My friend Sophie is very ill, so a little over a week ago she asked if I’d sit her dog Hallie. Though Hallie is a great big bitch and has a few odd personality quirks, she is a frequent visitor to Sunset and mostly knows how to behave herself out here. Also, Axel is her buddy and she generally follows his lead, so sometime after sunrise I let them out, then go back to bed and let them in again when I get up around 9. They’re both older dogs (Axel is 10 and Hallie 11 or 12), so about three hours of running around in the dewy, dewy grass is generally sufficient exercise, and they mostly just lounge and nap the rest of the day. Alas, it was different on the night of the 4th; though Trip prefers to spend 95% of his time outside, he is terribly afraid of fireworks, so as soon as they start he wants to be inside. But even inside, he gets spooked when the noise peaks, so on Saturday night the only way to keep him from running around, knocking breakables over, was to invite him onto the couch where I could pet him while assuring him that Danger Man would protect us from the scary noises (in all seriousness, I think the TV sound helped drown out the pops, cracks, and booms). Axel jumped up right beside him, which meant Hallie spent the next several hours in an elaborate dance: stand around looking forlorn until I tell her to lie down, then look at me as though she doesn’t understand until I point to the easy chair. Then get in the chair; lie contentedly for about 15 minutes; get up to wander around aimlessly until I tell her to lie down; lie on the floor for about 10 minutes; get up again and wander around aimlessly a bit more; then go back to looking forlorn and start the cycle again. Oh, well, it was only one night; the rest of the time, dogsitting is an easy way to help a friend, and barely even impacts my schedule.
Posts Tagged ‘animals’
Diary #836
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, holidays, psychology, Sunset on July 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Diary #835
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, drugs, psychology, Sunset on June 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »
I’m pleased to report that Axel is completely off of the trazodone which the shelter had him on. When I first got him at the end of November, he was on 400mg/day, an immense dose for a 20kg animal. So I immediately started weaning him off, at first reducing the dose by 50mg/day every week, then once we were down to 100mg/day slowing the reduction to 25mg/day every few weeks. At the end of April he was down to 25mg/day, then for all of May 12.5mg/day, and then at the beginning of June I started skipping days between doses; since I saw no difference in his behavior between med days and no-med days, his last dose was a week ago, Monday the 22nd, and he’s just fine. He no longer chases the cats or snaps at strangers, and he isn’t nearly as high-strung as he was just a few months ago; about the only relics of his former problems are a tendency to eat cat shit (I know it isn’t an unusual dog behavior, but I’ve never owned a dog that did it before) and some separation anxiety. He no longer gets upset when he doesn’t see me, unless I go off in a car; when I get back, even if I’m only gone for a couple of hours, he cries and runs around when I return until I pet him and calm him down. Given that I was told his first owner died when he was seven, my guess is that the owner went off to the hospital in a car and never came back, so he is afraid when I leave in a car. But other than those comparatively minor issues, I’d say he has passed his good boy tests with flying colors, and demonstrated that he was exactly the right choice to bring into our Sunset family.
Diary #833
Posted in Diary, Philosophy, tagged animals, Grace, Oklahoma, psychology, Sunset on June 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
After talking to a large animal vet back in November, I knew Jonathan didn’t have much time left, but I wasn’t sure exactly what the end would look like for him. He’s had a couple more of those fainting spells, but on those occasions I was able to help him up. But last week he was uninterested in his feed, then on Thursday our neighbor who borrows barn space from us came by and found him lying on the barn floor, refusing to get up. It was very obvious he was suffering, so the neighbor offered to have his son-in-law, who is good at such things, come over to put him down. A few years ago, we rented an earth-mover to do a few things, and Grace dug a big hole out front we were planning to use to put a transplanted rhododendron in. But due to miscommunication, she dug the hole much too deep, and due to other issues we never got the rhododendron, so we’ve had a pit large enough for a llama out there ever since. I therefore accepted the neighbor’s help, and he used his tractor to bury Jonathan in the pit. He had a good life, and it was his time, but it’s going to seem rather strange to have no llamas around for the first time in 20 years. And now that Trip and Speck are the only two beings left who moved here with me from Oklahoma, it does contribute to the strange yet not upsetting feeling that my world is contracting, as it so often does as we move slowly toward the day when we, too, must pass.
Links #832
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged acting, advertising, animals, Arkansas, artificial stupidity, comics, cops, dirty, games, Indiana, Italy, Korea, masturbation, psychology, racism, recipes, restaurants, Sweden, video on June 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »
You don’t fucking hate them enough. – “Officer” Michael Kennedy
I’ve always counted Warner Brothers’ Merrie Melodies as the first music videos (short films intended to market a song), but I recently discovered this video, which pushes the mark back almost as far as it can go, to barely after the advent of sound movies. This is a sequence from King of Jazz (1930), a two-strip technicolor feature which is apparently a compilation of such videos; this is an abridged arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and I’ve recently added the disc to my Amazon wishlist because I’d love to see the whole thing. The links above the video were provided by Shiv Ramdas; Nun Ya; IncarcerNation; Radley Balko; Popehat; C.J. Ciaramella; Jesse Walker and Franklin Harris, in that order.
