I waz wondering (cats & buttered bread)

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: CharlieA
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:53 AM

Gauntlets - thats the only way to get cats to do anything. I do LARPS as do most of my mates and my housemate. if the cat needs a pill or anything we get out his leather LARPS gauntlets. they are just about cat proof.

Cxxx

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:43 AM

Dammit, Morticia did this joke on another thread. *Sigh* Great minds and all that...!

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:42 AM

Kaleea - A. It depends on how thinly you slice them!

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 02:31 AM

What's amazing to me is that any thread containing the word "cat" is considered justification for Catspaw to roll out that damned cat-out-of-gas joke! I mean, the man has no shame!

But, we knew that.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Kaleea
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 02:21 AM

Q: How many musicians does it take to butter a cat? Anyone care to venture an "A"?

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 07:45 PM

Anyone who trys to give a cat a haircut deserves absolutly EVERYTHING that happens to him.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 07:12 PM

If you tied 2 cats together, back to back (I'm not suggesting this), what would happen?

Rich

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:12 PM

YE GODS!! And I'm just about to acquire two more..... what am I thinking of!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Bert
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 02:17 PM

We had a cat once that was a real pain when travelling, she'd be all around the inside of the car, round the back of your neck or front of your face, up under the dash, anywhere she could go. She wasn't in a panic or anything, she just kept moving about.
We didn't have a crate for her, and didn't have much room in the car for one anyway, so I put her in an old flour sack and tied it around her neck (She didn't know what was coming the first time so she didn't struggle). First time was OK, she just flopped down on the seat and meowed pitifully all the way. But trying to get her in the sack again for the journey home was quite another story. For a real fun time just try to put a cat in bag when it doesn't want to go in. Took her four or five times before we could get her bagged peacefully.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: GUEST,doddy
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 02:08 PM

tell me about the blues?

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: GUEST,bg
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 02:06 PM

hi babe

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Kim C
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 01:37 PM

Fib, my phone plays Mozart. :-)

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 01:16 PM

Sorcha - Too funny!! We tried to get the cats into the cab of the truck once (thought the vet could knock them out as we were so beat up from trying to give them their annual spring haircut) - it was like watching the motorcycles at the fair in the "Globe of Death!" Their feet never touched the seat but man did they cycle around the perimeter of the truck!! Took some pretty careful timing to open the door back up to get them out - they were pissed for a week after that!

LMAO Steve

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 12:41 PM

Steve, I have one of those, too. She actually lives in the house, but has a BarnCat attitude. It takes 4 people to do anything with her.....one for each set of legs, one for the toothy end and one to actually do the Dirty Deed! I just pray she will never get covered with motor oil or something. I would have to take her to Vet and zonk her out. Either that, or DIE!!

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 12:36 PM

I have two barn cats and I think you are missing a piece in your equation in that area. p really doesn't equal anything with those guys. They can't be coaxed into the house with Tuna fish let alone for the buttering!! Doing anything with them is a 2-3 person job. One each to hold each pair of legs and one to minister to their needs. Spring haircuts are the most fun.

At least I know I don't have THAT much time on my hands!! For buttering you understand :-)

Steve *LOL*

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 04:58 AM

Cool. I wonder if there's a way of working mobile phone ringtones into the equation - there's far too many of them about for my liking.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: mooman
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 04:30 AM

Actually I like Fibula's idea of a national monorail system based on a levitation system of cats, chicken tikka masala and white shag pile carpet as there is an abundance of all of these commodities in the UK.

mooman

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 03:43 AM

The "butter-side down" thing is a special case of Sod's Law, while the feet-first thing is a special dispensation of the God of Cat-kind. It's not a good idea to mix natural and supernatural laws; the only thing you can guaratee is that it'll end in tears!

Anyway, Sod's Law is recursive: if you try to make you bread land butter-side down, it won't do it.

Seriously, now: don't try and feed gasoline to your cat; regardless of whether the cat kills you, you'll certainly kill the cat. I kid you not.

Steve

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Noreen
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 05:47 PM

Hey Spaw, did you know my Grandad? That was his favourite joke... when I was about 5...

