Best Contest Idea Ever: The Alien and The Kitty

My best-contest-ever award goes to Nicole Peterson’s “The Alien and the Kitty” contest, being held now in memeory of her cat. The contest is titled "Nepenthe," the one who chases away sorrow. Contest entries will be artworks including her cat and the creature from Alien interacting to illustrate the theme. Such a cool idea! Contest deadline is October 31.

Pretty cool prizes, too. Contest rules and details here.

Nicole's beautiful cat.

And We're Walkin...

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30108677@N08/3557515261/

New York is a pedestrian city, and one of my favorite things about living here is not owning a car.

A month ago I got a pedometer. My grandfather used to have one, and I was fascinated that it counted his steps every day. His wasn't digital, but was simply a counter that ticked off every time he took a step. He was a very active man, and since he knew the length of his stride, he could tell you the number of miles he walked in a day.

I read that ideally one would walk 10,000 steps in a day, which is close to 5 miles for the average person. Over the past 30 days I've averaged 6700 steps a day, or about 3.2 miles (a little over 5 km) -- without really trying (although I admit the pedometer has inspired me to walk a bit more than I normally would). Pretty amazing.

I love New York.

http://popupcity.net/2010/04/99-walking-men-worldwide/

The Last Hurrah of Summer

Seems to be the Dog Days here in Queens--it felt like autumn last week and now it's in the 90s (32+ C) again. Ah well, my favorite season of the year will be here soon enough.

I'm working at Bobbi and the Strays two days a week now and it's the most satisfying job I've ever had. (Here are a few examples of things to which I can compare grantwriting for an animal rescue, if you're curious.)

It's keeping me busy, so there hasn't been much blogging. And if I hadn't already grown slothful about my blog, along came Facebook. Now if I have so much as a half-formed thought or a funny link, I just slap it into Facebook and that's it. No more blogging necessary. Facebook, drive-thru fast food windows, and remote controls are going to destroy our civilization, I tell you.

But can you eat it?

And now for today's link of total awesomeness (thanks to Moderncat, of course):

Check out her blog...tons of funny and her illustrations are absolutely terrific. And hey, maybe you'll want to bring something to the block party while you're at it!