- As one does.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Another case of driving while black.
- The puritans are really out of control.
- Another great moment in artificial stupidity.
- Another cop demonstrating exactly what he is.
- R.I.P. Marjane Satrapi and Anthony Stuart Head.
From the Archives
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- HuffPost asked several well-known sex workers about the the Trump trial.
- Pornhub has repeatedly & commendably refused to facilitate state spying.
- How long will Western society allow cops to terrorize traumatized women?
- Prison bureaucrats quash information about the conditions in their cages.
- Every Friday 13th, I ask those who aren’t sex workers to stand up for us.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, Prentis Hancock, Clifton Jones, and much more.
- If cops weren’t allowed to rob people, there’d been nothing to embezzle.
- Maine is once again attempting to impose Swedish-style criminalization.
- Government reform policies, like other political promises, are worthless.
- Some believe they can live forever by eliminating all pleasure from life.
- The only way to stop these maniacs is to hit them where it hurts most.
- Cops, Rube Goldberg, Pat Robertson, Barry Newman, and much more.
- Politicians so mindlessly censorious they imagined they could win this.
- Give aggressive thugs power over kids; what could possibly go wrong?
- The State tortures thousands of people for crossing an imaginary line.
- Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
- Musk steals every American’s data to feed his surveillance machine.
- Why are people shocked when men paid to behave violently, so so?
- Just when you thought this kangaroo court couldn’t sink any lower…
- As I keep saying: these algorithms are not “intelligent” in any way.
- If one virus can be cured this way, there is hope for others as well.
- Amateurs could learn so much about safer sex from professionals.
- Censors now pretend thoughts they don’t like constitute a “crime”.
- It’s rare these days to see a judge side with justice against power.
- Prosecutors have backed away from labeling this “sex trafficking”.
- Other California cops are learning from drone-happy Chula Vista.
- There’s psychopathy and there’s pure evil, and then there’s this.
- Any country which does this has no business calling itself “free”.
- Too many people still believe in the innate goodness of religion.
- Crypto-moralists will declare any widely-enjoyed food “unsafe”.
- The people the government empowers to police your sexuality.
- For a warden to be charged, there must be much more to this.
- Hordes of useful idiots want this kind of repression in the US.
- Another shameless reminder that I depend on your support.
- Oh look, it’s what I was saying FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO.
- Kansas politicians want to circumvent the will of the voters.
- Government will always use any excuse to expand tyranny.
- Texas cops are trying to pretend this isn’t hate-motivated.
- A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners.
- Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors.
- Another of “rescue” conman Tim Ballard’s many frauds.
- Throwback Thursday vs. the Creature from Blood Cove.
- Is an “associate pastor” anything like a “youth pastor”?
- Life now for the subjects of a surveillance state.
- Your “leaders” want this to happen more often.
- Cops, punctuation, kung fu, and much more.
- I’m glad to see FIRE getting involved in this.
- The worst sinus allergy I’ve ever endured.
- Cops are a menace to women of all ages.
- On the occasion of Grace’s 66th birthday.
- A welcome visit from two dear friends.
- Throwback Thursday vs Frankenstein.
- Introducing Throwback Thursdays.
- How to be a stupid, greedy whore.
- A simple stile does the job.
- The vestibule shapes up.
- Your “leaders” at work.
- Gere Curam Mei Finis.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Diary #832
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset, video on June 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »
This has got to be the most timid brood of pullets I’ve ever had. They’ve been completely out of the nursery for three weeks now, yet every morning when I check on them, they’re still perching in a tight little group on the roost with the turkey. So every day when I come back in the early afternoon to throw out some scratch, top off their water, and collect the eggs, I have to shoo them off the roost and out the door so they can at least start getting used to the adult hens. It isn’t like the hens are being aggressive to them, either; I haven’t seen a single instance of pecking. But within a few hours of my shooing them out, they’re back on the roost. So I reckon I’ll just need to keep on this way until they finally join the flock, which I’m hoping will happen at least by the end of the month.
Links #831
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged animals, artificial stupidity, cell phones, cops, Florida, hotels, imaginative fiction, Nebraska, New York, politicians, robots, Twitter, video on June 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »
I had about six Coors Light at the VFW. – Tammy Robinkoff
This improvisation by saxophone great Sonny Rollins was provided, along with his obituary, by Jesse Walker; the other links above the video were provided by Radley Balko; Mike Masnick; Nun Ya; Popehat; Mike Siegel; Asawin Suebsaeng and Sean, in that order.
