Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

If you’re wondering why there’s so much blogging lately it’s because I can’t put my shoe on.

So some of my cat research has born fruit and here’s some things I need to do:

* Provide perches so the cat can look outside.
* Toys, toys and toys, (toys, prey preference)
* Let your cat “hunt” for food by placing food in a toy that will make the cat work to get the food out.
* Hide food throughout the house so the cat has to find it.
* Leave the radio or TV on, tuned to your usual station.
* Call home and leave a message for the cat.
* Provide a refuge
* Spend at least 10 minutes daily playing with your cat.

Those are all for kitty separation anxiety.

I’ve found a fair amount on cat-cat aggression, but little on cat-human aggression. The American Assn of Feline Practitioners say “disrupt the behaviour every time it occurs. Disruption is tricky and ignoring the undesirable behaviour while rewarding only desirable behaviours is often preferable. Disruption should be sufficiently aversive to stop the behaviour (a loud whistle, shaking a can of coins) without causing damage to the human-animal bond. The cat must not be scared or hurt. After interruption the [human] should encourage another behaviour to replace the interrupted one.”

So shake a can of coins but don’t scare the cat? Hmmm. I guess the container full of water pistols by my bedroom door may be overkill.

While looking up pictures of garthim I found this website: http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/968/ which is hilarious.

The reason I was looking at pictures of garthim is because as many of you know The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets have been re-invited to the Penny Arcade Expo after having been rightfully blacklisted after bailing at the last minute a couple years ago. (I should never forgive Bob for that but who can stay mad at this face?)

To that end, I’ve been thinking about making myself a new costume. I’ve always wanted to do something crustacean-like but it would be incredibly hard to perform in (not that that has ever stopped me before) and I think it would complicate border-crossing. So now I’m thinking about recreating an old costume which I really like - essentially it was a set of coveralls that had a bunch of plastic garden chains and shower curtain rings (spray painted to look metal - in all senses of the word) and a helmet with a transparent vacuum hose on it. I miss those days of going to the thrift store and finding kooky things to make into Thickets costumes, perhaps I should revisit that chapter of my life, and I bet Best would help!

Here’s the old version:

Perhaps it’s time to take a stroll down Thickets costume lane. You can click on the pics to enlarge.

I wish I had a photo of my TIE Fighter helmet. It’s not a helmet a TIE Fighter would wear - it’s a helmet that looks like a TIE Fighter.