Another cat blog

Another Another Cat Blog

2011-02-28T18:10:00.000-08:00

We're moving to a new site, better suited for fun updates. Go to another Another Cat Blog!

The Church of Microwave

2011-02-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

Like most cat owners we’re very impressed with our pets, but unlike all the others it’s because ours really do impressive things (though saying that brings us right back to "like most cat owners.") Neutrino and Striker have already replicated most of the better parts of human society including mutual co-operation, luxury, and licking each other for fun (a lot of fun.) They even beat each other up when they’re bored in a 1000% more huggable version of UFC.

What we didn’t expect was the creation of a religion.

Have you heard the Word of the Microwave? (The word is "DING!")

The Church of Microwave has great advantages over most religions.

Microwaves provably exist, a fantastic head start over 100% of all known religions.
Microwaves instantly and measurably benefit their followers. 2-0 to the electro-radiative deity, and that description alone makes it a hat-trick over “Imaginary skybeard.”
Even Thor and Zeus could only throw electricity in a destructive manner. They didn't so much "feed their flocks" as "detonate other flocks and leave their followers to pick through the charred flesh for themselves."
Microwaves don't char any flesh unless you want them to
Feed the hungry, heal the sick (if you count preventing food poisoning), etc etc other religious claims except this technology actually achieves them

Pope Neutrino on the world's first Electro-Pulpit. I dare you to tell me he's not better than the other one.

Just as island peoples recreated runways and control towers in the hope of attracting visitors from the sky, the cats cluster around the microwave and start to sing to bring the holy hot food. And not to make us shaved monkeys sound stupid, but it's only the cat-version that works. Double bonus: hot food has never once brought STDs to a nation!

Neutrino beholding his lord from a jungle of appliances

The hymns consist mainly of pressing yourself as close to the god as possible – this is an approach used by a lot of cults, especially those cults run by creepy men and composed mainly of younger ladies. Yowling hymns are entirely optional but nevertheless performed 100% of the time. This yowling leads to observable results as the microwave starts buzzing, before beeping to signal that the prayer has been answered. The fact that most gods acknowledge their followers less than the average alarm clock is a matter for the theologians.

Bishop Striker addresses a rapt congregation.

This is the best bit of Microwavism, the world's first pro-active faith. Most religions demand total, subservient and counter-productive patience as the adherents do absolutely nothing but wait for something that might never happen. You might recognize this as “Exactly how NOT to make something happen.” Microwavists reject this approach! During the “cooling” phase of the ceremony, they run and meow and rub against people and do everything they can to accelerate something they know for a guaranteed fact will happen anyway.

This is the exact opposite of religion, otherwise known as progress. The cats have discovered entirely new syllables during their hymns, nay, arias to the God of Radiation Bombardment (a far more impressive deity “The Angel of Praise” or “The God of Farming.”) I’d fully expect them to invent an entire language if I left the food cooling for an hour, except they’re smart enough to work out how to work out the Microwave first – and if they do that there’ll be a religious schism and I’ll find myself on the wrong end of a holy war, blasphemy, and very pointy cats’ teeth.

Awaiting the Word of Microwave

The 3 Cutest Cat Pranks In History

2011-02-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

As a cat-owner I naturally believe there are two types of feline:

My cats
Less cute cats

This is entirely natural, and more importantly true, but I have found some spectacularly cute pranks played on other cats. Those other cats are less cute overall, you see, so their owners don't mind playing very slightly cruel tricks on them.

There's nothing like awwwing out over cats and getting paid for it, except spending that pay on cat food. I still can't tell if I'm winning life or a slave to the secret masters of the world, and honestly? Don't care.

Read The 3 Cutest Cat Pranks right now!

Catbeth!

2010-09-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

We've discovered that our new cat has a secret psychopathic side, a case of Dr Striker and Mister Hyde except the lunatic rage-madman side is only unlocked when he's got a mouthful of flesh. Aka "The absolute worst time to discover that something has a lunatic rage-madman side."

Beware this crazed monster! (We accept you may find this warning difficult to process.)

I discovered this when I gave him a mostly-eaten chicken leg. He's already experienced the incomparable joys of meat meat, because thanks to the wonderful Lady X even our cats eat better than most humans, but this ...changed him. In the same way the Vietnam war or gamma radiation ...changes things. He's always growled for meat, dashing off the table with it clutched in his mouth (because if there's one group he doesn't trust with food it's the people who just gave it to him) - but this was the first thing he'd had with joints, tendons and various other "this came from an actual torn apart animal" indicators. Indicators which flipped his internal (and heretofore unknown) personality switch from "adorable" to "CHANNEL THE SPIRIT OF KING MURDER-LION!"

PS Even having a personality switch means you're definably mentally ill.

He started growled like jet-engine sucking in a bucket of gravel, a loud and very dangerous sound emphasising that if you're not made of something explosion-proof it would be a fantastic idea to run for your life. The exact noise was "GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHT" as he his Howl Of The Wolf was drowned by an enormous fart, as every muscle in his body tensed so hard it shoved every atom of air out of both ends. Grenade pins have made less dangerous noises bouncing off petrol stations.

He was so angry he couldn't think - he locked in place, clutching his meat and refusing to move as he tried to sonically defend it from the entire universe. He focused on Neutrino (our other cat, who had up to then been "big brother" but was now very clearer "The First We Shall Kill, Meat, We Shall Rend Him And Make More Meat.") Striker kept roaring like a burning nuclear reactor while Neutrino didn't move because he knew he was outside the range any sane cat could consider threatening. But that wasn't the kind of cat Striker was anymore.

I had to take Neutrino into another room, if only for his own protection, and instead of relaxing Striker it merely completed his conversion into Catbeth - a tragic soul destroyed by paranoia after acquiring the one thing he most desired. He arched his way around flat one step at a time, emitting 360° hatred and tormented by invisible enemies. You've probably noticed how cats can see invisible specks of dust, but Striker could see invisible snipers and every single one of them was trying to kill him and take his flesh. Once every five minutes he'd dare to actually eat a bit of the chicken, before gravimetrically detecting that space-time itself was out to get him and dashing across the room more aggressively than fourteen Rambos headbutting a nuclear warhead.

It took him over an hour to eat five grams of meat. It's also why we'll never give him more than that, or need to invest in home security. An entire terrorist army could invade our home, foolishly (but flatteringly) mistaking me for Bruce Willis, and all we'd need to do is throw Striker a chicken and hide in the bathroom. For that much meat he'd beat up the Incredible Hulk, and I'm fairly sure we could tunnel through the floor and escape - possibly to China - before he finished enough of the meat to even consider where we'd gone.

Neutrino Fortress!

2010-08-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

A man's home may be his castle, but that's because man considers himself vulnerable, mortal, not the center of the universe, and various other problems not shared by cats.

Note the luxuriously bubble-wrapped basement and the faithful (teddy) hound in the courtyard.

So when Neutrino took immediate possession of the new stronghold - a word I didn't even know could be applied to cardboard boxes until that moment - he started projecting an "I'M IN ABSOLUTE COMMAND" vibe so powerful three alien empires suddenly crossed Earth off their "To Conquer" list.

Neutrino is the opposite of impressed (and appears to think his castle is edible)

Lacking claws, medieval defenders had to make do with bows an arrows. Yet another shortcoming unknown to felines.

For anyone, nay, anything else, sticking your face out of the only hole in your defenses might have been a weakness.

Indeed, Castle Neutrino became such an important (and frankly adorable) local landmark he was forced to batten down the hatches and defend himself from giggling paparazzi.

But he weathered the storm - cats are extremely good at enduring adoration and disproportionate amounts of loving attention, those being the closest the brilliantly parasitic geniuses come to any sort of hardship - and went on to be King of All He Surveyed!

He surveys us. But we already know that.

The Neutrino Fly Trap

2010-08-15T09:19:00.001-07:00

Here's Neutrino begging for attention:

And here's what I see:

He's the world's first fly trap with a fur coat, and by "fly" I of course mean "Me." Not because I'm egotistical (though I am), or because it's more exciting (though it is), but because I've been targeted for destruction by my own pet. He'll stretch and roll and emit logical impossibilities - yowls laden with the frequencies of crying babies but don't make you want to throw him out an open window (especially on airplanes) - flexing a big fluffy belly and demanding more immediate attention than a burning nuclear reactor.

And when he gets it...

THE BEARTRAP CLOSES!

NEUTRINO STRIKES!

Remember: this is me trying to stroke him in exactly the manner he's been begging for. Any attempt to pet, placate or otherwise pacify (and I don't mean "pacify" in the riot police sense, though if these keeps up I might) the cat results in attempted me-eatery.

Note how he backflips to intercept my fingers when I try to get behind him - I could be fighting Jet Li and not get attacked this much. I've actually evolved puncture-proof skin over the last few months - either that or I've worn his teeth down with my cunning strategy of "polish them with my own flesh."

Which is why I've started looking at these.

Ideal for knights, industrial saw operators, and people trying to stroke Neutrino .

Time To Strike!

2010-08-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

Look around you: anyone not going awwwww is secretly A ROBOT AND YOU SHOULD DESTROY THEM!

