How to Train your Drag- I mean Cat

    There are a number of people that think that cats can't be trained, and besides the fact that I had taught Angel how to twirl and bat my hand for her treat, training isn't just about teaching them tricks. Training is about showing a cat what is safe.

    Pixel is a very scared boy. He's a bit more timid than Angel was when we first got her. He hasn't had much of a life so far being only 2 (while we got Angel when she was 10. She had, I believe, one owner who had died), but it's been pretty eventful. From what the shelter told us, he was born in a barn as a semi-feral kitten and brought to the shelter. He was adopted by a family who wanted to socialize a scared kitten, and apparently this was where he was until he was almost 2. Then he escaped, and the family apparently didn't bother to look for him and when he was brought to the shelter they stated they had moved to a place that didn't accept cats. So for 3 weeks he was back at the shelter, and plastered into a corner. It sounds to me as if his previous owners treated him like an accessory as opposed to a family member, and I'm going to guess that he might not have felt safe or secure in his previous territory. It's taking him a while to open up with us. 

    But I am writing this for a reason - I would like to put some information out there to help potential adopters in situations like these. First of all, I would like to scream from the rooftops:

DON'T PASS UP THE SHY ONES

    Like I mentioned in my previous post, Angel never came out of her cubby when we did our meet and greet. All the information we got for her was from her foster mom and the shelter. And she was the sweetest, most chill and amazing cat in the world. I know it can be hard when the animals you're looking at in the cages don't literally jump out at you, become chatty and rub up against you and want to play. But I find shy cats to be the best cuddlers, if that's what you're looking for. It can just take them a little time to get used to their surroundings, and I have tips (learned from experience and from Jackson Galaxy) to get them to open up to you.

    1. Find a space that is quiet and dark, away from the hustle and bustle of life, and set up a "base camp". In our case, it was our office. We had a cat pod in our closet for him to hide in and feel safe. We put his food, water, and litterbox in there and left him alone for a while. I came to visit every couple of hours or so to make sure he knew he wasn't abandoned, and I only did things that wouldn't make him nervous (kept my distance, didn't attempt to pet him or anything. Just spoke softly to him).

    2. Being able to read body language is key, here. Do not do anything that makes your cat uncomfortable or nervous. Remember, they don't know you, they don't trust you, and you don't want to start off on the wrong foot. They are in a territory they haven't marked as their own, so it's unfamiliar, and to them - unsafe. Remember that cats are both predator and prey. It's important to understand that, unlike dogs, they can feel threatened by unknowns because they are prey animals. 

    3. Let them sniff you. You can use something with your scent on it if they back away from your hand (always present knuckles first, not with fingers). Glasses are a good one. Do not "lord" over them, in other words, get down to their level so you don't appear threatening. Try the slow blink. It's called the "cat I love you", because if they blink at you, it means they trust you enough to close their eyes with you around. This is an important step. You're letting them know that you trust them by closing your eyes to them, and if they do the same, then that's a great start. 

    4. Once they start feeling as if the place might be safe, they will do a little exploration, probably while you're not around. Every time I came in to visit Pixel, he was in a different hiding spot, and as I discovered these, I masked them off so that he couldn't go back to them. He had a safe space in the cat pod, and we wanted him to use that if he got scared. They probably won't feel safe enough to eat or drink for a while, but their instincts will get the best of them eventually and they'll have some food once they feel safe enough. (If cats don't eat any food in a 24 hour period, it can be dangerous to their liver, so make sure you monitor this).

    5. If you decide to go in for pets, make sure you calm them first by speaking softly, doing a few slow blinks, and reaching out slowly - knuckles first. Do not try to do an open hand above their head. Most cats don't like this if they don't trust you. Keep your pets soft and around the face. Stroke the cheeks, or try for chin scratches. Don't venture beyond this area at first unless you believe they seem comfortable. You can try it, and if they try to back away, swish their tail around quickly, put their ears back, growl or hiss, you'll know they're not ready and don't try this again for a while. Respect their space; this will allow them to trust you more if you don't force any interaction. Give them the capacity to choose - this is very important. Note: If they rub their cheek against your hand, you've won a gold star. This is what I call the cat handshake (this might be Jackson's words I don't remember), they are putting their scent on you, marking you as safe, and letting you know they're accepting your pets.

    5. Eventually, they'll be curious as to what lies beyond the closed door once they feel comfortable in their current digs. This is where you introduce the challenge line. Some cats will explore if you leave the door open for them, but some decide that their space is safe and it's all they need. At this point, there's a few things you can do.

    #1 Try feeding them either at the open door, or just the other side of it, and see if they're willing to go that far for their food. If this works, keep moving the food dish further out each time you feed them.

    #2 Try treats! Jackson calls it the "jackpot treat", it's the treat you only give them when you are training them, and something they can not get enough of, if you happen to know what that is.

    #3 Take something that they've soaked their scent into while in their base camp; a cat tree or a cat bed for example, and move it out into the next room. This gives them a sense of security because they will smell their scent in the next room and believe it safe. In our case, since the cat pod has his scent all over it and he feels safe in there, we moved it to the living room. If he gets spooked (and they will - at first, every little noise will scare them) he can run to his pod instead of running back into the office.

    #4 Try playing with them. Once they are focused on a toy, begin to move them to and beyond their challenge line. They will be too distracted to notice. Once they notice, they might run back, but that's okay, it may take a few tries.

    6. This is where you might have to employ some tough love. Some cats will keep finding safety in their old base camp, trying to hide in the closet, or just planting themselves at a place in their base camp even though they've come out into the other rooms. You can't encourage this behavior by letting them stay there forever. It doesn't do them any favors to claim only a corner of such a large territory. They need to explore and claim all of it for them to be completely comfortable and not potentially exhibit undesirable territorial behaviors such as marking (with pee, in case you didn't know!). 

    7. You'll want to block off their old areas of safety. Don't be mean, here. You still want to give them a safe space, like a cat pod, while taking away other places. This is where Catification of your home comes into play. You want them to become comfortable in the new area, so give them places to hang out in safely, like shelves high up on the walls, or a tall cat tree and the like so they can view their territory from high up without feeling threatened. Try playing with them and get them into the center of the room. This is key because prey animals feel more comfortable in closed in spaces, so getting your cat out into the open this way is a great training tool. 

    8. You always want to employ positive reinforcement. This probably should have been higher up on my list lol. But negative reinforcement never works on a cat. It will damage or even break the bond you've built, and they won't understand why you're yelling at them. As Jackson has always said, for every 'no', present a 'yes'. Believe it or not, cats don't hold grudges. They're not that complex. If they do something you think is wrong, they have no idea; they're just doing what their instinct tells them to do. So, present an alterative to the behavior you don't like. Examples include:

    Scratching the furniture. You can buy double-sided sticky tape for the area, or a plastic cover which will dissuade them. You can buy a scratching post for right next to it, or even spray the area with a smell most cats don't like, like citrus. There are a lot of options. When they use the scratching post instead of your couch, make sure to shower them with praise and give them a treat. The positive association will help them learn.

    Peeing or pooping outside the litterbox. A lot of people think that cats do this on purpose, like because they're angry with you or something. No. Again, they are not that complex. It's usually one of two things: either a medical issue, or an insecurity issue. If they've been going in the litterbox just fine and then suddenly they aren't, and you haven't changed to a different litter and have kept it clean, it might be a medical issue. Maybe it hurts to go to the bathroom and they associate that hurt with the litterbox. Taking them to the vet would be a good idea in this case, especially if you notice other issues like mowing at the box, or straining, or blood. The other situation would be some kind of insecurity, either inside or outside the home. For example, marking and peeing are ways for a cat to tell other cats that this place is there's. If they see other cats outside through the window, they might become insecure and go to the bathroom outside of the box. There are numerous issues that might cause this insecurity, but the point is not to jump to conclusions and think that the cat is just "getting back at you for something you did" or other such nonsense. That's just not how it works.

    Hopefully all of this helps you and makes you more confident in getting a cat that might not look the most sociable on the outside. They want loves, just like any other cat! They just make take a bit longer to come out of their shell.

Angel in Heaven

    Only a few months after Daisy's passing, I felt compelled to start looking for another feline companion. When I saw (then named) Angie's profile picture I immediately fell in love. They described her as a loving, affectionate and calm 10 year old kitty who preferred quiet places and slow paces. She was perfect. When we went to see her in person, she was in a hidey-hole and obviously didn't trust us. She had recently lost her human companion and none of the family could keep her, so she was brought to the shelter to find a new home. As soon as we were given a churu to have her try, she ate it so eagerly we were afraid that she would swallow the packaging with the food. I told Patrick this after I left the room "my heart grew 3 sizes that day" (Grinch reference). We signed the papers right then and brought her home shortly after.

That was June of 2022. The last 2.5 years were filled with so much love that I
could barely contain it. Angel was incredibly smart, having learned a neat trick to get her treats, and could easily get through a puzzle feeder. If she was on my lap late at night and I shut off the TV (my indication that it was time for bed) she would immediately meow-complain and jump off my lap without prompting. She was so softies, her eyes were the most gorgeous blue you would ever see. We bonded so quickly I didn't even realize it. She trusted me 100%, and she was so chill that I could basically do anything to her and she would tolerate it. Brushing teeth, clipping nails, shaving her butt to help with poops. We even had to wash her in the tub a couple of times and although she disliked it immensely, she would let us do it.

She loved to hang out under the bed covers with us. She would often put her paw over your arm and pull it closer to her. She loved her lap time, and loved my lap the most. When I got home from work I would often see her laying in my spot on the couch waiting for me. I would always say "I see a pretty girl." and I would pick her up and giver her hugs.

The vet found a small nodule on an u/s in mid-November, and the biopsy came back as simply "necrotic tissue", which in and of itself is certainly not great, but it also wasn't deemed cancer, so we went for conservative management with steroids and special foods to reduce the inflammation in her pancreas and large intestine. It was supposed to last for 3 months, but she started to deteriorate after only 1. She began to reject eating almost anything we were giving her, including the special hydrolyzed protein diet. They did another u/s... the mass had grown. And now she had a nodule on her side that we could feel as well.

At that point I knew... biopsy or not... she had pancreatic cancer. We were still hopeful that it might be localized, however, and maybe it could be removed. But we kept getting blow after blow. The nodule on her side came back with "necrotic tissue" so again, no definitive answer there. And the mass... it was butting up against her biliary duct. It wouldn't be able to be 100% removed with clear margins no matter what, but we wanted to try and see how much time we could give our sweet Angel so we scheduled her for surgery.

The news from the surgeon was the most devastating. There were masses all over her pancreas and abdominal cavity. There was nothing he could do. But she was waking up from the anesthesia and we could go see her. We had to have an extremely hard discussion. Angel had maybe weeks left. And she also had weeks of recovery from surgery ahead of her. We had to decide if it was even worth taking her home. Believe me, I wanted to. I wanted to so badly it hurt. But the last few days prior to her surgery were fraught with pain and issues and was not a good time for her. I had to take her to the closest animal ER on Friday night because she had been vomiting, having diarrhea, lethargy and was in obvious pain; surgery wasn't scheduled until Tuesday and I wasn't even sure she would make it that long. She would only eat about 5oz of wet food a day, which is about 5oz less than what she should be eating. We had to try to feed her every couple of hours this Nulo Silky Mousse that came in a pouch, and she would only eat it straight from the pouch like a churu treat, but not very much at a time. We were force feeding her liquid nutrients and cerenia (anti-nausea) medication. After she got the pain medication from the ER she began to do better, and we only had one scare on Sunday morning where we thought she was actively dying. We made an appointment for home euthanasia on Monday, but then out of some miracle she got up and began drinking water. The pain medication had finally caught up to her pain and we could keep it at bay. She was 95% our Angel again. She would do lap time, a little play time, and cuddle sessions. But her eating had not gotten better, and we were losing trust every time we had to gang up on her and give her medication.

The pain medication gave us something special - an almost 2 full days of our beloved kitty, and some of the best memories I could ever hope for. But we knew that if we brought her home, this blessing would be short lived. It would only mask her problems, and she would continue to rapidly deteriorate, and we would have to go through this all over again. I wanted to keep those happy memories; I didn't want them to be replaced with her suffering. I hated that decision. And I still feel incredibly guilty for making it. I wanted to bring her home and force more good memories, but that decision was selfish. Prolonging her life and her suffering was selfish. We decided that it was best that before she was fully awake from anesthesia that we would put her down. I hate it. I hate it so much!!! She didn't know what was happening, she was so confused after waking up from surgery. But she sniffed us, and recognized our voices. And we spent a good hour with her just soothing her with our pets and voices before we made the call.

Coming home to an empty house every day makes my heart break. Not seeing her on my cushion kills me. Not having her sitting in front of me while soaking up the heater at my feet is destroying me. The look of love and trust in her eyes as she gazed up at me is burned into my brain forever.

Angel was the sweetest girl you could ever hope to meet. She was the most amazing animal and I don't regret bringing her into our lives. She was cared for an loved unconditionally, and she returned that love with vigor. She didn't deserve this.

This was the second time we've lost an animal to cancer. I just don't know if I could ever do it again. The pain is insurmountable. Angel was my sweet baby girl. I love you sweetheart, and I miss you with every fiber of my being. Maybe I'll see you again some day... across the rainbow bridge. 

Review Wednesday

****SPOILERS!!!*****

I was finally able to watch Twisters (2024). [Don't ask me how], and I wanted to post some thoughts.

I was really excited when they announced Twisters, because the original Twister (1996) is ranked in my top 10 favorite movies. It might even be in my top 5. I had planned on trying to get in to theaters to see it in either IMAX or in those 4DX theaters that have wind and stuff. But apparently those options are only available for like a week, and then the movie stays playing on regular screens. So I missed out on that and honestly...

I'm glad I did.

Oooooh hot take. Apparently this movie was really well received. I'm probably
just too old. But here is my perspective. I am 40 years old, so yes, I grew up watching the original Twister. And as much as I'm not "all up on the lingo" (lolz, I love saying it like that. Makes me feel even older), I do keep up with tech and watch youtube almost exclusively. So I'm not even complaining that this movie jumped on the "youtube celebrities do shit to get views" trend, I completely understand that. Yes, they pulled Twister and brought it up to date in 2024. It annoyed me slightly, but it wasn't the end of the world.

What I was really hoping for was a few callbacks to the original movie. Jurassic World, for example (The first movie was great, the rest... not so much). I realize that it's a slightly different context; after all, Jurassic World is pulling from Jurassic Park's ideas directly, and making a sequel in a sense, and Twisters is not that. But the amount of references and callbacks to Jurassic Park was outstanding. The nostalgia it threw at me was so cool. And I loved it so much for that. It makes me wonder if they even cared that the movie Twister even existed. That movie was so disconnected from the original film that it makes me think they tried to name it Twister and realized that name was already taken so they just added an 's'.

[I just read an article that it turns out yes, they cared; some people who worked on this version had also worked on the original. But like, it just doesn't feel like it, I guess.]

There were a few things I thought might have been callbacks - obviously at the beginning they used the Dorothy sensors. But then they abandoned that and completely forgot about them. It seems as though the whole plot of using the 3 radar sensors was a "better" idea that using Dorothy? I don't know why, but okay. (In addition, forcing one of the sensors to sit in the direct path in addition to it needing to be close, was really dumb. Obviously it wouldn't last long and it would have been sucked up almost immediately. I hope those "prototypes" that he "Borrowed"???? from the military were cheap!) 

The red truck that Tyler owned seemed to be a callback to the original red truck. They used the reporter as the same kind of cabbagehead (I don't know if this is a Star Trek only term or not but it basically means the dumb person who asks the questions so that the audience is in the know about plot devices) as Bill Paxton's soon-to-be therapist wife. I wouldn't say that's a callback but it actually would have been nicer to get more out of                                                                     him in the movie.

They had Kate wear basically the same outfit as Jo, I definitely noticed that. They used the same ideas with the youtubers as they did with the original, by having someone driving an RV (for absolutely no reason because it wasn't for research, they were just there to throw fireworks into tornadoes to get views) and giving people nicknames. They even did the whole "vehicle gets cut off by them driving
in from nowhere and almost running them off the road" bit, which actually happened twice (once was fine, thanks). They did copy the lines "I'm glad you're back!" "I'm not back!" from the first movie only they meant it this time lol.

They did the whole "water pipes go really far into the ground so it's a good place to hang onto" piece, but Twister did it better because they had something to tie themselves to. Just holding onto pipes would do very little, especially because they can be slippery. Plus, what kind of pool has exposed pipes? And also destroying the movie screen with the tornado, but like, why would the movie still be playing? In the original, it was pitch black outside, and the tornado was a complete surprise. No one even knew it was there until it ripped the screen. But at this point, the tornado sirens were blaring and people were hiding - the movie  should have been shut off. AND WHY DOES NO WHERE HAVE A BASEMENT??? You're in Tornado Alley ffs!!

Also, how does Tyler keep finding Kate? At the motel and at her own freaking  house??? CREEPER!! And that special truck can dig into the ground to two feet? Two freaking feet? Like, especially if the soil is loose enough to dig, it won't do shit in the middle of a spinning vortex. Not to mention it shouldn't have been driveable a day or two after the ending incident where he ended up at the airport. Nice try! But anyway, the point wasn't to nitpick the movie to death. I'm trying to rate it on its own merits because they obviously didn't want it to relate to Twister too much. It's not like Twister didn't have plot holes and such. It wasn't a perfect film. But it was better than this.

If you want Kate to have trauma from losing all of her friends to a tornado at the beginning of the movie, (which she has every right to. But also show that she didn't get therapy from it, I guess), then actually show that. Don't have her freak out 1 time and then be perfectly fine afterwards. Jo lost her father to an EF5 tornado when she was like, 6. And it still traumatized her; and you could tell. But Kate seemed to get over it pretty quick.

          I know the asshole in the white shirt is not Cary Elwes and I know it can't be but why isn't it??

Twisters is also glamorizing youtubers, to almost a scary degree. This movie makes it seem like being a youtuber is nothing but easy, and it's fun to drive into a tornado and shoot fireworks into it. Like, what? I really hope no one young and stupid enough watches this movie and decides to make that their career. They seem to think it's all fun and games until they get trapped in one. Granted, they use their youtuber revenue to give back to torn up communities, so that's nice. The whole movie felt kind of... hollow. We're made to believe that Kate is suffering so badly from her traumatic experience that she moved away from home and refuses to answer her mother's phone calls. Yet gets back into the swing of things really quick (movies should really learn to normalize characters going to therapy). We get no real details as to who Javi was really working for. It's one 3 second google search and then a confrontation. 

On the plus side, we're not made to suffer through a love triangle so that great. We don't even get the big kiss at the end, which is another trope I don't mind skipping. The action is good and it doesn't slow down for long, which is something that Twister had issues with. But pacing in a movie about tornadoes is probably pretty hard. You don't want it to be constant or else it'll feel more like an apocalypse movie, but you also don't want too much downtime or it gets boring. Unfortunately that means the characters suffer a bit when you don't take time out for them.

So in the end, the movie was... fine. It's hard not to compare it to Twister, and I am disappointed there were no flying cows. That would have been the best callback ever. It's a decent update to a almost 30 year old movie, but it definitely can't replace it.

Intuitive Eating

Nutrition drives me insane. There are a lot of things about nutrition that are counter-intuitive, that change constantly, and that different people think differently of. 

Intuitive Eating is one of those things. It was brought up to me while talking to a psychologist regarding my obsessive need to eat even when I'm not hungry after forcefully having to quit Ozempic. Let me outline the 10 basics of "Intuitive Eating":

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

Stop dieting. As they say, it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change.

2. Honor your Hunger

Don't wait to eat until you're starving; then you tend to go overboard.

3. Make Peace with Food

Don't deny particular foods. They can cause uncontrollable cravings and then binge episodes, which makes you feel guilty.

4. Challenge the Food Police

Stop the cycle of being "good" for consuming minimal calories or "bad" for eating a piece of chocolate cake. 

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor

This is like Mindful Eating. Discover the satisfaction of eating.

6. Feel your Fullness

Observe the signs that show you are comfortably full. 

7. Cope with Emotions with Kindness

Don't let your emotions trigger eating, basically. 

8. Respect your Body

Don't be overly critical about your body and compare yourself to everyone else

9. Movement - Feel the Difference

Just get active and feel the difference. Don't focus on burning calories, just focus on moving.

10. Honor your Health - Gentle Nutrition

You don't have to eat perfectly be be/feel healthy

If you want to read the full definitions, the website is found here

To start off, #9 resonates with me since I loathe exercise, and this feels like a more reasonable goal. But I take issue with #3 and #4. Basically, as the psychologist described it, is that you don't deny yourself any food, because if you do it can cause resentment, or uncontrollable cravings for it, and if the food in question tends to be available to consume at any time, then you won't constantly reach for it and overeat it (???).

I'm sorry, I call bullshit on that. And the reason I say so is because sugar is an addictive substance. It's been shown in studies to cause dopamine spikes just like drugs, and can give you feel good feelings so you'll want more. And I can prove this on a personal level because when I was on hCG, and then later on Whole30, (which cuts out all sugar) I had no cravings for it whatsoever. I could pass up that piece of chocolate cake, or if I did eat something, it tasted WAY too sweet and actually made me want to stop consuming it.

So fine, maybe have that bag of chips you so crave, or whatever (I honestly don't know what people crave beyond sugary goods), but constantly having something sugary in your pantry at the ready at all times? That's just a recipe for disaster in my opinion. There is nothing in those sugary goods that your body needs nutritionally. So there is literally no reason to have them/consume them. 

My issue with trying to find reasonable accommodations with intuitive eating is straight up calories in vs calories out. I've heard both camps on this - I was following up with a dietitian that believed all calories were not the same, and it made a difference. I mean, of course it does - eating healthy calories is better than eating unhealthy calories. But in the end, if your body only burns 2k calories a day, and you consume 2.5k, then you will gain weight regardless of where those calories came from. And that's where I am stuck at.

Look, I made the "lifestyle change" years ago. It's called healthy swapping. I don't deny myself any carbs (although I should probably limit them more to be perfectly honest. Carbs are too easy to just grab and eat), I just swap for healthier options. That Egg McMuffin I make at home? Whole wheat english muffin, and canadian bacon instead of sausage or regular bacon. I could even go as far as all egg whites, (The egg white mcmuffin they used to have at McDonalds was bomb and I wish they'd bring it back) but I learned a long time ago that cutting out fat is also a recipe for disaster. Fat is satiating. Yeah, it adds a ton of calories but it also tastes good and it helps keep you full. So I'm all about that whole egg. Want pasta? Use chcikpea. It's got fiber and protein. Add some ground turkey instead of beef. Use tomato sauce instead of alfredo. The pizza I like to eat is the Mediterranean one from Dominos. Thin crust with all veggies and no meat.

For snacks, I try my best to grab things like apples, oranges, kiwis, grapes. When I'm at home sometimes I'll have cottage cheese with some jam, or carrots with homemade ranch dressing using greek yogurt for added protein (and because it doesn't have any sugar in it when you make it yourself. Like, why. Why does ranch dressing have sugar and corn syrup in it???)

But even with all these healthy substitutions, I still eat more than I burn. Calories in vs calories out. So what I'm trying to figure out is how to stop the urge to eat when I'm not hungry. Sometimes I'll eat when I'm not hungry, and not even feel full when I'm done. I'm like in this in-between space all the time; it's kind of weird. My body has lost its ability to send me signals. I can probably blame Ozempic for this; I mean I gained 15 lbs in less than 8 weeks once I stopped, but I figured my body would figure it out and some point and it still hasn't. So I don't know what to do about it.

I know all the tricks, okay? I drink water, broth, tea, even Olipop [which has prebiotic fiber]. I chew gum and suck on mints. I'll even take glucomannan pills (Konjac root) to help make me full, but I'm eating when not hungry, so that doesn't help much. Is it boredom? Probably. There's not a ton I can do about it at work. There are busy times and not busy times. Even the administrative work I do when I'm not busy doesn't keep me distracted enough. At home it's much worse. My activities/hobbies are all introverted inside by myself hobbies like paint by number or diamond painting, which isn't distracting enough either. It's just tough. I just... want to eat. Does anybody have any suggestions for me? Thanks in advance!

Movie Flashback Time! Tremors

I thought about trying to shoehorn this post into a 'Review Wednesday' (which is a title only), or a 'Underrated Movies' but I didn't feel like trying to make it fit into either of those categories. Besides, I really don't think Tremors was an "underrated movie"; it just has a lot of meaning to me personally, so I figured I'd write about it, kind of in a review format.

Tremors is considered a horror flick, but it's pretty corny for horror, especially considering the movies coming out today. It's one of the very few horror movies that I would even watch, and that's probably only because I was 7 years old when I saw it for the first time on TV.

It's one of those movies where you look at the cast and are like Kevin Bacon? Must be good. Then scroll past a couple no-names, and then you see Michael Gross and you have to blink a few times. Seeing him in the cast not long after finishing Family Ties was kind of hilarious. And then you see Reba McIntyre and you just wonder how this movie even got made.

The premise is already outrageous when you think about it. I mean, maybe most horror movies are. Have you seen Blood and Honey? Yeah, anyway... 

The movie has some really good build up which is always essential. The cast is fairly diverse in their range with the smart people (the geologist/seismologist student), the dumb people (generally the ones who get eaten), and the obligatory 17-year old smart ass. I would 100% be the seismologist, as without her, everyone would have been too dumb to stay alive.

The movie didn't have a ton of laugh out loud humor, nor any famous one-liners. But it stuck out in my mind all these years because for a while after seeing this movie when I was 7, I was scared of the sand and would only walk on the crab grass. My parents probably thought I was doing some kind of hopscotch routine, but little did they know I was traumatized for a bit.

Admittedly, 7 is a little young to be watching a movie like that, but take solace in the fact that it was edited for TV so the swearwords were bleeped out (more on that in a bit) and some of the more horrifying scenes were cut out completely. 

The scene that scared me the most as a young child isn't even a big deal in the grand scheme of the movie but I was really affected by it - to the point where I would close my eyes even into adulthood - every time I rewatched it. I'm talking about near the beginning of the movie where the Doctor and his wife are building their trailer in the desert and the generator suddenly stops working because the "Graboids" (no, I can't call them that, sorry) - Tremors sucked it under, and he went to go check it out. His death was slow as the wife tried to grab him when he was being slowly sucked down.

In contrast, when Walter got grabbed right in the middle of his store with
everyone around, and was being swung wildly while people screamed around him, wasn't even that big of a deal. And I think the reason, for me anyway, was because that was a scene that was cut out of the TV version, and I'd never seen it until I was an adult.

And I swear, the scene with the Doctor's wife in the car being sucked into the ground was the most unbelievable part of the entire movie because A. She had no car keys so how was the radio playing and the headlights on? and B. Like, what kind of sand can you even walk on that a creature can suck a car into?

But that scene where Michael Gross (Doomsday prepper!) and Reba McIntyre shoot the shit out of a Tremor that broke into their basement was bad ass and lovingly unexpected for the Family Ties father.

In regards to the swearing, I have a funny story to tell. So, growing up watching cable, bleeping was everywhere. I was so used to it that it didn't even bother me most of the time (I don't even watch cable TV anymore - is bleeping still a thing?), and there was a particular scene after Val and Earl kill their first Tremor and check it out, and Val says "I found the ass end!", and in my little 7-year old mind, I must have thought that "ass end" wasn't a swear word because it hadn't been bleeped. When my parents and I were moving to our acreage when I was in the 4th grade, and we were watching our mobile home trying to make it around a tight bend with a telephone pole in the way, and I said "They're having trouble with the ass-end" - yeah. I got yelled at. Worth it though.

[As I type those words into Google Search and prepare to quickly close my screen at the potential results, I find these gems:

and my faith in humanity is restored.]

All in all, it's a fun movie and if you haven't seen it, I would recommend it (maybe not highly, but I digress), maybe with a few shots of alcohol for an even better time.

Is tech making us dumber?

As much as society wants to shoehorn me into being a Millennial (born between 1981-1996) I feel like I belong to Generation X. Being born in 1984 meant a split between having little technology, to being at the cusp of a technological boom when it comes to cellphones and internet. True that I was young (around 8-10 years old) when we brought the internet into the home, and I had my own computer that was a hand-me-down from my dad. But prior to this, and really, for a lot of that childhood, I was still in the "play outside and ride bikes until the street lights came on". I grew up using tapes and recording songs from the radio. I used VCRs and recorded shows. I had a tape walkman and then a CD walkman when they came out.

Granted, my situation was a bit unique. I was an introverted child, quite overweight, and when we moved in 1994, it was to 5 acres away from everything and everyone. I was 30 minutes away from the town. I still played outside quite a

bit, exploring the woods and taking care of my ducks, but as the internet began to grow, I grew with it. I had 28k at home, (downloading with Napster was a chore!) and 56k when I moved to the big city at 18. And I didn't get my first cellphone until about the age of 23.

While my parents (my dad especially) kept up with technology for a while, they began to lag further and further behind. I feel as if technology, and the internet especially, has not made me more dumb. Lazy, sure. But dumber? No. Let me give you an example.

So when I was younger I wrote a lot. My creativity came out both visually and written, and I had a lot of ideas when it came to stories. Obviously when I was young, I was handwriting all of my stories, and for a while I would have my friend Mandy type them out for me because I was incredibly slow at typing and I wanted a better way to preserve my work. But as I learned to type for myself, using programs like Microsoft Word, I learned how to spell [better]. The little red squiggles under all the words I spelled wrong annoyed the hell out of me. I could have been lazy and just right-clicked to fix without ever knowing what Word was doing, but I decided to learn instead. This is an important distinction. Why was I always spelling 'necessary' wrong? It was so annoying! Yes, it took a lot of repetition to remember how to correctly spell it eventually, but without Word telling me it was wrong and why, I would have never known.

Now on the flip side, the whole "you need to learn the maths because you'll never have a calculator in your pocket" hilarious argument that teachers made back in the day has me forgetting how to do even the most basic of math in my head. But to be honest, I was never good at math anyway. It's my worst subject and I hate it. I was never taught correctly how to do it in the beginning, so relying on my phone to do simple tasks like tipping would probably be something I'd still be struggling with today regardless. If I was tipping without computer assistance I'd probably just get it wrong all the time. So it's much better this way lol.

As the internet grew in size, scale and ability, I took full advantage. I soaked up information like a sponge. It was like a bronze age all over again. I learned and I learned some more. And I'm still learning. I see my parents stagnate as they only use the internet for the most basic of tasks like using their Mychart. I never want to be like that. I love learning; and if it wasn't for the internet it would be a much harder thing to do now that I'm out of school.

In this, tech is definitely not making me dumber. However, we're also beginning a new age... the age of AI. While Baby Boomers think we're lazy and rely on technology too much in our daily lives, boy they got another thing coming when they see AI enter the chat. Things may change substantially once we as a society start using AI for things that we used to do ourselves. 

I don't want to be left behind when it comes to using AI, but I also don't have a job that would benefit from it. I'm not a computer programmer or use Exel spreadsheets. My company as a whole would benefit substantially, but I'm not working for that part of it, so it's up to them to do what they will with it and I hope they use it. For me and the basic life that I live, I'm not sure what AI has to offer. But I will keep up with it and make sure to figure out how to use it once it becomes beneficial to me.

I'm not about to be left in the dust.

Vitamix 5200 vs Ninja

I could not find anything on youtube comparing any Vitamix blender against the Ninja Smoothie maker. The Ninja blender sure, but how does it stack up against their smoothie making system?

I had gone to Costco and bought the Ninja Power Blender Ultimate System on sale for $120 because I thought I could replace my old Ninja Blender (it's like a first gen model with the 3 different cup sizes and the motor on top with a single speed), replace my food processor, and add a smoothie maker. Sounded pretty neat.

But, I kept looking at Vitamixes because they can also heat soup and stuff, and the Ascent series has a food processor attachment along with a smoothie cup. I won't go into too much detail for my researching but basically buying the Ascent Series, in addition to accessories, would put me into stupid debt so it wasn't a viable option, plus I kept reading about how bad the "new" jars were for small batches, and the Ascent series doesn't have a classic jar option to buy. (The low profile jar would fit under most countertop cabinets, but I don't intend on leaving my blender out on the counter 24/7 so I didn't care about that.)

That left me with the classic Vitamix series (non-smart) so although it didn't have a bunch of cool features, it would blend like a champ and last me for 10-20 years so I began looking around ebay for some deals. And I found a screaming deal on a Vitamix 5200 with classic jar for $170. Built in 2020, was sitting in a storage unit probably its whole short life. It was unbelievable. 

So, onto the comparison. The recipe I used was a standard kale smoothie I found online. I wanted to use kale because it's notoriously hard to blend down so that little flecks of green stuff don't get stuck in your teeth. Who wants that?

The Recipe:

1 cup milk

1 frozen banana (I only had fresh)

2 kale leaves, stems removed

1 cup diced frozen mango

1/2 tsp grated ginger

handful of ice

Bonus: this is pretty darn tasty as well

As you can see here, while the smoothie cup on the Ninja is packed to the brim, the Vitamix has plenty of room to grow. Granted, the smoothie cup is meant as a single serve on the go container, but you can't "grow up" to the using the Ninja blender for this if you wanted to make several servings at once, as it can't even come close to the Vitamix (there are plenty of examples of this on youtube).

Now, the Ninja is cool because it has settings for stuff like Smoothie, Extract (for like a V8 dupe), and bowl (meant for like, an Acai smoothie bowl-type consistency). The setting for Smoothie goes for 55 seconds and pulses a couple times before turning it up high to pulverize it all. So if you like to set and forget, Ninja is still a good option.

On the Left: DB of the Ninja. I was quite surprised how quiet this meter said it was - because it seems VERY loud; maybe it's just at a high pitch, I'm guessing. 

On the Right: The Vitamix at "high" speed, which is higher than the "variable at 10" speed. The box around the motor seems to dampen the high pitches, so while they're comparable in DBs, it sounds quieter.

So to give the Ninja a fair shake, I also ran the Vitamix for only 55 seconds, starting at variable 1, ramping it up to 10, and then turning it on high. I did not need to pulse at all.

This is the Ninja result. You can easily see flecks of kale still in the mix, and if you move your finger through it, you can feel the grittiness.

The Vitamix result is lighter and smoother. I felt no grittiness when moving my finger through it.

The final test was a side by side blind drink test. The results will surprise you! All jokes aside, here's the rub. I couldn't tell the difference. I tried so hard, drinking one right after the other, and I couldn't tell until Patrick asked me to chew. When I chewed on the Ninja smoothie, I could catch the grit in my teeth, while the Vitamix had none.

So here's my final verdict on the Ninja Smoothie maker. It does a pretty darn good job all things considered. And Ninja has a lot of options in regards to buying their products. If you don't need a blender or a food processor, you can get the Ninja Twisti, which just has smoothie cups, for about $120 on Amazon. But if you also need a blender, I don't think I could recommend the Ninja; I've had mine for several years and although it's a cool product, its blending ability with those triple blades just don't cut it (haha). If you can find a really good deal on a used Vitamix, I'd go for it, especially with the versatility it brings you if you're interested in making nut butter, hummus, sauces, and yes, even hot soup.