Stuck in the middle of the week and need a quick pick-me-up? You’re not alone! Wednesday funnies are the perfect way to survive the midweek slump and bring some laughter to your day. Often called “Hump Day,” Wednesday can feel like the longest stretch between Monday stress and Friday excitement.
Have you received a call or a letter from a company claiming that your car’s warranty has expired, and they are offering an extended warranty or stating you need to activate a vehicle service agreement for coverage? I have! These offers are not always Scams but they may appear to be something they are not.
Oh no, not the Cat!
Sorry about that. Just wanted to post a little humor.
Oh wait, the phone’s ringing! Who could be calling now?
Picture this: You’re cuddled up on the couch, with your favorite show on TV and maybe a fluffy blanket. Suddenly, your beloved kitty pads over and jumps up on the couch next to you. With a cat in your lap, the coziness is complete. Except instead of the warm furry weight you expect, you feel a rough, sandpapery tongue on your hand. It kind of hurts, right? Cat tongues have little tiny backward hooks on them to pick up debris from their fur, and it sort of feels like they’re exfoliating your skin. But more importantly, why do cats lick you in the first place?!
If this scene sounds familiar but leaves you feeling confused, you’re not alone. Cats and humans have been suffering communication problems for years: We don’t speak meow, and they can’t get our alphabet right. Fortunately, we’ve reached out to cat experts who know exactly what your cat is trying to tell you when they treat you like they would their paw.
It means you’re their family
Cat families and cat friends groom each other regularly. If you’ve got more than one cat at home, you’ve probably seen one licking the other’s face while they lounge in a sunbeam. It’s pretty cute! But why do cats lick you? Well, it’s a good sign that you’ve been accepted into your cat’s inner circle: an honorary cat, if you will. Basically, your cat loves you!
“To a cat, it doesn’t matter that you are human,” says Dr. Sara Ochoa, DVM. “Once they have come to care for you, they will treat you the same way as any member of its group.” According to Jodi Ziskin, Healthy Pet Coach and Director of Communications for Treatibles, cats are excellent communicators: “They use their eyes, head butts—aka head boops—and vocalizations” to get their messages across. Ziskin says that cats’ “gentle ‘love’ nibbles or light licks” are a way of showing affection and that some cats even give kisses! She says that your pet may also show affection by purring, nuzzling up to you, or rubbing their head against your body.
It’s how they comfort you
Have you noticed your cat being more attentive when you’re feeling down? Dr. Ochoa says that if you are sick or otherwise stressed, your cat may lick you to help calm you down or make you feel better, “just like it would another cat in the wild.”
According to Dr. Ochoa, “cats have a very good sense of illness in other members of their group,” so if you’re feeling less than stellar you might find your feline companion lingering by your side. There’s evidence that owning a pet helps you to be happier and less stressed, so some cuddle time with your cat might be just what you need to get over that breakup or head cold.
And also how they comfort themselves
Since cats spend so much of their day grooming themselves, when they’re anxious it can tip over into over-grooming. “Some cats lick when they are stressed as a way to comfort themselves,” says Ziskin. “They may lick themselves or their person. A way to tell if the licking is stress-related is if it goes on for an extended period of time.” Because your cat is closely bonded to you, they may lick you to relieve their stress as well as themselves. If your cat has any bald spots or you see them constantly licking themselves (or you!), it’s best to take them to the vet.
Or they could be marking their territory
Cats are territorial animals, which means that many kitties consider their humans (you!) to be their property or “territory.” Yup, that means that one of the answers to the question “why do cats lick you” is that they’re marking you to other cats as their own. Dr. Ochoa compares this behavior to “spraying”—the way that cats use urine to mark their territory. So, it could be worse! According to Dr. Ochoa, licking is “a way of letting other cats know that they care about you and that you belong to them.” That’s kind of sweet, no? We just wish it wasn’t saliva-based.
Why does my cat bite me, then lick me?
Kitties sometimes bite themselves as they groom as part of the fur-cleaning process, and when they’re grooming you that can include some biting too! Little nips are just another way of showing affection. They could also be your cat telling you that they want to play, or, conversely, that they want you to leave them alone. To figure out which it is, you have to look at the rest of their body language for clues. If their ears are up and pointed towards you, that’s a signal for playtime! If they’re flat, that means stop.
Why do cats lick you excessively?
Cats who lick you excessively may be trying to tell you something—they’re concerned about you. Dr. Ochoa says that “in the wild, cats will groom each other to help one another stay clean, so they don’t attract larger predators.”
So, what does it mean when a cat licks you a lot? Well, your kitty is demonstrating that they think of you as their kin. Just like bringing you a dead rodent because they think you’re too incompetent to hunt for yourself, your cat thinks you need help learning personal grooming techniques. Don’t expect to keep up with them, though—adult cats can spend up to 50 percent of their day grooming and are instinctively driven to clean themselves. You can try gently explaining to your cat that you appreciate their efforts, but you’re really not at risk of predation. However, now that you understand what it means when a cat licks you, you can appreciate their behavior for what it is: love! And maybe distract them with a feathery toy instead.
Two-Thirds of People Say This Is a Dating Dealbreaker
There are a lot of serious relationship dealbreakers to discuss in the early stages of dating. Inquiring about your partner’s desire for marriage, kids, and travel will help ensure you two are on the same page and have the potential to live a harmonious life together. There are other dating dealbreakers, however, that can be just as important although ostensibly much less serious. According to a recent poll conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Ultimate Ears, 2 in 3 people say that bad music taste can be a dating dealbreaker.
Picture this—you’re a few months into dating, and you decide to take a road trip together. Your partner gets control of the music and plays back-to-back artists you hate for the entire four-hour ride. You may not have guessed that music compatibility would be so vital to the well-being of your relationship, but it can easily be a make-or-break component.
Perhaps opposing music preferences is seen as such an immovable issue because most people believe good music taste is either something you have or you don’t. According to the poll, 3 in 5 say they were born with good music taste.
Musical preference is a highly intimate matter, as music can be a great comfort through all your moods, so if your partner dislikes your music, it may feel very personal. Ultimately, the key to peacefully maintaining a relationship where your music tastes clash is being honest about your preferences, and trying to find some common ground for times when you want to share some tunes.
Wondering what else people consider dating dealbreakers? Read on to find out.
1. Temperature preference
A shockingly polarizing plight in relationships is what temperature to leave the thermostat on. In another survey conducted by OnePoll with Trane Residential, 48 percent of respondents said they wouldn’t date someone if they didn’t have the same “thermostat etiquette.” The June 2020 poll found the rift over temperature can be so severe that 25 percent of those surveyed actually ended a friendship or relationship over a thermostat argument.
2. Using poor spelling and grammar
If you’re texting with your desired date, you may want to cut out any shorthand abbreviations, capitalize proper nouns, and make use of the Oxford comma. A 2020 study from Word Tips found that the number one turn-off for women when online dating is poor spelling and grammar. The study found that 45 percent of women said they wouldn’t date someone they met on an app who was physically attractive but used improper grammar or spelling, while only 24 percent of men felt the same.
3. Credit card debt
Hitching your wagon to someone with an excessive amount of debt can be scary. A 2019 poll from Self Lender found that for 50 percent of people, a prospective date having credit card debt is too significant of a red flag to ignore. However, college debt is often looked at differently because of how prevalent it is, according to CNBC
4. Tidiness
If you’re a clean freak, you may not be shocked to find that cleanliness ranked above intelligence in what people are looking for in relationships. A 2018 poll from YouGov found that those surveyed ranked a lack of cleanliness as the biggest relationship dealbreaker.
In what is sure to be classed as one of the best-looking games of 2020, Microsoft Flight Simulator finally has a release date, and we only have a little over a month to wait to take to the skies.
As Xbox Wire reveals, the Asobo Studio-developed flight simulator is set for release on Aug. 18 and can be pre-ordered now on Windows 10 or pre-installed using the Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) from today. Xbox One owners will be left waiting until later in the year to have their chance to play the game.
