CAT LICKS NOSE

Film at 11.

Alternate Names For Our Cats: Blizzard

"I can see you ignoring me."

* Princess
* Beautiful Lady
* Snowball
* Little Girl
* Chatterbox
* Rugrat
* Bug Radar
* Queen Diva
* The Jealous One
* Green-Eyes
* Officer Blizzard of the Big House Sex Police
* The Crazy Possessive Movie Star Cat of Sunset Boulevard
* She Who Must Be Petted Without Delay or She Will Glare at You Forever
* Loudmouth
* Noisemaker
* What Are You Talking About
* I Can't Understand Anything You're Saying
* Just Tell Me What You Want You're Driving Me Crazy
* Shut Up
* I Said Shut Up
* For the Love of God Just Shut Up
* SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP AAHHHHH GAAAAAH

Alternate Names For Our Cats: Midnight

Can't Find His Way Out of a Box Full of Holes

* Fuzzball
* Dark Matter
* Pea Brain
* You Moron
* Stop That
* Wotzizname
* Young Man
* Our Little Leopard
* Fuzz Head
* Rag Doll
* You Idiot
* Gimme That
* No
* I Said No
* Are You Deaf
* Put That Down
* You Bonehead
* Speaker to Space Hamsters
* Detective Midnight of the Faucet Patrol
* Boneless Droopy Cat
* Tarzan Ninja Cat Who Dares the Unknown
* What's Making That Awful Noise
* You Little Rodent

One Year Later...

A stupid cat gives me advice on this blog.

So, like, we dropped off the face of the earth. Anyway, we're back now.

Here is more about our stupid cats. They are much stupider than last year. Especially Dip and Midnight.

Enjoy.

The World of Tachyon and Sophie Cleese

I know, long time no updates - and to that we apologize. Scruffles and Bear will work harder to keep you the masses who are obsessed with kittehs posted.  A brief update on all of our feline overlords - they are ruling us with their usual amount of indifference.  All are healthy and have accepted the fact that we are still residents in their domicile. They seem content as long as the treats keep coming and the litter gets cleaned out on a daily basis.

Having said all that, I would just like to focus on our two newest additions to the Scruffles and Bear clan.  We adopted Tachyon and Sophie Cleese in October of last year. When they arrived at our humble little home, they were both very shy and skittsh.  Tachyon was slightly more social than Sophie, yet still preferred to stay on the top shelves of our back bedroom, just out of petting reach. Sophie Cleese has a black belt in the art of hiding. I mean she must have trained with Navy Seals.  She would only come out long enough to eat and use the litter box. 

That was then - this is now.  Tachyon has quickly come into his own.  He is our resident love sponge, basking in the sunlight that shines through our message room curtain.  Just one look at his content and happy face, you instantly feel the urge to pet him.  He will then in turn capture your hand and not return until you have petted every single inch of fur on his body.  He loves racing Serendipity in the Catopolis 500 - which is a nightly race that we are currently trying to pitch to ESPN (sadly they never return any of our calls).  Maybe if we can get all six cats to compete at once or get some kind of sponsorship (Friskies, Red Bull?) they might take us seriously.

Sophie Cleese took a little longer to get adjusted to her new surroundings. Our two year old gentle giantess loves to sit in the dining room with us while we are typing away on our laptops. She also likes to "supervise" if I am in the kitchen cooking.  Her sworn enemy is that damn red dot that mysteriously appears on the carpet or occasionally on the living room wall. Although she gets along with the others, she and Bandit have had some issues. I think he is jealous of her amazing cat treat eating ability. He walks by her, she growls - she strolls by him, he hisses and then they each fall asleep.

I would continue writing, but seeing that Midnight has decided to help with the editing, I better stop soon. I think that Tachy and Sophie are pleased with not only our abilities as servants, but with their new brothers and sisters as well. Scruffles and Midnight (who now has his paws over my hands as I type) signing off.  

