January 5, 2005
Two weeks
I was sorting some pictures into my photo directory today and was amazed at what a difference two weeks can make on large and small scales, and how well photos convey that. Here's Simba just over two weeks ago, on December 18, one week before Christmas Day. And the next picture is Simba this morning. This isn't to suggest that the plight of my cat is anything near the gravity of hundreds of thousands of Asians and foreign tourists lost to the earthquake and tsunami, but it goes to show how, in such a short time, how much priorities can change and the mundane becomes very interesting in ways that aren't always fortunate.
But hey, the news isn't all gloom 'n doom. Simba's decided today that he didn't completely hate the chicken flavored moist food. He's eaten only maybe 1/4 of the can, but that's more than he ever contemplated with the seafood flavors. So whether he's adjusting to the flavor or getting just that hungry remains to be seen. But things are looking up. :-)
jb | | # |
Bringin' it all back home
Even more than video, the power of the still photograph to bring home the hard-hitting element of any event or story is nonpareil. I've seen many photographs and videos of the ravages of the tsunami, but none draws the impact so starkly as this. I'm hosting the picture on my site, but I'm not embedding it into the blog for a reason.
Be warned, it's
extremely graphic. The image is best viewed at full size.
Click
here to view.
Unfortuntely, I don't have credit information for this photo. If anybody is aware of the photo credit, please email me at jason@jasonbentley.org and I'll post it as soon as possible.
jb | | # |
The Newsom Twosom is Thrusom!
It's official, Kim 'n Gavin are callin' it quits. I'll expect Larry King to be all over this.
But Gavin, what I really want to know is...are you gonna go my way? I gotta, gotta, gotta know. ;-)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/01/05/state2030EST0191.DTL
jb | | # |
It's the end of the world as we know it...
Kniwt linked to an
article in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, which, given the recent tsunamis in Asia and floods in the midwest and tornadoes in L.A. (that's Los Angeles, not Louisiana) - is a bit of a nail-biter.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/10565429.htm
I mean, it's not as if, as a race, we humans didn't need a healthy dose of humility, but I mean, come
on now. Looks like Art Bell might not have been
so far off the mark after all. *ominous music begins*
jb | | # |
Simba Success
I had a fairly major success with Simba today, which has helped assuage some of my worry. For the past several days, he's had a real rough time eating, because of the soreness of the lesion on his tongue. This is why he's been losing weight. It's like a big canker sore on a tongue that's not too big to begin with. You can imagine how mountainous it must feel to Simba.
Since they're soft and less painful, he's been eating a lot of Pounce treats lately, but he's been getting sick of them and for a couple days hasn't eaten much at all. Yesterday I went up to Albertson's and got several cans of moist cat food but Simba won't even entertain the idea of eating any of them. In fact, he recoils.
So today, I decided to try crushing up his usual hairball formula Science Diet. And realized - no wonder he won't it eat it, the stuff is as hard as gravel. After a few failures I put some fresh pellets into a ziploc bag and had at it with a hammer. What came out was something like kitty granola, but to my relief, Simba took interest and was able to eat some of it. Not a lot, but more than I'd seen him eat in a while. Shortly afterward, I heard the familiar cling of his tag aginst the bowl again.
His face is still blotched and discolored, which you can see in this picture from today (despite his best effeort to block my view) Especially the inside of his nose. Hopefully the Clavamox will start having an effect soon. First Viktor Yushchenko, and now Simba! Will the madness ever end? :-)
jb | | # |
When it's time to change...
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, sha-la-la-la-la!
As some of you may have noticed, there've been some big changes to the website over the past few days. I'm making a solid effort to bring cohesion and a similar look and feel to all areas of jasonbentley.org. I may keep the blog look slightly disctinct, however. I kinda like the sunny disposition of the page. The rest of the site, however, is being converted over to the new "brick street" motif. The homepage, music, and the new etc pages were rolled out yesterday, and workstation was cut over today.
"etc" is the new section where I'm going to dump pretty much anything that's outside the realm of a project or the weblog, such as links and news. I'll be aggregating a good deal of content through RSS, and as a prototype I've put together a page that bring together news and information concerning the
Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as interesting first-person accounts and links to other sites. I've also put together a page called "
The Acquaintance Report" which lists headlines from friends of mine with blogs of their own.
I'm making an effort to make www.jasonbentley.org the destination point (since most seem to go directly to
www.jasonbentley.org/blog), so the homepage now displays the latest headlines from this blog and the latest changes or additions to the Imageplex galleries.
I've drastically cut down on the amount of images used in constructing the page, and have everything coming off one style sheet. The benefits to this approach are innumerable. I've gotten pretty good at dealing with CSS, and once you pass the understanding curve, it pretty much takes are of itself.
jb | | # |
