Here are my collection of links with cats, specially saved to blog today. And before you run away complaining "Oh no, cat pictures!", take a look on the images and their descriptions. They have cats, of course, but they aren't all just about cats.

The toy above, called Gato, was designed by Israel Chavira. This cat loves honey, probably cause his bee body type. A silly curiosity: the Spanish word "Gato" means cat, chat, Katze, katt, gàtto, and it has the same writing for Portuguese, gato.

Among the hundreds of cool scanned images of Modern Mechanix, the vintage articles with cats always get my attention. And, of course, I saved them to share: Cats Are Fun to Photograph, From Cats to Cataclysms, Cat Pictures Used to Scare Away Birds, Blows Glass Globe Around Cats (no cats were harmed!) and Things I Learned from Ten Thousand Cats. The last article is from 1934, but some things about what we know about cats didn't change.

By A. J. Adamson

ONLY by dealing patiently and kindly with a cat, particularly during its early life, may you develop the sort of animal everyone wants as a companion and pet. Unlike dogs, cats will respond only to kindness. Punish them and they grow surly and spiteful. I speak from rich experience, having bred fully 10,000 cats during the last quarter of a century.

The old idea was that every animal should be punished when caught in a wrongful act, but cats do not understand the meaning of a whipping. They are weak-willed and easily tempted and must, therefore, be guided in paths of righteousness.

Before all those stupid mania of LOLcats (I'm tired of them), there was The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, a comic strip created and illustrated by the cartoonist Aloysius "Gorilla" Koford, according to Adam Koford his grandson. From 1912-1913 he produced a comic strip which was featured in 17 newspapers, including the Philadephia Star-Democrat, the Tampa Telegraph, and the Santa Fe Good-Newser. It featured the exploits of one Meowlin Q. Kitteh (a sort of cat hobo-raconteur) and his young hapless kitten friend, Pip. Adam is sharing those "treasures" (the comics are brilliant), and until now there are 340 images on the Flickr set. BTW, there is something on those comics that reminds me Krazy Kat. (via Will You Look At That)

The iCat is a project developed by Philips Research Technologies in 2005. I think iCat is a bit scary.

iCat is a research platform for studying human-robot interaction topics. The robot is 38 cm tall and is equipped with 13 servos that control different parts of the face, such as the eyebrows, eyes, eyelids, mouth and head position. With this setup iCat can generate many different facial expressions - happy, surprise, angry, sad - that are needed to create social human-robot interaction dialogues.

A camera installed in iCat's head can be used for different computer vision capabilities, such as recognizing objects and faces.

The giant Plant Cup designed by Gitta Gschwendtner, was available at YouSayTomayto for $338.00. You can't buy it for now, however, you can take a look on set of pictures Plant Cup, with more demonstrations of its uses by Eek, the grey cat, and Miss Moneypenny. Grey cats rock.

Posted by Bibi on September 28, 2007 09:53 PM in Cats, Comics, Design, Friday Cat Blogging, Technology, Toys, Vintage ||

The Canadian illustrator and author Barbara Reid has marvellous work of clay illustrations. She is an award-winning illustrator whose work ranges from children's books to commercial advertising. For me it was clay, but she explains the material used is plasticine. She also explains what is plasticine, how to make pictures with and she gives three examples of projects. The adorable fellow below is one of her projects and I posting it because it's Friday. (via Mira y Calla)

Related posts: Amy Vangsgard and Irma Gruenholz.

Posted by Bibi on July 27, 2007 09:40 PM in Friday Cat Blogging, Illustration ||

I grew up picturing death as the Grim Reaper, the skeletal figure carrying a large scythe. Even though I studied in catholic schools, I've never believed their philosophy that death is an angel of God and there is a better place after the death. Death is the end. I like the idea of reincarnation but I don't believe in it, but if I did believe in it my friends very well know that I would like to return as a cat.

