My favorite Christmas movies

Hello to the nobody that reads this! In keeping with the spirit of the upcoming season, I thought I would list my favorite Christmas movies, and give a short review / explanation as to why. Fun, huh? Ok here we go! Number one Christmas movie of all time:

1**** Ermest Saves Christmas
I know what your thinking, eewww, an Ernest movie? But let me tell you, Jim Varney is Brilliant! The best line in a Christmas movie is when he is flying the sleigh to pick up the new Santa and they are up in space and have just managed to stop after Ernest has pushed what was like the turbo button on the sleigh and Ernest says, "Nobody moves, nobody dies", then one of the elves sneezes and the madness starts up again. Classic! The whole movie is touching, ( awwwwww ), and great fun!

2**** The Muppet Christmas Carol
This is my favorite telling of the the classic Dickens story. Michael Cain is perfectly cast as scrooge! This is the first muppet movie where they used Gonzo and Rizzo as the story tellers. Gonzo shines as Mr. Dickens and Rizzo is the perfect side kick. Kermit is of course perfect for Bob Cratchet, with Piggy as Emily Cratchet. Here is something that you won't notice unless you have seen the movie a few times. Dr. Bunsen Honetdew and Beaker play the 2 gentlemen looking to get a donation from Scrooge for the poor. As Scrooge is kicking them out, you can see Beaker flip Scrooge the bird on the way out the door! Classic!

3**** Christmas Vacation
A definite strong entry for number 3. Chevy Chase is of course great. Lots of fun and laughs. Classic scenes: Randy Quaid emptying the septic system of his camper into the storm drain. Next, of course, when the cat chews through the light cord on the Christmas tree, and of course when the squirrel gets out of the tree.

4**** A Christmas Story
This is another classic. "Your gonna shoot your eye out kid!". This is my dads favorite, because it reminds him of when he was a kid. Scary side thought: When I was a kid I had a pellet gun, I got the bright idea of shooting a tire with it. If it wasn't for the fact I wore glasses, I wouldn't have a right eye. 'Nuff said.

5*** Elf
This is a fairly new movie with Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner, to name a few. This movie is hilarious! James Caan was great as the grumpy scrooge like character, Will Ferrell plays the innocent world naive elf beautifully, he has a childlike quality that just shines through in this. There are not a lot of his movies I like, but this is definetly one!

6*** The Santa Clause ( 1,2, and probably 3 )
Tim Allen is great in a lot of roles, but he makes an awesome Santa. The stories are fun, 'nuff said.

Ok, so the reviews are not great, I did them on the fly and off the top of my head. But these are the best of the best of the best. ( What movie is that from? ). Maybe I'll do Christmas shows next, ie, Rudolph the red nose reindeer and such. Don't hold your breath though!

Partings and Meetings

Well, September has been a month of meetings and parting of ways. Nikki, who was my oldest, a sable ferret who was 8 years old left at the beginning of September, and her longtime roomie and buddy Elliot just went last Saturday, the 23rd. Elliot had had low blood sugar problems for a year or so. I came home from work one day and he was lying in a hammock in a daze and drooling. So I got some sugar into him, and when he started coming around, some food. The next day we were down seeing Dr G. His blood sugar was at 50 something. So we started him on some pedia-pred and diazoxide and that kept his sugar regulated so that it stayed around 70 to 90 most of the time. Elliot liked it because he got special attention. He was always one of my best tempered boys. He always had a kiss for me and loved to be held. He got along with everyone he ever met and never complained. He was a big beautiful 6+ year old albino boy and I will miss him a lot.

Nikki is the other ferret friend of mine who departed this month. Nikki was 8 years old when she left. She too had low blood glucose her last few months. I was holding her one morning to give her the pedia-pred and she all of a sudden flinched and jumped out of my arms and landed crunch on the floor. She must have had a small stroke, because nothing was broken, but she was in a daze. Her blood glucose had crashed, she couldn't use her back legs. So we ran down to see Dr G and we got her going on prednisone and some stuff to help her control her bladder. She had feeling in her back end, but her brain didn't know where in space anything was. After a couple of weeks of Special duck soup and chicken and turkey baby food, she started eating on her own and was getting the use of her legs back, bit by bit.But her age caught up with her, 8 years old is pretty old for a ferret. She must have had another stroke, one day I got home from work and she was non-responsive. She passed away quietly that night. She spent that night on the bed with me sleeping in a sleep sack, safe and warm.

We also had a new arrival, Lizbeth, a 4 month old sable-mitt cutie joined the tribe. She lives with Sasha and Ozzie. Sasha wasn't too happy about it at first, but has decided that it is not too bad and they get along. Ozzie gets along with everybody so there was no problems there. I got her from the ferretwise rescue and rehabilitation center, where all my kids come from. She was a petco ferret that they couldn't sell because she bites. So now she is here and adjusting nicely. She hasn't got me good yet, but not for lack of trying. I am ready for her most times. She is getting better and the trys have slowed down. I have a fairly healthy batch of kids, the oldest being starlight, who is somewhere around 6 or so. We should be together for a while yet.

Creatures of and with Habits

I am a creature of habit(s), mostly bad. I make no excuses for it, that's the way I am built and that's that. I keep my habits to the legal at least. Started smoking in high school, but in the 70's it was cool. One of the hardest things I did was quit. Had to do it twice too, the first time took me about 14 years, the second only three. When I got laid off in 2003, I started again, STOOPID! I don't deny I am likely to do it again, although as I get older, the chance grows less. Only because it starts to affect my health quicker. I have noticed that a few of my ferrets exhibit the same kind of tenacity in clinging to habits. Take Nikki, she is now 7-1/2 years old. Back when 8in1 made ferretbite® treats that ferrets liked, I used to always have them. Everynight when I put the kids to bed, I would give each a treat. These were the only treat I could find they liked. It got to the point, I would put them in their house, and they would be lined up paws up on the door edge looking at me waiting. This went on for a year or more, because I bought a case of them, chicken flavor to be precise.

But that came to an end when I used up the case. When I ran out, I went to Petco and bought a couple of hold-over boxes until I could order another case. These were different shaped I noticed, oh well, no matter as long as they taste the same. But it was no go, even Nikki, the most rabid consumer wanted nothing to do with them. I was stunned, why would they change something that was perfectly good? I will never know I guess. Now back to the point. That was 3 years ago, to this day when I put Nikki to bed, she gets her front paws up on the door sill and looks at me for treats. Fortunately I have found a substitute that she likes. But it took a while. for more than a year she looked for her treat to no avail. At least I have something for her now. Every once in a while I will substitute petroleum jelly, she likes that almost as much, and keeps the hair out of her belly. With her it's all good, as long as she gets a treat.

Random entry 1

This is a post I moved from my web site to here, it was written on March 8, 2006:

Well an unprecedented thing is happening today, I am writing an entry for the second day in a row. This entry will be a departure from the previous ones in that it is not dedicated to the subject of ferrets, although they do play a small part. How could they not? ;-) Since I am experiencing the new Netflix, in other words, I rent to many too fast so I am being throttled, as they call it, I have decided to watch my cool big screen movies on the new 47" HDTV. I have been going through the Jurassic Park movies. They look awesome on this TV! It's like I haven't seen them before! Anyhow, its quite enjoyable. Just as I was getting to my favorite part of The Lost World, the part where the T-Rex runs loose in San Diego, I got an IM from a friend of mine in the Phillipines, Socrates. Damn! Oh well, I Paused the movie and chatted with him for about a half hour. I was jealous of him because it was very hot and sunny where he was, and it was very dark and cold where I was. Other than that it was a good chat. We both have cameras now so it makes it that much more personal. Technology is cool!

Starlight managed to get a claw tangled in one of the sleepers, so I took her and the sleeper out to get a pair of scissors and extracate her. Sasha and Ozzie were still out for their run time, but Ozzie was sound asleep, I was distracted with keeping Starlight from wriggling, so I left the top door open. *sigh* Sasha was up and about so she wandered in to have a look-see. Lil didn't appreciate that and told her so. I had to hurry back in with Starlight and break up the resulting brawl. I took Sasha out and put Starlight down and shut the door this time. Lil managed to scrape her nose a bit so we went into the bathroom for some peroxide and some calming down. I think they get into fights for the resulting treats they get from me.

This afternoon is my guitar lesson, I got a reprieve of extra time to practice from George, who was really sick with a cold last week, and I mostly squandered it because I got a new toy, a directv reciever/DVR unit. Tivo rocks! I love being able to pause live TV! It's one drawback is it's need to make phone calls to get updates and such. I have Vonage VOIP and the modem on the tivo doesn't like it very much. It took about 3 hours worth of phone calls between directv and Vonage to get the initial call to happen, so it would complete setting up. After that it needed to download a butt load of data to update it's OS. It couldn't do it, kept failing the call during download. Fortunately there are plenty of geeks out on the web who have figured stuff like this out. What I ended up doing was getting a null modem cable for the Tivo, setting up a modem on COM1 of my computer, and now I just use that to do it through the internet. Works great! Geeks rule! Spending all my time figuring out, searching and doing this was how I squandered my guitar practice time. I did do some, but not nearly enough. D'OH! I hope to someday have some original songs I am working on posted on this site, that's what the lessons are for.

Well that will be it for this entry, I think. I should probably get back to work. I have no idea when I will do another, not to long I hope. It is pretty easy to ramble on about stuff, and who knows if anybody reads this stuff? If you do, sign my guest book on my web page! I may get around to putting some pictures up soon. Bye!

