If you're anything like me, when you encounter a period of great uncertainty or emotional turmoil in your life, it can feel like your brain has pressed a big old "pause" button, making it near-impossible to even contemplate going about your life as normal. Your job feels like the least important thing in the world,...

Any time something bad happens involving a family member -- and cats are family members, I will brook absolutely no argument on this front -- it is easy to focus on that one member who is the focal point of whatever The Bad Thing is. In this case, the majority of our attention has, of...

We go home tomorrow, which is going to be somewhat bittersweet, as I'm sure you can imagine. There has been absolutely no sign of Oliver over the course of the last week, no contact from anyone who has seen him, no sightings reported on social media and -- perhaps thankfully? -- no reports that he...

We have both been feeling pretty upset today -- like, breaking down in tears upset -- so, during moments of clarity, we attempted to get out a bit and actually do some things rather than spending the entire day miserable. We actually ended up having a rather busy day as a result. This began with...

One of the nicest things about Center Parcs is that there is an absolute ton of incredibly tame wildlife around the place. Just today, we have seen a wild cat, several deer, a variety of birds and a bunch of squirrels. I will, of course, grant you that the reason the wildlife is so very...

Today we went to the swimming pool, the central attraction of most Center Parcs sites. We had a good time having a little swim in the nice warm outdoor "Sprudel pool" and sitting stewing in the outdoor jacuzzi for a bit. For the rest of the day, we've been trying to relax as best we...

Today was our visit to the "Aqua Sana" spa here at Center Parcs, and before the events of last week happened, we were both greatly looking forward to having a day of relaxation and pampering. We did manage that for the most part, but we also found that when you get into a situation where...

Just recently, Sega announced that it would be bringing back the beloved Crazy Taxi series with a new entry: Crazy Taxi World Tour. Hooray! Then they went and put a somewhat-ambiguous generative AI disclosure on their Steam page. Boo! I'm going to be absolutely clear and completely fuckin' up-front here: I will not be buying...

Well, we did what we said we were going to do: we got away from it all. Part of me still wants to be at home waiting with open arms for Oliver to return, but it's been a week. At this point I don't know if he's more or less likely to make it home...

I have posted more than 30 more flyers about Oliver today. Andie's mum went out calling for him last night. We have put out adverts on social media, informed the microchip company, informed our local vets, informed local cat charities. We have spent several nights staying up waiting, placing stinky pants, litter trays, favourite food...

One of the things I find difficult and, at times, frustrating to deal with, perhaps particularly as a person with an autistic spectrum condition, is properly conveying the emotions that I am feeling and the depth of those emotions. Our recent anguish over Oliver's disappearance is a prime example of this. I am feeling intense...

The thing about a grieving process -- whether it is a result of tangible loss or, as in our situation, simply not knowing what has happened -- is that it can very quickly and easily become all-consuming. It can take over your entire life; your entire mind; your entire heart; your entire soul. Photo by...

In the grand scheme of things, it has only been a few days since Oliver went missing, but it feels like an absolute eternity. I am still refusing to give up on him -- in fact, after I type this, I'm going to go out for a bit again -- but it is getting very...

We have run into a ginger cat in the area where our caller yesterday reported seeing him (we think it was a "him" anyway) -- both at night and, just now, in the daytime, and unfortunately, it was not Oliver. This cat was a very good cat, and quite friendly -- though also a tad...

Oliver still hasn't come back. We are, of course, still extremely worried and upset, and this is made all the more difficult by the fact that Patti has clearly realised something is wrong, too. She is very obviously looking around to try and find him, and earlier she let out an absolutely plaintive wail of...

Last night, one of the many "worst nightmare" situations a pet owner can encounter occurred: we realised that one of our beloved cats, the 3-year old ginger Oliver, was not anywhere to be seen. He often roams around the house a bit when it comes to our bedtime, so I wasn't initially concerned; I can...

Hello. I am Pete, and I love the Atari 8-bit range of computers. You probably knew that already, but I wanted to talk about it a bit today. By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18553927 I think I'm probably going to make a video along these lines sometime soon -- although my prior...

I read yesterday that several blogging platforms are integrating the "AT protocol" or whatever it's called that powers services like Bluesky and the like, and one of those was WordPress. So today's post is primarily a big ol' test to see whether or not that functionality, implemented via the ATmosphere plugin, actually works, and whether...