thebigbuddy

Going to Japan

Big Buddy heads to Tokyo and the kitty-obsessed Land of the Rising Sun!

Big Buddy is heading to Japan for a couple of weeks. What does that mean for Pain In The Bud?

Photographs! I plan to shoot as much as I can while I’m there. Snow monkeys (Japanese macaques) are on the itinerary, and I can’t wait to shoot Japanese night life and Tokyo itself, but Japan is a famously cat-obsessed country so I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding kitties and kitty-themed everything to photograph.

Of course I’m also planning on visiting a cat cafe or two while I’m there, because I’ll definitely miss my Little Buddy.

Which brings me to the next order of business: Buddy himself will be in the care of my mother. This gives me an opportunity to lay an enormous guilt trip on her for refusing to allow Buddy to sleep in bed with her.

“Think of poor Buddy, mom. All alone, missing me terribly, accustomed to curling up with his beloved Big Buddy at night, and you’re not going to allow him in the bedroom? What kind of person is so cruel? You’re telling me you’re going to hear his plaintive meows for comfort, his tiny little paws beating on the door as he desperately seeks human contact, and you’re going to coldly lay there and ignore him? You’re a terrible person.”

I’ve already made it clear I expect daily photographs of Buddy next to the current day’s edition of the newspaper, so I can verify he’s still alive and well in the ~~care~~ evil clutches of my mother.

In reality he’s probably going to drive her crazy, so the joke’s on her. Muahahaha!

(Mom, if you’re reading this, you know how much I love you!)

Finally, there’s the matter of separation anxiety for the Buddies. I’m going to leave a dirty t-shirt or two on my bed so Bud can take in my familiar scent — which smells of victory, bad assery and Curve all at once — and take comfort from it. As for me, I’m going to see if he’ll acknowledge me via Facetime through an iPad screen. That should be interesting.

The last time I was gone for an extended period of time, I walked in the door and Buddy was so excited he puked. I hope he keeps his lunch this time around. 🙂

I am going to miss my Little Buddy!

Pain In The Bud will be updated a few more times before the trip, and by late Sunday or Monday I should be updating from the Land of the Rising Sun!

The CIA Thought It Could Control Cats. lol.

The CIA should have realized cats are indifferent to the petty squabbles of their lessers.

No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go.

Some nameless CIA agent came to that obvious conclusion while surveilling a Russian compound one afternoon in the mid-1960s. The site was so well-secured and heavily-guarded that Soviet officials felt comfortable discussing business in the open air, where American spies could see them from a distance but, critically, couldn’t hear what they were saying.

The Russians weren’t leaving anything to chance: No one could slip through the perimeter without them knowing about it, making infiltration impossible.

Except, the CIA officer realized, for cats. Human trespassers would be shot on sight. Any deliveries or strange pieces of equipment would become the immediate subject of suspicion. But not even grizzled KGB veterans would dream of trying to stop cats from chasing rodents or finding a sunny spot to nap.

‘No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go!’ the CIA officer thought in a flash of inspiration, envisioning the wealth of intelligence that could be gathered with a small army of felines trained in spycraft and equipped with tiny microphones hidden in their free-swiveling ears.

Two years and $20 million later the CIA abandoned Project Acoustic Kitty after realizing cats make lousy spies for precisely the same reason guards don’t try to stop them from entering secure compounds: No one tells a cat where it can and cannot go.

“Our final examination of trained cats [REDACTED] for use in the [REDACTED] convinced us that the program would not lend itself in a practical way to our highly specialized needs,” a recently-declassified CIA memorandum notes.

To put it in simple terms, CIA agents couldn’t get the cats to stay near their marks. The cats would get distracted or hungry or bored, which all resulted in the same thing: Wandering off and leaving the Americans with only fragments of conversations.

Imagine it: “Yes, Yuri, we have finalized the details for our strike against American interests in” (drowned out by loud MEOW) “which we will launch when…” followed by the cat taking off after seeing a bird.

The CIA should have realized cats are indifferent to the petty squabbles of their lessers, even if those petty squabbles bring humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

Mutually assured destruction may be a grim doctrine for students regularly participating in air raid drills or families investing in personal bomb shelters, but to cats it’s merely the regrettable loss of a species that faithfully served them for 10,000 years.

If humans nuke each other into oblivion there will still be plenty of rodents to eat, and a surviving primate species — perhaps bonobos or rhesus macaques — could serve as a suitable replacement in servitude to felines.

