I just saw Weird Al Yankovic's "White and Nerdy" video, and I've got to say that I don't think I've ever wanted to be a nerd as much as I do now. Mr. Yankovic made what, for my money, is an extremely compelling case for the nerd lifestyle. I've been discussing this with some of my goth friends, and while they think that being a nerd and being a goth are mutually exclusive, I disagree. You can be a Romantic-era poet and a goth, an industrial machine operator and a goth, you can be wangsty and a goth, you can be a punk and a goth, etc. I think that with my amazingly high goth quotient, I can start a whole new goth subgroup. I'll call us Nerdigoths. I think I can pick up the few remaining Visigoths; with that kind of dedication to the world's first computer spreadsheet, they've got to be nerds. I'll bet Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston would look pretty hip in whatever style of dress I create for Nerdigoths.

I'll need some funding to get the Nerdigoths going. SF Bay Area Biotechgoths have the DNA Lounge. BBQgoths have Meat. I intend to unveil The Captain's Lounge, where Nerdigoths can hang out and make fun of those people who actually think that Kirk could take down Picard, Sisko, or Janeway. (Sorry, Mr. Yankovic, but if you can't tell that Kirk sucked, you can't be a true Nerdigoth.) We would also allow fans of other geeky things in, of course. I just need enough money to buy a place to chill, some food and supplies, a few employees, and geeky things to hang on the wall. If any of you would-be Nerdigoths have things to donate, let me know. I could always use those giant slide rules that they used to have in high school math classrooms, as well as other geeky bacchanalia like anime wall scrolls, M.U.S.C.L.E. men, Battle Beasts, jerseys from your favorite teams, pool tables, and a disco ball.

I've been having a little trouble with my plans for monkey piracy. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA threatened to sue me for piracy, but oddly enough the Monkey/Primate Association of America didn't. These suits failed because they couldn't find a single judge who was willing to handle a lawsuit against a cute kitty cat over monkey piracy. The fact that neither the MPAA nor the RIAA actually owned the concept of a monkey as intelectual property didn't enter into things. A judge would be all set to go when I'd send him or her a link to my monkey piracy post, where you can find a picture of my cute little face, and suddenly the suit was off. Eventually the RIAA and MPAA sent me letters of apology, explaining that they had nothing against me, hadn't actually read my post, and simply made a habit of suing the pants off any new copying technology. Presumably the fact that I don't wear pants made their plans a little more difficult, but I suspect it was mostly my face.

I've had another important problem. I need an original monkey to begin my plans, and those are hard to come by. I've tried talking with officials at the San Francisco Zoo, and they seemed less than thrilled. I explained that I only wanted to borrow the monkey, but they still said no. I then explained that it my plan was merely to duplicate the monkey - if I accidentally ate it, they could always use the backup. They didn't take this idea seriously at all.

As a result, I've been trying out means of pirating other foods. In particular, I've been looking into burning luncheon meats. The MonkeyCopy drives don't work too well with this, but they work substantially better than either of the other two systems I've tested. The MonkeyCopy MR and MW+ drives accepted the ham with no trouble. I guess this isn't a shock, since they are designed to hold entire monkeys. I built my own third-party adapters to hold the ham in place, but the MonkeyBurn software still said the drives were empty. Nothing I did would make the software detect the ham, even after dismantling the computer and reinstalling the operating system. I'm not posting from that computer.

I'm sad to say that I can only give the slot-loading Apple 8x Super Drive (DVD+-RW/CD-RW) a single Paw out of five for its handling of a slice of salami. I've seen it read CDs, DVDs, VCDs, and PS1 disks, but the salami was clearly beyond its ability. It appeared to accept the salami, but then there was a sort of sucking noise and then some grinding and bubbling. I couldn't get the salami to mount under OS X, even when I went to the terminal and tried plain Unix.

Much the same can be said about the SuperMulti double-layer drive on the Toshiba. I had to trim the bologna to fit into the drive, and after a few squishing sounds Windows informed me that it had detected a brand of head cheese not certified by Microsoft. It warned me that luncheon meats that are not Microsoft-certified can pose a risk of spyware. Then it crashed. I can't fault the SuperMulti for this, since I was using Windows. It made some disgusting noises while rebooting, and from then on it refused to recognize the drive. When I queried Windows, I got the error "Windows does not wish to think about the state of its internal DVD system. Please stop asking."

I did a little Internet research and found some evidence that most optical drives have trouble supporting luncheon meats. My thanks to T. Vin for this experiment. If only I'd seen it earlier. At least now the air smells of cooked meats. It's rather festive.

