Meow Meow Meme

Hello. Her Royal Highness the cat here. My beautiful feline friends Miss Bella and Sele (pictured above), who blog with their human Wendy over at The Year of the Cats, tagged me last week with the Meow Meow Meme. I'm so excited to tell you all about my glorious SELF by answering these six questions!

1. Where do I like to hang out?

My favourite place in the whole world is my cat tree, which sits in the living room right in front of the big picture window. Six feet high, it is covered with brown carpeting which I have lovingly clawed to shreds over the years. It has three perches from which I may survey my queendom and a cubbyhole in which I can curl up and sleep. Here's a photo of me doing precisely that. Oops, my tail is hanging out!

2. Who is my kitty crush?

I have a real weakness for swashbuckling bad boys, I must admit. So of course my biggest kitty crush is Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies. And isn't it funny how he sounds just like that sexy human, Antonio Banderas? Small world, I guess.

3. What is my favourite scent?

My person has blogged before about my crazy addiction to the scent of mint (here, here and here, if you're curious). 'Nuff said. I love it!!!!!

4. What's my favourite TV show?

I love watching a good mystery on PBS's Mouseterpiece Theatre and the best detective of all is Purrlock Holmes! Like all cats, he is a genius.

5. What's my favourite movie?

I love Star Wars but it would be so much better with an all-feline cast, don't you think? And if cats were in charge, we would immediately kill and eat Jar Jar Binks. I don't think anyone would object to that.

6. What is my best piece of feline wisdom?

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterwards."

This is the motto by which all cats live. Our credo or raison d'être, if you prefer. I practice it as much and as often as I can.

And now, it's time to tag some other interwebz cats who either blog personally or feature prominently in their human's blog. They are all delightful cats and I encourage you to visit their home blogs:

Pişi and Squeak at their blog, Pişi & Squeak. These two certainly have their paws full with their Big Two-Legged One. Humans can be such a trial sometimes.

Dexter at his human's blog, Yellowdog Granny. Dexter and I had a fling once. He's the original swashbuckling bad boy. You voyeurs can read about it here.

Mildred at her human's blog, BugginWord. Mildred is an expert at stealing the show in the background of her human's ukulele videos.

Got Your Towel?

Today is Towel Day, when fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy carry towels around all day to honour its brilliant creator, Douglas Adams. This world-wide event was first held in 2001, two weeks after Adams's untimely death at the age of 49.

This is what the Guide has to say on the all-important subject of towels:

A towel . . . is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value -- you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini-raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tins of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Warning: Cute Overload!

Blogwise, I've got nuthin today. NUTHIN. So to distract you from that fact, here's some rainbow and unicorn cookies -- nom nom nom! Oh, and also a photo of a bunny and a deer to look at while you're eating your cookie. Enjoy!

Kittens -- Just Say No to Nip!

You Do the Math!

Math and science have never been my strong points. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a bit of humour at their expense. Along with cats, of course -- cats can make anything funny. And let's not forget pie -- mmmm, pie. It just makes the whole world better.

Skywalk Safety Decals

A skywalk which I often use has some of those stick-on bird decals scattered on its windows to prevent birds from flying into the glass. But not long ago I noticed that a couple of other flight safety decals had been added. WTF?

I guess this one must be to prevent John Travolta from flying into the window while piloting one of his private light planes.

And we're safe from any unfortunate accident with the Starship Enterprise too. Whew! That was close.

[Photos by Debra She Who Seeks]

Rex Murphy Eyes

. . . and Rex even more recently.

God knows, Rex Murphy has a face only his mother could love. But, as if to make up for it, his Irish ancestors have passed down to him a maximum dose of the silver-tongued gift of the gab. As a result, he is one of Canada's most ubiquitous political and social pundits. You can find him opining on TV (CBC's The National newscast), hosting on radio (CBC's national call-in show, Cross Canada Checkup) and palavering in print (the National Post newspaper).

And now, he has his own meme too. In the US, there's a popular meme where Steve Buscemi's eyes are photoshopped onto the faces of Hollywood stars. In Canada, some unknown wag has started photoshopping Rex Murphy's eyes onto the faces of Canadian politicians. You can check out the entire gallery for yourself at Canadian MPs with Rex Murphy's Eyes but here are my personal favourites --

Defence Minister Peter MacKay -- will you still be such a playa with the ladies now, big guy?

Everyone's favourite smokin' Cabinet minister, Bev Oda (this one's for you, Secnarf!)

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau -- not such a pretty boy now, are we?

Don't look so glum, Jack Layton -- you're Canada's new Leader of the Opposition! Where's that NDP joie de vivre?

Look how the newly elected Leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, is celebrating! Now there's a happy gal!