The cat is 10

My cat, Brewski, is turning 10 this spring. I know he has a lot of life left, my last two cats made it to 18 and 19, but still he's getting old. He's older than me in that cat year  to human year ratio thingy. I'll have to start thinking of his retirement. I'll have to hire other cats to chase bugs for him and poo on the side of the kitty litter instead of right inside it. I would hire another cat to splash toilet water out of the toilet and onto the seat, but then I'd just have two cats doing that.

I didn't realize just how big he was until we started fostering young cats. They are much smaller than Brew is. I think he's just big boned, but Kate disagrees. Not that she is complaining, when we first got the rats she couldn't wait till they were big and fat. Now we have to keep cutting the holes in their boxes bigger and bigger so they can fit inside. They only live 2-3 years, why not give them as much food as they want. I couldn't imagine having a pet on a diet.

I recently found the original form that came with Brewski while looking for last year's tax stuff, I haven't done my 2009 taxes yet, but I'm working on it. The form, which also revealed Brew's true age of 10 (I thought he was seven), said the cat wasn't to have milk or fish. The milk I understand, if they drink too much of that they puke and then I've got to clean it up, but no fish? Did all those cartoons of yesteryear lie to us? It's especially funny that literally three days before I found the form we fed him six whole raw fish. He was the only one of four cats that showed any interest in them oddly enough.

Kate fried the fish whole in oil and we ate them with spicy mayo. They were pretty good for whole fish. I was skeptical at first, I've never eaten fish eyes and fish brain and whole fish skeletons before, but I barely tasted the grey matter at all so it worked out pretty well. Plus it was two bucks for 30 little fish or something. Much cheaper than the organic beef we buy. I guess anything fried in oil is pretty good.

CBC Fail

Am I the only one a little pissed off with all the William and Kate crap going on? I understand that following the Royal family is similar to following professional sports. The people involved provide very little service to the world while taking very large amounts of money in return.  It's like selling your old beat up shoes for 5 million bucks, it's not considered stealing, but maybe it should be.

I'm not annoyed that people are interested in the marriage, people can decide to be entertained by whatever they want. What I'm annoyed about is that it's considered huge international news. The National opened with a 15 minute segment on the pair, and then went back to it later in the show. What piece of news took second billing to this farce of a marriage? The deaths of five Canadians in an explosion in Mexico.

People watch The National to be informed, but what they learn is that princesses who have no real political power are the most important people in the world. No wonder most people have this desire to horde as much money as possible while people across the world are starving and dying in wars, they grow up watching rich people get married, or play polo instead of learning about what's actually happening on this planet.

I don't care about the Royal family, I want to know what the hell North Korea is doing, or what shenanigans the conservative party is up to, not who may be invited to a wedding that will cost enough to feed half of Africa.

Is it just me that thinks we have our priorities totally back asswards?

The National went on last night to explain how a family is looking for a lost son in Vancouver. They had concerns that the police weren't investigating all the leads. Mansbridge says the police claim to be investigating every lead as they cut to a quote of a cop making a statement. The statement, I kid you not, was this:

"Six [count them, six] physics AND the police have been in contact with the family." End of statement. WTF

I had to watch if five times before I believed it. Now one of two things is going on here. One: the police actually use physics to investigate disappearances, and possibly rely heavily on them, or Two: it's a mistake on the CBC's part, the wrong clip or it's taken out of context. After the statement the CBC said nothing to clarify what the police meant, they went on to something completely different.

I have a very tough time believing that the police believe physics are useful tools, well they are tools, I think it's more likely that the CBC screwed up somehow. But what does that mean? It means they put way more effort into talking about a useless wedding than they did about the ineptitude of the police and/or a hunt for a missing person. Sorry Mr. and Mrs. [Johnson] we don't have time to properly expose a police force with their head up their ass that may be at fault for the death of your son, we have to cover a bunch of insanely rich people get married.

I love the CBC, but last night's National was National Enquirer worthy, and it was crap.

Michael Vick

I was assigned NFL football at work a couple weeks ago and so far I've noticed the same guy coming up favorably in the news section of NFL.com. Michael Vick has slowly worked his way back into the limelight of the NFL. I write quite a few articles everyday, but I find myself returning to Vick over and over. Today was no exception after one of the best quarterback performances of the past 10 years.

I didn't see much of the game as I was in my photoshop class learning how to recreate the X-men cover. Photoshop people love the sci-fi stuff. I went to NFL.com on the break and saw it was 7-0 only a few seconds into the game, so I watch the highlight and saw Vick launch an 88-yard pass for a touchdown. I checked again later in the class and it was 35-0. Wow.

Normally I wouldn't write about sports on my blog, unless it's the Maple Leafs, or the CFL maybe, but I have to note how impressed I am with Vick's comeback, and it's my job these days so how can I not write about it, oh wait...

Now I'm sure these guys have people telling them exactly how to behave if they want people to like them, but it seems many ignore that advice. Not Vick, either that or he's actually a good guy. If you've forgotten, he went to jail for running a dog fighting ring.

I don't disagree with the league and the state punishing him for his actions, but I do question why Vick was vilified while other NFLers that play with guns or drugs get a slap on the wrist.

He came back last year and patiently sat on the bench while McNabb played all the Eagles games. This year he was second string behind Kevin Kolb. Kolb got hurt and Vick became the starter and hasn't looked back. Vick is going to win MVP, mark my words.

Speaking of the CFL, Montreal plays Toronto on Sunday at Olympic Stadium in the Eastern Conference Finals. Can't wait.

Also congrats to Russia for winning the FIVB Women's Volleyball World Championship. Volleyball is a very boring sport to cover, but tournaments are long and drawn out so at least there's some math involved to determine pool winners in the complicated system they've developed. I'm series, the math is the best part.

I've got only two classes left in my Concordia classes for this semester, tonight we go take pictures for Wedding and Portrait in a church, and next week I have a final Photoshop class. I expect to take Camera II and Product photography in January, and then Photojournalism and Sports Photography in the spring. 

Also Brewski will be ten this spring.

Sports writing continues and a www.joedeclara.com update

Same old at the office, although now that the baseball season has ended there is much less to write about. The FIVB Women's World Volleyball Championships did start last on October 29th Japan though. Canada has already been eliminated so don't get excited.

The good news on the writing front is that the article I wrote for Pucklife magazine was accepted, and it should be published in the November issue. I will give another update on that when it's actually published. I will also facebook it for facers.

I've not exactly quit on my coverage of the Alouettes, although I haven't written on them since the ninth game of the season, and now they're nearing the end of the regular season. I do intend to try and get to the Eastern Conference Semi-final, and I should have plenty of time to cover the final regular season game, as well as add a playoff opinion article before their first playoff game. I will also update that on http://www.joedeclara.com/.

You'll see new photography posts on joedeclara.com as well. I finished my fashion photography class so I've added some of the pictures I used in my assignments. For the instudio shoot, a classmate brought a friend, and I used Kate in my final assignment. My photoshop skills are coming along, although they can certainly use some practice. I removed a few trees from behind Kate's head in one of the pictures, thankfully it was a blurry part of the picture.

That's about all I've got, the animals are well, the house is abnormally clean, and I'm all alone this weekend with Kate hading down to visit her friend in Washington DC. That means there will be a poker game on Saturday night.

Update complete.