catnip – Page 6 – Pain In The Bud

Point/Counterpoint: ‘Schedules Are For Squares’ vs ‘My Meals Must Be Served Precisely On Schedule!’

Buddy the Cat argues in favor of ignoring clocks, while Buddy the Cat argues that it’s very important to remain on schedule.

Schedules Are For Squares

Schedule? What are you talking about, human?

I’m a cat. Time means nothing to me. If I want to pass the days curled up in a ball snoozing contentedly, or run around like a possessed kitten while yowling at 4 am, I will. I do what I want.

Try not to get so hung up on things like schedules. The question of whether time flows like a river or exists as discreet quanta is one for the physicists and philosophers. Hakuna Katana, my friend. It means “No worries” in Japanese.

Let yourself get crazy. Bring out the laser laser and let the catnip and snacks flow freely. I’ll just hide your phone and your watch so we can enjoy ourselves.

My Meals Must Be Served Precisely On Schedule!

I knew it! I knew when the clock struck 3:57 pm and you still weren’t moving that my dinner would be late. I tried to warn you by shrieking at you at 20-second intervals, but to no avail.

I have to be honest, I just don’t see the urgency or effort on your part, and that concerns me. We have an agreement that two bowls — one with fresh water and the other with yummy wet food — will be set down in my eating nook no later than 4 pm. Not 4:33 or 4:17 or even 4:02.

FOUR O’CLOCK.

You may not think observing a strict yums schedule is important, but it is.

My body is a fine-tuned machine, human. I didn’t get this tigeresque physique by playing fast and loose with the rules, or by delaying the ingestion of crucial proteins and nutrients.

Do better.

Point-Counterpoint presents two essays taking opposing positions on a topic. Join us next week, when Buddy the Cat will debate Buddy the Cat on another important topic.

National Cat Day Is Tomorrow! PLUS: ‘Cat Man’ Meows 55 Times In Court

A man in Argentina, accused of a grisly double murder, was thrown out of court after meowing incessantly during a pre-trial hearing.

National Cat Day is tomorrow, Oct. 29!

While the day was founded in 2005 by an animal welfare advocate and the ASPCA to raise public awareness about the number of shelter cats who need homes, it’s expanded into an opportunity for people to show their cats off online and do something special for them. The day’s founders also recommend a range of ways to celebrate from adopting a new cat, to volunteering at a local shelter, to pampering your own feline.

I’ll be celebrating by giving Bud some catnip and a special treat, and spending extra time playing with him. After he’s tired out, he’ll probably enjoy one of his favorite activities — climbing on top of me and taking a nap.

The Cat Man Cometh

A man accused of brutally murdering his mother and aunt was thrown out of court on Tuesday for repeatedly meowing.

Nicolas Gil Pereg meowed when Judge Laura Guajardo asked him his name and ID number at the beginning of the court hearing, then kept on going, vocalizing a total of 55 times and ignoring a warning from the judge before she lost her patience and had him tossed.

Gil Pereg empezó a gritar como un gato delante de la jueza técnica Laura Guajardo, justo cuando empezaba la lectura de los alegatos de apertura.

El momento quedó captado en la transmisión oficial del Poder Judicial, donde se pudo ver la incomodidad en la sala. pic.twitter.com/MTIWISDj5E

— LOS ANDES (@LosAndesDiario) October 26, 2021

“Mr. Gil Pereg, before the entry of the jury I warned you that if you wanted to remain in the courtroom, you should do so in silence, with respect and decorum,” Guarjardo said in a surreal scene, as the disheveled man continued meowing.

The so-called “cat man” allegedly killed his mom and aunt when they flew in from Israel to visit him in 2019, according to local media reports. Gil Pereg, who lived in a dilapidated home with 37 cats and several dogs, is accused of burying their bodies in shallow graves less than four feet deep on his own property, then reporting them missing to local authorities.

He’s performed his unimpressive approximation of a meow in earlier court trials, and asked to be moved from prison to a psychiatric unit. In addition, he petitioned the judge to allow him to have his cats with him in psychiatric care.

