No, not a lion or tiger. Just Cat.

Cat Collett, the world's most pleasantly squeezable anthropologist and self-proclaimed Sex Goddess Of The Western Hemisphere, not to mention a rockin' friend of yours truly, is currently in the midst of an extended stay in Africa.

Her friend Shad is maintaining an online collection of her dispatches from Africa, which are unfortunately limited in frequency by her remote location in Nyae Nyae. Visits to the bigger cities provide the rare opportunity to post e-mail updates and send a few lovely photos, which are also limited to a few small selections by the size and speed of the internet connections.

Still, what's there is marvelously interesting, and at least the internet pipes are big enough to allow for an instant messenger conversation, which allowed me to personally confirm that Cat is safe and well in Africa and having a grand time of it. She is very much missed, but her tales of decidedly un-touristy adventures provide a welcome consolation to those of us who must suffer without her for a few more months.

Once upon a time, I played around Austin with a band called Trees Like These. They were easily one of my favorite bands I've ever played with, and a great bunch of people.

Eventually, a point came where everything fell apart—not in acrimony, but just in differing agendas. We had people who were engaged and people who weren't, people who wanted to move and people who didn't, people who wanted a bigger sound and people who wanted a smaller one, people who wanted a larger profile for the band and people who wanted a smaller one.

Not long after the band collapsed back into a duo, one of its two core members, Mark Couvillion, moved to Dallas with plans to eventually marry a high school classmate of mine. The classmate moved back to Austin recently, without Couv in tow, and I've been wondering ever since what might have happened to him.

Well, much to my surprise, I serendipitously discovered today that he's still in Dallas and keeping his own brand new weblog. It's young, but it's pretty. There's some very nice design and some damn fine photography, and already the beginnings of what looks to be a strong, thoughtful community.

So I just wanted to say: Way to go Couv, and welcome to the fray!

Thanks to a BlogSnob referral, I've found an interesting online photo project—Bookslut will probably love it.

Shoot Your Shelf is a project in which you take a picture of a shelf in your house—bookshelf, medicine cabinet shelf, or whatever. No cleaning or organizing allowed, so you're on your honor to resist the temptation to surreptitiously insert Italo Calvino in your shelf full of Tom Clancy, or Flaubert next to your Helen Fielding.

Cheating, however, offers a marvelous opportunity for reputation adjustment.

Is your blog preoccupied with matters of pop culture and which celebrities are dating each other? Submit a photo prominently featuring the Qabbalah and the I Ching on your shelf, to show you're grounded in deeper mysteries.

Is your blog a navel-gazing confessional? Post a photograph of books about third-world volunteer opportunities, to show your concern for others. Or a shelf full of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, so people will know your preoccupation with yourself is not only self-indulgent, but artistic.

Is your blog a shameless self-promotion for your "serious" writing—novels, tech manuals, or whatever? Post a photo of a shelf full of them—you're shameless, remember? Better yet, post a photo of your book next to a respected authority in the field. If you just wrote a usability manual, photograph it next to Jakob Nielsen's latest and enjoy the fruits of respect-by-association!

So, remember—you're on your honor. No cleaning or organizing.

It's not your problem if you don't have any honor to be on, right?