A few odds and ends before I have coffee and find something subtantive to say! I have two leftover pictures from the NYC Great Cat vs d*g debate, for which, of course, the fix was in well in advance. We was robbed!
First, my big treasure from New York: an autographed copy of Joyce Carol Oates’s children’s book Naughty Chérie!, which I bought on Amazon and schlepped to New York. (Recommended for misbehaving tots!). Nothing could part me from this copy, for it was signed by Cherie!
In my excitement at seeing the Bengal cats brought to our debate by Anthony Hutcherson, I forgot to photograph them on their own, and instead snapped them being held by various luminaries. But at least I have one close-up of their amazing coats: here is one of the Jungletrax Bengals being petted by Malcolm Gladwell. Look at that fur!
And reader Gayle Ferguson has sent us some news about Jerry Coyne the Cat in Christchurch, New Zealand, now nine months old. As you recall, Gayle found Jerry and His Four Sisters abandoned in a cardboard box in a petrol station, and found loving homes for all of them.
Jerry’s new staff reports the following and has sent two photos of the boy:
Hi there. Jerry has taken a liking to catnip but becomes a little crazy and then gets the munchies. We thought he might lose his winter coat but it seems that the summer coat is just as thick. Still loves his kitten blanket.
He’s acting just like his namesake did in his youth!
Gayle explains the “kitten blanket”:
He’s had that blanket since he was a tiny kitten! I cut it into 5 bits and each kitten went to their new home with a bit of the blanket they’d shared.
Jerry and his ‘nip. “The walls are fucking brown!” (Actually, he wants some tuna.)
JC the Cat is such a handsome dude! And the Bengal fur looks like silk velvet, soft and plush.
I can’t get over how pretty Felid JC is! That coat is amazing – he looks like a little lion!
So glad you capitalized His Four Sisters🐱
How’d you get the cat-icon?
[Searches character map – is there a Unicode version of Rule 34?] (Owl wearing glasses ↂ (U+2182, “Latin Roman numeral ten thousand.”) ; Owl without glasses Ꙭ (U+A66C, “Cyrillic capital letter double monocular O”) ; ꙮ (U+A66E “Cyrillic letter multiocular O – used in the epithet many-eyed, so probably only appropriate for Argo and a peacock) ; ࿊࿋࿌ (U+0FCA “Tibetan symbol (several))
I must have the font installed – otherwise the character wouldn’t have rendered – but I’m d-a-s-h-e-d if I can find it.
Aidan – I can only get that icon on my iPad on the emoticons keyboard, although that cat doesn’t look anything like the way it appears here (I’m now on my Mac). On the keyboard it’s an orange cat face (there’s also a tiger face).
Bonne chance (can’t do any icons on WP when I’m on my Mac. Can with regular email.)
Android keyboard has cats too. 🐈🐱 Sadly, d*gs outnumber them.
Hmmm, searching … ☃ Oh, that works. Not very catty though.
There’s a lot of alternatives.
Oh, I should have started here : They’re Unicode characters U+1F63x (x in 8..F) and U+1F640.
And the dogs dangly-bits are at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F600.pdf.
I use the cross-platform Firefox plug-in “BBCodeXtra”, and I’ve added a custom setting “Cats” with the code
and the results : F638; F639; F63A; F63B; F63C; F63D; F63E; F63F; F640;
Oh, hang on, that didn’t work … I’ll fiddle with it tonight.
dog dangly bits??
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:27:48 +0000
To: merilee@sympatico.ca
I’ve watched too many Cockney (Londoner) Gangster movies today.
It means the “best thing in the world”, a.k.a. “the d*gs bollocks”, or the “d*gs dangling bits”.
Otherwise : “the cat’s whiskers”, “the icing on the cake”, “the pope’s …” we’re back to peculiar seats and “duo testiculum habat, et bene pendente”, or Latin to that effect.
It’s English, though not necessarily as is taught in school.
And here was I expecting actual emoticons of dogs’ dangly bits, rather than just another way of saying the cat’s pj’s🐾🐾
dog dangly bits?? didn’t see any…
There is an emoji extension for Chrome that I use on my Mac but you have to be a chrome browser user. I don’t know if there are extensions for the other browsers.
Something so cool about a guy whose autograph you’d want himself getting excited about somebody else’s autograph….
b&
Whoa, now I feel like I just saw the long line of the Kwisatz Haderach like in Dune.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.roosterteeth.com/images/gronows146f37fdb273cd.jpg
Yeah, but if you start coming at me with a needle, don’t expect me to stick my hands in any boxes!
b&
Nice touch that she cut the blanket into pieces to send with each kitten to their new home!