Precious things

Back when I was still in college I had a ferret named Natasha. Natasha liked to collect and hide things. It started off small, but grew into a big compulsion. Now when I was in school, I would go to classes, then to work for a while, then to study. If I got a chance for a nap at whatever time, I would take it. I first noticed Natasha collecting things when waking up from a nap. Now, not only did she collect things, but they had to be put into very specific places. One of the toys they had at the time was an Alf hand puppet I had gotten from Burger King. Remember Alf? He got a bad rep, but I always liked him. Anyhow, the ferrets lived in my bedroom in the apartment I was in. One of their favorite places to sleep was in the bottom drawer of the dresser I had. It was a good 8 inches off of the ground, but they figured out how to get into it. After a while I made some stairs so they could just climb in. These guys spent very little time in their house, I put them to bed at night when I slept so they wouldn't be running under the covers and chewing on my toes. Just for the record, Natasha's house mates were Mishka who was the first ferret I ever had, and Ivanhoe a ferret I got from a person who didn't want him anymore which was a shame because Ivanhoe was a really sweet boy. This person did the same thing a few years later with another sweet boy, Norman. I believe he has stopped trying to have ferrets which is a good thing. Anyhow, I digress.

So, I woke from my nap fortunately looking in the right direction to see Natasha dragging Alf accross the floor and up the little steps and trying to get him into the dresser. Now she couldn't get him in the way she was carrying him, which was by the leg and sort of dragging him beside her. She tried but she couldn't get him and herself over the rim of the drawer at the same time. She tried several times until she figured it out. She pulled him up that way as far as she could and then jumped into the drawer and pulled him the rest of the way in. I was spellbound watching her work this out. I had a genius for a ferret! She wanted him up there to sleep with. When I got up and looked next, she was curled up in there with Alf. A security puppet.

The next time I noticed her collecting habit, we had moved to a bigger place, same arrangement, the ferrets stayed in the bedroom with me. But this time they had the run of 3 rooms, while I was home. So now she had access to the bathroom trash bucket and she discovered toilet paper rolls! Once she found them, she would raid the trash for any that might be there and stash them under the bed. Again, this took me totally by surprise, I saw her walking along with one, she carried them so it looked like it was stuck on her head. She would have it in her mouth so the tube was over her snout and walk along like that. It was very funny to watch, because she had to walk funny to do it. Now I will say she never tried to stick her head in them, and Mishka and Ivanhoe showed no interest in them, or I wouldn't have allowed it to continue. I hadn't realized the extent of this until I looked under the bed. There were dozens of these under there! ( Shows you what my house keeping habits are like! ). I then decided to try an experiment, I took them all out from under the bed and scattered them about the room. She spent the 10 or 15 minutes putting them all back! So from then on, about twice a month I would take them out so she could put them back. ( I didn't let her know, but I would throw a few out to keep things from getting out of hand. ). She still kept ALf where ever she slept as well. Old habits never go away. After she passed away, it was a long time before I took the tubes out from under the bed.

Persistence

Have you ever heard of the idea that people and their pets will begin to look like each other? I think the same is true of habits and basic nature. I am by nature a very persistant person. Once I start on a task, no matter how futile, I will doggedly work at it, trying everything I can think of to make it work. Even falling back on the old premise of, if it didn't work the first or second time, maybe it will work this time! I am a nut that way sometimes. Enter a ferret named Lil, who apparently pays WAY too much attention to her human.

Here is the situation: the ferrets have their very own room, I had the house built so I could specify what was going on. Their room has vinyl flooring, like the kitchen and bathroom, while the rest of the rooms have carpet. If you live with ferrets, you know why this is better. When we first moved in, I used to have a barrier I would put up to keep them from getting to the front of the house, and I would let them run between their room and the back bedroom. I closed the door to the master bedroom, because Nikki has a penchant for digging into the mattress, nuff said. I stopped that practice because,

1. Although there were litter boxes there, the guys aren't all that studious about using them. This is bad on carpet.
2. I wanted to make it into a music room, guitars, amplifiers and stuff.

Ok, that lays out all the explanations for what follows.

