STRICTLY POSITIVE

Is it just me or did this week have eight days? Of course, if the extra day was the one on which they hauled Kim Davis off to jail it was totally worth it. But it's time for some better news, so here are a few fun, wonderful, and/or humorous things that crossed my path this week (or somewhat recently):

Exhibit A:  I don't explain, I just report. Here's what those wonderful weirdos in the Netherlands are up to:





Exhibit B: This is from a high school near where I grew up, which makes me all the madder we didn't get a damn school cat. (Of course, we didn't have to have 5.9 GPAs to get into college, either. Fair trade.) Bubba the cat lives with his owner in San Jose, California, near Leland High School and Bret Harte Middle School. Bubba made it clear early on that he is an outdoor cat and now spends almost all his time hanging out on school grounds. He's quite well-known by the students and has become a local celebrity. He's allowed to wander the hallways and hang out in classrooms, meowing whenever he wants to be let in or out. Sounds close to how my brother spent his school years (I kid!). Bubba even has his own school ID card. (h/t to Cathy and Elizabeth for this story).

Exhibit C:  An artist installed 100,000 white balloons inside London's Covent Garden. It's a pretty neat looking exhibit, which is supposed to, with the addition of pulsing lights, simulate the heart or some such thing. But I put all that aside when it struck me that they look like Dippin' Dots, which, although an ice cream abomination, still reminded me of ice cream and NOW I WANT ICE CREAM. So I'm not sure whether this is a positive item or not, but if I have to sit here craving ice cream, so do you. (Yeah, the positive has a bit of a snarky edge today, sue  me.)

Exhibit D:  Speaking of ice cream, artist Steve McMennamy creates interesting art using two pictures to create one image. They're pretty neat, although now I want ice cream AND donuts.

Exhibit E:  IKO is a creative prosthetic system designed for children by Carlos Tovar of Sweden. The system allows kids to envision and create their own prosthetic attachments out of Lego. The video below shows the system and the kids in action. Pretty neat stuff.

Exhibit F: There's no denying this is powerful video of a woman reuniting with a lion she helped save. They never forget, good or bad. Remember that. (Thanks to Janet for this one). Do we all now want a lion hug with our ice cream and donuts?



Exhibit G: Today G is for Genius. Ok, all you cat owners, the gauntlet has been thrown. This guy set up a game/reward system for his cat, Monkey. Every time Monkey tracks down a wiffle ball and puts it in the chute, he's rewarded with food. Thank goodness my mother was not mechanically inclined.




Exhibit H:  Librarians on bikes! “Book deserts" are low-income areas where kids don't have easy access to libraries or reading material. Some kickass librarians are combating the problem head-on, using inventive solutions to expand access to books and promote reading. Book vending machines and book buses are already in use and now there are book bikes. The Seattle Public Library started a Books on Bikes program in May 2013. "Seattle has a really strong bike culture so we wanted to tap into that and provide full service library programs but do it in a way that is nimble," says managing librarian Jared Mills, who spearheads the program. The library has three different bike trailers that librarians bring to community events, including one with a children's theme. The trailers are even equipped with wifi so books can be checked out on a reading device. Seattle is not alone in its bike and book efforts. In San Francisco, private school librarian and bicycle enthusiast Alicia Tapia started Bibliobicicleta, a donation-based library on bicycle, in May 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. (Hat tip to Elizabeth for this gem)

Exhibit I: What does this post have? An unbalanced amount of cat, that's what. Time for dogs to get some air time. My pal Elyse send this one my way, and it's a good'un. The Humane Society of Utah has teamed up with photographer Guinnevere Shuster to post better photographs of the dogs up for adoption. Better photographs have been proven to increase adoption rates (makes sense, right?), and Shuster has taken the concept another step and put the dogs in a photo booth for a four shot sequence. The results are both hilarious and beautiful. Check out the article and the shelter Facebook page (link can be found at the site here). Here are some examples:

FYI: This next guy is beautiful, but may not be for you if you want to play catch without risking him taking one right on the noggin'.

If someone doesn't adopt this guy and name him Walter Matthau, there is simply no justice in the world:

 I think I'm a little bit in love with this goofus:

Warning: This beauty has perfected the "Poor Pitiful Pearl" look and will be running your house inside of a day;

Go ahead and Like the Humane Society's Facebook page at your own risk. But if anyone adopts a dog there, I'll buy you six months' worth of dog food. Even 800-pound Walter Matthau.

Exhibit J: So it was a long day after a long week and I was feeling like pouring a bourbon and having a pity party when I got a Facebook alert. Which, to be honest, just made me want to pour more bourbon. But I'm glad I looked, because it was a share of this gem, which saved the evening. Thank you, Judy Bobalik! (And yes, it's cutting in line over the other things I have saved to share, but it's worth it.) And for some reason the code to the video is cutting off the rest of this post and I'm (surprise!) too big a mo to know how to fix it. So this beauty will suffice for Bird and other personal pics this week and we'll be back to our usual end-of-post programming next Friday. It's the perfect way to end the post anyway.

 TGIF, y'all.

Cute Golden Retriever Loves to Listen to Guitar
Watch this dog jam to the music and get mad when it stops.
Posted by Epic Videos on Wednesday, October 9, 2013