OK, let me try and make up for the Avril Lavigne thing: I’ve also been listening to Australian party band The Cat Empire non-stop for about six weeks, in particular “The Car Song” and “Sly.” Here they both are, courtesy of YouTube:
If those lyrics are too Australian to understand for some of you — I think the accents are a big part of the charm, just like the Scots accent is a big part of the charm of Sons and Daughters — here’s the lyrics to “Sly”:
Ellis Truss has two yard cats to keep mice away — apparently sawdust is like a magnet for mice — Patch and Penny. Penny has gone walkabout, as cats are wont to do, and has been gone several weeks. She’s always had a habit of staying out overnight or longer at a stretch and often just coming back to tag in, grab a bite to eat, and head out again. Motley, who was a total homebody much of her 20 years, once spent a month living in a national forest when I had an apartment in Blacksburg before showing up one day on the back porch, waiting to be let in for dinner and acting as though nothing had happened.
In any case, the Ellises have decided to get two more kittens to fill the void and when their cousins’ cat had kittens, Britt drove off to pick them up and bring them back. They’re both right at six weeks old, tiny as can be, but fearless. Both are tabby mixes (the brownish tabby has an orange stripe on her head) and, as they jump and race around like kittens their age will, getting a good photograph of them is as tricky as getting a good shot of Bigfoot.
Here the two as-yet-unnamed kittens are, during a nighttime visit to see if they were doing OK and if Patch was still hissing at them and avoiding them. (She was.) They’re playing with Kasey’s toy cars in the plans room.
The camera on my Treo is also partially to blame, of course.
Shameful admission of the week: I really like Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” There may be more chicks rocking nowadays — which is great, and I love it — but so many of them are so damn dour. This song is catchy, fun and full of attitude and there’s that whole Toni Basil thing she does near the end.
I know: I’m like a 12 year old girl. I don’t know how the hell that happened.
I’m the only one in my family not to be in total love with the Bay Area, and I’m not sure why, since they keep having cool things like the NorCal Pirate Festival up there. I’ve been to the Maryland Renaissance Festival a time or 10 in my life, and some others as well, but a pirate festival? Count me in.
For World of Warcraft players hanging out in Shadowmoon Valley last Friday, bizarre events occurred that can only be explained by a small group of people inside the headquarters of Blizzard Entertainment.
At the helm of the strangeness sat 10-year-old Ezra Chatterton, who directed Warcraft’s lead game designer Jeff Kaplan to blast ferocious-looking monsters, or “bosses,” with a single death ray. Chatterton cleared the Black Temple for a European clan to fight the volcano-summoning Supremus.
All that power. Heh, heh.
“I’m impressed with Blizzard,” said Chatterton from his wheelchair. “Bravo!”
The Riverside fifth-grader has a brain tumor. The diagnosis isn’t good; metastatic cancer. Splitting headaches started in March, which led to an emergency room visit in April. Doctors had to sedate him for the pain and he didn’t wake up for a week. Groggy and weak in the hospital, Chatterton only wanted to play the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft.
When the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, an organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening cases, came calling two weeks ago, Chatterton knew exactly what he wanted.
“I wished for a trip to Blizzard because I’d like to see if they could make a character and do some things for us.”
Chatterton didn’t think his wish would come true. He’s starting treatment today. And, at most, he thought it could just be a video conference call. But when he found out Blizzard was nearby, and willing, Chatterton became the envy of the 8.5 million World of Warcraft players worldwide. He not only got the chance to tour the company, but to create something new for the game.
I look forward to completing Ezra’s quest when it goes live in the game. It looks like it takes place in Thunderbluff or Bloodhoof village, judging from the pictures at the OCR site, but that’s what Horde alts are for.
The Chatterton’s character is a Tauren hunter named ePhoenix. It looks like the gear Blizzard set him up with was all Gladiator arena PVP stuff. His PVP kills record is pretty low to be set with all that gear otherwise.
In any case, the Ellises have decided to get two more kittens to fill the void and when their cousins’ cat had kittens, Britt drove off to pick them up and bring them back. They’re both right at six weeks old, tiny as can be, but fearless. Both are tabby mixes (the brownish tabby has an orange stripe on her head) and, as they jump and race around like kittens their age will, getting a good photograph of them is as tricky as getting a good shot of 