As for Project Acoustic Kitty, how much of that $20 million was spent on treats used as rewards for getting the cats to participate in training?

The CIA thought it was using cats. As usual, it was the other way around.

Dear Buddy: MOAR Treats!

Buddy learns humans keep delicious snacks like whipped cream and cake in the bathroom!

Dear Buddy,

You’re always going on about food as if your Big Buddy doesn’t ply you with snacks. I know he does, because you’re getting chubby.

But that’s beside the point: You’re a cat! You don’t need humans to feed you. You could venture outside and grab yourself a nice juicy mouse or a plump bird!

It’s time for you to get in touch with your roots and your inner predator, Buddy.

– Rodent Hunter in Rhode Island

Dear Rodent Hunter,

First of all, I am NOT chubby. It’s called a primordial pouch, okay? Cats from fierce warrior lineages have them to protect us from the claws of our opponents and the talons of raptors. (The avian kind, not the dinosaurs, although if dinosaurs were still around I’d kick their asses too.)

Secondly, I would totally go outside and hunt me some snacks, but I can’t. It’s in my contract. When you make a living off your devastating good looks like I do, you can’t just get into scraps like a common cat.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

If you say so. But humans are constantly leaving tasty treats all over the place. You just need to know where and when to look.

For example, did you know humans eat whipped cream in the bathroom? It’s true! The next time your Big Buddy is shaving his whiskers, find some way to make a distraction that will draw him out of the bathroom.

While he’s distracted you can eat the whipped cream. There will be entire globs of it all around the sink! Just gobble it all down really fast and get out before Big Buddy realizes you’re eating his yummy snacks.

You’ll have plenty of time to savor the taste of that delicious whipped cream once you’re out of the bathroom. When you taste it, I want you to think of me. That’s the taste of victory, Buddy!

– Rodent Hunter in Rhode Island

Dear Rodent Hunter,

Thanks, my friend! It’s nice to know my readers love me so much. Big Buddy usually shaves at night.

Tonight I feast on sweet, yummy whipped cream!

– Buddy

6426923E-AD5D-455D-8E01-AC2CF49AA6F3 — Mmmm, so creamy and delicious!

Rodent Hunter,

WHAT THE &$@#, DUDE?!? That was NOT whipped cream! It didn’t taste like victory either. It was gross! I had to wash my mouth out eight times and eat half a bowl of kibble just to get the taste off my tongue, and then I got sick.

Do you think Big Buddy knew I was going to steal his whipped cream? He knew, right? That’s why he put that disgusting fake whipped cream for me to find. It’s the only logical explanation.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

You’re as sharp as you are handsome, Buddy! That’s got to be what happened. Your Big Buddy must’ve known and he played a prank on you. Makes total sense.

I eat the whipped cream all the time when my human shaves, and it is creamy and delicious! Maybe you should try again. Be really slick about it so your human doesn’t know you’re coming and put the fake whipped cream out for you. Be stealthy!

When you outsmart your human and you get that first taste of milky, creamy, silky deliciousness, remember that you’re a genius and you’ve earned it. Your persistence will pay off!

Let me know how it goes. 🙂

– RH

Dear RH,

I was outwitted again. 😦 I don’t know how he knew I was going to steal his whipped cream again, but somehow Big Buddy found out and pulled another fast one on me. What’s that saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you again!

Well I won’t give him the satisfaction of a third time! I’m done trying to steal whipped cream for the time being.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

I’m really sorry to hear that, bro. You’re really missing out on a yummy treat. Oh well.

What about…? Nah. Nevermind. It’s better you don’t know about the cakes.

– RH

AA93A53F-3DCA-492F-8F7A-223037135C81 — Did you know humans keep delicious cake in the bathroom? It’s true!

RH,

Come on, dude! Don’t hold out on me! What are these cakes you speak of? I’m already getting hungry.

– Buddy

Buddy,

Okay, okay. If you insist. But I must warn you, these things are so delicious you might never go back to cat food again.

They’re called urinal cakes and they’re usually pink, like the color of fresh turkey…

Dear Buddy: You’re A Badass!

Fan mail comes pouring in after Buddy bravely fights off a vicious coyote!

Dear Buddy,

When I heard a brave cat fought off a coyote, I thought to myself “That’s gotta be Buddy!” Sure enough, there you were on social media, describing the haymakers you landed on that foul canid: In the video we can see you execute a vicious right hook, followed by a dazzling spin move, then a series of rapid-fire jabs to the coyote’s face.

