The Buddies are celebrating their hometown New York Knicks, who won the 2025 NBA Cup on Tuesday night!
The Budster and I are in a celebratory mood after the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs to win the 2025 NBA Cup Championship!
The NBA Cup is a mid-season tournament, now in its second year, that serves as an early indicator of league balance, team resilience and talent, and a championship in its own right.
It’s not an NBA championship, and to be clear the team has a long road ahead with some extremely dangerous teams — including the 24-2 Oklahoma City Thunder — to contend with en route to the goal of a ring, but every contender had its eye on the NBA Cup trophy, and the Knicks came out on top. That bodes well for them.
The Knicks sit at 18-7 in the standings (19-7 total) with the best points margin in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, and are currently third in betting markets to win it all in the postseason. Not bad for a bunch of guys casually dismissed as non-factors just a year ago.
For now, it’s time to enjoy the win and hope the momentum carries forward for a team that has made basketball exciting in New York again.
Buddy the Cat’s talents are innumerable! In this rousing number he slips into the style of Gilbert and Sullivan and uses verse to tell us what a feline should be.
“I am the very model of a feline so crepuscular My visage is so handsome and my meowscles are so muscular! I am a little tiger though the fact may seem improbable My knowledge is near boundless in all matters gastronomical I eat six meals a day in circumstances nominal For serving snacks when I demand, my human is responsible No challenge is impossible, no problem yet insoluble I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!
I’m schooled in all biology from macro to subcellular A meowster of olfactory for every object smellular My hearing’s extrasensitive in low and higher frequencies I hear the mice a-chatter but the elephants don’t speak to me My style is more Big Punisher than Doctor Dre or Easy E Cuz when it comes to hip hop my tastes all face to easterly I like to shake my booty, I’m funky when I need to be I am the very model of a cat who does it easily!
I rule with iron paws be it jungle or the living room And when I’m finished dining, I am content to sit and groom When it comes to games I am the ultimate competitor Obligatory carnivore, I am a model predator Yet somehow cute and fluffy when I feel the need to be Mostly when I tell my buddy “Wake up, human, and feed me!
I am well-versed in big cats whether tiger or jaguarian And qualities of catnip like a feline rastafarian Intimidating surely, in my home I am the guardian Look dashing in a tux or the kit of a safarian! When it comes to ladies all the gents seek my analysis I designed the Taj Mahal and Cleopatra’s palaces I drink champagne from bottles and sip water from my chalices Then ignite sky with a range of borealises! A champion of Opens like the French, Aussie and Wimbledon My game is too complex for the tastes of canine simpletons
A predator so optimal, impeded by no obstacle When I’m roused to anger you will find me quite unstoppable Stylish with a monacle, calm and rarely volatile I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!
I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!
[Chorus of girls]
He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal! Find a better cat? Well that is just impossible! He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal!”
They appear out of nowhere on a scenic route in New York’s Catskill mountains, beckoning drivers to stop and check out the rest of the wonders inside the nearby shop.
A few years ago on the way back from the Catskills, a scenic mountain belt in low-central New York, I spotted this beauty from the road and had to stop:
It’s a heavily modified, custom Dodge Magnum crafted by artist Steve Heller. The parcel of land I’d almost passed houses his shop, Fabulous Furniture On 28, one of the most unique spots you can find in the state, if not the country.
Here are a few other photos of the Cro Magnum I took that day:
Heller’s property is adorned with all sorts of retrofuturistic metallic sculptures that evoke the science fiction films and comic books of yesteryear:
The classic cars are my favorite, but unfortunately I did not get to see them all that day.
The header image and the images below are from Heller’s site, while I took the other photos on the day I stopped to look around.
The header image is another Dodge Magnum, while the beast below is The Marquis de Soto, a customized Mercury Grand Marquis:
Your cat’s taste in music may or may not align with your own.
Before we get into today’s cat news, I received an email asking why there hasn’t been much Buddy on the site lately.
Fear not, friends of Buddy! The little guy is down in the Amazon visiting his jaguar pals, but he’ll be home in time for the most important holiday of the year, Turkey day. He wouldn’t miss it for the world!
Buddy with a jaguar buddy in the Amazon, where there’s a special felid conference on new napping techniques.
A smiling cat?!
A story on Space.com says people see a “smiling cat” in images of a nebula, although we’re not so sure.
