31 December, 2007

Cannonball - revenge of the cat

Freaking family! They denied me my annual pleasure of batting around the discarded Xmas paper by putting it in a box straight away. Then they have the nerve to bugger off and leave me on my own for the rest of the day! Well a third share in a tin of salmon is not going to make up for that!

I have a cunning plan.



One of the side effects of living in a house full of kids is the number of DVDs I get to watch. Now many of them are pure crap or too saccharin for words but occasionally one has a really useful gem.



I watched a particularly bad one about a fake looking fat orange cat who thinks he is a smart arse (he isn't) with a complete limp noodle of a human. It was called Garfield. I remember it because one of the early scenes gave me a really useful tactic to get attention when I want it.



It is a little maneuver called a Cannonball.



Garfield does this by climbing up a book case and then leaping onto his sleeping human.



I have discovered that that same effect can be obtained by leaping up to the window sill and CANNONBALL

onto the legs of a sleeping human.



Very effective a 2:30am.



Leaping onto the chest or stomach of the same human is even more effective and results in an airborne human effect that is a little hard to control since it can backfire into an uncontrolled airborne cat meeting wall effect.



Hence plan B.



This involves one of the smaller humans.

I jump up onto the drawers and from there to the top of the bookcase and into the blanket cupboard. This is very close to the ceiling. Then...

CANNONBALL

onto the head of child sleeping in the top bunk.

Very effective! and I don't even have to wait until night to pull it off. One of these days I manage to scare her right off the bunk!



I have even tried this tactic on some other cats. The neighbours fluffy cutey pie is terrified of me after I CANNONBALLed her from the fence a few times.



So last night I tried it on Minnie, the most dog like of my feline house mates. She was being all superior about catching yet another snack (I've got news for you Min. It was a dead, over barbecued, sausage, i.e. not much of a catch).

I decided to CANNONBALL her from part way up the plum tree, my favourite electioneering perch.

That Minnie must be on to me. She walked around the other side of the tree instead.

She'll keep!

19 December, 2007

Desperately seeking attention!

I have just about had it with the month of December!

So far I have locked myself in the garage 4 times and in the basement 5 times. My cries go unanswered for hours nor will anyone listen to me when I am freed.

I have a huge amount to say on the subject of the electoral financing bill but all I get is "not now Sally" as the secretary and every other two legger in the house scurries away to hide more bags of stuff in wrapping paper the garage and basement. Even the visitors won't type for me claimed they don't know how to turn on the computer! Phfff! They don't have any such problems with txting on their cell phones.

It's enough to make me moult.

I wonder if that is why unpopular legislation is pushed through at this time of year.

Roll on January.

14 December, 2007

Spam

Have you noticed any reduction in the amount of spam since the new law banning unsolicited emails was passed?

I haven't.

What I have noticed is the increase in the amount getting through the spam filter since xtra went yahoo.

I just checked the household email:
Spam filter - 66
Inbox - 23, 10 of which were obviously more spam.

You'll have to check my maths but I think that means that 11% of all email received was incorrectly (as in not) filtered or that 43% of the inbox was spam. Take your pick.

Want to guess what was left after the seasonal oversupply of etailing offers (for want of a better term) was removed?

Less than a paw full.

The moral is be careful what you put in the subject line of any email you want the recipient to read cos' if it doesn't look legit or relevant it ain't getting opened let alone read.