Ingmar Bergman took me to a new fantastic dimension of death with his masterpiece The Seventh Seal. Since then, the grim reaper, played by Bengt Ekerot in the film, is a nice and strange man that plays chess, that still carries a scythe. In that cause I would be... damned (I can't use any "f word" here), because I'm a terrible chess player. In this new representation of death, the death itself was much more human than the catholic teachings would have it. He/she had intelligence, sense of humor - even if a bit strange - and it was almost understanding of our shortcomings, but still implacable. Remember: the grim reaper cheats and always win.

Neil Gaiman showed me another version of death, as a cool pretty girl with a Gothic style, who everybody loves.His death "looks like rock star Nico in 1968, with the perfect cheekbones and perfect face she has on the cover of her Chelsea Girl album." His death always try to be nice, but keep doing her work. Interesting vision, but I keep the Bergman's portray of death as my favourite.

But that was until now. From now on, the grim reaper is a cat to me. This article changed it all for me: Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths (via The Pet Blog):

When Oscar the Cat visits residents of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the staff jumps into action -- Oscar can sense within hours when someone is about to die.

In his two years living in Steere's end-stage dementia unit, Oscar has been at the bedside of more than 25 residents shortly before they died, according to Dr. David Dosa of Brown University in Providence.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

The fury grim reaper is the cutest representation I ever seen. That's the perfect image of death for me. However, I don't want he visiting me for now. The story about Oscar the cat was originally published at The New England Journal of Medicine by David M. Dosa, and it's in everywhere now, including Scientific American and BBC (video). My favourite part is:

Making his way back up the hallway, Oscar arrives at Room 313. The door is open, and he proceeds inside. Mrs. K. is resting peacefully in her bed, her breathing steady but shallow. [...]

One hour passes. Oscar waits. A nurse walks into the room to check on her patient. She pauses to note Oscar's presence. Concerned, she hurriedly leaves the room and returns to her desk.[..]

The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath.

He's Charon. If you thought this interesting, read also Can pets sense illness? article.

More posts with death: Cinemorgue, The Fantastic in Art and Fiction, My Death Space, Collection of Life and Death Masks, Death according to Giornale Nuovo,Medieval Macabre and Coconino Classics.

Posted by Bibi on July 27, 2007 08:45 PM in Animals, Cats, Culture, Friday Cat Blogging, News, Weird, Weird ||

It's Friday and it's thirteen! I'm going to make my contributions to Friday Cat Blogging and some horror. I hope you enjoy.

Jaakko, a The Groovy Age of Horror (NSFW) contributer, posted about Biglie Humane (The Human Balls), a fumetti with giant children who likes to play with tiny, compared, humans. Cool, but not the best part. Those kids have a giant kitty that likes to play, as all the other cats. In the place of insects or toys, the cats play with those tiny humans. If you saw any time a cat playing, you are able to imagine the lovely (horror) scenes.

PS.: My condolences for you kitty Jakko. Take care.

The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire always celebrate the Fridays with an special Vampire Kitty Friday post. This Friday cookie jill gave to us a great cultural contribution from the Japanese folklore, telling to us about SaruDama: The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima.

Here's a classic Japanese tale dating back to the Hizen daimyo of the Sengoku Era (1568-1615). It presents a Shinto perspective of the spiritual dimension of Nature itself, here depicted in the form of a large cat who not only consumes humans, but then supernaturally changes its form to become that human, after which it interacts and easily deceives everyone it encounters.

My last contribution to this Friday Cat Blogging is the remarkable image of the two angry - and cute - baby snow leopards at the Zoo Berlin, via The Pet Blog. Ten-week old snow leopards Lanak, left, and Askai hiss to photographers during their first appearance in the Berlin Zoo in Germany. And they are right about hiss to the photographers: flashes are annoying.

Posted by Bibi on July 13, 2007 05:21 PM in Animals, Cats, Comics, Culture, Friday Cat Blogging ||

Cat to Exit: a crazy 3D animation feature by an orange cat the stole the fish of table of two old Japanese.

