A Crazy Cat's Life

...'cause we got an eighth cat. Yep, eight. We are crazy. About a week after getting Loki, we noticed that he was really sad because the other cats wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with him still. The poor guy just wanted a playmate and the look of disappointment on his face when none of the cats wanted to play with him just broke my heart. The breeders gave us a decent price on a second kitten so we snatched one up from the same litter. I chose one of the black smoke males and we have since named him "Monkee." Darren has been dying to name one of the cats "monkey" and it fit this time since his black face kind of gives him the look of one. Plus he's a little troublemaker. :) I decided to give him the name with two e's as a tribute to one of my old time favorite bands, The Monkees. Here are a few pics of him and Loki...

Yesterday, the NHL and NHLPA said that they had an "agreement in principle" that needs to be ratified by the players and Board of Governors before the details are made public. Is this a Good Thing? Ya, I guess. It means that the year-long lockout may finally be over. Whether or not it was worth losing a season over remains to be seen. The only detail that is known is that a salary cap will be in place, something the players said they would never agree to. Geeze. "At the end of the day everybody lost." - Wayne Gretzky on the tentative agreement to end a lockout in the National Hockey League.

Ah the little fellow is home now. We brought him home this past Saturday and he has added so much positive energy to us. I forget how much fun a little kitten can be. He already has the run of the house and the other cats are getting used to him. The first few days there was a lot of hissing and growling, but that's expected. I told Darren to give it a week and things should be back to normal. I brought him to the vet today for an exam and to get a stool sample tested. There were two litters together in the same room at the breeders and the other mother tested positive for round worm and giardia. The breeders were upset by this since their house had been worm free and they offered to pay for the test. I'll get the results back tomorrow and we'll see if he needs any additional meds. Joy. Other than that, he's very healthy. Though he wasn't happy about getting his rabies vaccination. It took three of us to hold him still for it. Poor little guy.

Here are some more pics of Loki. These were taken last week when he was 10 weeks old... Getting little fuzzy kisses Oooooh...what's that? After mommy gave him a bath

I'm finally getting around to posting these pictures of little Loki from our last visit this past Monday. He's eight weeks now and boy is he getting big! He's paws are huge too so we know he's going to be a big boy. Here is Darren holding little Loki: Here he is living up to his name: Here is a nice picture showing his coloring as a silver and red tabby: We'll be able to take him home at the end of the month and I can't wait!

So how do most people spend their summer vacation? Well, I doubt most of them spend it in a multimedia lab at school working on 3D animation projects just for fun. I do have the program, SoftImage's XSI, at home but the systems at school are so much better and they have 21" monitors. It's bad enough XSI is divided up into four screens. On a 19" monitor those two inches make a huge difference in trying to see stuff. Anywho...so I'm modeling one of those silly wooden dolls that artists pose to help them to get "natural" human positions. I got the modeling and texturing all done so now I'm trying to create the rigging skeleton for it so I can animate it. Argh! Rigging is not an easy thing. I read the instructions on how to do it but when I try to make it work...well...let's just say it's not working. I was about to give up afer three hours when I finally saw Francis showed up. Good. I can rack his brain on how to fix it. However, I ne...

...and I'm bored out of my freakin' mind! Argh! I can't seem to win. LOL. So yes, I survived the semester and I managed to get all A's. Like there was any doubt in that respect. The last month of the semester almost did me in though. The pathetic bursting-out-into-tears-in-my-professor's-office along with a near nervous breakdown was...um...well...pathetic. I tend to get myself worked up into a frenzy, trying to get everything done perfectly. That's the problem with being a straight-A student: I want the A every single time and nothing I ever do is good enough for me. If it wasn't for Francis convincing me that I would get an A no matter what in that last bit, I don't know what would've happened. My depression was waiting in the wings to completely roll over me. Luckily that didn't happen and I got everything done. If you're interested, here are the links to my 2D animation final. It's a music video to the Duran Duran song ...