http://www.stuff.co.nz/4357247a11.html

Then, to make matters worse, Angel (the grumpy old…

The bells will only work for a short time. They learn to hunt with them.

Now there's an image. A couple of cats beating some poor bird to death with a couple of bells. Maybe wrapped up in a sock? Cat mafia.

And even if I wasn't allergic to them I'd probably still hate them. I like dogs, but they stink. And they make me sneeze too.

I used to have a pair of Siamese cats, but given that I moved away to university, they really became my parents.

Emma's wee note made me notice that this sentence makes more sense with an apostrophe in 'parents'.

I used to have a pair of Siamese cats, but given that I moved away to university, they really became my parents.

Teehee.

she'd lie back down on her chest and tuck her paws under again, watching his face the whole time.

So she never got to eat him then?

No, no, the cat that comforted my boss was one of those unusual helpful cats, like the one that rescued Sonjia Davies a…

One of my favourite, science-heavy blogs is Peter Watts'. They guy's a 'recovering' marine biologist and hard sf writer. The title of his blog No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons says a lot about his personality.

He…

Bevan.

She's not the brightest though; it took her a couple of days to realise what the clunking noise and sudden lack of progress meant while attempting to round a…

I didn't realise it was April Fool's day ...

"oh you poor little thing, (snigger)"

1. to make him look silly

2. to amplify noise.

once you guys chortle at him a few times, he won't feel like eating at all.

You realise, I hope, that somewhere a cat is reading this thread – and taking notes.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a cat.

A question for the hive mind:
My cat came back from the vet yesterday with a cone on his head so he won't rip out his…

And then it practices it's Japanese.

i think we might have discovered ross dallow's issue.

Boy cat once stole a whole fish from a neighbour and dragged it into our lounge – the proceeds of a day's fishing

his cat is japanese, and expected him to make sushi. "oi! you!…

And then it practices it's Japanese.

Errr... no.

I know this sounds INCREDIBLY harsh, but I can't wait for my 3 remaining cats to shuffle off their mortal coil.

One's 21. And it may survive the others.

Still. I'm 44 and I may still have to feed…

the wandering around the house with the live beastie still chirping away in the cat's mouth

When you have two they can play cicada rugby.

... wandering around the house with the live beastie still chirping away in the cat's mouth

When my cat does this her whiskers twitch in time to the cicada's chirps, I swear sometimes the tips meet each other over her nose. I have to remove myself from the vicinity before…

My problem with both our present cat and the previous one is not the eating of the live cicadas so much as the wandering around the house with the live beastie still chirping away in the cat's mouth while it looks for an unsuspecting room to release it in to…

I think you'll find it's Kalahari bushmen, not k/calamari; the latter being a seafood.

Or an African tribe who have been corrupted by Great Cthulhu.

Once,…

Birds are the worst things for them to catch, you'll be finding feathers for weeks.

When we moved into our current house the neighbour was breeding white doves. He had a dozen or more and they lived freely, roosting in the trees at the end of the property.

One day…

someone else can do the Japanese.

rats could recognize the rhythmic differences between Dutch and Japanese sentences, but not if the words were replayed backwards

god. damn. it.

know i need to know if i'm more cognizant than you average rat...

anyone have a site i can download some dutch and/or japanese mp3 to play backwards?

Bastards! If they were so super-cute...

Birds are…

Cats understand English (and often other languages) but choose not to speak it.

Rats too:

although they cant tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.

__Linguistics – This Ig Nobel prize went to Juan Toro, Josep Trobalon, and Núria Sebastián-Gallés of the…

If he wants to swallow a live cicada, that's his business.

My problem with both our present cat and the previous one is not the eating of the live cicadas so much as the wandering around the house with the live beastie still chirping away in the cat's…

i don't know if this applies to colin, but this book looks nice ...

http://www.compass.ac.nz/index.php?page=all-cats-have-asperger-syndrome

they're wise and strange creatures cats.

but then... otoh... sometimes they're brutal killers.

i…

Tonkinese cats are a blast :-)

Ours don't sound that extreme – but some of their more bizzare behaviour is most perplexing – the 'fetish' objects (eg kneading the carpet proudly in front of a freshly stolen, trophy hair tie and going nuts if it's removed), burrowing into strange spaces,…

Good luck should any quirkier 'oriental' traits make themselves known...

What, like drinking from the toilet bowl if we've left the lid up, stealing neighbour's socks or small soft toys, sucking on woollens, preferring not to sit on one's lap but rather burrow up one's jumper, activly seeking to be…

...nuzzling our faces at 5am...

Count yourself fortunate! Our Maxwell shreds any paper he can get to at 5am – or scratches the glass window to make a terrible sound. The other one merely pesters the cat flap until we submit or she slips a tab and opens it (towards…

... he nosed around amongst my evaporating single malt collection...

Evaporation, eh? Do you remember to put the lids/caps back on?

Jeeves, OTOH, doesn't notice we're gone, as long as he's got his Barbie dolls.

They whistle to each other and to us, they're good pets for small children whose mother is allergic…

Do you read me Hal? Do you read me?

Our little guy definitely believes I am a cat. If I let him, he vigorously grooms my (number…

Though there was an early '90s Rotorua indie band called "Kalamari Bushmen" so maybe you trained it by making droney guitar noises? ;)

heh. that or just played a 'The Wedding Present' album to her.

they were also identical anyhow...

not that the cat realised it.

i had a cat in auckland that i trained by making nothing more than kalamari bushmen noises!

I think you'll find it's Kalahari bushmen, not k/calamari; the latter being a seafood. (Though there was an early '90s Rotorua indie band called "Kalamari Bushmen" so maybe you trained it by making…

but i've found them to be incredibly responsive to clicks and shrill whistles.

i had a cat in auckland that i trained by making nothing more than kalamari bushmen noises!

If we let him, he will tiptoe in and sleep on our bed, sometimes stretching out full-length between us to sleep, as if he were one of us.

Lengthwise, or sideways? Generally, a cat can take up 3/5ths of a bed by stretching themselves sideways between their people, leaving said…

What exactly does he think he is?

A cat? And he thinks you are too. It's only humans that anthropomorphize. You have been felipomorphized.

I knew one cat that would make a point of crapping on its owner's bed whenever they went…