The Conservative Cat

Our first entry is from Aaron of Aaron's cc. Aaron is trying to pull a fast one by submitting this article to the Carnival of the Cats AND the Carnival of the Crappers. Ordinarily I would be deeply offended by the very idea that he thinks MY carnival doesn't deserve an entry of its own; however, Aaron has not one but TWO photos of superior life forms in his post, so I'm going to let him slide this time.

Barry Campbell at enrevanche presents Sleepy Sunday Morning, which features the well-known cat model Mister Gato. I have reason to believe, based on this photo, that Mister Gato helps his pet with the blog. It would explain why Barry seems so knowledgeable on so many topics.

John Sullivan at Living With Bengals presents Max: A Memorial Digression. John has written a tribute to his beloved friend Max, who died in December of 2003. A picture of Max is shown below.

SB at Watermark presents Cats & Dogs, which features pictures of cats and dogs that look to me suspiciously like some sort of visual poetry. She also submitted Playing with the camera, which shows the same pictures in black and white (although they look identical to me).

From the Irish Trojan we get three cats sitting in a window. Window-sitting is something cats do frequently: not only does it help keep us warm, it also significantly beautifies the neighborhood.

Dianne of DED Space lives with two cats (Roxie and Velma, shown below), but this week she's presenting a photo of her friend's cat hanging out with a raccoon. Be sure to click on the image in the post so you can see the full-size photo.

Frightwig at Sundappled Wood presents Home Again, which contains several pictures of his owner Isabella, who is home from the hospital after surgery to correct a liver problem. Sundappled Wood, by the way, is a baseball blog devoted to the Minnesota Twins. I'm a Cubs fan, which is a completely different thing from being a baseball fan, but if I were interested in baseball, a baseball blog with cat overtones would be on my daily read list for sure.

From Gir of Your Moosey Fate we have two pictures of his owner Mischief. One of the photos features a picture of another cat who lives with them, but the view is blocked by a large, opaque blanket. If you want higher-visibility pictures of this other cat, I highly recommend the Moosey Cat Archive Page.

Maggie Katzen at Maggie's Meanderings blah blah blah.... submitted an extremely rare and difficult-to-find photo event-- a cat (Carlos) looking stupid. I did some research, however, and found that in fact Carlos was drunk when the photo was taken. You can see the proof here. Unlike this photo of me at the same site, I've been assured that the picture of Carlos' adventure at the local pub is completely unretouched.

Andrew Hecht at American Idle submitted a classic photo of his owner Filemu on her way to lunch. Andrew expresses a certain amount of remorse that his current life as an apartment dweller prevents the cats he lives withfrom going out into the wild and hunting. Trust me, if you bestow enough affection on a cat, it makes up for just about anything. For example, to the left is a photo of The Other Cat accepting serious petting from Peg-Eye Nate. The fact that she's getting all this major attention makes up for the fact that Peg-Eye Nate's owner (The Interloper) will flay these two alive if she catches them in the act.

A man named Ingemar sent us this post which is part of an ongoing struggle between him and his mutant cat over who is actually running this blog. My advice, Ingemar: give up now. You can overpower a cat, but you can't outwit him.

From Jeff at Athenamama we have The Paper Ball Game, a taut, psychological drama about a man, two cats, a dog, and a wadded up piece of paper. I'm not sure how it ends, as I freaked out during the scene where the cat picked up the paper ball while it had dog spit on it.

From Josh Poulson at Josh's Weblog we have Feline Friday, which features pictures of a cat who is not named Dust Bunny. If you want to know why it's not a picture of Dust Bunny, you can get full and complete information in the post. Be careful, however, that you don't end up browsing too much of Josh's web site: it's called pun.org for a reason.

From the Lab Kat blog we have an early picture of Pica the cat. You can see in Pica's picture many of the traits that make very young cats so irresistable to humans. These traits evolved over many years as a response to the cat's basic need to have a roof over its head. (We need a roof because we can't stand water. Most animals would evolve some sort of protection from the rain: cats evolved an ability to bend another species to their will. This is because we're a superior life form.) By the way, Pica is now full-grown, as you can see from the photo below.

Laurence Simon, the creator of the Carnival of the Cats, kindly submitted this example of one of my favorite features on his blog, Ask the Cats. You can see the complete Ask the Cats archive here.

Martin Lindeskog at EGO submitted MORRIS IN THE JUNGLE, which he claims is a picture of his pet hiding among the plants. This is an excellent example of camoflage: I can just barely see a cat in the picture, but no sign of this human pet "Morris".

Matt of The Tattered Coat submitted the very first Internet picture of his owner, Luna. The Tattered Coat is a six-month-old blog. Hopefully, it won't be another six months for the second picture of Luna to makes its appearance. In fact, it might be worthwhile for Matt to consider turning the entire blog over to his cat. That's what Bruce did, and I think it's worked out very well.

A completely different Matt-- the one who runs Martini Pundit-- submitted this picture. It's an archive photo of his owners Daphne and Chloe. A current photo is not available because they're feeling unwell. Either that, or they're trying to get extra attention by pretending to be sick. It's often difficult for humans to tell the difference.

Mog of The Mind of Mog actually forgot the Carnival of Cats last week. I know what you're thinking: what are this man's priorities? Well, he's tried to make up for it by submitting three articles this week. The first is a text-only thing that appears to be soft core kitty porn. The other two relate to an evil cat known as "Psycho" who has temporarily invaded his home: Insanity has Returned and The Picture of Innocence.

Speaking of evil demons from hell, to the left you can see a new picture of The Interloper. It's very grainy because the photographer was trying to shoot from a safe distance-- which in this case is through a window across the street. Notice that from this distance her glowing eyes look even bigger than normal.

