We've got a kitty!

Temporarily though. Our friend Xeo had to go see his family back in California, so we offered to take care of his cat while he was gone. Rather than stop by his place every day (which, while it would be on the way during a work day, it would be out of the way during non-working days) we opted to cat-sit by bringing her to our house. We were a bit worried since cats can get rather crazy when you move them to a new location, and we fully expected her to stay in her carrier for days.

But she surprised us and after just one day, when we opened the door to the pantry where her carrier, food, and litter box was, she came out and started exploring. When we were at our computers, she came by and hung around our feet. She's such a sweet kitty....

Whateley's been loving it since he's a huge animal lover. Whenever the cat comes around, he drops to his stomach to pet her and scratch behind her ears. I like having an animal around, actually. I didn't really grow up with pets (though sometimes not for lack of trying), but after college, I've always had roommates that had pets. But it's really nice to be doing your thing and then I catch out of the corner of my eye this little furry being just sniffing around.

The only annoying thing is that she's a very furry cat, and no matter how much you brush her, she still sheds fur wherever she goes. So far it hasn't gotten too bad, but it won't be long before we have cat hair all over table legs, sofas, and the carpet. I've been lazy about vaccuuming, but we really can't with a cat around.

Another thing is, I think I'm allergic to her in some way. I don't seem to get the classic allergy symptoms, like itchy, watery eyes, sniffles, and sneezes. But mostly I get stuffy noses, and every morning in the shower, green and/or white gunk comes out of my nose and I can breathe normally for a few hours before it starts getting clogged up again. It's usually worse during work days when I have to step outside, and Texas pollen drives my nose nuts. When I just hang around the house, though, it's usually not as bad. But the past few days, my nose has gotten really stuffy. It's hard to tell, though, whether or not it's the cat or if there's a new type of pollen in the air. After all, with the rainy season upon us, the pollen count has risen.

All that aside, I'm considering whether or not to get a pet. Whateley really wants a dog, but we work such long hours that a dog would go nuts being alone for 13 hours a day. So we were thinking of getting a cat, except that Whateley's somewhat allergic to them and we'd have to keep the house a lot cleaner. Well, having Xeo's cat around for the next few weeks should help us figure out whether or not we can keep a cat. We're thinking of trying to have a kid sometime soon, and we're both very lazy. Having to take care of a pet in addition to taking care of a kid sounds like more work.

We had an eventful game night last night.

Yellowbeard's younger brother, DreadPirate, turned 21 that day, so of course, we got booze. Lots of it. Our friend Kathrenne even got a baby-sitter so she could come over to hang out. Our dinner option came to be a frozen lasagna which we popped in the oven shortly before the game began. We had fruit and salad shortly before the game started, but it wasn't much, and the lasagna was going to take 2 hours to cook. Anyway, the young DreadPirate and Kathrenne started downing shots of tequila. Two different types, actually. And before we knew it, they were hammered out of their minds. It was pretty interesting, actually. DreadPirate is rather notorious for getting his math wrong (what are my attack bonuses?) and rolling really crappy, but apparently, when he's drunk he does both really well.

Once the lasagna was done, we all went downstairs to have dinner. We ate, we poked fun at DreadPirate, we laughed. We had a good time. But Renavato made a point to tell us we should have a bucket nearby, just in case. Which turned out to be a really good idea.

Now, prior to this point, in the middle of the game, Kathrenne opted to leave our gaming table since she was starting to spill things. Before we knew it, she had started to camp our downstairs bathroom.

So while we were a bit concerned since she wasn't coming out to have any dinner, we figured she'll get better eventually. 4 hours later, she finally came out so Xeo could take her home.

But poor DreadPirate... I say, I've never seen anyone puke their guts out that much in that short of a time. This was a lesson to us all: Orange Tequila and regular Tequila shots on a near-empty stomach = Not a good time. We kept thinking the tequilas were tainted or something, but I've had some of it, and both bottles were from previous get-togethers so we've had them before, so I'm guessing it's just old-fashioned "not drinking responsibly." We joked that at least DreadPirate will always remember his 21st birthday. And a lot of people have similar stories for their 21st birthday. Not me, though. Apparently I'm a bit of a square cuz I can't even remember what I did for my 21st. I think I was going out with my then-boyfriend (now ex-, and the relationship didn't end well) and I'm sure I did something with him, though I really can't remember. Maybe I blocked it out. Or maybe it was just a boring birthday. Eh, I think I'd prefer the boring birthday to the birthday that ends in a long prayer session to the porcelain god. I had to lend the poor boy a pair of pants since Whateley's smallest pants would still be too big for him. Too bad I didn't have a really girly pair. =)

I was tempted to get my semi-permanent lipstick on him, but I didn't want to touch his post-vomit lips with it.

