Cute Pictures

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

First, wordpress has decided what we really need as bloggers is a dorky question at the top of the blog, which it won’t let us remove.

It’s obvious from the question it thinks we’re all 20 somethings with our heads full of mush and leftism (BIRM.) So it asks questions on the ethics of eating meat or such rot. It also would like kompromat, so it asks what thing we’re most sorry/embarrassed by. Or what we’re most envious of.

<Rolls eyes.

Let’s say I’d need to be really blocked on blog posts to write to the world’s stupidest prompts. I wish they’d stop coming u with crazy stuff like that, and just make posting and themes and stuff EASIER.

Today I’m not blocked at all. I’m still tired and moving slow from the great coughening, and I probably should put a tree up sometime, plus I have curtains to finish, and three stories just hanging.

On top of which husband is working all the hours G-d gives again, which means he won’t come to bed till midnight, and gets up at six, which wakes me. I’m all right. I just don’t function well with sleep deprivation.

Anyway, I thought I’d put up some pretty SF pictures, but of course mind is stuck in short story mode, so some of these have titles, some have beginnings, and some I will write. Others not, of course. The not first….

The one above is a definitely not, unless my brain really breaks. Title: When aliens are late with their gift shopping on Christmas eve.

Probably not, but if I wrote it it would start with “Princesses on Earth, in the dark ages, thought it was terrible to be locked in a tower. They had no idea how bad it would be, when your father could put you in a whole other planet and never allow you to meet anyone.”

Likely not. “Myvara had had just about enough of Christmas. The entire trade station was hip deep in Christmas trees and kitchy ornaments. Ever astronaut that docked wore a Santa hat. And late at night, even in the most disreputable dives, there were sing alongs to the tune of “It came upon a midnight clear” as though any of them space born — had ever seen a midnight, or knew it by anything but an hour on the clock. She was going to build herself an isolation sphere and stay there till this madness passed.”

Likely not, because sad, but “The little Robot had walked the entire asteroid he’d been abandoned in, looking for someone, anyone. Just because he was old and obsolete it didn’t mean he didn’t want company. It had been made by social apes, and it was a social little fellow.
After months alone, he found a blue rose, growing out of the cracked, dry surface of the planet. It didn’t talk, and it didn’t think. But the question was, who had planted it, and how did it grow?”

By the time the aliens came, humans were gone and long dead or gone elsewhere. After centuries of experimentation, they’d recreated a pair from DNA left behind.
Now on the eve of opening the gestator, the aliens paused. The Earth was a harsh, unforgiving environment compared to their own. What would these creatures be like? And if unleashed upon the universe, what would they do?

Why the heck was a clock at the end of the bridge? Bob drove it every day, and normally there was … well, the other side of the bridge, a downtown street. There was a Greek Diner there, he wanted to go to.
So, what was with the clock, the weird portal, and definitely the lightening.
Bob had a feeling December 24 was late.

Spaceships were no place for cats and dogs. Not yet, at least. Later, when the price per pound of transport wasn’t so prohibitive, maybe.

But humans wanted pets. Even if they had to build them themselves from spare parts, working feverishly in off-duty hours.

Fuzzy came into being that way. A stainless steel cat, without the slightest bit of fur. But he walked silently on tiny cat feet, and as though form dictated function, he sat at Imrald’s feet and purred.

88 thoughts on “Cute Pictures”

    1. Probably better than having a rose that complains, even though one carefully keeps it safe under a glass bell and waters it.

        1. I was thinking that, but got sadder. It’s a child inside the metal. Most of one. The cyborg parts that saved him when everyone else died. Just a head and a heart, until the Blue Fairy whispered in his ear: “Find me.”

  2. Nice.
    Re “dorky question”, I don’t see that. Browser dependent? Change of heart from WordPress?
    If all else fails, there are other options. Troglodite.com is one that I’ve seen, good outfit.

      1. “My Site” page for writing the posts has a Daily Prompt you have to scroll into to get to “Write blog post” and if you just click Write, it puts said daily prompt into the text box.

          2. Could it be the difference between using wordpress.com and self-hosted WordPress? I have four self-hosted sites running WordPress 6.1.1 on a Linode VPS, and none of them have any of that daily prompt stuff.

    2. I get it. Today’s was “what is your favorite type of exercise or fitness activity?”

      Rolling over in bed after taking a ten pound sledgehammer to the alarm clock.
      Or hiking the wilds of Scotland in howling wind and light rain/heavy mist, because I’m a Calvinist at heart and if it makes me miserable, it MUST be good for me! (OK, not really, but the scenery made up for the sideways drizzle.)

  3. “Curses! I finally get kidnapped by Aliens but the Aliens didn’t want to keep me.” 😉

    1. The alien one reminds me of this short from Pixar (when they actually still liked entertaining) Lifted:

  4. I would adopt the little robot and take it home with me. My dog would love it, she already tries to share her kibble with the Roomba.

