short takes (pretty random)

[cellio]

Erik (the orange cat) bites his nails, but he won't let me clip them without a fight. That can't be efficient; consider the cross-section of a cat's tooth and the shape of a nail, versus the parameters of a tool designed for the job. Silly cat. He looks so industrious when he decides to shorten his nails, and I could solve that problem for him in just a few seconds.

When you save a web page in Mozilla, by default it creates a directory and collects in it all the associated graphics and stuff, rather than just dumping the HTML for the page. Handy!

The provider of my shell account and web space will host (and register) a vanity domain name for very small amounts of extra money. Just small enough that I'd go for it, if I could come up with something interesting. But I lack creativity. I've occasionally considered grabbing "cellio.org" (we're an Italian family; of course it's .org :-) ), but it doesn't really excite me. I don't want to use something so hobby-centric that I'd be embarrassed to use it professionally, but since I'm not currently planning to use it for business, I don't really want to build a business domain into it. I assume that all singleton English words are taken by either real people or squatters by now.

The morning minyan started using a new siddur a couple weeks ago (new daily version of Sim Shalom). I noticed that it uses a very handy typesetting convention that the Reform siddur (Gates of Prayer) adopted a few years back: writing a certain vowel (qametz) differently when its pronunciation changes. I approve.

(Hebrew is mostly a regular language when it comes to pronunciation, but there is one vowel that is sometimes "ah" and sometimes "oh", depending on rules that are only partially articulated. You just have to know, in some cases. So now there are two siddurim that are using the same minor variation in typesetting to signal this. I find it extremely helpful, and I'll be very disappointed if the new Reform siddur (due out in 2005) doesn't continue it.)

Comments

[meadhbh-9.livejournal.com]

My big orange cat, Steve, hid under the couch for the first 10 months of his life with us. He now lets me pet and snuggle him, but he'll only let iamzaphod pet him when he's sitting on the toilet! hehe...

Steve is quite complacent when I cut his claws, which is really surprising considering his historical behaviour - i.e. no one could get near him! His snuggly from day one brother Ciaran (MUCH smaller B&W tuxedo cat) hates having his claws cut... (they were stray kittens of the same litter living in our back yard when we moved into our house last year).

[cellio]

Erik and Baldur (the gray-and-white cat) are littermates too, and their personalities are also somewhat different. And then there's Embla, the stray I took in several years later; she's very skittish, though this has gotten better over the 5+ years I've had her. She'll now sometimes consent to be in the same room as strangers, if people are quiet and move slowly. :-)

Re:

[meadhbh-9.livejournal.com]

Steve hasn't gotten that far yet!

If he hears the door bell ring, you won't see him for at least a few hours. If he hears strangers, he's also gone.

But, it's only been 1 year for him... so maybe there's hope yet! :)

I'll try to find a scanner and get some pics of them up shortly. I think we're getting one at work soon. We have one that doesn't work very well... it keeps putting this wide yellow line through the center of the pics.