French Words for Terrible Diseases We Get from Cats

Because I have a head cold right now and also live with six cats and my blameless wife (the fleas are all dead, though), I know it is a true, proven fact that cats are responsible for an infinite number of debilitating human illnesses, like my cold. For centuries, the French have studied the disorders proven to be transmitted to humans from cats (lǟ ƈђąϯz), and they even have a French word for those diseases: lě ƈђąϯ máláìȿě.

Ƈђąϯ máláìȿě (pronounced "chat mayonnaise") include the usual horrors with which we who are forced to live with cats are all familiar: dander allergies, rabies, vitamin deficiencies, pubic lice, viral memes, illiteracy, etc.

However, the French long ago discovered that the most devastating sicknesses with which cats infect innocent bystanding humans are psychiatric in nature—or, as the French would say, máládìě měnţálě lě ƈђąϯ. (I am not trying to show off my knowledge of French here. I only wish to point out that you don't know anything about French cat diseases, and I do.)

(By the way, the French have an alphabetical letter for "butt." The letter is Ѡ. The French call it "ðérrìèrě" but it is pronounced "butt" in English.)

These máládìě měnţálě le ƈђąϯ are pretty bad (ƒáᵫẍ máládě) and can make you super-crazy (pȿyçћöpáţћölögìě ȿánȿ ṿêţěměnţȿ). While I sit here coughing and blowing my nose and fighting off hordes of ##### ####ing cats that want to sit in my lap or climb on me with their claws or drape their tails over the computer monitor so I can’t see a single ##########ing thing I am typing, I will review the worst pandemics suffered by human civilization (the infamous máládìě ȿánȿ gráṿìţé) which infect us as a result of foolishly allowing so-called "domesticated" cats into our homes and bathrooms.

In French science, cat-to-human diseases are categorized (ȿymƀölěȿ pћönéţìqᵫěȿ) by their severity (påţћölœgìᴂ). The least dreadful and incapacitating ailments are those that humans find extremely irritating, only much more so—the ìrrìţé. The afflicted are barely capable of concentrating on the simplest tasks, so put upon are they by the demands of their feline "companions." In reality, the French learned that certain bacteria are emitted by cats that cause humans to feel, dare I say, obligated to serve and care for cats as if the latter were our alien overlords. The ìrrìţé class of contagions includes: çönƒᵫȿ, çönţrárìé, çћágrìn, döᵫlěᵫr, ìmpréçìȿ, ìnd샃érěnţ, lángöᵫrěᵫẍ, náïṿěţé, nöȿţálgìqᵫě, and the incurable petit pöpᵫláìrě. You will have to look up these tragic diseases on the Internet because their effects are so appalling that they cannot be discussed here. I think the one that starts with "L" has to do with sex.

The next worst classification of máládìě měnţálě le ƈђąϯ are those that produce severe emotional disorders of which the most learned psychiatrists speak only in whispers: the dìȿţráìţ. Once again the details of these savage maladies cannot be revealed here, especially as you might be eating dinner and read the wrong thing, then hurl like a giant Technicolor fire hose all over your dining room, your computer, your spouse, etc. This second group's list of terrors (the l'morte d'arthur) contains the grave afflictions of dépěrȿönnálìȿěr, ěẍìȿţěnţìěllě, ìnádápţé, incðmmœdễ, mélçönţěnţ, and méȿçréánţ. The prisons in Paris and other French cities I can't recall or pronounce are filled with people who were once as normal as you or me, or me at least, but they caught dìȿţráìţ and ate all the dirty kitty litter in their houses. Oh, I wasn't supposed to mention that. My bad. Anyway, you will agree that this is awful.

Now we come to the bottom of Hades: the málћěᵫrěᵫẍ, those incurable nightmares that mentally cripple 50% or probably more of all cat owners. Woe unto any who undergoes the torments of çréţìn, çrìmìněllě, délìnqᵫánţ, ìllégìţìmě, ìmƀéçìlě, ìmpöţěnţě, or (God save us) ìnȿöᵫçìěᵫẍ. Those incapacitated by málћěᵫrěᵫẍ are compelled to own really ugly cats like Persians, that look like they ran face-first into a wall at 50 miles per hour, or those hideous hairless Sphynxoid things that should be used to bomb North Korea. Also, these cat owners eat the dirty kitty litter in other people's houses, not just their own. Darn! Too much information, dreadfully sorry.

