We got Amy one of these Treat Ball things. Basically it’s a plastic ball that you fill up with cat food and it’s got a little hole so that when she rolls it around, a few bits of food fall out. It’s supposed to be fun for them. The only problem is that she just doesn’t get it. She stares at it and sniffs it, and she eats the food that falls out when I roll it, but she hasn’t made the intuitive leap yet that rolling = food. I feel like my Dad must’ve felt upon presenting three-year-old me with a really fly tricycle, only to discover that I was too dumb to ride it.

Friday Five:

1. If you owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
I’d probably run something like a steakhouse, where you’d get lots of really good homestyle food. I’m thinking burgers, sandwiches, mac-and-cheese, big slabs of meat, the whole works. Basically the kind of stuff I like to eat. The Snook would concoct appropriate homebrews to go with everything.

2. If you owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
My own crafty things, of course! Plus wool and paints and buttons and glue and everything you need to make beautiful fun things. Oh, except for that scrapbooking crap. I hate that.

3. If you wrote a book, what genre would it be?
Probably a “humorous” memoir. Actually I’d just cheat and bind together a load of posts from this site. I’m lazy and my writerly aspirations pretty much died in grade school.

4. If you ran a school, what would you teach?
Knitting! Incidentally, I’m meeting with the Tapestry Craft folks later this week to discuss teaching a class for them this winter. Beyond that, I’d probably want to teach something in the English/Drama/Speech area. Those were always my favorites in school. Or some kind of “Pop Culture Appreciation” course. That would be fun.

5. If you recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
Mid-90’s riot grrrl alterna-pop a la Belly, Juliana Hatfield, or the Breeders. I’m just waiting for the grunge revival!

The Cult of Diet Coke. I myself am a hopeless addict. I actually paid $2.70 for a friggin’ 600mL bottle the other day because I needed the fix and that damn price-gouging gas station was the only supplier in the area. It infuriates me, especially since Coles always has the two-liter bottles on sale for, like, $1.75. But society deems it not “cool” to lug around two liters of your favorite soda, so I must pay for the “convenience” of having a smaller bottle. Such is the pain of the Diet Coke addict. (Link courtesy of not martha.)

Damn, you know what’s difficult? Wiping a cat’s ass. I’m starting to see the wisdom of owning a pet before you reproduce. You need to get acclimatized to all the disgusting stuff that goes along with caring for another lifeform.

Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability. I wondered why I hadn’t heard about this until I saw the dates and realized I was up at Camp Creative around then. Anyway, nothing too startling in those results. I was surprised to see the male-female ratio though. Somehow I thought there were more girls doing this blogging thing. I wonder if the percentages would have changed if “journalers” had been included as well…

Holy crap! My Dad just e-mailed to let me know that someone is currently shooting a movie in Goshen, Indiana. He said he heard it stars Liv Tyler, and his wife Cindy ran into “that guy from ConAir” at a coffee shop. A little research by me… and Boom! Steve Buscemi is filming a movie with Liv Tyler in my hometown! Isn’t that cool? Apparently they’re using a couple other Indiana locations too.

Toys of the 80’s. That’s a huge time suck if ever I saw one. I spent half the day reminiscing about Popples and Puffalumps and Care Bears.

Snookums’s Link Of the Day: Best Pictures of 2003. “There’s one in there from South Bend!”

The date for this year’s Nike Women’s Classic has been posted: June 20th. That’s just over thirteen weeks away. As I’ve run the 5K the past two years, I’m wondering if I should stick with that and try to improve my pace or challenge myself to complete the 10K. What do you guys think? Any particular good, tried-and-true training programs? I should be meeting with my personal trainer sometime in the next two weeks so I’ll check with him and see what he recommends.