fourfour

Merry Christmas!

I'm getting an early start on the holiday brain-veg by posting this now. I'm so fortunate to have a cat that's so weird. Seriously, everyday, Winston is my Christmas wish come true.

Three things

1. This exists in my neighborhood (click for bigger):

 

If it's confusing and decontextualized to you, great. That makes two of us.

2. I bought Winston a "weekender" New York Times subscription for Christmas:

 

I think the only section he's fluent in, though, is Pillows.

 

3. I guess I missed it entirely when the links were, oh, everywhere (as confirmed by a Google search), but holy shit @ ChaseNoFace, a blog about a cat that literally has no face (the skin was "sloughed off" as a result of a car accident, leaving her looking raw and delicate, since her marble-like eyes are entirely exposed). It's a very shocking sight, which is why I'm not posting a picture. But that also makes me feel like a hypocrite since what is truly touching is that her owner, Melissa, clearly loves her so much, despite her unnerving appearance. It's a nice counterpoint to the typical pet owner's obsession with cute (see above).

Most impressive isn't so much Chase's will to live (that's very typical for things that breathe), but that her severe trauma has seemed to do nothing to diminish her spirit -- there is photographic proof that she is sweet with other animals and humans alike. True, she has no concept of mirrors, but cats are so fucking sensitive that a draft is enough to send some in a completely different attitudinal direction. It's hard to keep your chin up when you go through some fucked up shit; it's harder to keep your chin up when you don't have one. This cat does. What an inspiration.

(Thanks to Carolyn for the link!)

The best gif you'll see in the next few seconds

This outtake from a video I'm assembling would not really work as a video on its own, but as a gif, I think that it is perfect. It's so perfect, in fact, that I decided to make it even better: below is a subtitled version, since I often like to pretend that my cats converse. This is real life.

This is so cute, it makes my insides hate themselves for being so ugly and slimy

Kittens on their backs while humans do things to their fronts: so hot this week.

My eyes bleed rainbows at 1:30 when this cat steals the mascara comb she's being groomed with. I cannot deal when animals adorably prove that they don't know what's good for them.

I watch this user's video's a lot, actually. Her name is Mythicbells and she describes herself as "your average stereotypical Cat Lady," except not every cat lady obsessively documents the daily minutiae of her cats' lives. She seriously has hundreds of videos where not much at all happens except some cats walk around. One of said cats has the biggest eyes I've ever seen on any animal (including elephants) and another (my favorite) has only one eye. This Mythicbells is kind of the Frederick Wiseman of YouTube cat video directors. While not so eventful or Internet-flashy, her stuff is soothing and raw, kind of like a blanket made out of kittens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eat like a pig! Or, better yet...

...eat like my cats!

For your ease (or whatever), the previous Thanksgiving Feast videos are embedded below...

On Winston

This is just a little note to say that PEOPLEPets recently interviewed me about Winston. I never get to talk about him, so you can imagine how new this experience was for me. But for real, it was fun, and I got to explain why this cat is wish fulfillment to someone who grew up in the creature-heavy '80s. You can read the interview here. [Sorry I had the wrong link up for days and days and days. It should work now. I'm stupid guys, get with the program!]

Also, above and below is pictorial evidence of some claims I make in the interview regarding Winston's ugliness (as if you don't already know) and Rudy's cuddliness. I pretty much only post video of them now, so here's a good excuse to just throw in some random shots. Weird overload starts here.

Happy Halloween '09!

It's that time of year again! The time when eating 3,000 calories worth of candy in one night is OK as long as you're doing it in fun-size portions, and most importantly, the time when Winston gets dressed up. It comes but once a year (sometimes twice, depending on how festive we're feeling at Christmas -- and just replaying that video was enough for Winston to get up from sleeping next to me and leave the room, as though hearing "Welcome Christmas" brings back painful memories).

Anyway, the point is that Winston is in costume below. Yay!

Winston in...

This is just a heads-up to say that Winston's in a book that's out today. It's i am neurotic: (and so are you), the portable version of the blog i am neurotic. The author, Lianna Kong, who came over with her photographer and model a while ago, sent me the page he's on and said I could post it. So that's what I'm doing. Try and stop me.

But this reveal doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the book. Support blogs-turned-books. The future of publishing depends on it.

In other non-fourfour Winston action, he and Rudy also pop up in Twi-Cats, a New Moon trailer-reaction parody put together by my friend and co-worker, Lauren Deiman. If you don't care about Twilight or the ways of its fangirls (and who could blame you?), this means that you basically get to watch these animals do a lot of watching. It's like gazing at your reflection if your computer screen were a mirror and you were a bunch of different cats.

Another day, another cat bath

A lot of people think there's no reason to give a cat a bath, but I have two:

1. It makes them (and by them, I mean Winston) look soooooo cute.

2. It annoys the shit out of shrill Internet alarmists, particularly those whose alarms go off when cats are bathed. (It's a special type, let me tell you.) I mean, they do have a point: after this bath, Winston died. Sorry everyone! I should have patterned my behavior more after what people on YouTube think.

Anyway, this one's for y'all!

Happy Labor Day!

I'm sorry, no. I mean Sad Labor Day. What a (completely superficial) tragedy. I hate when summer ends. Last night, I had a dream about winter. It was chilling. Anyway, people eat corn on Labor Day, so here's Winston...not eating corn. But trying! He seems to have forgotten how. A few years ago, I posted another video of him eating corn (I recently reuploaded it), and while he daintily nibbled and barely got a bite, at least he wasn't trying to eat the cob:

He's stupid enough to keep things interesting, so that is helpful. I love my cat from a YouTubing perspective. Regression is caring!