The dog is on fire. by dreamtrove

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The dog is on fire.

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Monday, January 5, 2009 18:30
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VIEWED: 1842
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Sunday, January 4, 2009 7:09 PM

Every once in a while, the hostility level on the forum hits a certain fever pitch when I feel that it needs a dose of something lighter to bring people out of the infighting and negativity.

It's not unique to us as a group, or firefly fans, I find it in people, and particularly in people who read the news, and follow politics. Here's a couple reasons why, IMHO:

1. The media only reports the bad. Conservatives complained about this about Iraq, which was often true, but it's true about everything. It's always "12 die in horrible accident" and never "child saved by miraculous surgery" etc. If an innovation made the headlines, it was because it's now for sale and you should buy it.

2. Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise, but it has become the art of division. Each ram holds firm to his ground, head butted against hte other.

Neither of these are good for the psyche.

Here's a little story that I remembered, and it made me think back to when I was a kid. My mother would always build the fire in the wrong order, with the logs parallel to the wall, rather than perpendicular, so there was never a draft. The fire would burn slow and cold, but it would burn. The dog would lie in front of the fire, a large english sheepdog named Snowy. And when a log had burned down sufficiently, there would be a shift, and a log would roll out onto the dog, who was covered in long hair and would readily burst into flame. The exclamation "The Dog is on fire!" was not an uncommon one in my household, though, fortunately, he was easily dowsed and had so much hair that it never burnt through to the skin, but the sight of the dog in full flame was still impressive.

I thought I'd relate this detail and encourage others to relate silly stories from the past, in hopes of lightening the mood.

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Sunday, January 4, 2009 8:15 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

The dog thing is pretty funny. I have a long haired cat named Sweet Pea that is 50% air and 25% fat, which loves to sit by the fireplace. But I have a screen so it’s never caught on fire. The day it does will be its end, because that cat will go up like an incendiary device.

However, I'm reminded of something: I once caught myself on fire, which on first hearing might not sound too funny, but it gets better. As some of you may know I do a lot dancing and one my favorites dances is Lindy Hop/Charleston, which is pretty fast. A common compliment that you hear a lot on the dance floor is “You’re on FIRE!!”

Well one night at an after party we were all sitting around the fire pit, and like an idiot I had my legs propped up on the side of the pit talking to some other folks. Then I hear from the girl next to me, “You’re on fire, dude!” To which I turn and respond with a smile, “Thanks,” then go back to talking. Then some other people say it and I’m real confused at this point. So someone has to direct my attention to my foot where my shoe has caught on fire with flames like eight inches off my toe. That was exciting. I never felt any heat, but my shoe has blisters on it now.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Sunday, January 4, 2009 8:36 PM

DREAMTROVE

lol.
Okay, I'll grant, you have some funny stories. I'm still not going to debate you. You deeply offended me, and we should agree that we will never agree on anything (I think we've agreed once or twice,)
But we can still converse, just not about politics or religion etc.

I had a cat of a very similar nature recently. It was not my cat, but she came to live with me until my sister came to stay with dogs, and then she went back to her owners. She was here for six years, from age 10 to age 16. She came here when she was voted off the island by the other 7 cats in the house, who hissed her out of the building. She is ornery.

The only cat I've ever known who loves baths. She would not only climb into a sink full of soapy water: Every morning, upon awakening, I would find her standing in the shower, waiting for it to be turned on. Without her shower, the old ball of fur was not ready to start her day. She's doing fine now at her original home.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 1:04 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Well, this one doesn't work unless you know what Murlocs are.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Murloc
And if you do, you know they're the very spawn of hell itself, with a battlecry that will drive fear into the most hardened gamer without fail, so keep this in mind.

Now, me and the ex had recently adopted a bit of an oddball cat, who wound up with the name Miss Molly Meerkat Kitty, for her strange habit of adopting a meerkat "sentry" pose to get a better look around - how and why she developed that habit we don't know, but between that and her habit of wet-grooming by wetting her fur under the dripping bathtub faucet and then licking, not to mention "mumbling" happily to herself quite frequently, she's pretty strange, sweet, but strange.

So there's me with a whole day off and to myself, a fairly rare event, and I cram in some world of warcraft prettymuch nonstop, hating on those evil fishfaces all the way, and then rack out, only to have the vicious bastards mount a counterassault in dreamland, it's just not fair, I tellya.

So, having bashed Murlocs, dreamed of Murlocs, I get alllllmost awake, in that not quite in first gear mental state where you really wanna just roll over and go back to sleep...

And I feel this cold, slimy wetness brush against my face, accompanied by "MURGLEURGLEURGHH?"

Imma just admit it, I screamed like a six year old girl who had a spider crawl across her knee - jumped straight up, straight back, hit two walls and slammed face first into the ground with the covers twisted around my legs clawing madly to get away from... Molly Meerkat Kitty, who decided after wet-grooming her face to adore on me while I was asleep, with a side order of mumbling.

I swear she was laughing at me as she bolted, making this little "heh heh heh" noise all the way down the steps...

Cats are evil, loveable, but evil all the same.

-F

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Monday, January 5, 2009 2:48 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Seems like nothing puts the brakes on the hate like a good cat or dog thread. :)

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

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Monday, January 5, 2009 3:31 AM

DREAMTROVE

Lol. If you're dreaming of WoW then you're playing too much. I play tabletop RPGs, D&D style, and one of the guys we were trying to get in could never be reached at the time. Finally, we randomly ran into him and he said "Oh, man, if you want to reach me, don't call: Catch me in game."

You reminded me of a couple of others.

The aforementioned cat of mine has another habit: Barking. She only does it at birds. Turandot will stand up against a window and go "woof" "woof" or as close as a cat can get maybe more of an "ar" "ar." I was never quite sure why.

My sister's cat Sunset does the standing up thing, which is rather disturbing because of his size. She is rather short, and he's a very large cat, still he can only become her height if she's sitting down.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 9:05 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Well ---

This has nothing to do with a dog or a cat. This was waaaay back when, when people used to iron clothes.

It was a summer day and I'd gone off to my grandmother's house to mow the lawn with one of those reel mowers and came back home before noon. I was standing in the kitchen telling my mother and oldest sister who were sitting at the table how Babcia was doing. They were staring at me open-mouthed for a few seconds before one of them interrupted and said - 'Your elbow is smoking'.

Apparently I'd backed my elbow into the iron and it was so hot I never felt it.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 11:57 AM

DREAMTROVE

My first and very memorable burn. As a toddler, I was reaching for an orange slice on the table, and my father was ironing his shirt before going to his job at the newspaper. He finished, and put down the iron on my hand, and walked away. He was undoubtedly in a rush, and absent minded, but I wasn't strong enough to lift it, as it was a flat iron, made of solid iron, the kind you heat on the woodstove.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 12:08 PM

KIRKULES

Back in the day when you were still allowed to burn yard waste, my dad was a big believer in using Gasoline to accelerate the burning process. My first attempt at burning leaves like dad, resulted in the stench of burning hair and I later discovered my eyebrows were pretty thin. That did'nt stop me from perfecting my leaf burning skills but it did give me a good respect for the power of Gasoline.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 1:59 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Hangin out at a friends with some of our buddies, and Jay started talkin some smack, to which I replied I was gonna hand him his ass iff'n he didn't shut up and siddown, cause booze makes him run off at the mouth.

Jay being Jay, young and a bit of dolt, ignores the fact that I just swapped my beer to my right hand*, and keeps on, while mockingly stating that I'd have to catch him first, since he knows I cannot actually run with my bum leg, mechanical replacement or not.

I grin (bad, bad sign for Jay), put the beer down and take two steps towards him - Jay takes off, he's not THAT stupid, sorta...

I reach down, pop the disconnect and yank the whole damn leg off and wing it at him with a full bodyspin of torque behind it - *whizzwhizzwhizzWHACK* - gets him horizontal right in the back of the knees and takes him down on the spot in a heap as he trips over it besides.

Hoppity-hoppity in behind it, and there I am sittin on Jays back with my left hand gently cupping his chin, unspilled beer still in hand.. "Say, Jay, did you know there's a muscle in the back of your neck with only one purpose, to cause agonising pain if pressed upon ?"

He quickly surrenders and limps back to the deck, sittin down and shutting up, for a while at least, and Bradley, having watched the whole thing leans over the rail and says "Son, now I've seen it all, I just watched a one legged man WIN an asskickin contest, no shit..."

Heh, hillbillies are much fun.

-F

*Being ambidextrous, it's a habit for me to strike left handed cause no one expects it, Jay was about to get slapped upside the head and never even noticed.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 5:02 PM

DC4BS

My sisters dog used to help her with her laundry.

No one ever taught him to, she just noticed it one day when she was folding socks and tossing them across the room into the open Sock drawer.

She missed and a pair hit the floor.

Snoopy immediately went for them and she figured they were toast as he just LOVED playing tug-of-war with just about anything he could get hold of.

Well, he just took them over and dropped them in the drawer.

She threw another folded pair on the floor and he picked them up and put them in the drawer as well.

From then on, whenever she was folding socks, she'd open the sock drawer and just throw the folded pairs on the floor and Snoopy would make sure they all went in the drawer.

He never even drooled on them or anything.

------------------------------------------
dc4bs

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Monday, January 5, 2009 5:28 PM

FREMDFIRMA

You need to send that dog after my ex's cat, Squirmy.
(the three legged one)

She will wait till no one's looking, and then snatch a sock, run upstairs with it, and drop it off under the bed, usually it's just socks, one at a time - which drives the ex bonkers when she tries to match them up, and amuses me to no end in that I don't *have* to match mine, heh heh.

The act that drove her to screeching willies about it was catching Squirmy in the act of bolting upstairs with a pair of her knickers - I guess the idea of being panty-raided by the cat pushed her buttons or something, although I found it hi-larious.

-F

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Monday, January 5, 2009 6:24 PM

DREAMTROVE

Kirkules

That reminds me of my second and more impressive major burn: My mother had been cooking pork chops, and had used grease in the boiler, which caught fire. She instructed me an my sister to carry it outside, and then told my sister to throw dirt on it. Well she did, and it splashed all over me. It instantly burned all the outer skin off my hands and forearms, and the underlayers, within an hour, had turned completely black. They flaked off in about a week, leaving behind new white skin. Over the many decades since, they reverted to their natural color, all except a circle on one hand, which remains white. A reminder.

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Monday, January 5, 2009 6:30 PM

DREAMTROVE

Frem

My sister also has one functioning leg and is ambidextrous. I wonder if this is some sort of natural adaptation.

DC4BS

Great story. Reminds me of the recycling racoons.
My other sister has a sock loving dog, but he's of the destructive variety.

Retrieving socks from chester requires a trick:

You must have the sock from the pair that he doesn't have. It's always more valuable than the one he does have. Only when he thinks he can get the sock he *doesn't* have will he drop the one he *does* have.

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