weirdness

You are currently browsing articles tagged weirdness.

Cats with Horned Paws — It’s a Thing

27 March 2013 in Animals | Comment

It took about three years for Jane to become comfortable enough to allow me to pick her up. In fact, she is a bit of a mysery. Most days she hides out downstairs. We didn’t discover there was a name for her breed (Nebelung) until last year when I answered trivia on FreeKibbleKat which sounded a lot like a description of our fluffball. We just keep finding things out about our old cat Jane.

Yesterday’s discovery was something Miklos had noticed long ago but somehow forgot to mention.

You can’t tell from here, and you can barely tell from up close… which is why I haven’t got a more recent picture. That’s a two-person job.

Jane has horned paws. They’re on every toe pad on both front paws. This link will explain more, and keep in mind, Jane is not a polydactyl (6-toed) cat, but just a regular old cat with what looks like nails growing in a mirror image out of her paw pads toward her other claws. Just weird. I’ll get pictures and update this post later.

I don’t know if they bother her, but they might, since she walks very lightly. Apparently you can clip them and they don’t have a blood supply. As long as you clean them it should be fine. I might wait until Jane’s a bit more sleepy to do that, however. I’m scared of having to wait another three years to get to pet her again.

Miklos says he noticed this a long time ago. Jane is almost 12, I have known her almost five years and have just learned this now. Proof positive that I’m not one of those canoodling-her-cats-all-day cat ladies. For now.

Have you ever had a cat with horned paws?

Up All Night is (Probably) Done

20 March 2013 in TV/Movies | Comment

A week ago, I realized we hadn’t watched Up All Night since (I think) January, which could be seen in either a good or a bad light, given my thoughts on the current season. (Summary: Mostly good cast, but premise has strayed quite a bit from its original intent, which might be fine if not for the show’s name.)

After some research, I came up with why it’s been gone a while, though not officially cancelled (yet).

While Up All Night wasn’t the greatest show in its entirety and its name never really worked, there was potential the first year to become a hit sitcom. This year part way through the season, NBC made the decision they were going to turn it into a multi-camera format with a live audience, something that typically doesn’t sit well with … uh … how do I say this … non-Big Bang Theory fans. These days, I mean. I could list a tonne of great shows from the ’90s it worked well with, Seinfeld among them.

Yep, switching formats in the middle of the second season of a show generally cleverer than many other sitcoms on its network. Maybe Jack Donaghy is running NBC (into the ground on purpose) after all.

It didn’t seem like a great idea, so maybe that’s why Christina Applegate, one of two main characters, as well as Up All Night‘s creator, Emily Spivey, quit the show.

up all night cast

There have been weird things said, like now that Maya Rudolph is pregnant a fourth time, the show will shift focus to her character’s life with a baby (ugh). Or maybe Phoebe from Friends will take over where Christina Applegate left off. Yeah! That’ll be great! Gees, NBC. Will Arnett is filming a pilot now and Arrested Development is coming back soon, so no skin off his back, although this remains confusing as he’s contracted to do a few more episodes with Up All Night.

Weird business. Here‘s an article that will provide more information on who quit the show and other junk they were considering to ‘fix’ the moderately-rated show.

Did you ever watch this show? Did you find it as odd as I did that the baby was seen maybe once a show and referred to probably twice, despite its baby-themed title?

Facebook Asking for Government Issued ID to Prove You’re Who You Say You Are

26 February 2013 in Journal | 2 comments

Woke up to a strange thing. Miklos had been locked out of his Facebook account for not using his real name. There is a problem with this theory: He has always used his full, real name.

When he asked what was up, he was presented with this:

Email Miklos received today. Join the discussion on Facebook.

This apparently has happened to other people using their real name. I’m using a variation of mine, and Facebook and I are tighter than ever. Miklos’s new name, in case you did not click the link, is now “Miki Real Bacso”. Sounds legit. They allowed it. He cannot change it, however, at least for the time being. It doesn’t let him.

Facebook does not deserve to see your ID. If this happens to you, do not hand it over. I highly doubt the government would approve of sending JPGs of your personal information to a social media site in this age of identity theft.

What do you do? Good question. Change your name to something completely different from your real name? Maybe that will sate the Facebook identity police at least long enough until they do a years-long investigation into your name (which is how long this must’ve taken, since Miklos has not changed his name in about as long as we’ve been together and they just locked him out today).

Interestingly enough, his account is synced with Twitter, and in his Facebook update sent from Twitter, it showed his actual (fake, according to Facebook) name:

facebook twitter sync, identity authentication on facebook

Miklos Bacso updated Facebook through Twitter with this, not “Miki Real Bacso”. How odd.

Great stuff. Hope this gets sorted soon, or else I might have to take the Real Bacso name, instead of just Bacso.

Has this happened to you? How was it resolved?

Google Analytics: New Visitors, Returning Visitors… Other?!

7 January 2013 in Interesting | Comment

While taking a look at Google Analytics today, I came across something strange. I entered the dates as far back as they would go until present day for one of Miklos’s sites, and a mysterious lone ranger turned up.

Analytics Other

Neither new, nor returning? How can that…? Apparently the same has happened to others. So who is this single visitor over the course of 2 years on a site that’s had tonnes of pageviews? Is it the same visitor on every site? Is it GoogleBot Himself (but then, wouldn’t GoogleBot not track himself)?

When I checked visitor history on this blog, however, there was no Mystery Visitor. I guess GoogleBot is out. So who could it be?

I’m interested to know from other bloggers: If you date Analytics as far back as it will let you, does the same kind of result turn up?

Val Valentino Strikes Again – Masked Magician Fail

28 November 2012 in TV/Movies, Video | Comment

One of the most common ways people get to my site is to search “Val Valentino” or “masked magician” on Google, almost certainly because I once wrote this.

In the past couple of days, the popular search term has been “val valentino fail”. Well, to your delight and to my confusion (what was actually supposed to happen here, magicians?!), here it is.

I’m not a fan of showcasing failures, but (1) I give the people what they want to some degree, and (2) I’ve always been kind of slighted that he wasn’t one of the magicians anyone cared about, just some weiner guy off the street and probably in some moderately-paid Vegas gig.

Do you remember this guy? Were you as sad as me, or did it make sense to you that he was one of the crappy magic guys?