Okay, first of all, here is some news. I updated my webpage. No, not the portfolio, just the other stuff. Go look, it has a link to my store, from which you must buy things.

Also, this cracked me up. Imagine Bush and North Korea's Kim as internet buddies. Heehee. Pretty funny stuff.

Last night, Rick ran a D&D campaign. Hey woo ! Go Rick ! It was pretty good. We're a fun bunch, though, so it's hard for it to suck. Rick's a bit rusty, but he hasn't DM'd since before the third edition came out, so, all in all, with a bit of leaning on the texts, he was pretty good. I'm playing a gnome monk, Mumbee Wimblewarren - Apples to you ! - and I think I'm going to like him. I am having some trouble sorting out a personality for him, though. I'll figure it out eventually, I always do. Maybe I'll finally run a second episode to my campaign in the near future, too. I'd like to, just for variety.

Yesterday and today at the ROM were absolutely dead. Okay, not stone, cold dead, but neading some serious ressusitation (I'm sure I spelled that wrong). I spent most of them standing around in the rotunda, drawing. I have never had to keep myself entertained like that before. I found some administrative tasks to do, too, like sorting ballots, but there's only so much one can do. Anyway, after work, I went to the gym. For those of you who thought I'd just give up on the gym, I am proving you wrong ! I actually like going to the gym on Sundays. It's pretty quiet, very laid back and not nearly as noisy as it is on a weeknight after work. I worked out for an hour and forty-five minutes, using the cross-trainer for about ten minutes (not bad, not bad...) and various other interesting machines that look like instruments of torture. Following my workout, I walked around on Yonge Street for a bit, eating dinner at the little sushi place, all by my lonesome, and then wandering into some used booksellers. I bought a book that looks like it will be an interesting read. The title, in silver, on the black cover was what caught my eye, King Death. It's subtitle is "The Black Death and its aftermath in late-medieval England" and it has some dancing skeletons on the cover as well, making it the perfect buy. I had a wonderful conversation with the shop owner, too, and I will definitely go back in order to plumb the depths of his art section.

Finally, Rick sent me a link today, which he probably got from the little advert in his email inbox. Which are smarter, cats or dogs? An unanswerable question, really, and the article was written by someone predisposed to believe cats less intelligent, and therefore the whole article was rather unbalanced. Anyway, the answer always comes down to cat people believe dogs to be dumber and vise-versa. Whatever. Here's what I wrote to Rick as a rebuttal to the article (if you can call it that):

That woman and her dog researcher don't know dick about cats. Cats ARE social, but not herding animals, and that's an important fact. And frequently, in the wild, cats form pride-like social structures. And, anyone who's seen Willi and me, especially, interacting, cannot possibly argue that she (or any other cat that I've lived with, for that matter) does not communicate -well- with humans. Cats have a myriad of communication signals, and as for spoken 'word' cats have recently been explained as having well over one hundred, including many outside our hearing.

I joke that cats are smarter than dogs, but since their 'purposes' in existing, especially among humans, are so completely different, and their behaviour so dissimilar, it's apples and oranges. I've met smart dogs. I've met dumb cats. I've also met monumentally stupid dogs and brilliant cats. I've seen cats' problem solving skills at work, and there, with the tiny exception of a few breeds, they have dogs well beat. Also, cats, unlike dogs, play very well by themselves. Yes, dogs play by themselves, but cats make it an artform. And I guess in a world where 'team-players' are prefered, that makes cats less smart.

And, for the record, cats in history -were- trained for hunting, etc. But, their free-will and independence made them less reliable and therefore dangerous. At any rate, I prefer having a pet that doesn't look at me like I'm The Master. But then, I like horses that have 'problem habits' too.