GPOY: me interacting with cats

Mucho thanks to Golden Retriever cross Murkin here for taking a bullet for me in demonstrating how cats typically react to me, him, and everyone else who couldn’t give a rat’s ass if all the feline world dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow. Dude, better you than me, but I pity you, I really do.

Ask Michael K over at Dlisted put it (better than I ever could have):

The feral cat’s name is Thomas O’Malley Flufferpants (I can’t with that name). A big-hearted foster family took him in and he almost immediately got sweet for the family’s dog Murkin. To say that Murkin isn’t feeling cuddly for Flufferpants is an understatement. Murkin is the Penelope to Flufferpants’ Pepé Le Pew. Stay with Murkin’s face while watching the clip and you’ll see a priceless gallery of side-eyes, sighs, roll eyes and emotions that range from “THIS bitch again?” to “I should really look into building a water moat around me.” I haven’t seen such an obvious display of MEH for pussy since Richard Gere kissed Jodie Foster in Sommersby.

Poetry. Sheer poetry.

The Easter Bunny: an emo bio

Happy Easter, Kids! You will be eaten first. Should we start with the ears?

Happy Easter, Kids! You will be eaten first. Should we start with the ears?

Did you ever wonder what motivates the great metaphysical characters of Western civilization? What drives the Tooth Fairy to make his/her nightly rounds, exchanging discarded pieces of human skulls for cold, hard cash? Is Santa a slave to the whims of children worldwide, or is he working some grand master plan? And what are we to make of a bunny who lays chocolate eggs? What kind of creepy Pon-Farr-ish motivation or downmarket chemical stimulus drives him to his zygote-scattering frenzy?

Now we know.

Roy Henry Vickers’ The Elders Are Watching

Roy Henry Vickers is quite simply one of the greatest living artists. The web doesn’t do justice to his work, because some of the images are rendered in such a way that the totality of the work cannot be seen from every position; you can’t just stare at them straight-on and expect things to reveal themselves. His work was the inspiration for my own logo, which was created for me by my friend Shahee.

He’s gotten into social media in a big way recently, with Facebook and Twitter, and now YouTube as well. One of his most famous works is called The Elders are Watching, and he’s done it beautifully and movingly in video form. You will like this.

Hump Day Unicorn Chaser: Empowering Musical Interlude Edition

Rosie sez we can do it

Rosie sez we can do it

Those of you who’ve been following along on Twitter know that this has been a fraught week chez raincoaster, but as always, at least it’s been good for hits [UPDATE: I can't get away with a tasteless joke on my own damn blog anymore, it seems. What is the world coming to?]. While it’s been awful for self-esteem, it’s also been kind of awesome, as I see the support I’ve gotten from the most and least expected places. You know who you are, and I’ve tried to thank each of you individually. If I missed you, it’s my fault, and let me know so I can correct it. The negatives didn’t really bother me once the facts got straightened out; it was the support posts, comments, emails and tweets that gave me the sniffles.

So, for myself and anyone else who is firing on three cylinders instead of 12 right now, here are some empowering music videos. If nothing else, you can watch them and remind yourself how much prettier you are than Christina Aguilera.

Pink: So What?

Taylor Mali: What Teachers Make
which contains the awesome line “I have a policy about honesty and asskicking, which is if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.”

Christina Aguilera: Fighter

Why it’s called “Meatspace”

Oh, Elsie is in for a rude shock

Oh, Elsie is in for a rude shock

Have you noticed that we have no difficulty believing we are spiritual beings, but we simply cannot wrap our heads around the actually demonstrable fact that we are, in fact, made of meat? Why, even on this very blog, we’ve had suggested wine pairings for cannibals, whom we have also covered. Repeatedly, in fact. We’ve even covered fake me-meat, as well as munch-by-munch reports of ursine-sapien dining and a scientific investigation into just how Modest a Proposal Jonathan Swift‘s little suggestion really was.

Well, it’s time for a refresher. We are nothing but wetware in meatspace, and even the aliens abducting and probing us, anal fissures first, find it distasteful. Observe:

Close observers will observe the observer observing them observing us; he is the Venusian Martian from the original 1961 Twilight Zone episode, Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up;

I for one am relieved he got away. And more relieved not to have the gory details.