... and so much to think about afterwards ...

If you have been in a cemetery lately -- at least one in which people have been buried in the last several years -- you have probably seen stones with laser-etched designs on them. Etching has become quite popular and these newer stones give cemeteries a very different look. Supposedly, this technique will last 500+ years in an outdoor setting. I guess that seems like forever to most people. Or maybe they figure in 500 years nobody will care who is buried in these graveyards anyway, so they don't worry that the design will disappear eventually.

As I walked among the stones, I was surprised to see so many of them decorated for Halloween. It has never occurred to me to go to the cemetery and put Halloween decorations up. I think that if I did, some of my relatives would totally understand and some of them would think I was bonkers.

Anyway, a few stones, in particular, caught my eye today.



Ryder was just two and a half years old when he died. I assume his death was accidental, because there is a small, round plaque below his picture that indicates his organs were donated. I love the etched images of a little boy angel playing football and swinging in heaven. :)



Arionna was less than five months old when she died. I always want to know what happened to the babies.



Most people who die before the age of 40 are the victim of an accident, right? I wonder if Robert Altman's motorcylce was involved in his early death. But wouldn't that just be too weird, if he died in a motorcycle accident and the family still chose to include that image on the stone?

iTunes is currently playing: Light Above The Trees from the album A Drop Of Water by Keiko Matsui.

I was wandering around in a drug store the other day and I saw this in the pet department:



There are many things that can be purchased in either "stylish" or "boring" versions, but I didn't think a cat litter box was one of them.

I didn't buy it.

iTunes is currently playing: Walls Come Tumbing Down from the album The Singular Adventures Of The Style Council by The Style Council.

I have been very bad about blogging. I guess that is better than being bad AT blogging which would mean that my writing sucks. I don't think my posts suck. I just think they are too few and far between.

Since I last wrote I formed an LLC (Catland Enterprises LLC) to deal with some business ventures I am starting up. I have owned the domain catland.com for years and will continue to use it for the new business.

As you will see from the web site, I am available as an eBay trading assistant, which means I sell stuff on eBay for people who don't want to bother selling their own stuff. I will also be teaching eBay classes in the near future. Stay tuned!

If you don't have an eBay account but think you might want to buy or sell something in the next 30 days, please consider signing up by clicking on the eBay banner below. It doesn't cost you anything and I get a few bucks. Thanks!




I used LegalZoom.com to set up the LLC and was very happy with them. LegalZoom was started by Robert Shapiro. (you might remember him from the O.J. trial.) The web site has tons of helpful information that you can read before you decide to initiate any legal process. Once you do, they keep you informed every step of the way with emails and phone calls. I can't recommend them highly enough.




iTunes is currently playing: Money Mile from the album Alf by Alison Moyet.

... and sometimes I am embarrassed that I ever lived there.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California filed suit against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other carmakers on Wednesday, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California was the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles' emissions.

The lawsuit also names Chrysler Motors Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler, and the North American units of Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.

iTunes is currently playing: Lonesome For A Place I Know from the album Idlewild by Everything But The Girl.

i just bought an ironing board from Target that hangs over a closet door. i thought i might be more inclined to iron the things that need to be ironed if i just had to pull the board down rather than drag a (larger, heavier) model out of a closet and find someplace to set it up.

i almost didn't buy it because this was written on the package:

"there's something rather magical about ironing. you take your rumpled up life. spritz a little water on it. run an iron over it. and presto. everything's new again. the wrinkles of yesterday have vanished right before your very eyes. and there you are. looking fresh. feeling sharp. ready to take on the world."

they actually paid someone to write that crap? clearly, it was someone who has never ironed, because anyone who has will tell you there is nothing MAGICAL about it or any other form of domestic drudgery known as housework.

hmmm.... could the field of marketing possibly be dominated by ... men??

iTunes is currently playing: We Work The Black Seam from the album The Dream Of The Blue Turtles by Sting.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Jerry Lewis' 41st annual Labor Day holiday weekend telethon raised a record $61 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, organizers in Las Vegas said Monday.

The contributions and pledges raised during the 21 1/2-hour event handily beat last year's haul of $55 million. The 2005 telethon was hit by national fund raising for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, Lewis earmarked $1 million from the telethon for the Salvation Army's relief efforts in the South.

This year's nationally televised event took place in the comic's adopted hometown of Las Vegas after a 12-year run in Hollywood. Lewis, 80, hosted, despite suffering a heart attack in June. He has never missed a telethon despite a litany of ailments over the years, including back pain, addiction to painkillers and an inflammatory lung disorder.

iTunes is currently playing: What I Did for Love from the album A Chorus Line by Priscilla Lopez & Company.

[Hunter Syndrome is in the same group of diseases as San Filippo Syndrome. San Filippo Syndrome is MPS III.]

On Monday, July 24, 2006 Shire Human Genetic Therapeutics announced that Elaprase™, the enzyme replacement therapy for MPS II (Hunter Syndrome), was approved by the FDA.

Hunter syndrome is a rare, life-threatening genetic condition that results from the absence or insufficient levels of the lysosomal enzyme iduronate-2-sulfatase. Without this enzyme, cellular waste products accumulate in tissues and organs, which then begin to malfunction.

ELAPRASE is the first and only treatment approved for people suffering from Hunter syndrome. The product, which is given as weekly infusions, replaces the missing enzyme that Hunter syndrome patients fail to produce in sufficient quantities.

“Regulatory approval of ELAPRASE will enable physicians to move needy patients beyond palliative care and make Hunter syndrome a treatable disease,” said Joseph Muenzer, MD., Ph.D, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Until today, there were no options for addressing the underlying cause of this devastating disease.”

Shire expects to launch ELAPRASE in the United States within the next 30 days.

iTunes is currently playing: The Dreams Of Children from the album The Dreams Of Children by Shadowfax.

When I was in Indiana for a year, one of the things I missed was the Roy Rogers Restaurant in Bayville, NJ. Their roast beef sandwich is to die for.

The other day I noticed that they still have a picture of Roy up on the wall, with a quote from him about how good the food is. Kind of weird, considering how long it has been since he passed away. It occurred to me that most of the people under the age of 40 (or maybe even 50) who go in there probably don't even know who Roy Rogers was, which is a shame. He and Dale were the sort of people who made the world a better place by the way they lived their lives.

Another interesting thing about Roy Rogers (the restaurant, not the man) is that they apparently don't give a rat's behind about being politically correct. If you buy a super size meal, your fries come in a cardboard holster. Kids can even wear it on their belt and keep their toy gun in it. Oh, wait, kids don't play with guns anymore, do they. They aren't supposed to play cowboys and indians anymore, either, I guess. (Oops. I meant to say "cowboys and Native Americans".)



Well, it may not be politically correct to say so, but I think that holster is adorable.

iTunes is currently playing: SHOTGUN from the album Jr Walker & The All Stars - Ultimate Collection by Junior Walker & The All Stars.

In an AP story, Hollywood "insiders" debate the future of Mel Gibson's career following his recent arrest for DUI and alleged drunken anti-Semitic comments:

One media expert said Gibson irreparably damaged his career with his "crazy" behavior following his arrest by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies in Malibu early Friday. Charges of anti-Semitism were also leveled against the actor-director with the release of his 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ."

"It's a nuclear disaster for him," said publicist Michael Levine, who has represented Michael Jackson and Charlton Heston, among others. "I don't see how he can restore himself."

I would remind Mr. Levine that director Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old girl and fled the country to avoid prosecution, yet he was given an Academy Award years later. Does he believe that driving (and making stupid racist comments) while drunk is a greater crime than child rape? If folks in the entertainment industry think so, they are definitely out of touch with mainstream America. (But we already knew that, didn't we.)

iTunes is currently playing: Town Without Pity from the album Anthology 1961-1968 by Gene Pitney.

From the N.Y. Daily News:

Christians who mostly turned the other cheek as "The Da Vinci Code" climbed the best-seller list are launching a counteroffensive now that Dan Brown's novel is set to hit the big screen.

As the movie's May 19 opening draws nearer, Roman Catholic and other Christian leaders are unveiling new Web sites, taking out full-page ads to "debunk" the work's claims and speaking out in the media and from the pulpit.

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, denounced the book's controversial premise that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, calling it "the stuff of imagination."

iTunes is currently playing: The Book I Read from the album Live at the Sun Palace (Tokyo) by Talking Heads.