Support Local Business: July 16, 2008
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on July 16, 2008 – 8:17 AM32 Comments
Simon Tofield is back, with his cat, in “TV Dinner.” Do not drink hot coffee while watching.You may, however, make fun of me for having the premiere date of Tofield’s latest entered into my Outlook so I wouldn’t miss it.
In fact, you can make fun of me in person: I have a reading tomorrow night as part of the fabulous Drunken! Careening! Writers! It’s billed as Television Without Pity, but I’ll likely read from a TN piece.KGB Bar, 7 PM.
And last but not least, happy cotton anniversary to the best Ikea-visual-pronunciation models in Brooklyn.I love you guysshhh.
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Tags: city living famous boyfriends feline fun times friends Gen hilare local biz Mr. Stupidhead readings Simon Tofield writing
I found Mr. Toland’s films funnier before I adopted my third cat – he likes to knock things off the dresser onto my head at 6:00 AM every morning, in an attempt to beat the alarm and finagle an early feeding.
It hasn’t worked yet. God help me if he figures out how to use a baseball bat or work a remote.
Oh look! He does the popular cat game, “Wanna see my butt?” My cat loves that game.
Heh, Emily, all three of my cats love that game too.
What I love about these cartoons is how realistically the cat is done (outside the extreme attention-getting measures, but we all know cats would totally do that stuff if they could). I especially like the smiling, purring, kneading “look at me, I’m all happy that I’m the center of attention by disrupting what you’re doing!” actions. Spot on.
Oh, yesh! This guy has been watching me herd my two cats whilst trying to get comfy on the couch or in bed. . .and here I thought that my Elliott had patented the ‘behold my nards’ pose!
The “Velcro’d to the lap when the human is trying to move” part is dead-on as well.
I’ve corrected the entry so Simon’s name is right. I don’t know why I keep thinking his name is “Toland.” Sorry!
And if anyone knows where I can buy Simon’s cat t-shirts or other paraphernalia, please post here. The fact that the man does not seem to have a Simon’s Cat Store is breaking my heart.
My cat has learned that turning out the light at night means it’s time to stand on my boobs and purr.
She has also learned that the alarm going off in the morning signals time to lay on top of me, pinning me to the bed forever. While purring.
She usually leaves me alone when I’m on the couch, though.
@Emily – hee!
That newest video is THE TRUTH. One of our two, Benny, is CONSTANTLY taking my husband’s seat. It’s like a game, to be honest. ;p
Er, Sars, I think you only corrected your second use of his name. No need to approve this post, just thought I’d let you know.
I enjoyed the first two I saw but thought they were a little over the top. This? Is EXACTLY what my cats do. Every piece of it.
Yay! I love Simon’s Cat. The “wanna see my butt” and “velcro’d to lap” parts are awesomely accurate, as is the “jumping into the vacated seat and sprawling out” part. I’m hoping the next installment involves the cat “helping” Simon at his desk.
Once you find out Sars, let me know! I must have a T shirt!
Our new kitties also are fond of “Lookit My Poopchute”, Peanut especially. Is it some kind of warm greeting amidst felines, akin to warm hugs and kisses on the cheek? Every cat I’ve ever owned did the same thing.
And let’s not forget the “Human slides over to get something I knocked off the couch and I settle in the warm spot” move. Little bastards–I love ’em.
I especially adore the steadily increasing volume and pace of the frantic “pay attention to meeee” meows. One of my cats does this particularly well. “Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. MeOW. MeOW. MeOW. MEOW. MEOW. MEOW! MEOW!MEOW!MEOW!” until he is practically howling. Usually from the top of the fridge or in a bathroom or some other location with optimal acoustics.
His other favorite thing to do, because he knows it drives me BONKERS, is to hop on up to the mantel and nose around in my pothos. The pothos that he has knocked over once already (shattering the pot and creating a huge mess late at night, mere minutes before I had intended to go to bed).
I have discovered an excellent “knock-it-off” tool, though, and that is the an air duster spray-can. I squeeze off a short spurt into the air whenever a cat is doing something they’re not supposed to be doing and it sounds like a giant, invisible cat is hissing somewhere and freaks their shit out. I’ve taken to calling the spray can Ceiling Cat, as in “Charlie, you better knock that off or Ceiling Cat is going to have something to say about it!”
@allison: GAH! And then, trying to correct it again, I spelled it “Tofeld,” so now he’s a Bond villain. Gaaaa-AHHHHHH.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who put the release of Simon’s Cat 3 on my calender. And keep checking his youtube site anyway to see if it’s released early (and it was, actually).
My cats cats do the “finally settle on lap just as I have to go to the bathroom” trick.
You know, there are reasons why cats do the following:
Taking someone’s spot – you basically spent about 30 minutes or more seated. This of course means that your butt has been parked on there, making the spot warm. And who are cats, if not purveyors of warmth?
Showing the butt – “Hello! I’d like you to pet me or groom me the way mom used to do. Yes she did do the butt first.”
I’m not saying it’s logical reasons… The latter has become evident now that my elder cat is being groomed daily because he otherwise ingests an afghan’s worth of his own hair and pukes it back up the next day. See, he figured out that the brushing is the one thing that helps him not get sick, so guess who greets me butt first three times a day? My orange cat, who was previously wary of brushings and would bite the brush.
Fortunately, my Casey will usually hop off of my lap if she feels me getting up off of the couch, but the rest of this new clip is pretty bang on. She’s a big fan of climbing up the back of the couch and coming down over my face to get onto my lap, and she’s definitely into the showing her butt thing. Tofield knows his cats, though. It’s like he decided to make a cartoon about the daily goings on in my apartment.
I’m pretty sure Teh Cats are all emailing one another to make sure everyone’s on board with “knocking over vital stuff: phones a specialty” (thanks, Axel!) and double with “velcro at the most inopportune moment” with a double helping of “Look at My Butt/My Butt Looks at You.” The more poor Simon tried to watch his show (and you know it was a special, not something that would be re-run), the more his cat was It’s All About the Cat. My Dommie has some kind of deep-seated hate on against literacy; any time a book opens, he has to be there. Right in front of the book. Which I then move. Then Dommie moves, so that he’s right in front of the book. Which I then move. This can go on all night; it’s one of his favorite games!
@Karen, I’ll raise you one: why is it that cats seem to think that the bathroom is the place for Special Bonding Time? Everybody wants lap time in the bathroom. You could die all alone in your living room (unless you open a book), but the bathroom, doG forbid you get two minutes alone there. The younger cat, who’s perfectly happy climbing up where he shouldn’t and knocking down things that he shouldn’t, starts yodeling his loneliness and abandonment when the bathroom door shuts. And the purring and the happy if I let him in! What’s that all about?
@JenV, please tell me more about the magical air duster spray-can. I am all for the voice of Ceiling Cat being heard throughout the land!
I saw Ani Difranco play last night uptown, so seeing Sars read tonight downtown would make a certain kind of sense in my world… I hope I can make it!
@La BellaDonna: “why is it that cats seem to think that the bathroom is the place for Special Bonding Time?”
TOTALLY! I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually peed all by myself in my own house since I got my cat.
I’m catsitting a 7-mo old kitten right now (so cute!), and I’m training her to lurve the bathroom – accidently. I have to keep her kitten food separate from my cat’s adult food, or my Sasquatch will start living up to her name. Kitten now runs, howling, toward the bathroom as soon as I get home. Her mama is going to really wonder, I think.
@JenV: I’ve always used the spray bottle of death, but canned air sounds EVEN BETTER. My cats will no longer know what hit them.
@Krissa: Well, now I know. It’s YOUR fault! You are training innocent cats to believe it’s All About The Bathroom, and then releasing them out into the land!
It makes perfect sense. After all, both Dommie AND Axel are rescue cats, so there was plenty of time for someone to train them to lurve the bathroom – AND IT WAS YOU!!!
I like to point out the butt to my husband when he isn’t paying attention. He’ll be petting the cat while watching TV and I’ll say, “Hey, Frank wants to show you something.” He’ll look down and BUTT!! It never gets old.
My little Muffinman does the same thing with the bathroom. As soon as I step in there, he’s all “mrow? mrow? MROW? ::jumps up and opens the door:: prrrrrrrr”. Because yes, he has figured out how to open the doors in my apartment. And then, as soon as I’ve let him in and shut the door again, he sits down and looks at the door all quizzically, trying to figure out how he got there in the first place. OR he plays sidewinder with my ankles. OR licks and nibbles my thigh. I don’t get it.
And he’s definitely got a penchant for knocking over any glass of water where the liquid is too far down in the glass for him drink from.
Two of my cats do the book thing, too – I howled at Simon’s cat blocking his view every time he tried to look around the cat’s head.
However, I have found a solution. I had one cat who used to jump up onto my keyboard while I was working. Since the system we were using at work (I telecommute) at that time was real-time/live, this was more “dangerous” than just standard jumping-on-keyboard – this is stuff actually getting saved to the system because my cat’s walking on the keyboard. So every time she jumped up on the keyboard looking for attention, I’d give it to her. Oh yes. Scoop her up and squeeze and cuddle and snorgle and kissykissykissy and babytalk and more squeezing and snorgling and babytalking until I gauged she was mere seconds away from drawing blood. I’d let her down and she’d stalk off, mortally offended. Eventually (about two weeks) she learned that my attention was best captured from a distance – sitting on the floor at my feet and yowling instead of getting up in my face. Has worked with all my other cats, too.
The canned air is great. I don’t even have to spray it. They just see me *reaching* for it and they unass the AO right quick.
