One of the things I and I think most people don’t care for is somebody who whines about something but does nothing about whatever it is they’re whining about.  It’s okay, as I see it, to whine about something as long as you’re proactive about it.  For example, on Monday I ranted about spam.  This is an easy thing to complain about because it’s so annoying.  One thing I am proactive with on spam is to not respond to any of it as that only encourages the spammers, even if the response is a negative one.  In other words, don’t even click the “Unsubscribe” link so many of them offer as that only tells Them somebody actually looked at what they sent out.  They’ll remove you from whatever spam list sent out the tidbit you clicked Unsubscribe for and add you to a dozen others.

I got even more proactive than that, however.  I was tired of looking at the spam bucket, so I went looking for a fix and I found one.  I have long wondered if Captcha mechanisms were effective.  This is where you have to enter some letters and numbers which are displayed in a distorted fashion in an image.  The concept is a human can decipher these letters but spam bots cannot.  So I added a Captcha plugin to my blog commenting.  I have had exactly Zero spam since then.  No comments at all, really, but that’s not terribly surprising.  Since I moved to this WordPress blog in September, I have had exactly three legitimate comments.  My audience is small and quiet, but that’s okay.  Of course, if you’re actually reading this, please feel free to say Hello or Happy Holidays or something just so I can know people can, in fact, get past the Captcha thing.

Meanwhile, we have another kitten in the house.  Sam waffled a bit about getting another kitty, but on Sunday decided she really wanted one more feline in the house.  She rode with me to church and helped me with pre-church preparations.  She then went to the Humane society and found the advertised kitten she wanted was still available and even succeeded in being one of the first ten adopters for the day, which made the adoption free.  Sam then went through several possible names for the new kitten before deciding on Sylvie.

Sylvie was taken to the vet for the first time yesterday.  This was a more expensive visit than I expected, but we’ll manage.  Sylvie has a terrible case of URI (Upper Respiratory Infection), so much so that I have nicknamed her Darth Kitty because of her noisy breathing.  I do not have a picture of her yet, but she is a Russian Blue (mostly) which is a beautiful gray variety of cat.  There are some subtle tiger stripe markings, so she’s not pure Russian Blue, but she seems pretty close.  She is a pretty mellow cat; I can pick her up without complaint and hold her for however long I feel like it.  She does not like taking medicine–who does?–but other than that she is pretty amiable.

Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter is going to be at the house today.  Mine could not make it, although she very much wanted to.  We’re going to have a big mid-day meal with Doodles and watch a movie.  I am working on the traditional holiday days (tomorrow and Saturday) so today was the best opportunity to have a holiday Thing.

In the virtual world, things are going well.  Shaka has gotten quite a few tasks done in the new expansion, and she is gaining AA points faster than I expected her to.  Danielf reached level 87 and Boom is fast approaching level 88.  This is significant for Dan; he got new (better) healing spells.  Boom and Dan have also been getting through tasks; they have caught up with Shaka in one zone’s available tasks.  I am hopeful the three will get through another task or two together.

That’s all for this week.  I am going to try to do a Holidaze-themed poem tomorrow.  I don’t know if I will succeed; I am not a big fan of this time of year.  But I will try.  See you then.