I've got a new plan to make me rich and full at the same time. I'm going to pirate monkeys. All I need are a MonkeyCopy MR drive, an MW+ drive, and a copy of the MonkeyBurn 2.0 software. Oh, yeah. I'll also need a box of blank monkeys. I'll also need one original monkey, but that can be a loaner. I've heard that MonkeyBurn is easy to use. The tutorial from www.monkeyburner.com goes as follows:

Insert original monkey into the MR drive. If you are using Unix, you might have to type something like "mount /dev/mky0 /mnt/monkey." Don't quote us on that, though. The last time any of us used Unix was in 1979.

Insert blank monkey into the MW+ drive. Again, if you are using Unix, try something along the lines of "mount /dev/mky1 /mnt/blankmonkey." If that doesn't work, we think you should try something like "mount /dev/mky1 /mnt/blankmonkey --pentalty=installWindows."

MonkeyBurn 2.0 should already have been running. We kind of forgot to mention that earlier. If it isn't, you'll have to reboot and start over. If you are using Linux and anyone calls you on this, just say you are recompiling the kernel to make your system even more efficient.

MonkeyBurn should automatically detect which drive has the original monkey and which has the blank, in part because you should already have the original in the MR drive and the blank in the MW+ drive and in part because both drives have gyroscopes that tell when they contain an angry monkey. If this does not work, you might need to uninstall MonkeyBurn, remove the monkeys from the drives, disconnect the drives from your computer, turn your computer off, disconnect it from any sort of power supply, rip its guts out, throw them back in, reconnect the power, turn it back on, reconnect the drives, reinstall the monkeys, and reinstall MonkeyBurn. If you are using a Unix system, contact your sysadmin instead. If you are the admin for a Unix machine, we are very, very sorry.

Once MonkeyBurn has detected the correct MonkeyCopy drives, press the "Duplicate Monkey" button. No. The one on the screen. Click the one on the screen. Not the keyboard. What did we just tell you? No, the scr-- Not with your finger! Use the mouse. Yes, move the mouse so the little arrow on the screen is over the little box on the screen that says "Duplicate Monkey" and click the left mouse button. No, your other left. My left. Whatever. Mac users should have this a lot easier, what with most of their mice having only one button. What? How can you have a mouse without a button? Try rocking it or something. Yeah, squeeze the sides. That makes sense. Sure. If you are doing this on a laptop with a pointing nub, touchpad, or trackball, go to Hell.

You can tell that the MonkeyCopy drives are working because you will hear sounds coming from them. The drives themselves operate silently, but the monkeys tend not to like the copying or burning processes. That's what you are hearing. When the sounds die down, you should see a little window that says, "Burn complete." Your burn is now complete. You should have a duplicate monkey in the MW+ drive. Please note that this duplicate copy is for use as a backup only, should you eat or lose your original. If you do not own the original, use the duplicate only for educational purposes and be sure to "delete" it within 24 hours.

What can be simpler? I borrow a monkey, duplicate it, and return it. I duplicate the duplicate, and since MonkeyBurn 2.0 is 100% digital, I can duplicate duplicates without loss of quality. I can eat some and sell the others.

Last night (this morning, actually), I started having trouble breathing. I tried to get assaultdoor to give me a squirt of that asthma spray that he pops like it's going out of style, but he wouldn't. Instead, everyone bundled me up in a blanket, stuffed me in a car, and drove me at like 320kph to the local vet hospital. They put me in some kind of plastic tank full of oxygen, which was pretty nice. I see why oxygen bars are all the rage these days. Oxygen is nice and harmless, while alcohol is used to kill microbes and preserve foods that nobody would actually eat the first time. Anyhow, this tank was probably a lot like what the Spacing Guild navigators use, except that it had oxygen and not Spice. Then they ran some tests and poked me with needles. I was hooked up to some kind of machine, and they had to shave my wrist to get an IV into me. I'm hoping they come out with a V soon, since the IV isn't that much fun. I feel sorry for all of the people in the days of old who had to use the III, however.

Now that I have a bare patch on my wrist, I'm thinking of selling advertising space. I was thinking of getting a tattoo of Wel-Pac unagi, but perhaps some other corporate entity would be willing to pay me more. If you are, work for, or know any corporate entities, let them know that I'm walking, talking, super-awesome kitty signage and I'm open for business.

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I actually made it home, and I'm not having any trouble breathing. The doc said that there wasn't that much fluid around my lungs, so the trouble I had was probably just excitement. I'm going to try the quiet life from now on.

