cellio | random bits

Ok, you guys were right: Heroes rocks, at least so far. I picked up the first season recently; I was hooked after two episodes and have seen six so far. It looks like the second season will be released on DVD in August, which means I won't have too long a wait. Increasingly, I'm coming to think that this is the way to watch most TV shows. (I should also be able to return the first season of Lost to the person who lent it to me and exchange it for the second season soon.) Still, I want to get an antenna up on the roof too. (Note to self.)

We've been having some modem troubles (two modems with different failure modes), so we ordered another recently to experiment with. It looks like we have a family of modems -- maybe a breeding program. given the evidence, I'd have to say that Westel-ness is a dominant gene. :-)

My vet wanted to see Erik recently (just a quick check on something), so while we were there I asked if she could try again to teach me how to push pills into him. (Currently he gets his medicine ground up in canned food, as I seem unable to reliably get a whole pill down.) She demonstrated, then had me try... and she finally said "it's ok; mixing it into the food won't hurt him". I feel inadequate; even my vet gave up on me. :-) (Yes, I have tried that plunger-like gadget. I haven't found the cat treats that have pockets for hiding pills in, but I suspect he's too smart for that.)

A bakery run on the honor system seems not to be loosing money. Interesting idea. (Someone on my reading list posted this link, but I forget who.)

I have a question for the Hebrew-literate. Please humor me. How would you say "I will thank you" (masculine, singular)? I thought I knew, and then I heard a different formation in a song, so I asked a native speaker, who provided a third option. (I think "odecha", song was "odeka", speaker said "odelecha". It's entirely possible that "odecha" is biblical and "odelecha" is modern, but what's with "odeka"?)

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What the native speaker told you was two words: "אודה לך" while what you are looking for is the more condensed, and more poetic "אודך". The difference between the kaf (with dagesh) and the chaf (w/o dagesh) is likely the difference b/w your thought and the song. So you could be mishearing, or the singer could be mispronouncing.

I checked against a verse in Psalms 118 which seems not to have the dagesh, so your thought of 'odecha' is likely right. However, this may be some kind of exception, perhaps because of the dropped ה. There are other examples of dropped letters becoming dageshim, such as roots which start with נ in הפעיל being dropped and "becoming" a dagesh in the second root letter.

Thanks. I hadn't realized the native speaker was using two words, though now that you point it out it makes sense. I mean, if I saw that I would recognize it; I just didn't hear the space. :-)

The singer is definitely pronouncing as a kaf, not a chaf. I do not automatically invest the singer with authority, of course. I also don't know all the rules of dageshim.

Can you pill the other cats, or is it just Erik that you have trouble with? I'm wondering if he has a special wiggling technique or something. :-)

When medicating Yates we discovered that he's definitely right pawed... no matter which side you try to squirt (in the case of a liquid) the medication in from, he tries to bat your hand away with his right paw. If you manage to trap the right paw, he doesn't try to get you with the left. He's weird.

Out of curiosity, why do you think that you need an antenna on the roof? There are many indoor antennas that are just as good as roof-mounted ones for most users, but without any of the horrific hassle.

Maybe the singers were not Hebrew speakers but come close phonetically for the most part, so you don't notice right away, but just some of the words sound wonky. Kind of like ABBA.

Here's a pill pocket link. I'm not sure the link works, but if you just search Pill Pockets on the site, you'll find that product that works for dogs (because dogs are dumb.)

[Julie? What are you doing walking around on the keyboard? Get off the keyboard!]

Anyway, speaking of Julie, she gets a pill twice a day -- in tuna. She wouldn't even eat it mixed in wet cat food. I'm definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as pilling that gal. But since it's for a hyper?thyroid? hypothyroid?...since she's really skinny, I don't mind pilling her and beefing her up at the same time.

There's no way she'd go for the pill pocket.

Interesting antenna site. I will have to make a decision on TV soon, because the reception in the basement of the new house is absolutely terrible (as in, not worth watching) with rabbit ears. Though I will admit to leaning toward just caving and getting FiOS TV, since they have it out here and everyone I know who has it raves.

FWIW, I have a Westell DSL modem that I've used for years with no problems. Actually, if you want it, you can have it, as the DSL at the new house came with a free wireless modem/router combo. I also have an old (wired) router I no longer need if you're interested.

Ok, I knew I had seen "odecha" in a siddur. It turns out to be in hallel, which I noticed this morning. The siddur (Sim Shalom) translated it in the present tense, though; hmm. It has the vowels of a participle, but that leading alef is an imperfect (future-tense, approximately) marker, so double hmm.

Embla doesn't like being held, so when she went on medicine for hyperthyroid I didn't even try. I've never had to pill Baldur.

I can give all of the cats liquid medicine without too much trouble. I think the difference is between having to get the nozzle of a syringe into the mouth and having to get a pill all the way into the back of the mouth. For me at least, that requires getting the mouth open much wider and keeping it that way longer.

I've already tried and failed with rabbit ears (including getting an extension cable to get them farther from the TV). I haven't tried putting an antenna in the attic. We have people coming to do work up on the roof soon anyway, so I could get them to put an antenna up there for practically nothing, if I buy one before then.

Probably hyperthyroid, from your description. Is the pill tapazole? (Might be branded as methimazole.)

Erik and Embla are both hyperthyroid. Well, for Embla I should say "was"; she's been fine (and drug-free) after I took her to RadioCat for a one-time treatment.

I've sometimes had to resort to tuna, but usually the canned food works for medicine delivery.

I would warn you: the second season is a mess. The writers REALIZED it was a mess, and the end of the season starts to pull itself together, before the writers' strike, but it's not as good as the first season.

You can also catch some subset of Heroes shows on the NBC website.

Hmm. For me, pills are way easier. I put Yates on the floor and straddle him (so we're both facing the same way) and use my knees to hold him in place. Then one hand holds his mouth open and the other shoves the pill down his throat.

The key is that if I don't get it in exactly the right spot on the first "dive in" (like if I accidentally put it in his cheek or something), I let him spit it out and try again. Wrestling just doesn't work.

Thanks for the modem offer. If we're still having trouble with the new one, I'll take you up on that.

If I had FiOS available I'd be using it for internet service. If, given that, the incremental cost for TV were low enough, I'd just add that on. Right now the cable service is stand-alone (and I'm not interested in giving Comcast my internet business), and while it's not costing me that much, the cost per show watched is high. So I'd rather try to just pick signal out of the air for free. Besides, when everything goes digital next year, I strongly suspect that my cable rate will double or more.

Thanks for the warning. I was guessing that the strike had messed up the season anyway; I didn't realize it had been having problems even before.

Thanks! Good to know.

Basically, they didn't really figure out what direction they wanted to go in. They had a cool idea for an overarching plot, but didn't know what they wanted to DO with it, or how to get there, and they introduced a bunch of characters who they didn't really figure out how to use.

I wonder if people on your friends list have tagged their entries, because a LOT of good snark was going around MY f-list about it. I mean, we were all WATCHING it -- but much of it was snark-worthy. Heck, I'm proud of some of the snark I came up with.

Hey my vet WON'T even try to pill Vandal. She tried once and gave up before even getting the pill near him.

I now get all his meds sub-cue.

S

Apparently, a relevant magic phrase is "amplified indoor antenna". I verified that I can return it if it doesn't work out, so I picked one up this afternoon and will give that a try.

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