If Lassie had been a cat

"Meow."

"Lassie! Where's Timmie?"

"Meow."

"Is Timmie okay?"

"Meow."

"Did Timmie fall down a well again?"

"Meow."

"Take me to Timmie, Lassie!"

"Meow."

"No no, you're not supposed to rub around my legs and try to trip me. Timmie needs our help!"

"Meow."

"Wait. Where are you going? That's Timmie's house... what? Why are you sniffing your food bowl by the back door?!"

"Meow."

"If I feed you, will you lead me to Timmie?"

"Meow."

A few hours later, Timmie tires out swimming at the bottom of the well, and drowns. Lassie moves in with Ranger Corey and becomes quite fat both from all the mice she eats, and the cat food that Ranger Corey helpfully provides.

Meanwhile, Timmie's mourning foster parents visit a small grave once per year, and say, "If only we'd gotten Timmie a dog instead of a cat..."

The End.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Dunno how I missed this one...

Scientists have proven that cats train humans to feed them upon demand. I always suspected that. But now we have scientific proof :).

- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Cat space

The Mighty Fang disappeared. I couldn't find him anywhere. Then I noticed that the closet door in the music room was just barely open, so I slid it to the left and peered in -- into a furry face. Here it is when I slid everything wide open to the light of day:

I disturbed his grooming, so in the next pic he's basically saying, "pet me, you moron":

Just another day in a cat-owned penguin's life, heh!

- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Saturday lazying around

Well, not exactly. First, I went to Costco and cashed my American Express cashback check and bought a bunch of stuff that I needed (ink and paper for my printer, toothbrush refills for my sonic toothbrush, kimchi noodles, tissues), then went to the hardware store and got a new soap dispenser for the sink to replace the one with the broken stem. I also looked at the dishwasher and did a Dr. McCoy on it -- "she's dead, Jim", i.e., fixing it would require a new pump and new racks and that would cost more than a new dishwasher. Unfortunately it appears the dishwasher is pretty much tiled in... there's a half-inch lip where the subflooring for the tile was put down and there's not half an inch above the dishwasher to pick it up over that lip. It looks like some subflooring will have to be ripped out to make enough room to get the dishwasher out and a new one in, though maybe you could replace the pump and racks with it in place. Oh well. I'm not going to deal with that mess right now, I'll tell the landlord when I move out that it's broken, and he can fix it (or not) then (I don't need a dishwasher, given how few dishes I dirty hand-washing them is quite viable). In the meantime I unplugged it and disconnected the water to it so that nobody tries to run it and ends up making a mess.

TMF is still psycho. One moment he's curled up against Mencken warming his nose in Mencken's fur, a minute later after he jumps down from my bed to follow me to the kitchen he looks back at the sound of Mencken jumping down from my bed and lets out a gut-curdling howl and screech at this strange cat in *his* territory. Mencken's starting to get a bit of a dazed look to his eyes, like, "I'm living in a madhouse!". I don't blame him. TMF was curled up against me in the music room purring, Mencken came in, and... err. You know the rest of that story.

- Badtux the Tired Penguin

Heat-seeking missile

If there's heat involved, The Mighty Fang is on it like a missile. I had just finished cleaning the oven, was allowing it to cool so I could wipe away the ash (it's a self-cleaning oven), and had taken all the stuff off the top to clean the still-warm top. Bam. Heat-seeking missile. The heat under the bathroom vanity warms up the lavatory bowl. Bam. Heat-seeking missile. Kick him out of the lavatory bowl, well, the hot air from under the lavatory is heat-soaking those tiles... bam. Heat-seeking missile. Sometimes I think the only reason TMF puts up with me is because I'm something warm to cuddle against in the evening after I turn off the heat...

-- Badtux the Warm-blooded Penguin

Yay!

I got my income tax refunds back today. Why does it feel so good to get back my own money? The money went straight to savings of course, to replenish the sum that went into the IRA at the end of last year.

Meanwhile, I dabbed The Mighty Fang's face with vanilla extract. No idea yet whether it's going to make any difference, but at least it makes him smell better :). He didn't seem to mind me putting some extract on a cotton swab and dabbing him with it, because he seemed to think it smelled like food. What a chow-hound.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Busy evening

First thing I took a look at was the gas furnace. It's a Rheem Criterion, and it wasn't putting out any heat. So I took the cover off and, err... bad news. Something must have happened to the chimney cap because it looks like it's been raining in there. Time to call the landlord. But anyhow, once I blew all the junk out with canned air and pressed the button on the flame rollout switch (all done with power shut off to the unit of course), it fired right up with a typical Rheem start cycle (draft inducer whir, a glow plug burn red, then ignition of four tubes of heat). Hopefully getting the chimney cap fixed to keep water out of the system will keep the switch from tripping again, if not (shrug) landlord buys a new flame rollout switch.

Next up was the kitchen faucet. It's a cheap POS that's been leaking for years, from what I can tell. I got tired of it and got an American Standard Cadet with a spray nozzle a while back. So tonight I decided to install it. The only annoying part was getting the retainer ring tight on the spray nozzle side, I have the "right" faucet wrench to do this job, but simply working it around the cabinetry was a PITA because the crossbrace that the tiled-in sink actually sits on comes almost right up to the retainer ring there. Just one of the joys of custom cabinetry and tiled-in sinks...

So now I have heat, and a sink that doesn't drip. Life is good :).

Well, except that The Mighty Fang freaked out and started howling at Mencken again, who of course is completely baffled...

- Badtux the Handy Penguin

Freakout going on

The Mighty Fang got a whiff of intact tom earlier this evening and has been acting crazy ever since, howling at Mencken and even growling at me. TMF lunged at Mencken while howling like a mad cat and put a small tear in Mencken's ear. Currently I've put him out into the garage, because Mencken's ear needed a break from TMF's claws and my ears needed a break from the howling.

Got any better ideas?

-- Badtux the Crazed-cat-owned Penguin

The Mighty Fang's Nemesis

I finally got a good look at the cat that The Mighty Fang spends so much time yowling at. When I got home, he was on top of the fence looking at me. So I very slowly and carefully readied my cell phone camera and attempted to take a photo through the windshield. Didn't work. So I very, very slowly opened the door and crept out, doing my best to be unthreatening. And then...

Yah, I basically got mugged. FluffyTail sniffed, started winding around my leg, let me rub his head a little, and finally laid down on the concrete and started wiggling around and flopping over from side to side in ecstasy.

I've heard that penguins have magnetic personalities, but this is just ridiculous...

-- Badtux the Cat-mugged Penguin

Evil expression

I love this photo of Frank Zappa and one of his cats. They both have this same wicked expression in their eyes, like they're trying to figure out how to shred something that needs shredding ;).

-- Badtux the Cat-blogging Penguin

The Punishment

The kittehs apparently didn't like me leaving them alone for a week.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Cat sauna

The bathroom is the warmest room in my house because that tile floor has an old-fashioned grout base and thus absorbs / radiates the heat that's coming out from under the vanity. Some of that heat from under the vanity also manages to waft its way upwards in the cabinet and heat up the bowl of the bathroom sink. The result: Well, you see the result here.

Especially note the decorative help that The Mighty Fang (for I know it was him, even though I didn't see him do it) lent his sauna. Every cat sauna needs shredded paper confetti to give it a festive look, right? Right?!

But that's okay, TMF is so ridiculously adorable that I can't be angry at him. Here's proof of how adorable he is:

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Keeping warm

There is a furnace output that comes out under the vanity there and the tile floor is one of those old school ones laid on a mortar base, so it holds the heat well. The weather has been chilly lately and I've been running the heat in the mid 60's to sleep better (I'm a warm sleeper nowadays, is there such a thing as male menopause?!), so the kittehs seek the heat -- the bathroom is the warmest room in the house, a good 5 degrees warmer than everywhere else. Poor Mencken, however, refuses to sleep on the floor. Someone might step on him. TMF don't care, I think he's *trying* to trip people :).

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Clogged sink

I had trouble shaving and brushing my teeth this morning...

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Cat and Ladder

I had the ladder set up to get a bin of Christmas decorations down from the attic in the garage, and next thing I know, there's a cat up in the attic. So I pick him up and put him down on the ground again, and turn on my video camera to see what happens...

Turns out The Mighty Fang is mighty good at *climbing* ladders, but not so good at going *down* ladders. But never fear, no cat skeletons will be found in the attic. Not this week, anyhow.

- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

On vacation

The penguin's daily rant, plus the penguin's daily music festival, are on vacation until November 28. Until then, I will leave you with some cats to admire:

-- Badtux the Holiday-celebratin' Penguin

Bonus cat:

Delayed cat blogging

Sorta the story of the past half century...

-- Badtux the Cat-admirin' Penguin

Watching the Kitty Theater

The Mighty Fang watches the world go by. He'll sit like that for literally hours...

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Cat beds

Some cats actually sleep on cat beds. I know, I know, it's incredible to believe, but we have actual photographic proof.

My cats, on the other hand, would never stoop to such a low thing as sleeping on an actual cat bed. No way. Here's their favorite bed, other than my own bed:

My cat's "catbed" is one of my bedroom pillows that I put on top of a chest-of-drawers while changing the bedsheets on my people bed one day, and when I tried to retrieve the pillow, it had 18 pounds of FURBALL on it. Didn't happen. I retrieved an extra pillow from the closet instead, and there I am, one pillow down (the extra pillows in the closet are for when guests come and I fold out the futon in the living room, guess they'll have to use their suitcase as a pillow, eh?).

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Competitive pooping

Tonight was trash night. That means, of course, that I also change the cat box, so as to not have smelly cat litter hanging around even in the outside garbage can for an entire week. Which also means that the boys race to mark who owns the cat box by making a deposit before the other can get there. I think this week was pretty much a tie:

Somebody may have ended up with smelly feet or a smelly hip though.

Update: MandT points out, "Congressional metaphor". Indeed. Might see a similar view from the balcony of the House chambers. Now, which one is the Democrat and which one is the Republican, hmm....

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin