I was excited to find some new true crime channel on the cable (ID?) since that seems to be my latest obsession...

Last night, I was having sleeping problems (turned the light off at 12:10, didn't fall asleep until after 3:00, woke up at 5:40 to be at work by 7:00--gronk). In the middle of my tossing and turning, I could hear the cat eating in the kitchen (she likes to knock the kibble onto the floor and then eat it), and then I heard her get out of the litter box and start tearing around the apartment. A few minutes later, the smell from the litter box (across the hall in the bathroom) wafted into the bedroom. No wonder she had the crazies--she must have felt 20 pounds lighter with the prodigious dump she had. (She's terrible about kicking over her litter; she'll kick it over her pee, but not her smelly poo!)

I watch ID all day long. It is my favorite channel. I am particularly enjoying FBI Files more than when it used to air.

Do cats have aborted hairball pukes? Immanuel just stopped and sort of jerkily wheezed twice, and then went back to chasing. I hope he didn't eat a feather or the mouse he had in his mouth all night.

Yes. Devi sometimes makes herself gag.

I think this is an ad for a home of the vintage I'm buying, in the hood: [link] Can't really tell, but the layout and pictures look right.

Wow! That is so cool! Where did you find it?! I wonder if there's something similar out there for my house?

Yeah, the pirates in the time the classic pirate stories were set were not nice guys either. I mean if they took a ship, mostly everybody on board from captain to ordinary sailor got killed, possibly with torture for the entertainment value. Or sold as slaves. Sometimes captains and and people with rich relatives were taken captive and ransomed, but that was a hell of a lot of trouble, so not the normal course of things. Occasionally someone on a captured ship might be recruited as a pirate. But again rare, and even when it happened, that would would one or two in a crew of dozens. Nothing romantic or lovable about real pirates.

I'd just googled the 'hood and some other stuff (builder, year) not sure what combo did it. That got me to the special collections stuff and I just clickityclicked everything. But try starting at [link] with your street or something like that.

Nothing romantic or lovable about real pirates.

Like with so much, the distance of time adds romance.

That whole walking the plank thing is only cool when our hero manages to escape. Pirate fiction glosses over the death sentence aspect.

Nothing romantic or lovable about real pirates

Not even Dear Grandpa Jan Jansen, AKA Murat Reis of the Turkish Salee Rovers. Probably not a guy I'd want to have show up at the family reunion.