Click a Vick.

Today's celebrity football criminal drama was somewhat tamer than the one a few weeks ago (pictured to the right). For Vick's arraignment, there was a huge crowd, about 90-10 in favor of those opposed to dog killing for entertainment. And since the arraignment was taking place a block away from where I work, naturally I went to see the circus: People dressed in dog costumes, people opposed to dogfighting, people supporting their favorite quarterback (who surely was innocent of those horrid charges), people out to gawk at all the cameras.

Today? Much smaller crowd, and 80% of it was made up of religious fanatics, who were certain that Vick could be saved, if only he believed. (In, I don't know, something.) Vick's grand press conference, where he sincerely apologized for whatever his press folks wrote for him to apologize for, took place 50 yards down the hall from my office. We took a quick stroll out to see the sedate crowd, decided he wasn't going to walk down our hallway, and went back to work.

Name that cat! Round two.

Here's Cat Number Five. The previous owner named him Jif. (She evidently named her cats after brands of peanut butter, as the cat who lived with her before this one was named Skippy. I predict that her next one will be named Peter Pan.)
As you might guess, I'm not a huge fan of the name Jif. So there's now a new name-the-cat contest. Grand Prize yet to be determined, but it might involve your receiving a new cat. (Might not, I guess.)
At the moment, I'm leaning towards a British name for him, like Winston or Hudson.
He has mostly incorporated himself into the little feline colony at my house. He's made friends with Sami and O Henry (whose attitude seems to be "Oh, fine. Another cat. yawn. Feed me"). He's reached an accommodation with Mosby, so there's a minimum of screeching when they get close to one another. But Rebel? Little Rebel hates him, and shrieks and howls and scratches whenever he's around. And she terrorizes him to a degree that he tends to stay in one or another of his Safe Places.
Which, I suppose, is one of the signs that he's a friendly, peaceful cat. Because he's about four times Rebel's size, and all he'd have to do to win would be to lie down on top of her.