Lil has instituted a game with me, she somehow knows everytime I am coming through the door into the room. So, she is waiting there most every time when I go in, and she is looking to scamper out as fast as she can. Her thinking she will succeed is reinforced by the fact that she has on several occasions. It has gotten down to a routine between us. As soon as I open the door I automatically reach down to grab Lil, with about a 97% success rate. Sometimes if I am tired, or more likely, carrying something, such as the soup I give them every morning, she will get by. Then a merry pursuit ensues. This all usually happens when I am on my way out to work, or have to be somewhere quickly. She knows all the good spots to go from previous adventures. Under the couch is a good one, as is behind the TV or under the recliner. Anywhere she can go, keep a lookout and escape from quickly. Her most favorite spot was under the kitchen counters. I have a big open area living room / kitchen deal. She discovered the counters on her most memorable escape to date. She got out for the whole day. I was dealing with a sick kid who needed to be taken to the vet really quickly. I was so distracted that Lil slipped out the door without me noticing. So I obliviously took off, sick ferret in hand, with Lil having the run of the house. When I got home that evening, I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. I looked in and saw a ferret nose poking out from under the counter, much to my surprise and chagrin.

Now, my little buddy knew she wasn't supposed to be there, so getting her out from under the counter was going to be a bit of a chore. It took a good hour of wheedling, and cajoling to do the job. If I went out of her line of sight, she would start coming out a little to see where I went, as soon as I tried to sneak back, she would zip right back under. She was having a great time, and I myself couldn't help seeing the humor in the situation. After a while though, the situation needed to be resolved, so I decided to play dirty. I got a saucer and a tube of nutrical. I placed a bunch of nutrical on the saucer and put the saucer just in front of where she was hiding. I let her come out to see what was there, then I would walk towards it and she'd scurry back in. But this was all part of my dastardly plan! After a couple of rounds of this I moved the saucer out to the middle of the floor and sat down cross-legged behind it. I was working on the premise that no ferret is going to stay away from a perfectly good snack, even if it means getting caught. I sat very still, and was soon rewarded by Lil sticking her nose out and looking around. She looked a little conflicted, then finally she threw all caution to the wind and ran over to the saucer and started in on the nutrical. Her adventure for the day was over. I am sure she had stories to tell everybody that night. I later went around and found all the places she had visited and cleaned up. She has not equaled the success of that day, because I try to be a little more vigilant, but she keeps on trying.

Trials and tribulations

The other day I went in as usual at around 6 pm to do the daily litter clean up and "changing of the guard",in the ferret room. I try to keep the time the same every day during the week, because all of the kids can't be out and running together as will be seen later on down the line. 6 pm is a good time during the week, because I get up around about 5 am shower and all that and do the swap again about 6am. I like to try and keep the time out for one group equal to the other. The day time group consists of Nikki, Lil, Starlight, and Elliot. The overnight group is Ozzie and Sasha. Weekends are a little different since I like to sleep in. But it all works out.

This particular incident happened on the weekend in the evening. I went in as usual with Elliots medicine in hand. Did I mention that Elliot is hypo-glycemic? He gets 0.7 ml of pedia pred and 0.2 ml of diazoxide that is mixed into a tutti-frutti flavor, twice a day. I administered the meds, cleaned up the litter boxes and put the day group to bed. Giving out treats all around. They like the totally ferret treats currently. They used to love the 8 in 1 chicken ferretbites, but they changed the formula, so now none of my kids want them. I made sure all the doors on their house were latched tight, because Lil will squeeze through to get at Ozzie if she can.

So, that being done, I went and Let Ozzie and Sasha out to play. Ozzie is a bit of a biter, he doesn't try so much for me anymore, unless I am dumb enough to stick his nose right in front of mine. That big target is just too much to resist and he'll chomp away. Other than that, we get along fine. He won't come out of the house unless I reach in and pick him up and carry him out. Sasha used to come out on her own but has taken a cue from Ozzie and wants to be lifted too. That being done, we played for a bit. Then I went out for some constructive TV watching and Counter Strike playing. All was well at this point. At various points through the evening I usually go back in, say hi and make sure everyone is ok. I like my guys to have a lot of people contact. The last time in is what caused the problem. I opened the top door to the old guys house and said hello all around, I must have got distracted because I forgot to shut it again! Lil was asleep so it took her a while to find this. But later on when I was in bed, I was awoken by the telltale shrieking and screaming of an all out ferret brawl. For the most part these aren't too bad, but I like to break them up and discourage them when I can. It was funny in a way, because I had been thinking of trying mixing them together. I t had been a few months I thought, maybe they are used to the smell of each other. This proved that was a bad idea. As I entered the room, I saw Lil sitting in one end of the cloth tube, Ozzie was under the dresser. Sasha was sound asleep in their house. I grabbed Lil and deposited her in her place and shut the door. She smelled of musk, and her tail was bottle-brushed out straight! She was very worked up. I got Ozzie out from under the dresser and saw blood on the fur of his neck. His tail was also straight out. I will have to say right here, I blamed this on Lil right away, she is the Alpha female of the group and goes after Ozzie whenever she gets the chance. Turns out though, that the blood on Ozzie was from Lil. He savaged her left ear pretty good. After she calmed down, about an hour later, I cleaned her up and inspected her ear. It wasn't as bad as it looked. She would be fine.