Wrong, But Somehow Right

So, I have mainly running errands for my grandparents and updating my nerd blog lately. I'm in Kentucky for a while for the holiday season. And the following is the best thing I have ever seen. And I feel like I have total immunity to being offensive, as I did just go to a Tibetan art gallery. Take that, the East.

November?!

It's been a while! I have a bit of a hard time keeping up with this blog during school, but lately work has been giving me ample time to nerd-around, thus I started http://uncloseted.blogspot.com/
to fulfill my urge to document some of my nerdiest and favorite stuff!
Be warned, this includes but is not limited to: comic books, graphic novels, world of warcraft, lolcats, computer stuff, technology stuff, science stuff, pet ratness, general cuteness and more!
Before too long I'll probably figure out what to keep here and what to write about there, but until then I'll try to update both!

Rattie To Be

On the left here with a little black hood is one of my ratties-to-be. Monday is the day I meet them!

Rats on The Brain

It's been a while...like a long while....since I've posted. I'm full of false promises about this blog, but I do enjoy it when I keep it up. In the past weeks I've finished my Orientation Leader job with NYU, and thus my schedule feels 150% more open, even though I'm now trying to work* 30 some odd hours a week with my job at NYU's Stern School of Business' MBA dept. I am now moved into my amazing new apartment in Manhattan's East Village at 198 Avenue A @ 12th, so that makes for a good deal of excitement.

*endlessly google image search for cute animal pictures

Recently I've been thinking about pets nonstop, and as I really want a million cats and dogs, but should wait until I leave NYC, I've been looking at a lot of alternatives.

1. Ferret: after some investigation, it turns out these are inexplicably illegal in New York City.
2. Rabbit: following some research, it seems that rabbits don't like to be handled that much, but do love destroying your possessions.
3. Sugar gliders, capybaras, bandicoots: illegal, illegal, illegal.
4. Fish: no cuddle value. Mammalian preference.
5. Turtle: same as 4, though considered for longer. Also, following research, much more high maintenance than their cuddle payoff merits.
6. Rat: PERFECT

So, It's official. A day's worth of "work" (research at work) yielded the glorious fact that rattie friends are perfect for what my girlfriend (Erica) and I are looking for. Rat qualities:

a. Social creatures, thus they must be in same sex pairs (great excuse for 2 pets!)
b. very clean, like grooming themselves, can be litter trained
c. playful and active
d. small, but not too small for loving
e. PERFECT
f. smart- they can be trained to come to their name, do tricks, and they exhibit distinct personalities.
g. like being handled! very cuddly!
h. slight kitsch factor as a lot of people don't think of them as pets.
i. sooo cute! such little paws and faces!
j. i still miss my lab rat from a neural science class
k. good karma for a psych student
l. so many diff colors/patterns. my main preference is I don't want an albino or any with red eyes, probably.
m. they need an hour or so out of their cage per day! ratties on the loose, what fun!
n. perfect.

So, rats it is. I want a female pair, hopefully black or brown hooded, or cinnamon colored or something. How exciting!

Ratties! How can anyone resist them!?

So, I have contacted Kim's Ark, a rat rescue place that helps get fancy rats (official term) to new homes all over the NE USA. Now, we wait. And google image search.

Plain Jain

I leave for my girl in Pennsylvania, which is shaped like this:

for your reference

...around 2 central time. I fly through Atlanta, which will remind me both of living there and of many hours spent in layovers at the Atlanta airport as a child dialing this number:

963-2417

the number of my then best friends, a brother and sister package deal. I don't remember the area code.

I always liked this political cartoon, for really no reason:

I guess that little P. segment stands for Pennsylvania, because it was an image search result.

I downloaded a lot of music yesterday, including Tegan & Sara's new album (thanks for the heads up Rho-been). Haven't listened to much of any of it yet. I am trying to develop my altcountry repertoire right now, and thus yesterday rediscovered My Morning Jacket and downloaded a bunch of other stuff. Like Wilco's new album, which I didn't like all that much when I heard it live on NPR, but I really do like "What Light" on the album...it's too simple and catchy to not like.

I am currently undergoing an ant battle in my bathroom here, which entails me gently shooing them verbally and spraying the stuff that kills them in little patches to create barriers, rather than directly at them and their little speck highways. When a few inched close enough to the stuff to keel over I cringed and apologized. For now I'll let them march on in their abrupt wild little circles.

I wish I subscribed to Jainism because then, maybe I'd get a complimentary tiny broom to sweep them out of my sink with. Also, Jains are really probably the best people on earth and the rest of us are going to Jain hell, which I guess entails being reincarnated as a less enlightened form of life and marching around my bathroom until we learn our lesson and move up the Karmic food chain.

Oh, Anderson Cooper

You so handsome.

I ebayed in search of a similar CARDBOARD LIFE SIZE CUTOUT
to this one i spotted in the Houston Hobby airport, but so far no luck whatsoever.