In less awesome news, I did hear a week or so ago of more violence against cats here in Kelowna, which makes the sticking-cats-in-a-sealed-container-in-the-sun from last month just seem kinda mean. I’m not going to link to the article or video, because the title is enough: “Cat mutilations now total three”. How do such people exist, who would treat animals so cruelly? I also heard about a local guy tying his dog to the back of his truck and driving at full speed. I really hope it’s not a trend.

My cat may complain about cruel treatment but don’t believe her. Obviously I am very obedient and comply when she puts her foot down.

(Warning, the video footage is disturbing to those who love animals.)

To summarize, last week some asshat here in Kelowna stuck a mother cat and her 9 kittens in a large tupperware container, sealed the lid and put it out in the sun. Luckily someone walked by and found the container and saved the suffocating and hyperthermic cats in time. They all survived, but it’s still one of the shittiest examples of animal cruelty I have ever heard.

If they ever catch the person who did this, I’d like him/her to be put in a closed tupperware container out in 30C+ weather and see how they like that. That’s the least violent punishment I can think of.

Seriously, like it’s said in the video, there is no reason for people to kill their pets: they can be surrendered to the SPCA, no questions asked. According to my records, my cat was surrendered to the Grand Forks SPCA a few months before I got her. I almost wish I knew who had to give her up so I can thank them, as backwards as that may sound, because she is an awesome cat and I can’t imagine the last 5 years without her.

Sorry for the depressing content. But if you go hug your pet you’ll probably feel better real soon. Unless it’s a fish and you’ve just killed it.

I love that the instant the cat is up and walking around he immediately tries to go where he’s not supposed to. Good sense of priorities, that one.

In local news, my cat attacked me the other night. I think I was rolling over in my sleep and she suddenly jumped onto my arm and gave me some scratches and a puncture wound. Next time I’ll ask permission first.

Then sometime last year I started hearing stuff about how having a cat is really bad for the environment. Like you need 5 million hectares of land to grow the grain to feed the cows that become the food of a single cat for a year, even if the cat food’s made of chicken. I’m too lazy to look it up, you go try if you want. Also that kitty litter is totally bad too because it’s gathered via strip mining, and it’s got bad cancer-causing stuff in it, and disposing of it does really bad stuff to fish or some such thing. I’m not gonna look all that up either, I’m tired, the fucking cat started attacking me in bed at 5 am this morning.

(By the way, the Wikipedia page for kitty litter is full of win. People need to see two pictures of cats taking a dump so that they’re assured it’s not just an aberration.)

Screw Mother Nature, I’m keeping my cat. If only to get back at her for this morning, but it’s the principle of the thing. This sucks, though, I don’t want to have to be mean to the planet just for Shebang’s sake, I’d rather do it on purpose in a big way, like BP.

Alternative kitty litter would be an option except for the fact that I don’t have a car to go drive to the big pet marts to go get it (see? Society doesn’t want me to be ecologically friendly). Safeway just has the regular clay stuff and possibly the weird crystal type that may be better for the environment but its scifi appearance worries me. I think some friends of mine use wood pellets or something, and a brave few have managed to teach their cats to use the toilet, but I don’t have that level of dedication, and I’m equally doubtful of my cat.

I think @gusgreeper linked to this video earlier this week: a commercial for litter made out of whole kernel corn.

I don’t care what you’re selling, if you pass me a beaker and ask me if it smells like cat urine I’m not going to sniff it. You sniff it, you litter-eating weirdo.

Seems it’s a real company, no really. This is the first time I’ve heard of corn being used; I’d be curious how good it is as litter. Not enough to do a sniff test on TV, though, fuck.

So corn is biodegradable, what with it being corn, so maybe it’s better for the environment but then aren’t we already raping the earth with corn production already? And killing everyone with high fructose corn syrup and stuff too. Though that last one’s probably a good thing for the earth in the long run.

It’s been a real long time since I last did the cat-blogging, but I’m obviously behind because I’ve been getting requests to talk about my cat some more. Dunno why, it’s not like anything much happens in her life, she’s stuck in a cheap apartment in Kelowna. So I’m gonna pad this out with links too.

This is a month old, but my friend Chrissy sent it to me and it’s cute: a cat playing with an iPad:

I tried that with my cat and the Kindle but she didn’t seem that impressed. Must be the lack of colour screen.