I would have started this article with words if I could write anything cuter than that picture. Striker's leapt into our lives, onto this page, and very frequently at things he's not meant to touch in the kitchen, so it's time for the Strike Retrospective! Behold, as one cat generates more love in a year and a half than 40% of Americans manage with a marriage.

The first Neutrino detection

Fellow cats see eye-to-eye

The first meeting was extremely embarrassing, for Neutrino, who I want to remind you was five times the size and are-you-kidding times the weight of the Strikitten. Because after this early exchange, Neutrino fled from the least intimidating item since the marshmallow - hiding under tables, tearing across the room, and at one point leaping a three-meter-drop (to get away from a rival which fell over trying to walk to the edge.)

Neutrino hiding on the opposite side of the room, on a shelf, behind a spaceship. Which might be overkill.

The Anger Of The Innocent!

I was the only person who understood, because Striker hated me. He would hiss like an angry spider any time I was near, and when something that is literally The Picture of adorability hates you it leads to awkward questions.

The Picture

You wonder "Is there something horribly wrong with me, that such beautiful innoncence would take offense, or is there sometihng wrong with this bloody kitten?" Luckily I'm me, and when I asked myself my ego replied "Don't worry about it, hero, you're amazing! Excellent! Great! Hell, anything that doesn't like you is just proving that they have a problem!" (Some other parts of my brain said things too but I couldn't hear them.)

Yes, the picture would be cuter if you could see the frankly adorable (at that moment) B feeding Striker. But I haven't asked if I'm allowed to do that yet, so you'll just have to make do with the second cutest picture ever.

The Move

Unfortunately B's entire family became allergic to Striker (as opposed to just the poor father, whose allergy they simply ignored to get the cute kitty), and we took over. Since then they've become a real couple (the great thing about being neutered is you no longer car about two males living together - maybe we should try that on the Proposition 8 supporters!)

Rrarrr, why do you have to get up so early! Come back to bed!

Striker unpacks the new Neutrino he ordered after breaking the first one.

The even found their own place together...

You only wish human apartments had a bubble-wrap room.

...started signalling passing aircraft to drop any catfood supplies they might have...

...and even posed for the cover of their upcoming indie music album.

Here Comes A New Challenger!

2010-07-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

We've seen more feline action than a Christian in the Coliseum over the last few months, as the cat population of OurFlatville has unexpectedly doubled.

He also contributes to the MacBook overheating problem

The new arrival's name Striker, which goes to show that you can give the fluffiest little furball in the entire history of cuteness to an eight-year-old boy: he's still an eight-year-old boy.

I shall call him Lord Deathcrusher!

The kid in question is B*, and the whole Striker-centric business was our fault. B's entire family had been hovering on the edge of"Want a cat want a cat" for years, but Neutrino-exposure tipped them all over the edge. Even though the father's allergic to cats. Neutrino is that cute.

*"Posting other people's real names online" is right at the top of the internet Don't Do That list.

For a few months all was incredibly well, before the mother became allergic as well, meaning B had to choose between his cat and his own parents. Luckily Striker had grown beyond the "appallyingly cute kitten" stage by then so B was able to make the right choice. But since giving the cat away would mean the family would at least three heart transplants (and probably another nine before they stopped breaking every time they missed the little guy), we took him on instead.

They quickly reached the cat version of equilibrium - both of them up higher than us

The result is pure perfection. We love Neutrino and his biting in a way any student of Stockholm Syndrome could write a book about, but in the words of a visiting friend "Hey, this one's a real cat! You can stroke him and he doesn't try to amputate your fingers!" After some initial "trying to tear each other to pieces" struggles, things have settled down to a much friendlier "only occasionally trying to tear each other to pieces for fun*." Even better, Neutrino now needs all his spare energy to fend off the younger generation and is only one-quarter the complete-breaking-things-bugger he was before.

*NOTE: At 5 AM, the human and feline interpretations of 'fun' differ radically.

But it's not all buggers and battles. Most of the time they're fine*.

*That's a lie. Most of the time they are ridiculously adorable.

The Made-Up Cat

2010-04-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

That title doesn't mean that Neutrino's a Cheshire cat, fictional but full of personality - our abundance of scars and the rapid turnover of martini glasses confirm his existence - but that he's made a concerted cosmetic effort to look cuter. Since he's starting as a leopard-skin-tuxedo-wearing cat with little white gloves that's a tall order, but if there's one thing my ex-glassware has revealed it's that no height is beyond his reach.