Some of our friends and co-workers are freaking out cuz of what Time Warner Cable plans on doing. Mainly, the people who don't have TV and the internet is their main source of entertainment are afraid their monthly bills will skyrocket. Especially since their largest cap is 40GB per month, which can easily go over if you watch a lot of streaming video.

The biggest issue seems to be that cable companies run on monopolies, and there's very little other options for high-speed internet.

Hello readers, this is Dr Whateley posting because... well I'm a tad bored and the Artiste is sleeping. I just wanted to pat myself on the back real quick because I feel a bit spiffy. I don't remember if the normal author mentioned this but we recently invested in some home exersize equipment. We decided to get something really nice and high end because we could afford it (our company has been very recession proof thus far), and I don't believe in messing around when your going to do something like this (like computers, I don't buy top of the line when I get a new one, but I spend a fair amount of money. And because of that they tend to last a bit longer, especially with a few key upgrades along the way).

Anyhoo, I've been at it for 6 or 7 weeks now, and I'm not sure what has happened in terms of inches. But I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was. So huzzah to me :)

People at work keep griping that they need to have more healthy snacks there for purchase. To which I think before I started exersizing more often I did quite a bit to cut back on my bad eating. I switched from soda to tea. My vise is I still have a Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea every day, but for 4oz more it has far less sugar and calories than a can of soda (http://www.sweetleaftea.com/). But if I need more caffiene during the day I just go make some Green Tea. I switched to whole wheat everything, stopped eating red meat pretty much all together. Made an effort to have more salads, with dressings that aren't just liquid fat (I miss ranch a lot). Yeah I tried the whole "if I eat better I won't get fat" diet that people seem to think works. You know what, I still ended up weighing the most I ever have because all I do all day is sit on my butt and look at a computer. Which I think proves something that everybody keeps saying but nobody wants to believe. You don't lose weight by eating better, you need to get off your buttocks and move around a bit. I'm not a sports guy, so I just work out on an eliptical 3 to 4 times a week for an hour or so, while watching Science Fiction and horror movies I get from netflix. Not only is it a nerdy way to work out, but I have lost at least a pound a week doing it, and I haven't changed my diet.

Anyhoo I'm going to go kill zombies in Left 4 Dead now, thanks for listening to me.

One of the things we inherited from buying our house was a slow cooker. Two of them, actually. I finally put one to use. We had gotten an onion-and-garlic-marinated pork loin from Costco awhile back, and after sitting in the freezer for awhile, I decided to experiment and cook it in the slow cooker. Let's just say, I've been researching slow cooker pork loin recipes for days.

Pork loin's not the best type of meat to cook in a slow cooker since it has relatively little connective tissue, and it's fairly dry. Well, I put it in the cooker with a bottle of beer and went to work today. We came back to the house smelling amazing. Basically, all the fat rendered out but the wet cooking method kept the meat moist. We just shredded it. We had invited our friend Xeowolf over, and he and Whateley ate the pork by piling it on top of nachos. I just put them in pita pockets, the first one with some hot sauce and soy sauce, and the second with lots of barbecue sauce. Let's just say, shredded pork goes really well with barbecue sauce. Yum.

The meat did need a little more salt, though. Next time, we'll add some salt to the cooking liquid so it'll have 8 hours to soak as it cooks. Actually, I want to try cooking a more appropriate cut of meat too. Brisket seems to be a good choice. And being in Texas, brisket is king for some odd reason.

My next cooking experiment, though, is finding a good noodle to go with curry. I just don't think Italian pasta is the way to go. We got some Asian ramen noodles, so hopefully that'll taste appropriate. I would like to have gotten rice noodles, but they only seem to come in the really thin kind. Like vermicelli. Maybe I'm just being too picky.