- But for video.
- Your “leaders” at work.
- The truth is often painful.
- I hate it when this happens.
- R.I.P. Sonny Rollins and Marcia Lucas.
- More great moments in artificial stupidity.
From the Archives
- Cops, artificial stupidity, reefer madness, William Russell, and much more.
- I was fated to be threatened with state violence regardless of career path.
- Texas is completely uninterested in controlling its psychopathic politicians.
- Politicians blatantly lying about a facility to train cops to brutalize citizens.
- There have been too few nuisance lawsuits for Louisiana politicians’ taste.
- Politicians don’t care how much money they waste on culture war theater.
- “Sex trafficking” rhetoric is popular under this racist, anti-migrant regime.
- “Safety” has become the State’s universal excuse for violating civil rights.
- China’s campaign to silence expatriates has become far more aggressive.
- Damage done by prohibition is never limited to the obvious target group.
- Texas’ rulers say doctors should just hope prosecutors don’t target them.
- This would be hilarious if the fools were throwing away their own money.
- This is exactly why there are so many homeless people in the first place.
- Cramming young heads so full of nonsense there’s no room for learning.
- It’s always nice to see authoritarian fanatics hoist with their own petard.
- “There is no reason to believe anyone aided him.” So negligent screws.
- Similar cases have already been ruled unconstitutional in other circuits.
- It’s a relief to see courts sending so many ambulance-chasers packing.
- Conditioning kids to accept constant, intrusive surveillance is working.
- Sometimes it’s good to have an excuse for behaving like an imbecile.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a rare gem, and Angel a worthy spinoff.
- I’m glad I grew up when kids avoided grownups whenever possible.
- It’s too bad cops don’t spend all their time policing their own gang.
- New forms of intrusive surveillance are always justified as “safety”.
- It only starts with people the state wants you to hate and distrust.
- Vancouver police let this maniac run wild for years because “NHI”.
- Remember, this isn’t “human trafficking”, but consensual sex is.
- “Support women’s right to autonomy” ≠ “back paying for sex”.
- The claims in these nuisance lawsuits are increasingly absurd.
- US politicians’ sick infatuation with “punishment” continues.
- Wave bye-bye to the last remaining shreds of your privacy.
- The three new pullets have almost fully joined the flock.
- US evangelical prohibitionists are a worldwide menace.
- Any civilized country would be deeply ashamed of this.
- Your “leaders” know what’s best, so shut up and obey.
- Wins against censors are increasingly rare these days.
- Matthew 21:31 seems pretty straightforward to me.
- Whores’ Day is not an occasion for sanitized words.
- Cops, The Avengers, Loretta Swit, and much more.
- Useful idiots never see where their idiocy will lead.
- A one-woman show about the late Grace Bellavue.
- Cops, Poe’s Law, Astrud Gilberto, and much more.
- The Unsinkable Liz Brown on internet censorship.
- Can you even imagine this happening in the US?
- A rare good decision from the current SCOTUS.
- “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said…”
- Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”.
- Getting my fountain in place at last.
- Rock ‘n’ Roll Throwback Thursday.
- Twitter shifts to an opt-in model.
- The “security” system that isn’t.
- Crying over a computer mouse.
- Who in Review is finally here!
- Lesbian Throwback Thursday.
- Much more of this, please.
- Another creepy copper.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Diary #830
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged animals, recipes, Sunset on May 26, 2026| 1 Comment »
It’s that time of year when y’all are starting to get tired of pictures of chickens, so I instead present something completely different: pictures of eggs. A few years ago I was given four ornamental chickens by friends who decided to stop keeping poultry, and I’ve been surprised that elderly (they’re all at least 6) chickens not really bred for laying are nonetheless still laying more than the much-younger blacks, who have been extremely disappointing layers. One of the Ameraucanas is starting to peter out; she now lays only sporadic, tiny, vestigial eggs. But one of the blacks laid this enormous goose-egg-sized monster last week; I’ve included a normal large-grade egg and one of the vestigial eggs for comparison. On Friday night I decided to make eggs in a frame for dinner, and I used the giant (which turned out to be double-yolked) and three of the tinies (which had no yolk at all); that’s how I typically use eggs whose size grossly departs from the norm, because they’d throw off the amount of liquid in a recipe, but that doesn’t matter when one is merely cooking them straight. Plus it’s kinda fun.