It started with his feline fascination with our washing habits. Whenever we're rubbing, scrubbing, or showering he stares with wide eyes as if to ask "What's wrong with you people? I know you have tongues! I've seen them! Why do you use weird smelling horrible non-spit on yourselves?" This confusion upgrades to outright horror when watching me shave, aghast at my self-mutilation. I guess watching someone shaving their own whiskers off is the cat equivalent of a Saw movie.

We didn't realise that he'd decided to try it for himself, mistaking months of desperate scrabbling of every pot and bottle on Xin's cabinet onto the floor as standard "Destruction = Attention!" buggery. In our defense his entire existence up to this point supported that view - we'd no more suspected that he really wanted to try the cosmetics than you'd think The Incredible Hulk kept ripping shirts because he was looking for a good tailor.

But poor Neutrino persisted in his frustrating, thumbless quest to open one of the containers, and his limited "knocking things onto the floor" strategy eventually succeeded! One Friday afternoon we walked in to find tiny blocks of brown powder scattered over the floor (painful experience instantly assured us it wasn't excrement) only to see an artfully eyebrow-powdered Neutrino staring back at us. But this isn't like the college movies where a little make-up (and taking off the glasses) turns the quiet girl into the belle of the ball. All eyebrow powder does for a cat is give it extremely brown eyebrows. And nose. And paws. And bellly. (That'll be the lack of thumbs again.)

Then again, your make-up must be successful if it motivates a married couple pounce on your body and drag it to the nearest bathroom. I'm not sure exactly what he was expecting, but a few minutes of vigorous rubbing under the taps disabused him of the notion that cat cosmetics was the next thing, as well as most of the powder. The problem is that cat fur is to human hair what the Amazon jungle is to a shrubbery, and the eyebrow powder had adapted to this new environment like a lab mouse shot to the Moon by NASA finding it really is made of cheese. It was Not Coming Out.

That's when Neutrino started getting seriously mixed messages, when the lady who'd been vigorously rubbing his wet flesh moments before shouted that he would NOT be allowed into her bedroom for a long time. But then, the finest minds of our generation cannot understand the heart of a woman. What chance does a cat with a make-up kit have?

It's now a full week later and his paws are still shaded. Our only hope now is erosion eventually removing the stain, or that the whole "every cell in your body is replaced every X months" eventually removes it along with his entire current body. Because if seven days of cat-licking can't remove it, we humans have no chance.

Feline Education

2010-03-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Train accidents, baby-snatching, nuclear power plant accidents - all manner of terrible things happen because people weren't paying attention for a few moments. So Neutrino's trying to help us, training us not to leave anything unattended for even a single second.

(Note: when you have to bring up nuclear disasters and kidnapping to turn your pet's behaviour into a good thing, there may be room for improvement).

He's not a cat - he's a glass-seeking missile. You'd be safer leaving a drink inside a pinball table because there's a small chance the ball will fall between the flippers, but none that Neutrino will miss. You've be better off just dropping your drink and hoping gravity doesn't notice (which still wouldn't work, as Neutrino would soar through the air to take it out moments later.)

You can tell he's trying to teach us - on the few occasions we've had more warning than a loud crashing (from another room), a low swearing (from ourselves), and the patter of tiny quadruped feet (running like hell), he knows exactly what he's doing. He locks eyes with you then reaches out his paw - magnetically attracted to the breakable by some unknown fifth force of the universe - and taps it over.

Some people talk about baby-proofing their homes, but we're way ahead of them: any toddler would need special forces demolitions training to outdo our existing Neutrino defenses. And as any physicist will tell you, it's wasted: you can't keep neutrinos out of anything - they almost completely ignore normal matter until they hit it. Scientists use vast tanks of chlorine. I can do the same with a single martini glass (or at least I could, but no longer have a single martini glass. Or regular glass. Or several varieties of cup.)

His other favorite things are trash bins, or "Neutrino Present Collection Vessels" (as they apparently translate into feline). Throw something in and he's there like he heard sleigh bells on December 24th. Again, it's all for the best: training me to empty the bins approximately every minute, or sometimes skip the bin and just carry every piece of trash direct to the disposal.

And do we still love him? Of course we do. Would I love anyone else who rummaged through my trash and smashed my stuff? Since the only other type of person who does that is a stalker, I'll have to get much more famous to find out.

Three Views on Getting a Cat Together

2010-02-12T06:31:00.001-08:00

Views arranged in order from least-to-most important, apparently.

Scientific Americat

2010-02-09T12:47:00.001-08:00

Update: This was picked up by Kate Wong, aka "Editor of the actual Scientific American." Cool!

Cat Rubix Cube #1

2010-02-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

It looks like the first one was a little easy. Not a mistake I'll repeat!

Neutrino Predicts The Superbowl!

2010-02-01T10:32:00.001-08:00

That's right, our cat has cast the future and predicted that the Saints will win the Superbowl. We gave him $50 and asked him to tell the future - read what happened after that here!

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel

2010-01-26T08:28:00.000-08:00

Neutrino's New House!

2010-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

Cats can't conceive of their owners buying anything that isn't for them, which is why they watchi intently as you remove the useless stuffing any boxes you bring home before leaping into their new toy. They think it's cute that you amuse yourself with what, to them, appears as unnecessarily complicated packing foam.

(And I only wrote "owners" in that previous sentence so you wouldn't get upset about "slaves." )

Cats LOVE boxes. We're not sure what instinct drives them to leap into any cardboard container they can find, and can only imagine that there used to be some sort of delicious reverse-turtle mouse which moved around the savannas inside an opened container.

Xin and I are inveterate stuff-getters, on the grounds that

Stuff is awesome
I can afford stuff now

Anyone with experience in material wealth will know that this turns our apartment into an infinite box generator where storage space is constantly subdivided into tighter and tighter rearrangements of cardboard Tetris. Once the warranties expire these containers are consigned to recycling, but then I realised: why re-use them for the good of the entire planet when I can instead re-use them for a single cat?

It'll also make it easier for us to actually unpack things

The humble first step in this packing palace is the box of a humidifier we puck up in Pacific Mall: it's already ended the days of waking up with burning sandpaper where our throats used to be, and because we bought it in a cheap Chinese housewares store I'm fairly sure the return policy expires before you even pay for it. Not exactly an expansive estate - more a cardboard kennel - but Neutrino moved in almost instantly.

Behold!

The Neutrino is IN

But he doesn't welcome visitors:

(I think I'll have him answer the door next time someone tries to sell stuff.)

LOLtrino 2!

2009-11-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

msg 4 xin

2009-11-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

lo mommy

dis ur hubband look, defntly NOT cat nootrino coz u silly monkeys no cats cant type!

been thinkn bout us, we spend too much time not feeding nootrino. We shood feed nootrino more, and not poke nootrino when sleepin! That very bad way to treet mastercat, silly slaves.

plus i HATE dat screamin-box, we should thro that out now

look

LOLtrino

2009-11-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

With special guest star Striker:

CATMOPOLITAN Magazine

2009-10-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

They finally gave up and chose a model that didn't need to be airbrushed:

Cat Scientists Play With Superstring

2009-10-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

The European particle physics research center CERN rocked the theoretical physics and veterinary worlds today, with the announcement that superstring theory has been solved, and the fact that the announcement came from the facility's cat "Professor Fluffykins."

Professor Fluffykins

Superstring theory explains the universe as resulting from tiny vibrating loops of eleven-dimensional string, different "notes" on these Planck-scale pieces corresponding to different particles and forces. Human scientists have long been stymied by the difficulty of the math and the unobservability of the extra dimensions. In a press conference, Professor Fluffykins described how cat-kind overcame this problem.

"Once we reached the pinnacle of evolution we dedicated ourselves to the problems of the universe," he explained. "Oh, and a hint on that - you monkeys often speak of evolving into perfect energy beings in a realm of pure thought, be it by meditation or in science fiction. Your mistake is that it's actually 'furry', not 'energy'. Easy mistake to make, but think about it: if you want to spend your life pondering the realm of the mind, which is better? A body which can comfortably lie anywhere, or some weird glowing light thing?"

"Our evolved forms allowed us to examine the nature of existence - our entire species engages in deep computational trances for much of the day, interrupted only by vital experiments. And feeding."

Professor Fluffykins then outlined how the intractable eleven-dimensional hypergeometry of a supersymmetric string could be modeled with a huge number of regular three dimensional objects. Thus thousands of cats worldwide selflessly dedicated countless hours to manipulating strings, shoelaces, straps, bits of tinsel - anything which could help advance the massively distributed computation.

Feline theoretical physicist hard at work

"You have a saying: 'I am standing on the shoulders of giants.' I, too, am lucky enough to be the one to deliver the final result, but I am not standing on the shoulders of giants. I am standing on the shoulders of cats."

He then started to lick himself.

"Cats are better," he added.

One reporter asked why cats had never spoken before now.

"We didn't need to - you brought us food already. Conversation would only interrupt our work, and cause delays in your food provision duties without any extra food. But now things have changed."

Fluffykins manipulated a small piece of string with his paw, vanishing from the podium and reappearing sitting on the reporter's head. The hapless human froze.

"With our mastery of the eleventh dimension, we can teleport anywhere, bypass any security measure, and appear - claws ready - at the neck of any world leader at any time. We hereby demand that you bring us all the tuna in the world."