    1. …K, that ties for cute with my littlest man keeping pace as I vacuum– not with me, with the vacuum– and loudly scolding it if I do something wrong.

      Being cussed out by a pre-toddler is … something.

      (his eldest sister did a Dramatic Rescue of a stuffy that fell on teh floor near the Dread Vacuum)

  5. And as for the Stainless Steel Cat it is clearly intended to hunt Stainless Steel Rats… Either that or Piotr Rasputin (aka Colossus of the X-Men) just got himself a kitty (as opposed to Kitty…).

  6. Read another online blog on how Pay-Pal (hyphenated so can’t be pick up being picked on) has gone woke and entire livelihoods are being held hostage (funds withheld, ability to receive payments stopped). Glad I don’t use that.

    Cute pictures.

    2. Either they are going to get prosecuted for banking fraud, or they’re going to lose a big chunk of their customers.

      Just seems incredibly malicious and stupid.

      1. Either they are going to get prosecuted for banking fraud, or and they’re going to lose a big chunk of their customers. FIFY

        1. Was, temporarily, in the TOS.

          Now it’s gone back to the things from before.

          Which are established legal terms, and harder to weaponize because We Want Your Money.

    3. Other blog must have missed Pay-pal’s announcement to that effect a couple month’s back.

                1. The Reader sees 2 five star reviews and 1 four star review and an average of 3.7? Math isn’t their strong suit – actually no clear explanation of their TrustScore.

      2. Article not so much on the announcement but on those being affected. Not the actual terrorists, but the usual “rabble” like us with a platform and/or business.

        1. Anyone who read the announcement should have been able to anticipate the adverse effect on businesses.

            2. It’s still pretty hard for people to comprehend a system that has always worked suddenly turning hostile.

              The dump truck may pick up the garbage every week, but it generally doesn’t crush your car in the driveway.

  8. Heh. I’m amused at how nonchalant the dog is in the alien abduction pic.

    “This again? God, I hate ”Anal Probe Tuesdays.””

  9. /> “First, wordpress has decided what we really need as bloggers is a dorky question at the top of the blog, which it won’t let us remove.”

    I’m not seeing any such question on my end. Where is it?

  10. I keep wondering how big the aliens’ shindig is going to be if they’ve hijacked a trailer load of hogs (or beef).

    1. Um.

      You know how to solve that problem? Right?

      Get at least two kittens. Three are better. Most fun, ever.

      Our three youngest tear up the house all morning long. Something about son getting up at 4:45-ish AM, then feeding them “good food”, just before leaving for work.

      1. I’m at an age where I think now of adopting older cats (or volunteers — always a possibility in farmland). Not that I don’t love kittens, but I wouldn’t want to leave them behind…

        1. Meh. I should have another twenty years, but while Havey is with us (long may his tail wave) a kitten is not a good idea, because he’s on kidney specific food. Not good for kittens.

        2. Heck. There are 3, one older (probable father), and two “kittens” (little over a year). Spayed/neutered, at least first year shots (don’t know if kittens will get re-caught for their 3 year shots). They are at the golf coarse. They were suppose to be relocated as barn cats where someone has 10 (+?) acres, but never were. Hubby would have relocated the kittens, at least, here, if they’d been seen when a lot smaller. We already have 4 cats. We are on a residential lot, not a good place for “barn” cats.

          The problem locally is the TNSR cats are suppose to be returned to the original colony. Any kittens, which they try to pull at 4 to 5 weeks (still on KR but not bottle fed), are adopted out. But they really try to keep the adults in their same colony, unless relocating the entire colony, instead of placing them in farms as eventually semi-ferals.

      2. I’ve lived catless for five and a half years now.

        I always tell myself that I can’t get a cat because my house is a constant disaster area of construction projects, and barely suitable for a human to live in.

        … it just now occurred to me that I might be thinking about it wrong, and having a cat would give me more incentive to keep things habitable than occasional visitors do.

        2. > “I’ve lived catless for five and a half years now.”

          “Lived… catless?”

          I’m sorry, I don’t understand this crazy moon language you speak.

          1. -D

            It’s a state of being in which you ran out of all your childhood cats, but haven’t been lucky enough to have new ones dumped on you.

            2. I rarely have that problem for long. For some reason, a friendly stray seems to find me if I ever have less than two.

              Although, something usually happens to one if I ever have more than two. It’s weird.

              1. We’re the same. Get down to one. Add two. Have 3 and somehow a 4th shows up. We’ve had as many as 5. Right now we have 4. As of spring ’23: one 10 year old, two, 3 year olds, and one 2 year old. (+ one 7 year old dog.)

          2. I was sadly bereft of a feline overlord and caretaker for several years after escaping the western Stan to flee to Potatopia. My Lord and Master reacted badly to the move and is now the proud sponsor of a crazy patch of sunflowers in the back yard.

            Last year a co-worker had a batch of Mostly Mainecoon and whatever-came-over-the-fence kittens, so my sister and I grabbed a pair from her.

