Groundhogs

It's sometimes very daunting to try to take care of the stray cats in my yard. I feel like an inept weirdo most of the time, especially when the neighbors yell at me. But then I visit YouTube and peruse the animal videos there. It's amazin how many people are helping animals and posting videos of that. And it's not just cats and dogs - many help birds and other wild creatures.

One of the most amusing videos of this type I've seen is of a guy whose garden was being consumed by groundhogs :) ...

Crazy Yoda

Crazy little Yoda is in a mood, flipping around on her cat furniture like a fish on a deck while she dares me to try and pet her while still retaining all my fingers ...

She's been like this lately because she still isn't been spayed. She has a breathing problem so I haven't been able to take her to the cheapie SPCA spay/neuter clinic, and the regular vet has been too expensive (like 10 times more than the clinic). But if I get a stimulus check from the government, I can finally take her to the vet. No more nightly howlings. Yay!

Worries

Everything feels so stressful lately.

First, of course, there's the deadly global pandemic. Even though vaccines are being rolled out, we are in a race to try to get most people vaccinated before mutant versions of the virus, versions that may be increasingly immune to the present vaccines, become predominant ...



My sister and brother-in-law and I were able to get the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week, they from Blue Cross and me from the teaching hospital I go to for health care. Yet a friend who works at a grocery store, an essential worker, is still not able to get vaccinated. I'm not sure what the protocols are here in CA and I wouldn't have known I was eligible if I hadn't gotten an email from the hospital telling me to make an appointment, but I feel guilty for being able to do this when others still can't.

Greenland

This week's movie rental was Greenland ...

a 2020 American disaster film directed by Ric Roman Waugh .... The film stars Gerard Butler (who also co-produced), Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd, Scott Glenn, David Denman, and Hope Davis. The film follows a family who must fight for survival as a planet-destroying comet races to Earth.

I'm kind of fascinated by disaster movies and I like Gerard Butler and Scott Glenn, so I signed up for the movie. Here's a trailer ...



It actually got fairly decent reviews ...

Greenland’: Comet threatens Earth in disaster movie that’s more than just chaos

Even in mindless action fare such as “Den of Thieves” and and “Hunter Killer” and “Angel Has Fallen” and “London Has Fallen” and “Olympus Has Fallen” and that’s a lot of falling, Gerard Butler retains a screen-captivating, grim-faced presence with a burning intensity who leaps giant plot holes in a single bound, usually with a gun in his hand and some sort of dark cloud haunting him. At 51, Butler is firmly in the Bruce Willis/Liam Neeson Zone, with a particular set of skills well-suited to glossy B-movie thriller fare ...

I've liked Gerard Butler since he was in the science fiction film Timeline, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. Here Butler is from that film, with Paul Walker ...



But anyway, while the movie was ertertaining, it didn't dwell much on science ... how can an extinction-level event allow for a happy ending? So it's not near the top of my disaster movie list, which includes The Day After Tomorrow and World War Z.

Not a cat

Lawyer tells judge 'I'm not a cat' after a Zoom filter mishap in virtual court hearing

:)

Network Effect

My latest kindle book from the public library is Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel (The Murderbot Diaries Book 5) by Martha Wells.

Here's the beginning of a review of the book by NPR ...

Murderbot Makes A Triumphant (And Cranky) Return In 'Network Effect'

The name just rolls off the tongue, like a mascot for a sadistic intergalactic sports team. And if you've been reading author Martha Wells' award-winning Murderbot Diaries novellas, you have been cheering on the titular Murderbot from the sidelines for four, bite-sized adventures so far.

[...]

Murderbot is a rogue Security Unit robot (SecUnit for short) that hacked itself to become free. It's Johnny 5 from Short Circuit but without the lightning strike; a Terminator without the time travel; and little bit of Star Trek's Lt. Commander Data, without the need — or even want — to become more human. In fact Murderbot (which named itself, following a bloody incident in its past) already has a lot of human qualities — as well as some organic parts — but it doesn't really like most humans all that much. It'd much rather be left alone to watch its favorite TV shows in peace and silence. (A relatable trait if there ever was one.) ....

I like the series a lot. It's hard to describe, but well worth a read.