There is controversy over whether the ghastly préţěnţìěᵫẍ is a member of the málћěᵫrěᵫẍ group or inhabits its own revolting file cabinet of evil—the sub-basement of the bottom of Hades, as it were—as the worst of all máládìě ȿánȿ gráṿìţé. Préţěnţìěᵫẍ is known to afflict people who have just enough money to make them stupid. As a consequence they collect wines with little animals on the labels and talk about art as if they really knew anything about it, which I know they don't even if they claim to have art degrees, but they are lying. The accursed préţěnţìěᵫẍ makes those wretched unfortunates desire to own expensive and unmanageable felines with unpleasant habits like eating children, firemen, nuns, etc. The "cats" most preferred here are rare-in-the-extreme highly unique artificially gene-sequenced biologically unsound designer monstrosities such as those produced by mating Maine Coons with sabretooth tigers.

Préţěnţìěᵫẍ sufferers are the worst of all, the very worst, because nothing bad ever happens to them. Their gorgeous elephant-sized sabretoothed Maine Coons never eat them, much less bite or nip them. Préţěnţìěᵫẍ sufferers stay rich and beautiful and they just royally piss me off by continuing to talk about art when they don't know one ####### ####-### ##########ing thing about it. They appear on reality TV shows that would make Quasimodo vomit but only make the cat owners richer and more famous and more obnoxious with their opinions on postmodern neo-expressionism, of which there is no such thing because they just made it up, and given half a chance I would run over all of them with an Abrams tank except that their giant Maine Coons would eat me and my tank before I even got to the driveway, and that would just incredibly piss me off.

I hope this post has been beneficial to you. I, on the other hand, still have a cold. And the cats are still climbing on me.

MERRY CHRISTNUKKAH!!!

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Cats

I was forced to post this.

BREAKING NEWS or maybe not

Got to catch up on all the other non-sprained-knees news.

• One of the cats threw up Lake Michigan in the living room two days ago.
• Three days ago Midnight tore out a three-foot strand of tinsel from the Christnukkah tree and tried to eat it. We yelled at him to stop, which prompted him to sit on the tinsel strand and continue eating. Scruffles has photos to prove this. We took the tinsel away which caused Midnight to look nonplussed, which is the best word I can think of that describes how he looked.
• Bandit got on the kitchen counter and tried to eat all the turkey bacon this morning, which prompted a DEFCON ONE alert and Bandit's expeditious removal from the kitchen. He looked nonplussed.
• Midnight tried to help me wrap presents this morning. It did not go well. Not worth describing, you can already guess.
• It is totally amazing how many people in Malaysia read this blog. Just amazing. Why?
• I found out where Sophie Cleese has been hiding from everyone because a picture frame cracked and the picture fell off the wall beside the main bed, and as I picked up the picture I saw Sophie lying against the bottom of the far side of the bed, hidden by the overhang of blankets above her. We had hunted for her hiding place for weeks.

More breaking news later.

Serendipity, who will still not get out of the damn tree.

Aftermath of Bandit's attempted assassination plot against me

Mission accomplished.

The doctor examined me for 12 seconds for the price of a mid-size SUV (thanks to Romneycare) and told me that both my knees were sprained and I should stay home and rest and not get into any more trouble, or else Romneycare would subject me to more fees and I might end up living in the woods by the Interstate inside a kitty litter box. I went home and the cats were terribly glad to see me because they wanted to be fed, which is proof that when cats try to trip and kill you they never think out all the consequences. Bandit, however, looked unusually smug.

Fall, 2013

What I legally should have seen but did not

So while walking toward the kitchen last night for reasons that now escape me, I encountered a newly emplaced mobile roadblock in the center of the carpet and went down like a giant domino, causing moderate damage to my personal physical self accompanied by unusually loud vocalizations on my part and major medical ministrations from Scruffles (ice packs on knees, made to lie down, etc.).

At some point I had intended to write about Bandit's unwritten entitlement to dominate the floor space throughout the house, blocking everyone's path just because he can. He will sit right in the middle of the main thoroughfares from room to room, even blocking doorways, and will merely stare at you and just dare you to walk into him. Alpha Cats do this all the time. It is part of the encyclopedia of privileges and rights of nobility that accompany the role of the Alpha Cat. By violating my responsibilities as a feline-governed serf, I suffered most righteously and am now writing about my deserved punishment in this cat blog--not to complain, mind you, nor to whine about my injuries, but merely to point out that CATS SUCK. THEY SUCK, THEY SUCK, THEY SUCK.

Bandit, by the way, was miffed and went to sleep.

Thank you for listening.

The Greatest Show on Earth

And around and around and around and...

Toilet watching is a spectator sport with certain felines. Serendipity loves watching toilets flush more than mentally unbalanced people like watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Her pea-brain head actually goes in circles as the water spirals out of sight. She waits for a few moments at the end in case the water comes back, but it never does.

Some people say that cats are smarter than dogs.




And on that note we'll move right along...

Masterpiece Theatre Presents: Dead Kitty Classical Vignettes (Midnight's turn)

Is this a picture of Midnight's performance, a used dishrag,
a dead monkey, or toupee for a bald Wookie?

One cannot imagine a worse cinematic anticlimax than the infamous shot of a bunny snuggling up to the radioactive corpse of D-movie actor Tor Johnson, in that accursed waste of celluloid known as The Beast of Yucca Flats. Self-proclaimed avante garde actor Midnight Smoke, however, snatched the booby prize from the cottontail's fuzzy paws.

For his entry in Masterpiece Theatre's Dead Kitty Vignettes, Midnight chose to re-enact the final death scene from Disney's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. The puzzled judges confronted Midnight with the fact that this particular film had no final death scene. It had no death scenes at all, in fact, unless you counted the demise of the honey that Pooh ate. Undeterred, Midnight squeaked that he rejected global proletarianization and supported the historic sociocultural class struggle against the exploitative and antirevolutionary didactic of feudal bourgeois sensibilities, then flung himself across the top of a sofa on the stage, cried myew (the signal that his scene was about to begin), and fell asleep.

Judges for the experimental theatre group, Sniff the Kraken, stared at Midnight for several seconds, looked at each other, then went to lunch. When he later awoke, Midnight  myewed that the Giant Space Hamsters from Saturn had told him what to say. Though he had not understood a word of it, he always did what the Giant Space Hamsters told him to do because they were his BFFs (a phrase he had learned from the TV actress Snookie). Midnight then ate an entire bowl of Little Friskies Gravy Sensations and promptly threw up.

The stunned judges unanimously gave the coveted Grand Jury Award to Midnight's prolonged barfing, as it so powerfully evoked the singular pro-capitalistic agit-prop of the prolonged barfing scene in Team America: World Police. Congratulations to Midnight Smoke and his promising vignette career!

Masterpiece Theatre Presents: Dead Kitty Classical Vignettes, by popular demand

And another magnificent performance by Serendipity,
this time of the drowning of Ophelia as described by
Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene VII:

Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

The Bard would have wept unashamedly at this evocative
postmodern interpretation of his finest drama. Though
clearly indebted to the work of the late genius Heiner Müller
(Die Hamletmaschine),the tragedienne Serendipity
imbued her performance with unconventional methodology
and won both the hearts and accolades of the judges.
The Cannes critics' panel awarded her 4.97 out of 5 stars.

Vultures Is As Vultures Does

Do I look like a black panther? Do they think I'm a black panther? I feel like
a black panther, so they ought to... dang, they didn't even see me. Crap.

