Random thoughts... - by Tocky
Tocky on 1/1/2025 at 03:02
My Maine Coon likes to catch them and take them to the tub so that he can bat them around without them escaping. I get a front row seat when I'm on the john. Only the last one pulled a Houdini and disappeared. Wolfie was looking around like Bert the cop in "It's a Wonderful Life" when Clarence faded away. I couldn't believe it either. I figure he must have somehow climbed the shower curtain and hid behind a soap dish but I couldn't find him. It was a good trick and I was secretly proud of him. Mostly we get the cutest little field mice with big ears and big hind legs and you only see them in winter. Maybe they come up the drain and leave that way and the cat played right into his hands.
Mom told me this morning that her cousin Earla came and sat on her bed keeping her company most of last night. Cousin Earla has been dead for over twenty years. Dementia takes some creepy turns sometimes.
Starker on 1/1/2025 at 04:36
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I have tried many quick-kill traps and found exactly zero that are both effective and compatible with having a cat around. ...With the vast majority being neither.
Are you up for some DIY?
[video=youtube;h-8bb-bexRo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8bb-bexRo[/video]
Nicker on 1/1/2025 at 21:14
If you enclose a snap-trap in a box it is inaccessible to cats and more attractive to rodents.
Drop traps like the one in the video are great for catching mice but leave you with the problem of disposal. If you release them, they may simply return, become someone else's problem or starve in the wilderness, since they are not adapted to outdoor living. You can leave them to starve, which takes about 2 to 4 days, longer if they resort to cannibalism. You can put water in the bucket. Drowning is quicker but still a lingering and terrifying death. You could make CO2 using vinegar and baking soda, for instance. Or you can remove them individually and despatch them by hand.
My cats used catch house mice and field mice, play with them in the house and often allow them to escape to inaccessible places. It is amazing how much of a stench a few grams of rodent can produce over the period of a week or more.
Azaran on 4/1/2025 at 00:58
Quake 1, hell yeah :cool:
Azaran on 10/2/2025 at 16:14
People keep debating paper vs plastic straws, paper being biodegradable but gets mushy so it's inconvenient.
Why don't they just make straws out of biodegradable corn plastic? They already make food packaging and plastic utensils out of it
Subjective Effect on 10/2/2025 at 17:34
You'll make millions
heywood on 10/2/2025 at 18:19
Despite all the corn produced here, PLA hasn't really caught on significantly in the US because our waste streams aren't set up to keep it separate from petroleum-based plastics. PLA is still very slow to biodegrade in landfills. It needs to be disposed of in industrial-scale composters to see a big benefit. I don't know the situation in other places.
Most soft drinks are still sold in plastic bottles here, and nearly all bottled water is. If we went back to using glass bottles and aluminum cans, that would make a big difference. We still use way too much plastic in food packaging too. We were sold a BS story about plastic recycling and that allowed producers to sell us everything in plastic to save them a little cost. We used to ship most of it to developing countries in Asia for "recycling", but they are inundated with plastic waste now and we mostly have to dispose of it here. There is a shortage of landfill space in my part of the country, but waste companies are still charging us a flat rate regardless of what we throw away, so people have no economic incentive to avoid plastic packaging.
Plastic straws seem to annoy a lot of people and are a really small part of the problem, so requiring paper straws hasn't been a success here.
DuatDweller on 22/2/2025 at 05:28
Well my cat turned 15 years this Sunday 16 February 2025.
Still the adorable, lovely cat that he is.
mxleader on 22/2/2025 at 05:57
Quote Posted by DuatDweller
Well my cat turned 15 years this Sunday 16 February 2025.
Still the adorable, lovely cat that he is.
My dad's been in the hospital for about three weeks and might not be able to return because he's mentally gone at this point. I've been taking care of his house and cat.
The cat seems nice but it's an un-neutered male cat that is mostly an outdoor cat, so it pisses everywhere in the house. Also, the cat scratched and bit my dad so badly that the wounds became infected and he got blood poisoning. He's obsessed with the cat because he's a lonely old man but I'm giving the cat the boot soon. It's friendly as long as you don't try to pick it up, touch it, or exist anywhere within a city block of it.
Cats are fun though....
