Phantasmic Links 5.31.10

I never thought I'd be happy to get a voicemail from my mom about her cat Cubby going to the bathroom on his own, but had he not, we would have been taking him to an animal hospital on Sunday afternoon, with our regular vet taking off for the holiday weekend. I was stuck in traffic, driving my dad and one of the trumpet players in our band back from a Memorial Day parade in Queens, when I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It wasn't until we dropped off our friend 20 minutes later that I was able to check. Cubby seems to be walking a little bit better too, and his appetite has returned. I think we can rule out kidney stones, and hopefully kidney failure, and most of the problem may have been his inability to put any weight on his back legs. If normal function continues through Monday, he'll be able to go back to our regular vet on Tuesday, and we'll find out how his urinary infection is responding to the antibiotics. He's almost 14 years old, and given our track record with cats, he should be around for another 3 or 4 years. It might be less than that, but at the very least he won't be leaving us this weekend as we'd feared. When I think about how our other cat Chirp recovered from a respiratory infection two years ago, and how feisty he is these days, I'm reminded of why people say cats have nine lives.

The weekend isn't over yet, and I've got two more parades to get through honoring veterans who gave their lives. And my dad, 7 weeks out of a heart bypass, actually played half a parade on Sunday. He's discouraged that he got tired and took a break until the parade route looped back around to the corner where he stopped, but has to understand he's still recuperating and actually did very well. It's better to stop when he feels tired than push and get chest pains or worse, and it will take time to get back to where he used to be. I don't know if he'll attempt the other two parades, and it will be more than understandable if he decides to skip them, even though they're short, local ones. As for me, I'm just resting between gigs, glad everyone I care about is breathing, and I'm surfing the web for PHANTASMIC LINKS:

(1) Check out this competition in which people have cleverly animated album covers. It took me a minute to see and appreciate the Mario one, this Beatles one was pretty clever, and I enjoyed the puns like Pastor of Muppets. There are a lot of geek references to things like Portal too. Many aren't as clever or well animated as others, but it's worth going through to see the gems.

(2) It's a testament to my own geek knowledge database that I recognized the authors of many of these comic character yearbook messages.

(3) This bow TIE fighter tuxedo t-shirt would be the perfect thing to wear to my wedding, if I wanted to scare her off at the last minute or test her level of commitment.
Hat Tip: J-No.

(4) I love photo manipulation; here are 40 masterful examples of it.

(5) Hello Worlds! is crazy fun, navigating a little gray octopus thing through parallel platforms collecting coins. Can you keep your eye on more than one world at once, where obstacles from one affect your character in another?

(6) The Death Star is everywhere....
H.T.: J-No.

(7) Transforming Italian furniture is not only more than meets the eye, but saves space!

(8) Customize the news you read with Topic Fire!
H.T.: Rey.

(9) Iron Baby may be the geekiest thing any parent has ever done using his child, but it may also be the coolest.

(10) Play alone or play against others in the race to find an Exit Path. Run and jump as fast as you can, avoiding increasingly challenging death traps and collecting hidden icons to unlock more achievements.

Have a link to a game, movie, article, or anything else you think might be “phantasmic”? E-mail me and it just might appear in an upcoming PHANTASMIC LINKS!