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: SharonA
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 02:16 PM

Actually, the butter-side-down phenomenon has everything to do with the aerodynamics of the type of bread product used (Wonder Bread, for instance, tends to flip over more easily than does a Lender's bagel). A cat, on the other hand, has virtually the same probability of landing on its feet regardless of age, size or breed. Buttering the cat would not affect its ability to land feet-first, though it would increase the ease with which it would first wriggle out of one's arms.

The cat, therefore, would land on its feet, give itself a good washing to get the butter out of its fur, and cough up a hairball into your shoe.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Bert
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 01:55 PM

Hee - Yerright Jim, our neighbors cat lies like that all the time.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 01:51 PM

The other day I saw my cat lying on the couch, in a totally relaxed state, with his backbone twisted about 180 degrees. To give you an idea: his head was pointed west, his tail was pointed east, his forelegs were pointed north, and his hind legs were pointed south. The midpoint of his belly was pointed toward the ceiling. Given such talents, I'm sure he could find a way to land on his feet with the butter side down.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 12:25 PM

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...
And I thought it was going to end with a "how do you make a cat go woof?" joke (answer: soak it in petrol and throw a match at it).

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 12:14 PM

Geeziz......Unbelievable. But it's fun trying to conjure up the image of trying to strap a piece of toast to a cat! If you've had much experience trying to give them a pill then you can imagine the toast. The worst thing I ever had to do was give a cat a liquid......even worse than pills.

I had a cat with bowel problems and my vet suggested a 1/2 teaspoon of gasoline fer chrissake! I admit that I thought the guy was nuts, but it did work, sorta. It ain't too easy to get a half teaspoon of gasoline down a cat's throat, but when I did, he liked to tore me to shreds getting away. He blasted around the room about 3 or 4 times, ran up the hallway, up the stairs, back down both, and into the den, leaped on the drapes and ran to the end of the curtain rod where he stopped and fell to the floor. I thought I'd killed the poor thing, but it turns out he'd just run out of gas.

Spaw

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: mousethief
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 12:09 PM

And people say *I* have too much time on MY hands.

Alex

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 11:46 AM

this was definitely discussed in a previous thread, but here's the answer anyway..

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. Therefore, if a slice of toast is strapped to a cat's back, buttered side up, and the animal is then dropped, the two opposing forces will cause it to hover, spinning inches above the ground. If enough toast-laden felines were used, they could form the basis of a high-speed monorail system.

The theory is refined thus:
In the buttered toast case, it's the butter that causes it to land buttered side down - it doesn't have to be toast, the theory works equally well with Jacob's crackers. So to save money you just miss out the toast - and butter the cats. Also, should there be an imbalance between the effects of cat and butter, there are other substances that have a stronger affinity for carpet. Probability of carpet impact is determined by the following simple formula:
p = s * t(t)/tc
where
p is the probability of carpet impact,
s is the "stain" value of the toast-covering substance - an indicator of the effectiveness of the toast topping in permanently staining the carpet. Chicken Tikka Masala, for example, has a very high s value, while the s value of water is zero.
tc and t(t) indicate the tone of the carpet and topping - the value of p being strongly related to the relationship between the colour of the carpet and topping, as even chicken tikka masala won't cause a permanent and obvious stain if the carpet is the same colour.

So it is obvious that the probability of carpet impact is maximised if you use chicken tikka masala and a white carpet - in fact this combination gives a p value of one, which is the same as the probability of a cat landing on its feet. Therefore a cat with chicken tikka masala on its back will be certain to hover in mid air, while there could be problems with buttered toast as the toast may fall off the cat, causing a terrible monorail crash resulting in nauseating images of members of the royal family visiting accident victims in hospital, and politicians saying it wouldn't have happened if their party was in power as there would have been more investment in cat-toast glue research. Therefore it is in the interests not only of public safety but also public sanity if the buttered toast on cats idea is scrapped, to be replaced by a monorail powered by cats smeared with chicken tikka masala floating above a rail made from white shag pile carpet.

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: mooman
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 10:34 AM

You would have to visit the emergency room to be treated for severe lacerations and call in the furniture steam-cleaning experts.

mooman (who tried this experiment once)

Subject: RE: I waz wondering
From: Bert
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 10:24 AM

It would land on the ceiling of course.

Subject: I waz wondering
From: Raptor
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 10:20 AM

Cats always land on thier feet!
Buttered bread always lands buttered side down!
So if you buttered the back of a cat and dropped him whatwould happen?
Raptor