Feline Fantasies 101

Got cha attention, right? This is a wonderful post dealing with kitty myths and such on the advocacy site: care2.com. Black cats get such an especial dose of bad rep that many are rejected outright, but there are black kitties with absolutely perfect personalities (not just cats, dogs too), and adoption chances for black cats is only half of others (torties rank a close second, at least in Singapore). It’s really a wonder that black cats aren’t killed on sight everywhere (especially during Halloween, black cat month), though there’s no lack of trying, even in urban Singapore. But so what if they look like shadows with eyes under the right lighting? Black kitties are still kitties. Black kitties need love too

Feline Fantasies 101

posted by Janet Garey Oct 19, 2009 5:10 pm

“Doesn’t Bella creep you out?” Andy asked, raking his black-painted nails through spikes of neon purple hair.

The object of his curiosity reclined on my lap, bubble gum-pink tongue lapping at her glistening, black as pitch, tiny paw. I had no idea what the boy was talking about.

“She’s a cat,” he observed, “and completely black!”

Chuckling over Andys’ skill at stating the obvious, my nod urged him to delve a bit deeper.

“Hey, everybody knows that black cats bring bad luck,” he insisted, then paused to watch my complexion darken, eyebrows shooting toward my auburn hairline.” I’ve always believed they have something to do with evil, witchcraft and wizardry.

Resisting the urge to smack my young Goth friend alongside his multiply-pierced head, I decided it was time to give Andy a crash course in Feline Fantasies 101, aka What the Heck Are You Thinking, Oh Child of the the New Millennium?”

(Click here to continue reading)

Bureaucracy, boxes, beer. Blech

Reading Dawn’s thoughts on the Cat on MRT tracks incident, one has got to wonder why Singapore bureaucracy has this tendency to stick around in the revolving door, and go with the flow to nowhere. Doesn’t it get motion sick at some point? Or rather, how long does the Singapore bureaucracy like to punish itself and those it affect before it does something and drag or throw itself out of it and perhaps give relief to the affected populace?

Dawn says:

“… the staff member may not have felt empowered to do this – or to face the consequences especially when the management may not already be very cat-friendly to begin with. I remember at least one case where I wrote in to offer our help because we were told that the unsterilised cats were usually rounded up and sent to the AVA if there were complaints or if they were found to be a ‘problem’.

So what needs to be done? Clearly what this episode shows is that there should be some manner of procedure or protocol devised so that staff members DO know what do in future. This would ensure that we don’t have to cross our fingers and hope that if this happens again, the staff member knows something about cats.”

It’s like the long long slate of mrt track “intrusions”. Only now are we getting platform screen doors for the doorless above-ground stations.

And consider the train service disruptions which jolt us out of our complacency every so often. The LTA says it takes a serious view of service disruption. But there’s been 92 instances of disruption over a 3 year period, and it’s always the same old same old in the bag of grievances when the letters of complaints flood the media. About how staff don’t seem to know about crowd control, traffic direction, or plain don’t know what they’re supposed to do. About alternatives which are non-existent or cause more “hardship” to the already inconvenienced commuters.

In place is a SOP which received a parliamentarian airing, so why are there still so many unhappy commuters who complain about the same things each time?

Do we dare hold out much hope that a SOP will be set in place to handle kitties in stations, or that it the SOP in place will actually be followed, or even applied correctly?

It’s also the same old same old in the bag of grievances us minions caregivers have about how we and the kitties living in Singapore’s streets are treated.

The powers that be keep relying on the same tired old excuses for keeping status quo.

Curiously, I keep thinking about the latest Tiger Beer ad making the TV rounds when I think about our situation.

Not that I’m stumping for the frothy or want some morose dousing, but it does demonstrate a life lesson (the ad, not the draught), which is saying quite something since beer ads never make much sense (though the Heineken ones I always found most palatable among the hordes).

The ad is no philosophical dissertation for sure. Two guys fighting over the last bottle in the bucket — can’t they just order more? – decided on arm-wrestling, and end up trying to one-up each other, morphing into bigger and stronger opponents which also happen to counter the other guy’s latest incarnation. The winner morphs into a blond hot chick and wins by shorting the circuits of his robotic rival.

No, there is no kitty involved but how cool that instead of being stiff-necked, conventional, and deadboxed into the one-track idea of bigger must be better, the winner takes stock of the situation (while in the very pleasing form of a buff Jungle Man who stares down silverbacks), basically jumped out of the box and threw his then stronger-than-Jungle-Man robotic foe out of orbit with his twist on oneupsmanship. Imagine if he had been lazy and conformed with the flow, and morphed into something stronger than stronger-than-Jungle-Man-robot instead. Bore, broken record, tiresome, credibility depreciation. Vicious cycle.

