There are 25 posts tagged cats (this is page 2 of 5).
What makes people think dragons aren’t friendly? This one certainly seems to be the friendliest of the bunch. Found at Emily McGaughey’s Etsy shop. She makes a lot of cats but I did find this happy dragon.
The other mythical beasts (as Emily calls them) are a phoenix and a griffin.
Good dragon, Emily.
E+F+D+++++XDN+++G++Q+++++L?A+++HW-O++BC-T++IS-Krg
Saved for posterity. Most of the links don’t go very far.
ODP .sig Code
This little code originated in a forum thread back in late 2002. We have both an encoder (provided by jtaylorj) and a decoder (provided by ciaran)!
The following explanatory blurb is ripped off from the geek code. Make the appropriate modifications in your head, please.
Geeks, of all people, can seldom be strictly quantified. To facilitate the fact that within any one category you may not be able to determine a specific rating, variables have been designed to allow this range to be included.
@ – for this variable, said trait is not very rigid, may change with time or with individual interaction. For example, Geeks who happen to very much enjoy Star Trek: The Next Generation, but dislike the old 60’s series might list themselves as t++@.
() – for indicating “cross-overs” or ranges. Geeks who go from C+ to C— depending on the situation (i.e. mostly “C+”) could use C+(—). @ is different from () in that () has finite limits within the category, while @ ranges all over.
< – for ‘wannabe’ ratings. Indicating that while the geek is currently at one rating, they are striving to reach another. For example, C++>$ indicating a geek that is currently computer savvy, but wants to someday make money at it.
$ – Indicates that this particular category is done for a living. For example, UL+++$ indicates that the person utilizes Unix and gets paid for it. Quite a lucky geek, for sure. ODP Code note: this only applies to staff!
? – Unless stated otherwise within the specific category, the ? is placed after the category identifier and indicates that the geek has no knowledge about that specific category. For example, a person that has never even heard of Babylon 5, would list their Babylon 5 category as 5?
! – Placed before the category. Unless stated otherwise, indicates that the person refuses to participate in this category. This is unlike the ? variable as the ? indicates lack of knowledge, while the ! indicates stubborn refusal to participate. For example, !E would be a person that just plain refuses to have anything to do with Emacs, while E? would be a person that doesn’t even know what Emacs is.
Let the ODP Code begin!
Position
Forums
Duration of Editorship
Other Directories
Number of Edits
Graphics
Edit Quality
Loser/Luzer
Editing Activity
Humor
Where Editing Happens
Opinion of ODP
Bumping
This Code (not presently recognized by the decoder)
Editor Tools
Interaction Online
Social Interaction (not presently recognized by the decoder)
Kategories (yeah, yeah, C was already taken – this is for your main focus)
What does your code say about you? Though instead of decoding with a bar code scanner, these codes have to be looked at to understand them. While a symbol scanner equipped with a touch screen monitor may help in business, decoding ODP code is half the fun!
I like seeing photos of feral cats. They live wild and survive but die forgotten. Like our own ancestors and all the creatures (human and animal) on the planet before us. They seldom get photographed. So, it is nice to have some evidence of their existence, a way to keep them remembered. 
Source of quote and photos: Todd Tripp
I went back to look for the feral colony today. They were not there, and their bag of food was not there. I’m hoping they got into homes.
I did see this fella I call “Old Man” elsewhere. I was worried about him last time I saw him, as that left eye was in pretty bad shape. He looks scarred there now; I’m guessing it’s a duelling scar.
He had company today in this little queen. And three kittens. One hid under wooden steps. Another kept to the side. A third looked sickly.
Where did “piss poor” come from?
If you’re young and hip, this is still interesting.
NOW THIS IS A REAL EDUCATION
Us older people need to learn something new every day…
Just to keep the grey matter tuned up.
Where did “Piss Poor” come from? Interesting history.
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot.
And then once it was full it was taken and sold to the tannery…
If you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”. But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot…
They “didn’t have a pot to piss in” and were the lowest of the low.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500′s
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.
The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water,
Then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.
Last of all the babies.
By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.
Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!”
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.
It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.
When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.
This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed.
Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.
That’s how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.
Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery In the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing..
As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.
Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers In the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.
Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.
Hence the rhyme:
“Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.”
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.
When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.
It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.”
They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter.
Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death.
This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status..
Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle,
And guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky.
The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days..
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.
Hence the custom; “holding a wake.”
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people.
So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.
When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, “saved by the bell” or was “considered a dead ringer.”
And that’s the truth.
Now, whoever said history was boring!!!
So get out there and educate someone!
Share these facts with a friend.
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering,
“What the heck happened?”
We’ll be friends until we are old and senile.
Then we’ll be new friends.
via Where Did “Piss Poor” Come From? | Green Living History.
Designer Shelters for Cities’ Stray Cats – Technology – The Atlantic Cities.
“It’s estimated that there are over 10,000 stray cats in New York City. But with myriad other human problems, issues like feral cats tend to fall by the city’s wayside. A recent competition organized by Architects for Animals asked the city’s designers to address the burgeoning problem by designing a prototype cat shelter that could be replicated throughout the five boroughs.”
A nice thing for the cats. I wonder what will keep other creatures from using them. If the cats get in there rodents will stay away. But it may take awhile before the cats get into them. I had a cat who would never go inside the shelter I built for her outside, stubborn, tough cat!
Today is Y on the A- Z Blogging Challenge. A lot of words begin with Y. But for some reason I thought of ‘yowl’. That sound a cat makes when it wants to get noticed.
What other words can you think of for sounds cats make? Skip the easy ones like meow and purring. If you were going to write a story with an animal as a sidekick what animal would it be? How would the animal communicate or would it just be like an ornament, sort of moved around like a dead weight?