Chimpanzee Washing Cat: a vintage video of a Chimpanzee using a towel to clean a Siamese cat. If that was my Siamese cat, the monkey wouldn't survive so long.

Couscous the Cat: A sleazy cat on the prowl faces a new reality after he has been de-sexed.

From ExpertVillage, Cat Training & Obedience Techniques: twelve short videos with tips to try to train your cat. I watched all and discovered that the techniques just will work better if you start soon with your cat, as a kitty. This means that almost nothing can help me anymore.

NBC's Saturday Night Live: Laser Cats. There are two things that everyone loves, cats and lasers!

The Dirty Birdy: an annoying crazy bird, Purdy, fall in love for a blue cat, Fergurina, and do everything to get her attention. Non-sense funny animation with cartoon violence. (Uploaded by Nicosite)

Red Tango is a neat short animation with two cats dancing. Animation by Scotty Arsenault, to the site of his friend Cynthia Petrovic, that also directed it. BTW, don't miss her beautiful illustrations of cats.

Wiskas Russian Ad: a nice commercial of a cat walking in the snow. Just this.

And more 42 videos with cats at Koreus.

More videos and Animations of cats: Felix The Cat, More Felix Cartoons, Private Life of a Cat and Friday cat blogging videos.

Posted by Bibi on March 2, 2007 06:57 PM in Animation, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Fun, Fun, Video ||

Friday is allowed to post about cats: funny pictures, animations and other curious stuff. And big pictures of cats, and nothing more, for a huge group of cat lovers. I never planned to post big pictures of cats and nothing else on Fridays, because I'm afraid of some angry reactions of dog's lovers. My plan was use Fridays as an excuse to post some cool stuff of cats as theme.

Per example, cat furniture. Cat Castle - Modular Cat Playground (above) is funnier than most of inside toys for children. I don't have money or even space for something for that huge playgorund, but I'm sure my cats would love to explore it. If you have cats and love that, take a look at their Super Cat Hotel too. (via smidigt.se)

Or furniture with cats, and birds. The fabulous pieces above is a project by Ricardo Casas, Héctor Esrawe, Emiliano Godoy, Cecilia León de la Barra and Óscar Núñez. The blocks filled with cats and birds silhouettes are transformed in shelves, chairs and tables. (via Coisas)

The pieces suggest a continuous play between interaction and representation, where daily use generates a continuously changing story: a cat that reads Italo Calvino, a book filled with coins, a living room where birds come to eat the cake's crumbles.

Posted by Bibi on March 2, 2007 04:54 PM in Cats, Design, Friday Cat Blogging ||

As a good cat lover and a person that shares an apartment with three cats, I have to make a contribution to Friday Cat Blogging. But don't worry. I won't post any pictures of my cats (Melanie, Rousseau and Truffaut), not today. My contribution is The Private Life of a Cat, a short documentary directed by Alexander Hammid and Maya Deren in 1944.

The silent film is an intimate study of a female cat and the birth and maturation of her five kittens. I found this "little" masterpiece available at Internet Archive while I was searching for Deren's works. It's a bit different of her other visual experiments, but it keeps her touch. You can watch it at Google Video too (22 minutes)

Posted by Bibi on February 9, 2007 07:31 PM in Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Video ||

Last year I saw many pictures that people call of "jumping cats". There were pictures on everywhere, including Flickr, but nobody was sure about the origin of the photos. Today a friend sent me a link to a photoset on Flickr called airborne cats with 144 pictures of those jumping cats. The user Junku is uploading those since July of 2004 and the last updated was in the end of March. Probably he is the author of most (or all) of those images that are all over the Internet. I just want to know what is the food that he gives to his cats: I want to give a bit of it to mine. (Thanks Taiza!)

PS.: it isn't the food, or not only the food, the reason why they jump is this toy. I need one of it.