Whenever I see the ad, I ask myself the million dollar question: why can’t the powers that be do the same when confronted with ideas, facts, or complaints about Singapore ’s cats? Have a tiger or whatever’s their poisons of choice, untie the knots they’re in and LOOK the issues in the eye rather than trotting out and nursing those so-old template responses that don’t do a thing except tighten the knots they’re in, and grind our noses in it. Vicious cycle, anyone?

Maybe this post should be titled “Saatchi & Saatchi for government” instead. [EDIT: Or maybe I don’t want that actually, imagine legislation that decree ad-watching quotas on citizens… ]

Footnote
Remember: if you come across an SOS, whether from a fellow human or a little kitten, don’t just walk away. And drink responsibly.

Bamy Wharhol

Just a little tinkering with the camera settings… no software to stitch them together proper though

38 Cute Animals, 1 Cool Screen, 8 Different Uses

This puts some serious chortle in the brain.

(filched off Dawn’s blog)

Team Tubbing

Among the Fellowship of the tubbies, Milo Poopster is studying the art of contortion aka aping quantum physics’ own Schroedinger’s cat.

I mean look at this:

Even Bams the old coot got better tubbing

Only a miniature, like this

can fit such tiny tubs with any conviction

But brace yourself for some advanced tubbing…

…

…

…

… snugglecore warning!

Early Sphinx Prototype

I really must upload the modern day sphinx imposter poses I’ve collected.

Bizarro

(click on comic to see source)

Synchronised Kittens !

It’s Friday, and this is too precious! (Filched off Zacky and Bluebell’s bloggie: Synchronised Kittens !)

Muhammad Ali Cat

Friday mirth: http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=526860

(filched from Dawn’s blog)

Saturday! I can haz relax zleep

Joey’s got the right attitude

At last it’s Saturday. I can breath again… as soon as I get to the doc’s and fill me in some prescription. Then I’m going to join Joey for a bit before family events drag us into the weekend mayhem.

Slacking for attainment

The answer has long been established. But if we had known the power of laziness, would we have followed  Arthur Dent on his crazy intergalactic hitchhiking journey to find the Question?… imagine that, all we needed to get there was inertia. Do the slackers know something we minions don’t?

07 April 2008

“Only in laziness can one achieve a state of contemplation which is a balancing of values, a weighing of oneself against the world and the world against itself. A busy man cannot find time for such balancing. We do not think a lazy man can commit murders, not great thefts, nor lead a mob. He would be more likely to think about it and laugh. And a nation of lazy contemplative men would be incapable of fighting a war unless their very laziness were attacked. Wars are the activities of busy-ness.”

“It is interesting and probably not at all important to note that when a human state is attempting collectivization, one of the first steps is a frantic call by the leaders for an increased birth rate – replacement parts in a shoddy and mediocre machine.”

– John Steinbeck & Ed Ricketts, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

(Filched off Budak’s blog. )

Al Fresco

A good one to start the weekend. Filched off the KMM crew’s site. This is one reason why we advocate al fresco facilities for kitty biological elimination.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Get Fuzzy

From the desk of Mama Piggy:

(Click on the comic strip to see the text clearly)

For all brave minions out there, have a good laugh 🙂

Shoe

Ok, what’s a kitty blog without a kitty laugh? Some monday blueschaser.

Here’s my atonement (courtesy of budak):

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2750

Something for the Monday Blus

Non-kitty related levity.

Chumble Spuzz!

From budak… make sure you aren’t eating, drinking, or in a situation where chortles and giggles might be frowned upon.

EDIT: More here… (warning, not for the delicate of sensibilities)

Snugglecore: Are you guilty as charged?

All ye purveyors of kitty and poochie cuteness, read this and search thy soul.

… cute as a new kind of pornography, cuteness exaggerated, cuteness fetishized until the tiny, scrunchable mammals—along with the occasional adorable snapping turtle—portrayed on Cuteoverload.com, Kittenwar.com and an ever-expanding menagerie of copycat sites exist as little more than mere objects to be brutally cuddled. Call it snugglecore.

Such is snugglecore.

And ponder upon thyself:

… as our appetite for cuteness become impossible to satiate, as the standards for fluffiness and head-tilting and quizzical, big-eyed vulnerability grow so high few of our pets can measure up, is snugglecore truly going to make us happy?

Does thou find thy deepest doubts and uncharitable thoughts mirrored in these words?

How many families will be torn apart, one wonders, as once-happy owners decide to trade in their dull, not particularly photogenic pets for younger, wobblier, more achingly vulnerable models? The fantasies depicted at sites like Icanhascheezburger.com and LOLcat.com, where the photos are captioned with fictional cat-speak (“Is it can be hugs tiem now plees?”) that amplify the cuteness to even higher levels are just that—fantasies.

