testing the reanimated flip video camera: sunday nothings

this is truly a nothing day.  there is some relief of responsibility on my one shoulder, as everyone in marlinspike hall seems to have taken a day... off.  lots of snoozing going on, with bad scary movies in the background.

the flip video camera is in halloween mode -- as the reanimated device. i don't trust it.  so i've been filming nonsense to test its seriousness.

first up, we've buddy, dobby, and the fredster, playing with a : tea light he picked up at the dollar store. don't ask me why.  he muttered something about "romance" just before complaining about his ear hurting again, and falling deeply into an oblivious snore. just before his dive into unconsciousness, i was the party pooper, pointing out buddy's proclivity for biting into things, and not being a fan of documenting feline electrocutions.

and a red-glittered flickering light bulb of a "tea light" has never really done it for me.

next we have an exciting visit with dobby from earlier in the day. he's been the object of "territorial" attacks from buddy, so that's why he is looking obsessively to the doorway.  why he suddenly decided to flop down for a belly-rub, i dunno.  the final shot was all his idea, and is his way of getting me to turn off the camera, of which he is always very aware. dobby misses very little.

my deepest apologies to those of you looking for cinematic masterpieces.

i hope your sunday was as unproductive as mine.

oh, the absence of marmy fluffy butt has to do, in part, with the purchase of a new living room rug, to which she is oddly attached.  in the rhetorical sense.  she is also fond of one of the new chenille throws i bought to replace her rattier one.  and then there's the truth... she and buddy can't share the same space, at least not this space (the bed), without the maine coon defending his "territory" with scary ferocity.

it's a problem.



© 2013 L. Ryan

Magic Movie: Treats In A Ball, A Ball In A Box

I put treats in their Slimcat Food and Treat Dispenser Ball, placed the ball in an empty cardboard drink box, then tossed the whole IQ Test on the floor.  As it had not been long since they'd eaten, the majority response was an underwhelmed feline "meh."

Still, there we were, y'know?

First up, Dobby. Dobby is scary smart -- also, we think, elven (hence the name). The confused and confusing runt of Marmy Fluffy Butt's litter, Dobby is the smallest of the three cats you see. Marmy is the long-hair with the curvaceous sashay and the attitude..

Since Dobby is currently in a too-cool-for-school phase, and Marmy believes in profiting from other's labor, only Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten took on the box and its promise of a snack.

Buddy is always hungry. Always!

(Buddy is the cat wearing the box.)

This is one of those Flip Video Magic Movies, in which the content is chosen by some miniature cinematic wizard.  So what you have here is the uncritical very short version of our morning's boredom.

My Solstice gift to the menagerie arrived yesterday -- a pound of bonito flakes. What fun I had breaking down the large stinky bag into a dozen or so smaller zip-lock bags. I had no clue the stuff was so pungent.

I predict a bonito flake theme in the next Manor movie.

Dashi, anyone?

The Contest FAIL

I was "filming" to enter a contest for which there was a $300 prize (I've never entered anything but poetry contests, a few of which I won). I was getting ready to create the movie by "splicing" the vids that were strung together, when it occured to me to read the small print on the contest...

And, of course, it ended last December!

Well, that eliminated the work of cutting up all the separate videos and so I stopped making nice-nice for the competition, and made this version, mostly for Fred and my enjoyment. The music is by Yoga Tribe, "Bombay to Santa Fe."

Please ignore the scratchy sound of my voice... I've been a little under the weather. [insane cackling from the STILL-IN-BLEEPING-WITHDRAWAL moi]

Some observations: 

The cats are -- in age order, descending -- Marmy Fluffy Butt, Dobby the Inimitable, and Buddy the Kitten.  There are times we cave, completely, to Feline Antics.

You might need to pause the oh-so-stellar vid to see that Marmy continues to scare the shit out of Buddy, particularly today, since she tried to kill him just minutes before this chef-d'oeuvre was created.

Dobby is clearly a Feline-to-Human Ambassador (and he's a bit more like his old self -- he has been very depressed since we lost Sammy last July -- me, too);

And, lastly, ummmm... This is clearly not Marlinspike Hall.  It's one of the out-buildings on The Manor Property.  Yeah, that's it!  It's a crowded, cramped, and cramp-inducing, badly constucted renovation of Ye Olde Haddock Barn[e]. [insane cackling from the STILL-IN-BLEEPING-WITHDRAWAL moi]




As all the TV chefs say at some point in their famous lives, "Today I have made for you a lovely marinated bit of fluffy video... Please enjoy!"

Sunday CatCam

I thought I'd see what the "magic movie" feature on the Flip camera turned out -- and it's fine, I suppose.  It's also kind of hard to screw up video of a bunch o'cats.  (It *did* botch the list of credits, but -- again -- it's a matter of crediting a bunch o'cats, so no big whoop.) 

The song is "Love Will Guide You Home" by Deadman.

Anyway, at least there are shots of the recently departed Uncle Kitty Big Balls, and even a few of the Reclusive Marmy Fluffy Butt.  Dobby, Our Little Idiot, is, of course, everywhere, and there's plenty of footage of our newest inmate, Buddy the Kitten.  Despite "Buddy" being his official moniker, I cannot seem to stop calling him "Numbnut." I am also calling Dobby "Sammy," and anyone who will listen is liable to hear "Little Boy."

You there!  Feline! 

[I know it's not fair to compare but I surely do miss Sammy.  Now *that* was a mighty fine cat.]

Even though the music ended up overlain so as to drown out the inevitable squeaks and moans that I seem to always add to a soundtrack, it was actually playing while Buddy the Kitten was lullabied to sleep. He seems to like Brett Dennen's voice, find it relaxing. Me, too.


I just didn't want you to hurt yourself trying to figure out some significance to this music being paired with pictures of a kitten snoozing.

my feet my feet oh my feet my feet: video as dirge

i am having a high pain day in my legs and hands. 

captain haddock got fred one of those flip cameras as a winter solstice "longest night" token, though we usually just say it was a "christmas gift."  you know, to avoid perplexity.  and stuff.

anyway, i hurt.  a lot.  and i have been losing my temper a bit because of it.  i am sorry, but no matter how sorry i am, i keep blowing up.  there is no one who really constitutes the object of my anger;  they are just there. 

that they're there by choice is what is truly mind-boggling.

and oh-so-appreciated.

so i was reading an email from a friend who was bitching about how her feet throb at the end of the day and i about puked.  what she knows about throbbing would fit into the disintegrating window of what used to be my big right toenail.

er, my right big toenail?  (somehow, that makes my toenail sound like landed british gentry)

so i made my first film.

of my feet.

also... i forgot that my hands are now showing their temperature and pain gradations by means of color, too.  it is kind of freaky looking, the split on my left hand.  on my right hand, busy holding the camera and trying not to shake, the purple "line" extends almost all the way up my forearm, but on a diagonal.

to be precise, and why not? -- there is a line on the right hand that matches, exactly, the placement of the line on the left hand.  this is typical of me, and, i assume, of bilateral crps/rsd (the disease process in question, plus a scosh of avascular necrosis, for good measure).  but because the damage is more extensive on the right, the area past that line is just a step-down from the first splotch of purple.  that second area extends up the forearm, on a diagonal.

to be precise.

my legs are on fire.  that would be the famous "burning" neuropathic pain.
they also throb, deeply -- i assume from the bone and tissue damage.  and oh, is the bone damaged.
there is a superficial annoying pain that stems just from contact with... air.  and -- almost, as you will see, one cat.  that was dobby.

he knows better than to sniff my feet.  that was enough to send me into orbit.

maybe i will set up a "footcam."

anyway, here's my first flip vid: