To the loo

Ok ladies (and gents, but more ladies). At the University of Amsterdam, a new phenomenon is making its rounds. In the ladies bathroom they have installed a….contraption that is supposed to make a quick peeossible for the ladies in quite a male way. The idea is that you just have to stand over a basin and let it all out. Well, only pee actually. I am all for peeing quickly, because I seriously wonder what some girls do in the toilet that takes ages. For real, please tell me why it takes you 2-3 minutes to wizz. No comprendo.

Anyway, this new ‘toilet’ could potentially speed it all up for fast galls like me. There are some problems though, can you spot them?

Happy anniversary to meeeeeeee…

There we go! Two years of Cats ‘n Stuff. And they said we would never make it… At least, that’s what I said in the very first post. Shows you how much I know. The most traffic I get on this site it because of all the posts I did on Invisible Stuff  ‘n Cats. Because I thought it was too easy to keep doing that, and because the lovely peeps over at Cheezburger deal with this much better than me, I will never make a post like that again.

However, it is certainly now below me to follow up my second most-visited post: Life-like stuffed Maine Coon cats. I made that one because the website Stuffed Ark sold some real stinkers, and they continue to do so. Also, until this last sentence, I always thought that the website was called Stuffe Dark. Again, shows you how much I know and how my malfunctioning brain works. I mean, Stuffe Dark, really? I guess it’s an honest mistake, because these ugly stuffed cats really haunt the dark depths of my subconscience. Ok, ready for some ‘Stuffe Dark’ cats?

Even or oneven numbers – alphabet

I recently got an e-mail from a friend of mine, asking me what I thought was the nicest letter in the alphabet. An excellent question of course, so I started saying the alphabet out loud, and concluded that the G, K, R and V are the best ones (the V being the ultimate one). This is of course totally irrational, and therefore, fun!

Linked to this feeling for letters, is that I don’t like even numbers. The 2 is just vile, and I love 9 the best, followed by the 5, which should never be underestimated. The G, K, R and V have that nice uneven vibe about them!

Am I right or wrong, anybody out there that just love the L and the number two (cuckoo, I say)?

My room is an insect paradise

Last week my room seems to have been infected by some sort of insect plague. One day I opened my closet and a moth came flying out. I can already see the little basterd laughing and rubbing his yucky little legs together while gnawing away at my favourite dress. He soon met his death, so there. Unfortunately, his cousins decided to have a nice binge in my food cabinet, so I had to throw away some lovely pasta, risotto and herbs, because they were feasting in is. Herbs, really? They eat anything apparently.

With that infestation out of the way, I thought I would be safe. Well, I soon found out I had to think again. When I came home the evening after the great moth scare of 2007 and was checking my mail (real, not e-mail) a gianth son-of-a-bitch moth came flying towards me. And I’m not talking about those little evildoers that ate my clothes and food. A huge one, that I swear was eyeballing me like this, and with revenge for the death of his little siblings on his mind:

He had horrible hairy legs to boot, so I yelped and ran to my room. I was afraid to come out again, because I was sure he was waiting for me with a tiny, if deadly, axe. But my bladder was being a pain in the ass, so I had to overcome my fear of the killer moth and dashed to the bathroom. There was no sight of him, so I went bed to sleep…when I heard him buzzing above my head. BWAAAHHH! He must have slipped in my room after I went to the bathroom to kill me in my sleep. By waving a shawl in his direction to create air streams I managed to direct him to the door (this accompanied by moans of disgust and lots of little girl screams).

Well, then it was quiet for a couple of days, when yesterday a mutant mosquito distured me on the brink of sleep. I say mutant, because the little prick sounded like a helicopter on the verge of crashing. He didn’t buzz normal, but like BZZZzzzrprprprBZZZzzzprprpbrt. Anyway, I turned on the lights to kill him, but when my eyes were accostumed to the light, he was of course nowhere to be found. I have to hand it to mosquitos, there are the best magicians in the world. One moment there are buzzing in your ear, and as soon as you switch on the light, they disappear. A marvel of nature. This disappearing act went on for a bit – light on: silence, light off: buzzing, light on: silence, light off: buzzing.

When I turned on the lights determined not to switch them of until this basterd was dead and buried (read: squashed against my wall), something was flying at me at great speed. And this was no mosquito, this was a horrible nasty fly. Luckily, I remembered the ‘waving the shawl’ trick, as seen in the hairy moth incident. He was soon gone, and when I turned around I saw the mosquito flying over my bed, probably wondering where his dinner had gone. After a small pursuit I managed to finally squat him against my ceiling. His little flat body is still stuck there, reminding me of my victory over all insects.

Creationism

So, a while ago I read that a museum devoted to Creationism was opened. At first I didn’t quite understand the fuss this caused, but then I learned that Creationism basicly means denying the theory of evolution: “Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their entirety by a supernatural deity or deities (typically God), whose existence is presupposed“. Usually it means that people believe that the existence of earth and all life on it came about exactly as it says in the Bible, or more specifically, the book of Genesis.

While I’m all for looking at theories from a different perspective, I am shocked that a lot of people in America don’t believe in evolution the way Darwin and Wallace first proposed. With all the education and research and so much information readily available, I think going back in time on a subject like this is puzzling to say the least. There is so much to be said for the Theory of Evolution and no good scientific proof for Creationism that the whole issue is just a bit scary and makes me think good old human reasoning is being abandoned. Even worse, children are being taught Creationism as the only truth about evolution in some schools.

Just as an example: micro-evolution has been proven in fruit flies in laboratories, by putting them in specific circumstances. After a few generations, specific traits become dominant. If this evolution is proven, even though it is in a controlled environment, the conclusion is that it happens in nature as well. And when that is the case, it is not more than pure logic that this bodes for all species. And fruit flies are not alone in evolving specific traits, certain species of finches on the galapagos made Darwin believe that not God, but natural selection and evolution created differences between seemingly similar animals (link to an article on this subject here).

Well, I’m not a great writer, and I don’t feel like writing a whole article. Fortunately, someone else is and did, so for a nice list of answers to Creationists critique on the Theory of evolution, look right here.

Paws up + What’s up with that

This weekend, I helped a friend of mine move. She found a nice room in another city than were she was living, which is good, because the town were she lived was very very boring. Whilst I was carrying boxes and clumsily scraping my arms against some pretty sharp walls I saw this tomcat staring at my antics:

Check out the paws up action of the kitty!

More paws up

“You are a disturbance to my peeking through your windows!”

 ***

When I was returning after helping moving I was sitting in the train reading the lovely A Walk in the Woods by Mr. Bill Bryson (I love him!), two guys were listening to some music. Fine with me, but they were listening to it from their mobile phone, for all our enjoyment. I have seen that a lot lately, people walking on the street or on public transport, listening to music blaring from their mobiles like it is a) a ghetto blaster and b) normal!!! I absolutely hate it, hate it very very much. Why on earth do you want to bother me with your music. So I decided to ask them why they were playing it. They were very defensive and remarked very astutely: “Well, I don’t want you reading that book”. Yes, a great comparison indeed. But after talking to them for a little bit they calmed down and were very nice to me. They even turned off the phone and gave me a handshake goodbye. And even while the next time I confront people with something I could just as well be stabbed in the face, I felt really good afterwards! Too bad it doesn’t change the trend that I hate so very much…

Great photo’s, cat video’s, turn off the light!

I love photography. I think a picture can really touch someones heart. Unfortunately, I cannot make the pics I would like, except those of animals. Note: career possibility = animal photographer. Evidence that I have more cute photo’s of cats and other animals will follow later!

Anyway, some of my favourite photographers are:
Alfred Stieglitz
Alice Wielinga. Alice is a friend of mine, but whew, she has a keen eye if I’ve ever seen one!
Annie Leibovitz
Chema Madoz
David LaChapelle
Gerard Kingma

***

I have seen some really cool cat video’s the last couple days.
– First of all, Cat me if you can. Weird video, even crazier lyrics and song accompanying it.
– A nice compilation of cats doing stupid things I hadn’t seen before.
– Yes! A classic video of a cat fight between B.J. and Cognac. I never thought I would see it again. Thank you, YouTube!
– And last but not least: I watched part one of the two-part DVD “Cats of Rome” that I bought at the Torre Argentinain Rome. I have yet to see part two, but if it is as good as part one, I will not be disappointed. Part one is filled with footage of Roman (stray) cats and the people that help them. I had to cry about seven times while watching it, because there are a lot of sad stories. But, because the footage of the cats is so cool, I laughed even more! The documentary is not a totally professional production, but it is edited very nicely, has a great narrator, and is definitely worth checking out if you love cats. And all proceeds go to the Torre Argentina cat shelter. What is not to like?

***

Lately, I have become more and more aggravated with people around me. It may sound like a pet peeve, and maybe it is, but I really hate it when people leave a room and leave the lights on. Just turn them off! I mean, come on, would it kill you to flick that switch? I really think that when everyone just pays a little attention to turning off the light and appliances, a lot of energy could be saved. I am not a person who is all ecological and sure, I sometimes stand under the hot hot shower (there I go with the shower again!) a little too long, but I try and pay attention to the amount of energy I consume. It is such a small thing to do, and it should be instilled in children from a very early age. Otherwise, I think I will be rowing a boat to work in a couple of years. I know this “turn off the lights” thing will not solve the energy crisis, but you have to start somewhere. At least, that’s what I think, but when I look around me, I think a lot of people don’t give a crap and maybe they are right. I am not ready just yet to become as cynical and / or defeatist as them!