Thursday, March 05, 2015

16 Weird Kitten Facts

16 Weird Kitten Facts

If you dress kittens up in a yellow and black striped jumper, they look exactly like bees.

Kittens have a non-fatal terminal velocity of about 60mph. They can parachute to earth like a squirrel. It's easier to survive if the fall is above 8 stories high.

Entry to the Coombe Park menagerie was either one shilling or a live kitten to feed to the bear-in-residence.

Before the Suez Crisis, Prime Minister of Britain Anthony Eden, supposedly doped up to the eyeballs, consulted a kitten on whether to invade Egypt, in the mistaken belief it was the Foreign Secretary.

A newly born kitten has the equivalent absorbency of a car sponge.

The ground rent set by the Duchy of Cornwall for its tin mines in the 1860s was two kittens, payable twice yearly.

Kittens grow up to be cats.

You can build a simple perpetual motion machine by tying a piece of buttered toast to the back of a kitten and dropping it.

In the early days of television, kittens were taped to actors's chins to simulate beards.

The Danish word for kitten is 'killing'.

94.3% of all kittens are descended from Genghis Kitty, who was leader of the Meowgol Hordes in the 13th Century...

When it rains heavily, we say it is "raining cats and dogs". "Raining kittens and puppies" is the term for drizzle.

If you shave a ginger kitten, it has freckles.

If you say "kitten" three times whilst looking in the mirror, a cute ball of fur with hooks for paws comes and kills you.

Kitten is derived from the latin "Kit" meaning "Cute", and "Ten" meaning "does a poo in your shoe at night".

My kitten's breath smells of kitten food.

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

How to Train a Kitten

How to Train a Kitten

There is a common misconception on the internet that kittens and cats are independent creatures who live above the rules of man. Dogs can be trained, sure, but kittens are a force of nature. Right? Wrong.

Kittens can be trained and should be trained. These brief guides will tell you everything you need to know about how to train a kitten in 7 essential life skills.

Mindfulness for Kittens

Does your kitten run wild around your house? Does it fidget in its sleep? Does it whinge to go outside then come right back in again? Sounds like your kitten needs to learn mindfulness.

Step 1: Make deep eye contact with your kitten. This is sometimes called soul-gazing. Your right eye should look into the kitten's left eye.
Step 2: Mirror the kitten's breathing until you are in complete sync.
Step 3: Plonk the kitten down near a Newton's cradle (AKA a cat's cradle).

Step 4: Your kitten finds itself.

Drinking from a bowl

Step 1: Put milk in a bowl
Step 2: Put your kitten near the bowl
Step 3: Film the result
Step 4: Upload to youtube
Step 5: Use the millions of dollars in ad revenue to buy a less awkwardly-shaped bowl. Your kitten will detect the milk and start lapping away at it with no further input from you.

Waterskiing for kittens (optional)

Those who say kittens do not like water have never seen what happens when you turn on the taps of a sink. Anyway, most kittens, if trained at an early age, will take to waterskiing like a fish to a hook.

Step 1: Buy kitten-sized waterskis
Step 2: Attach them to the kitten for 10 seconds
Step 3: Repeat every day for 2 months, gradually lengthening the time per day the kitten spends wearing the skis
Step 4: When the kitten has grown accustomed to wearing the skis, drag him across a puddle.
Step 5: Gradually increase the size of the puddle until it is the size of Lake Geneva.
Step 6: Try with a speedboat.

Basic Peekabooery

Did you know you can train a kitten to understand simple conditional concepts? It's rather like programming a computer:

IF (user presses send) THEN (send email)

The method? Simple.

Step 1: Tickle kitten for 2 seconds. Remove fingers from scratch zone. If kitten reacts in astonishment, reward with a treat. If kitten doesn't react as desired, do nothing.
Step 2: Repeat many, many times until the timing and expressiveness of the kitten's reaction are exactly what you want.

Happy Slapping

Your cute little pet lives in a cold, hard world. You must train it to defend itself.

Step 1: Jab at kitten.
Step 2: Jab at kitten.
Step 3: Jab at kitten.
Step 4: Reward kitten for each successful parry with a treat.
Step 5: Apply ointments and plasters to wounds as necessary.

Playing well with others

Many kittens live in homes with other pets - dogs, guinea pigs, snakes - and the kitten must quickly learn to coexist with them. You must train your kitten to play nicely.

Step 1: Rub catnip on your dog/snake/whatever's head.
Step 2: Kitten will become friends with dog/snake/whatever.

Shopping with kittens

Have you ever been at the supermarket and loaded up a trolley with groceries, but found you wanted to buy even more? Wouldn't it be great if your kitten could help out? Well, with the right training, it can.

Step 1: Buy a miniature shopping trolley
Step 2: Tell the kitten he cannot play with it
Step 3: Set up a hidden video camera
Step 4: Check the footage
Step 5: Voila.

I hope you enjoyed these tips, and I wish you the best of luck now that you know how to train a kitten.

For more information on kitten training, see my brother's blog.



Monday, February 23, 2015

Podcast Pals - The World's First Podcast Review Blog

You might remember my French friend Cecile - if you don't, you can use the search bar. Type something like 'clammy forehead' or 'irascible.' Well, together we have launched a new blog called Podcast Pals.

We both got addicted - like all the cool kids - to the Serial podcast. When that was over, I found myself hunting around for new podcasts to listen to, and mailing Cecile raving about the good ones. Podcast Pals takes that basic concept and shares it with the world.

Why should you check it out? If you ever liked a radio show there will be a podcast you'll love. If you wished I wrote on here more frequently, go there - I'm posting up to three times a week right now. And if you already know about podcasts and have opinions of your own, go and fill our comments section!

The site isn't perfect - the logo is temporary - but go and bookmark it, and check out some of the recommendations.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

95 Days of Happiness


Day 92




But of course, people watch it for the idiots.





Day 93









Who says games are a waste of time?

Day 94


My new neighbour



Jen: "The landing doesn't smell like piss."

Day 95





People watching TV

It's my new favourite thing. 




Must watch. Two thumbs up.

Progress after 95 days:

Mood: Uprooted but happy


Optimism: Running wild with expectation on the edge of the unknown

Monday, January 05, 2015

How to Not Die Like Bob Marley


So Much Trouble in the World

"Now they sitting on a time bomb. Now I know the time has come."

I was slapping my belly in front of the bathroom mirror (I'm unsure whether to describe this as a hobby or a ritual). I put my hands on my hips and let my gut hang out, and turned sideways to admire my bulbosity. My gaze was drawn to a weird patch of skin on my back. It looked like a bunch of rotting Christmas sprouts.

I sighed. "Probably should get that checked out," I said.

Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)

That was in 2009.

Once a week for the next 5 years I did and said the same exact thing. Every time I either forgot or chickened out. There were always other demands on my time, and what if it was bad news? 

"Shoulda come earlier, fool! Now we gotsta amputate youz back.  You ain't getting in no plane."

I wasn't sure I could deal with that kind of news. So I did like Bob Marley:

Forget your sorrows and dance!
Forget your sickness and dance!

(Eventually I found enough time and courage to make an appointment.)

Could You Be Loved

The dermatologist told me to hop onto the examination table. She peered at my moles through a special device that looked like a cheap toy. After three seconds she breezily said, "No problem there!"

Huh? I'd been worrying about nothing the whole time?

"Now turn over and let me check out your legs." I briefly considered refusing. After all, didn't Bob Marley once say 'don't let them rearrange you?'

The doctor spent a long time peering at some insignificant freckles. Then she took even longer studying a bruise on my foot I'd gotten playing football. "That's just a bruise from football," I said.

"Ha!" she laughed. "That's what killed Bob Marley!"
"Excuse me?"
"Bob Marley had the same exact bruise as you. In his case it was a melanoma. He thought it was an impact from football. It killed him."
She was so delighted that I didn't really know how to respond. I was also unsure what melanoma meant. I was thinking about 'melanin' - the harmless pigment in skin. How would that kill anyone? "Er... so what... er what?"
"This will have to come off," she said, indicating my foot. "This too." She pointed to a tiny black dot on my shin.
My foot! I needed that for picking up the remote control when I'm on the sofa. And my shin! I needed that for bumping into coffee tables. "Just to clarify, what do you plan to remove?"
"This." She waved.
"Be more specific."
"This little freckle thing. It is, how do you say in English?... suspicious. And that one. To be sure."

Iron Lion Zion

A quick look on Wikipedia suggested she'd got the Bob Marley story wrong, but whatever. The operating room contained a massage table and not much else. 

The only decorations were the knives that would slice up my beautiful flesh.

I tried to be iron like a lion in zion, but was more frightened than a bison in Brighton.

My worries were misplaced. The anaesthetic injections were painful, but I didn't feel the knifework and the stitches were painfree, though weird and icky.

"Don't shower for two weeks," she told me as I hobbled out.

"I wasn't planning to."

Nice bit of blood oozing out there

Wake Up and Live

The dermatologist gave me the results of the biopsy. It took a while because she didn't know any of the relevant words in English. Eventually I just said, "Is it cancer?" and she said no.

Get Up Stand Up

The lesson here is probably something like 'check your skin and if you see anything weird go see a doctor.' Or perhaps the real lesson is 'don't try to shoehorn a Bob Marley theme into a text because it's hard to do well.' 

But the message I'm ending on is: 'There's no point checking your skin because you don't know what to look for, so just go to an expert and let them do it. Oh, and do it right now.'