He and his brother are named after Marvin Minsky (an American scientist who works in artificial intelligence, not to mention a diversity of other fields) and Noam Chomsky (an American linguist who writes profound but ironically not very readable books on the structure of language). Poor old Noam drew the short straw. I mean, it's not that I don't love my cuddly old furniture fungus, it's just that... well, his brother got all the brains _and_ all the dignity!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Aha - I knew about Chomsky, but not Minsky.
And I haven't edited concersation - I guess you're all conditioned to work out what I meant to type by now...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

My cat Freddie (Mercury) was put down last summer, he had cancer. About three months before this my daughter developed an allergy towards cats, I couldn't bear to part with Fred so we struggled on until fate stepped in. To be on the safe side we are now catless.

On a lighter note welcome Swindonian, I'm down the road in Chippenham, are you going to see Jasper at the Art Centre in Swindon on 7th May?

My two current cats are Skiffle and Diesel. When I got skiffle, she reminded me of a cat I had known called 'Giselle', so I thought I'd give her a nice, romantic musical name. All those lovely Italian and French words to choose from. Well, right after getting her I had to go for a guitar lesson and borrowed my friend's book of musical terms to find something that suited her. And the only one which really seemed right was 'Skiffle': possibly the least glamerous form of music ever ! Skiffle is a black and white moggy, rather overweight after staying with Uncle Iain and auntie Vikki while I was in Norfolk. Mind you, she's long been a bit barrel-shaped. She's about 6 and her hobbies are sleeping and....er.
Diesel is 2 this month. She's dark brown, with lovely cinnamon ticking on her fur. She's gingerbread coloured in sunlight. She has a white locket and touches of white between each pair of legs. Diesel is probably part-Burmese. She got her name from her very loud, rattly purr

Alas, owing to various circumstances that would make it impractical, there are no cats (apart from a couple of knitted ones, who are named 'Grimalkin' & 'Nigramalkin', who spend most of the time sleeping on the foot of my bed alongside Tedward Bear) in my household nowadays. I did grow up with one, though... She was a brown tabby named (as I mentioned in another thread about a couple of weeks ago) 'Pyewhacket': She was named after the cat in the film "Bell, Book and Candle", which my parents had been to see back when they were courting, even though that had been a Siamese. Sadly she fell seriously ill when I was about 10 years old, and my parents decided that it would be kindest to have her put down. Mother could never bring herself to get another cat after that...
Oh, and we had a ginger kitten, from a litter whose mother lived in the same house as two of my younger brother's schoolfriends, for a couple of days too. However as (a) Pyewhacket didn't like him, and (b) we hadn't bothered to get parental permission before giving him a home, he was soon found a new host instead...


Oh, and "Welcome to the fforum" to Swindonian.

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."



Post Edited (04-26-03 17:34)

I have one cat, she has been living with us for about two years now, though she is nearly twelve. Her name is Lady, and she is half Siamese and half Persian, which makes her very, shall we say, "vocal." She is not a lap cat, but actually runs to great people at the door and comments on their arrival before returning to her nap. Currently she is suffering from dandruff, so if anyone can recommend a good treatment I would appreciate it.

I also have a pet tarantula that I adopted my freshman year in college. He is now pushing ten years old, which is quite old for a tarantula, and probably indicates that "he" is actually a "she." His name is Petey, after Peter Parker, and he does not like my fiance at all. Whenever Ed comes into the room, Petey rares up on his hindlegs and waggles his fangs emphatically.

there's a great supplement called "Linotone" here in the States. It's basically an oil based thing that you squirt out of a bottle. But if your cat has dandruff, it's usually cuz it's dry out and they don't have enough essential fatty acids in their diets. If you can't find something like that, you can always see if your cat will eat salmon skin or some salmon meat. (mine won't...weird cats dont' like fish!) And anything with Vitamin E will work too.

We were discussing getting a little cat today. I've never actually had a pet all of my very own (awww). I have a soft spot for tortoises, too, but keep that bloody tarantula away from me .... death to all spiders (this is what you get for reading Tolkien at a young and impressionable age). Mind you I am a positive arachnophile compared to my brother (the currently absent Adam). He'd run a mile if he shared a county with Petey, never mind a room, and I think he'd likely die if it waggled its fangs at him. The wuss.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I think spiders are cute... :-)



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

One of the highlights of last summer: seeing tall, long-haired, rather dubious-looking Dave R being chased around the garden by his girlfriend, holding a spider. hehehehehe.
This man sings in a Goth band but he shrieks like a girlie if you put a spider anywhere near him.

Well, i don't have any cats down here at uni, but we've got three at home, so I consider myself part time staff. Actually, last week at home we almost picked up a 4th cat, which we imedietly named 'fourth cat'. However, just as my mum was sugesting I ought to find a landlord that didn't mind cats next year, we found his real staff, 10 miles away, quite a hike for 'Jake'. Aparently his brother had been on hunger strike since he'd been away.



.

Wanted to tell you about this.

I lit a match and let it burn out (I'm not the only one who does that sort of thing, am I ?). Then I held the half-burnt match to the cats, who both sniffed at it. After a moment, Skiffle bit off the burnt end, chewed it briefly, and let the bits fall out of her mouth.
I picked a bit of this charcoal up and offered it to Diesel, who promptly ate it. She then sat opening and closing her mouth, with a rather astonished expression.
For no readily apparent reason, Skiffle then turned on Diesel, rolled her upsidedown and mock-chewed at her throat while swearing at her. As soon as Skiffle let go, Diesel slid off the bed and Skiffle settled down to nap.

I'll *never* understand cats !

LOL, silly skitties

Hi everyone,
Like Swindonian, I am a newbie. Although I have posted to another thread, I rather rudely did not introduce myself in that one. Sorry about that lapse of netiquette.
I am not really a librarian but I do work in a library. I have two black and white cats which are brother and sister and came from the RSPCA. Ellie is small and clever and Jake is large and rather stupid, not to mention somewhat cowardly! A real wuss if ever I saw one! They were already named before they came to me (aged 4ish) so it seemed unkind to give them new names. I have a suspicion that the previous owners may have named them after the Blues Brothers.
I have really enjoyed reading the postings - you are a very quick witted group - I just hope I can keep up.
Cheers

Linda

Right, so that's someone else who works in a library and owns cats ... am I the only one who doesn't do either?

Hello, Linda. Welcome to our humble abode. This thread will drift off-topic in sixty seconds ...



Post Edited (05-25-03 23:54)

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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I dont work in a library and don't have any pets... unless a housemate counts...

Hi jon,
Thanks for the welcome.
A couple of questions

Why does your last post say "post edited"? did you put something else in the message that did not get through?

Also, how do you all manage to get those quotes at the end of your posts. when I click on the "Quote" tab, all that happens is the text of the previous person's post appears. Sorry for asking - I don't want to spoil the flow of the thread. And don't feel too down about not being a catty library worker - I'm sure you're still a valuable member of society!

Did you know that the darker a honey is, the more flavour it will have?

Sorry, welcome to the fforum... To get a quote at the end of you message click on 'My profile' at the bottom of a thread, and edit it in the 'signature' box. It's best to add a row of --- or ==== or somesuch, as this will mark it off. Editing your profile will also allow you to put your 'real' name on and other details, otherwise we click on it to get a email address...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I, er, used the wrong word in my previous post and had to backtrack hurriedly to replace 'both' with 'either'.

I can do this because I am logged in, which is also how I come to have a signature. Somewhere at the foot of the thread you should see a link to 'Log In'; click on that and you can create a little profile for yourself, with sigs etc.

Note; do you think there should be an FAQ around here somewhere? (he said, knowing who was likely to get lumbered with writing it).



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

I suspect the lumbering may come down to either one of us or AAC - do you want to start it and I'll add anything I can think of to it as a reply to the same thread?



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.