One of my favourite cat-toys used to be a heavy-duty balloon & a large glass marble.
Stick the marble in there, inflate the balloon as much as you can, and then invert it and allow the marble to act as a stopper.
When dropped on a linoleum floor, the marble is dislodged long enough to cause the balloon to be propelled upwards for a couple feet, until the the marble stops it, and it falls to the floor, dislodging the marble again, so the thing does a sort of wonky pogo until the balloon runs out of air.
At first, this will merely alarm a cat, but after a few hops, they tend to get aggressive. Hours of fun.
I make costumes. I own a dressmaker dummy. It’s about… my size. Having it in the living room of my apartment has caused me sheer terror in the middle of the night. <b>Scylla</b>, I’ve been there. You’re my hero.
I find myself inexplicably drawn back to this thread just to read the responses. They have me reliving the horror of hysterical fits of laughter and the need for a fresh pair of underpants.
I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. In the middle of a 2 am feeding for my son I started laughing again and that woke him up so now it was a 3 am feeding. In the dark now I have to worry about not just the floors creaking, but assault coming from 3 dimenisions, as well as evil snowplow blades.
Damn. Nicely done Scylla. Good to see you back on top (and before June!). Not since your “offering of a dove” turned out to be a “giving of the bird” have I so enjoyed your wordplay. That blimp sounds cool as hell. It would be neat if you could have some mini bombs or something (:cough: M-80s :cough atttached so you could tap a button and cause some real evil. On purpose even.
Boy howdy if this internet aint cool. Nearly 70,000 views as of this posting. While I can understand the desire folks have to see you publish and profit from your words, I must say, I have a particular respect for artists who make their art available for free on the internet. I feel the same way about bands as I do about writers. For example, Cecil Adams. I’ve been reading his work for free for years now. Much respect. Not saying the artist is under any obligation to do as such, only that when they do it is admirable.
So, you’ve got one of the most viewed threads ever, a cheering section looking for you to publish, and you just got compared to the Master himself. I know some good construction guys if you need to widen your doorways to accomodate any increase in head size that may be the result of all this . . .
Wait, Cecil does this for free?? I hope they at least give him a new coffee mug from time to time. Or maybe one of those little animatronic hamsters that sings and dances.
Well, I imagine the Chicago Reader probably pays for his food, lodging, and hookers. Still, the web site is free, his collums are printed in free papers. I suppose nothing is really free, someone has to pay for it, but The Perfect Master has used his superior intellect time and again to finagle deals that make sure the burden of cost is not on the common people. He has assured that we, the teeming millions, get the Straight Dope at no cost to ourselves. Hurrah!
After I posted, I re-read your original post and realized I misunderstood what you were saying. :smack:
I do hope, though, that the Reader splurges and gets Cec a nice classy hooker once in a while-- at least on his birthday or President’s Day or something. Lower Wacker hoes, while I’m imagine are quite affordable, probably leave something to be desired.
Happy
disclaimer If anyone, or anyone’s mother or sister, happens to be a hoe working on Lower Wacker, my apologies for the crack above.
