Brazilian commercial for Flying Horse energy drink.

The photograph seems to come from Go Moose via Theo.

The cat Frida Kahlo and her owner says she beats the shell game two times out of three.

Russian says: “How do you wean a cat away from smoking?”

Hat tip to Tristyn Bloom.

Via My Ear Trumpet.

Law.com has today a really splendid example of preposterous litigation for the Water Olson collection.

Pretty cut and dry. I mean, I think we can all agree that the yellow cat clearly preferred the odor of Clorox’s Fresh Step over Arm & Hammer’s Super Scoop, right?

But in a lawsuit that I predict will lead one or more of the lawyers involved in the case to consider a career change, Arm & Hammer has filed a federal lawsuit against Clorox alleging false claims that cats prefer Fresh Step over Super Scoop. Arm & Hammer says “independently conducted research” proves otherwise.

Specifically, the Arm & Hammer complaint charges that

“The Clorox advertisements are unambiguous that the judges of whether Fresh Step is superior at eliminating odors are cats, not people,” the suit says. “But cats do not talk, and it is widely understood in the scientific community that cat perception of malodor is materially different than human perception,” the company argues. “It is not possible scientifically to determine whether cats view one substance to be more or less malodorous than another substance.”

Arm & Hammer adds that “cats will not reject Super Scoop to any meaningful degree and will do so no more frequently than they will reject Fresh Step.”

Hat tip to Theo.

A small white kitten climbed up sales representative Steve Johnson’s tire while he was stopped at a Piggly Wiggly in Evansville, Indiana. The stowaway rode more than 1400 miles in the engine compartment in the course of a week, until Johnson stopped for an oil change in Madison, Wisconsin and his passenger, a little dehydrated, but otherwise none the worse for wear, was discovered.

Channel 3000

1:36 video

WQOW News18

0:46 video

Lots of problems today.

1) My email account was hijacked by a spammer who mysteriously somehow acquired my password, so the hosting service closed it down. It’s back up and back under my control (with a new password), but if you received an email recently from me asking you to invest my $30 million dollars of ill-gotten Nigerian diamonds, I recommend passing up the deal.

2) NYM’s host server went down in a major way with every file corrupted (fortunately, backups did exist). Possibly a cyber attack from disgruntled overseas readers. There has not yet been time to identify the cause.

3) Xena, baddest of the Maine coon cats, who knows no fear, was found this morning perched in one of the 10’ ( 3m.) high little windows just below the gambrel ceiling of my third floor office. Her route included the top of some four drawer filing cabinets and the frame of my wife’s late mother’s oil portrait hanging high on the wall. She also knocked out the wireless modem on her way up. Take my advice: avoid owning coon cats!

A life of crime tires one out

Ever been wondering why that network printer doesn’t work?

1:03 video

Hat tip to Karen Myers and Anthony H. Mirra.

Blender Defender has a solution.

Tama, Stationmaster of Kinokawa, Japan

AFP:

In times of need, Japanese say they can even ask the cat for help. In this town in western Japan, people look to Tama, a nine-year-old cat working as master of an unmanned train station.

The tortoiseshell coloured creature, born and raised at Kishi Station on the provincial Kishigawa Line, wears a formal uniform cap of Wakayama Electric Railway and calmly watches passing passengers who greet her.

There are 10 train stations on the 14.3-kilometre (8.9-mile) line.

“Tama is the only stationmaster as we have to reduce personnel costs. You say you could ask for the cat’s help, but she is actually bringing luck to us,” Wakayama Electric spokeswoman Keiko Yamaki said.

The company feeds her in lieu of salary.

Tama was born from a stray cat brought to the station by a cleaner and kept by Toshiko Koyama, a local who runs a grocery store next door.

The station went unmanned in April 2006 as the line was losing money. But Tama stuck around.

She rose to national stardom in January 2007 as the railway company formally appointed her as “stationmaster”.

Her appointment had an immediately positive effect, boosting the number of passengers using the line in January by 17 percent from a year earlier.

For the year to March 2007, the number of passengers rose to 2.1 million, up 10 percent from the previous 12 months, according to Yamaki.

Happy with her successful job as stationmaster, the company promoted Tama to “super-stationmaster” in January this year, making her “the only female in a managerial position” in the company’s 36-strong workforce.

“She now holds the fifth highest position in the company,” Yamaki joked.

In reward for the promotion, Tama got a new “office”.

The stationmaster’s office, a renovated former ticket booth at the station, opened in April with the attendance of Kinokawa Mayor Shinji Nakamura and Wakayama Electric president Mitsunobu Kojima.

The office guarantees her some privacy.

“She declines to relieve herself when passengers are looking. We set the toilet where passengers can’t see,” Yamaki said.

Those who want to greet her must be careful so as not to miss her.

“She works nine to five and takes Sundays off,” Yamaki said.

Tama commutes with Koyama, the grocery store operator, from a shed next to the station. As Koyama tells her, “Ms Stationmaster, it’s time to work,” Tama comes along to the station, Yamaki said.

The stationmaster is set to appear in a French documentary film, being directed by Myriam Tonelotto, about wonder cats from around the world.

After dropping her husband at the airport, Kelly Levy found the cat was missing…

story

Hat tip to Dominique Poirier.

Misleadingly titled and afflicted with a vulgar opening, this parody of the recent Thermopylae epic still has its amusement value.

2:29 video