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #3

BLIZZARD
a.k.a. Princess, Snowball, Shut Up for God's Sake
Professional Feline Fatale

• Habitual stalking, harassment, and intimidation for purposes of self-promotion to result in blasphemous, idolatrous, and heretical worship of self by the general public
• Interference in a lawful marriage by seductive enticement to a male spouse to engage in a relationship vaguely like bestiality although without the actual occurrence of bestiality, merely the appearance of same for purposes of disrupting said lawful marriage and gaining the affections of the male spouse for herself
• Assault, third degree, by scratching anyone who stops scratching her first
• Felony voyeurism (details sealed by court order)
• Disturbance of the peace by loud vociferation without cause at every opportunity
• Excessive sulking and glaring (misdemeanor, fourth degree)

Is that a catnip rat in your pocket or
are you just happy to see me?

CRIMESTOPPERS #3: IF YOU DIDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE FIRST TWO, DON'T BOTHER READING THIS ONE, EITHER.

Vultures again

Eight feet high, Bandit checks out the kitchen scene

About 20 minutes ago, Bandit crawled up on me for a hug and a cuddle. At the time, I was unaware that his butt was soaked in cat pee. I have a new t-shirt now, have repeatedly bathed, and have disinfected all surfaces on which, to my knowledge, Bandit sat.

"He loves you," said my wife when I told her about it. At this time, I have no comment on her reassurance of Bandit's unusually moist way of showing affection, nor any comment on whether I am mailing Bandit to Honduras as soon as I get the stamps.

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #2

Midnight in clothes dryer: first offense

MIDNIGHT
Midnight "The Village Idiot" Smoke
Known criminal associate of Bandit

• Burglary and/or felony trespass and/or illegal entry into domestic appliance preventing further use and obstructing private commerce
• Laundry tampering
• Compounding a felony by emitting fur
• Disrespect for authority by insolent use of tongue and refusal to evacuate premises
• Habitual criminal
• Torpor (third-class misdemeanor)

Midnight in clothes dryer: second offense, compounded by
sticking out tongue at law enforcement officers

CRIMESTOPPERS #2: SEE CRIMESTOPPERS #1

FELINE FELONS: Criminal Cat Crimes #1

Are cats bad? And if so, how bad are cats? Let's look at the evidence, gathered from actual police crime blotters.

BANDIT
Senior Antonio "The Lardbutt" Bandito
Il Cato Di Tutti Cati
"Most Alpha of Alpha Cats"

Bandit on top of the front door

• Unauthorized mountaineering of a door
• Wrongful possession of a communal means of egress and exit
• Interference in private real property
• Notorious and egregious appropriation of reserved real estate
• Nonpermissive establishment of false title
• Unlawful lien with adverse consequences
• Fictitious usucapion in res mancipi
• Violation of public order
• Disobeying cease-and-desist order
• Terroristic seizure of common easement
• Aerospace trespass [Quicquid plantatur solo, solo cedit] in areas not covered by United States v. Causby et ux
• Criminal ogling of passersby

CRIMESTOPPERS #1: STAY AWAY FROM CATS

Christnukkah Tree Damage Report, December 16th

One piece of tinsel, sorely abused

 

As of 9:05 p.m. today, the kwats have knocked down a total of

13 17

ornaments from the Christnukkah tree, pulled down

3

feet of tinsel (1 foot each on three separate occasions),
and ripped free

5-6

pieces of the aforementioned tinsel
that would make up a total length of

1.5

feet if laid end to end,
if it could be collected from

4

separate rooms in the house.

A Cat Doing What a Cat Does Best



Mmmm, piquant flavor with a hint of calcium,
lime, chlorine, and rust. Yes, it's Kitchen Sink,
2:44 p.m. A very good time for fine tap water.

Let's take another look at sweet and gentle Serendipity, the adorable baby Maine Coon who brings such love and joy into our lives as to gladden our hearts always, and when I say this I am lying like a pancaked squirrel on a two-lane road.

That was my water cup in the photo, the one Dip has her entire face stuck into. (...the one into which Dip has her entire face stuck... nah, I'm not an editor anymore.) I got one lousy sip of water, ONE LOUSY SIP, and then the cup went into the dishwasher, where it is now. ######ing cat.


I think we're done here.