Superpowers

I think probably everyone has dreamed of having some kind of super power. If they were an X-men or if they took some V (The Boys) and got a power… I’ve always wanted one. If I could chose, these would be my top picks:

  1. The ability to heal people – Putting my hands over them or whatever, I wish I could heal people of illnesses, bullet wounds (that happens a lot in action movies), sickness, whatever. I also wish this could go towards animals as well. I wish I could heal them.
  2. The ability to manipulate plastic – I’ve thought about this since Magneto and how he’s able to mold and manipulate metal; I want the ability to manipulate plastic. I wish I could just take my hands and throw them toward the ocean and scoop up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or something and fling it into space so it could burn up. I wish I could create things with plastic. We’re literally flooding the planet with non-recyclable, unusable plastic. I wish I could do something about it and make things with it… or if anything, concentrate it into a huge mountain or something.
  3. Super smart – I don’t get that Sister Sage in the newest season of The Boys isn’t curing cancer or working on rockets or discovering species or something! WTF? Why is she wasting her abilities trying to help Homelander? If I was that smart, I would be in a lab somewhere trying to do something great for humanity like finding a use for plastics or poop or something. And why aren’t people asking these questions from her? Why are they going along with it in The Boys like she’s actually doing something when she’s doing absolutely nothing. What a waste. I would love to be super smart like that.

Pet’s Relationships

A few things have changed… In August of 2018, we brought in a cat named Brindle (who had kittens). You can read her story. Also, our cat we had from college, size_t, passed away. He had diabetes for the past few years and had slowed down on eating. It was very sad.

Now (as of February 2019), we have a dog and three cats. We decided to keep two of Brindle’s kittens. This makes for a different kind of relationships throughout the house. Bri and I are our pets parents. We are also parents to Lupin and Tonks (Brindle’s kittens; named after Harry Potter characters).

Since Brindle is also our daughter and she is mother to Lupin and Tonks, Lupin and Tonks are our son-grandsons. (But we just call them our sons.)

Wiki’s relationship is interesting because he is a brother-uncle to Tonks and Lupin and only a brother to Brindle.

Lupin and Tonks are brother-nephews to Wiki.

Brindle is Lupin and Tonks’ sister-mother.

So we have an interesting dynamic to our house.

Bonus… I’ll throw in our houses in Hogwarts!

  • Janis – Hufflepuff
  • Bri – Gryffindor
  • size_t – Gryffindor
  • Wiki – Ravenclaw

Brindle, Lupin, and Tonks are too young to be sorted yet. I’ll take the quiz to see what house they’ll be put in later in their life.


What I Am (Like Diet Wise)

One of the happiest like moments I’ve experienced in the past few weeks was watching Real Time With Bill Maher. Maher had David Duchovny on. Duchovny has a new book called “Holy Cow” that he was talking about. Apparently it’s like a children’s book that brings up some very important questions. One of which is the way we raise our meat.

Duchovny said that he’s not a vegetarian but more a lazy vegetarian. Bill Maher questioned what that was and asked if it was when there’s nothing else on the menu, if he eats meat. Duchovny said it’s more like if he goes over someone’s house and if they were having meat, he wouldn’t turn it down since the animal has already been killed and you don’t want to waste it.

That has been my predicament all along. What do I do? Hearing that both Maher and Duchovny did consume meat when in certain situations, I felt a whole lot better about everything. It was probably one of the best moments of my life knowing that others face the same challenges with meat that I do. It was so relieving.

I cannot be called a “vegetarian” since I do eat meat occasionally (when it’s going to be wasted anyway) and since I eat shrimp, eggs, and fish.

According to one article I read, I’m more of a flexitarian where as I tend to not eat meat but don’t rule it out completely. But I’m also somewhat of a lacto-ovo vegetarian where I won’t eat meat but do eat dairy and eggs… then I also eat fish which makes me more of a pescatarian. But I guess if I had to pick title, I’d say “lazy vegetarian.”

It’s difficult to know what I am. I just hope what I’m doing makes a difference to the environment and saves innocent animals lives. It’s also been very good for me health wise. I used to get bad stomach aches at least once a week. Now it’s almost never.

If you’re thinking about becoming a vegetarian (or whatever word you’d choose to use), do it like I did… I did it slowly, over the course of like a year. Apparently this movement is gaining momentum. There are now 16 million vegetarians. That’s AMAZING to me.

But anyway… Thanks Bill Maher and David Duchovny for making me feel less alone!


Obituary For Candi

Candi

Candice “Candi” Cane Musselman, 18

Candi, of Rockville, Maryland, passed away on June 1, 2014, peacefully at her home next to her family.

Candi was born, presumably, around Glen Burnie, Maryland in the winter of 1996. She was a lost dog that was later found near a pawn shop in Glen Burnie by Ann Musselman. She immediately had a new home there with Ann and her two daughters, Janis and Stacy.

Candi mostly grew up in Pasadena, Maryland with her owner, Janis, her family, and a bunch of cats. She later lived in such places as Annapolis, Glen Burnie, Frostburg, Germantown, and finally settling down in Rockville, with her owners, Janis and Brian.

Candi enjoyed car rides, human food, walks, shedding, and, in general, being with people and her family.

Candi will be remembered by her broad smile, her ever happy attitude, the joy she brought into everybody’s life, and her saying, “I’m just a puppy.” Candi had a way of warming her way into everybody’s heart.

Survivors include her owners, Janis and Brian, her brothers, size_t and Wiki, and many others. Candi is preceded in death by Spooky, Tina, Lauren, and Rocky.

Feel free to share Candi stories in the comments below and on Facebook.


Meat 2012

In order to discourage myself from eating meat and becoming more of a vegetarian, in the entire year of 2012 I kept track of all the meat I ate. Granted this list doesn’t include seafood in which vegetarians do not eat but I still eat… I’m more of a pescetarian.

A lot of this list contains meat of which I was “forced” to eat via going over family/friends houses where their main course was meat. Also it contains instances where I ate meat because it was going to be thrown out anyway. Here’s a key for the reasons why I ate it:

^ = went over someone’s house who served meat
* = ate meat because it was going to be thrown out anyway
# = chose to eat meat

Date What I Ate Reason
1/5/12 chicken & broccoli #
1/8/12 1 piece bacon, turkey ^
1/14/12 chicken & broccoli #
1/15/12 chicken wings & sloppy joes ^
2/4/12 half hot dog, chicken & broccoli ^, #
2/14/12 chicken teriyaki #
2/17/12 bbq that ar wouldn’t have eaten *
2/25/12 chicken & spare rib ^
3/4/12 ham ^
3/11/12 lasagna with meat ^
3/22/12 chicken teriyaki #
3/24/12 pepperoni pizza ^
4/3/12 roast beef ^
4/8/12 chicken, turkey, ham ^
4/15/12 sausage ^
5/6/12 chicken teriyaki #
5/28/12 sausage, part of steak ^
6/28/12 lasagna with meat ^
7/1/12 fillet minion #
7/22/12 chicken teriyaki #
9/2/12 bbq sandwich ^
9/27/12 hamburger #
9/29/12 hamburger #
9/30/12 meat in pasta from pizza hut #/* (I didn’t realize the pasta had meat in it when we ordered… damn Pizza Hut)
11/3/12 piece of roast, little bacon ^
11/22/12 turkey, ham #
12/25/12 ham, little turkey bacon #
12/28/12 little hot dogs *

So I guess I didn’t do too bad for the year. I ate meat 28 times. I averaged eating meat once every two weeks. I only really chose to eat meat 13 times. I definitely cannot call myself a vegetarian after eating all of that meat though. I will do better in 2013 as I’m more familiar with meat substitutes (Morning Star Ribs, Veggie Chinese place, chik’n, etc).

I’ll continue to keep track and see how I do in 2013. I need to be more strict and refuse to eat meat when it’s served.

By the way, the main reason I became a quasi-vegetarian/pescetarian is to help save the planet. Eating meat is very hurtful to the environment.


Rat Crap!

My car is basically brand new. His name is Orion. He’s a Toyota Prius. I’ve had him about two years now. He has about 20,000 miles on him.

So I’m driving to work, like usual, I had just dropped Brian off, when all of a sudden my accelerator stopped working. I just thought, oh Prius! I tried to use it again and it wouldn’t accelerate. It then flashed warnings at me. Check engine as well as the big fat red triangle with an exclamation point (that means BAD). So I pulled over. I’m on 270 I thought I can’t break down here, I got to get to work.

I just restarted the car. The warnings were still there, but I tried to get it to work. I was like a mile away. I drove it as far as it would go then it stopped going. Oh joy! I’m in the middle of the frickin road! I call Brian and freak out on him cause he just changed the air filter last night, thinking he did something. He told me to call Geico, so I did.

They were really cool. They called a tow truck for me. For free. They said an hour, so I called Bri to let him know. He was on his way, he called a taxi.

I waited there, must have been like 20-30 minutes just sitting there in the middle of the road. A cop came by but didn’t offer any help. Got lots of honks. But I actually had a woman in a minivan stop to see if I needed help. Just thinking, man, people are not like what they used to be.

Anyway, Bri finally got there. Then a cop shows up. This time one who wanted to help. He said we should push the car over, out of the road, so we pushed it over to the side.

I hugged Brian and walked to work. All that’s left is waiting for the tow truck and then Toyota.

So Bri went to Toyota with the car. About an hour and a half later they diagnosed the problem… it was rat crap. Rat crap had gotten into my engine.

Apparently rats and mice like to live under cars at night. While they’re there they poop and sometimes chew through wires. No wires were chewed, luckily. Just the poop got sucked into the air filter and had a hole in that, then into the engine.

Weird, huh? The bill will be around $200. They had to replace the air filter (which Bri had JUST replaced the night before) and clean out the engine.

Crazy… Size_t will now be in charge of watching for mice at night.


Docking

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my dog, Wiki. I was hesitant about getting a dog with no tail. His tail was viciously chopped off when he was a puppy for hunting purposes, I’m sure. I’ve been watching his tail, hoping one day it could grow back but they don’t.

According to Wikipedia (not my dog, the online encyclopedia of which Wiki was named), they do it so the dogs don’t get hurt during hunting, to prevent rabies, and to make them faster. I just think it’s a cruel practice that should be made illegal.

Almost ALL first world countries ban it with some exceptions. A lot of other countries that you would think wouldn’t care also ban it. However, it’s legal in the United States. We’re in the same group as Afghanistan, Argentina, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Malaysia, etc. I have been wanting to blog about what’s wrong with America. Docking is definitely on there now.