Read the full text of truth and tremble in despair. Art thou guilty?!

Pop Culture: Can snugglecore satisfy?

January 24, 2008

by Greg Beato

Shame subsides in the addiction to cuteness

In the Web’s earliest days, when already-established media professionals had little interest in cyberspace and enthusiastic amateurs were left to fill the void, they hit upon a simple but potent solution: Poorly scanned photos of their pets. Look, there’s Colonel Fluffington rolling around on his back! And here’s Miss Penelope Rumbletummy staring at a goldfish bowl!

At the time, it seemed like a stopgap measure, something to keep people momentarily occupied until Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch figured out what to do with the web. Fifteen years later, however, those early random snapshots have evolved into a tail-wagging, heartwarming universe of websites devoted to the cute and nothing but the cute, cute as a new kind of pornography, cuteness exaggerated, cuteness fetishized until the tiny, scrunchable mammals—along with the occasional adorable snapping turtle—portrayed on Cuteoverload.com, Kittenwar.com and an ever-expanding menagerie of copycat sites exist as little more than mere objects to be brutally cuddled. Call it snugglecore.

Snugglecore, it turns out, is a lot like regular porn, only fluffier. There’s plenty of pink tongues, for example. And nonstop licking. And taboo couplings: cats and mice, anteaters and beagles, pugs and parakeets, monkeys and pigeons. And experimental cuddlefests involving multiple partners. In the pre-web era, it took years of combing through back issues of Cat Fancy and browsing Goodwill stores for obsolete one-a-day calendars to amass even a modest stash of such imagery. Now, with a few clicks of the mouse, even young children can access explicit, hi-res depictions of tiny feline libertines shamelessly group-snoozing in Kleenex boxes.

Men, too, are being seduced by snugglecore as never before. In the old days, sure, you could go to Borders and slip a copy of Adorable Floppity-Eared Bunny in between the latest issues of Popular Mechanics and Juggs as you shamefully slunk to the register. But what if one of your friends saw you? Or your boss? The social prohibitions against snugglecore limited its availability. It was mostly consumed by adult women, and even within that demographic, only a small number of “heavy users” consumed the bulk of the content being produced.

Thanks to the Internet, however, a flood tide of ducklings nuzzling bunny rabbits and kittens doing shiatsu on golden retrievers is engulfing the nation. And somewhat paradoxically, as the distribution of snugglecore has become a largely private phenomenon, its consumption has become less taboo. It’s not uncommon, for example, to see office workers brazenly sharing images of inquisitive tabbies stuck inside computer cases. Even more alarming is the addictive, escalatory nature of the genre. Over time, most aficionados develop a tolerance for gateway snugglecore—like cats lolling in sinks—and start seeking out more extreme forms of cuteness.

What happens, however, when an antelope shows up on your deck and your frustratingly uptight corgi shows no interest in licking it? What if your boring Siamese never gets himself hilariously entangled in speaker wires, or your prissy Pekinese has no desire to consort with a friendly, open-minded ferret? How many families will be torn apart, one wonders, as once-happy owners decide to trade in their dull, not particularly photogenic pets for younger, wobblier, more achingly vulnerable models? The fantasies depicted at sites like Icanhascheezburger.com and LOLcat.com, where the photos are captioned with fictional cat-speak (“Is it can be hugs tiem now plees?”) that amplify the cuteness to even higher levels are just that—fantasies. Not every Pomeranian feels comfortable dressing up in exotic costumes simply to please Mommy and Daddy. Not every aging tabby believes its sole purpose in life is to serve as its master’s face-smooshing whore.

Invariably, snugglecore’s purveyors gloss over such ugly realities. Instead, they talk about free speech. They talk about how if you don’t want to look at snugglecore, you don’t have to look at snugglecore. They talk about how content—nay, how frequently ecstatic—the kitties and pups and even the typically somewhat sedate-looking deer seem to be having when engaged in snugglecore high jinks. They talk about the way snugglecore lifts the national mood, fills us all with a sense of warm, cozy benevolence. And it does that, sure, at least temporarily. But in the long run, as our appetite for cuteness become impossible to satiate, as the standards for fluffiness and head-tilting and quizzical, big-eyed vulnerability grow so high few of our pets can measure up, is snugglecore truly going to make us happy?

(calsifer’s note:

I admit only to be being a partial corer – I do try to take snugglecore-worthy photos, but at least I do not lurk on core sites.

And in case you wonder, I just thought this was great relief from that other, much bigger, salabrity-core scandal involving that Canadian-bred Hong Kong male singer/actor with raging hormones and streaking exhibitionism making the rounds now)

 

Shrink-wrapped miao

Recognise this furry?

Introducing the budak‘s Shrink-wrapped miao (click to see all her shrink-wrapped glory) aka Angel miao.