Quickies

Miniblogs today. I’ll just ramble until I hit the word count. Select whichever ones appeal to you.

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First, the big news: is Stray Kitty back from the dead? He vanished abruptly last January, after coming to my door for breakfast for well over a year. I kept watch for three months before I donated my remaining cans of cat food to the ASPCA. Nobody’s seen him around since then.

Until now. Once again we’ve got a black-and-white cat back roaming the neighborhood. He’s been down at my end of the street, but seems to hang out more at the other end. Other neighbors have seen him, so it’s not just my eyes going bad. But is it really him?

Could be. Or not. The most popular theory is, somebody caught him last winter and was keeping him indoors. That’s entirely possible. I tried more than once to entice him into the house and out of the subzero temps, but he wouldn’t go for it, even when tempted with food. There was no way I’d get close enough to grab him without a net. Our hypothetical cat lover may have used a live trap. However, if this was the case, whoever caught him never informed the neighbors. If he was indoors, he must have escaped and returned to his old haunts. I haven’t checked the porch since March and nobody else was putting food out, so it’s no wonder he doesn’t frequent our end of the street.

Personally, I don’t think it’s him. I got an extended look at him the other day when I spotted him crossing the street. This cat looks smaller, definitely thinner, and doesn’t move the way Stray Kitty did. SK stalked like a scale-model tiger. He moved like a wild animal. This new version moves like a regular cat. I’m inclined to believe this is a descendant, a kitten or grandkitten. Stray Kitty roamed the streets for three years, and he’d never been fixed. There’s a farm on the other side of Route 272, so unaltered females would have been available.

Or this could be history repeating itself, somebody’s pet who got loose. Black and white cats with his markings aren’t exactly scarce. The only way to be sure would be to get close to him. Good luck with that.

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The new TV season is now well underway, and I haven’t watched a single one of the new shows. I’ve even dropped some of my returning shows. I’m pretty much down to Bar Rescue, The Flash, Supernatural, America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway at this point. I’ll switch over to Sleepy Hollow when Project Runway wraps up. Not sure what I’ll do when Grimm comes back. That’s scheduled opposite ANTM, and I don’t have a working recording device. As usual, there are only a few shows I want to see, and they’re scheduled for the same time. Somebody somewhere really wants to piss me off.

The only new shows I want to check out are Supergirl (CBS attempts to hop onto the superhero bandwagon), and Legends of Tomorrow, the superhero group show on the CW spun off from Arrow and Flash. I’m turning into a fan of Wentworth Miller, who always steals the show as Captain Cold. Somebody else must like him, because they put him in a Yoplait commercial that’s a hoot. I shouldn’t skip the commercials. A lot of time they’re better than the shows they interrupt.

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Speaking of superheroes, comics and TV, Tuesday’s Flash episode was loaded with Easter eggs for us long-time comics fans. Not only did they do a live-action recreation of the cover where Barry Allen meets Jay Garrick, the Flash from the 1940s, but they introduced the concept of parallel universes. The Flash crew discovered 52 possible alternate worlds, a nod to DC’s “New 52” company-wide revamp of a few years ago. Back in the ‘80s DC had so many alternate worlds they ran a twelve-issue maxiseries (Crisis on Infinite Earths) and destroyed all the extras. Then they brought a few back. Then a few more. Then they rebooted the whole thing and started over with the New 52. Which they’ve had to reboot yet again because nobody liked the new versions of the characters. I don’t know how many alternate universes they have now, or care. I know they’re trying to make Superman edgy. Like trying to get close to a stray cat, good luck with that.

Now that DC has officially undone Crisis on Infinite Earths, Marvel just had their own version and wiped out a lot of their parallel universes. Now they’ve rebooted and are starting over with a slew of new first issues. Their motivation appears to be to downplay the Fantastic Four and X-Men, because Fox won’t give back the movie rights. Comic books, once cheap, disposable entertainment for kids, have bloated into a corporate cash cow under the control of CEOs and stockholders. At one time I wanted to be a comic book writer. I’m glad now I didn’t go in that direction.

Hmmm … between me dropping TV shows and comics, I’ll have more time to write. If I learn how to draw, I can make my own comics. Who needs you, Time-Warner? I’ve got paper and a pen! Enjoy your day, folks.