The nebula in question is Sh2-284, or Sharpless 284. It spans about 150 light years and sits about 15,000 light years from our star system near the edge of the Milky Way, in an outer spiral arm.
From a certain orientation, there may be suggestions of cat-like ears and eyes, although if there is a smile, it’s crooked and deranged-looking. Maybe the cat’s on pain pills from the vet?
There’s an opportunity here, since the nebula doesn’t have a nickname. The Buddy Nebula has a nice ring to it!
Here’s an image from NASA:
This spectacular picture of the Sh2-284 nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Sh2-284 is a star formation region, and at its centre there is a cluster of young stars, dubbed Dolidze 25. The radiation from this cluster is powerful enough to ionise the hydrogen gas in the nebula’s cloud. It is this ionisation that produces its bright orange and red colours. This image is part of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge, led by Janet Drew at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK.
In Star Trek there’s always a convenient nebula nearby when the Enterprise — or Voyager, Titan or Discovery — needs to “hide” from some well-armed belligerent, and science fiction in general creates the impression that they’re like space swamps.
In reality nebulas are regions where the interstellar medium — the space between stars — is filled with gas, cosmic dust and inert matter. Some are stellar nurseries — places where stars are “born” — and some are the remnants of dead stars and the planets that orbited them.
They can seem to glow red, orange, green or blue depending on the elements present. Some of them reflect starlight while others are like filters, with the gases and dust lending their color to the nebulae structure.
Cats are pretty well-represented in the cosmos, from a human perspective. From the cat’s paw nebula to the Cheshire Cat galaxies, to the Lynx, Leo and Leo Minor constellations, astronomers have seen cats in the sky for millennia.
Does music help cats relax?
Although the research is limited, some studies have indicated certain genres of music can help our little buddies chill out. And if research into the canine response to music is any indication, we should expect to see more evidence for cats enjoying tunes.
When it comes to what kind of music is most effective, studies point to classical music with a slow tempo, as well as reggae and soft rock “with simple rhythms, slower tempos and no heavy percussion,” according to a new story from the BBC.
Just listening to some meowsic!
A 2016 study looked at the effect of music on 12 female cats who were recovering from spay surgery. The research team played “three different genres of music: classical music (CM), ‘Adagio For Strings (Opus 11)’ by Samuel Barber; pop music (PM), ‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia; and heavy metal (HM), ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC.”
The team measured heart rate, breathing rate and pupil dilation, concluding that classical music was most effective, followed by the Imbruglia song and AC/DC last. (Maybe next time they can slide The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza in there for some extra fun.)
Anecdotally, Bud did not respond well to composer David Teie’s Music for Cats, but he hangs out and nods along to funk, classic 90s New York hip hop, retrowave, nu-disco, reggae and certain kinds of rock, which is almost certainly because he grew up hearing that stuff with me.
So maybe there’s a nature vs nurture element to feline musical preferences, although I wouldn’t hold out hope for cats who enjoy the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza. Some things are best left alone.
There are also categories for top Hollywood-inspired names (Bill Murray, Jack Sparrow), nostalgia-influenced names (Moog, Sega), and nature/space themed names, like Orion and Supernova.
Luna and Milo are the top female and male cat names in 2025, according to an analysis by Rover.
There are several different lists each year sourced from databases like pet insurance registrations or data from microchipping companies, but Rover’s list is based on its own records, which include millions of registrations on the pet services site.
There’s quite a bit of overlap, as expected, and familiar names top this year’s list, including Lilly, Lucy, Nala, Pepper, Willow, Cleo and Daisy for female cats. For male cats, Leo, Oliver, Charlie, Loki, Max, Simba, Jack and Smokey are among the most popular.
Notably absent was the name Buddy.
“What do you mean Buddy is not on the list?” Buddy the Cat said when told about the new data from Rover. “I shall find out who is responsible for these vile heresies and punish them with my righteous fury as the Emperor of Catkind! Muahahaha.”
Click here to view the overall top names list for cats and here for an index of the top trending names broken down into categories like pop culture, sports, nature and nostalgic names. The latter includes names like Bitcoin, Jpeg, Moog (after the monophonic synthesizers invented by Robert Moog), Amiga (after the 80s computer system), Sega and C-3PO.
Pain In The Bud 