Got the Jimmy Legs

March 14, 2008 – 2:44 pm

So you had a bad day

Shuttle Bus: Caught!, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

The week is winding up, another storm of miscommunication, purposeful redactions, and all-around confusion about who's minding the store. But now the weekend is here I can turn to the important things in life: cleaning out litterboxes and vaccuumming cat hair off the ice trays. But first I have to pick up Shuttle Bus.

That's Shuttle Bus up above, I caught her last night and brought her into BARC to get spayed. We're a bit worried because there is evidence that she is nursing a litter of kittens somewhere, but we don't know where they are. So she's going back out on the street tonight, and hopefully any kittens will be right where she left them. Either way, she's had a rougher day than I have.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

March 6, 2008 – 11:43 am

Twist away the gates of steel

Sheer Hatred, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

My company is now officially another company. Whoopee. The last week has been super annoying, the kind of week that makes me want to push people's buttons just because you know you can quickly have them as annoyed as you are. This is the kind of week that you almost wish for a crowded subway, just so you have an excuse to elbow a stranger in the ribs. Luckily, this is a wish I don't have to hold my breath to get on a regular basis.

I supposed over all the transition has been pretty smooth, I just have lots of tedious stuff to do, people pushing me from all sides even though none of them really know what they want. They just know somebody is supposed to be doing something, so everybody's been running around like their hair's on fire, if only to look like they know what's going on.

I skipped a company party to pick up some TNR cats from the shelter. It's times like these I suspect my priorities need to be reevaluated. But then I remember that trapping wild cats doesn't adequately fund the lifestyle I enjoy that has proper resources to trap and hold feral cats. Then I shut up and I get back to work. You should get back to work too.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in BARC, Cat Fixin', Cats, Feral, Job, Office, Strays, Tedium | Comments Off

February 29, 2008 – 2:50 pm

I am the eye in the sky

When I was a lad I loved the comic strip Garfield. It used to be sort of funny. Nowadays it's just stupid. I don't think it's because I've grown up, I think the old ones are still funny. But the new stuff isn't funny. anyway, somebody had the idea to remove Garfield's namesake from a bunch of the strips, and suddenly it's not only hilarious again, it's thoughtful, sad, something like a Beckett play. You might have to read a few of them to get into it, but slowly you'll start to see the character of Jon quietly go insane. Interesting to think that the only difference is there's no cat for him to talk to. I talk to cats all the time. Would I talk as much if they weren't there. Yes. Yes, I would.

via freedanger

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Funny to Me | Comments Off

February 29, 2008 – 1:28 pm

More than meets the eye

Prince

This is Prince, formerly Rudy, formerly Rusty, formerly "Hey Gladys has ANOTHER kitten out there!" I'll try to request some newer pictures of him, since these (on the right) were taken a while ago. But I only recently learned how to extract photos from a cellphone. Rudy was a great little kitten, one of the three produced by Gladys that we took in. He was the most gregarious of the three brothers, the first one to let us pet him, the first to sit with us on the couch, and the trendsetter for all the kittens we took in over the summer. They say orange tabbies are naturally sweet (like raisins), and so far my experience has been right in line with this. While his brothers scurried off in fear, he would come up to us and eventually became pretty much like any other house cat.

He still had his feral elements: easily spooked, and as of adoption hand-over he didn't like being picked up. But he was well on his way to being a very nice cat otherwise. It may be hard to tell in the photos how he's changed because by the time he left he had gotten pretty big, and had attained a grown cat's proportions. So in photos it's hard to tell how big or small he really was. He'll always be remembered as one of my favorite fosters, he really helped the other cats learn to like humans and made our house full of cats not seem so much like the irrational activity it often feels like.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Before and After, Cats, kittens | Comments Off

February 28, 2008 – 2:59 pm

Where you been

Where you been, originally uploaded by Jimmy Legs.

That's the newest feral to fall into our clutches. I'm pleased that it's a female (I think), because that means getting her spayed will stop her from having any kittens, PLUS female cats are much less likely to spray. This is in some ways the biggest plus of this whole TNR thing, a reduction in cat musk. I don't know what evolutionary side street this noxious stuff came from, but in sufficient doses it's every bit as horrible as skunk odor. My neighbor had a cat mark his front door and he tried to remove it with an ammonia-based cleanser. Big mistake; the ammonia actually makes it worse!

Anyway, enough cats (for now). I put this photo up because I didn't take any pictures at the Market Hotel, where we saw Black Dice play last weekend. It's the newish venue above Mr. Kiwi's, below the Myrtle JMZ station.

What's good about it:

3 train stops from my house, meaning virtually no pesky walking in getting to and from venue.

Fairly smart staff/residents, who keep an orderly line and know when to cut off entry so as to avoid a Shirtwaist Fire situation. There were maybe a couple too many reminders about not hanging out in front of the club, but when we left there were indeed a bunch of stupid people loitering right in front and drawing undue attention to the joint.

Bar served Budweiser, which, I know, is a lame megabrewery, but Bud is easier to stomach than, say, Busch, which for some reason has become the only beer available at these places. I need to bring that flask, but it's nice to put a little more money back into the venue.

They had a coat check! It looked like they were just throwing coats on the floor of the room, but points for trying. I am not at all certain the place has any real heating source of its own, the heat being provided by the 500+ people in attendance (Matrix-style). Since we can never leave a venue until the proprietors are meaningfully sweeping the floor over our feet, it was notably colder and a coat was warranted.

Not so hot:

This is debatable, but the place is really big. That sounds like a good thing, and for most I'm sure it is. But for me it was a bit cavernous. The sound was actually pretty good, but I guess I just prefer tiny clubs (as long as they're not crowded). Maybe this is why so many bands I like never make it; if I like your band, you're probably playing a small club to few people. Oops.

It's getting a lot of attention and has booked some larger shows: How long can it last before a) it attracts huge, lame crowds or b) it gets shut down?

Not so hot this weekend for the Ghengis Tron show: Queens-bound JMZ trains are not running between Myrtle and Broadway Junction. shuttle buses take their place on Bushwick Ave. Okay we could probably walk it and not die. And it's just the Queens-bound side, so getting there is no problem. But if the show runs late the likelihood of catching a bus is slim. Of course, shuttle buses can be surprisingly frequent, but I'm still dreading it. I guess we could take a car home, but that's even lamer to consider.