble and need let others know how to check on you in an emergency. 

SUV in the Lake Update

Hey, Sam, Merci & Buddy here with an update on yesterday's post on the SUV in the lake. If you missed it, you can read it here.

When we were down that way at 8 pm last night, there was still a crowd of police and rescue workers. A boat was slowly going back and forth in the area where the SUV was found. They had used a grappling hook, sonar and cadaver dogs and trained crews and equipment from another county.

Jan learned this morning the body had been found late last night but she wanted to wait until she was sure it had been announced before posting on it. You can read the radio news report here. A positive identification has not been made yet.

One thing we do want to make clear is this was not an accident.  It was not a case of someone missing a curve or losing control of a car.  We've never walked over to the area where he entered the property, (it would be quite a walk), but we assume he trespassed via a service road before crashing the SUV through the fence, driving across a field, down a hill and into the water.

We have had some comments and questions that lead us to believe some might have misunderstood. Jan did not call the police to report what she thought she saw but couldn't have seen. She emailed the chief of police the next morning after listening to the news report on the radio.

In answer to Karla's question about possible nightmares, thankfully Jan's mental and emotional health hasn't been affected. She regrets that she didn't call someone but at the time not calling was a rational decision. You don't call the police to report an optical illusion. It wasn't like we saw an entire SUV floating on the lake. It was just a lopsided V of the back of the roof and top of the back of the SUV sticking out of the water. And then it was gone without even a ripple. So it evidently went under while we were crossing the street.

And the city workers who found the damaged fence assumed it was vandalized, so they didn't realize anything until they saw debris from the vehicle floating in our drinking water. (Yes, that's where our drinking water was coming from. The city had to switch us to another source.) 

Since Jan is the type of human who is easily excited, she is very surprised she has been calm and at peace from the first. Any other time, she would have been trying to chase down someone with a cell phone or flagged down the police car that passed us on the corner. We believe the man was already dead by the time we started down the hill or she would have felt a sense of urgency.

Our thoughts and Jan's prayers are with the family and friends of the deceased. They will always carry the pain of losing their loved one and likely never know why he did this.

Please, if you are angry or depressed, don't hold it inside, as many humans are prone to do. Talk to someone. Say a prayer. Read a good book. Go for a walk. But don't go driving until you've calmed down. What one human does can affect a lot of other lives.