During earlier hearings, he stripped his clothes off and urinated in front of the judge, according to the Daily Mail. Before the murders, he had assumed the name Floda Reltih — Adolf Hitler backwards — for an indeterminate period of time, reports say.

Gil Pereg’s attorneys argue he’s not sane, but so far there’s no indication the court is buying it. A 2020 evaluation by criminal psychologists described Gil Pereg as a “hostile, evasive, challenging, ironic and confrontational person.” The accused murderer is manipulative, the forensic psychologists said, and only expresses emotions toward his pets.

The prosecutor warned the trial’s six jurors “not to be fooled” by the eccentric man’s behavior, saying his calculated actions after the murders show he fully understood “the criminality of his actions.”

The Adoptaversary of the King

Party time, the First Cat, filthy plagiarists and more!

We’re celebrating Buddy’s belated adoptaversary this weekend. I don’t know exactly when he was born, so we usually mark the occasion on the third weekend in April, which is when I brought Buddy home.

What better way to celebrate than with catnip, Buddy Biscuits treats and his beloved laser pointer?

Hilaria buys an Espanish cat, PETA doesn’t approve

Hilaria Baldwin, the indefatigable child collector, has added another little one to her family, but this time it’s a cat. As the San Jose Mercury News notes, as Hilaria “tries to move past her Spanish heritage scandal, she’s been flooding her Instagram with cute family photos from her busy ‘Baldwinito’ household.”

The new cat, Emilio Cookie Baldwin, is a Bengal purchased from a breeder who “specializes in producing pricey, exotic-looking hybrid cats that originate from crossing a domestic cat with an Asian leopard.” In an unusually mild rebuke (the Baldwinitos are donors to the charity), PETA issued a statement saying there’s “no doubt that [the Baldwins] didn’t realize what the impact of buying a cat from a breeder is” and that, “had they known, we’re sure that they would have gone to an animal shelter and adopted a cat who might otherwise die for the lack of a good home.”

No word yet on whether Emilio knows “how you say in English, cucumber.”

Hilaria Baldwin’s Spanish child holds her Spanish cat, Emilio. Credit: Hillary Thomas/Instagram

The First Cat

After announcing they were going to adopt a cat, the Bidens have been unusually coy about the who, what and when. Now Jill Biden says a female cat is “waiting in the wings” and will join the family soon. The arrival of the mystery cat will mark the first time since the George W. Bush administration that a cat has occupied the White House. Before India, the Bush family’s cat, there was the Clintons’ cat Socks, who became so famous the White House had a full-time staffer answering his fan mail. Socks even had his own video game in development, which was sadly unreleased but is available for download as abandonware for anyone who can’t get enough Socks.

Socks was a popular little fellow. Credit: The White House

Plagiarists and content thieves be warned

After I went searching for one of my old posts this week and found it had been plagiarized, a casual search turned up five (!) sites that have stolen my work, stripped it of credit, and posted it as their own content — and that was based on search strings from only three of my posts. Who knows how many others have been lifted?

Two of those posts were stolen by sites that copy the Bored Panda model of finding content on the internet and monetizing it. At least Bored Panda contacts the content owners, credits them and links back to them. These other guys just steal content from people like me, present it as their own and profit off of it.

Take a look around: This site does not have a single ad. I have no Patreon account and I don’t ask for donations. This site is a labor of love. At some point I probably will implement limited and tasteful ads, but in the meantime it’s kind of a slap in the face to find your own content has been stolen and has been used to make money for thieves.

So a fair warning to anyone else who might be tempted to steal content from PITB: I’ll go right to Google, file a DMCA and get your AdSense account suspended. I have zero tolerance for plagiarism and content-scraping. It’s no different than walking into a store, stealing products off the shelves and turning around to sell them. Worse, actually, since writers are rarely well-compensated. Fall back!

Today Is ‘Respect Your Cat Day’!

