New icon, weird cats, planning for Thanksgiving.

[seanan_mcguire]

Article the first: New icon! The ever-engaging taraoshea made this for me as a sort of answer to my Commandments of Coyote, because Coyote needs his beer, yo. How I do adore her. Also, she's completely out of her tree. But that's probably why we get along so well, so hey.

There's a permanent account sale coming up, and I looked at it thoughtfully, because I'm a total whore for anything that allows me to have more user icons (yes, I know, I probably need help). The trouble is, the math no longer works out. There was a time when buying a permanent account was cheap enough that it would balance out the cost of paying for your journal, plus extras, in roughly four years -- forever in Internet terms, but still a reasonable investment. The folks who run the site basically know that they've hit the upper limit in terms of what people will pay for bells and whistles on a blogging site, and at $20 a year (if you're doing auto-pay), it just doesn't balance out the $175 for a permanent account. Not even if you're buying extra user icons. Alas, price structure, how you have betrayed us.

Article the second: Lilly has managed to get out of the house twice in the past few months, which has made me paranoid enough to finally do something I'd previously resisted, and buy her a collar already. I picked it up during my cat litter run -- a spiffy little black number with silver moons and stars on it, very goth-girl, which is ideal for my Siamese sweetie. It also has a bell. I already hate the bell.

Now, I brought the collar home anticipating some great, epic battle for my life against an irritated Siamese cat, something to remember throughout the ages. My housemate was anticipating the equivalent of a land war in Asia. I approached the cat with the collar. I pulled the collar over the cat's head. The cat squirmed a little. I stroked the cat. The cat stopped squirming. I tightened the collar. Game over. Where is the drama? Where is the excitement? Where is the pathos? (I know where the cat is. I hate that bell.)

Tune in next week, when Lilly utterly fails to react in any noticeable way to getting microchipped. I swear, my cat is on Valium or something.

Article the third: Plans are in the works to get my little sister down from Sacramento for Thanksgiving, officially making this the closet thing to a family Thanksgiving that we've had in years. The last time we tried this, I wore Melissa's tarantula as a broach just to see if it would freak Mom out (it did). This should, at least, be more entertaining than putting a collar on the cat.

Comments

[zen-kitty.livejournal.com]

Yea, I've been looking at the permanent sale also. If you buy the extra icon package it is a little less than $30/year. That means that it would take a little less than 6 years to catch up. Is about 40 more icons worth that? I still haven't decided.

BTW - You have almost no icons. I have a whole slew of icons I haven't even uploaded here and I already have 72 icons I can use. I LOVE icons. *grins*

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have over eight hundred icons. I just haven't uploaded most of them, 'cause I need to have space for two icons per book -- one made for the book posts during the writing/editing process, one made from the eventual cover art -- and I write a lot of books.

[zen-kitty.livejournal.com]

Wow! I bow to your icon collection. Mine pales in comparison. :o)

That's great that Lilly likes the collar. Mine are like ceosanna's and find all kinds of creative ways to remove them. Although "the boys" don't hide them. They leave them right out in plain view and then just give us the "What" look.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

She's still wearing it, either happily or with a total lack of give a shit. So I think we're good.

[ceosanna.livejournal.com]

>Game over. Where is the drama? Where is the excitement? Where is the pathos?

I fully suspect that she'll be able to squirm out of it when you're not looking and hide it someplace you'd never expect. That happened with one of my cats years ago. I finally found the collar two years later when I was moving out - on the top shelf of my laundry closet, stuck between a random assortment of items and the wall. They're clever little creatures!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Actually, she seems totally at peace with her new collar. She's happily jingling all over the house. It's adorable.

[ceosanna.livejournal.com]

Aww, yay! I'm glad she seems to be happy it.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Lilly just enjoys having the power to jingle me into submission.

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

cats pride themselves on being contrary, even if contrary means cooperative. *nod*

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

This is very, very true.

[talithakalago.livejournal.com]

Our 12 months old cat has a collar. This is his second one, the first one did up with holes and a buckle and he was forever undoing it an choking himself. So we got one that does up with a clip together buckle.

He can get this one off too. Very easily. Thankfully, whenever he does, he picks it up in his mouth and runs back to the house (we have a large, kangaroo infested yard) with the collar in his mouth, meowing.

He does this about three times a week.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...I can't decide whether that's adorable or disturbing. I think I'll settle for 'both.'

[talithakalago.livejournal.com]

It's very, very handy is what it is! I'd never find it out there myself.


(On a side note, I wrote a long post about crocodile attacks on my LJ you might be interested in.)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...the crocodiles stalking people make me SO HAPPY. I'm really not sure what that says about me, but thank you so much for pointing that out. Squee!

[talithakalago.livejournal.com]

I thought that one would float your boat. Grin.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Where is the drama? Where is the excitement? Where is the pathos? (I know where the cat is. I hate that bell.)

Two possibilities come to mind:

1. Lilly is saving up her insanity for a Siamese Cat mad minute.
   
2. Lilly saw the bell and recognized it for what it would become.
   

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I think #2 may be sadly probable.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Well for me, it's 20 for the paid, then another 10 for the icons, so it's 6 years price for me.

They also include their 10 gigs of storage, which is ostensibly another $24. if you include that. it's $54 a year, and then it's less than 3 years.

However, I don't use that, so it's a non-factor for me.

I'm suddenly flip-flopping on my plans to buy one though.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It's a hard call. If I had the money to spare, I might do it, just so I'd never need to worry about paying for my account again. But as it stands, it just doesn't make financial sense.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I take the bells off my cats' collars.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I tried. She bit me.

[jacylrin.livejournal.com]

When we first got our cat Tori, I put a collar on her. She spent all her time trying to get at the bell, so I took it off. Then she spent all her time trying to get the collar off. So yeah, neither cat wears a collar. Then again, they're indoor only, and we live on 48 acres. Even when they escape they come back before long, thankfully. But yes, you can take the bell off. I hear the dogs rattling all the time (since the ID tag and rabies tag clang), but it doesn't bother me. Bell on a cat collar is a different tone, though, and drives me nuts.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Jingle jingle jingle AIIIIIIGH. Yes.