i can has context?

Yesterday, while walking to the comic book store, we saw this:

Yup. That cat looks like he was having a pretty good time. I also love the poster in the background-- cat, perhaps you should find a new hobby. One that is less dangerous for your liver.

Anyway, the only reason why this is funny is because the cat is drunk next to a bottle of booze. Without the booze, it's just a sleepy cat.

Awwww, how cute.

But add the beer back in:

What kind of example are you setting?? Think of the kittens!

But maybe he's just sleeping. In which case, this picture would be clearer:

D'awwwww.

Or maybe he's sleeping, but also having a relaxing time on the beach.

And apparently is female.

That is all.

mysterious cockroach incident

Yesterday, I walked into the bathroom to discover my cat examining the toilet closely and staring at a dead, partially dismembered cockroach floating in the bowl. It was horrifying.

It was like walking in on a crime scene. It was gross. My cat looked alarmed. I froze where I stood and wondered what possibly could have happened. At first, I could only come up with two scenarios:

Then, I came up with an entirely different, possibly more likely scenario.

To understand why I came to this conclusion, you first have to know that my cat does not use a litter box. Rather, he uses the toilet. It does not only happen in Ben Stiller comedies-- my cat uses the toilet to dispose of his waste. And apparently his cockroaches.

Here is what I think happened.

Upon discovering the roach, I was simultaneously grossed out and impressed. I wasn't sure if the cat should be punished for trying to eat a roach or rewarded for correctly disposing of it. I guess I should just glad he didn't do what I thought he'd do upon finding a gross bug:

dog presentation

As a child, I was pretty much like every other kid. I wanted a pony, and a bike, and eventually, a dog. Our bus driver was fostering six beagle mix puppies. She was looking to give them away, after they had been vet-checked vaccinated.

A normal kid would go about asking for one of these puppies like this:

However, I was smart enough to know that this would never work out in my family. The children of architects have great spacial reasoning and structure. The children of professors have a great love for academia. My parents had worked for years in businesses. In my family, if you wanted a raise in your allowance or planned to tackle a large-scale project, you made a presentation. With charts and graphs. And at the very least, a clearly outlined budget.

My brother and I also used to get our allowance twice a year in a large, bi-yearly sum. We had to spend it over six months in accordance with the budgets we had made.

Feeling that asking for a dog ought to be done professionally, I set about formulating my presentation for a dog.

While some matters, such as how much a dog would cost and what the budget would look like, were straightforward. Other matters, such as why we should have a dog in the first place, were not.

My presentation, therefore, started out strong and then quickly went downhill:

Although my parents thought my dog presentation was good, they saw it as an opportunity for a lesson: just because you make a presentation doesn't it will yield positive results.

We did not get a dog. Later, however, I managed to get a cat through more traditional means.

THAT was the day that I learned the effectiveness of good visual aids.

dream preparedness

My dreams are really weird.

What is weirder, though, is when real life sneakily introduces itself into my dream.

This happens to everyone to a certain degree. For example, people dream about missing an exam they will actually have to go to next week. Or, sensory input from the sleeper's environment makes its way into the dream.

But my dreams are weird to begin with. So when real life influences my dream, the result is even weirder.

I saw a documentary once that said, dreams are your brain's way of preparing you for hypothetical situations. This seems perfectly logical. Except my brain seems to think it is equally likely that I will have to protect my household from a pirate attack as it is that I will have to study for my exam next week.

Some people have said that my brain is weird, but I think that my brain is just helping me be incredibly prepared for life. I always have a carton of eggs in the fridge, thanks to that velociraptor attack. I always study for exams early, because of the pirate incident. And if ninjas ever attack while I am buying a carton of eggs at the grocery store, I'll know what to do.

reasons for a 20-something to have a cat

Most twenty-somethings without pets claim that having a cat is lame. I find that especially dudes tend to argue that, if you have a cat, you are basically on your way to being a cat lady.

However, I think there are some very good reasons for twenty-somethings to get a cat. Such as:

1) You can't afford to pay for heat

2) You need to renovate your apartment

3) You want to be better with kids
See this post.

However, the reason that guys should keep in mind when their lady-friends wish to acquire a feline is this:

A cat will turn nearby men into firemen.

Like fires, cats cannot be easily controlled. Like fires, an unruly cat is controlled by applying water.

And in the most basic sense, your boyfriend will be like a fireman because he will retrieve your kitty from high places, like firemen always do in movies and cartoons.

In other words...

Turn your boyfriend and other friends into a firemen with a cat!

bell collar removal

We recently decided the bell collar on our cat was too loud and removed it. But now, the cat is totally silent all the time. We never know where he is. So it is like we are living with a ghost.

Stuff disappears, and we don't know where it went. Stuff gets thrown around, poltergeist style, seemingly from nowhere.

Moreover, though, the loss of my cat's collar has made me feel like my cat is a weird deviant. I mean, a collar is the only scrap of clothing a cat can have. Once that is gone, a cat is totally naked.

Loss of collar causes opposites.

My cat seems to really enjoy his time without his collar. Which partially makes me feel like he is a weird kleptomaniac deviant who loves to run around naked and steal all my pens. But mostly, since getting him to wear the collar in the first place was a struggle (he hates having things around his neck), I feel like he's flaunting his nakedness as a symbol of his freedom as a naked wild animal.

But the joke is on him, because I got him a sweater.

A winner is me!

kids are like cats

20-somethings are not always good with small children. This is a problem at large family gatherings like reunions or weddings. The kids know they are supposed to like you, because their moms say they should. However, they are suspicious because they haven't seen you in a long time.

In order to relieve stress of trying to both take care of kids and participate in family events, the moms might pass their kids off to you with a comment like, "Can you watch Billy?" or "You're good with kids, right?"

If you own a cat, you can answer with a resounding, "Of course!" Because kids are like cats.

For example, is a list of stuff my cat likes that my cousins also like.

1) Being ignored.
Trying too hard with kids and cats has the same result.

It usually ends with the smaller party hiding under a couch or in a closet. However, both kids and cats inevitably seem to drift towards the person at a family event who is least interested in them. So, you should ignore them. They will think you are the coolest person in the world.

2) Playing with things that are NOT toys.
According to my friends who majored in psychology, this has something to do with non-toys being "novel objects." Either way, kids and cats seem to want to play with everything except for the presents people have bought for them. Plus, they both love cardboard boxes and paper bags.

3) Climbing on people.
Kids and cats really enjoy using adult humans as their own personal jungle gym. Admit it-- if you were that small, you would too.

4) Giving weird presents.
My cat gets really offended if I don't accept his dead birds. Even if your cousin draws you something as strange as a dead bird, you should make a big deal over it. Otherwise, like my cat, he will spend all day being sad.

So, if you know how to make a cat happy, you probably know how to make a kid happy. Accordingly, if you know how to make a cat UNhappy, you know what NOT to do with kids.

DO NOT...
1) Force them to wear outfits
2) Expect them to do tricks
3) Tickle them
4) Give them stupid nicknames
5) Feed them after midnight

No wait... that's gremlins.

Summary venn diagrams!

 

pet optimization does not work

I enjoy optimization, but I am not good at accounting for all of the variables. A hilarious exhibition of my non-optimal optimization skills occurred last year, when it was suggested that I get an animal for my one bedroom apartment.

It was hard to choose a pet. When animals are easy to take care of, they are not very entertaining. When they are hard to take care of, they are much more fun, but also more stressful. If you don't have unlimited time, it's hard to get a fun animal.

The relationship indicated by this scatter plot is shown in the best fit line below:

Cuttlefish, an outlier, has been eliminated.

If no other reason, I liked cats because they were very close to the origin of this graph, optimizing enjoyability and ease of care.

I decided to get a cat.

After further research about the different breeds of cats, I realized that felines have many variables that can be optimized to one's lifestyle. At the time, I decided that the primary three were level of shedding (light vs. heavy), coat length (short vs. long) and playfulness (calm vs. active). Here are what I considered to be optimal cat traits for my lifestyle.

I settled on a Devon Rex cat, which had a good deal of playfulness and moderate fluffiness, along with a nice, low-shedding coat.

The Devon Rex is a semi-hairless cat. Although their coat length can be similar to that of a normal cat, they do not have the same kind of long, obtrusive guard hairs that most cats shed when you pet them. Instead, they have a downy coat of soft under-hairs. They are intelligent and playful throughout their lifetimes. A Devon Rex kitten, I thought, would be much easier to care for than other kittens.

Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the "wild card" factor of cats. Cats cannot be optimized. Cats cannot be controlled. They seem to have an uncanny connection to the karmic element of the universe. Attempt to control a cat, and they lash out to destroy your well-laid plans. I tried to obtain a cat, because cats are fairly low maintenance. This is partially because I enjoy sleeping, and had been told repeatedly that cats also enjoy sleeping.

Unfortunately, my cat enjoys the following instead:

This is apparently pretty typical of some cats but not others. This disruptive feline behavior has rendered my pet optimization ineffective. There are too many variables in cats and other animals. From now on, I will stick to optimizing equations.