Buddy expects a proper spread for National Respect Your Cat Day.

To: Buddy the Larger

From: Buddy the Smaller But Smarter and Better Looking

Memorandum on National Respect Your Cat Day

Dear Big Buddy,

As you know, Sunday (March 28) is National Respect Your Cat Day, a very important holiday!

Last year’s spread was subpar and underwhelming, so you find yourself in receipt of this message in an effort to avoid repeating the Great Tragedy of 2020.

This year’s spread should include a selection of cheeses including cheddar, swiss, provolone and my personal favorite, gouda, in addition to a delicious array of meats including turkey, turkey and more turkey.

You can skip the veggies: No plants except catnip and silver vine!

In the spirit of today’s holiday you must play with me more than usual, give me more massages, tell me I’m a good boy at least 20 times, and above all, respect my authoritah!

It’s gonna be an epic partay!

2FCDCAEB-2EB1-427B-B340-D4003AB9D8AB — Buddy the Cat, a true hero.

A Guy In Canada Wants To Open A Catnip Dispensary

A pair of catnip companies want to help you get your cat stoned.

Fuzz Aldrin. Meower Diesel. Freddie Purrcury. Pawnapple Express.

If a Toronto man gets his way, cats will soon get their catnip fix the same way their humans get their marijuana: In colorful, slickly-produced packaging featuring whimsically named strains purchased through a dispensary.

The aspiring catnip entrepreneur calls himself Mikey Fivebucks and has launched his business, Catnip Dispensary Inc., from his Toronto apartment.

Now he’s trying to take his business to the next level with a Kickstarter to help fund the equipment and growing space he’ll need to make a name for himself among the world’s stoner cats and the humans who enable them.

Screenshot_2021-03-10 1615327166-20210309-cat-dispensary-toronto-7 jpg (WEBP Image, 1400 × 2074 pixels) — Scaled (46%)

Mikey Fivebucks and his catnip.

Catnip, also known as nepeta cataria, is a mint plant that produces euphoria and acts as a sedative for most cats via a naturally occurring chemical compound called Nepetalactone, which is found in the plant.

About two thirds of cats are susceptible to catnip’s effects, while other cats may respond to silver vine. The compounds in both plants bind to feline olfactory receptors, prompting cats to roll on the ground, purr, drool and mellow out.

Most cats sniff, lick or chew catnip, while others (like our very own Buddy) eat the plant. (Response from Buddy: “It’s delicious!”)

Catnip isn’t just for domestic kitties: Wildcats like lynx and Servals are susceptible to it, as are big cats.

Fivebucks says his product is not the same as the dried, flaky catnip found in pet stores. The leaves are kept moist by controlling humidity during the drying and storing process.

“It keeps it flavourful and it keeps the natural oils,” Fivebucks told blogTO, a local Toronto news site. “It’s moist, a bit like weed.”

Cats On Catnip by Andrew Marttila

Fivebucks isn’t the only entrepreneur pushing high-grade ‘nip in packaging and under names reminiscent of marijuana dispensaries. Meowijuana, a Kansas-based company, has been selling catnip in “medicinal” bottles and naming their strains after feline puns for years.

The catnip company’s packaging and tongue-in-cheek advertising has been so successful that sometimes people show up expecting a marijuana dispensary, employees say. On another occasion, someone called the police. Although the officers said they were required to follow through on the complaint, they joked around with Meowijuana employees and even posed with a staffer wearing the company’s cat mascot costume.

Like its counterparts in the marijuana industry, Meowijuana has enjoyed record sales during the COVID-19 pandemic as people practice social distancing and hunker down with their pets.

“People get that this is a little bit tongue-in-cheek that we’re having a little fun, but there’s a good quality product for pets under it,” said Meowijuana’s Scott Ragan. “Part of having pets is sharing time with them — not just feeding them — but sharing time and engaging in that emotional bond, and I think everybody here appreciates that.”

Cats On Catnip photos by Andrew Marttila.