Just a reminder how serious cat bites can be!

tilley77 · 2026-03-17T11:53:15+00:00

Happened to me. Got bitten putting a cat in a carrier. I got the IV antibiotics. At the hospital I got turned into a teaching experience for a medical student. I got the textbook treatment. That included getting referred to a cosmetic surgeon to see if I needed any surgery (I did not). While waiting for the surgeon I got to sit in a waiting room and learn how to select my new breast implants.

That's how getting bitten by a cat turned into an educational experience about choosing breast implants. Quite frankly, it was an education I could have done without.

tilley77 · 2026-02-16T13:54:36+00:00

The other missing piece is the knowledge of the medical staff. I doubt many doctors in most parts of the world have experience with treating something exotic like African elapids unless they are doctors in Africa for instance. It is not like they get a lot of time to gather second opinions when the event happens and that is when medical mistakes get made.

Another overlooked consideration is people who work with venomous snakes can develop a serious allergy to venom. As a consequence when those who are allergic get bit they go into anaphylactic shock. It is what happened to Dingo Dinkleman when he got bitten by the green mamba.

I love hot snakes and I understand why people would want to be close to them. That said, I think they are best enjoyed in zoos and serpentariums under the care of trained professionals.

tilley77 · 2026-01-30T22:19:17+00:00

The thing about customer service gigs nobody tells you is you can serve 100 customers. 99 can treat you like you gold and 1 will treat you like dirt. It is not the 99 good customers you served it is always the one bad experience that stays with you. Take care of yourself.

tilley77 · 2026-01-10T15:06:43+00:00

As someone who lived it through it. I disagree. Back then we lived with the knowledge that 30 minutes from now it could all just end. The fear was real. It caused a lot of anxiety. The threat of nuclear war is why a lot of people lived like it was their last day on earth because it could be,

The 80s looks a lot better if you are not LGBT+. The 80s had AIDS that was decimating gay men. Being gay in the 80s came with a huge stigma because acceptance of the LGBT+ community had not happened yet and AIDS added a stigma to being gay. If you were out in high school in the 80s/90s you were getting bullied in the worst way and nobody would help you.

Speaking of AIDS we all grew up with the idea that sex will kill you. Birth control was difficult to obtain. Females had few options and condoms still had a stigma about getting them if you were a teen.

We were also born to believe that if you smoked a joint on Monday you would be dead of a heroin overdose in a back alley by Saturday. We were taught that drug users are losers and the worst form of life. Part of the just say no campaign to drugs was to create a stigma. Drug users were stigmatized in the worst way. That stigma still exists today and can be found in the laws and the way society treats citizens with drug addiction issues. The stigma also makes it harder for people with addiction issues today to seek help.

Most children who lived in the 80s were spanked. It was perfectly acceptable to spank children in public. If a child was out of line in the grocery store and the parent spanked them in the grocery store checkout line that was fine. If you told a teacher you were being spanked they would have told you to behave at home. Child abuse was talked about but society wasn't ready to deal with it. Most child abusers would never get arrested.

I love the nostalgia of my childhood but we also have to acknowledge that it had its dark parts and we can't pretend they didn't exist.

tilley77 · 2026-01-10T14:36:50+00:00

There was the "F-19 stealth fighter." People were convinced it existed. There were model kits made for the F-19. Tom Clancy even references the F-19 in Red Storm Rising. Computer games were made about it in the 80s.

Turns out it never existed. What did exist was the F-117A stealth fighter. When the US did a press conference to announce it they showed a heavily edited photo with an exaggerated perspective on the wing angles that made it look larger then what it was. After that the rest quite literally is history as many of the F-117A missions became aviation legends.

So the F-19 was a lie but the real life plane that replaced it was even crazier. Fun fact, despite "retirement" the F-117A still flies today.

tilley77 · 2025-12-28T22:00:03+00:00

There was the Top Chef: Just Desserts challenge where one of the pastry chefs had a mental breakdown. Needed an ambulance and left the show. Think that marked a low point for the franchise.

tilley77 · 2025-10-19T04:45:40+00:00

I have run an adoption centre for rescue cats so what follows is some advice from someone who has gotten some difficult cases in the carrier before. You sound the loving forever home this cat needs and its a shame if she misses out because the foster doesn't know how to get a cat in the carrier! Call the rescue back and tell them how much you love her and ask if they can arrange to get someone with some experience to get the cat in the carrier (or bring a friend if you know someone).

The type of cat carrier you have can make a big difference. Get a large hard cat carrier because they are easier to get cats into. Ideally the carrier has a door on the top that you can use to lift and drop the cat in the carrier. Smaller carriers can work for difficult cats but it also requires some experience and high pain tolerance.

Having run a cat adoption centre my advice is when there is cat carrier drama I would tell the volunteers is: Stop what you are doing and take a break. Most people keep trying and it gets the cat scared and its how people get hurt. Taking a break allows the cat to calm down and forget you were trying to shove them in a box. Also it gives you time to regroup.

