Kitty updates, drowning David Blaine, and porn.

Poor Othello, he hasn’t been getting a lot of face time, what with all of the other cat-related news going on. Othello celebrates his 12th birthday in a couple of months, and before we adopted Olivia, we took him to the vet to get his shots brought up to date and for a general checkup. The good news is that my little fuzzy guy is the very picture of health – he’s still active and fit, and doesn’t have any major health issues. He keeps in shape with repeated bouts of IMS (Invisible Mouse Syndrome), symptoms of which include chasing across the house after invisible objects at top speed. I think he does this just for the exercise myself. As for Olivia, she’s fine and she’s fiesty and was bored to tears today because I had to feed horses in the morning, take out the trash, and then get what little sleep I was going to get before having to go to work. Life as a kitten is rough! We have bad weather on the way, so Xena will probably be coming into the house. We’ll see how Olivia likes her “big sister” who happens to be a giant dog. (Seriously, at most they’ll probably only get a glimpse of each other.)
Speaking of exercise, I think David Blaine pulled off an amazing trick last night – yet again, he made millions of dollars of ABC’s money disappear by doing another two-hour special. The funny thing is, all those segments they show during the buildup, where he’s doing magic tricks on the street? That stuff is much, much, much cooler than him trying to hold his breath for nine minutes. Why can’t we just see two hours of that, rather than watching him be frozen, submerged, suspended in mid-air, and whatnot? ‘Cause that stuff is that cool stuff…even if he can’t charge ABC untold millions to do two hours on it. Also, am I the only one eerily reminded of South Park’s first swipe at Scientology, the “Blainetology” episode, in which the followers of David Blaine’s cult had to prove their faith by – you guessed it – drowning themselves in the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument? 😆 Get well soon, David. And for God’s sake, just do some card tricks, ’cause those are cool.
Speaking of doing stuff for God’s sake, we have a news story tonight about a big raid at an adult video store across the state line in Oklahoma. The place was apparently busted wide open and shut down by police and the health department for “obscenity” and for health violations (apparently some pretty nasty stuff was going on in the “viewing booths”). OK, so far so good, though so many of these places, locally and otherwise, have wriggled out from under “obscenity” charges that one wonders why anyone still bothers to try to nail that particular chunk of Jell-o to the wall. What raised my eyebrows was the soundbite from one of the cops at the raid claiming that this was a victory for the “Christian community.” For some reason – and hey, I consider myself a Christian (though I know there are probably plenty of people who don’t consider me one, as I tend to lean almost-libertarian, which seems to violate something in the official handbook depending on who you ask) – that quote really bugs me on a separation-of-church-and-state level. Is this community’s police department enforcing local and state laws, or are they a religious vigilante group? As if it wasn’t already going to be difficult enough to make the obscenity thing stick, I have a feeling this quote will come back to haunt the investigating police department in a big way. And I’m not really a big fan of adult video stores or similar businesses. Does stuff go on there that needs to be stopped? Probably. Very likely. Which is why having the health department in on the action is the only wise move I’ve seen anyone make there. But some police department’s PIO claiming victory on behalf of Christianity will very likely be the thing that derails the whole kit and/or kaboodle. When just about anything you say can be used to get the accused out from under charges and a trial, that statement makes about as much sense as…well…trying to hold your breath underwater for nine minutes.