I saw several bridges on the way home. Just in case some of you have never seen one before, let me tell you something. Bridges are mean, nasty little bastards. They just sneak up on you, jump out, and scream "RAR!" or "LHA!" or "ARJ!" or something crazy like that. Then they run away. They scare me, and I'd dearly love to see them all torn down. Stupid bridges. I hate them so damned much.

Update: After looking at some of the forms that came with me from the hospital, I found out something really amazing. I actually have a first name! It's Kitty. I think. Maybe it's Miss and I have the middle name of Kitty. Maybe Miss is a generational name and all of my cousins also have it, and Kitty is my personal name. I don't remember my parents being Chinese or Korean, but I could be mistaken. I'm a little worried that it's actually a double first name, kind of like JoAnne or Jo Ellen or Mary Sue or Donald Rumsfeld. I really don't want to sound like I'm from Arkansas or really awful fanfic, I'm pretty sure my family isn't from Asia, and that my first name isn't Miss, so I'm going to say that my given name is Kitty. My family name, according to this form, is Ryan. This is quite a coincidence, as Ryan is also the family name of the people who drove me to the hospital.

I just read this article on Cognitive Daily, and the potential is amazing! Whenever I find yummy food around the house, I try to eat as much of it as I can. Unfortunately, I tend to get full. This is bad for several reasons. First, I like eating. It's fun. The more I can eat, the more I will enjoy life. Second, I've been losing weight. I'm down to about 3.6 kilograms, which is not good for a cat of my size. I need to eat more. Third, what if some other cat shows up? I don't want this new cat to be eating my food. I just can't sleep at noon thinking about some other cat eating food that I was too full to eat. However, this research suggests that being full is a matter of remembering that you have eaten. Thus, by swinging one of those thin, red, plastic fortune-telling fish on a string in front of my eyes and erasing my memory of eating, I'll be able to eat more, thus increasing my enjoyment of life, my weight, and the chances that any new cat will go hungry around here. Also, I can put out Eat More Through Self-Hypnosis, a book that would make millions. I can even go to the grocery store with a big bag of quarters to get some of those fortune-telling fish and then put one fish in each copy of the book.

That's right. I need 50 big ones to buy a rabbit named Toby. According to Toby's website, he is an extremely cute critter, although not as cute as I am, and if the webmaster doesn't get the money by the end of the month, Toby will be eaten. It's only fitting that a cute cat should save and adopt a cute bunny. I know $50,000 is a lot for a rabbit (one page on the website suggests that normal bunnies go for as little as $1,000), but there are two huge advantages to me saving Toby. First, it would keep some strange person from eating Toby. Second, Toby comes with a number of suggested recipes. Yep, denying food to another and getting food for myself make this a pretty sweet deal, and certainly worth the extra $49,000 that it will cost. I know $50k is a lot of money, so I'm considering setting up a site (www.eattoby.com) to get some cash. We can put up pictures of me looking all gaunt and hungry (which I am), an interview or two with me (which would be real, unlike that phony interview with Toby --- like anybody could interview a rabbit!), an m_cat/eattoby.com store, and some other stuff. I need ideas on what else to put on the site. I'd sure love to eat that rabbit!

I haven't been feeling too well lately. Actually, I've been like Sancho after Don Quixote gave him a drink of the immortality potion. I took a trip to the vet yesterday and stayed there overnight. They ran all kinds of tests on me, and I have two things to report. First, I've got a bunch of water under my skin. In essence, I'm a walking water cooler. This means that you can all stand around me and gossip. Later today I plan to stand out on the sidewalk and persuade passers by to hang around and exchange juicy bits of information. I expect to turn a hefty profit from this information in the weeks to come. Second, I've just picked up even more goth street cred. I'm anemic! Yep, now after I write poetry about the dark miasma of my soul, I can faint. I'm not going to post the poetry here, though. You wouldn't understand the depths of my sorrow. Anyhow, go me!

I've been told that I'll have to go back for more tests Tuesday. For now, though, I get special food to eat.

Don't be shocked, but I'm thinking of taking up smoking. I read that the average life expectorant for a female smoker under the age of 27 is something like 70 years. When I compare this to my current life expectorant, which is 15 years, I start to think that less throat irritation really does equal more smoking pleasure. I know smoking is linked to all kinds of deaths in humans and rats, but getting an extra 55 years is probably worth spending a few of them coughing up my lungs. One more serious problem that I considered was the loss of smell/taste. This worried me at first, but then I wrote down how much time my tongue spends doing things every day, and I decided it wasn't a problem. Keep in mind that there are 1,440 minutes in a day.

normal, healthy grooming - 134 minutes
obsessive, unhealthy grooming - 619 minutes
eating nasty dry catfood - 54 minutes
eating tasty, tasty unagi - 0.00000 minutes, recently

Yeah, I guess I could stand to lose my sense of taste.

