Posted by Bunny.
All of us are going to Las Vegas next week for our big meeting. We'll be gone June 12 to 18 so if you send an e-mail that requires a response we won't be able to answer until we get back.
Filtering by Category: 2007
Pinky Show Meeting, June 12-18
Posted by Pinky.
Bunny, Mimi, Kim and I will all be in Las Vegas for our first extended, multi-day Pinky Show meeting. On the agenda is a careful evaluation of what we've done since we started this project, and what we'd like to accomplish in the near future and beyond. Our top priority is to create a workable plan that will provide some source of income so that we can work on The Pinky Show full-time (rather that part-time, as we do now). This is important to me because I want to be producing and releasing new episodes a lot more frequently. There's so many things I want to learn and I only have a short time in order to do it. Before I'm gone I want the episode archives to have hundreds of episodes in it, not just a few dozen.
We chose Las Vegas for our meeting (instead of just staying at home) because we thought the unfamiliar surroundings might give us a different perspective. That and also we need some video and pictures for an episode we're working on about internal colonies. So we'll do some running around with cameras and tripods and such while we're there too.
Anyway, I just wanted to mention that we'll be 'out of the office' next week (I've always wanted to say that) just in case you write us an e-mail and it takes us longer than usual to reply. Everyone please take care.
~p.
Cat-Haters Throughout History
Posted by Pinky.
I just came across some trivia on the internet. Did you know there is a word - ailurophobia - that describes the 'extreme or irrational fear of cats'? I'm aware that there's lots of people out there who don't like us (for whatever reasons), but I'd never heard of that word before.
And since it's always a good idea to know who your enemies are, I also copied down some names of 'well-known cat-haters'. I think this means these people are famous and they are also known to hate cats - not that they became famous by hating cats:
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.-323 B.C.)
Julius Caesar (100 B.C.-44 B.C.)
Wu-Chao, Empress of China (624-705)
Pope Gregory IX (1147-1241)
Genghis Kahn (~1150-1227)
Pope Innocent Vll (1336-1415)
Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492)
Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
King Louis XlV (1638-1715)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)
Isadora Duncan (1878-1927)
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Wow, look at the people on that list! (Although... doesn't Isadora Duncan seem a little out of place on that list?) I found this commentary interesting:
"It may be that men with dreams to dominate the world can't get used to the idea that cats won't submit to them." (www.rulingcatsanddogs.com)
I guess that's worth considering - it's true, we don't take to demands to submit very well (why should we?)...
Here's another bit of anti-cat trivia from www.pawsonline.info:
"Chicago banker Rockwell Sayre must have been the world's worst cat-hater. He lived in the early 1920's, and started a campaign to rid the entire world of cats by the year 1925. He offered financial rewards to cat killers.
He said that cats were "filthy and useless" and claimed to have inspired the killing of seven million cats during the first three months of his campaign. In 1925 he extended his campaign for a further ten years, as there were many cats still left. But soon after he himself died."
Seven million cats?! Even if he was exaggerating, obviously this guy had a lot of cooperation from other cat-haters. And I take offense to the "filthy" remark (I conceed that the 'useless' part is debatable).
What's up with people hating us so much they're willing to kill us? I have never heard of any cat organizing the murder of 7 million human beings. I bet even in the entire history of the planet not even sharks have killed 7 million human beings. Obviously human beings have some 'issues' that seriously need addressing...
~pinky
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Posted by Bunny: Can't prove it, but my theory is that cat-hating is closely tied to women-hating and nature-hating. History is filled with countless examples of people abusing, torturing, and killing cats. People have been projecting their fears, neuroses, anxieties, or whatever on us for thousands of years. People are crazy; we suffer the consequences.
....................................
Posted by Mimi: We are survivors.
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Posted by Kim: "Beware of people who dislike cats." - Irish Proverb
New Episode: The Iraq War - Legal or Illegal?
Posted by Bunny.
Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, we finally finished our 24 minute summary on the illegality of the Iraq war and occupation. See it here.
More news: we now have an assortment of Pinky Show shirts in our support area. They are very nice shirts. All proceeds from shirts (and posters, dvds, etc.) go directly to the production of new episodes. So buy lots of stuff - we have lots of subjects we want to explore in yet-to-be-created episodes. Thank you.
~B.
The New Pinky Show Store
Posted by Bunny.
I finally finished The Pinky Show Support area. Check it out and let me know what you think. We'll be adding more stuff to it over the coming weeks/months. 100% of all proceeds & donations will go towards the creation of new episodes. Thanks.
Data: Lumpy vs. Diffuse
Posted by Pinky.
Mimi and Kim came back from their vacation tonight. They got back around 9 p.m. and then went straight to bed. I guess I'll ask them how their trip was tomorrow. Anyway, we're happy they got back safely.
Earlier tonight I was reading an article about the shooting murder-suicide at Virginia Tech. 32 people were killed, the murderer also died when he shot himself. I was thinking about the horror of that number - 33 people suffering and dying like that is just so sad, not to mention all the other people who were physically injured or emotionally traumatized that day. The article went on to call it 'the deadliest single-perpetrator shooting in United States history'.
I suppose it's natural to compare one tragic day to other tragic days - it's not a pleasant thing to do but I can kind of understand the logic of doing so. But then I got to thinking - what about comparing tragic days to ordinary days?
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2005 there were 14,860 murders. 10,100 of those people were killed with a gun. Divided by 365, that's an average of about 28 people killed with a gun every day. I guess you could say that in terms of number of victims, it's kind of like having a Virginia Tech mass killing every single day, except it's spread out all over the country.
Another way to think about that number is to say that every month in the U.S. about 850 people are shot to death. One way you can imagine the relative scale of this number is to know that the average size of an elementary school in the United States (According to Education Statistics Quarterly 1995-1996 data) is 428 students. So if you can imagine a person with a gun going to an average-sized elementary school and then executing every single student there, and then going to another school and then doing the same thing over there too - well, that's how many people are getting shot to death each and every month in the United States.
It's fairly peaceful out here in the middle of the desert, so much so that it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of 'there's nothing going on'. I certainly don't think about gun violence every day, even though it certainly looks like it never really stops. Maybe the occurrences aren't sufficiently 'lumped together' enough to warrant our concern. We seem drawn to 'exceptional stories' and 'big numbers' - apparently even when the big numbers are actually smaller than the everyday numbers.
~p.
We Missed Our Anniversary
Posted by Pinky.
I was looking over some of my 'old' records when I came across the notes from the very first meeting where Bunny and I had discussed the possibility of creating The Pinky Show. When I saw the date on those notes - April 4, 2005 - I got really excited. I thought I'd stumbled upon these notes exactly two years to the day. Wow! This must mean we should celebrate! I ran to show Bunny...
Bunny: *looking at the notes* "It's May."
Me: "Huh?"
Bunny: "April 4th was last month. You missed it by a whole month..."
Oops.
Okay, so apparently I have a hard time remembering what month I'm in. But whether its been 2 years or 2 years+1 month, I think we do have some things to be thankful for. We've actually made some good progress since we started - it's not easy to draw up The Pinky Show with a two-cat production team, and the feedback has been really encouraging. It's also been a real struggle to make ends meet at times, but somehow we're still here. And although we haven't been able to work on this project full time, that's still our goal and I have good feeling that sooner or later something nice will happen if we keep on pushing this project forward.
I'm especially excited about the work we're planning for this summer/fall. I don't want to say too much about it before we get more of the details worked out, but I will say that it's basically a multi-episode series based on a walk across the United States. It'll probably be Bunny who does the walking. It's not going to be easy so she's already started preparing herself. More details later.
~pinky
1st Pinky Show T-Shirt Design Chosen
Posted by Pinky.
We've been keeping track of the voting for a few weeks, and it seems that these two are, by a pretty decent margin, the most popular:
Being that it's kind of hard to anticipate how many people are really going to order a t-shirt, we decided to just make one design to start off with. If we do get orders and people want more desigs, we were thinking we could always add more later.
Anyway, after some discussion we decided to do the design on the right (the one where I'm standing up). We chose this one for a couple of reasons: 1) it's a one-color design (easier to print than the 4-color design on the left); and 2) we thought it was a little weird to have just my severed head on a t-shirt without the rest of me.
Personally I also like that design the best because it doesn't say "The Pinky Show" or have our URL on it. I know that's supposed to be 'good advertising' but I think maybe people who like the Pinky Show might just want a t-shirt with a Pinky Show-type picture on it, without having to become a walking billboard for our show. I figure if people really want to help us get more viewers it probably makes more sense for them to just tell their friends about us. I doubt anybody ever sees a URL on a t-shirt and thinks to themselves, "gee, I better memorize that URL and remember to check that out later today when I get home from work...". You know what I mean. So now it'll just be a very quiet and semi-secret relationship between me and the person wearing the shirt. Does that make sense?
We still have to buy some 'blank' shirts and also practice our screen printing technique. Assuming they come out nice, we'll send out an announcement via the newsletter when we have some shirts ready to go.
Okay, that's everything going on in the world of t-shirts. Back to work - Bunny and I are still working on the Iraq War episode. These episodes take a while because we like to double- and triple-check all the information, over and over again. Mimi & Kim are on vacation at the moment. Our goal is to be done with the episode and surprise them with it when they get back next Monday night. It'll be tight; there's still quite a lot to do.
Take care,
pinky
Server Crash; Pinky Show "Financial Report" & Tentative Plans
Posted by Pinky.
Our computer server that holds the Pinky Show website crashed on Friday due to some kind of hardware malfunction. As you can see our website is now back online, but my last diary entry got lost. I got all grumpy because that entry was actually a long one and it took me a long time to write.
So anyway, just in case you missed it, here is a not-as-carefully-written summary (a.k.a. the "financial report"):
• After carefully reviewing our 2006 accounting records, Mimi has determined that The Pinky Show project is not financially sustainable. We either need to find a way to pay our bills or shut down.
• We currently have a small group of very generous individuals who have taken it upon themselves to keep The Pinky Show alive. But except for these donors, we basically receive no donations. Since launching this website the amount of visitors we receive has grown tremendously every month. However, comparing the site traffic data to donations records, Mimi estimates that more than 99.9% of our visitors don't make donations. (yikes!) So although we do have a few very faithful supporters, we also haven't come close to being able to sustain The Pinky Show through donations from the viewing public in general.
• Bunny is almost done with The Pinky Show Online Store. Not that we think we're going to sell tons of t-shirts or posters or whatever; this is actually just something we wanted to do because we thought it'd be cool to have our own online store.
• Up till now we've been paying our bills by working various 'side jobs' unrelated to The Pinky Show. For example, Bunny and I have worked with an independent publisher on a number of educational projects; Bunny has built a few websites for some non-profits, artists, and so on; I've done some photography & design work for various organizations; Mimi has been doing research and consulting on health-related issues; etc. All this stuff brings in some money but it's also been taking away time from working on The Pinky Show. This is the main reason why we don't release new episodes very often. Our long term goal is to be able to stop doing this stuff and dedicate 100% of our time to making new episodes. Eventually we want to be releasing a new episode every week. But in order to do that, first we have to figure out where funding for this project is going to come from.
• After much discussion, we've decided that the most promising option at the moment is to try to fund The Pinky Show through grants. So Mimi and I have spent the past several weeks doing a lot of grants research and writing; this will probably continue until our financial situation changes. Neither of us are particularly good grant writing, I hope we get better as we go along!
• Any time we have to work on Pinky Show stuff will be roughly divided 70/30: 70% of our time writing for grants and 30% of our time producing new episodes. At one point we even talked about the possibility of using 100% of our time to try to secure some kind of funding before proceeding. But in the end we decided that we really don't want to let the website to become totally "dead". So while we'll still be making episodes, our output will drop off quite a bit (by about 70% I guess).
Hmm - I think that's about it. For some reason I still feel pretty optimistic that one day The Pinky Show will find a broad enough audience that we'll be able to work on this project full-time. We intend on keep on working on this until we either succeed, or receive some kind of clear message that there's no audience out there willing to support this project. Making The Pinky Show is really fun, so of course I'm hoping that eventually we'll be able to grow it into something permanent.
Sorry for the lousy report, I just don't feel like writing the same post again, and anyway, my memory is not so good. Now back to grant writing for me and Mimi. That plus Bunny and I are getting close to finishing up another episode.
~pinky
Wallpaper
Posted by Bunny.
Free Pinky Show wallpaper for your computer available below.
Infinite Cat Project
Posted by Bunny.
Our new favorite website: http://www.infinitecat.com/. You must go there, because it is awesome. 1,400+ cats contemplating the infinite. This is what the internet was invented for. Mike Stanfill, the human being who runs the site, e-mailed us to let us know that he had made The Pinky Show website his "Cat Site of the Week". Yes!
LOLcats Posted
Posted by Bunny.
My favorite meme cats now in the Special:Photos area. Most of these photos are from Meme Cats (of course) and I Can Has a Cheezburger?.
[ Update: the 'Special' area is closed now so the photos are below. ]
My Doctor Visit; Fundraising
Posted by Pinky.
Today was my turn to visit Dr. Wendy. The visit was short, maybe 20 minutes, because basically I'm pretty healthy. She gave me a shot and put me on the same heart worm medication that Bunny is on. The heart worm medication is about $50 for a 3 month supply for the two of us. All together our check-ups cost over $300. I think in the future we're going to have to stagger our visits to the doctor because the way it is now, we both go at around the same time and then we are broke. I have no idea how we are going to pay for food and electricity next month. Our bank account is nearly empty and it's interesting how that directly affects how much time we can spend on creating new episodes.
We need to do some fundraising. Maybe in the short term we can sell some t-shirts or cookies or something, but if we want to be able to keep working on The Pinky Show, eventually we're going to have to do something more ambitious.
Fundraising idea #1: Bunny stands on a tall pole. You know who David Blaine is? A few years ago he stood on a 90 foot high pole (22 inches wide) for over 30 hours without eating or sleeping. At the end he jumped off into a pile of cardboard boxes. Scary. Well Bunny says she can stand on a pole twice as high as that (and narrower on top too) for even longer. I'm not crazy about this idea because I don't know how we'd ever build a pole that large to stand on, and anyway, it just sounds too dangerous.
conceptual rendering
Fundraising idea #2: I walk across the country, from Los Angeles to New York. I could bring a video camera and interview interesting people I meet along the way. I've always wanted to see this country from 'up close'. Negative: I'm kind of worried about getting run over by a car or truck along the way.
Fundraising idea #3: Apply for grants. Not as exciting as #1 or #2 but also less likely to result in death.
I'm trying to remain optimistic that we'll be able to find some kind of solution to our money problems fairly soon. Either that or this little experiment of ours is over.
~pinky
Mr. crazy wolf Writes Back
Posted by Pinky.
I was hoping Wolfgang/crazy wolf would write back, and he did. It's a good e-mail - very helpful in explaining where he's coming from, and I thought everyone would benefit from reading it and considering its implications (For those of you who missed what this is in regards to, please see the diary entries about ants - April 2 and 6):
dear Pinky
this is a very complex issue
in that our current hypermodern culture is disconnected in varying degrees from 'feeling'
which can be stated as pitiless [read compassionless]
when I use the word ancient peoples
I could use the term 'primitive peoples'
but I avoid that term because of the implied inferiority
ancient peoples understood that they were a part of a cosmos
one spirit among many
the idea was that everything was imbued with spirit
and that to act against anything without pity
was to invite catastrophe
pity compassion reverence are all roots of the same tree
hypermodernism has abandoned these roots
in other words 'the roots of life'
in favor of the 'right' of the freedom of 'aesthetic expression'
this freedom of aesthetic expression dominates both art and science
the ancients understood the importance of limits or taboos
their cosmology/mythology was full of stories about the consequences of transgressing these limits
the guiding principle could be expressed as an 'aesthetics of pity'
our modern and hypermodern culture is clearly one of destruction
even if we were to remove from the critique mans inhumanity to man
consider that without reservation the wholesale destruction of hundreds of millions of living organisms when chemically spraying an acre field during food[?] production
the word production is an indicator of what is really transpiring
one example
there or countless others
so yes
there is another way of being here
a way that has been 'intellectually' neutered by those who inhabit the ivory towers of power
a way that would render this jewel planet a livable paradise for a million years into the future
a way that has been all but erased from our collective hypermodern consciousnessremember the Yoko Ono / John Lenon campaign
'The War Is Over'
(if you want)still true
some suggested reading
Wisdom Of The Mythtellers - Sean Kane
Spell Of The Sensuous - David Abram
Art and Fear - Paul VirilioPinky
consider pity [compassion]
almost everything that you post on your Pinky Show
speaks of the pitiful [full with compassion] or the pitiless [without compassion]
I do not see it as that big of a leap to perceive the entire cosmos from this perspective
including antsas Thich Nhat Hanh expresses - PEACE IS EVERY STEP
crazy wolf
I need to study this further. I feel like I respect the perspective but I don't want to just acknowledge this with words and then move on with my life unchanged.
~pinky
60 minutes Video
Posted by Bunny.
Check out the 13 min. video Under the Influence: How Lobbyists Wrote and Bought the Prescription Drug Bill (from the mainstream news program 60 Minutes). Link from here. Unbelievable.
[ dead link ]
Bunny Visits the Doctor
Posted by Pinky.
All of us go once a year to the doctor and today was Bunny's turn. I don't think any of us enjoy visiting Dr. Wendy even though on a personal level she is a nice person. Every visit involves a lot of poking, grabbing, shining bright lights in our eyes, and so on. But we go anyway because I guess it's important to try to be healthy. That and going to the doctor is the only way I know of where we can get heart worm medicine.
I don't know exactly why but Bunny was SO cranky today and we all had to basically shove/drag her all the way to the doctor's office (not easy since she is really strong!). And when she got there she also fought and struggled with Dr. Wendy and assistant, but of course they are much larger and stronger and have four hands and a towel to wrap her with, so Bunny eventually lost.
The most shocking part to me was when they washed out her ears - they were so dirty inside. Dr. Wendy says Bunny is being lazy and not grooming enough. I guess we will all be grooming more from now on. Next Friday is my turn, bleh. Not looking forward to that...
So anyway, when Bunny got home she went straight to grooming then right after that she went to sleep. It's almost midnight and she's still sleeping - all that excitement must have wore her out.
~pinky
E-mail re: Ants & Poison
Posted by Pinky.
I wanted to share with everybody an e-mail I received from crazy wolf (a.k.a. Wolfgang). It's about my poisoning the ants the other day (April 2nd diary entry):
hello Pinky
about your ant problem [wild ants]
killing them is not the answer
using poison is an absolute 'evil'
save our planet and yourself
by being what you teachmany ancient peoples have understood the inter[connectedness] of life on this jewel planet
they knew that to keep the undesired spirits away from the household or village
an offering had to be made
a recognition of the other
honoring the other
so
with regard to ants
the ancients made an offering of food [daily]
to their ant relatives
the offering was made in close proximity to the ants home[s]
but in a direction away from the village
this act of 'life'
created harmonyPinky
make peace not warcrazy wolf
After thinking about it for a while, I wrote him back:
Hi Wolfgang,
Thank you for your letter. The ant incident has been bothering my conscience a lot. I think using poison was a bad thing to do. When an emergency arises your first reaction or 'solution' tells a lot about where your mind and heart is at. It made me sad that the only thing that I could think of at the time was that I had to kill all the ants. I wonder what I would have come up with if they were not ants but maybe tigers, owls, or something else. I certainly wouldn't have tried to poison them. Anyway I thought it was wrong but then I also couldn't think of an alternative. So thank you for writing me, I think it's a very different kind of relationship with ants (and others) that you're talking about. I will have to try this way of doing things and make an offering, but it'll be just the one tentative step since it's not like I deeply understand that way of being you describe.
You mention 'ancient people' and speak of this way of being in the past tense. Are there many people who are like this today or are they all gone? Are you someone who is like this?
Take care,
pinky
I'm very grateful that Bunny made us this website. We often receive very thought provoking e-mails and each one is like a mini-opportunity to learn from people from all over the world. One of the things that I'm having the most difficulty with is trying to imagine how to live a more respectful life on a day to day basis in this modern world. I wonder if Mr. crazy wolf will write back.
~pinky
"My Ants" or "Just Ants"?
Posted by Pinky.
Lately we've been having an escalating ant problem. Not with my ants (my AntFarm™ ants) but for some reason the 'wild' ant population around here seems to have quadrupled in the past month or so. They've been getting in our food, they try to make nests among our books and papers - today I even found some walking on our computer. When I opened up the computer case I totally freaked out - they were moving in! (carrying baby ants in, etc.) Gross! I'm sure a thousand ants living in the computer would make it crash and then we'd lose all our data. I shut down the computer, I told them to leave immediately; they ignored me and kept on bringing more ant-stuff. I tried to brush them away with a feather duster but then they just ran all over the place and made me all confused and panicky. It was insane, there were just too many of them. I followed their ant trail outside to their giant ant nest and when I saw that there were several thousand more of them out there, I realized that I really had to do something to stop them. I mean, I love ants, but these ants are sort of like out-of-control or something, and we can't have them destroying our computers (we can't make The Pinky Show without computers). So Bunny and I walked into town and... (*gulp*) bought some ant poison. I feel so awful even saying that. When we came back I said a prayer and we dropped a bunch of ant poison into all the big ant nests we could find around here. Then I cleaned off the computer as best as I could and moved it to a new location. It's been about 6 hours since I poisoned the ants and already there's noticeably fewer ants walking around. Some of the ants I do see here and there look weak and disoriented and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they fall over and die. I feel really sad. Isn't it so strange how I love my AntFarm™ ants so much and I wouldn't ever do anything to harm them; yet these other ants, just because they don't live in a small plastic container I felt like I had to kill them all? Other than the plastic container, I think actually all ants are the same.
~pinky
Report: Human Being Birthday Party
Posted by Bunny.
As part of our ongoing attempt to 'learn about human beings', we routinely observe them (spying) from a distance. That's what we did today; it was my turn (Bunny) to take notes.
There's a trailer park not too far from where we live. Today we observed a family having a birthday party for one of their children. They had colorful balloons and twisty crepe paper streamers. No piñatas. Two mini-vans and a Volkswagen car arrived with three families (8 kids total) in them. Then the daddy-of-the-trailer took out a small-size inflatable swimming pool and blew that up with a foot-pump. The kids stood around and watched and apparently when you are 4 or 8 years old this is exciting. When he was done they put some water in the pool (not much) and then the daddy blew up little inflatable things that went around the kids' arms and then they all jumped around in the tiny pool, making much splashing. Then the daddy took out an inflatable slide that was maybe about 5 feet tall and shaped like a killer whale. He blew that one up with the same foot pump. We all thought that his leg must be getting very tired. When he was done with that the kids lost interest in the small swimming pool and they all started using the slide. Then all the adults went in and the kids were playing by themselves for a long time (we thought that was very dangerous but none of them died or anything). Then for some reason the bigger kids decided to make the smallest child sit in the pool while they tried to flip it over. They struggled with that for a while (the small child stayed put) and finally they figured out how to get the side bent down and then the water gushed out. Then the wind picked up the pool and it blew away real fast like a huge kite. Must be the small kid wasn't in it by then. All in all we enjoyed their birthday party.
~B.
Globalization, Part III
Posted by Bunny.
This is our last episode on the subject of globalization for now (see it here). It's basically about Third World debt. Of the three this one is my favorite.
We have scripts for 3 or 4 more episodes with the same comic, this time on the subject of colonization. But we'll do those later. For the time being I want to work on something else - we still have that Iraq episode plus a couple others to finish up.
One of the reasons why we got a few days late with finishing up this episode is because I got busy making a new area for this website. For now we're just calling it the 'Special' area. We are going to put mini-reviews of websites, movies, and other stuff we like in there. We also have a new page of human beings. I like that page.
~B.