When I adopted Buddy I never thought I’d have such a talkative and friendly cat. Or one who seems to be an expert on human psychology, for that matter.
The little guy has made a habit of following me to the kitchen, even rousing himself from naps the instant he hears the fridge door opening, the rustling of a bag or the clunk of a closing cabinet.
Employing a different strategy than the meow-heavy, “FEED ME NOW!” style he uses at meal time, he sits in the doorway of the kitchen and watches me silently. If I fail to retrieve a snack for him, he doesn’t move.
Last night I’d forgotten to get him something and when I set my cereal bowl down on the coffee table and sank back into the couch, I looked over and saw Bud still sitting in the kitchen doorway, managing to simultaneously look sad and silently incriminating with his big green eyes.
“Where’s mine, dude? Dude, where’s mine?” he seems to say, pouring it on thick. “I thought we did everything together, yet here you are enjoying a snack while your best little Buddy is standing just a few feet away, feeling betrayed as you eat your Frosted Flakes. I guess we weren’t best buddies after all.”
Because I can’t stand that incriminating look and I know the situation will escalate if I don’t act, I dutifully rise from the couch and assume my responsibility as Bud’s faithful human servant, fetching some of his favorite dental treats.
His tail curls into a happy question mark and he trills his happiness.
“Guilty? Betrayed? Ah, all forgotten! Difficulties are dissolved into mere misunderstandings where snacks are concerned, my human friend!”
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing the little guy. Or maybe he really is a master of human psychology who can manipulate human emotions with the twist of his paw.
Some people think felines are incapable of telling time. Cats disagree. And as anyone who has ever had the honor of serving a furry friend knows, cats are exceptional time keepers who like to adhere to strict schedules and like their meals delivered with the precision of the finest Swiss timepieces. To prove it, we asked six random cats if they know what time it is.
“It’s been 4 hours, 13 minutes and 22 seconds since my last meal, which was an unsatisfying salmon pâté . Do better, human.” – Parmesan, 8
“It’s yums o’clock!” – Pepper, 4 1/2 months
“It’s nap time. Again.” – BA Baracus, 4
“It is time for you to get off your lazy behind and fetch me something tasty.” – Shadow, 5
“In exactly 12 minutes it will be time for me to visit the neighbor for third breakfast! Then in another hour, first lunch at the nice lady’s house down the street!” – Clover, 7
“What is time, if not a way to mark the wonderful meals enjoyed, the scrumptilicious snacks devoured, the moments of opportunity when a human plate goes unattended? Wait. Did I say the last part out loud?” – Remontoire, 2
With artificial intelligence making rapid progress over the past year, we asked cats what they think about a future where we depend on intelligent machines.
“Can AI open cans? No? Then why are we having this discussion?” – Bryce ‘Mice Dice’ Price, 8, executive chef
“At the moment, humans remain catdom’s best solution for producing reliable, easily-manipulated servants.” – Meowchio Kaku, 16, scientist
“Imagine the boxes a superintelligent AI could design!” – Anthony Purrcelli, 5, firehouse mascot
“If AI takes over more mundane tasks, that means more nap time for us!” – Peaches, 9, conductor
“If yums are more delicious in the Matrix, then why not? Plug me in!” – Ferrari, 3, accessories model
“I’ve already gone to war with the AI that dispensed my kibble. We had a fundamental disagreement about the frequency and quantity of yums it was dispensing. Let the smoking pile of rubble be a warning to other machines who would challenge felines for Earthly supremacy.” – Meowchal Douglas, 21, investment banker
I can’t overstate how much I like Charles Barkley.
When I was a kid watching the NBA in the 90s, Sir Charles was a force to be reckoned with, a player who could put an entire team on his back and would have rampaged his way to multiple championships if a man named Michael Jordan didn’t play in the same era.
Chuck was physical, an outstanding and efficient scorer, a tenacious rebounder and a guy who played the game with passion. He was also beloved as the NBA’s resident “fat guy,” an admittedly pizza-loving athlete nicknamed The Round Mound of Rebound and The Incredible Bulk who always had to lose a few pounds when he showed up for training camp.
A young Charles Barkley (right) eating pizza before a game. No, seriously, that’s what he ate before NBA games!
In his post-NBA career, Barkley has delighted audiences for years with his brutally honest takes about basketball and many other topics. He’s blunt, honest to a point and often hilarious.
That’s why I still can’t dislike him even after he insisted cats are pets for “old women” during a playoff broadcast on Monday.
“A cat is not a real pet,” Barkley said on TNT when fellow host and former NBA player Kenny Smith mentioned he likes cats and has one at home.
“Why not?” Smith asked.
“Because it’s not a dog,” Barkley replied.
Later, when a fan jokingly tweeted an image of cats taking issue with Barkley’s declaration, The Prince of Pizza doubled down.
“I don’t dislike cats, I just don’t think they’re real pets,” he said. “A dog is a real pet.”
“What’s a cat?” Smith asked him.
“Just something old women have,” Barkley said, drawing the ire of cat lovers on the internet.
Before anyone rushes to fire off an angry tweet, it should be noted that Barkley is known for saying things to get a rise out of people, and Inside the NBA is legendary for its shit talk, with Shaquille O’Neal and Ernie Johnson rounding out the quartet of hosts who spend as much time laughing as they do analyzing the games. The guys on Inside the NBA are also notorious for poking fun at themselves and playing pranks on each other (I’ll never forget seeing all 300 pounds of Shaq falling on his ass after the other guys took the screws out of his chair, and the good-natured way he took it), so I know Sir Charles wasn’t trying to be mean. He was probably just taking a dig at Kenny.
So yeah, don’t cancel Charles. He’s entertaining, he’s a unique voice, and he just hasn’t had his heart stolen by a cat yet. Someone take him to the local SPCA and find a nice fluffy Maine Coon who will sway Chuck to the dark side!
Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us! Happy birthday dear Buddies, happy birthday to us!
We received a notification from WordPress congratulating us on four years with WordPress, although this blog isn’t technically four years old. It started as a place for my random scribbles about Buddy and as a sort of travelogue for my trip to Japan, and it wasn’t until September of 2019 that I registered the domain and started blogging in earnest, transforming the site into the Pain In The Bud we all know and love today.
Over the last few years we’ve been fortunate enough to merit the attention of critics, who have lavished praise on us:
“There’s a reason young kittens the world over have posters of Buddy on their walls. He’s effortlessly charming, possessed of inimitable wit and he’s got one hell of a singing voice.” – Fat Cats magazine
“An indictment of the American education system. I feel dumber for having read it.” – Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine’s guide to the Worst Blogs On The Internet
“An extraordinary blog focused on an exceptional cat whose wit is sharper than Valyrian steel. Endlessly entertaining.” – The Buddesian Times
“A catnip junkie and the human who enables him. Gives all cats a bad rep.” – Veterinary Association of America
“Has there ever been a cat more handsome and interesting than Buddy? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.” – The Chronicle of Higher Buddy
“It’s difficult to tell who’s the bigger moron, the human or the cat. They enable each other, launching their idiotic schemes to take over the world and horde its turkey. Thankfully they’re as incompetent as they are clueless.” – Jefferson Nebula, host of My Cat From Hades
Of course we would not be here if not for our readers. Thanks for finding us, sending us your ideas and most of all, feeding Buddy’s ego by telling him what a charming, interesting and ferocious tiger he is.
On a related note, since I’m not sure of Buddy’s exact birth date, we celebrate his birthday and adoptiversary around the third weekend of April.
Happy birthday, Bud!
Bud, you sexy beast, you!
How the heck is the little guy nine years old? That doesn’t seem possible. The age equivalency chart says that’s the equivalent of 52 human years, but Bud still has a spring in his stride, meows like a little baby and likes playing with his toys, especially the game called “Mighty Hunter” in which I manipulate wand toys like prey and he ambushes them. Since he doesn’t know he’s supposed to deliver a “kill bite” and hasn’t made the connection that hunting = food, he happily bobbles the toy with his front paws while bouncing around on his feet, then rushes to cover to reset the game.
I will not dwell on or speculate about how long he’ll be with us because I turn into a blubbering mess despite being a grown ass man, so I’ll just say I’m extremely grateful that he’s healthy and happy, and I’ll continue to enjoy every minute with him.
Except when he meows really annoyingly when his food is late. And when he wakes me up by grooming my face. Oh, and his insistence on walking 1/10th of a stride in front of me so I’m always in danger of tripping on him. Also, when he goes into super annoying determined mode and tries to wake me by punching the door flap on his litter box, knowing the squeak of the hinges drives me crazy.
He is very accomplished at annoying me, but that’s okay. He’s my little Buddy.
Plagiarized, you say?
Thanks to those of you who alerted us to a PITB story that was plagiarized by a pet-focused site recently. We’re aware of it, and unfortunately it’s not the first time.
It takes a lot of time and effort to create readable, entertaining content, and there are people who simply don’t care and help themselves to the content without scruples. Almost all of them are based in countries whose authorities don’t respect US intellectual property rights and won’t cooperate with any takedown notices or legal threats.
The Drudge Report, for example, famously links to DNUYZ, a site run by an Armenian guy who steals content from the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Financial Times and other news sites. Google canceled DNUYZ’s AdSense account, but the operator simply signed up with a different ad server, and he makes a tidy profit by stealing content en masse.
If major media organizations can’t stop this nonsense, I have no hope. I’ve had some luck petitioning sites that host third-party content, but many don’t respond and I don’t even get an apology from those who do acknowledge that my content was posted to their sites, earning them pageviews and ad revenue.
There is a way you can help, however. Every time someone links to a PITB article, it incrementally increases our legitimacy in the eyes of Google, and that’s important because it means PITB shows up first when people search for an article or topic on this site, rather than the plagiarized versions copied by content scrapers in countries like India and Russia.
I am not asking people to randomly link to PITB. That wouldn’t help anyway. However, if there’s a story you really like, consider sharing it on social media and help spread the word. Organic virality is the name of the game, and Buddy and I think we do offer something relatively unique in the cat-o-sphere with a blog from a dudely perspective with a focus on absurdist cat humor, big cat conservation and important news stories that impact our furry little friends.
And if that’s not reason enough, well, just look at him. He’s a sexy beast, and surely your cat-loving friends would be angry with you if you did not tell them all about Buddy and his adventures. Don’t make them upset. Do them a solid and invite them to the Wonderful World of Buddy!
Feline humor, news and stories about the ongoing adventures of Buddy the Cat.
Pain In The Bud 