the humor of cats

This is a cat that was hanging around our table in Morocco. My first kitler.

BCN door tour

Finally got my Barcelona street art photos onto flickr. Consists of photos almost entirely from walking around the Gothic District and nearby (the above was in a shopping mall on the water). I don't know the names of all the artists, though I do know that the ones I thought my be Banksy are by Dolk (thanks Banksy group moderators).

no jains on the ant farm

The rain has finally started to fall which usually would signal me to get ready to go snowboarding, but since I'm not doing that I've got plenty of time to go crazy trying to kill all the critters that are beginning to take refuge in my house.

Ants and mice.

I remember the ants when I first moved into this place- they were coming in like crazy through the light switch by the front door. I taped up the hole with some clear packing tape and it got nearly solid with ant bodies, but eventually they stopped. I imagine it could be maddening to push through the exhausted bodies of your soon to be dead mates, if they were to have emotions or mental states, of course. Now they seem to be coming through the vents in my office and bathroom- not exactly easy to cover up if I want, say, heat. So I've been wiping down their trails (and taking a small number in the process) with household cleaner or water and laying down glue-side-up gaffer tape to make a trap, but it doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot. Well, it seems to be doing a little, but I would bet that there will be another thick wagon train by the morning. I've moved to more mechanized means of disposal so I hope they will all enjoy the ride through the vacuum hose tomorrow.

The mice, on the other hand, are a bit more wiley. Similar to the ants, they were here when I got here but seemed to be deterred by a few well-placed glue traps. But now they are back and bolder. More glue traps have not turned up any results aside from less traffic in the space above my stove. The real problem, though, since I don't mind living in Berkeley squalor (ie exclusive property in the hills with ghetto hygiene), is that they have gotten into the upstairs space. Probably a good thing I've got boys living up there but maybe not, depending on their cleanliness (didn't seem to have the problem with the Korean lady up there). Irregardless, if I were a tenant I would be pretty annoyed that my landlord (ie me) hasn't gotten rid of them. I hope when we all come back from holiday travel we will be received by the odor of rotting mice.

How do I love the car industry? Let me count the ways...

So when the State owns the industry, it's called communism but when the industry owns the State, it's called democracy?

return to not work

So it's after Thanksgiving and I no longer have family visit as an excuse to not get work done. I got a preliminary edit of Morocco travel photos done but they're not quite ready for general consumption yet. I think this time around I'm going to put comments on each photo or at least a bunch of them instead of doing a longer writeup here like I did with previous trips to Europe, partially because the longer it gets since the trip, the less fresh it is anyway.

Until then, though. here's a mildly disturbing video.