Monday, September 25, 2006

Random musings posted so that I can put off doing my homework


I have been studying for my oral exam all weekend. Now, I have to hurridly finish grading and take notes on the articles I should have been reading for class.

But why do that when I can kill a few minutes entertaining you all with notes from my non-life?

Some friends went out of town this weekend and I'm taking care of their two cats. For some reason, almost every physicist I know names their pet after other physicists. Sometimes, for variety, we name them after mathematicians. My cat, Phi, has had visits from Fermi, Pascal, and now a Gauss. Gauss, however, has been nicknamed Squeakers, which I think is a sad fate for any cat. How can he expect any respect at all in the cat community with a name like Squeakers? Of course, his devotion to small tinfoil balls and random pieces of dirt found on the floor probably doesn't help his credibility either.

His housemate Pascal, however, is not a cat to be trifled with. In his quest to catch small animals, Pascal once crawled into my ceiling. (To explain, I live in a basement apartment and my ceiling has those lightweight tiles that you just drop into tracks suspended from the floor above.) Apparently it was like a cat wonderland up there, and it took some heavy persuading, and serious pulling, to convince him to come down.

As an ending bonus, I include a photo from the Star Trek convention that I forgot to post. Sadly, this costume is not homemade - the Ferengi is an employee of the Star Trek gift shop. Still, he made the properly in-character sexist remarks about oomaks...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you try to seduce the Ferengie and tickle his ears?
Glad to find that there are others out there who also want to find reasons to procrastinate.

alexis said...

I think my cat is named after a scientist, or at least what passed for a scientist at the time: Haley, after the commet. But I usually call her "cat!" or, "cat, get down from there!"