Buckyblog #4: sayonora

Roasted Cat Curry

- One large cat, deboned, roasted, cubed
- 2 1/2 cups coconut milk
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup eggplant, cubed, or sweet spring peas
- 6 pieces of rambutan or pineapple, cubed
- 4 fresh kaffir lime leaves, shredded
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
- 1/2 cup water or stock
- 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp red curry paste

Preparation
Pour vegetable oil into a wok over medium heat and add red curry paste. Stir well. Add 3/4 cups coconut milk and stir to mix thoroughly. Add cat and stir well again. Pour mixture into a pot, add the remaining coconut milk, water, tomatoes, rambutans or pineapple, eggplant or sweet peas, kaffir lime leaves, sugar, salt, and fish sauce. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Serve on a bed of noodles.

Ummm, ignore the above text. I can't seem to get rid of id... er, it. Must be a Blogger glitch. Don't know where it came from. Anyway, Bucky has left the building. No idea where he went. Nope. None. Inevitable, I suppose. I loved that cute little guy, but we got along like, well, cats and dogs. A teensy tiff last night, and when I woke up this morning, his closet was empty except for a pile of dirty brown socks. His suitcase was gone, and his bicycle wasn't in the driveway either. Didn't even leave a lousy goodbye note, the insensitive jerk.

We had plans for taking the Elgin Street Irregulars to the very edge of the kittyblogosphere. He coulda been a star! Who knows what'll happen now? The manner of our parting was deeply deliciou - ummm, painful. It has left me completely satisf - ummm, shattered. We shall not speak of it again, from this day hence.

Next Show: 2010

Buckyblog #3: self explanatory

Buckyblog #2: too cute by half

Huh. Apparently, kittyblogging has strict rules. Who knew? Since the Short Guy, in addition to being a hairball expert - he's one himself - is also a tiresome pedant, I have no reason to doubt him. Speaking of hairballs, you should see the size of them! Huge, sploogey tan and brown things, covered in cat spit and splattered all over the antique cream broadloom! (We coyotes keep a very retro-stylish den...) Yucko!

I would've asked Aggie what to do about them, followed her advice, then reported the amusing results, but an urgent matter has arisen. Note the calculating expression on Bucky's puss: It comes to my attention that all cats are members of a fiendishly well-organized cabal dedicated to taking over the world. They infiltrate people's homes, weasel their nefarious tunaheaded ways into positions of trust, suck the air out of their alleged owners' lungs until they can't think straight (Various Zoom postings and comments passim) then run the world by proxy whilst their hosts are weakened and suggestable.

But they want more. And they have the means to do it. Read this carefully, and don't let your cat see you when you do it: Every cat in the world is in constant extrasensory communication with every other cat. It's a maleficent feline group brain, dedicated to total domination. When they're ready, they'll pounce, take over the world, and likely snack on your cold, dead fingers as an afterthought. They're determined, cunning, organized, and very, very good. Look at the evidence: innocent coyotes are being chased out of Greely and Richmond as we speak! Coincidence?

The good news, is that you can fight back. If you have an ounce of spine left, break out the tinfoil and start making hats. No, no, no, not for you, you oxygen-deprived fool, for your cat. Slap one of them suckers onto a furline and it'll cut off all group-mind brainwaves instantly. Oh, even then, it'll still try to play the cuteness card. Resist! Don't let your cat doff its tinfoil hat! Your future depends on it...

Sarah Boxer on Blogs

The latest New York Review of Books (Feb. 14, 2008) contains an article by Sarah Boxer on blogs, books on blogs, and the trouble with writing books on blogs. In her article, she asks the following questions about blogs: "Are they a new literary genre?Do they have their own conceits, forms and rules? Do they have an essence?"

She says some pretty interesting things about bloggers and blog writing:

Of course I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that bloggers have fouler mouths, tougher hides, and cooler thesauruses than most of the people I've read in print.

The very tone of most blogs--reactive, punchy, conversational, knowing, and free-associative--is predicated on linkiness and infused with it.

Blogs are porous to the world of texts and facts and opinions on line.

Bloggers are golden when they're at the bottom of the heap, kicking up. Give them a salary, a book contract, or a press credential, though, and it just isn't the same.

Bloggers at their computers are Supermen in flight. They break the rules. They go into their virtual phone booths, put on their costumes, bring down their personal villains, and save the world.

The law of the blogosphere is Hobbesian: survival of the snarkiest.

Blog writing is id writing--grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty.

The article contains some good tips for getting famous: "One of the surest ways to hoist your blog to the top of the charts is to bring down a big-time politician or journalist." Sex, doesn't hurt either, apparently, and can "give your blog a lift".

I have prepared a small quiz for all of you (based on the Boxer article) to test your blogging knowledge. Don't cheat. Don't look up anything on Wikipedia. I know, I know -- telling a blogger not to cheat is like telling your cat not to jump on the counter while you're out.

Here's the six-question quiz. No prize this time, because there is no way to prove that you didn't cheat.

1. Define "link whore".
2. What does the Japanese blogging term, ishikoro, refer to?
3. What famous blogger uses the acronym, "SAHM"?
4. Who coined the word "Weblog"?
5. What's a "troll" in blogspeak?
6. What is "astroturfing"?