Okay, so I like cats a lot and some of you think I’m all rather silly about that but I do have limits, unlike some people. I don’t care if Shebang were at death’s door, I’m not marrying her (though this being Canada our both being female is not the issue, but BEING DIFFERENT SPECIES IS OMFG). I’ve lost a few cats in my time, and it really sucks but I’m not sure you’re checking off an item in the kitteh’s bucket list by making her an honourable woman. Because she’s A CAT.

Okay, okay, fine, I’ll talk about Shebang, Mr. C.L. who emailed me the other week. He asked for photos of her at her “new locale” and info on how she’s handling the change. Um, it’s been 9 months. That’s like a decade in cat years. Also in bored city girl years. So there’s no change left. Frankly she was fine once I unpacked and got rid of the mountain of boxes and wrapping paper, and that was in August.

I think cats are usually fine wherever they are, so long as you’re there to feed them and provide toys and furniture and be a warm body to curl up on. Come to think of it, that sounds like a pretty good deal for anyone.

The picture above is her on my bed (Mom crocheted that blanket years ago), and the picture below is her on the top of the la-z-boy chair. She seems pretty comfy to me. Also I switched her food a few months ago and she no longer has explosive diarrhea.

TMI Friday!

Yes, it’s just a commercial, but without hope, there is nothing.

So I’ve been sick with a cold for nearly 2 weeks now, and despite having the alarm clock blaring as loud as usual in the mornings, I’ve been sleeping through at least half an hour of it every day this week. As my cat is used to me getting up and turning off the horrid rock station soon after it starts, she’s resorted to clawing at my face as an added wake-up technique. I guess she doesn’t like Kings of Leon on repeat, which pretty much describes that local radio station in the mornings.

Sadly because cat spanking requires two hands (so you can get both sides equally and not tip her over) I am unable to film this, but believe me, it’s as ridiculous as is necessary.

I must be hormonal this week because when I started looking through Average Cats I laughed so hard I cried. I guess the only thing funnier than a lolcat is an anti-lolcat:

In case you missed this last week, check out the chart entitled 17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat. Even though it’s not about your cat so much as cats in general, since your cat wasn’t around when Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat door (which is so much more useful than calculus or laws of motion). Did you know that kitties are not impressed by cupcakes? I didn’t!

I’m heading to Vancouver tomorrow so let’s hope my cat can survive two and a half days without me, or spankings.

Thanks to my friend Jaime for pointing this video out to me, and to the website Everything is Terrible for editing this video from the original*. I wonder if spanking is covered.

That’s all I got for cat links this week, I’ve been working hard at my database twiddling and have neglected Her Highness, who luckily has managed to keep herself amused by being in the fucking way. She’s so giving.

*By the way, it’s my birthday in a month. Hint. Hint.

I think the conversation then drifted briefly onto ferrets and someone suggested that maybe the reason why they were affected by the virus was because they were rather humanlike in behaviour already, such as their ability to grab things in their paws. I then mentioned the existence of polydactyl cats, some of which have that same grasping ability due to their “opposable thumbs”; but the guys thought I’d made it up until I produced pictures like this one (though at first they did wonder if it was photoshopped).

I guess people in Kelowna don’t ever see polydactyl cats. Huh. Maybe there’s a market for them here since they’re so exotic; too bad the cat whose feet are in the picture above was fixed years ago. One workmate, perhaps in the excitement of having discovered a new life form, kept referring to these cats as “pterodactyl cats”, and refused to be corrected because he liked his name better.

Of course, since the internet is omnipotent and complete in all universal knowledge a google search on “pterodactyl cats” produces actual results, one which is a Yahoo Answers page where the person means polydactyl but is stupid since you automatically become stupid once you post a question on Yahoo Answers, if you weren’t already. Another link is a Youtube video of a cat making scary noises. Oh, and here’s a picture of a cat and a pterodactyl, despite the fact that’s not really a pterodactyl.

I don’t know if I mentioned before that one of my workmates has a cat that likes to be spanked, but I have been spanking kitties since I moved here. Someday I should make a video because it is silly. It’s also a bit disturbing, though, how much the cat likes it, so I feel dirty afterwards. Then I come home and try it on my cat and she leaps away in horror. Typical that you’d only get that kind of pussy with a stranger.