This one cracked me up because that “Hey!” *snap snap snap* is EXACTLY what I do when my cat Meredith sinks her claws into the couch.
And yes, this sad attempt at discipline usually elicits the “Okay, I’ll climb in your lap and knead your jeans with my claws instead” response.
I find that if I blow a puff of air at the cat butt display, the display ends. Either they think I’ve sniffed them, or they’re like dogs when you blow in thier faces, but either way it gets the butt out of your face.
@elayne – my Tab has entered CTL+ALT+DEL while walking across the keyboard. She can work doorknobs. She changes the music on my little sounds-of-nature fountain (she prefers the crickets.) She also fixed a broken cuckoo clock by reaching up into it & messing with the works- scritchscritchBOING! – and it’s been working ever since! And oh, how she HATES the cuckoo. Hee.
Cats are weird, but so fun! I long for a Simon Tofield T also.
Oh, where are my manners?
Good luck tonight, Sars! Knock ’em dead! Wish I could be there!!!!
Both of mine are fixated on the bathroom. Older Cat, I have no idea why, but Kitten spent a good week and a half confined in there when she first came home, in order to get over her Farm Kat Kooties without infecting Older Cat, and also to ease the introduction period (didn’t work–Older Cat tries to kill Kitten almost every day, sigh.). I think she’s imprinted on the bathroom as a safe place. Kitten can be downstairs passed out cold on the loveseat in the sunroom, but comes running the millisecond she hears the upstairs bathroom door open–If I manage to get in there without her, she’s *always* sitting there outside the door waiting for me to come out. No clue. I’ve told her repeatedly, “It’s *exactly* the way you left it the last time you were in there!!” but to no avail. I work at home a lot, and it’s impossible for me to take a pee break without a small feline parade accompanying me (sometimes one, sometimes both). Actually, it’s impossible to do just about anything in this house without feline supervision. Perhaps that will be basis of the next installment of Simon’s Cat >^..^<
@La BellaDonna – I don’t think it can be ALL my fault, since one cat likes the bathroom only as much as she likes the rest of the house. But I am totally training Miss Kitten to lurve bathrooms at all times.
She has a white-tipped tail, though! I cannot stop feeding her while she purrs at my feet in the bathroom. I am weak.
@meltina- Oh, the brush biting!! What is it with that? I have one who loves being brushed, and one who tries to eat the WIRE BRISTLED brush. I have no idea what her deal is.
I was so ridiculously excited when I saw the new cartoon come up. I showed it to my husband, who decided that it pretty much summed up his evenings. Since I’m in class, he spends his evenings with two extremely needy felines. Poor guy. :-)
@FloridaErin: maybe she does not like the wire bristled brush. That’s the one that my cat would bite the most often. He’d tolerate a comb for five seconds, and grooming mittens for about 15 seconds. We hit pay dirt with a zoom groom: it really gets the hairs out on a shorthair, and he acts as if he’s getting a massage. It’s completely rubber tipped, and he loves it on his skin. Basically he meows for it whenever he gets down on the carpet and asks for pets, at least once a day. It’s almost ridiculous.
My other cat is a kitten, and she’s at at that stage where she attacks everything (feet, the computer screen, any cord charger, human pants, the other cat’s tail when his highness is being groomed, her food bowl, the litterbox scoop, anything that moves including her own tail…). But she “tolerates” the zoom groom, so that’s a good sign for the future (she’s going to be a medium haired kitty, so she’ll need it too).
@meltina- I’d actually considered that, and thank you so much for the tip! I’ll stop by the store on my way home. She has short to medium hair, but it is *incredibly* dense and soft, so I think the wire brush pulls too much and hurts. She doesn’t mind a comb, but haaaaaaaates the brush. Her brother, on the other hand, treats his time with the brush as a brief love affair. All I have to do is hold it up and he comes trotting over to me, meowing happily. His fur is totally different, though- silky and shiny so the brush slides through easily.
I’m hoping that Simon addresses the whole “brushing the cat” issue. I have had cats who chew on wire bristles because they didn’t like being brushed with wire; I swapped out for a softer brush, which also gets gnawed on by cats who just enjoy gnawing; I’ve had cats who swat the brush away; I’ve had cats who hide when the brush comes out. But I’ve never had a cat do what one of mine does now: all he has to do is hear me run a brush through my own hair, and he comes running. I found out that he really, really likes being brushed when I was brushing my own hair in front of the mirror, la de dah, minding my own business, brain off, la de – what the heck?? Cat was standing behind me on the coffee table, paws wrapped around my waist! He then tried to haul himself up along me so he could reach the brush, and when he couldn’t, reached up with one arm and started pawing the brush.
The upside: if I want the cat to come running to me, all I have to do is run my thumb along the rubbery bristles of the brush, Thwwwwwp! and there he is. The downside is if I want to brush my own hair, I have to hide my hairbrush from sight and sneak off to another room and shut the door while I do it.