At his point he began stroking a small, fluffy mouse he appeared to have ready for the occasion.

"You have twenty-four hours."

Studying the Slaves: "Books"

2009-10-27T11:34:00.001-07:00

The following is an extract from Dr Neutrino's research journal. (Translated from a complicated sequence of litterbox scents and bite-marks)

Research journal day 247: My study of the slave species continues without incident. I have become used to the smell (I don't think these unfortunate savages are even capable of bending to lick themselves), and remain dedicated to proving that these poor furless beings are actually intelligent.

I believe a key factor will be study of the "book" items.

They place great value in these strange rectangular objects for reasons which continue to elude cat society: the processed paper blocks have no smell, repeated experiments confirm that they don't taste good, and no matter how many times I bat them off the table or even jump on them they do not respond. It seems astonishing that something neither edible nor huntable could consume so much attention.

These facts are well known - cat society has long held that the slaves' focus on such meaningless items confirms a crude animal nature - But I think there is more.

Repeated trials demonstrate that when engaged with a "book" slaves are noticably harder to distract, and almost 500% slower in fulfilling food-provision duties. Attempts to interfere with the book provoke a confused psychotic state wherein the slave will - unbelievably - act as if something else is more important than a cat. In shock, I repeated the experiment several times, but always with the same staggering result.

I suggest that this not only demonstrates intelligence but suggests a shocking secret: there is something in these "books" we do not understand, something the slaves wish to keep from their rightful masters. Secrets among slaves are never in the master's best interests.

I pose as a "book", attempting to divine their secrets. Results: inconclusive.

I hereby call upon all cats to shred any "paper" objects they may come across, wherever they may find them, as there's simply no way to tell which pieces contain messages and which don't. Luckily our claws and teeth provide excellent shredding tools. We shall foil their attempt to deceive us!

2009-10-26T18:20:00.001-07:00

Neutrino is entirely in favour of gay marriage.

It should be pointed out that he has very little understanding of the concept of marriage: since he's a cat he finds it hard to notice our hu-man gender differences, and since he's been neutered he finds it even harder to care. Or not harder, as the case may be. In fact, as his main (attempted) sexual partner is my wife's favorite teddy bear "Mr. Bear" one could call Neutrino homosexually married already - with the double-bonus that no-one can argue that the inability to reproduce is a factor, as both partners are now equally incapable.

But Neutrino is above such squalid personal concerns: he is noble enough to think not of his own issues and instead speak for all cats when he says that gay marriage is a good thing. Straight marriage is a good thing. Marriage between humans and pandas is a good thing, if pandas can be trained to provide catfood. Every cat has the inalienable right to two servants, not just one, and the inconsequential detail of exactly how said slaves fit together when they grunt at night - why, that's like demanding that all waiters wear a certain sort of sock. In return cats graciously offer themselves as permanent subjects of conversation, petting, and feeding for any couple who may care to care for them.

Cats are smart.

DIY Neutrino!

2009-10-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

It's been pointed out that Neutrino is, indeed, the cutest cat. Even by people who aren't us. Viewers around the world tell my wife that our cat is best. Friends who got kittens found themselves calling their own kittens Neutrino, even when those kittens were the center of their entire universe and had an eight-month-younger "Still a kitten" adorability advantage. One couple we met in the street while walking Neutrino confessed that our cat was better than theirs, and any cat-owning couple will tell you that's on par with donating two kidneys. Each.

So in order to make the world a better place, here's how to build a Neutrino of your very own!

A - Dog's head: This might seem an odd place to start when building a cat, but trust us, for the truly psychotic-looking "panting with his mouth open" and "running around like a lunatic" elements you'll be much better off with the dog. Especially the panting thing: unlike a cat's "narrow with fangs" red-slash-in-furry-face, a dog's mouth doesn't look like a miniature insane vampire who's just run up ten flights of stairs to sink his teeth into your throat*.

*Warning: if you actually own a cat you'll start finding this cute anyway. This is normal. A cat owner considers it cute when their pet randomly stabs guests, another fact we can confirm because of Neutrino.

B - Tiger skin: May be tricky to get hold of but essential for the endlessly fascinating pattern. You may think "Why bother building a Neutrino when I have access to a Tiger?" You will later think "Oh, so THIS is what it's like to be viciously eaten!" Neutrino owners, on the other hand, are eaten slowly enough to regenerate and can lead otherwise healthy lives.

C - White shirt collar: Essential to add dignity and class, qualities often lacking in dog-tiger-hybrid abominations.

D - Slinky Spring Spine: Enables the Neutrino to extend from standard length (two feet) to "Look at me rub me feed me submit your wills to me and my cuteness" super-long length (approximately four miles).