To pay for my intended life-extending seven-pack-a-day habit, I'm thinking of merchandising myself. I could sell m_cat-branded candy bars, hats, socks, shirts, pants, toe rings, and tobacco products. Again, before anybody jumps on my case for selling tobacco stuff to underage kids by taking advantage of their trust in my cute face, I'm planning to include two safety features. First, I'll have a picture of my stern (but cute) face on every package above the words, "Kids, don't smoke!" Second, I'll try making things less child-friendly. For the cat market, I could make tuna and unagi flavors. For the human market, I'm thinking celery or kale.

Well, I can only conclude from the poll that I'm one cute cat! Also, I'd like to take just a second to point out that no matter how cool people like Wil Wheaton or Jimmy Carter may be, I'm cooler. I'm a paid LJ user.

I'm going to remain a paid user, I think. However, I also need to keep some money around for a ticket out of here in case something awful happens on November 2. How can I do both and keep a catnip supply? I'll tell you. I'm going to import catnip from Canada.

I know, I know. You've all read the FDA report on Canadian catnip. The FDA is overly cautious, as you can see from their careful approval of Vioxx. However, I've been checking the facts in their report, and I think they're totally Bush. Consider:

1. Catnip that has been exported to Canada and then re-imported could be "accidentally" laced with cyanide: I was suspicious of this claim, especially when I noticed that the quotation marks were actually there in the FDA report.
   
2. Every time we re-import something from Canada, a kitten dies: This may actually be true. If you check the FDA's proposed 2005 budget, you'll find funding for a "kitten elimination squad." Still, that's not the fault of buying catnip back from Canada.
   
3. If Americans have affordable health care (I'm including catnip in there), the terrorists have won: Okay, I'll admit that Canada has historic ties with the United Kingdom and shares an open border with the United States, but I'm not sure you can really describe it as terrorist.

I'm going to buy California-grown catnip from Canada. Three cheers for free trade!

At cissa's suggestion, I looked into options for other invertebrates. This ranch plan gets better every time I think about it. There are several kinds of edible invertebrates. I could have bologna, liverwurst, tofu, and snausages. The upside to bologna is that it is cheap and large. The downside is that I can't make a super-huge profit on it. The upside to liverwurst is that it is even tastier than bologna, but the downside is that liverwurst meat is much softer. I suspect that I'd lose quite a few head of liverwurst if the herd panicked. The stampede wouldn't last that long, but most of the liverwurst would be seriously beaten out of shape and I'd have to eat them all that night. There's nothing wrong with eating a lot of liverwurst, but I need to sell a few just to keep in business. Vienna sausages (no relation to real sausages) might be good, since they're really small. However, I'd have trouble with the EU, which would insist that only Vienna sausages raised in Venice could be called Vienna sausages. I'd have to call them something like, "their parents were Vienna sausages," or maybe Viennese-American sausages. Tofu aren't that tasty, but they sell for a lot. Unfortunately, I've heard that tofu are pretty rough creatures. I might need to switch Chaw to being a wolverine. I've heard good things about snausages, but I'm not really familiar with them. Have any of you ever raised them?

Invertebrates in general seem to offer a number of advantages. First, I think I'd be one of the few domestic ranchers. I've done some looking around on the internet, and it seems that most places in the states deal with cow, chicken, and pig. I guess we must import pre-sliced bologna from Mexico or Lithuania, bob off the tail in the States, and call it "Made in America." Second, they're 99% food. Cows can't match that. Chickens can't match that. When I look at a slice of bologna, I don't see any bones or organs or connective tissue. It's pure meat. With chickens, you need to remove the bones and organs and all of the clockwork that keeps them running. Don't even get me started on cows. Third, invertebrates have other commercial uses. Those I find myself too attached to to eat I could rent out. People always need federal judges, governors, Senators, military officers, and educational administrators. What if John McCain falls ill? Well, the Republicans could rent a liverwurst to replace him. That's some serious cash right there. Of course, the real rental market would be the media, especially if Bush stays in office. When veteran reporters retire, my rental invertebrates will be there. You might wonder how I'd feel supplying invertebrates to report on the Bush government. I mean, what would it be like to turn on a White House press conference and see a crowd Vienna sausages and snausages and bologna with little press passes? Well, as I see it, they'd be much more likely than our current batch of reporters to ask the tough questions.