Purr, Purr, Meow, Meow - It's The Cat Post You've Always Wanted

I am the mad cat lady.

Or I would be if I a) lived on my own or b) my lovely partner finally gave in and let me embrace all things catish.

Luckily for me and the world I haven't yet managed to persuade him to let me have free reign and adopt all the cats.  Because if he did we both know our house would soon be a feline paradise.... or hell and that we would quickly succumb to our feline masters and be their slaves for life. Until then I have to settle for reading all the cat books and dreaming of all things catish and Garfield related. Because Garfield is my life role model

Purr, purr, meow, meow.

Adolf in Blunderland

Adolf in Blunderland: a political parody of Lewis Carroll's famous story by James Dyrenforth and Max Kester

This book. Oh my! It is something that I discovered on our wonderful blog "Treasures from the Basement" and I am so pleased to have stumbled upon it. Auckland Libraries is one of only two libraries that hold this book in New Zealand (the other being Dunedin public library). I have searched online for a copy to purchase but have only been able to find second hand (as it is out of print) copies, with the lowest price being around $60 ! I have seen copies going for more than $100 too - this book is hot property !

It is hilarious and very, very pointed. It is a radio script from a BBC play that was broadcast in October 1939, but the hard copy version of it includes some extra parts that were deemed to be inappropriate by the BBC for airing. It is also a rather disturbing read in light of what occurred in the years following, the devastation of which no one could have predicted

The story follows Alice's adventures, as Adolf encounters the same characters she did, with some slight differences.

Some of my favourites are the Mad Hatter becoming the Mad Flatterer; the Doormouse is the Doormat - representative of the German population(!); the Mock Turtle is Mock Gurbles; the Caterpillar is Neville Chamberlain, allowing Adolf to take his choice of bites out of the mushroom cap in order to make him big again, with the cap resembling a map of the world.

Adolf in Blunderland is a great laugh but it is also chilling to think of the destruction to quickly come, one which the authors could certainly not have predicted.

If you are an Alice fan, or a political cartoon fan, or a history buff, or just enjoy a laugh, you must read this!

Stalking the catalogue: Twitter wit

"Once again it occurs to me that you could kidnap anyone by standing confidently in an airport with a card with their name on it."
 - Neil Gaiman | @neilhimself

Sometimes, what happens on Twitter shouldn't stay on Twitter.

Warning: this title contains much hilarity!  Twitter is not for everyone.  I feel like that should go without saying...and yet I stated it anyway.  Just in case.  The good thing about this book is that you don't have to be a Twitter-user to understand the jokes.  If you like your humour in small doses (i.e. 140 characters or less) or have a goldfish attention span (much like me) then this is ideal.

Title: Twitter wit : brillance in 140 characters or less
Editor: Nick Douglas
Published: itbooks, c2009

Stalking the catalogue: Twitterature

Watchmen by Alan Moore - @Rorschizzle
"A comedian died tonight. He was all about the lulz. No one laughed."
- Twitterature: The world's greatest books in twenty tweets or less by Alexander Aciman

Imagine if you could capture books in 140 characters or less. Imagine Wuthering Heights and all of its angst in 140 characters. Some books, let's face it, may improve if done this way (yes, Twilight, I'm looking at YOU). It'd be almost like a crash course, if you will. Twitterature, in short, provides this in a really funny way.

This is not going to be everybody's cup of tea.  I have a habit lately of stating the obvious, but I feel I need to say that right at the outset.  I, however, enjoyed it. I'd like to point out, though, that if you're not familiar with a lot of the stories then some of the humour is going to fall flat on its face.

There were a couple of stories that I didn't know so I'm going to brush up on them because, hey, I hate feeling like I don't know something.  A warning: it does contain swear words. And I'd like to make it known that I disagree with the part of the blurb that reads "...as great as the classics are, who has the time to read those big, long books anymore?" Umm ME! I do! I heart them! And I can do both - read them in full, and then read them in 140 characters or less. 'Cause I'm awesome like that.

A lighthearted and irreverent look at some well known tales that will cause you to snort with laughter on the bus, and the train (I know this because I did it), and just in general. Really.

Title: Twitterature : the world's greatest books in twenty tweets or less
Author: Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin
Published: Penguin Books, 2009

Stalking the catalogue: Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float

"Suffice it to say I was compelled to create this group in order to find everyone who is, let's say, borrowing liberally from my INESTIMABLE FOLIO OF CANONICAL MASTERPIECES (sorry, I just do that sometimes), and get you all together. It's the least I could do."
 - William Shakespeare's Admirable, Righteous, Singular, And Incomparable Booke Club Group

As a fangirl, I sometimes wonder what my fave tv show characters would be like in social media. Dean (Supernatural because OF COURSE, RIGHT?) would be all BAMF!Dean because he is the epitome of badassedness. Sam would be all puppy eyes and tortured posts. Castiel would be this curious mix of IRL Misha's hilarity and the naive Cas I adore. But classic lit characters/authors - how would they come across in social media? A little something like this, apparently:

• Rochester suggested a friend for Jane: his secret wife, Bertha. He thinks she may know Bertha too
• Miss Havisham sent Estella a secret request: BREAK HIS HEART
• Alice took the quick What Drink Are You? with the result "Shirley Temple"
• Hemingway became a fan of Using a Neutral, Disinterested Tone to Heighten the Realism of War
• Dr. Frankenstein became a fan of Weird Science

  Yeah. I can get behind that :)

Title: Ophelia joined the group Maidens Who Don't Float : classic lit signs on to Facebook
Author: Sarah Schmelling
Published: Plume, c2009

Marathons: A Pure Indulgence (Part 3): Something to Laugh About

There is nothing better than ending the night with a few episodes or so of your favourite comedy, especially on a cold, wet and depressing winter's night.  No matter how often you watch them they can always make you laugh.  Humour luckily never gets old... or boring.

Which is just as well as my partner and I are currently on our third re-watch of The Big Bang Theory.  Yep you heard right and in-between we've also worked our way through Will and Grace, How I Met Your Mother and Caroline In The City.  Next on our list is Spin City. 

After that who knows. Maybe you've got a favourite to recommend...

Black Books

If ever I had my own book shop it would probably be just like the one in Black Books.  And in all honestly I would be just like Bernard Black.  The foul-mouthed, drunken owner who loves books and hates his customers. Personally I can't blame him.  After all who would want to give up all those lovely books to complete and utter strangers. 

A book shop without patrons... except me.  Heaven.

The Big Bang Theory            

Soft Kitty song.

Really that's all I have to say.   Because soft kitty says it all.

If you don't know what that means then you just have to watch the show to find out.
 
Frasier                                  

"Dr Frasier Crane, psychiatrist and radio host navigates single life while coping with the day-to-day eccentricities of his family and patients."

This show never fails to make me laugh and it's easy to see why both Kelsey Grammar (as Frasier Crane) and David Hyde-Pierce (as Frasier's brother Niles) were nominated for a plethora of Emmy's during the show's 11 year run.

I feel another marathon session is called for...

How I Met Your Mother

This show is "legen...dary."  And if you've seen it you'll know exactly what this means.

Though it's about Ted and the story of how he met his wife the real star of this show for me is Barney Stinson, a serial playboy who uses trick in the book and more to get what he wants. Barney is sleazy and funny and romantic and... well the perfect bad boy,

Community

"Smooth talking ex-lawyer Jeff Winger has got a lot to learn, and he’s come to Greendale Community College to avoid every bit of it. Unfortunately for Jeff, he’s not the only misfit to enroll here."

 I've got this show on my To-Be-Watched list.  It sounds like just my kind of thing.

Miranda

Miranda and I are like this *me crossing fingers*

I adore this show and can only hope that they do another season. 

Because I need to know.  I have to know. 

That's got you curious. Hasn't it?

Outnumbered

Family life.

Watching this show you'll be grateful that yours isn't as half as insane.  Or that your kids aren't smarter than you.  Because in the Outnumbered household the kids are the true masters.

Veep

Life as a politician is never easy, especially if you the newly elected Vice President.

Balancing family life, political agendas and the demands of the President are just the beginning

30 Rock

Liz Lemon's, head writer of a live variety show, life is turned upside down with the arrival of a network executive who seems determined  to interfere with every decision she makes.

For a woman with sass and sharp wit and a mean pair of glasses Liz is just the kind of woman who isn't going to back down...

The Vicar of Dibley

The Dibley Parish Council don’t know what has hit them when the new vicar arrives in the village. Because Reverend Geraldine Granger  is not only young, trendy and bubbly but also a woman.  She is also looking for love.  Will a certain tall, dark and handsome stranger be the one?  

Featuring Dawn French at her wonderful best and Richard Armitage (or RA as his fans call him) sigh...

Stalking the catalogue: No regrets

"Growing up I had always thought of tattoos as merely representing the idea itself. That having a tattoo simply said, "I'm the kind of person that would have a tattoo." That may have applied to the standard prison or military tattoo, but somewhere down the line tattoos stopped being the sole province of the badass and seamlessly slid over to he propriety of the soft, sensitive, malnourished hipster."

No regrets : the best, worst, and most #$%*ing ridiculous tattoos ever by by Aviva Yael and P. M. Chen
I'm fascinated by people's tattoos. I'm even more curious about the reasons behind them. They mostly come with quite good stories. (FYI: mine doesn't). For example, why would a guy get the Nike tick tattooed on his back? Why would another person choose to have theirs be two brightly coloured unicorns fornicating? Or the rapper ODB on their foot? Or 'WTF' on your finger? Or Frank Zappa picking his nose? See. Stories. This book doesn't provide the stories. It does, however, provide snark galore, and sometimes that's giggle-worthy, too.

Stalking the catalogue: Crap graffiti

"Graffiti can be a diverse form of expression and thought-provoking art; whether painted on the side of a train or on a canvas hanging in a gallery. Or, as you will experience in the pages to come, it can be crude, drunken daubing, nonsensical statements or hilarious outpourings of uncontained rage."
 
Crap graffiti edited by Adam Elliott and Richard Frazer

When is graffiti art and when is it just plain 'ol graffiti? I grew up in the 80s and Beat Street (the film) I liked for the music but, more, for the graffiti. Ever since then, I stop to admire it - on trains, buses, walls, toilet mirrors, fences, school books. Everywhere. And executed in a number of different ways - etched in glass (let's not talk about the inappropriate one I saw on a downstairs window), black vivid tagged on a bus stop seat, spraypaint on a freight train rolling past, pencil on a school book, pen on a desk. Everything. Some of it is barely legible. A lot of it is full of references to genitalia (like toddlers who've suddenly discovered they have them and need to keep showing everybody). And then, sometimes, they're so witty you wish you could meet the people behind them. This book, according to the title, is going to be all of the former. Maybe I win?

Confession: I sometimes see the visual cacophany that is Twitter as a form of online graffiti. We use it to express ourselves in a myriad of ways - witty banter, social chit chat, indulge the nonsensical, share ALL THE RAGE, and yes, even crude and drunken tweets. See? Online graffiti.

Stalking the catalogue: Is that a Picasso on your fridge?

"The message is clear: lighten up, surrealists. Sometimes it actually is une pipe."

Is that a Picasso on your fridge? : kids' "masterpieses" critiqued by an art expert by Dan Consiglio
Consiglio separates 'finger-painted genius from crayon-doodled crap.' In essence, parents submit their child's art, and a critic reviews them.

Tell me that doesn't make you curious. Tell me that doesn't make you think "Well, THAT has to be a major case of WTFery, right there, doesn't it?" Tell me you won't request it. Tell me so I can shake your hand because I don't have the won't-power to resist it. And now I'm waiting not-so-patiently for it to come through.

Stalking the catalogue: The history of the world according to Facebook

"Ah, Facebook. We all make fun of it, and we're all on it. If the Facebook community - 600 million strong - were a country, it would rank third in population, and last in spelling ability."

The history of the world according to Facebook by Wylie Overstreet

I spend a fair bit of my time online. Doing all kinds of things. Probably, for the most part, I'm updating a status in some place, some where, so coming across Overstreet's book is like receiving a birthday present I never knew I wanted. Think on it: wall posts from the beginning of time. the Serpent creating a Facebook event to tempt Eve to eat the apple (and her response "Sorry, I'm on a master cleanse!"), Cleopatra listing 'eyeliner' as an interest, Romeo and Juliet professing their love for each other (Oh babe you're so amazing. luv u <3) or even Marie Antoinette not knowing "who" Democracy is (Ooo, Guillotine? Is he like a new designer?). I'm hoping that Overstreet's book can give me ALL THE GIGGLES. (Yes, capslock needed).

Like it. Ask it to be your friend. Share it.

Stalking the Catalogue: Extreme office crafts

Welcome to a new series of weekly posts called "Stalking the Catalogue." When you think about it - or when I think about it - that is, essentially, what I do. I stalk the catalogue for new, interesting and/or bizarre titles to highlight. Now I'm just calling it what it is.

Extreme office crafts : creative & devious ways to waste supplies & company time by Jimmy Knight and Tom Chalmers
THIS! Office crafts. Extreme office crafts. Extreme office crafts that encourage creativity. This is a thing that must be read.

Admittedly, I'm a little wary of the 'devious ways to waste supplies and company time' part of the title BUT I'm going to override that little smidgeon of fear and read it, anyway. How could I not when it encourages the making of post-it note mosaics? (My sibling doesn't know it yet, but her post-it note stash is going towards a very good cause - my entertainment)

We have two copies! So if this kind of humour is your kind of humour, request it today :)

5 book titles to make you laugh (and then request them)

I'm pretty sure I'm a nice person. What's more, I think I'm a nice person who is capable of great philosophical thought. You just have to dig down deep. Like WAY down deep. When you hit the cold lump of coal that should be my heart, keep going. In fact, bring a shovel and a miner's hat. (Leave the canary at home, that's just cruel). I am all about the laughs because, as most people who know me know, I not-so-secretly possess a juvenile sense of humour. I forever watch terrible movies that are overladen with toilet humour and the worst puns ever. What's worse is I then con other people into watching them with me. And I'm that way about books, too. I'm forever making lists when I come across book titles that amuse me. What is the point of such titles if you cannot hold them up to people and say "THIS! THIS!" And so, here's my list of "THIS! THIS!" for today: 5 book titles to make you laugh (and then request them).

5 ways in which dogs are better than cats

"I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance."
- James Thurber

Title: Why dogs are better than cats
Author: Bradley Trevor Greive (photographs by Rachael Hale)
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Pub.
Published: c2009

I'm not a cat person. Nor a dog person. Or, in truth, a child-friendly person. This isn't to say that I'm UNfriendly to any of the above. I just don't have strong feelings about them either way. I can take or leave animals and/or kids. Weirdly, this makes them like me more. It's like they can sense my feelings - or lack of them - and want to squish me that much harder (children I meet for the first time), jump on me that much more (dogs and cats I meet for the first time), and find ways to sneak into my room and put their mark all over my things. (Yes, Mr2, I'm talking about YOU). So do I truly believe dogs are better than cats? Irrelevant! The point is, this book's author does :) And here are 5 reasons (from the many) for why Monsieur Greive believes that dogs have oh so much more awesomeness than cats.

Are you a dog person? Or a cat person? OR a child person?

Dogs want love. Cats want fish
Dogs offer us such vast amounts of help and happiness and yet seek almost nothing in return.

Dogs have helped us explore our world and our universe
The heroic actions of dogs are the stuff of legend. Can you even imagine a cat saving you from drowning? How about dragging you out of a burning building? Or digging you free from an icy avalanche? I don't think so. Cats don't rescue anybody - they just get rescued. And they never ever say, "Thank you." (pages 168-171)

Dogs see you as a parent, partner, best friend, and soul mate
Cats see you as a source of warmth and food. (page 71)

Dogs are social, cats are sociopaths
The reason dogs surpass all other species is quite simple: They get people - they really do. It's been this way since dogs and humans first bumped into one another and thought, "Hey, this could work!" (page 61)

There is a dog for everybody
Dogs come in all shapes, sizes, colours, and most important, dispositions - from gentle giants to little dogs with big personalities. This canine cornucopia means that the perfect dog is out there to complement every single human being's personality and lifestyle. Regardless of where you live, no matter how noble your endeavours, or how twisted and shameful your secret quirks, there is a dog that is just right for you. I guarantee it. (page 29)

5 geeky links you need to check out

"Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It's basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating."
- Simon Pegg

Our 'geeky links' posts are becoming quite popular with you all. YAY geeky links! What does this tell me? That you guys are just as weird as I am. Respect. Some of you have emailed me asking, "Where do you find this bizarre stuff? Do you make it all up? And how do you choose what to highlight and what not to?" You guys are NOSEY, and because I do adore sharing, here are my answers: "The interwebs is MADE for stuff like this, so that's where I find it. No, I don't make it all up - my brain isn't half as interesting (although maybe it is half as scary). And I just choose whatever makes me fangirl and SQUEE and cry and laugh and coo the loudest." My usual scientific method. Everything should be run like this. (No, no it really shouldn't). I often think, though, that if this stuff makes me laugh and smile and whatever, then why not share it? If it does the same for others then YAY, hopefully they share it. A sort of technological 'pay it forward,' if you will. So...pay it forward, guys! Pay it forward :)

Here's a roundup of 5 geeky links I think you might get a kick out of. As ever, feel free to recommend your own in the comments section.

Bloggity, blogging, bloggers...

I have a confession to make.

I am an addict.

Now don't get all excited. My addiction is nowhere near as scandalous as booze, drugs or sex. I am not a celebrity after all.

My addiction - make that addictions - are fairly mundane. There's my addiction to books (do I really need to explain this one) and chocolate (Hello it's chocolate, need I say anything more...) and Scifi television (go figure). My latest addiction is a rather odd one, though understandable given the direction my life has taken in the last few months.

I have become addicted to reading blogs and I blame it entirely on MJ, Tosca, Scriven and my other fellow bloggers. (Picture of me giving you all a firm stare over the rim of my glasses).

I could of course say it was all entirely in the name of research (which would be partially true) but really it's just a fascinating and very addictive and easy way to pass the time. There are some truly great blogs out there and some that are so bad that they are almost good, if you know what I mean.

One of the wonderful things about being a blogger is that there is also a small chance that you may get seen by a publishing house and pick up a book contract.

So here's a salute to my fellow bloggers who are out there in the big wide world, slaving away at their computer, wondering if they will ever have a life.

Power to the people! (a chocolate fish to anyone who can guess which tv show this was from).

5 books with WHAT ON EARTH titles

"Almost everything strange washes up near Miami."
― Rick Riordan

Wrong. Almost everything strange ends up on a bookshelf in a library near you. Book titles. We have them by the bucketload, and some of them are bound to have titles that raise your eyebrows. I randomly came across Crap dates : disastrous encounters from single life by Marsden, which is the image attached to this intro. I thought it would be funny. It seemed like it would be funny. While some of the experiences are, just as many are sad and (even if you don't squint) an outright declaration of sexual kinks on the first date. (Some within the first few minutes, actually). It did make me wonder what other kind of strange titles we have and, a few weird, deliberate searches later, I had THIS LIST: 5 books with WHAT ON EARTH titles!

What strange/wonderful titles have you come across on our shelves?