A tribute to Cats

... our small masters

Dog lovers generally would get mad at me. I love cats. I loved cats since I was a kid, I loved them when my mum, who thought that my wheezy condition would be worse with cats prohibited me from taking the cat too close and I hid the cat under my blankets in the bed. I love them now. One can't get enough of cats.

Not the case that I don't love dogs. I like dogs; Dogs are my wife's favourite. I didn't have a dog of my own, but I had many dog friends, and they were very nice. But none of those types can match the other type in qualities. Dog's are not independent, cats are not faithful.

And I chose cats as my preference.

People who love cats value there independence, and their don't care attitude. Garfield, the famous comic strip of Jim Davis, attained most of it's popularity largely due to the 'typical' cat character garfield. It's a cartoon I love very much.

Here, I randomly list some interesting things I got through email, or while browsing web. In some of the articles, authors are unknown. I tried my best to refer the original author, whenever possible.

CAT v. 7.0: completely autonomous tester

Manufactured by MOMCAT

System Design Specifications:

• User Friendly
• Mouse Driven
• Self Cleaning
• Energy Saving Standby Mode When Not In Use
• Self Portable Operation
• Dual Video
• Bi-directional Audio Input/Output
• Primary and secondary output ports: high-speed serial port for streaming data and standard parallel port for data blocks.
• Auto search Routines for Input Data
• Autocracy for Output Bin
• Instant Transition (<2>

System Features:

• Models = Main frame, desktop and laptop models (smallest footprint in the industry)
• Available in 15 inch, 17 inch, and 19 inch sizes.
• Interface = Touch sensitive interface for maximum user friendliness.
• Memory = Not much. Upgrades available real soon now.
• Expected Lifetime = 15 years with ± 72 months (although 20 years are common).
• Weight = 3-6 kilograms without optional cables.
• Speed = 3 nanoseconds search/find with self-uprighting supertwist technology.
• Color Graphics = Either paper white, monochrome (black/white), 64 gray shades, or maximum of 16 million colors with 40 terabits of high resolution floating point pixels.
• Sound Chip = 16 octaves, digital MIDI output (MI/OU).
• Power Consumption = 250 grams protein daily (2 micrograms per second.)
• Operating Range = -30º to +45º C (-22º to 105º)
• Vibration = 5-500 Hz, one octave/min, dwell at all resonance points.

The complete article is very funny and informative. It's available here.

cat quotes

"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." - Unknown

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - Anonymous

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." - Jeff Valdez

"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats." - English proverb

"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." - Ellen Perry Berkeley

"One cat just leads to another." - Ernest Hemingway

"Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later." - Mary Bly

"Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." - Joseph Wood Krutch

"People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life." - Faith Resnick

"There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats." - Anonymous

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." - Hippolyte Taine

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

"The cat has too much spirit to have no heart." - Ernest Menaul

"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God." - Unknown

"Time spent with cats is never wasted." - Colette

"Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well." - Missy Dizick

"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." - Colonial American proverb

"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." - Joseph Wood Krutch

"Cats aren't clean, they're just covered with cat spit." - John S. Nichols

guidelines for intern cats

DOORS: Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get a door opened, stand on your hind legs and hammer with your forepaws. Once a door is opened, it is not necessary to use it. After you have ordered an "outside" door opened, stand halfway in and out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather, rain, snow, or mosquito season. Swinging doors are to be avoided at all costs. You always have the right to stay at the door and think about possible threats in the outside darkness.

HAIRBALLS: If you have to throw up, get to a chair quickly. If you cannot manage in time, get to an Oriental rug. If there is no Oriental rug, shag is good. When throwing up on the carpet, make sure you back up so that the hairball is as long as the human's bare foot.

BATHROOMS: Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything -- just sit and stare.

HAMPERING: If one of your humans is engaged in some close activity and the other is idle, stay with the busy one. This is called "helping", otherwise known as "hampering". Following are the rules for "hampering":

• When supervising cooking, sit just behind the left heel of the cook. You cannot be seen and thereby stand a better chance of being stepped on and then picked up and comforted.
• For book readers, get in close under the chin, between eyes and book, unless you can lie across the book itself.
• For knitting projects or paperwork, lie on the work in the most appropriate manner so as to obscure as much of the work or at least the most important part. Pretend to doze, but every so often reach out and slap the pencil or knitting needles. The worker may try to distract you; ignore it. Remember, the aim is to hamper work. Embroidery and needlepoint projects make great hammocks in spite of what the humans may tell you.
• For people paying bills (monthly activity) or working on income taxes or Christmas cards (annual activity), keep in mind the aim -- to hamper! First, sit on the paper being worked on. When dislodged, watch sadly from the side of the table. When activity proceeds nicely, roll around on the papers, scattering them to the best of your ability. After being removed for the second time, push pens, pencils, and erasers off the table, one at a time.
• When a human is holding the newspaper in front of him/her, be sure to jump on the back of the paper. Humans love to jump.

WALKING: As often as possible, dart quickly and as close as possible in front of the human, especially: on stairs, when they have something in their arms, in the dark, and when they first get up in the morning. This will help their coordination skills.

BEDTIME: Always sleep on the human at night so s/he cannot move around.

PLAY: This is an important part of your life. Get enough sleep in the daytime so you are fresh for your nocturnal games. Below are listed several favorite cat games that you can play. It is important though to maintain one's Dignity at all times. If you should have an accident during play, such as falling off a chair, immediately wash a part of your body as if to say "I MEANT to do that!" It fools those humans every time.