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A bit of a side rant, I had a schedule planned out for today...turned out I overslept til 12 so I decided the first thing Im going to do (after a half hour power shower and miscellaneous morning things) was to start doing house chores for once, a task which pretty much took up the middle of my one day off, from 1 to 3:00. Although...I finally cleaned miscellaneous things so thats a damn accomplishment Meanwhile, these two housedwellers have been crouching around me the entire day, hovering around me while I spray the bathtub, just staring. How the frick are you two so amused? Its literally the most banal shit ever Must be nice to have your most basic needs met by a higher species for the rest of your life so you can lay around and watch things get cleaned for your entertainment Gosh, it sure is entertaining to observe human behavior, how odd

So @Johanna Waya and I recently went to the club to get some ...I volunteer at the SPCA animal shelter and we got cats It's cool because I've never had a cat before and let me tell you, these two are turning out to be the stereotypical cat. I mean damn it's only been a few hours and they crawled into spaces they weren't supposed to, laid in our sinks, climbed on everything, sat on our windowsills, aaaaaaand on my laptop keyboard before I could post to Phoenix. Agave is with me right now chilling beside me as I type so I have to say it's definitely worth the cost and the rambunctiousness. But yeah, we got two sisters, both tortoiseshells. I mean I kind of fell in love with one because she's beautiful and super sweet. Since we decided to get two we also got her sister. Originally they were Justice and Echo, but the first thing that caught me was how bright and vivid Aloe's (was going to name her Agave but it's her sister's name now) eye's were so I decided to name her after the nectar that I think tastes really good and we decided on Agave and Aloe ...also we made pizza and pancakes so it's a good day. The end. :3

Let's get backstory out of the way. I live with my sister in an apartment, she used to own two cats, but instantly gave one to me after I moved in because she hates that one cat a lot (long story). My cat, Zelda, is overweight because she eats the vast majority of the food we put out, while my sister's cat, Stanley, rarely eats at all for some reason. We can't do any kind of feeding schedule because Zelda will just eat most of the food before Stanley gets to it anyway. Both cats used to have free reign of the apartment, but my sister got incredibly pissed that Zelda scratched the leather couches (just by jumping off them, she doesn't claw at anything), and now the door that leads to the dining room and living room area is always closed. My problem here is that my cat is overweight, and getting increasingly fatter, and I can't seem to do anything about it. The cats have a limited space to roam around in, Zelda eats most of the food, and here is the worst part: she never plays with anything. I've tried every type of toy ever made, laser pointers, rolled up aluminum foil, ping pong balls, all that stuff that makes cats go crazy - and she looks at it for a second then continues sitting there. If we put out less food, Stanley would probably starve to death because he's an idiot, and diet food has the same effect of making him dangerously skinny. So I'm at a loss at what to do here.

A few years ago I started working with an all-volunteer, no-kill animal rescue that focuses on placing homeless dogs and cats in my community with loving Forever Homes. So far this year we've placed over 88 cats and 9 dogs. In addition to the weekly work I put in at the shelter to care for the cats we have, I was also appointed as the chair of the IT Committee for the organization. In that role I've been able to gather a team of experienced folks who have used their job experience in the IT field to help the organization lower their costs (found them a new web hosting service with a WYSIWYG interface anybody can manage versus the old platform), brought them the ability to accept online donations via PayPal, set up a YouTube channel to promote their cause and also virtualized the shelter's phone line with a cloud PBX provider so they can have a 24x7 answering service that delivers voicemail messages to dog, cat and volunteer coordinators over email instead of paying the local phone company a ridiculous monthly fee to supply dial tone to an answering machine in a volunteer's house. Every year I also volunteer with their annual community garage sale, an event that generates thousands of dollars to support the cause in a single day by reselling donated items from the community. Since nobody in the organization draws even a penny in salary, that means all of the proceeds go to pay for the feeding, medical care and support of these abandoned animals. I'm pleased to say that my girlfriend and I have adopted all 4 of our cats from this organization (3 of them have special medical needs). In the last two months I have been taking footage of our homeless cats and learning Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects to create YouTube videos that promote some of our overlooked adoptable animals. I know I will never be an expert in this field but feel that I am gaining new skills and slowly becoming more proficient at the work. I'd love to share some of the videos here (after proper anonymization) and gain feedback from those of you with a lot more experience in this industry than myself. In all it feels really damn good to make a difference in my community by putting my industry knowledge to work and stretching to learn new skills with the ultimate goal of helping homeless cats and dogs find homes where they can be loved and cherished forever. This is probably the most rewarding and meaningful thing I have ever done with my life, and I hope that I will continue to grow my skills and help this organization do even better things with more visibility!

Who here has Breaded their cat? Not Bred, sicko! Breaded their cat, making them sit for a humiliating pic placed in a slice of bread. Here are some fine examples. OK i know it's old but still makes me smile.