We can’t see what happens when you chase the coyote behind the car, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it was all sorts of badassery.

You, sir, are a hero to all cats!

Impressed in Idaho

Dear Impressed in Idaho,

Oh, it was nothing really. Just another day. I eat coyotes for breakfast, you know.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

You lying sack of shit! That video is from Altadena, California, and you live in New York! Also, the tabby in the video has white paws and a white behind. You’re all gray. Stop lying!

– BS Caller in Boston

Dear BS Caller,

Nuh-uh. It was me. You can tell by the huge muscles and the acrobatic moves.

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

Stop lying, dude. We all know you run screaming at the sight of a vacuum and freak out when you hear a garbage truck. If you saw a coyote up close you’d crap yourself.

– No-Nonsense in New Jersey

Dear No-Nonsense,

Nuh-uh. I bravely stand up to vacuums all the time. Look at how ripped I am!

– Buddy

Dear Buddy,

Come meet me tonight at midnight near the railroad tracks and we’ll see once and for all whether you’re as tough as you say. I’ll even tie one paw behind my back. All I need is one to smack you back to your Big Buddy. My cousin Boris has an iPhone, he’ll record the whole thing.

Put up or shut up.

– Sam the Coyote

Dear Sam the Dirty Dog,

My schedule is full tonight, tomorrow, the rest of the week and for the next several months. I have napping and eating to do. Also I can’t just appear on any video, you know. There are all sorts of rights issues that need to be worked out. It’s out of my hands. Ask my lawyers. But I’m totally not scared and would fight you if I could.

– Buddy the Beast

What If Cats Had Opposable Thumbs?

If cats can open their own cans, what use do they have for humans?

Three robots on a sightseeing tour of post-apocalyptic, post-human Earth sit on a filthy couch in a decaying home and marvel at what’s in front of them.

“What’s the point of this thing?” one of the robots asks, leaning forward intently.

“Apparently there’s no point,” his tiny red droid friend says. “[Humans] just had them.”

“Well that’s understating their influence,” the third robot chimes in. “They had an entire network that was devoted to the dissemination of pictures of these things.”

The camera pulls back and we see what the robots are looking at — a cat, digging his claws into an old ottoman and stretching his back with a yawn.

The scene is from Love, Death and Robots, a new science fiction anthology series from Netflix. Each episode is an adaptation of a different short story from some of the best SF novelists working today.

Given the ubiquity of cats on the Internet, it’s probably not far-fetched to imagine archaeologists in the distant future — whether alien, machine or some sort of post-singularity humans come to see their primordial birthplace — would draw the conclusion that humanity built an instantaneous global communication network for the sole purpose of sharing cat images.

“All the evidence suggests primitive humans worshiped these quadrupedal, furry little beasts,” some expert on 21st century humanity might say.

In the Netflix episode [SPOILER ALERT!] the robots complete their tour at a nuclear silo, reflecting on humanity’s demise by its own hand.

But it wasn’t just nuclear winter that spelled doom for humans, the little red robot says: The nail in mankind’s coffin was bio-engineering cats to give them opposable thumbs.

The tomcat from earlier, who’d been tagging along with the robots and demanding they pet him, finally breaks his silence and speaks to the stunned robots.

“Yes,” the cat says, casually wiping a paw against his fur. “Once we could open up our own tuna cans, that was pretty much it for the human race.”

The episode ends with the cat conscripting the robots as his new servants, using a clever bit of leverage explained in an earlier scene.

So what would cats do if they had opposable thumbs?

Mine would be into the treat bag like a crack addict, shoveling junk food in his mouth until he can’t eat anymore. He’d open up his own cans as well, no doubt, eating his way through all the delicious turkey.

He’d probably steal my phone not because he has any interest in using it, but because anything that takes my attention away from him Must Be Destroyed!

And he’d gain the ability to open every door, not just those with handles instead of knobs. A Buddy with opposable thumbs is a Buddy who’d never allow me to use the bathroom in peace.

As for Love, Death and Robots, the “3 Robots” story isn’t the only one in which cats play an important role. In another episode a team on an archaeological dig accidentally unleashes an ancient vampire. Bullets and explosives don’t even phase the undead, but cats — regular meowing house cats — cause it to recoil and flee in terror.

So remember: If you ever come face to face with a vampire, hide behind your kitty!