But who would I suck up to? The neighbourhood has very few quality choices. A fact I’ve discovered over the past few months.

Here are some of my initial failed choices:

• A Taxidermist – I just didn’t like the way he kept measuring and looking at me.
• A Crack-head – Damned near starved to death living with this idiot. Not to mention he sold his computer plus I was traded 3 times for more junk.
• A Pothead – Exact opposite to the Crack-head in regard to diet. Always plenty of nibblies around. I gained 5 lbs in a week living there. It didn’t work out too well, though. The 2nd hand pot smoke was causing me to sleep through half of my daily naps! I never did get to the computer there. I always seemed distracted for some reason.
• Crack-head again – Had to lose the weight I gained during my stay with the Pothead. Traded twice more.
• Several Nerds – This turned out to be the worst set of choices. Just try and pry a nerd off a computer! Can’t be done!
• Several People with Microsoft Vista OS – Hey! I wasn’t THAT desperate to get online! For a hasty exit I crapped on their carpet, effectively launching myself into ape-powered flight out the front door.
• Sisters at the corner – Yikes! Only one night there left me with the feeling they aren’t sisters at all!
• Brothers at other corner – What the Hell is wrong with you Apes?!

I was about to give up after that last one but I pushed on. That’s when I saw it through the window. A true relic of a computer with a monster monitor sitting on top. That puppy (pardon the expression) wasn’t going anywhere!

Time to work some magic. Pity is a great tool when seducing a new family. For added effect I returned to the Crack-head’s house and starved for an addional week. (You guessed it… more trading) As much as I hate burdock burrs, I strategically placed several over my body. A quick run through a puddle to dirty up the paws is always a nice touch too.

And, voilà! Poor homeless kitty.

Returning to the house, I hung around waiting for this primate family to come home. First home was the mother; a chatty, purky thing that never shuts up. But hey! Beggars can’t be choosers.

Trying to look as pethetically cute as possible, I immediately ran to her and started my figure-eight routine around her ancles. She was on her phone and announced to the caller that she’d just found a poor homeless Cat and she’d have to call back later. (Man… I am GOOD!)

After plenty of food, a bath and brushing, the evening finally wound down enough for Chatty to go to bed. Man this Ape can talk! She never shut up all night. Apparently there’s more to this brood I found out from the steady stream of verbal perkiness which should only come from cartoon characters. They’re away until next week, but I can only assume they’re all deaf or close to it.

One slight backfire though. Turns out she knows how to use a computer. She’s made up signs with pictures to try and find my owners. She’s going to post them all over the neighbourhood tomorrow. I’m only three blocks away from home, so I’m going to have to sneak back so the Big Hairless Ape doesn’t notice me missing.

Yup! Two families! And computer access. Now I just have to figure out how to pull it off. Going to need a schedule, me thinks.

• “ummm hey gorge. How do you feel about the.. the apes calling the female genitalia the same nickname as your beautiful species? Does this trouble or offend you and your kind? Hit me back.”

Thank you! Finally! Someone brings this to light!

I’ve often wondered about this myself. I’ve seen one of those female Ape things and I have to say they need to do whatever it takes to make that thing look attractive. Including giving it a cute name.

They also call their posterior an ‘ass’. Why they named it after a donkey is beyond me. 

On the other side of the coin you have male Apes calling theirs a ‘tool’. Why? Are they running around the house fixing things with it? Not really. The only practical use I’ve seen is it’s ability to make golden designs in the snow. If anything, they should refer to is as ‘my artist’.

I am just so glad that Apes wear clothing. If they didn’t I’d be doing a hell of a lot more sleeping and a lot less cuddling with them.

As far as being troubled or offended, everything you Apes do troubles and offends me. Why should this be any different?

As for the Apes, it did. The entire household came down with colds and let me tell you, this place is not pretty right now. I’m living in a sea of moist tissues (great toys, btw) and airborne viruses. Every one of my couches is currently housing a dripping Ape! And don’t even get me started on the smells around here since this began.

Cries of ‘Get me some soup’ and ‘Hot lemon would be nice’ have gone unanswered all day. Even The Wet One has returned to his previous levels of wetness.

ScapeGoat The Dog has made a great nurse by licking their faces clean periodically. He’s not much for taking a pulse, but he can wake an Ape in no time.

Me? Well, I’ve been waiting all damned day for at least one of them to give me some food. But if they aren’t willing to feed themselves then I figure I have little chance of seeing a meal myself.

I’ll go rummaging later to see what I can find. I may have to deploy ScapeGoat for blaming purposes, but I’ll get something to eat one way or another!

Imagine my surprise after getting all worked up for my usual 9-Lives to find the slop pictured to the left on my plate.

The damned stuff doesn’t even have a name. The tin is simply marked “Cat Food” on a bland yellow label. And let me tell you, the label isn’t the only bland thing about it. I’ve tasted better stuff stuck to my fur after a trip to the litter box!

So again, I must be creative in letting the Apes know how much I detest the stuff. Since the Apes were off Christmas shopping for the day, I had some time to work out my frustration.

First up was the Cat equivalent of finger painting. With paws covered with this crap, I took a good tour through the living room, making sure I hit all the white upholstery I could find. 

Second was to put a little mystery into the Ape’s lives. I got into the cupboard and removed the labels from these cans and also the labels from the Tuna. At least now I have a 50-50 chance of getting Tuna. I’ll feed the other stuff to ScapeGoat The Dog as he tends to eat first and taste later anyway.

I simply can’t wait for the Apes to make themselves a Tuna sandwich. We’ll see how much they like eating this crap!

The Apes came home after that and blamed ScapeGoat for the mess. Sometimes I just love him! (Not often though!)

Tonight while the Apes are sleeping I’m going to grab the mouse trap I saw in the cupboard and put in on the nightstand where the alarm clock now sits. Should make for an interesting morning.

Moral of this story: Don’t feed crap to Cats!!

I haven’t been able to post much lately as the Big Hairless Ape now takes the LapTop to work with him. Then he comes home and leaves it in that Travel Case. Today I got brave enough and figured out how the case opens.

Zippers! Only an Ape would come up with such a concept. I’ve been terrified of zippers since the day I saw the Big Hairless Ape’s mishap with one of these devices. Why would you put sharp inter-locking metal teeth so close to your genitals? Doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, I faced my fear and got the zippers on the case open. Back online!

After sifting through hundreds of junk emails (What the hell is up with you Apes and the Boner Pills?!!) I thought I should make a post here.

It’s been a while, so I’ll bring you up to speed in point form:

• The Big Hairless Ape is now bigger and more hairless.
• The Big Haired Wife continues to shellac layer upon layer of makeup to her face in a failed attempt to preserve her youth.
• The Wet One isn’t nearly as wet these days but still has his moments. His latest trick is to wipe is runny nose on my fur. I swear! It’d be worth the week outside in the snow just to give that brat a good swat!
• ScapeGoat the Dog is uglier than ever. We have an agreement to stay out of each other’s way. He sticks pretty close to the Big Haired Wife these days.
• The Hamster. Delicious!

I’ll leave you with a list of some of the more popular posts over the year and send out a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for stopping by.

• Day 1239: Fancy Feast My Ass! (The post that started it all)
• Day 1247: Cat Phrases – Explained
• Day 1322: Q & A Interlude #4 (Read this before Q&A #5)
• Day 1324: Q & A Interlude #5
• Day 1338: Security
• Day 1404: The Speed of Tuna
• Day 1437: Pond Reviews

• “deer Gorgus. wuz wundering how u learnt to reed?”

{… Gorgeous just shakes his head …}

I bought a self-help book entitled “How To Read”

Here’s a better question: Where’d you learn how to write?

We wrapped up the Power Napping event the other day with one surprising result: Fat Cat is alive! I thought for sure the frying pan to the back of his head was the death of him. But not so! He came around within half an hour causing him to lose the gold.

Here are the new results for the Power Napping event.

• Power Napping – Out Nap your opponents.
  1. Gold – Patches the Calico. Napped for 2 days, 15 hours, 42 minutes, 11.654 seconds. (A mirror was held to her nose several times throughout the event to ensure she was still alive)
  2. Silver – Rusty the Tabby. Napped for 1 Day, 3 hours, 22 minutes, 45.431 seconds. No mirror checks here because, well… nobody really likes him enough to care.
  3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Napped(?!) for 27 minutes, 32.345 seconds. Poor thing walks backwards now.

More event results:

• Ape Tripping – Trip the Ape as quickly as you can.
  1. Gold – Fat Cat. Tripped the Ape in 1.253 seconds. Since Fat Cat now walks backwards, this event worked out well for him. The illusion of “walking away” caught the Ape by surprise. This, by the way, is a new world record!
  2. Silver – Patches the Calico. Tripped the Ape in 4.645 seconds.
  3. Bronze – Rusty the Tabby. Tripped the Ape in 5.432 seconds. This was shortly followed by another surprise event.
• Cat Toss – See how far you can get tossed by your Ape.
1. Gold – Patches the Calico. Peed on the rug causing her Ape to toss her 3.43 meters.
2. Silver – Rusty the Tabby. After tripping his Ape in the above event, he ate his Ape’s “stash” causing his Ape to toss him 2.86 meters.
3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Are you kidding me? His Ape couldn’t lift him, let alone toss him. 0.0 meters!
• Garbage Hunt – Find the tastiest morsel from the Garbage at the curb.
  1. Gold – Rusty the Tabby. Found a steak bone with meat still attached.
  2. Silver – Patches the Calico. Found half a tin of oysters. These were fairly old and points were deducted due to the horrid smell.
  3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Lost points due to the fact he refused to share his find. Instead, he gulped it down before we could see what it was.

Being Cats, we don’t want to exert ourselves so these are all the events for this year. If you care about standings, add them up yourself. I’m exhausted!

Nap Time…

Unlike Apes, we Cats hold this event each year. We do not need to train constantly for four solid years. Hell, we can wake up out of a dead nap and still place in the finals.

Since I’m the only Cat in the neighbourhood with a web site, it has fallen to me to report and judge the outcome of these events.

Here are the results:

• Litter Toss – Fling as much sand and nuggets out of the litter box as you can in less than 10 seconds.
1. Gold – Rusty the Tabby. Emptied the entire contents in 7.312 seconds.
2. Silver – Patches the Calico. Emptied 83% of the box in 10 seconds.
3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Took a dump and fell asleep.
• Territory Marking – Mark as much territory (by spraying) as you can in 30 seconds.
1. Gold – Patches the Calico. Marked 4.3m^2 by the Johnson’s duplex. (What a stink!)
2. Silver – Rusty the Tabby. Marked 3.8m^2 in front of my house. (Bastard!)
3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Didn’t really spray, but the 1.1m^2 puddle he made under himself is still worthy of a medal.
• Upholstery Stripping – Rip as much fabric off the couch as you can in 20 seconds.
1. Gold – Patches the Calico. Ripped 1.3m^2 of fabric.
2. Silver – Fat Cat. Ripped .75m^2 of fabric. This may have been a fluke as he was trying to jump onto the couch, missed, then took the said volume of fabric with him as he fell.
3. Bronze – Rusty the Tabby. Gets an honour medal since this Cat’s house in furnished entirely in wicker. Valiant attempt though!
• Ape Escape – (aka: 100m dash!) An unexpected event which resulted after the Upholstery Stripping.
1. Gold – Rusty the Tabby. Outmanoeuvred and escaped the Ape in 3.2 seconds.
2. Silver – Patches the Calico. Escaped in 4.7 seconds but did take a broom to the head.
3. Bronze – Fat Cat. Poor thing couldn’t get away fast enough. RIP!
• Power Napping – Out-Nap your opponents.
1. Gold – Fat Cat. I know for a fact he will now out-snooze the others now.
2. Silver – To Be Announced. The other Cats are still napping.
3. Bronze - Same deal.

There are other events coming, but the Power Napping event may take a few days.

Stay tuned!

Some silly Ape states:

• “My daddy says cats are useless.”

{… Gorgeous scratches in the litter box while contemplating how to respond …}

Well now! You just tell your daddy that you have the Pool Boy’s eyes!

(Realtors take note: I predict a house coming onto the market shortly.)

• “Gorgeous? You still with us? I haven’t seen a post from you in quite some time. I check in every day, but nothing’s new. It’s been a month now and everyday I check. Sometimes a few times a day.

  Hope everything is well with you. I will keep checking back.”

{… Gorgeous skips the litter box tour for this one …}

Two words: Sum – mer!

For crying out loud! Get up! Go outside! Get some air. Where do you think I’ve been.

It’s summer, baby! It’s time for ‘venturing. 

I only come home to use the litter box. I’m sure the Apes really appreciate that.