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KGB ReportObservations by and for the vaguely disenchanted by Kevin G. Barkes |
ISSN: 1525-898X |
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"I can't hear you. I have a cat on my head."
Categories: Animals, Cats, Dogs, Photo of the day
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Speaking of which, Misty, our bumper sticker model, rides inside to the vet this morning to get her sutures removed. Hurrah!
And here's the scoop on Romney's animal cruelty.
Categories: Bumper Stickers, Dogs, KGB Family
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A happy pit bull with his new Michael Vick action figure.
Categories: Dogs, Michael Vick, Photo of the day
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"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the
shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men that who will deal
likewise with their fellow men."
-St Francis of Assisi
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day, Poverty, Quotes of the day
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Just returned from taking Misty to the emergency vet. She suddenly developed major problems in her right eye, the one being treated for secondary glaucoma. She'll probably have surgery later this morning. We're hoping she'll be home tomorrow night or Saturday at the latest.
No sense in trying to go to sleep at this point. I have a major project promised for tomorrow, and working helps to attenuate the worrying. A bit, anyway.
It's going to be a long day. Here's hoping it turns out well.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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I, for one, welcome our new canine overlord...
Categories: Dogs, Photo of the day, WTF?
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The good news: the medications significantly reduced Misty's blood pressure, intraocular pressure, and inflammation to the point she apppears to be in little or no pain. The doctor deferred removing her eye today.
The bad news: Misty's secondary glaucoma may be caused by systemic hypertension, which in turn may be caused by kidney disease. More specific tests have been done and sent to the lab. It'll be a few days until we get the results.
But for now, at least, I have a warm, happy, pain-free Sheltie and her three pack mates snoring comfortably at my feet.
I'm officially declaring: that this a good day; that Misty is a very, very good girl; and that, at least for today, I'm one lucky fella.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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Sasha Anne
2/28/2000-11/19/2010
Dogs' lives are too short.
Their only fault, really.
-Agnes
Sligh
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family, Photo of the day, Quotes of the day
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Back in the halcyon, pre-Internet days of KGB Consulting, my office had a half dozen computer systems, over a dozen telephone lines, the usual collection of office equipment, and a couple hundred feet of various phone and low-voltage control cabling stuffed above the suspended ceiling.
Since the business folded back in 2000, I only need two "work" systems. I disconnected the Verizon phone service five years ago, when I called to report a service outage at 10 am and was told all their representatives were busy and to call back later. So much for the superior reliability of landlines. I switched to Vonage, cut my phone bill in half, and now just have to deal with Comcast for all my telecommunications services. (I complain about Comcast but, truth be told, aside from their crappy DVRs, their performance has been exemplary, at least from a signal standpoint. In the past 16 months I can't remember a single outage.)
But I digress.
Because of the literally hundreds of feet of legacy cabling stuffed in the ceiling above my head, I was never able to reconfigure my office the way I really wanted. So I decided to quit procrastinating, pull everything down, and rewire the entire enchilada.
As the picture above shows, my office now looks like the bridge of the U.S.S. Reliant following the Enterprise's sneak attack in Star Trek II.
I'm about 20% through. Misty, my unofficial liaison to the lower mammals in the household, has stayed with me through the ordeal. The other pups and the cats come down only when nature calls. They nervously glance upward at the ceiling, then hurry through to the safety of the back door or litter box. I keep telling them the sagging lines are low-voltage signal cables and not ac power runs, but I don't think they believe me.
The goal is to get this done by the end of the week, which is probably doable with a couple late nights after work.
Provided I can teach Misty how to wire the mini-PBX.
Categories: Animals, Cats, Comcast, Dogs, KGB, Star Trek
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It helps to have a fully-equipped workspace.
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day
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(YouTube video: "Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die)
By now you must know there is always a goodbye hovering in the shadow of a dog. We are never here for long, or for long enough. We were never meant to share all of your life, only to mark its passages. We come and we go. We come when we are needed; we leave when it is time. Death is necessary; it defines life. I will see you again. I will watch over you. I hope in your grief and loneliness, that you will consider how sad it would have been, had we not had this time together; not had the chance to give each other so much. I do not mourn or grieve. But I will miss standing beside you, bound together on our walk through life. Even as I know, there is a long line of others waiting to take my place and stand with you. Thank you. It was nothing but a gift.
Remembering Deja, Sasha, Quark, and Beanie.
