Tag: cats

Feline Kinetic Gastronomy

~ Laura ~ 10 Comments

The Feline Kinetic Gastronomy movement, while growing in popularity, is still relatively unknown. Its objective is to nourish the cat’s body and spirit by combining food and art. A Feline Kinetic Gastronomy dish can be considered both a meal and a kinetic art installation, providing something to eat and something to do. Note: it’s important not to confuse Feline Kinetic Gastronomy with Canine Kinetic Gastronomy. The role of the cat is very different in the two cuisines.
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Rebecca Black’s Lesser-Known Cat Video

Cover art for Rebecca Black's hypothetical cat video
~ Laura ~ 24 Comments

Lyrics to Rebecca Black’s lesser-known (by which I mean hypothetical) cat video:
Cover art for Rebecca Black's hypothetical cat video
Ten a.m., waking up after napping
Gotta be fresh, gotta groom myself
Gotta sharpen claws, gotta scratch furniture
Sniffin’ everything, my territory
Seems to be okay, everything’s good so far
Gotta jump up to the window
Gotta look outside, I see sunshine

Nappin’ on the front porch
Sleepin’ on the back porch
Gotta make my mind up
Which nap shall I take?

There’s tuna, tuna
Gotta chow down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood, seafood
Tuna, tuna
Chowin’ down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood

Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Nom, nom, nom, nom
Crazy for the taste of seafood.

10:45, I’ve eaten all the tuna
Hearin’ a buzz, I must catch that fly
Stealth, stealth, think about stealth
I know what to do
I’m stalking, I’m stalking
The fly is on my right, now
I’m stalking, I’m pouncing
Now I’ve got it.

Nappin’ on the front porch
Sleepin’ on the back porch
Gotta make my mind up
Which nap shall I take?

There’s tuna, tuna
Gotta chow down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood, seafood
Tuna, tuna
Chowin’ down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood

Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Nom, nom, nom, nom
Crazy for the taste of seafood

Yesterday was chicken, chicken
Today it is tuna, tuna
We we we so excited
We so excited
We gonna eat it all today

Tomorrow is halibut
And salmon comes afterwards
I don’t want this seafood to end


K.C., my Kitty Cat
She’s nappin’ on the front porch (on the front porch)
On the back porch (on the back porch)
I’m shoppin’, buyin’ (yeah, yeah)
Fast lane, checkout lane
With a cart full of fish (woo!)
C’mon! In my line, man’s got coupons in front of me
Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream
Check the sign, it’s express, it’s the fast lane
We need to get home, c’mon, c’mon y’all

There’s tuna, tuna
Gotta chow down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood, seafood
Tuna, tuna
Chowin’ down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood

Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Nom, nom, nom, nom
Crazy for the taste of seafood.

There’s tuna, tuna
Gotta chow down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood, seafood
Tuna, tuna
Chowin’ down on tuna
Everybody’s crazy for the taste of seafood

Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Snarfin’ it, snarfin’ it (yeah!)
Nom, nom, nom, nom
Crazy for the taste of seafood

This is not a cat blog. Really. More non-cat-related material is coming soon.

Challenge Recipe #1: Chicken With Gravy

A raw chicken and some raw vegetables and herbs
~ Laura ~ 28 Comments

Chicken with gravy is a favorite meal in my household. It’s also fairly easy to prepare, which makes it the perfect recipe with which to start this series (in case you missed the announcement earlier today, I’ll be posting recipes here from my upcoming book, To Serve Cats: Yes, It’s a Cookbook, But It’s Not Like the One in That Twilight Zone Episode and challenging my readers to try them).

Let’s start with the basics. The first step to attempting this — or any — recipe is to prepare your mise en place, or workspace. It’s really quite simple: find a suitable work surface, clear away any excess clutter, and gather the ingredients and tools you’ll need. The next three pictures were taken as I prepared my mise en place for this recipe.
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A Change of Focus

Book cover for "To Serve Cats: Yes, It's a Cookbook, But It's Not Like the One In That Twilight Zone Episode
~ Laura ~ 11 Comments

When I started this blog, I honestly wasn’t sure whether it would last beyond the first few weeks. How many random humor posts did I have inside me? Ten? A thousand? Ten thousand?

The answer turned out to be 41. This is post 42. I’ve run out of funny things to say, and I can’t in good conscience continue trying to write a humor blog — it wouldn’t be fair to me, and it certainly wouldn’t be fair to you. But that doesn’t mean this blog is going away! I’m just taking it in a new direction, and I hope you’ll stick around.

I toyed with the idea of turning Unlikely Explanations into a “mommy blog”, because I’ve heard they’re popular, but I was concerned that the fact that I don’t have any children might have a negative effect on my credibility in that genre. Then I thought about making it a cat blog, or a food blog, or maybe a cat food blog. Finally, it hit me — this blog should be a companion piece to the cookbook I’ve been writing. For anyone who’s not already familiar with my cookbook, here’s the cover design:

Book cover for "To Serve Cats: Yes, It's a Cookbook, But It's Not Like the One In that Twilight Zone Episode
My book cover. I designed it myself.

Every Friday (starting later today!), I’ll post a recipe from the book, with a description of my experience preparing it and my cats’ reactions to it. And I invite you to do the same — join the Unlikely Explanations Recipe-a-Week Challenge! Here’s how to participate:

  1. If you don’t already have a cat, adopt one (or preferably two) from your local animal shelter or rescue organization.
  2. Check this blog each week for new recipes.
  3. Prepare a meal using a recipe from this blog every week (or as often as you can).
  4. Resist the temptation to eat the delicious meal yourself — feed it to your cat(s) instead.
  5. Blog about your experiences preparing the recipe and your cat’s reaction, and add a comment here pointing to your blog post. Or just describe your experiences in a comment here.

That’s it! What could be simpler? Please join in — the more, the merrier.

P.S. I should mention one more change: although Unlikely Explanations has previously been ad-free, I’ve decided to accept advertising from a few select sponsors. Please take a moment to check out these fine products from our first two sponsors: the CatSofa and the Squeaker 3000 Robotic Toy Mouse.

Update: Recipe #1 is now available!

Common Misconceptions Regarding My Cat

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments


My cat is not a Twilight vampire.
The fangs are simply his canine teeth,
which, despite the name,
are part of standard feline anatomy.
And any sparkling you may have noticed
is just the sunlight
reflected off his fur
as he occupies the only sunny spot
on the dark wood floor,
with eyes narrowed into slits
like a cat’s eyes
which,
if you think about it,
is perfectly normal for a cat.

My cat is not drunk
or high on catnip
or under the influence
of any controlled substance
or mood-altering drug.
He has not been diagnosed
with any mental illness
or neurological condition.
He’s simply washing his face
and blinking
at the same time.

My cat is not struggling with depression
or with some crisis of conscience
that leaves him half in the dark
and half in the light.
In fact, the darkness is mostly an illusion,
an artifact of the camera –
he’s really half in moderate light,
half in very bright light.
And the hunched-over posture
is a reflection, not of his emotional state,
but of the fact that he’s just noticed
one of his toy mice
a few feet away on the floor.

My cat is not biting my other cat’s ear off
in a savage act of aggression
reminiscent of an incident
involving Mike Tyson.
It’s actually just a love bite,
which resulted in, at worst,
some momentary annoyance.
No cats were harmed
in the making of this picture.

On a related note, I have a list of overly wordy lolcat captions on McSweeney’s.

To the Manufacturers of the Squeaker 3000 Robotic Toy Mouse

~ Laura ~ 13 Comments

Recently, I purchased a Squeaker 3000 Robotic Toy Mouse for my cats, Holly and Thunder. They’re big fans of other items in your product line, especially the Squeaker Catnip Toy Mouse, the Squeaker Laser Toy Mouse, and of course the classic Squeaker Squeaky Mouse, so I decided they might also like the robotic version. For the most part, they’ve enjoyed playing with the Squeaker 3000; however, the product has some serious flaws. The following is my evaluation of some of its key high and low points.
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Valentine

two cats curled up together
~ Laura ~ 4 Comments

About five seconds after this picture was taken, the cats started fighting with each other. Happy Valentine’s Day!

two cats curled up together

I Don’t Want to Alarm Anyone, But I’m Pretty Sure I Have Rabies

angry-looking cat
~ Laura ~ 19 Comments

angry-looking cat
This picture doesn

Do the lights in this room seem brighter than usual? I almost asked that question at work today, but I stopped myself just in time. We were all sitting around the conference table, chatting or checking email on our laptops while waiting for the last few stragglers to come in before the meeting started. It was just like any other day, with one difference — the lights were really uncomfortably bright. So I wanted to know if they were bothering anyone else and, more importantly, whether we could turn them down.
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When Memes Collide: Unfortunate Pairings from Catroulette

~ Laura ~ 3 Comments

By now you’ve probably heard of Chatroulette, the website that pairs people up for anonymous online video chats with random strangers. Here are some screenshots from a similar but lesser-known service catering exclusively to cats.

1. The Cat in the Hat meets Limecat.
The Cat in the Hat meets Limecat in Catroulette / Chatroulette

2. Maru meets Schroedinger’s Cat.
Maru meets Schroedinger's cat in Catroulette / Chatroulette

3. Archy meets Keyboard Cat.
Archy meets Keyboard Cat in Catroulette / Chatroulette

I’m actually not the first person to think of the name “Catroulette” — it’s also the name of a cute site that collects images from (apparently) real Chatroulette sessions involving cats. But the best use of the name by far goes to this cat adoption site in Belgium.

Read or add comments.

Dear Cat-Hater Haters: Please Stop. You’re Not Helping.

~ Laura ~ 9 Comments

This is a departure from what I usually post here. The tagline for this blog is “please don’t take anything you read here seriously”, but I hope people actually will take this seriously.

Cat blissfully ignorant of what will happen nextI’m a cat person. I have two cats; when I make travel plans, the first person I call is my cat-sitter, and when I return home, the thing I look forward to most is being greeted by my cats. I’ve learned how to type with a cat between me and the keyboard. While writing this post, I’ve stopped a couple times to do important cat-related things (like throwing toys across the floor so one cat can chase them, or picking up a cat and carrying him over to the wall so he can sniff the light switches). In other words, the only reason I’m not a card-carrying crazy cat lady is that, as far as I know, there is no card-issuing crazy cat lady organization.
Continue reading “Dear Cat-Hater Haters: Please Stop. You’re Not Helping.” →