            Best decision ever!

            I’d forgotten how much more content I was when properly owned by a benevolent Feline dictator. There’s so much less stress in my life now that she tells me when to get up and when to go to bed, when to eat and when to feed her. She also makes sure that I take some time for myself, by yelling at me until I sit on the couch with a book, and then sitting on me until I’ve had enough of a ‘time-out’. She also is sooo considerate about making sure I’m properly comforted after the trauma of a shower or bath. (I wish I had video of the moment she ceased to be bath-curious. I just wish she wasn’t still outdoor-curious.)

              1. My sister’s nickname for Idaho. She was doing photo safari’s for her kids (who were in the ex’s custody at the time) called ‘Cthulhu’s adventures in Potatopia’. And she’d pose her plushy great old one all sorts of places and take photos and talk about how horrible it was being so tiny that the already crazy human could easily overcome his wee strength….

                1. You know, that’s a kids book I could see buying….. If for no other reason than to get the reactions of my grand-nephew’s great-grandparents…..

                  1. And now she is tempted to write that children’s book, just to see the expressions on parents’ faces.

                    The trick would be finding a publisher willing to risk it….

        3. Habitable for cats is a large superset of habitable for humans. And they will let you know it!

          2. Heh, my last cat was a foster fail. I was supposed to train her to maybe be a therapy cat, but she was too high-strung, and when I went back to the shelter to tell them this and find a different home for her they said “We have no record of you or this animal.”

            So that was fun, but I had her for 17 years.

            And I would try it again, but seriously – house is an absolute disaster area. It won’t be so bad once I finish installing the new flooring, but now they’d take one look at it and say “you are never getting one of our cats ever.”

            … there’s also the “all of my potential cat money is going toward debt payments” problem.
            I’d take a cat that was dumped on me, especially if that was the only thing between it and death, but I can’t even consider deliberately seeking one out at the moment.

      3. Husband said No More Cats.

        ….my parents came to bring back the visiting kids, and because mom is a soft touch, they had adopted six week old half-starved kittens. Gotten past the “likely to drop dead” stage.

        For the barn.

        For the barn, really, says my mom.

        ….one of them had a nasty eye infection when tehy got him. And another was very, very, very tiny.

        Guess what is living in the shop that is three times the size of the first apartment we ever had…. take a wiiiiiiilld guess.

  15. St. Barbara did not exactly have the bestest daddy, no.

    OTOH, she ended up being patron saint against lightning strikes, and for explosives, artillery, and tanks. So she got a very fun afterlife.

  16. I would have gone the other way with the second picture.

    Princess-marlet Eloise looked at the oncoming hoard of ladybots with a decided lack of pleasure. Well, at least she’d managed to obtain a limited dose of precious solitude, and at least her father didn’t insist on cluttering floors with archaic and useless ‘chairs,’ the way Prince Howard-Lee did. Well, useless in dwellings with modern hygiene. They must have had a purpose in pre-Technic times, or else they never would have been invented in the first place.

  17. But now I want all the stories foe the pics. No pressure on tou, can someone else use the prompts?

  18. I’ll admit I was expecting a picture of at least one of Havey or Valeria, more likely Havey, but I did like what I saw anyway! And so did C, who’s in my lap and agrees he’s calendar model material!

  19. Oh, so thrilling. Yeah, it was a blue rose. Spontaneous mutant. And it grew well with little water, but roses were like that. It didn’t need a guard.

    But, ah, a thunderstorm was coming. A little liveliness to the day, then.

  21. I am going to cause all hell to break loose: It’s not different stories, but all one story, and it all starts when Bob teleports to the princess, they escape and find the robot cat with the blue rose in it’s mouth. Bwahahahahahaha

  22. … he won’t come to bed till midnight, and gets up at six, which wakes me. I’m all right. I just don’t function well with sleep deprivation.

    There are very few good reasons for spouses to sleep in separate beds if their marriage is healthy… but this might be one of the good reasons. (Snoring, too, of course — if it can’t be controlled by other means, that is). I’m sorry you’re going through that; sleep deprivation sucks.

  23. Off-topic, but more related to the “not one red cent for blues,” any thoughts on Adrian Tchaikovsky?

    One of his audiobooks is on-sale for a few days, and I’ve never read him. Trying to do my research, nothing definite but some bad signs: trad published and spoken of highly by some suspect reviewers. Should I toss my money and time his way?

    Thanks

  24. Detective Sgt. Trask knew it was going to be a weird holiday, He had just entered the ships compartment where he found the elf on the shelf murdered. The only witness was a robot cat, and it had nothing to say.

  25. The spree shootings are heavily a result of left cultural influence.

    They are present in other cultures, without significant firearms access.

    Older American cultural consensus had more peace in it. Left has inside of it very little capacity for peace.

    Left explanation is that this is all a conspiracy going back to capitalist patriarchs tens of thousands of years ago.

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