JABbering Stooge

Remember this picture of my brother’s cat?

Well, look up in your address bar. (The part of the browser that starts with “http://”.) Yes, I made it into a favicon.

My brother’s cat, Miss Kitty, sitting pretty in her tower:

Believe it or not, just a couple of minutes before that picture was taken, she was laying down in the tower and whipping herself with her tail. I think it’s a game she plays to keep herself entertained. Anyway, she must have heard the camera turning on, because in the time it took me to aim the lens her way, she was already as she appears in the pic.

And here she is hogging the chair in the computer room:

My brother recently compared her to the stereotypical girl in high school who’s pretty and knows it. Does it show?

Socks the Cat, R. I. P.

My brother’s cat, Miss Kitty:

This story ought to inspire pet owners to make sure their pets have some form of ID on them in the event that they get lost. A Florida couple’s cat wound up stowing away in the husband’s suitcase, somehow making it through security and flying in the cargo hold to DFW International Airport. As if that weren’t bad enough, another traveler mistook the suitcase the cat was in for one of his own, and got the surprise of his life when he got home that evening. Fortunately, the cat had a collar with her owners’ contact information on it, and Gracie Mae was promptly reunited with her owner, who was in Dallas for a business meeting. The man who quite literally “let the cat out of the bag,” Robert Carter, was enough of a Good Samaritan to buy a cat carrier for the owner, Seth Levy, to use to bring Gracie Mae home with him.

Naturally, Carter and the Levys were guests on the Today show to talk about the whole ordeal.

It’s a nice story, and I wouldn’t be surprised if both parties involved had a laugh about it even after leaving the Today studios.

Some of my favorite recent entries over at I Can Has Cheezburger?:

Links to original LOLCat provided with each picture.

With nothing better to do, MSRNC brings us a report on a cat with an uncanny ability to tell when terminally ill patients are about to die.

This is Oscar, the resident cat at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, RI. Normally, he’s your stereotypical aloof, uncaring cat. However, whenever he senses that a person is about to die, he curls up on their bed and goes to sleep. The person he “picks” winds up dead a few hours later. He’s so accurate that the staff at the facility has taken to notifying the next-of-kin when he’s seen hanging around a patient.

I don’t know about you, but when it finally comes to be my time to die, I can’t think of a better way to go out than with a cat gently purring in my arms. In a way, Oscar’s role seems to be much like that of the character Andrew in Touched by an Angel (played by John Dye - hence the title of this post). Unfortunately, given the current rise in “Christians” trying to take us back to the 12th century, coupled with the fact that there’s already at least one family that was disturbed by Oscar’s…”ability”… I can’t help but worry that at some point someone will try to do this to him:

Teen California Girls Charged With Animal Cruelty as Burned Cat Clings to Life

Thursday, July 19, 2007

COTATI, Calif. — A 3-month-old cat is clinging to life at a Sonoma County animal hospital after having been set on fire by two teenage girls who now face charges of animal cruelty.

*snip*

The cat, one of several feral felines trapped for spaying and neutering, was in a cage outside an apartment in Santa Rosa when two 15-year-old girls allegedly poured flammable liquid on the animal and set it on fire last month.

An 11-year-old boy and his friend saw the smoke and heard the cat, then eight weeks old, shrieking while the girls laughed. The girls, whose names have not been released, were charged with cruelty to animals in Sonoma County Juvenile Court last week.

There is a special place reserved in Hell for those who do harm to animals, especially those who do harm to cats.

In “honor” of Cheney’s invention of the Fourthbranch:

Incidentally, you should check out The Washington Post’s four-part series on Cheney’s tenure as Veep. Very eye-opening (and chilling).

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Adorable Girlfriend at The Republic of Dogs posted this today. Following the link provided, I also found this item being advertised for sale:

Product Description

Every town has a Crazy Cat Lady. Shes the one who lives in a tiny house full of feral felines. This 5-1/4 inch tall, hard vinyl Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure has a wild look in her eye and comes with six cats.

Don’t get any funny ideas, people.

This is just what a cat-lover like me needs. Over at USBgeek.com, they’re selling a “USB Kitty” - a robot cat that plugs into any USB port on your computer that meows, hisses at intruders and purrs when you scratch it under the chin. It’s the best of both worlds - satisfies the nerd within, and the cat-lover within - all at the same time!