Theory of cat hair diffusion

The reason cats shed so much is that they are trying to reach cat hair equilibrium.  Cat hair equilibrium will occur when the surrounding space has the same density of cat hair as the place from which the cat hair emanates, namely, the cat.   Under this theory, the cat will eventually stop shedding once we are so deep in fur that we are unable to breathe.

A corollary to this theory is that diffusion occurs faster when the gradient between the high density fur area and the low density fur area is larger.  That is, the more you vacuum, the faster they shed.

Related:  #2 claims this furminator reduces her cat by 10% upon use.  It doesn’t seem to stop him shedding, but it does make him smaller!  Perhaps there is a complex equation about changing surface-to-volume ratio.  One time (on a previous cat) I decided that I would keep brushing until he either quit shedding, or was naked.  After an hour neither had occurred, and I gave up.

Do you all have any corroborating or denying evidence?  Alternate theories?  Stories of ginormous cat-hair tumbleweeds?

Ask the Blogosphere

We here at Grumpy Rumblings hereby pledge that we will NOT talk about the weather this week.  Whew.

This post has replaced the Food for Other Folks post you may have been expecting to give you some breaking news and to ask an important question.

Random bullet of timely news:

Dr. Daryl Bem, about whom I have posted before, attempts to explain his concept of time-traveling pr0n by invoking quantum physics:
Time-Traveling Porn – Daryl Bem

In related news, we have a burning question for the blogosphere.  Please tell us: WHY do cats always hack up on the carpet?  My house is less than half-carpeted and yet, without fail, the cat picks the carpeted (hard-to-clean) areas to make his hairballs in.  This is true even in houses with far less carpet.  Everyone else with cats reports the same thing.  Is there some physiological reason?  Do they like to be comfy when yarfing?  I believe it is sheer cussedness, myself.  Someone please enlighten us!

W0rd.

We now return you to your regular posting.  Food for other folks will now be appearing Feb 23rd.  Look forward to it.

What do you do when you need to comfort yourself?

Work is hard.  Sometimes life just doesn’t go as well as we wish it would.  Here’s the things we do to calm ourselves down and get some perspective.  Or at least some comfort.

Look at savings.  This reminds me that in the worst case scenario we won’t starve, not for a while at least.

Eat chocolate ice cream, preferably male*

Make chocolate chip cookies, also preferably male

Read something engrossing.  I read somewhere that this does good things to the brain in times of stress and is better than some other ways to relax.  So it must be true.

Watch something brainless and funny.  Ah, Big Bang Theory, how I love you.

Snuggle.  Wasn’t there just an article making the rounds about the power of touch?  So yeah.

Look up alternate careers.  Because we are never trapped.

Eat pasta.  (This doesn’t work as well for #1 because it is often followed by a carb crash.  But there’s something very homey about spaghetti with meat sauce.  The ultimate comfort food.)

Re-read silly novels.  They can’t surprise you with sudden depressingness.

Listen to MC Frontalot.

Call partner on phone

Look at lolcats… or kitenwars… or dailysquee… Cute aminals.  Nuff sed.

Cuddle a kitteh

Whiiiiiiiiiine

IM #1 (see above whine)

Go to bed and sleep it off.  Tomorrow is often better, assuming you don’t have crippling nightmares that keep you from sleeping.

Distract self with internet (LibraryThing)… or blog about it.  (See whine.)

What do you do when you need a little TLC?  (The care, not the crackers.)

*male ice cream includes NY Super Fudge Chunk, rocky road, everything but the, turtle soup etc…  male cookies include generally walnuts or pecans.

Secret Confessions of Pseudonymous Bloggers

Because nobody really knows who we are on this blog, I felt like this might be a good place to confess secrets that we can’t tell anyone who knows us (except each other).  We’d better do it now before we get so famous that people try to expose our identities!

Like… I have written some really bad fiction, purely for my own amusement and for nobody else’s eyes.  I have Eminem on my iPod, along with musicals, the Corrs (shhh!), Weird Al, some tracks from South Park and Family Guy, and a whole bunch of Baroque music.  I have a secret desire to dress outlandishly in public.  I don’t like children much.  (Shhh!)  My mother wishes I lived closer, but I think that would be bad for our relationship.  I think my colleague takes care of her cat wrong but her children right.  I don’t like my other friend’s new house very much.  I think our new faculty hire looks really young, and I am really jealous that zie got to bring hir partner with hir to this place.  I am terrible at cleaning all the things.

#2, what would you like to confess?

#2:  Wait?  I thought you LOVED children?  Is that just babies?  (#1: Yes, I love babies, but only babies.)  Um… I secretly don’t like children either.  It seems like I like kids who are a 2 year age window around my little one.  I will know it is time to have a second when babies start looking cute instead of goopy again. I make the appropriate cooing and gushing noises but they’re lies.  Especially since most babies are wet lumps and can’t DO anything.  Don’t worry, my kid was different.  I can also handle being around kids if I’m teaching them something.  I have taught quite a lot of long division and double digit multiplication on Southwest Airlines plane rides…

I wish my car had power locks though it didn’t used to bother me.  I also procrastinate A LOT.  But I tend to meet deadlines.  I hate feeling rushed.  I have a tendency to want to fix people that I have to fight after learning that you really can’t fix people unless they want to be fixed… it may work temporarily but they tend to get clingy and things get messed up.  So I try to stay in the background.  Sometimes when you don’t try to fix things they get fixed on their own.

I waver between feeling arrogant and feeling incompetent.  I play with the big leagues and many of the important people know my name (just this year!), but my cv looks like crap comparatively… I’m not yet one of them.  I constantly war with the desire to become one of them and the desire to relax more and just get tenure here and enjoy life, build wealth etc.  When I compare my cv to 80 or 90% of the profession out the same number of years, it looks above average.  Do I want to kill myself to become one of them or am I content on the fringe or could maybe disappear off the map and still be happy?  I would probably be happier if I had less ambition.  I often think about ditching it all and moving to the bay area, but I’m secretly unsure that I would be happy without feeding my ambition.  This year I have been having a very difficult time concentrating.

I tell people I’m not on facebook because I don’t want to deal with telling students I don’t want to be their friends.  But really I’m afraid that if I were on facebook I would spend all my time on it and never work again.

I am incapable of not answering direct questions.  I’m a little bit self-absorbed.  I used to only like crazy people because they’re interesting (for a while I only had one truly sane friend… though #1 has mellowed a lot through the years).  But I got burned really badly recently and find that I’m gravitating towards much more boring and mature people, preferably with kids my child’s age.  So now I only have one crazy friend who is legacy (not #1… she’s mellowed a lot (#1: HEY NOW.)).  We’ll see if that friendship survives her moving close to us.  This blogger sums up my attitudes towards fashion.  Man I am so lazy.

Is that enough soul searching?

#1: yeah, that’s probably enough for one post, though you have reminded me that I have bad, bad CV envy and feel defensive about mine.  Doh!

In conclusion, why don’t more people name their cats Piewacket?

Link Love (last one before classes start!)

This one is also a little light on the personal finance.  I think the pf bloggers are on vacation while the academic bloggers are doing deep soul searching ‘cuz the school year is about to start.  Or at least they’re sitting at their computers procrastinating while doing class prep and finishing up those articles that need to go out ASAP (maybe that’s just us…).

Historiann on mandatory retirement (with the Isley Brothers)

Reading historical novels for work: not as cool as it sounds

Profacero (Z) with a list that speaks to me, and for a lot of academics I think.  (And I want Z to comment more on our blog!)  Let us celebrate our successes and learn from others’ successes and never feel guilty for being awesome.  I think Z’s future is bright and I look forward to the upward climb into freedom.

Step away from the mall has an ethical question about how many free coupons he can use… if the coupon doesn’t say, “limit one coupon per customer…”  I don’t know the answer.

Everyday tips estimates how much it costs per day to drive a car.

A tale of woe from Money Reasons.  Lest we feel too sorry for him, it got better.  We can now go back to jealously prepping classes for next semester.

Shedoncomics + blogs + grammar… triple play with the funny.  Oh snap!

a new Simon’s Cat video…!

Also: Very important cat safety tips Cats being better than dogs.

Better Book Titles (what it says on the tin)

ETA: This morning’s post from the boxcar kids is just heartbreaking. I hope they find a solution that doesn’t require losing the pets or being otherwise separated.

Awesome or Awful? You decide.

I see things that look like they could be totally awesome, or else, they could be completely horrible, depending on execution.  These are all things that I have *not* read or otherwise consumed, so I don’t know yet.  You make the call!

Anthropomorphic Cats, take one: Lackadaisy

Anthropomorphic Cats, take two: Blacksad (I’m guessing more likely to be awesome here)

Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder: A Mystery
by Gyles Brandreth

Long ago, I asked whether Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was going to be awesome or terrible, but I think time has answered the majority opinion on this one, with followups such as:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Mansfield Park and Mummies

Little Women and Werewolves and/or Little Vampire Women

(Sweet, nourishing public domain.)

(on an only somewhat related note: Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter was pretty decent, amusing, fun, but not great)

More later!  Meanwhile, tell us the awesome-to-awful ratio in the comments.

Cats vs. Dogs: Part Two: The Cuteness Factor

Cats are WAY cuter than dogs.

I mean seriously.  Kittenwar vs. Puppywar?  No CONTEST.

How about from dailysquee:  kittens or puppies?

LOLCats ar3 the bizbomb… who even reads LOLDogs?

BFS guest blogging at Live Real Now has posted some pics of her pug.  Sure, he’s cute.  But is he as cute as teh kittehs?

Anyone want to get into a blog war with us?

I’m impressed with how Evan got a ton of traffic from ticking off people like Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.

Is there anyone who would like to get into a fight with us?  We can totally pony up drama for hits!

Ooh ooh, I have an idea– Any dog lovers out there?

Well.

Cats rule!

Dogs drool!

Dogs bark and drool and smell bad.  You have to go home and let them out and they get all sad if you don’t pay attention to them.  Why would anybody have a dog when you can have a cat?

Disagree?  Blog about it and link back here.  I promise we’ll come to a compromise agreement after we’ve had a lively discussion.  ;)

The Cat Post

Whoa, it got all serious in here.  It seems like now is the time to post silly things about cats.

I know it sometimes annoys people when bloggers post about cats, but I CAN’T HELP IT.  I’ve been holding back, restraining myself, trying to deny the cat-blogging, but I cannot.  Maybe I can at least collect it all in one place so you can skip it if you want?  Or, ya know, bookmark it and come back to it later.

First: we have cats, we like cats.  My cat consistently tries to eat my W-2s each tax season (good kitty).

Second: look over in the sidebar, there, on the right, and watch those Simon’s Cat videos.  yeah.

Third: linky linky!
This is funny because it’s true: Lap Dance, an exploration of a large man’s devotion to his small cat.

Cat and iPad:

A classic: An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

Followed by: Advanced Cat Yodeling

And finally: Bionic kitteh. “Surgical high five, dude!”

Ok, that’s quite enough of that. More later!