Asobo is promising the most detailed flight simulator ever released, offering “more than 1.5 billion buildings, 2 trillion trees, mountains, roads, rivers and more,” and “a variety of aircraft from light planes to commercial jets with comprehensive flight models. Every aircraft includes highly detailed and accurate cockpits with realistic instrumentation.”
There’s also live traffic, real-time weather effects using a dynamic weather system including “accurate wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rain,” a brand new day and night engine, and aerodynamic modeling using a state-of-the-art physics engine with “over 1,000 control surfaces per plane [allowing] for a truly realistic experience.”
Flight sim fans have a difficult decision to make, not on whether to play or not, but on which version of the game to pick up. There’s three Editions available. The Standard Edition costs $59.99 and includes 20 planes and 30 airports, the Deluxe Edition costs $89.99 and includes an extra five planes and airports. Finally, there’s the Premium Deluxe Edition for $119.99, which includes everything from the other two versions, but adds another 10 planes and airports, taking the total up to 35 of each. If you prefer a physical edition, Microsoft is only making them available across Europe via the Aerosoft website.
In order to play Microsoft Flight Simulator, you’ll need a minimum of either an Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 1200, Nvidia GTX 770 or Radeom RX 570, 8GB of RAM, 150GB of storage space, and an internet connection of at least 5Mbps. Ideally, you’ll want to be running a 9th-gen Core i7 or Ryzen 7 Pro, RTX 2080 or Radeon VII, 32GB of RAM, and have a 50Mbps connection according to the Flight Simulator FAQ.
Article By Matthew Humphries for PC Magazine
(Image: Microsoft)
If you’ve ever wanted to fly a plane, I think you’ll love this game. This is an updated version of a much-loved game from back in the day. I for one can’t wait!
Holy guacamole! They’re everywhere. The good, the bad and the ugly. Or should I say, the good, the bad and the ex. Fully one third of my news feed is royal-related. Cute pictures of you-know-who (the good), not so flattering pictures of you-know-who (the bad), who is also the ex, who flatters herself the queen of L.A. j/k
We in the U.S. have The First Family, but the media has proclaimed them not worthy of their valuable time to write about. So they give us The Royals instead.
The cute (good) one is quite photogenic as she waits for the Queen to pass the crown, and she does charitable things as she waits. The ex is building her empire in the emptiness that is L.A. as she waits to get bids on her dairy, she wrote all that time in the castle, or wherever she lived before she was exiled.
Truth be told, I am a descendant of Irish grandparents and mother, from the true Ireland, the green one, so I am ambivalent to the Royals goings-on. I just wrote about this phenomenon (Royal watching) because our media has instructed us to ignore all the good of our First Family because they are so very unroyal.
So, carry on with your Royal Watching and I will carry on looking for some inspiration from my news feed that I will share with you later.
As a general guideline, avoid music that’s going to challenge the brain. Again, this boils down to a few different components. If you’re trying to provide a background to your work (particularly if your work involves processing thoughts and words), steer clear of music with lyrics. Lyrics can give you mixed messages and distract you in the long run.
Highly complex structures of music can also jumble the brain and make it work overtime. That said, what you consider to be “complex” might rely on a boredom factor. Generally speaking, though, you need less Swedish death metal with intricate guitar solos, and something more engaging than “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.”
Finally, there’s plenty of research around how uplifting music can improve your mood and productivity simultaneously. That means a downer track like the “Imperial March” from Star Wars is not the way to go, no matter how evil your boss is.
Can listening to music make you more productive?
The short, sweet, and deeply unsatisfactory answer? It could. Some schools of thought contend that listening to music while working is a form of multitasking, which many say is not optimal for productivity. Because of this, the idea is we’d be better off pressing play 10 to 15 minutes before and after our work projects. Also worth noting though, is music can uplift and keep you steady through monotonous work. And also, some research suggests that certain music will or won’t work for productivity, based on your boredom tolerance. That means when we make our musical selection, we want to consider how we use our music. What makes up our melodies, when we use one song versus another song, and which genre would be best for specific tasks.