Posted by Bibi on April 7, 2006 08:13 PM in Animals, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Photography, Photography ||

Six funny videos with cats to finish the night:

- Cat Massage: some dogs are luckier than others. The video shows a cat performing a massage on a dog. Maybe you are jealous now, but remember that the cat nails can hurt, a lot. (Warning: loud sound)

- Food Fight: when a cat wants to eat, let it eat, specially if you are a small dog. It's difficult to see my cats doing that, but I have a pot for each one to avoid that.

- Kitty & Rooster, Weird Friendship. That's a very cute video of a kitten that has a rooster as a friend. Does he think that he is a chick? Or does he think that the rooster is a cat? BTW, the audio is in Japanese, but don't worry, you don't need to understand, it's cute anyway. (via i-pets) The video is no longer available.

- Learn Another Language: cat versus a golden fish. A nice commercial for a foreign language school.

- Talking Cats: the last cat sounds like my cat Melanie angry. Freaky, but I bet that it's fake. (via I Love My Cat)

- Why Sumo is better than Karate: a kitty shows to his buddy what he / she learnt with karate. That is an old video, so maybe you have watched it before.

Posted by Bibi on March 3, 2006 11:45 PM in Animals, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Fun, Fun, Video ||

Ok, some people is going to angry with me, but.... Happy Friday Cat Blogging! Don't worry, there aren't any cat pictures here (not today), just that funny video of a cute kitten watching this colletcion of cat videos. I hope that the cat lovers enjoy.

Posted by Bibi on February 10, 2006 11:26 PM in Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Video ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging!

I'm late, but I don't forget and have a few new links this week. And talking about cats I hope that Buffy Boy has a fast recover. Now, let's to the links.

Maneki Neko Lucky Cats: Japanese Lucky Cats. Adorable meneki neko lucky cats, miniature lucky cats, maneki neko Japanese lucky cats make unique wedding favors, wedding gifts and Chinese and Japanese party favors.

Why and How do Cats Purr?: good question and interesting article.

There are some people doing the Friday Cat Blogging for a long time: Nine Years (and 1 day) Ago.

Cats Protection The Uk's oldest and largest feline welfare charity. Caring for cats, history, cat anatomy, books, photos, more informations about our furry friends, adoption, and how you can help the them. Very pretty Flash interface.

Cat Scans - The Purrfect Home For Your Cat on the worldwide web! Photos of cats (you can send a photo of your cat also), postcards, poetry, music, quotes, trivia, more stuff about cats and this phrase: Polls say that 40 percent of cat owners carry pictures of their pets in their wallets.. Oh, no, they know me!

The beautiful cat of the week are two today: Switch and Mr. Tiggs. I loved this adorable photo that Mark sent me. The two sweeties are in a cardboard box house that his wife Elly made for them. Lucky boys!

More images and information about furry friends and other fantastic animals on Friday Ark. Have a great week.

Posted by Bibi on April 22, 2005 09:37 PM in Cats, Friday Cat Blogging ||

Happy Friday Saturday (almost Sunday) Cat Blogging!

I'm late, I know, but I just passed to show a new link. Many people know that I have a community about cats on Flickr called I love my cat, now with more than 1000 members, but I didn't know this video with the same name when I created it. It's a super cool and cat lovers will love it. BTW, if you have a cat and are a member of Flickr you are very welcome to join to the community. And if you want see some photos of cats, you can find some there; now there are 7487 pictures on our photo pool and everytime that I look there are more.

I chose a beautiful cat this week: Stoffel; he is beautiful and charming and I have my fingers crossed to he gets well very soon.

For more posts about cats and other wonderful animals visit Friday Ark. Have a great week!

Posted by Bibi on April 9, 2005 11:30 PM in Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Video ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging!

This week there are some interesting, funny and cute links. And because today is April Fool's Day let's start with something fun: The Mows - Daily Cat Cartoons.

I know that some people love cats but are allergic to them, what is very sad. I found this BBC article that can be useful for them and people that have cats: Cat allergies 'could be blocked'.

