All sorts of stuff 

The fine folks over at the Microsoft Network are always throwing down these so-called city rankings, wherein you can see how your city compares with all the other ones in the nation. They take the content from a company called Sperling, who include a rather peculiar statistic in their rankings: the number of Starbucks your city has. When you click the Starbucks for an explanation, Sperling offers this gem: "To a growing number of people, Starbucks means fresh-brewed premium coffee at affordable prices. This is the number of Starbucks locations in a city, and if there are none, then the number of miles to the nearest city with one or more."

Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds like a nice little corporate message implanted into what ought to be non-biased rankings. Imagine if Sperling let every company do this. "To a growing number of people, Mead means well-made paper at affordable prices." Since Dayton has the only Mead World Headquarters that I know about, they've got an edge on, say, Chicago. Those lazy bums.

Elswhere, we've found that one of the Hussein boys had a nice stash of porn, a ton of American money, some purses, and one condom in his briefcase when the Army finally vanquished him. It looks to me like he had his priorities straight: he knew he was about to die, so he figured he ought to go out with a bang, so to speak. If he couldn't find anyone, well I guess that's what the porn was for.

On another note, I am a little peeved at the media for its continual coverage of this Hussein brother mess. Remember awhile ago when W threw a fit about various US prisoners and casualties being on Iraqi TV, noting that this is a violation of the Geneva Convention? If I'm not mistaken, the same ought to be applied to these guys. (I would imagine that the media, being a private entity, is not beholden to the Geneva Convention - but I think they ought to adhere to it anyway.)

Now, sadly, my cat Sam decided that he was too old, and when he went to take a nap this afternoon, he didn't wake up. He was 19, but I still really didn't expect it to happen just like that. Now, I am very sad and am going to drive home to say goodbye this weekend, but I guess I should be happy he made it this long, and wasn't in any pain when he died. As with so many things, I'll just have my memories.

I remember being four, and we went to some sort of farm out by Bremen (That's Bremen, not New Bremen, mind you), where we went to get a pet cat. I don't know why we went to get the cats, but I picked him up out of a litter of kittens, and deemed that he would be named Sam. (My brother Chris also got a cat, called Robbie, but he unfortunately died a few years later.) So I took Sam home, and I didn't really think that he would be my cat until I was 23, living in Chicago, and far far away from him.

He wasn't always the nicest cat, since he preferred to spend his days hunting. He was always catching something, mostly mice and birds. I remember we came home one day, and Sam was sitting on the driveway tossing a mouse around - he was juggling it, basically. Clearly, this was horrific, but I thought it was strangely amusing. He also caught and ate a rabbit once, and another time there was a bullfrog who was making quite a racket by our pond, until one day Sam caught him and ate him. Well he didn't eat all of him, but he certainly caught him. Of course, I didn't want him eating everything - I had to yell at him one time because he kept catching this baby rabbit, which I wanted him to let go. Sam would have none of it, and finally finished him off when I wasn't looking. He also snuck into the house and ate my pet gerbil, which made me mad more than anything. I never really could get very close to a gerbil, and I liked Sam more, anyway.

There was a farmer next door to our driveway, and he had this field that had tons and tons of mice living in it. Sam figured out where their hole was, and he would always hang out there and catch a mouse for breakfast. It was really incredible how many animals he would catch - needless to say, he got quite fat, especially when he would eat the food we gave him, too.

Now I said he wasn't always very nice, which is true. He scratched me a couple of times, without reason. He also scratched my neighbor, Sarah, but nothing thankfully came of that. I guess you could say he was a bit crabby sometimes.

He was pretty adventerous, too. I remember coming home on the school bus, and I saw him walking around in the field that was not next door to my house, which to me was way too far away. (It was probably no more than a quarter mile, actually.) I demanded that the bus driver let me out to go and get him, but she said no and dropped me off at my house. But he came back five minutes later, carrying a mouse, of course.

The UPS driver would make frequent visits to the house, and Sam would often sneak into the truck. So, a little later, the UPS man would always come back to drop Sam off, cause nobody would know he was in there.

Luckily, when he got older, he was a little more mellow. That's when he decided it wasn't so bad to sit inside the house and just sleep. So he would try and sneak in the house and take a nap under the dining room table, or on the couch, or upstairs on my bed. He would just lay there and sleep, purring softly.

He used to stay out late at night, which I suppose were the times he just didn't feel like coming home. We would always stay outside, yelling for him to come back. He always did, eventually, and it was my greatest fear that one day he would just never come back. It seems that he'll never go for another walk, catch another mouse, or stay out late at night. Sam's finally home, I think.

It was sort of fitting that he went the same day as Bob Hope, who was probably Sam's equivalent age in person years. You just never think this would have to happen, but of course it did. I would refer to him as Samsonite, because he seemed indestructable. He went through a lot of fights, man-made mishaps, and mayhem, but survived them all. But finally, time was the one who would get him - for that, I am glad. Despite his faults, he was my cat. God willing, I'll never forget him - and I hope to see him again one day.