Barb at annoying little twerp (as opposed to our Barb) submitted Thursday Catblogging, which features her owner Shady lounging in a cardboard box. Boxes are a wonderful invention. My favorites are the ones used as soda can cases. These are large and flat, affording me a full view of the room without impeding my ability to pounce on anything that looks edible. Bigger boxes are okay, too. They reduce my ability to pounce, but the Interloper can't see through them, which greatly increases the safety factor.

Kimberly at Music and Cats submitted Feline Friday: Herb 2, which features 12 cat pictures. Not only that, but the sidebar has three more cat pictures! She also has a picture of something that isn't a cat, but it doesn't subtract at all from the general high quality of the rest of the content.

MJ Cat from NYC Babylon submitted a touching Mother's Day card. Even though the content of the post is technically poetry, it's a nice sentiment, and I'm seriously considering sending the same card to the girl who feeds me. The thing is, I'm not sure it's legal since the girl isn't a mother yet.

Ogre at Ogre's Politics and Views submitted Guard Cat. Ogre is clearly a smart man, because he's augmenting his gun collection with a cat. As any superior life form will tell you, there isn't a thing in this world that can't be improved by the presence of a cat. (I know a lot of humans may disagree with this, but humans aren't a superior life form, are they?)

Singer/songwriter/philosopher Rahel Jaskow of Elms in the Yard submitted this photo montage of a neighborhood cat. Rahel made a tiny mistake: her EMAIL did not include the URL of the post she was submitting. This is why it's always a good idea to use our handy-dandy Carnival Submission Form instead of ordinary EMAIL. Nonetheless, I had Bruce take extra time to check out her blog and locate the necessary information. This is because Rahel is an extremely intelligent and sophisticated woman with a very refined esthetic sense. As proof, I offer the following comment she made to this post from last December:

What a beautiful cat Ferdinand is.

As a bonus, here's a cat picture from another recent article she did concerning the animal rights movement.

The pictures in the rest of the animal rights article are positively mouth-watering. I was so mesmerized that I got hungry and started gnawing on Bruce's hand. (Don't worry. I let go as soon as I realized he'd stopped typing.)

Romeocat at CatHouse Chat submitted Cuddlesome Cats and The amazing disappearing act. Romeo apologized for submitting two entries, claiming "Miss [S]Mudge was too cute to resist." I am not surprised.

Sissy Willis of of Sisu submitted no less than FOUR entries. I considered holding her to only one, but then I thought to myself Hey, these are all pictures of cats, and it's Bruce who's doing all the hard work, so why not? Anyway, here's Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Cool Cat for Your Desktop, Blogging is a Format, Not a Genre, and Reading Frank Rich is So Good When You Stop.

SRP at Melange submitted Miss Scarlett and Happy Mother's Day. This last contains an especially interesting photo, so I thought I'd show it here.

What's amazing is we have two female Siamese who aren't trying to kill each other! I'm guessing they're litter mates who have been together since birth. Oh yeah, and Ms. SRP also thinks the shape is neat (a stylized heart), but two FEMALE CATS getting along? That just freaks me out.

Steve Ellison of Blog D'Ellison submitted Birthday Girl and Screw the Kibble, I Want Me Some o' Dis. Note how in Birthday Girl he mentions how Hakuna and Matata don't get along. This is more normal.

Hey, wait a minute! Hakuna? Matata? That's from The Lion King! His cats have joke names! Have they stopped burning people at the stake for things like that? If so, why?

Storyteller at Scribblings submitted Feline Friday. This is a dialog, with frequent pictures, involving Storyteller (who I think is named Cassie) and her owner, Amber. Amber clearly has her pet well-trained. Not only is Amber getting some serious scritching, but the article is mostly cat pictures with only very little text, a sign of good priorities.

SFP of Pages Turned (not to be confused with SRP of Melange) submitted Claudius Ponders Philosophical Matters. Be warned: this post does contain poetry. It is redeemed, however, by a picture of what to my untrained eye looks to be a show-grade purebred Abyssinian.

From Striving for Average, we have a short photo essay called A Drinking Buddy. Despite the title, no actual drinking goes on, so we don't need to worry about yet another cat turning into a drunken wastrel.

The Robot Vegetable at Middle-Fork submitted Happy Mother's Day - Puppie And the New Crew and Tinker And The Big World. "Puppie" is not a dog: she's a cat who recently had kittens. I thought I'd better mention this, because "Puppie" is a very unusual name for a cat.

Jack Cluth at The People's Republic of Seabrook submitted He doesn't live here, but he does own the place. Jack had the signal honor of hosting the very first Carnival of the Cats in which I made an appearance. My entry was called Nonverbal Communication, and it featured the photo below, in which I make known my opinions about trying to take away my teddy bear.

Mira of The Oubliette, in what may be a first for any carnival, actually text-messaged her submission from her cell phone. The article is called Friday Cat Blogging, and is all about stretching and sleeping.

Zed Pobre at Resonant Information submitted Just the Tail. This is, as expected, a picture in which only the tail of a neighborhood cat is visible. Zed's story is a sad one: apparently he's been forced by circumstances to live in a different city from his owner, a cat named Pixel. Fortunately, Zed has this huge gallery of Pixel pictures to console him. Zed, when you're feeling especially lonely, don't hesitate to avail yourself of the free purr located in our banner links.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Gosh, Ferdy, where's your entry for this week? Not a problem. This excellent post reveals some of Bruce's thoughts on telemarketing.

Next week, the carnival will be at Aptenobytes. If you want to enter, be sure to use our handy Carnival Submission Form, which does all the tricky parts for you.

Finally, since I didn't have time to do a Cat's Meow for today, I leave you with this important pictoral message: Not everything that's edible is safe to eat.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat