KimNovak.me — I am not an actress

My little black cat, Orion O'Ryan, has kidney disease. The exact words the vet said were his "kidneys are failing." When they said my Mom's kidneys were failing, that meant she was on death's door. But I guess a cat's kidneys can fail for a while. He was in the hospital for a few days a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've had to take him in to have fluids injected under his skin every 2-3 days.

He's a very hungry cat these days. Almost every time I go to the kitchen, he comes begging for food. He has never done that before. This is a good thing, though. As long as he's hungry and eating, he's doing okay.

Just as I did when my Mandy dog was sick with cancer, I want to learn how to bottle up my time with Orion so I can experience it later when he's gone. I know I can't.

I'm not sure how long he will be with me. I guess it could be days, weeks or months. I'll give him as much love as I can.

Something I read on the internets

The Letters of Note blog published a note from one Rolling Stone wrangler to another with instructions on how best to situate band members at a hotel for their tour's last show in Vienna.

Keep Bill Wyman Away From Keith

It must have been challenging to be a Rolling Stone wrangler.

IMDb

I like the new show with Ashley Judd, Missing. It's action packed and emotional like 24.

There was an actor in the second episode that I recognized, but couldn't place. I went to IMDb to look him up.

This is what I found:

NOT the full cast. I looked all over for the full cast list and couldn't find one. I was on my iPhone, so I thought it was a mobile problem. Some sites and apps have goofy filters for mobile. I guess it's to keep data transfer lower, but it's annoying.

When I looked on the full, desktop site, though, I only found the same list.

I resorted to searching DuckDuckGo.com and found the show on Wikipedia which told me that actor I was looking for is Joaquim de Almeida. Oddly enough, when I looked at him on IMDb, there was an entry for Missing. So why is he missing on the Missing page? Fail.

Netflix

I was in Vivian, Louisiana on St. Patrick's Day. I saw Tom's Market where they filmed the exterior shots of the grocery store in Stephen King's The Mist.

It got me wanting to watch The Mist. So I searched Netflix on my iPhone to put it on my queue, if available.

I couldn't find a trace of it. I searched for Stephen King, too, and it didn't appear in his list of movies. Again, I thought it was a mobile device problem, so I searched on my desktop. Still no trace.

This is odd because Netflix used to have a page for any movie I was looking for even if they don't offer it for streaming or DVD. You could even put it on an "I want to watch it when you get it" list.

I'm only subscribed to Netflix streaming and I noticed that all the movies I saw on there were available for streaming. I logged out of Netflix and searched. There it was, The Mist, available on DVD.

So this must mean Netflix filters out non-streaming movies to streaming customers. This is dumb because if I want to see a movie badly enough, I'll sign up for the DVD service. But only if I know the movie is available on DVD! Fail.

Have you Experienced This?

Have you come across this behavior anywhere on the web?

Something I Saw in Texarkana

The famous lake and leaning tree as I sing about in The Lake and the Leaning Tree.

I did a Google search a while back, and a rectangle at the top of the Google page showed me what my friends on Twitter were tweeting. But I wasn't on Twitter. I was on Google.

I bought a new router last weekend and discovered I needed a new wireless adapter for my TiVo. I looked for one on the TiVo website and on Amazon. The next day, I went to Best Buy and bought one. The day after that, I started seeing ads on the Sparkpeople website for that specific wireless adapter. I suspect Amazon was pushing it out to me because I searched for it. But I wasn't on Amazon. I was on Sparkpeople.

Two weeks ago, I started getting deliveries from Greenling.com (they deliver local produce to your door). Not long after, Greenling.com advertisements were everywhere on the Web. I'm not sure what action I took that made that happen... maybe it was coincidence, but I don't think so.

Almost every time I go to Target, I receive a coupon for Brita water filters when I check out. I bought some there once. I didn't think much about it until it happened a few times and I suspected they were tracking my purchases, which means they're tracking me by my credit card number because I don't have any kind of special Target card.

Then I read this and knew: Target knows when its shoppers are pregnant.

As far as I know, none of this is dangerous or damaging (except for that poor pregnant girl who was outed to her dad by Target). I don't feel paranoid that they're out to get me. But it feels like stalking and it makes me mad.

I've closed my Google Plus account and try not to use Google search if I can help it. I like Gmail and Google Reader enough to keep using them, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking of switching. I'm considering paying for Target purchases with cash, but getting cash is so inconvenient. I hate that I even have to burn cycles thinking of ways to keep companies from stalking me.

Something I Had Delivered

My Greenling.com haul this week: parsley, bananas, green kale, grass fed sausage, broccoli, live basil plant, rutabagas, black radishes (gotta look close because they can be none more black), lettuce (I think escarole), and red kale. Not pictured are crimini mushrooms, oranges and avocados.

I watched the pilot of "The River." TV seems to be trending toward more scary/creepy TV series that push the envelope. Maybe this one doesn't push the envelope too much, but it's scarier than any TV series I've ever seen. I suspect "American Horror Story" might be scarier given that it's set in a house rather than an Amazon jungle that I'll never visit.

The thing about scary shows with supernatural events is they can make the rules up as they go. In "The River," it feels like a stretch when the characters figure out the rules under pressure and quickly enough to dig themselves out of a deadly situation.

I'll keep watching.

Incidentally, every time I think about this show, that line from Rush's "Tom Sawyer" pops into my head: The river (ba dum ba duuuum, ba doo be doo be, ba dum ba duuuum....).

Reasons not to immediately toss boxes or put laundry away

My Mid day was busy.

• I sang the national anthem at a pre-Super Bowl party. [The key to singing the national anthem is to start low.]
• Then I drove home to eat the lunch I packed last night, but forgot to take to work. [Pork roast and roasted cabbage with bacon]
• Then I bought a ticket to see Eddie Vedder in April. [$90 for one ticket - sheesh. I remember when tickets cost a quarter of that. Uphill, both ways.]
• Then I stopped at a coffee shop on the way back to work, giving in to a craving for a mocha latte. [NOT on my diet]
• Then I took some ibuprofen for the headache that was getting worse by the minute. [A couple hours later, I felt on top of the world. I don't know if I was back to healthy good, or just high on caffeine, sugar and OTC painkillers.]

In the evening, I tried Duck Duck Go search engine. I like it so far. One baby step toward reducing my Google consumption.

Something I Saw At Work

This table's shoe lace was untied.