A Review of the Tacitus MM, by Tomcat Inc.

Excerpted from Pet Racer Magazine, August 2007

For well over a year, we have heard from many readers expressing interest in seeing a review of Tomcat Inc.'s beloved Tactitus MM.  Regrettably, as we have many commitments in covering the Cat racing scene, and the Tacitus MM is most definitely not a racing model, we have more than once pushed this review to the back burner.  However, enough is enough.  Here at last is the long-awaited, long-promised review of this very special model of Cat.

                                                                        --The Editors

Tacitus (Marley-Martial series)

The Tacitus MM (short for Marley-Martial, the prototype names used for the model while it was in Alpha and Beta testing, respectively).  Is a tough, reliable Cat design able to handle heavy loads, and equally capable of dropping them in its litterbox.  While built on the frame and undercarriage of a utility Cat, it has many performance upgrades that were originally intended to appeal to macho off-road Cat enthusiasts in the consumer market.  However, efforts by Tomcat executives to keep the price of the Tacitus MM affordable for that same demographic seem to have misfired.  The unfortunately "slow" CPU and Operating System of the Tacitus MM have made it surprisingly mild and gentle for a Cat built to such rugged specs, and has become primarily popular as a niche-product Cat among young professional women.

v     Frame:                          Blunderpuss Heavy-Duty (a sturdy, reinforced frame emphasizing durability at the expense of fuel efficiency.  Popular with contractors)

v     Undercarriage:              Trundler 962-d (a tough, if not very maneuverable, model normally found on fleet Cats in the industrial and mining sectors)

v     Body:                           Marmalade InfiniFuzz extra-dense self-replenishing fur cover

v     CPU:                            Intel 386 (a possibly ill-advised cost-saving measure, as it does make the Tacitus model a bit "slow" in processing data.  Reportedly a crate of 386s were obtained at very minimal cost from a Tomcat engineer's basement.  Tomcat Inc. denies rumors that some of the CPUs may have been damaged by dust and passing rodents during their nearly 20 years of storage)

v     Operating System:        Windows 3.1 (unfortunately the most powerful system capable of operating on a 386 CPU)

v     Sound system:              None  (The Tacitus MM relies on its CPU's internal sound chip, which may or may not function at any particular time)

v     Powerplant:                  Black Hole 666z (the same powerful, ultra-energy intensive unit used on the legendary CatCo OAFe)

v     Stench Generator:         Apocalypse-9000 BFG (for three consecutive years the most powerful Stench Generator in the world, though the in-development Shiva the Destroyer of Worlds LX from StankCo, set to be released fall 2008, will probably surpass it.)

v     Claws:                          Shredator X Megadestroyers (buyers should be aware that commonly available civilian litterbox liners simply cannot stand up to the punishment meted out by Megadestroyers even during normal operation)

v     Options:                       Chowhound TUBB-E fuel ports (intended to optimize performance of the Tacitus by increasing its fuel processing speed even beyond the capabilities of the Black Hole 666z.  In practice, it HUGELY increases fuel consumption and litterbox output, but our testing has been unable to confirm any increase in speed or performance, given the heavy-duty Tactius MM frame and undercarriage, and the severe limitations of its CPU and Operating System)

A message I received from an awesome organization set up by my mentor.  Even $5 helps.  Please donate.  Check it out:

Young girls at the edge of the Sahara desert.

Girls living in Gueoul , Senegal

Poorer than most.  A bleak future, worse than most.

We know their names.

Fatou, Astou, Ndeye,

Diodio, Magatte, Penda,

Racky, Jima, Salimata, Seynabou

Friends of Gueoul, Inc., gives these impoverished girls a chance.  Through education.   An education not many get in Senegal with its 15% literacy race, most of whom are boys.  Here's how it goes:

In Senegal , the average annual income is about $600.  Each year, 12 of the poorest girls in the incoming 1^st grade in Gueoul are added to the scholarship roster.   We give each of them $100, an enormous sum for the family.    Now after 3 years, 36 girls each receive $100 each year they stay in school.  Another 12 will be named this fall, and each year thereafter.

This $100 is a veritable fortune.  The poor family is really motivated to keep them in school and to not marry them off at a young age. 

After three years, we've only lost one to marriage, and one to moving away.  It sure looks like it's working!

It's time to send the next round of scholarships to our girls.  Please help!  Friends of Gueoul, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) Corporation, and your donation is tax deductible.

I hope you'll write a great big fat check, payable to Friends of Gueoul, and mail it to:

Judy Beggs

3120 South Race Street

Englewood, CO 80113

303 584 0440

I love the writings of Chaucer, specifically the Canterbury Tales.  Being an amateur linguistics geek, I love the original text as much as the modern translations.  The comparison of the two texts is the most interesting part to me.  It's evident that the Tales were written before the vowel shift.  I also start wondering super-geeky things like whether Scots English is so incomprehensible to anyone south of Hadrian's wall in part because they never went through the vowel shift up there.  But maybe not.  As I mentioned, my linguistics education has been mostly self-taught as a hobby and is therefore spotty. 

One of the main reasons I dig the Tales is that it's so freaking old, yet the themes are timeless.  Before that in English literature you pretty much just get Beowulf.  Also a good read, but tangential to this post.

The meter kicks ass.  I forgot most of what I know about poetry, but I love the bouncy, cheerful meter of the Tales.

One thing I've been realizing about Chaucer lately is that he was kind of a feminist for his time.  I'm proud of him. 

One of my life's great accomplishments will be having memorized the entire prologue of the Tales in Middle English.  It's only thousands of lines long.  I'm up to line 50, which I've been working on for 10 years or so with large gaps.  But recently I realized that the full original text was available online.  So I'm back on the memorization/recitation wagon again.  However, it's kind of a lonely endeavor since no one else cares.  My poor husband has to put up with all my chatter about "vowel shift" this and "look at the sweet suffix on Hethenesse" that. 

But nonetheless while I have time and space / ere that I further in this tale pass / me thinketh it accordant to reason / to tell you all the condition / of each of him so as it seemed me / and which they were and of what degree / and each in what array that they were in / and at a *house* then will I first begin. 

So, that's my long-winded way of saying that next post I'll tell you guys about my new house.

*sigh* 

New CAR!!!  Check it out:

In honor of the incomparable Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this car is named Ayaan Hirsi Subi.  And she tears up the road, snow or no snow.  She's a seriously kick ass car.  And she's just as sleek, intelligent, and beautiful as her namesake.

Like, seriously.  I've spent several months with all this snazzy technology at my disposal, and have just this morning successfully burned my first CD after converting the media from my digital recorder.  It takes a several steps, and not an insignificant amount of time, but it FINALLY works!  Huzzah!

In other news, the second semester began about 3 weeks ago.  This semester I have Torts, Property, and Writing.  I wanna be a Property ninja by the time this semester is over.  All the profs this semester are awesome (and female) which is a refreshing change after the travail of last semester.  Torts is not my favorite class since I think the worldview and theories on which the law is based are kind of silly.  Writing should be interesting, but we're working on a drunk driving liability problem that has no answer.  The problem is in fairly poor taste after the death of my classmate's family (wife and two toddlers) last semester when they were hit by a drunk driver. 

At any rate, I'm enjoying the classes so far.   

Kudos to my adorable husband who has been kicking butt at his new job and is reaping the financial rewards therefrom.  How do I love him?  Let me enumerate the ways (not necessarily in order of importance):

1. He works hard.  He wakes up at 6 am and goes off to his job for 14 hours.  I see him at 10pm most nights, utterly exhausted, hungry, and ready to drop.  He goes in to the office on Saturdays sometimes.

2. He spends nearly all his free time at home with me, talking, laughing, watching movies and playing computer games.

3. He's very handsome.

4. He loves our kitties and never forgets to pet or feed them.  Ditto the plants that would otherwise die at my hand.

5. He's a sweetie - never forgets a birthday, anniversary, or holiday.

6. He's the smartest and most interesting man I know.

7. He is on board with our dreams for the future.  The house, the kids, and the lifestyle.

8. He has stuck around for 9 years.  I hope the next 9 years are as good as the first!

9. He has integrity and always keeps his word.

10. He's curmudgeonly in alarmingly appropriate ways.

11. He does the laundry.

12. He puts the toilet seat down.

13. He's unflinchingly honest, even when it's not fun.

There's probably more, but I can't think of them right now.

Will it ever end?  It seems like the reading period before these exams is taking FOREVER.  I'm sure that I'm never going to be quite as prepared as I'd like, so I just want to get these finals over with.  I've been alternately studying my arse off or worrying that I wasn't studying enough for about 2 weeks now.  I find it extremely cathartic to write about my angst.  For some reason, the people who've been through the law school exam process before seem extremely nonchalant about it.  But on this side of those exams, I'm nearly ready to climb out of my skin.  Then sometimes I can calm myself with the thought that the worst that will happen is I'll be put on academic probation and will have to get a tutor next semester.  Possibly have to spend $8K to retake the classes.  But hey.  There are worse things in life.

The Contracts final is Monday.  The Civil Procedure final is Thursday.  Once those are done, I'm a free woman.  At least for a little while.  Once December 15th rolls around, I'm settling in for a 5-week Morrowwind bender punctuated only by work, bodily necessities, and holiday festivities.  Maybe I'll even try Oblivion if one of my brothers will lend it to me.  I never did like the aesthetic of Morrowwind.

We hired a cleaning lady to come by and clean our apartment once in a while.  For some reason, that makes me really proud, like I've somehow accomplished something.  Maybe it's because I feel like I'm bumbling my way up the economic food chain.  At any rate, my spotty (mostly non-existent) housekeeping shall bite me in the butt no longer when we have guests.

This makes me think of the Penguin / Octopus accident that happened a while back.  Alls I can say is maybe it was Stu.

Escaped Hamster Interrupts Jet Flight