Diary #829
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset on May 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Sunday was graduation day for the pullets. On Saturday night I left the nursery open, and when I went into the henhouse on Sunday morning only one of them was still in there; after shooing her out I removed the chick feeder, water bottle, heat lamp and timer, so from now on they’ll come and go with the other chickens, on a natural daylight schedule. It’ll probably be a few weeks before they start to follow the flock, and they’ll generally keep to their own clique until they start laying sometime in July. I can’t yet tell whether the turkey is a tom or a hen, but she’s bolder than the others because despite being two weeks younger, she’s already noticeably larger. But in any case, by September the hens will all be one flock (plus the turkey), and on the first day of autumn the timer-controlled heat lamp will go back on, and the cycle will begin again.
Links #828
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged animals, Canada, cops, FBI, games, Hawaii, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, imaginative fiction, politicians, robots, video, Washington DC on May 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »
It’s a huge public safety risk. – Kyla Lee
I’m still not sure why squeaky rubber chickens have become musical instruments on YouTube, but this one from Creepy Stare Piano Guy (shared by Mike Siegel) is certainly the most elaborate one yet. Mike also provided the last link above the video; the others are from Wendy Lyon, Ryan Marino, T. Greg Doucette (x2), and Radley Balko, in that order.
- I’m sure you feel safer now.
- Fucking around and finding out.
- You can play the Trump video game!
- “Smart” devices aren’t, part umpty-eleven.
- Mad emperor creeps ever-deeper into dementia.
- This storyline was more believable when it was done on The X-Files.
From the Archives
- How long will airlines accept liability for government-brand racial profiling?
- Why are people shocked when men encouraged to behave violently do so?
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- Kinsey has always been a target for bluenoses, fanatics and other creeps.
- What kind of warped mind wants male cops barging into women’s rooms?
- Cops, artificial stupidity, Roger Corman, David Sanborn, and much more.
- Rural folks are less affected by surveillance than urbanites, but not safe.
- Georgia cops love destroying lives over racist “brat snatching” fantasies.
- Censors are angry they couldn’t force obedience by taking library funds.
- At least a few judges are willing to restrain other judges’ megalomania.
- The costs of society’s sick infatuation with incarceration are staggering.
- Now MAGA controls the “sex trafficking” narrative, expect more of this.
- A psychopathic wacko who even discomfits some“trafficking” fetishists.
- Redefining words is one of the oldest tricks in the politicians’ playbook.
- Fools refuse to grasp what a danger biometric identification actually is.
- The State tortures thousands of people for crossing an imaginary line.
- There can never be too many articles on sex workers for the disabled.
- One of the people the government empowers to police your sexuality.
- The inevitable result of giving sexual predators power over women.
- Making unconstitutional threats should be an impeachable offense.
- Cops, politicians, administrators, Tim Bachman, and much more.
- A new censorship regime has been imposed on British subjects.
- The people the government empowers to police your sexuality.
- A small victory for American ideals, but a victory nonetheless.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Government at every level crusades against Christian charity.
- Most Americans still believe France is a sex-positive society.
- When predators aren’t culled, they just keep on predating.
- Just another kind of federal cop, with behavior to match.
- Pigs in schools are a menace which should be abolished.
- The inevitable result of a blatantly-unconstitutional law.
- One “war” on consensual behavior is very like another.
- There are many ways for governments to rob citizens.
- It’s far too late to stuff this djinni back into its bottle.
- Children should be taught critical thinking in school.
- It’s about time somebody sane spoke up about this.
- A murderer is also a rapist. Gee, what a surprise.
- My tastes in TV shows often run to the eccentric.
- Confusing coverage of Belgian decriminalization.
- Government censors are growing ever bolder.
- When ambulance-chasers run the hospitals.
- A great deal has changed in fourteen years.
- Where all of my marble statues came from.
- All cops will have these within a few years.
- Only decriminalization is decriminalization.
- Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”.
- Court rules that illegal searches are legal.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, and much more.
- Preachers are like cops in many ways.
- An appearance of the aurora borealis.
- Mary Shelley’s Throwback Thursday.
- Creating a vestibule in my annex.
- Blood of Throwback Thursday.
- Zuckerberg is out of his mind.
- Rapist cop of the week.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Diary #828
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, Sunset, video on May 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »
This has been a rather timid brood; though the turkey chick has been occasionally venturing out into the chicken yard since the first day I started opening the nursery in the daytime, it took over two weeks for the pullets to even begin venturing out at all. It was last Wednesday before I found them all out of the nursery for the first time, and the only reason they even went that far was that I moved their water bottle out. Then on Sunday I stopped refilling their bottle in the morning, forcing them to use the same water dispenser as the adult hens. I’ve also started to shoo them out of the nursery in the morning; they’re going to need to be out by Sunday, when they officially join the flock. The timer (which sounds unusually loud in this video) will be also put away then, to wait until the first day of autumn before it’s again put back in control of the heat lamp.
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