Day Two of this latest online journal project of mine and still no money yet from a single Western government interested in nipping it in the bud before irreversible global damage is done. 
     In light of this completely unexpected development, I've decided to show a bit of the flexibility a mature adult should and announce my willingness to decommission this journal in exchange for a sufficiently large check from any Eastern nation that happens to have a photo ID and/or two major credit cards.  Eastern nations are part of the biosphere I'm threatening with my writing too, after all, and in retrospect it really was wrong of me to exclude them in the first place.
     Are YOU an Eastern nation with poor credit? Awful credit?  No credit at all?  Has YOUR photo ID been rendered obsolete by continental drift, volcanic eruption, or Vietnamese terrorists bored with bothering Ross Perot?  Has YOUR culture's constant long-distance calls to Confucius and Buddha resulted in "temporary" cash flow difficulties?  No problem!  I'll agree to install scrubbers in the modem this journal depends on to vent its toxic emissions in exchange for the rights to any off-shore deposits of chocolate syrup my drillers might find.  I'll sheath my paragraphs in sanitary latex prior to thrusting them into that modem in exchange for all the US rights to your native language's top nine swear words. 
     I am not an unreasonable man.  I am especially not an unreasonable man when the fate of the world hangs in the balance.  Let's make a deal before a rising tide of blather drowns all the rare wildlife of Bangladesh, shall we? 
     I'M TALKING TO YOU, MONGOLIA!  PAY ATTENTION, DAMN IT!
     Honestly, sometimes I think I may as well be talking to deaf little Monte Carlo....

     Ok, that little bit of old business out of the way, I can now proceed to clear up some even older business.
     Jester.
     Jester is my cat.  I started my old journal just to give him more time to rip up my house without the nuisance and distraction of my supervision. To no one's surprise, lest of all his own, my accounts of his activities quickly became the most popular part of that journal.  I generally resist the impulse to give in and pander to the masses, but what the hell - any masses that have got this far down in this entry deserve a break.
     Thus, a brief Jester update shall now ensue.

     Jess is doing fine.  He continues taking twice-daily doses of Glipizide-with- yogurt for his diabetes and it seems to be doing the job.  Side benefit: It's always fun to watch the faces of people when we go to our pharmacy and say "Prescription for Jester Cat, please."  Try it yourself sometime - just remember to look really peeved and not caught when they come back and say they couldn't find it.  We have yet to get up the nerve to file a claim with our insurance company, but stay tuned.  If Santa brings us that bottle of Southern Comfort we asked for, just watch those claim forms go flying out right past those pokey old reindeer.
     At the moment he's napping on the red towel we have on our living room rocker.  (Jess is napping, I mean - I have no idea what Santa is doing, silly, but I'm betting it has nothing to do with Jenny Craig.)
     Just before sitting down to write this, I read Jess some more of his favorite book: Tuesdays With Morris.  That's the heart-warming tale of this little kitten who goes to visit his aged idol every Tuesday in hopes of getting a few bits of his wisdom, only to be batted away from the food bowl, the cat toys, and out the door in short order as all pesky little youngsters ought to be.  It seems tediously repetitious to me, but Jester never seems to tire of the variety of ways Morris has to nip and claw upstarts and interlopers. 
     "It's a cat thang," he assures me.
     Whatever. 
     I guess I just ought to be glad he's interested in books at all - so few cats are in these days of Nintendo "Mousetrap," you know.  I still haven't decided if that interest means Santa will bring him the one thing he wants or not.  It's a book entitled Driving Miss Daisy Crazy: Confessions Of A Naughty Tabby.
     If only I could get Jester to read the inspiring autobiography of Sylvester instead - or at least the chapter in which he tells how he overcame his cream addiction through sheer will power and an electro-shock home kit.
     Sigh....

I think it might be time to "share the Prozac," if you know what I mean, lest damage is done to my Dark Shadows memorabilia....