Still talking about health, Adam Messinger find a useful site about Emergencies caused by illness in pets.

If you have just one cat, what usually is not good (cats like to play to other cats and have cat company), and want to one more, there are some tips about what do this on Adding Another Cat To Your Household.

This could it be joke, but it isn't: Catflexing - The Catlover's Guide to Weight Training, Aerobics, & Stretching.

There are more curious cat stuff there: Test Your Cat's Creative Intelligence (a handy little home test that you can use to determine whether your little precious has the potential to be a world-class artist), Psycho Kitty? (Understanding Your Cat's "Crazy" Behavior), Why Cats Paint (A Theory of Feline Aesthetics) and Pawmistry (How to Read Your Cat's Paws).

Cats and history: Tales of the Middle Ages - True stories, fables and anecdotes from the Middle Ages.

And the beautiful cat of the week is Morris:

More cute cats, beautiful and curious animals on Friday Ark. Have a great week and don't forget to make some jokes or laugh a lot today.

Posted by Bibi on April 1, 2005 07:25 AM in Cats, Comics, Friday Cat Blogging ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging!

The last week I was very lazy ( = about cats information) and didn't search about cat links. But next Friday I will post some more cool links about cats.

Ok, I have two links about cats:
- The Cat Gallery is a good place for people that love cats buy things with cats as theme. Many cool stuff there.
- Cat Boxing: funny (and some not so funny for me) videos about cats doing funny, curious and cat things.

The beautiful cat of the week this week are two again: Simba and Winston, the lovely cats of Kevin.

For more great images of cats and other wonderful animals visit the Friday Ark.

PS.: if you have a beautiful cat please tell me, ok?

Posted by Bibi on March 25, 2005 05:50 AM in Animals, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Fun, Fun, Video ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging!

Let's start with a scary short film: The Cat With Hands. Disturbing.

Catollages is a gallery with collages with cats as theme by Britt Ehringer. Don't forget to read the descriptions of the images. (via Collagemanía)

Now, go back to the cute images with this cute "kitty", called Siberian tiger. It's a wonderful photo and perfect to make someone smile after that video. (via Exclamation Mark)

This week I found some great links with one theme in common: Kitty Porn! To see a lot of "hot" photos of cats visit: Kitty Porn, The ErotiCat and Live Nude Cats. Be careful with those cute, lovely and funny photos of cats: you can have an overdose. And still talking about Kitty Porn read the Top News: Kitty Porn page: the links are broken, but the text is very funny.

I found something for your cat (or cats) also: CatDVD: the video your cat, kitty or pet will love to watch on tv! It seems very funny, but I don't know if it's really works. Did someone test it? (via Watermark: CatLinks)

And the beautiful cat of the week this time are two: Libby and Max and they have a huge gallery of photos:

By the way, they use Soft Paws: a vinyl nail caps that glue on to your cat's claws. It's a alternative to cat scratches. I thought about try to find it in Brazil, but I was not sure about stay alive after try to put nail caps in Melanie's nails. Now I think it's better she destroys the sofa scratching.

To more cute images of cats and other fluffy and not so fluffy animal visit the Friday Ark.

A wonderful weekend to everybody!

Update: SB, from Watermark suggested one more great link for KittyPorn - Spike & His Bear -- X Rated.

Posted by Bibi on March 18, 2005 02:34 PM in Cats, Collage, Friday Cat Blogging, Video ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging and Friday Ark!

Let's start with a quiz that I saw in Emmy's Weblog:

What kind of Cat Parent are you?

Insane Cat Lady: Yes, you are insane but your cats are probably happier than any other cats on the planet! Maybe you should try interacting with some HUMANS once in awhile...

Wild ride ends happily: did you read this story? Amazing, but I'm not so sure if it's real. Anyway, it is very interesting.

To "relax" on the weekend, some music videos of heavy metal cat rock band Litterbox: On the prowl, bag of bones, scratch, marked territory and four on the floor. A little weird, but very fun. (Thanks for the links Fletch!)

Those who have cats know that there are some people completely crazy about their cats. If this can be measured by the number of photos that someone take of her/his cats, I know someone like that and I'm sure that the responsible of Mrrrriiiaauuw?? is crazy about them. Lots of photos of the cats and kitties doing cute things, for example, Kedua playing:

I found some tips for those who have cats:
- How to trim your cat's claws.
- Review: Juvenile felis catus, or kitten - a kind of manual with photos, analysis, tips and a comparison among a kitten, a puppy, a baby and a new video card,
- CAT Users' Manual: User Installation and Maintenance Documentation. One of the best manuals that I ever read.

And the beautiful cat of the week is Buffy Boy, the cat that fights against the evil fluffy monsters, that knows programming, likes music (or CDs), books and videos, likes to be a laptop and was elected by me after this beautiful pose:

And remember to visit Modulator: Friday Ark to see more links of furry and not so furry animals.

Posted by Bibi on March 11, 2005 06:37 AM in Animals, Animation, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Quizzes, Video, Weird, Weird ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging! Start seeing more link of cute and fluffy friends on Friday Ark.

This week ther are some links and some photos of cats. Starting with Basil - the cat that doesn't understand that the box is smaller than he.

Some fun on Flickr: three comic strips about cats.

Suggestion: don't start the weekend stressed. Relax with the purrr on CD: CatPurring:

Purrr is a sixty-minute journey into relaxation. The album contains three tracks of high-quality purring recorded at a sophisticated sound studio and expertly mastered. The total runtime is just over an hour.

One more suggestion of CD: Music for cats and friends - music for your cat enjoy.

Maybe we are being manipulated for our cute cats:
Cats are domesticated animals that have learned what levers to push, what sounds to make to manage our emotions. Read the article.

Weird cat animations: Kitty Cat Dance and hiss of death. (via The Cartoonist)

And the beautiful cat of the week is Petey:

Posted by Bibi on March 4, 2005 07:23 AM in Animation, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Fun, Fun, Weird, Weird ||

Happy Friday Cat Blogging! Happy Friday Ark!

This week I choose just a few links about cats. Starting with a cute photo story: The cats and the new box.

Let's shop! Mama Meow has a lot of cool stuff for cat lovers and you can buy online(I like this).

Do you want more info about cats? Try Catclub. Information and fun about cats for cat lovers of all ages.

Or try the Meowsette:

A place for neighborhood chat for the extraordinary cat. Grab a comfy pillow, a bowl of your favorite munchies, put your feet up...all four of them...and relax as you catch up on the latest kitty mews, discover new products designed especially for cats, read through the purrsonals, and find out about upcoming events you won't want to miss!

Cats and candles. WildWaxWorks has beautiful cat candles: white cats, ginger cats and black cats - for all tastes.

And the beautiful cat of the week is Bianca Bus

Posted by Bibi on February 25, 2005 12:32 PM in Animals, Cats, Friday Cat Blogging, Fun, Fun ||

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. Jeff Valdez. More quotations about cats here.

Happy Friday Cat Blogging! And Happy Friday Ark! And no more sweet and cute kitties. This is the week of is the evil cats, the Mean Kitty week. Starring Spike:

Tips about cats:

- Do you know how to feed your cat with Linux? If you don't, read How I Feed My Cats with Linux.
- One more tip about cats: How to Toilet-Train Your Cat.
- And the last: Rules for straycats! - Strict, Unbending Rules For Dealing With Stray Cats.

More stuff about cats:

- Cat Writers' Association, Inc. is an organization of professionals writing, publishing and broadcasting about cats.
- Cat Collectors: an international organization established in 1982 for people who enjoy collecting cat figurines, books, artwork, advertisements, calendars, postcards, paper products, stamps, needlework, jewelry, antiques, bottles, teapots, and other items which bear a cat motif.

And the beautiful, but evil, cat of the week is my sweet Melanie: