We had a discussion at work the other day, and again on IRC recently, about what to name our computers. At first this might sound like a silly thing, especially to people who use a single home computer, but for people with more than one at home or who use computers every day at work, it's something that you probably end up thinking about at some point.

All of my computers at home are named after "characters" in books. This computer is Defiant, named after a spaceship in Bill Baldwin's Galactic Convoy novel. My file server is Naruto after the manga character, and my notebook is named Runcible, after a much higher-tech device that is the center of the Neal Stephenson novel The Diamond Age.

I tend to be pragmatic about my server naming because there are just too darn many of them to remember, but many people and organizations give them more fanciful names. For example, A Small Orange uses characters from the show Lost to name their servers, as I noticed when editing some of my content on Hurley.

I've heard of some (extremely geeky) people using Star Trek ship classes and Star Wars planet names as computer names. One of the criteria, I suppose, for choosing a set of names is that you have enough for your entire network, because you don't want Moe, Larry, Curly, and Fred. The Seven Dwarfs might work well if you only have seven machines, but certainly doesn't work for twelve.

I wonder if anyone has any more imaginative name sets for their computers. Even if it's just one, you know you have to name it.

We're getting a cat. Two, actually.

Berta's sister Maryann took in a pregnant stray cat and fed it back to health. Of the litter, only two kittens survived, and we'll be venturing out in early February to collect them and bring them back to their new home with us. Of course the kids are excited, and we spent a good deal of time at the pet store today buying supplies for them.

Unlike the last time I had kittens, when I could barely afford the single vet bill, we actually have money to spend on non-necessities with these kitties. We ended up getting some pretty crazy stuff rather than the usual items.

For example, we got one of those automated litterbox things. You put clumping litter into it and it scoops it into a receptacle that you can dispose of later. This is nice because I am really not keep in digging around in cat excreta every day like when Beta was pregnant. Sure, I don't expect it to work perfectly, but it seems to do the job for one of our friends, so hopefully it'll work at least that well for us.

Also on the list of crazy stuff is the waterfall water dish. It's a water dish that has a pump in it so that the water falls through the air and lands in the dish. Apart from being completely over-the-top, this actually aerates the water, keeping it fresher. And according to the stylish box under the large price tag, cats really enjoy fresh water more than stagnant water.

We also got a bunch of kitty toys. The kids picked out some, mostly that they liked to play with, and Berta and I picked a couple that we knew the cats would enjoy, based on our previous cat experience.

We got a nice foldable soft carrier for the transport of the kitties. We used to have two big plastic ones, but we got rid of those when we moved. The soft one will be nicer because it takes up less space when folded.

The kittens will be treated to soft cat beds that they will not every use, just like all of the other cat beds we've ever bought.

Anyway, on to the important part...

We got all the stuff out to the car and loaded the kids in and started talking about what to name the two male kittens. Abby's immediate response to the question was "Phobos and Deimos".

So I guess that settles that.