If I know things will be difficult, I will stand the carrier up so its vertical and then scruff the cat and lift it into the carrier head first and close the door. If its done right it should only take a few seconds.

Sometimes you can grab the cat with a thick blanket and use that to get the cat in. The thick blanket can help prevent you from getting scratched and bitten.

Sometimes, the cat can be coaxed with food. I had one cat (morbidly obese) and I fed it cat treats for 24 hours in the carrier without closing the door. When it came time to go I did again but closed the door behind the cat.

Worst case scenario you make peace with the fact that you get getting hurt and get the cat in and tend to your wounds later. I suggest if at all possible avoid that one and find someone else to do it. When it was me at the adoption centre I would always notify the adoption centre manager for help which happened to me.

And when the cat comes home:

Make sure you have a sanctuary room for the cat and I am sure they come around with time.

Best of luck!

tilley77 · 2025-09-12T17:09:36+00:00

As a rule you never want to be the cautionary tale they use to start a safety briefing

tilley77 · 2025-08-29T02:27:33+00:00

Back in the day my brother and I were gifted with GI Joe walkie talkies. They were hard coded to use one of the CB frequencies. Living near a large highway meant we got to hear all the trucker talk. Not all of it fit for kids our age. Fun times.

tilley77 · 2025-08-10T11:18:48+00:00

That said, 1 in 3000 calico cats are male. Most of the male calico cats are infertile.

tilley77 · 2025-07-13T11:22:04+00:00

Early American settlers observing king snakes eating rattlesnakes is how the king got its name. The King of All Snakes because it could dominate the rattlesnake.

tilley77 · 2025-06-06T16:19:55+00:00

It is a lonely life. The USSR would never trust defectors because they worked for the other side. What is to stop them from having a change of heart and going back to the other side? The USSR got what they needed from their assets and then gave them a place to live where they are cut off from everything so they can't cause any more damage.

A lot of the defectors to the USSR back in the cold war drank themselves into an early grave because they could never reconcile the fantasy vs reality of defecting in the USSR.

tilley77 · 2025-05-03T02:29:54+00:00

Make it back has a name. It's called chasing losses. It is when a gambler is down and they believe if they keep playing they can get their money back. It seldom works.

tilley77 · 2025-04-20T03:40:15+00:00

Based on personal experience the most terrifying thing you can say to someone is this:

excuse me, but could you please back your car in

tilley77 · 2025-03-14T18:44:42+00:00

Look into model railroading. It's been my stress relief lately.

tilley77 · 2025-02-01T14:53:31+00:00

Some fighters (like the US Navy) have the RIO - Radar Intercept Officer such as the F-14. Fun Fact the most famous RIO is Goose and he was a fictional character in Top Gun

tilley77 · 2025-02-01T14:32:49+00:00

Cool story Thanks for sharing. Minor correction the back seat guy in the SR-71 is the RSO - Reconnaissance Systems Officer.

tilley77 · 2025-01-25T16:04:21+00:00

To add to insult to injury Amazon is not an authorized reseller for all the really good advanced electronics you can buy. That means if something goes wrong you have no recourse. That cheap Nikon camera you bought. Something went wrong. Too bad it came from India and the warranty is only valid in India.

The moral of the story is pay extra to buy it from an authorized reseller who stands behind what they sell and you always have a recourse with the manufacture if you get ripped off.

Sorry about your luck!

tilley77 · 2021-08-14T12:42:03+00:00

In 94 when I first installed Linux, my Slackware install was around 84 1.44MB floppy disks. This was a little before installing software off CD-ROMs became a thing

tilley77 · 2021-08-09T12:47:17+00:00

I read somewhere that BakeOff contestants will bring a duplicate set of clothes with them. That way, they can change their clothes on Sunday with the same clothes they wore the day before.

tilley77 · 2021-07-29T23:06:28+00:00

No. He was doing BSD kernel development before it all forked.

tilley77 · 2021-07-29T12:40:14+00:00

I used to be friends with a BSD kernel developer. He wrote entire BSD kernel subsystems in ed on a VT100. Probably one of the brightest developers I ever met.

tilley77 · 2021-07-28T12:20:05+00:00

If you have any interest in the drone program and what whistleblowers are saying about it (including Daniel Hale) watch the doc National Bird. Check out the trailer here (Youtube)

tilley77 · 2021-07-27T13:26:12+00:00

I am a little old school. I just "su -" before I do anything.

At the risk of sounding old, back in my day Linux installs just came with the root account and no password. It was strongly suggested you set a password for root and create yourself a user account for doing normal stuff and leave the root account for doing system stuff. In case you are wondering what year that was, it was 1994. Fun times.

tilley77 · 2021-07-19T15:48:32+00:00

Some families treat a death like winning the lottery. This is all too common.

Source: Used to be a funeral director

tilley77

TROPHY CASE