Store clerk wins $258.5 million Powerball
Today’s news is one of those things that makes a cat want to philosophize about. My human and her mate have discussed issues like this; but, of course, they have never asked for my opinion on the subject. Now, it’s my chance to have a say in the matter.
According to the news, a 29-year-old father of three; a 10-year old son and a 7 and 5 year old daughter, who was raised by his grandparents in rural southern Missouri, won $258.5 million. The picture of the man shows he is missing his two front teeth which he later indicates that he now can afford to have fixed. His story also indicated that $28.96 in his bank account and that a friend had allowed him to purchase a 1998 Ford Ranger pickup, which the friend had been asking $1,000.00 for, in installments of $100.00.
This man has to figure out whether he would like to accept a one time payment of 124,875,122, or take the jackpot in 30 payments over twenty-nine years; although, the article does not indicate how much each payment would be. So, let’s take a look:
A one time payment looks almost promising, doesn’t it; it appears that he will get half of what he won; of course, the article forgets to state that most likely, that amount is before taxes which means; should he take a one time payment after taxes he will get approximately $41.5 million. Based on the mentioned one time payment amount, if the man accepts thirty payments he would receive approximately $4,162,504 per payment, less taxes that would mean $1,387,501 annually after taxes.
But, wait! The article states he has three children by two women, but does not indicate whether or not he presently lives with either woman; so lets get into the child support issue. At 25% for the two children, his newly modified child support payment would be $31218,780 and most likely that would become his annual child support payment. If he took payments, he would only have to pay $1,040,626 annual for the two kids. Of course there is a third child who receives 17% -- need I say more?
Without taking into consideration of this man is a drinker, and therefore would be required to fund an insurance company just in case he say, got in a fight or an accident when he was drunk. Oh, yes, his regular vehicle insurance would have to be modified as well. This poor man who just won $258.5 million dollars should be in debtor’s prison by the end of two years!
Therefore, cats everywhere, warn your humans; they are better off poor then winning even $1 million; unless of course they are already rich, then it’s just another drop in the bucket for the winner!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Earth Day and Humans Don't Mesh!
When my human turned on the computer this morning her home page said Celebrating 40 Years of Earth Day; since I’m not 40; I thought it was time to check out this Earth Day shit! So here is what I learned:
On April 22, 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin held an environmental teach-in (you know one of those sessions where controversial issues are debated). Anyway, it was supposedly started to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.
Well, I suppose that means a natural environment right? Okay, let’s talk about a natural environment which is all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth. So, I’m going outdoors to check out the natural environment, back in a few…..
I’m back; let me tell you about my natural environment. I walked out the door onto a cement pad (is that natural?) okay from there I walked onto the dirt and gravel in the driveway (I guess that would be the non-living stuff) then onto the grass, filled with weeds (Huh, check it out, living stuff) there were trees, and along the base of the property where the creek flows (now, this is where I get confused, is a creek a living or a dead thing… well, I guess it’s time for a little kitty philosophy…)
Is a creek a live or dead thing? Well, live things in the environment grow; when it rains the creek grows. Live things in the environment change; creeks change; the path they take the stuff they carry along. Naturally dead things like dirt and stones just sit there unless a human or animal moves it. A creek does not just sit there; it constantly moves.
Okay, as a philosopher, I say a creek is alive; but, I got a bit off track. Today we are dealing with Earth Day. Now, the grass, weeds, bugs, birds; well, they are all pretty great, but what about the candy wrappers, the sand and salt left behind by road crews over the winter, or plastic water bottles. Water bottles, isn’t that interesting, I either drink water from the faucet or out of a puddle, why do humans need to buy water in plastic bottles?
Further more, the neighbor’s house is falling apart and all the wood that fell from his staircase is laying in my environment. The winter accumulation of salt and sand has claimed a good two feet of lawn space along the highway and what do humans do; they suck the dirt from the road and leave the crap in everyone else’s yards. My natural environment would be much better without humans, but at least my human tries to get rid of the litter left behind by others. She has natural ailments that make it difficult to do things; but she works at it.
As a kitty philosopher; I say that Earth Day has not worked. The only way that humans would take care of their natural environment is if there was a catastrophe about to occur because of something they did. I bet, as soon as the catastrophe was diverted, stupid humans would start doing the same things to their environment that caused the near catastrophe. Humans seem to have short spans of recollection.
So, my true philosophy of the day; if you really want Earth Day to work; you have to ditch the humans!
On April 22, 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin held an environmental teach-in (you know one of those sessions where controversial issues are debated). Anyway, it was supposedly started to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.
Well, I suppose that means a natural environment right? Okay, let’s talk about a natural environment which is all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth. So, I’m going outdoors to check out the natural environment, back in a few…..
I’m back; let me tell you about my natural environment. I walked out the door onto a cement pad (is that natural?) okay from there I walked onto the dirt and gravel in the driveway (I guess that would be the non-living stuff) then onto the grass, filled with weeds (Huh, check it out, living stuff) there were trees, and along the base of the property where the creek flows (now, this is where I get confused, is a creek a living or a dead thing… well, I guess it’s time for a little kitty philosophy…)
Is a creek a live or dead thing? Well, live things in the environment grow; when it rains the creek grows. Live things in the environment change; creeks change; the path they take the stuff they carry along. Naturally dead things like dirt and stones just sit there unless a human or animal moves it. A creek does not just sit there; it constantly moves.
Okay, as a philosopher, I say a creek is alive; but, I got a bit off track. Today we are dealing with Earth Day. Now, the grass, weeds, bugs, birds; well, they are all pretty great, but what about the candy wrappers, the sand and salt left behind by road crews over the winter, or plastic water bottles. Water bottles, isn’t that interesting, I either drink water from the faucet or out of a puddle, why do humans need to buy water in plastic bottles?
Further more, the neighbor’s house is falling apart and all the wood that fell from his staircase is laying in my environment. The winter accumulation of salt and sand has claimed a good two feet of lawn space along the highway and what do humans do; they suck the dirt from the road and leave the crap in everyone else’s yards. My natural environment would be much better without humans, but at least my human tries to get rid of the litter left behind by others. She has natural ailments that make it difficult to do things; but she works at it.
As a kitty philosopher; I say that Earth Day has not worked. The only way that humans would take care of their natural environment is if there was a catastrophe about to occur because of something they did. I bet, as soon as the catastrophe was diverted, stupid humans would start doing the same things to their environment that caused the near catastrophe. Humans seem to have short spans of recollection.
So, my true philosophy of the day; if you really want Earth Day to work; you have to ditch the humans!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How I Came to Be.......
Adventures in Kitty Land; Life from a Cat’s Perspective
Hello, all you cats and kittens out there in cyber land. Let me introduce myself, my name is Special K, like in Special Kitty. Don’t even think it! I WAS NOT named after WalMart’s brand cat supplies! Give me a break, even I know that WalMart is responsible for half of the jobs in the U.S being gone; and don’t even start me on the health care issue, especially when WalMart claims that most of their employees have health care coverage without specifying that that coverage comes from the American tax dollar; Medicaid!
Okay, okay, I am not here to complain about WalMart, my human does enough of that. I am here because every day I sit on my human’s lap reading the websites she scans through and not once have I seen a blog created by a cat! I just could not believe it! Supposedly there are roughly 64 million house cats in America and not one of you can take the time to blog??!!!! Well, that is about to change!
Since this is my first day of blogging, I think I should start at the beginning; how I came to be. My human has a weakness for cats. She lives on a four-corner road, with three of the four corners being well traveled. For some reason, people in this tiny town seem to get cats, decide they don’t want them never have them spayed or neutered and send them out to fend for themselves. From what my human says; I take it that happens to be a problem all across America.
Anyway, she could not handle seeing all of the dead cats along the roadways or the starving cats looking for scraps of food, so she started tending to these desperate strays. From these strays, she had taken three and made pets of them, two males and one female. Realizing that males would spray if not neutered, she had the males neutered, and left the female alone; boy, was that a mistake!!!
You see, one morning my human was reading a book, when an awful noise was heard right outside her living room window. It sounded as if a cat had been injured. Jumping from her chair, she raced to the front door, opened it and in rushed this black kitten-cat; oh, come on, you know what I mean, it was somewhere between the age when people called it an adorable kitten and they stopped thinking it was all cute and cuddly because now it was a cat.
Getting back to the story, this cat waltzed right in the front door, stopped briefly to examine the three cats living within and headed straight to their food dishes, helping itself to a greedily slurped up meal, after which it returned to the living room and made itself at home, right on my human’s lap! My human thought for sure someone would claim it. She took its picture, made posters and kept it at her house waiting for another human to stop and say, that’s my cat!
Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, the only thing that did happen was this kitten-cat was a male and my human’s female was in heat. Ta-dah; along comes a little of six, sickly kittens. Well, not exactly; five sickly kittens’ one kitty that Mama pushed aside and one kitten that my human wanted to strangle; that would be me! I realize this is getting long and most of you want a nice short blog to read; but, this is really important, you have to know how I came to be Special K!
Now, the human coddles the kitten that was pushed away. She buys formula and a bottle, but the kitten does not eat. Does she just let it die? NOPE! She force feeds it with an eye dropper. Sure enough, that kitten seems fine, if you discount the fact that it doesn’t grow. My human starts calling it Shrimp because it’s so small.
Okay, now you see, the human doesn’t realize yet that the five kitties the Mama is taking care of (not including of course, little ole, me) are sick. I mean they seem fine. Because the Mama keeps taking them in the living room; the human puts a small little box in there. Well, hey – you know, cats will be cats, the big ones start using that little and because the box is small so that the wee creatures can get inside, half of the little ends up off the mat onto the carpet.
Like I said, the human has no idea that the other kittens are sick, so she thinks how cute as they go to the little. Me, I’m not about to share litter with a bunch of sickos; so I use the litter the Cats have scraped out of the box, onto the rug. Now, my human screams at me, rants and raves and throws me in the little box which of course, I AM NOT GOING TO USE!
Time goes on, the kitties that seemed fine start getting smaller, the human is worried; dah, they are sicker!!!!
Anyway, after the first one died on my human’s lap and she realized that the others were also beginning to shrink, she boxed them up and headed to the local SPCA, where they would be HUMANLY GASSED! Um, hey, human; what to hell is so humane about being gassed? Do you think all of the prisoners who were gassed in German Concentration Camps thought it was more humane to be gassed then starve to death, be beaten to death…. Sorry, guess that doesn’t quite make my point after all.
Anyway, at the very last minute, my human scooped me up and shoved me into the box with the sickos! Hey! Let me out of here! I’m not sick! Maybe they didn’t understand what I was saying but I got the attention of my human’s mate who asked; why is that one going?
“Because it keeps pissing on the floor, it won’t use the litter box and I don’t like it!” Ow my ears, keep the screeching down you dumb human!
“Give it a chance; maybe it will be good once all of the sick kittens are gone.” Go, Human’s mate!
“OK, but if it pees on the floor just once, it’s gone!” It, I’m an it? Geez!!
So, they return me to their home; scrub out the litter box and walla, I wait and wait, and wait doing a kitty pee dance because the human seems to stay away from me and the litter for hours. Finally, she enters the room, and I jump into the litter, no time to scratch a hole, I just go and go and go!! I cover up the gigantic puddle and look at the human who is staring at me.
“Show off!” she stomps out of the room. Boy, this is going to be tougher than I think.
She is one tough cookie! Well, I’ll show her! She still scoops the little shit Shrimp up, making sure it has enough to eat. I try to get some of that special kitty formula, but I get shoved away. Hmmm, well, I can weasel my way into her affections. I already showed her that I knew how to use litter. So, every time she sits at her computer, I crawl up and lay on her shoulders. When she sits down to read or watch television, I curl up on her lap. At bedtime, I curl up on her pillow and purr her to sleep. Finally, she is beginning to break; but she still hasn’t given me a name.
I persevere, I am not giving up; after all, she hasn’t taken me to be gassed; I know for sure she is breaking down!
I was six months old when the human grabbed Shrimp and I and placed us in a cat carrier. OH, NO!!! She was taking us to the SPCA! I’m telling you, I panicked all the way to the vets? Yes, the vets, Shrimp and I were getting our shots and spayed; we were staying!!!! But, better yet, I got a name; Special Kitty, Special K for short. And, my friends, that was how I came to be!
I apologize for the length of this bl;og, but hey, every step was important. From now on, I promise to keep it shorter! By the way, do any of you cats out there have an email address for the first dog? I hear the President is looking for a good candidate for the Supreme Court; I know who he needs; my human’s mate!!! Trust me; if you want fair, you’ll get it; you want someone to look after the little guy; you’ll get it; you want someone to be able to sway the other members of the court – oh, man; will you get it!!!!
Hello, all you cats and kittens out there in cyber land. Let me introduce myself, my name is Special K, like in Special Kitty. Don’t even think it! I WAS NOT named after WalMart’s brand cat supplies! Give me a break, even I know that WalMart is responsible for half of the jobs in the U.S being gone; and don’t even start me on the health care issue, especially when WalMart claims that most of their employees have health care coverage without specifying that that coverage comes from the American tax dollar; Medicaid!
Okay, okay, I am not here to complain about WalMart, my human does enough of that. I am here because every day I sit on my human’s lap reading the websites she scans through and not once have I seen a blog created by a cat! I just could not believe it! Supposedly there are roughly 64 million house cats in America and not one of you can take the time to blog??!!!! Well, that is about to change!
Since this is my first day of blogging, I think I should start at the beginning; how I came to be. My human has a weakness for cats. She lives on a four-corner road, with three of the four corners being well traveled. For some reason, people in this tiny town seem to get cats, decide they don’t want them never have them spayed or neutered and send them out to fend for themselves. From what my human says; I take it that happens to be a problem all across America.
Anyway, she could not handle seeing all of the dead cats along the roadways or the starving cats looking for scraps of food, so she started tending to these desperate strays. From these strays, she had taken three and made pets of them, two males and one female. Realizing that males would spray if not neutered, she had the males neutered, and left the female alone; boy, was that a mistake!!!
You see, one morning my human was reading a book, when an awful noise was heard right outside her living room window. It sounded as if a cat had been injured. Jumping from her chair, she raced to the front door, opened it and in rushed this black kitten-cat; oh, come on, you know what I mean, it was somewhere between the age when people called it an adorable kitten and they stopped thinking it was all cute and cuddly because now it was a cat.
Getting back to the story, this cat waltzed right in the front door, stopped briefly to examine the three cats living within and headed straight to their food dishes, helping itself to a greedily slurped up meal, after which it returned to the living room and made itself at home, right on my human’s lap! My human thought for sure someone would claim it. She took its picture, made posters and kept it at her house waiting for another human to stop and say, that’s my cat!
Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, the only thing that did happen was this kitten-cat was a male and my human’s female was in heat. Ta-dah; along comes a little of six, sickly kittens. Well, not exactly; five sickly kittens’ one kitty that Mama pushed aside and one kitten that my human wanted to strangle; that would be me! I realize this is getting long and most of you want a nice short blog to read; but, this is really important, you have to know how I came to be Special K!
Now, the human coddles the kitten that was pushed away. She buys formula and a bottle, but the kitten does not eat. Does she just let it die? NOPE! She force feeds it with an eye dropper. Sure enough, that kitten seems fine, if you discount the fact that it doesn’t grow. My human starts calling it Shrimp because it’s so small.
Okay, now you see, the human doesn’t realize yet that the five kitties the Mama is taking care of (not including of course, little ole, me) are sick. I mean they seem fine. Because the Mama keeps taking them in the living room; the human puts a small little box in there. Well, hey – you know, cats will be cats, the big ones start using that little and because the box is small so that the wee creatures can get inside, half of the little ends up off the mat onto the carpet.
Like I said, the human has no idea that the other kittens are sick, so she thinks how cute as they go to the little. Me, I’m not about to share litter with a bunch of sickos; so I use the litter the Cats have scraped out of the box, onto the rug. Now, my human screams at me, rants and raves and throws me in the little box which of course, I AM NOT GOING TO USE!
Time goes on, the kitties that seemed fine start getting smaller, the human is worried; dah, they are sicker!!!!
Anyway, after the first one died on my human’s lap and she realized that the others were also beginning to shrink, she boxed them up and headed to the local SPCA, where they would be HUMANLY GASSED! Um, hey, human; what to hell is so humane about being gassed? Do you think all of the prisoners who were gassed in German Concentration Camps thought it was more humane to be gassed then starve to death, be beaten to death…. Sorry, guess that doesn’t quite make my point after all.
Anyway, at the very last minute, my human scooped me up and shoved me into the box with the sickos! Hey! Let me out of here! I’m not sick! Maybe they didn’t understand what I was saying but I got the attention of my human’s mate who asked; why is that one going?
“Because it keeps pissing on the floor, it won’t use the litter box and I don’t like it!” Ow my ears, keep the screeching down you dumb human!
“Give it a chance; maybe it will be good once all of the sick kittens are gone.” Go, Human’s mate!
“OK, but if it pees on the floor just once, it’s gone!” It, I’m an it? Geez!!
So, they return me to their home; scrub out the litter box and walla, I wait and wait, and wait doing a kitty pee dance because the human seems to stay away from me and the litter for hours. Finally, she enters the room, and I jump into the litter, no time to scratch a hole, I just go and go and go!! I cover up the gigantic puddle and look at the human who is staring at me.
“Show off!” she stomps out of the room. Boy, this is going to be tougher than I think.
She is one tough cookie! Well, I’ll show her! She still scoops the little shit Shrimp up, making sure it has enough to eat. I try to get some of that special kitty formula, but I get shoved away. Hmmm, well, I can weasel my way into her affections. I already showed her that I knew how to use litter. So, every time she sits at her computer, I crawl up and lay on her shoulders. When she sits down to read or watch television, I curl up on her lap. At bedtime, I curl up on her pillow and purr her to sleep. Finally, she is beginning to break; but she still hasn’t given me a name.
I persevere, I am not giving up; after all, she hasn’t taken me to be gassed; I know for sure she is breaking down!
I was six months old when the human grabbed Shrimp and I and placed us in a cat carrier. OH, NO!!! She was taking us to the SPCA! I’m telling you, I panicked all the way to the vets? Yes, the vets, Shrimp and I were getting our shots and spayed; we were staying!!!! But, better yet, I got a name; Special Kitty, Special K for short. And, my friends, that was how I came to be!
I apologize for the length of this bl;og, but hey, every step was important. From now on, I promise to keep it shorter! By the way, do any of you cats out there have an email address for the first dog? I hear the President is looking for a good candidate for the Supreme Court; I know who he needs; my human’s mate!!! Trust me; if you want fair, you’ll get it; you want someone to look after the little guy; you’ll get it; you want someone to be able to sway the other members of the court – oh, man; will you get it!!!!
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