I was considering celebrating the passing of a grant deadline tonight by going out to the movie theater to watch Contagion, but it may strike too close to home — I may have nightmares. After all, another kind of plague is now infesting FtB. Will it spread? Will others succumb? Will my home become corrupted again?
I tried to warn you all!
Hey! Don’t be so ailurophobic!
Strokes black tortsoisehell named Zosma, listens to contented purring, realises cat owns me, is happy.
( http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/zosma.html )
Just remind all your friends that they will bring in *live* pests: birds, large bugs, even mice, with which for you to play!
My daughter readily adopted out our cat when he brought a mouse in and dropped it on the living room floor, casually walking off like that was a normal thing to do.
Too late! It’s spread already!
My wife and I just adopted a little stray ourselves. She just showed up a couple of weeks ago in the alley beside our house, so I captured her (tiny and adorable as she is, that was a lot more difficult than it sounds when you say it quickly.)
The first day, she was almost impossible to re-catch in the room where we’d isolated her, so that I could get her into the crate to take to the vet. She even bit me. But by the time I’d brought her home again, she’d calmed down and by next morning she was rubbing all over us and purring so loudly you could hear her from across the room. Now she’s a little love-bug.
Who knew the way to win over a kitten was to take her to the vet? That certainly never worked with my other cats.
See, I don’t believe that he really is. I think the gentleman doth protest too much.
I’ll wager somewhere there exists photo evidence of the Tentacled Overlord happily petting a kitteh. Oh, if we could just get our hands on it, think of the blackmail possibilities….
Poor PZ. It must be hard to hate cute kittens.
I have it on good authority that PZ actually loves Kittens and Babies. He has them stewed with parsnips and onions every time they’re in season. . .
Soft kitty, warm kitty,
Little ball of fur…
PZ obviously does not fear Basement Cat. And one of his minions lives with me.
@ Stewart Riley: How kind of you to adopt that stray! Congrats on your new family member! :)
Don’t worry, I still have a dog and never intend to get a cat. Can’t quite afford any sort of squid, however…
@ Stacy: I agree with you re PZ. He’s a big old pussycat himself.
Cats are gross. So are dogs.
PlayMp1@#10
I have dogs and cats, living in the same house, even!
Sometimes? Sometimes they even do, well, things. Together.
NSPZorPlayMp1: http://preview.tinyurl.com/4x2ns86
There is a parasite known as Toxoplasmas gondii. T. gondii infects rats. T. gondii makes rats chase after cats and want to be with them.
Most of the time the cat kills the rat and eats it. This is what T. gondii wants, because T. gondii breeds inside cats.
Sometimes the cat ignores the rat. So the rat cuddles up to the cats and will go so far as to lay on the feline as they sleep. Rats will even go so far as to offer their cat food.
Cats like to be with people. Cats will lay on us as we sleep. Cats will offer us food.
People want to be with God (deists that is), people will offer God food and other goodies. You get the feeling T. Gondii is reaching a bit?
Just think, religion may be the result of a parasite.
What is all this paranoia about kittehz. There is no way I could ever become infe… ..♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!
♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!
♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!
♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!
♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥Kitty!♥
Kitty!♥Kitty!… *swoons*
Yep, time for my Anti-Caterday video again! BTW: I have a new t-shirt now. I didn’t like the “A” in front so I changed to my “new” A3Kr0n name, and the back says Pharyngula now. Need new video…
Never!
Cats are evil. Look at those shifty eyes. Trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Thats right, fools. They bide their time, until they can feast on our soft parts. Give me dogs, Sir! Big, derpy, drooly, happy dogs. I’ll have none of this feline nonsense.
KJ
Is this the new atheist rift? Yay kittehs!
What? WHERE? Kill it! Kill it n…
… Oh, cats. I thought that we were being infested by ponies. Never mind.
ZOMG KITTY!
I now have a Lovecraftian image in my head. It goes something like this:-
*scene opens*
PZ nervously typing his warning to teh interoobs in a darkened room. Every window is nailed shut, every vent blocked off. The world must know. These are a special breed of monster, able to live unassuminglyly in people’s homes until the moment to strike comes. People must be made to understand. The tragedy of it is that it is so very human to clasp the author of your demise to your bossom, while decrying those who would save you. PZ knows his time is running out. It cannot be long now before they find him…
Suddenly, he freezes. Was that a faint scratching sound he heard, or is he just imagining it? Heart in mouth, a few seconds pass.
Nothing.
PZ shakes off the sensation, and returns to typing. A few seconds later, a sound uncomfortably like mewing disturbs PZ’s concentration. He scans the darkness carefully. Suddenly, he thinks he sees movement in the corner of the room. PZ’s terror gnaws at his resolve as he spots glittering, reflective eyes regarding him coldly from the shadows. Even as he scrambles to his feet, snatching up his chair to fend of the feline fiend, PZ wonders how they found a way in. He had been so careful – maybe it was a sub-basement or something in the loft, something not in the plans. Releasing that it is too late to worry about such things, PZ retreats to the door. Flinging the portal open, he is confrinted with a home overrun with the four pawed harbingers of doom. Wildly swinging his chair to fend off the horde, PZ flees to the bathroom.
Slamming the door behind him, PZ discovers to his horror that the lock will not function, its mechanism jammed with hairballs.
The window is only a vent, and too small to afford escape even if it wasn’t nailed shut. PZ retreats to the far corner of the room, his wild gaze fixed upon the door.
Pregnant silence rules for a few moments, and then the handle begins to turn. With slow, creaking agony, the door swings open, to reveal a large, be-scarred tomcat hanging onto the exterior handle by its front paws, its inhuman, verticle-pupiled golden eyes slither over PZ with malign intent.
Dropping to the floor with lithe grace, the tomcat joins the masses of its fellows as they close in on the doomed biologist…
*fade to black*
@ Gregory Greenwood: Bravo, Gregory! +1 (Oh, and I also thought your posting on the Facebook/rape thread was brilliant.)
However…
Wildly swinging his chair to fend off the horde, PZ flees to the bathroom.
Was that a Freudian slip? :)
@ Blueaussi: My head exploded from the cuteness of that picture.
I have a minion, too! But it’s hard to take him too seriously when he:
a.) Doesn’t have a basement (So Cal location; precious few basemented domiciles)
b.) Is saddled with the name “Bunny” (not my idea; he had that name when I got him and he answers to nothing else)
His retribution will doubtless be terrible indeed.
@ twincats: LOL!
I don’t have a basement either, but my tiny NYC tenement apartment qualifies as an appropriate domicile for a minion of Basement Cat.
My minion actually hails from the streets of Vilnius, Lithuania. At about 4 weeks old, she fell through an air shaft into a university classroom there (expelled from the ceiling, as it were), and ended up with me. She’s not too terrible to live with, but woe betide the human who is not quick enough in serving her dinner! :)
IndyM, pikčiurna @ 23;
Thanks.
Oh, that is telling, isn’t it? Perhaps I was channeling PZ’s scheduling problems with maintaining his work obligations and posting on Pharyngula? Or maybe I was thinking about the horrible mauling he received on the ‘Ol Abuse Thread…
For PZ. a horde-like mass of enraged kittehs is most likely the stuff of existential nightmare.
To us, kittehs are cute, but for PZ the accolade ‘cute’ presupposes the possession of tentacles…
;-)
I, for one, took the warning seriously, and have been stockpiling balls of string for several months. I am prepared.
I have a minion. Originally to keep the damn mice out of my house (too smart for bait) and now he’s basically the 5th resident of the house.
And the little guy is currently…tearing around the house like a nutcase. And attacking the chair leg. He may have the shortest attention span I’ve ever seen, but he can catch mice so he can remain in employ. (He usually remembers to kill the mouse before he brings it in. Emphasis on ‘usually’.)
He was originally left behind at a garden center by an employee who hoarded animals. Cat was fired because he kept pooping in the plants they were trying to sell.
I’m not convinced that cats are smart enough to take over the world. They’d all gather…then someone shows up with a laser pointer and the whole scheme falls apart in a mass of cats struggling to catch a little red laser dot. And then nobody can remember what they were originally doing.