Categories: Animals, Cats, Dogs, Passages, Video, YouTube
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Déjà
February 15, 1997 - September 18, 2011
She possessed beauty without vanity;
dignity without pretentiousness;
intelligence
without conceit;
strength without insolence;
loyalty without condition;
courage without
ferocity;
love without reservation;
the virtues of humans
without their vices.
(Adapted from Lord Byron's epitaph for his dog)
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Passages
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Misty is 12 today. She's the elegant, Lauren Bacall-ish member of our Sheltie pack. Time for a belly rub and a piece of toast...
Categories: Animals, Birthdays, Dogs, KGB Family
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Oh noes! We iz out of coffee!!
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day
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Well, really, my granddaughter Leanna and her dog, Bella. The resemblance is striking, though. Next time I see her, I'm going to check for fins.
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Kids, Photo of the day
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(You Tube Video)
Lucy (aka Lady Lucia), our 13-year-old Sheltie, is one tough little broad. Unlike the other lesser mammals in the house, she loves being vacuumed. In fact, you have to vacuum her first, before she'll give you access to the rug. It doesn't appear to be genetic; her offspring all remain terrified of vacuums. So at least one threat to humanity has been thwarted.
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Video, YouTube
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I have a Sheltie in my pants.
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Photo of the day
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As allergy sufferers know, this season's been particularly bad. My daughter and I have been dosed by our respective physiscians with enough corticosteroids to dry up the Mississippi basin. Despite these heroic efforts, we're always "on the edge." One tiny challenge to our hair-trigger immune systems can easily bust a hole in our shaky pharmaceutical dykes.
My levee burst at about 4 am when Pumpkin, our evil cat, apparently decided she wanted to fall asleep on her favorite piece of endothermic furniture, namely me. She first sat on my head, providing my eyes, sinuses and upper respiratory system with a more than moderate dose of fur and dander. She then moved on to the only exposed human body part on the bed- my lower right leg. As she settled into place, I apparently startled her by sneezing. She attempted to maintain her stability in the cute way cats do, by extending her quasi-lethal, razor-like claws quite firmly into my calf.
My leg jerked upward in a powerful reflex action, catapulting the accursed feline into the bed's headboard, where her trajectory was modified in such a way that she was deposited into a mass of sleeping shelties Who Were Not Amused.
Somehow the rest of the household remained unconscious during the festivities, which involved nearly a half-dozen small furry mammals cascading down the steps in high dudgeon, accompanied by a greater mammal using the dark, unpleasant part of his vocabulary in an extended, hissed exhalation that thankfully did not involve the larnyx. In the meantime, my calf started erupting in hives and producing an itching sensation reminiscent of the chest-bursting scene in Alien.
So, at 4:10 am, I'm downing prednisone pills like M&Ms, slathering hydrocortisone cream on my leg, giving myself an albuterol treatment and squirting naphazoline in my eyes. The dogs are under my desk, alternately cowering in fear and growling at the cat, who, given the supremely narcissistic tendencies of her species, is lying on the spare office chair, staring at me in dull curiosity through drooping eyelids.
Going to church won't be of any help. I recently joined the Unitarians, so I can no longer invoke the wrath of some supernatural being to rain down flaming justice on those who afflict me.
I'll just have to settle for extreme grumpiness for the balance of the day.
And wheezing.
You've been warned.
Categories: Allergies, Animals, Cats, Dogs, KGB, KGB Family
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Aside from the Thurber hounds, by far the best cartoon dogs are by George Booth, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker for decades. I love their postures and expressions, which manage to be simultaneously understated, exaggerated, and dead-on accurate. The absurdist captions are a delight as well.
See more of Booth's stuff here.
Categories: Cartoon, Dogs, George Booth, New Yorker
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...this would be it.
"Give her all she's got! Woof!!"
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Montgomery Scott, Photo of the day, Star Trek
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Our oldest Sheltie, Déjà Vu, had a touch of insomnia last night and decided to roam the house every hour or so.
Déjà's our Queen Mum and behaves accordingly. As de facto Equerry to The Queen, it is my responsibility to insure her nocturnal excursions are without incident.
Obstacles must be removed from her royal, impromptu itinerary. A cat sleeping at the top of the cellar stairs, blocking Her Majesty's path? It must be physically moved out of Her way, a potentially hazardous chore and one that typically elicits a succint feline opinion on the validity of canine royalty.
A sheltie of lesser rank in a potential napping area? Verbal orders are generally sufficient. The younger ones move quickly, without comment. The older ladies grumble under their breath. Especially Lady Lucia, just a year younger then Déjà and a down-to-earth old girl with the swagger of a bordello madame and an attitude to match. She moves out of the Queen's way resentfully, a hint of a snarl on her lips. "Pretentious old bitch," Lucy mutters in a Scottish canine dialect that is surprisingly easy for even a human to understand.
In the midst of this Dance of the Lesser Mammals, I sneaked into the refrigerator and snagged a piece of cold pizza, which I ate quickly to avoid being sacked by the five Furballs of the Apocalypse. Double pepperoni and a bit spicy, I knew I would pay later.
At dawn, Déjà was still asleep, but the others wanted to begin their morning constitutionals. I let them out, then stared blankly though the screen door. My stomach rumbled, starting a chain reaction that began a relentless, gaseous descent.
Then it hit, a truly impressive, multi-second burst of trumpeting flatulence that stopped the shelties dead in their tracks, even though they had wandered to the far end of the yard.
A minute later, the electronic shrieking began.
I first thought it was a smoke alarm, but remembered I had pulled the one in my office while I was replacing some suspended ceiling panels. This sound was coming from the corner of the laundry room, on the shelving unit that held old paint cans, assorted hardware, and... the carbon monoxide/ natural gas alarm.
I was appalled and impressed, at both myself and the alarm.
Finally silencing the unit, I went back to the cellar door to find four shelties quizically staring up at me. I let them in. They circled me warily, nostrils flared, then headed back upstairs.
All except Lucy, who sat at my feet, giving me the same sneer she had given Déjà a few hours earlier. "If you had shared the pizza, you wouldn't have this problem," she growled/grumbled.
The gas detector gave a last condescending chirp. With a final "grrplegrrpleruff," Lucy sauntered out of the laundry room and headed for the dog bed under my desk.
Another rumble from my stomach. Another growl from under the desk.
It's going to be that kind of day.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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The most obvious situation is the slow transmogrification of western Pennsylvania into a rain forest. My back yard is now almost impenetrable and on the verge of being declared a wildlife refuge. A hike to the storage shed at the back of the property was accompanied by the sounds of wee beasties scurrying through the grass, and I'm not talking about the shelties. Who, by the way, won't venture past the swing set at the partially cleared top half of the yard, probably because the vegetation is now taller than they are. There's stuff back there straight out of a Star Trek episode. And it's adapting to the marsh-like conditions. I think I saw a stink bug wearing scuba gear.
The other problem with the above Weather Channel prediction is that their ten-day forecast contains only nine days. I'm going to attribute that to an HTML/database extraction error. Unless TWC knows something about the Rapture that Harold and his gang have missed.
Categories: Animals, Apocalypse, Climate Change, Dogs, Environment, KGB, KGB Family, Rapture, The Weather Channel, Weather
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God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if
it takes my dog being there, I believe he'll be there.
-Rev. Billy
Graham
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your
dog would go in.
-Mark Twain
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is certain dogs I have known
will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
-James Thurber
You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there
long before any of us.
-Robert Louis Stevenson
So, if you wake up tomorrow and all the dogs are missing, take some comfort in knowing that God actually exists, and he is indeed a fine judge of character.
Categories: Apocalypse, Christians/Christianity, Dogs, Rapture, Religion
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Happy birthday to Sassy, the youngest of our pack of Shetland Sheepdogs.
Categories: Birthdays, Dogs, KGB Family
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Riley is the second youngest of the pack, but is, I believe, the oldest soul. Look in those eyes and tell me there isn't a person in there. (By the way, I don't believe in reincarnation. But in a previous life, I did.)
Categories: Birthdays, Dogs, KGB Family
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Déjà Vu, who turns 14 today, is the oldest of our sheltie pack and the undisputed "Queen Mum." She is reserved and dignified- except when she rolls on her back in the snow and bounces on her front legs at dinner time like a low rider. I like to thing of her and Lucy as the canine version of the Banger sisters.
Categories: Birthdays, Dogs, KGB Family
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Lady Lucia (aka "Lucy" or "Lulu") is a feisty 13 today, which makes her either 91 or 68 in human years, depending upon whether you use the old or new human-dog years age equivalency tables.
Both are irrelevant to this saucy lady, whose personality is less like a Shetland sheepdog and more like the madame of a bordello. She's mouthy, fearless, and has an aggressive, determined gait, just like Spike the Bulldog in those old Warner Bros cartoons. Forget to let her out or feed her in a timely manner and she'll march right up to you and give you a piece of her mind.
She sleeps a bit more than she used to, but when she's awake, look out... when Lucy's on the move, you know it.
Lucy's big secret... she's a snuggle bunny. When no one else is around, she'll curl up next to you, kiss you senseless, then fall asleep and snore in your ear. The perfect lady, indeed.
Categories: Animals, Birthdays, Dogs, KGB Family, Photo of the day
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(via www.ratemyfunnypictures.com)
Categories: Animals, Dogs, Photo of the day, WTF?
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Misty, Sassy and Riley watch the latest snowstorm arrive.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family, Snow, Video, YouTube
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... he wouldn't have photographed them under low-light conditions through the dirty lens of a low-resolution cellphone camera and then brutalize the result with various Photoshop-induced distortion effects in a vain attempt to simulate an impressionist style watercolor. Nope. He would have just painted the damned thing.
I call this, "What is this strange 'Poker' you wish us to play?"
(From the left: Lucy, Riley, Sassy and Misty.)
Categories: Art, Dogs, Monet, Photo of the day
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And Misty is dreaming of a white Christmas. Or probably enough snow to put down a couple Sheltie angels...
Categories: Animals, Dogs, KGB Family, Photo of the day, Snow, Weather
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Socialist, big-government Obamacare-like demands placed on patriotic Missouri puppy mill owners...
Categories: Daily Show, Dogs, Video
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Granddaughter Leanna heads off to second grade. Her bestest friend, Bella, doesn't want to hear about it.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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Lord knows what great-great-great-great-grandcollie's in the picture, but that's Lassie's mom, June Lockhart, who turns 85 today. We'll do the math: that's slightly over 12 in dog years.
The photo was taken last August at a ceremony for the issuance of "Early TV Memories" commemorative postage stamps. Only Lassie appears on the stamp. The bitch.
(It appears the current "Lassie" is a tenth-generation direct descendent from "Pal," who starred in the MGM films and the pilot of the TV series. Interesting article on Wikipedia.)
The official Lassie website notes that Lassie "doesn't meet the AKC standard for the breed. Lassie is bred larger than average so that a child actor can play opposite the dog for a longer time."
Another piece of trivia: "Lassie is a registered trademark, and that trademark requires the following: a sable and white collie, four white feet, a full white collar and a white blaze up the nose."
Categories: Classic, Dogs, Lassie, TV
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With the move, the rain, the damaged furniture, the missing boxes, the office rewiring, the spider bite, the mold allergy, the constant fatigue and the endless unpacking, there were times when I wondered whether it was worth moving back to South Park.
Yesterday was another non-stop marathon of struggling just to stay ahead of the chaos. Then after dinner, we rounded up our pack of shetland sheepdogs and headed down to the far end of the yard.
Shelties on the grass alas. With apologies to Pittsburgher Gertrude Stein.
Déjà Vu is 13, and our "Queen Mum." She is reserved and dignified- except when she rolls on her back in the grass and finally lies still in the warm sun, like a stuffed animal used to demonstrate the process of rigor mortis.
"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself
with him and not only will he not scold you, he will make a fool of
himself too."
-Samuel Butler (Misty likes being "wound
up".)
Poor Sassy, the youngest, will be in a cast for the next four months until her ankle/wrist bones fuse due to a hyperextension injury (common in Shelties and Collies). Two days after surgery, she's still in pain- but here, the warm sun and the drugs finally kick in.
"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or
discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is
to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring. It was peace."
-Milan
Kundera
"I think the purpose of the dog is to provide an
accessible example to the recondite concept of unconditional love."
-Me
Riley is the second youngest of the pack, but is, I believe, the oldest soul. Look in those eyes and tell me there isn't a person in there. By the way, I don't believe in reincarnation. But in a previous life, I did.
"A dog is the only thing on this earth that loves you more than he loves
himself."
-Henry Wheeler Shaw
"That's the whole secret of life. Life is a series of dogs."
-George
Carlin
"Old age means realizing you will never own all the
dogs you wanted to."
-Joe Gores
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family, Quotes of the day
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Sassy has decided she wants to recuperate in the dark, quiet den-like space under my workstation. Note the cast... the poor little girl will be wearing it for the next four months until the bones in her wrist/ankle fuse.
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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(Ahh, a beagle/Jack Russell mix accompanied by Yakety Sax.)
Categories: Dogs
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Yeah, she's my girl. You got a problem with that?
Categories: Dogs, KGB Family
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Let's have some new cliches.
-Samuel Goldwyn
One of 15,162 quotations from the KGB Quotations Database, selected at random. Click here to search for words, authors or phrases. Search page design and software contributed by Rafal Sulejman.
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