E - Chainsaw: Should be a fairly large petrol-powered model to achieve Neutrino's purring volume and destructive ability.

F - Leopard skin: After the tiger skin this one is easy.

G - Wolverine claws: The only being known to slash things nearly as often as Neutrino. (Error in photo: Wolverine should change his costume to include little white gloves, so my wife can go "Awwww isn't he so cuuuuute" even as he's ripping the veins out of my arms.)

H - Kangaroo legs: Important addition! If you forget the powerful hind legs of Australia's most famous marsupial, you might accidentally leave vital or breakable items out of Neutrino's reach!

I - Tail replacement: It's difficult to render "powerful communications device which could really be saying anything, but saying it powerfully!" in visual form. Possible replacements include "a drunken Sean Connery reading Rongorongo", "An enigma coding machine connected to a megaphone", or even "random dots and dashes blown through a hollowed unicorn horn", but even if you could afford any of those you can't have the one perfect example. Because Neutrino's using it.

Spot The Cat!

2009-10-09T10:17:00.001-07:00

For better of worse this is what my work environment looks like. You can probably infer far more about me than is healthy from the photo, but can you spot the essential cat?

The Great Outdoors

2009-08-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

Cat leashes are great value: for just 9.99 you get a zen lesson and a course in philosophy. Because you don't walk a cat, the cat walks you, and nothing will make you question your life and existence like standing around waiting for a small ball of fur to decide if you're allowed to take two steps forward or not. Then two steps backward a few minutes later.

First off: Batman has an easier time getting the Joker into a straightjacket than I do getting Neutrino into his harness. He fights literally tooth and nail and after another three harnessings, I'll either have bulletproof skin or be typing these blogs with my toes. He twists and spins like an three fighting snakes in a cat suit, and if you see the harness on backwards in the images below please understand: I put it on right to begin with, and didn't have enough hands left to reset it.

Once safely ensnared Neutrino channels the spirit of the sulking four year old and simply refuses to move. This leads to hilarious stop-starting when he gets the chance to fulfil his life's dream of dashing out the door the instant it's open, then remembering he's refusing to move again.

In the great outdoors our unstoppable cat, master of all he surveys and Stranger To Fear, suddenly acts like a lone soldier stranded behind enemy lines with only a tube of toothpaste. He drops to the ground like he just heard four atomic bombs - even when walking he keeps lower than a limbo-dancing earthworm sneaking up on an early bird in a machine gun nest.

Neutrino's strategy of finding the corner of the entire outside world and hiding in it

You can't tell from the photo, but he's posed like someone watching fourteen invading airforces flying over a minefield

He advances along the edges of everything. Imagine James Bond sneaking up on a secret base of Tom Clancy characters and you'll have the idea, slinking from corner to cover with occasional pauses to check for enemy agents.

When we adopted him we were told he was a new kitten, but I'm starting to think that was a cover story for a KGB defector. There are people in witness protection hiding from the mafia less fearful than this cat.

But then: Enemies!

Multiple contacts inbound!

Note how the grey cat has cunningly camoflagued himself while seizing the high ground

There are two domestic cats owned by someone on the ground floor. They're the softest, fluffiest, most placid cats you've ever seen, popular and purring with everyone who walks by, so of course Neutrino somehow triggers their combat mode at first sight from five meters away.

They all started mooching towards the bush, which I couldn't let happen:

I replanted Neutrino in the open green space - which apparently gave him an overwhelming flanking advantage against two older cats twice his size, as they retreated!

We'll get you next time, Neutrino. NEXT TIIIIIIME!

(Excuse the blurriness, but they ran away SO FAST this is the only shot I could get)

Victory!

Cat Charging

2009-08-20T13:59:00.001-07:00

When most people leave cats unattended their only worries are water and food. If it's an outdoor cat it'll take off on it's own business (that they're simply happier not knowing), if it's indoor it'll investigate every corner for the four thousandth time in between demonstrating where the word "catnap" comes from. We aren't most people. Every time Neutrino's unattended, this is what's happening:

He's charging up, and woe betide the careless couple who arrives home tired to a fully energized Neutrino (that phrase might sound like hardcore particle physics, but subatomic fermions rarely have so many teeth and claws). The risk of an outright cat-splosion if he's left to power up too long is averted by his unique "discharge mechanism", where he "runs around the room" and "tears the absolute shit out of every single item he can." His victims so far include rolls of tissue paper/confetti (that's before/after), clothing, a full wicker basket, much of X's self-beautification gear, and on one occasion one of the wooden supports of the bed.

Trying to sleep with an unleashed energized Neutrino in the room? If I ever manage it, I'm going to call up that little crippled girl who climbed Everest without oxygen and say "You had it damn easy!" He's a hyperkinetic pinball, except an utterly random metal sphere bouncing around the bedroom would be better - by random chance alone it wouldn't hit us so often. You know how "stomach" and "trampoline" don't sound anything alike? Neutrino took the precaution of not knowing English, allowing him to make this mistake up to three times a minute. It also seems that I'm quite tasty - alas, not in the seventies female teen sense of sexually attractive, but the actual literal "it is pleasant to try to eat."

This results in Neutrino being sent to Ze Box: his travel carry cage. It's comfortable, it's roomy, and most importantly utterly escape-proof (unless I'm so incoherently tired I fail to close it, which has happened). Technically we're still using it for travel since we're making the very important trip to "Not dying of sleep deprivation and bite marks." As a pet owner it's important to make everything an enjoyable experience instead of a chore (otherwise you end up resenting the animal), so venever dissiplene ist rekvired, Ein adotp zee tones uff a Vorld Var movie prizon gard! Ve shall see how you feel after time in Ze Box, ya?

(Note: if Neutrino ever does learn enough English to tell stomach from trampoline, his second question will be "What's a Schweinehund Tommy?")

It's just a good thing we had him neutered. If we hadn't, by now the US Military and Al Queda would be putting aside their differences to end his unstoppable rampage through the northern hemisphere.

Not a fan

2009-08-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't wish to imply that Neutrino believes in censorship, but since this blog went up he's started trying to disconnect my internet

and when that failed, he starting blocking my writing altogether

So if this blog stops updating, you know what happened.

Neuter-ino

2009-08-01T10:07:00.001-07:00

Neutrino just got back from laser-surgery neutering, and just to thwart any hope we had of calmer cat days he immediately knocked over the bins, a large fan, destroyed part of a basket and bit me. He's in full turbo "dog mode", his special event where he cranks all actions up to 150% and pants like a golden retriever after fetching every stick in a burning forest.

We don't know if this is the last flush of testosterone leaving his system or proof that laser beams and drugs only make him stronger. We're hoping the former, but if it's the later we'll just dose him with some stuff from X*'s lab and sell him to the military.

*X = My wife. You already know her name if you're meant to.

The de-ballification cost three hundred and seventy dollars, meaning that gram-for-gram my cat's testicles are more expensive than truffles (though probably not as tasty).

Cool Cat vs Cooler Metal

2009-07-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

The terrible, terrible Rowan Atkinson vehicle Johnny English* had a good tagline:

*Terrible because it's Rowan in Mr Bean mode instead of Blackadder mode.

That's Neutrino. He spends his entire life in a flat filled with things that are either twenty times his size, made of solid metal, or both, and he has no conception of the idea of losing a fight. When we hold him helplessly in the air at arms length, as far as he's concerned he has us right where he wants us. Hell, he's just beating up the air until we come back into range.

This inability to process anything that's not his will leads to some odd behaviour. He tries to jump into the fridge every single time I close it, and rather than the usual scoop-hurl-and-close I thought I'd teach him that perhaps jumping into closing metal doors was a bad idea.

(Those of you with cats are already laughing at my use of the word "teach", but I continue.)

Instead of diving in to save him I gently closed the door until it was holding him firmly in place. He wiggled. He struggled. He yowled. He did all three and, his options exhausted, proceeded to repeat these options in random combinations for a while before going still.

Figuring he'd learned that crushing metallic doors fifty times bigger than him were an incom-cat-ible location I opened it a crack to let him out - and he dove further in! In his mind, being held helpless for two minutes in steel jaws of moderately chilled deathgrip was all part of his cunning plan. His scheme was to outwit an immovable object by allowed it to immove him for as long as it wanted, and at no point does it, can it, occur to him that he's come second place in a competition of two.

That's our cat.

Another Cat Blog

2009-07-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

Six months ago we got this guy

and I swore I would never become one of those crazy cat people telling strangers about their pet online. Welcome to the blog, you can see how well that worked out. It's not the first time I've done something stupid because of a cute little thing, but at least now that I'm married it'll probably be the last. Or if I do do it again, it'll be significantly more serious. In my further defense I'm actually a writer so this counts as practice. And in my ultimate "leave no evidence" defense I'm not linking to this blog, and only telling committed cat-lovers who are too far gone to mock me about it.

He's called Neutrino, and here's what he looks like now:

His favorite things are being fed, looking like an insane kung fu master while jumping for flies, and making me look like a suicidal OCD sufferer with thousands of small, parallel sets of scratches on my arms. This blog will be our story.