I can haz soot?

[susie_flo]

Yesterday G and I took delivery of a big, ginger puffball belonging to a friend.  It's v. strange having a pusscat back in the house just after I'd got used to being without one.  Her name is Jinjarella (Jinja for short) and we're cat-sitting her for a week in our place.  

Note the sooty whiskers...




She's scared of her own shadow and spent the entire first day hiding behind the sofa.  When I coaxed her out she went and hid behind the toilet instead.  Eventually, after a bit more coaxing, she decided I was not such a bad sort and started to purr before doing a full patrol of the flat.

She was very thorough.  Not a single nook or cranny was left uninvestigated.  When we were trying to watch the Uni C grand final, we heard a scrabbling noise and looked over to see her disappearing up the chimney.  Today she is a bit more chilled but the slightest noise still sends her scuttling for safety.  (e.g. she heard a dog bark outside and went straight back up the chimney).

And if you don't believe me, I haz evidence...    farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4496126579_a36d8137c4_o.jpg


Apart from that, I've hibernated for the whole of the Easter weekend.  I've been feeling very odd and antisocial lately, so I did something I haven't done in years - I wrapped myself up in a game.  I'm finally playing Fallout 3 on my Xbox, which is so entertaining that I suspect even non-gamers might enjoy it.

I get to live in a post-apocalytic wasteland, interacting with people, exploring, solving problems, gunslinging and behaving in whatever way appeals.  Currently I am so saintly that there is a little picture of Jesus on my status page and people keep giving me presents.  I've rescued countless people from baddies and keep giving water to elderly tramps.  As a result the baddies hate me, but I've built up my gun skills to the extent that I can run around like a gun-crazed ninja all day taking the heads off evil mutants while listening to vintage choons on the radio.  WIN!  I'm also becoming quite good at hacking computers and lockpicking.

One of my current tasks is to find a home for an orphaned boy.  G likes to advise me on what to do next and has read on the interweb that I have an option of selling  him into slavery...  (I might re-play the game sometime as an out-and-out baddie.)

Amusingly, G's attitude in the game is not unlike his behaviour in real life.  When we first moved into our real-life flat there were 1001 things that needed doing to make it lovely and liveable in.  Much to my chagrin, G insisted that the top priority was doing the loft floor so that it could be used as storage.  As it turned out he was competely right... we would have died without that storage space during the years of DIY.

Anyway he's exactly the same in the game and spent much of Easter Sunday nagging me to disarm a nuclear bomb so that I could be rewarded with a house to use as storage for all of my heavy weaponry.  (It turns out he was quite right... again.)   I even have a robot butler who tells me nerdy jokes on request.  (A neutron orders a beer and the barman says "No charge")

The only flaw is that the game programmers have made less effort for people who choose to play as a girl.   Although the significant characters are programmed to react to me as a woman, the minor characters are a bit dim.  Hence  I am surrounded by women offering me hokey-sounding sex while the men punch me on the shoulder and tell me I'm a great "guy".  On the plus side, I have acquired a pet dog called Dogmeat who goes and finds me ammo or drugs on request.

Oh good grief...  the cat has just fled up the chimney again upon hearing a flyer being pushed through the letterbox.   (One of these days I might get a photo of her with her head popping out of there, looking like Ceiling Cat.)

Comments

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

1) IM IN UR CHIMNEY, COLLECTIN UR SMUTS

2) CHIMNEY CAT SAYS SHTEP IN TOIME MAORI PARPINS

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

If I get a decent pic, I'm tempted to send no. 2 into "I can haz cheezburger". I think it's worthy!

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Henrijk used to do this. I have now taped paper across the inside of the chimney so he can't.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

My previous cat was so sedentary and biddy-like that she never gave me this much trouble. (Whereas yours look like the sort of overly-curious pedigree cats that get up to major mischief)

[chiller.livejournal.com]

My lot are nuts - the orientals are known for it, and the bicolours even more than the others. Anton and Hen had a brotherly chase session this morning that meant I had both of them running straight up the hall walls and kicking off at head height. They're stunt cats. But they're also very gentle and try very hard to avoid landing on people.

Thank god I don't have wallpaper. Or a nervous disposition.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Hah, those chimney pics are fab! She may be a scaredy-cat, but she's absolutely beautiful too. And so is your fireplace!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (I should really try and get a little video of her nex time)

[sara-lou.livejournal.com]

Too, too, too cute,

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

She is indeed very cute ...when she's visible, that is.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

She looks utterly adorable.
Brezeska once climbed up a chimney and left sooty pawprints everywhere afterwards, some of which were in very inaccesible places and I have no idea how she managed to get there - eg edge of ceiling long distance away from the bookcase.

I like the idea of a dog called Dogmeat.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Jinja keeps disappearing - considering how small our place is she's a total jinja ninja when it comes to lurking unseen

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Mapp can hide in a room with nothing else in it but Lucia isn't so good at hiding as her huge fluffy ridiculous tail invariably gives her away.

[r0ck3tsci3ntist.livejournal.com]

Pretty cat! And I LOVE you fireplace! Is it working?

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you (re: fireplace). It is working in a cheating sort of way... essentially it is fitted with a gas mechanism so that it looks like a real fire but the coals are in fact made of some heat-storing material that lasts years and it just switches on and off.

[r0ck3tsci3ntist.livejournal.com]

Lucky! The surround is very pretty. Is it original to the flat or new? I need to find some like that someday for my fireplaces because they were originally coal burning.

ps - I'd think about sticking something up there to block the cat. SOmetimes they'll get a crazy idea and go all the way up. God only knows why.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hi, yes as far as I know the fireplace is original (the flat was built in 1901) but at some point somebody has inserted a concealed gas valve, under the grate.

You're right - I could stick something up there as we're unlikely to have the fire on in April... (even with British weather).

I have seen fireplaces similar to mine for sale at reclaim places, so I bet you could find something that is in keeping with the age of your house.

[sara-lou.livejournal.com]

Yay for new blog theme!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I just changed it again... was trying out templates.
What do u think of this one?

[sara-lou.livejournal.com]

The only problem with the last one was the ludicrous size and colour it applied to the font in the comments box... and this is still fine. Working templates FTW.

[childeric.livejournal.com]

Oo, it's so right to put flooring in the attic as soon as you move into a place. That's what I did in mine. It makes things so much easier!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

This is obviously man-wisdom. Cos left to myself I would probably have started on interior design and then thought "oh bugger... where can I put all this DIY stuff?"

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Aw, bless.

[whiteshadow.livejournal.com]

That kittie is just so cute .... Reminds me of the tale of Tom Kitten!