I have a kitten.

I have a kitten.

Although, to be perfectly honest, The Kitten belongs to my roommate. Minnie (the name of The Kitten) is a little less than a year old, so as a result, she loves to stay up late at night with me, and sleep through most of the day. As a result, I feel like I do have to take some ownership in the cat.

So, yes, I have a kitten. By continually repeating this statement, it invokes in my mind the beautiful "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. However, The Kitten is more like a consistent, nagging nightmare.

Don't be fooled by how cute she is in the photos I've attached - she is vicious. Lately, her favorite thing to do is to bite and scratch at my toes while I'm playing Starcraft 2 in the living room. This is doubly annoying, since 1) it messes up where I am in the game and 2) the little effer has sharp teeth. She managed to draw blood the last time she bit. What a savage!

Beyond biting at my feet, she also likes to dig her claws in whenever I try to move her from someplace she's not supposed to be. You know, like on my laptop computer. The other week I got a nice gash in my thigh for my efforts. She also likes to do cute things like climbing on top of the couch, jumping on my shoulder, and then clawing at my ear.

Lately, she has also taken to biting the computer cord to my Macbook. On one hand, a dark part of me kind of wants to see what would happen if she bit through it. But, this probably wouldn't go over well with the roommate, and besides, it still is just a cat. (We're both hoping she mellows out as she gets older, which is what happened with my roommate's other cat, Cleo, who is now six or seven years old.) I'm probably going to look into some Apple Bitter or another, similar product to get her to knock it off.

Speaking of the other cat, The Kitten LOVES to chase her. By "chase", I mean that she will try to chase Cleo, who will then hiss at her and smack her in the face. Even though Cleo doesn't have front claws, she's a bit bigger, and just generally more intimidating than The Kitten, who can't meow, just purr.

So anyway. That's the story of me and The Kitten. I'll be back to the regular entries on Baggage on Monday, and switching back to the more normal Monday-Wednesday-Friday production schedule for the game for the rest of the month, hopefully. Lates!

Storytime with Amanda Meyer: Crazy roomies, FreeCreditReport.com and Sonic

Back in the day, when Johnny Carson went on vacation, he would have Joan Rivers fill in as the guest host. Well, in an effort to lighten my writing load from seven entries a week to six, former Tag Team participant Amanda Meyer will be doing an entry every Saturday about the various crazy stories she has. I'm also not opposed to farming Sunday out, so if you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at sgre6768@gmail.com.

Here is my crazy roommate story as promised, which has somehow turned into a rant about Free Credit Report ads...

Anyone with cable has probably heard at least one of the many FreeCreditReport.com ads. You know, that geeky guy sings really awful jingles about how he didn't know that his "credit was whack." I find these songs very annoying, although catchy, and really hate when they get stuck in my head all day as they often did for a whole year while I was living in East Boston.

You see, my roommate did not find these annoying, she somehow found them awesome. I am sad to say, I now know each by heart...

She loved them so much they were on her iTunes, and she would sometimes start playing them during parties. This was always an awkward situation to explain to friends, and generally, they all ended up thinking she was crazy. I don't know what it is, but I seem to have odd luck when it comes to roommates.

However, in this situation I actually went from finding these ads annoying to downright wanting to throw objects through my television when they came on. Not only is the character singing clearly being dubbed over, he looks like he almost never showers and tends to make beyond-goofy facial expressions, which are a huge turn off from an advertising standpoint.

Furthermore, these are misleading ads and that is one of the first things pointed out when you visit the actual website. Why do I have to be subjected to a man singing about renaissance fairs, delinquent fiancees and credit roller coasters when all three major credit bureaus are required by law to give me my report once a year (and it's actually free)?

In another note entirely. SONIC.

Thanks for the entry Amanda! The last line is in reference to the great, wonderful news that a Sonic has finally opened in New England, which apparently is so popular it is affecting the traffic pattern, and the current plan is for me to visit it with her on Labor Day. I'll let everyone know how that turns out.

I also find myself humming the Free Credit Report songs, even if they are crass commercialism at its worst.