Melbourne: Part 1

As you know, I sent Kate to Melbourne a few weeks ago to investigate the local cat culture. After all the busyness of Christmas, I've finally had time to sit down and go through her findings. As you would expect, there weren't too many cats to be found in the CBD... not real cats, anyway. There were, however, a good number of VHQCTs (very high-quality cat tributes) to be found:

This VHQCT shop display is from a store called Genki in Cathedral Arcade off Swanston St (right in the city, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Melbs...). Kate says that it sells 'really cute stuff'.

This might be in slightly poor taste, but this shop on Brunswick St, Fitzroy was trying to solicit custom by displaying a tiger's head rug in its window! (Don't worry guys, I checked with Kate, it's fake. Although they do have real tigers at the Melbourne Zoo, including three new tiger cubs that aren't yet on display.)

But by far the best and most high-quality VHQCT was this awesome piece of graffitti art that Kate found in an alley off Centre Place, which runs between Flinders Lane and Collins Street and has lots of funky little shops and cafes. I think it is some kind of cat god. I think the artist based it (loosely) on me, what with all the browns and blacks. Apart from this amazing cat tribute, Kate said that there's lots of other non-cat-related graffitti in this alley that's worth checking out if you're ever in Melbourne, which I don't ever intend to be, because that's what Kate is for.

I'm thinking of sending Kate to Melbourne again when the tiger cubs are on display in the New Year. Meanwhile, stay tuned for Part 2 of Kate's report from Melbourne, which features some real live Melbourne cats!

Cheers,
--Pabs

A very Pabby Christmas...

I don't really do Christmas. As you can see from poor Kate's attempts to take my 'Christmas portrait' to submit to our local newspaper:

Tinsel is spiky. It puts me on edge.

I think she was going for some kind of Godzilla thing here...

But I kinda got into the Christmas spirit a coupla days ago when I got a present from my small human friend Elijah. People call him Liji Beau. I think his mum helped him with the card and the wrapping...

This was what was inside: a red mousie! I love it. Thanks, Liji Beau!

And this was a thoughtful present from my friend Sarah. It's a great read (sorry for the slightly out-of-focus pic).

So like Macaulay Calkin before me, I'm home alone for Christmas. But unlike Macaulay, I'm not ordering cheese pizzas to keep me going. Aunty Tracey and Uncle Simon are going to be checking in on me/feeding me/ letting me in and out twice daily. Sweet! The rest of the time, I can hang out undisturbed. And it's not THFC! It actually snowed today on our mountain (not in the town). Fancy that in the middle of summer! But Nick and Kate missed out on that. Sucked in.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to the cats of the world (and dogs, especially Sidney and Sherman), their housepeople and my loyal Pablog readership. May your chickens be fat and cooked to perfection! As always, a special Christmas hello to my Pablo Fan Club chairfelines, Phoebe and Monica.

Cheers,

--Pabs

Goodbye Jupe...

Jupe in his West Hobart days

It is with heavy whiskers that I share the news that the West Hobart Tigers has lost one of its non-playing members. Jupe Richardson (a former West Hobart resident who retired to the seaside town of Kettering in late 2005), was accidentally run over and killed just a few weeks ago. Jupe was a fine cat, and a very skilful hunter. We could learn a lot from him. Since moving to Kettering, where his grandpa has an awesome property, he has been hunting and killing rabbits regularly, even catching one on the day before he died! I've never caught a rabbit. I bet it's awesome. So goodbye, Jupe! As we say here at the Tigers, 'Go forward to kicks the goal!' Our thoughts go out to Damon, Tineke, Django and Steve – Jupe’s human family.

A super duper special

Attention, shoppers: Whiskas tinned cat food is on super-duper special at Woolworths supermarkets in Tasmania this week at just 79 cents a can! That's a saving of 56 cents per can. Tell your housepeople! Their semi-regular special is 99 cents. A few weeks ago, it was 89 cents, and now this! At these prices, Kate bought up big:

Now, there's a trap for young players when it comes to buying tinned cat food on special: watch out for the 'casserole' or 'mince' varieties. Don't get sucked into buying them. Always go the loaf style. The others (especially the casserole variety) are just filled with gravy and are thus a rip-off, as well as being a bit too rich for cats' tummies (mine, anyway).

... and don't forget that the Hobart Cat Centre cat food drive is still on at Woolworths. This special makes it even more affordable to help out the local strays. Why not do it today?

In other news, I'm sending Kate to Melbourne tomorrow on a cat culture reconnaisance mission. I'm letting her take my digital camera so she can document the profile of felines in Australia's coolest city. She'll be back on Sunday. Look out for a report from her when she returns! Meanwhile, Nick will have to feed me and care for my needs, which he pretends to hate but secretly loves.

Cheers,
--Pabs

Some local catvertising...

This billboard ad is part of the current Betta Milk advertising campaign. Betta Milk is the only locally-owned milk company in Tasmania. The premise of the campaign is that Betta Milk tastes so good that Tasmanians want to stop tourists from smuggling it out of the state when they leave... so they've deployed a Betta Milk Protection Squad, complete with 'sniffer cat', to keep our milk in Tasmania. Not a bad idea, I have to admit. I was really stoked when I heard that a cat was going to feature in the new Betta Milk campaign (it's a great boost for the profile of cats in Tasmania), but I have to say that I'm a touch disappointed with the realisation of the concept. There's a few reasons for this:

• The choice of cat. I really don't think that a longfurcat would work as a sniffer cat (or work anywhere, for that matter). Don't get me wrong... some of my best friends are longfurcats (shout out to Monica and Phoebe here). Longfurcats just weren't made to work. They were meant to lounge on cushions and look glamorous. A shortfurcat (like me, for example. Or my little pal Beto), would have looked much more realistic. Although I wouldn't be seen dead in that jacket!
• The cat is a pretty major component of both the print and TV ads. But there's no decent close-ups of the cat in the TV ad. And the guy talks too much. What a waste! I think they should ditch the man and have a voiceover of the cat's internal monologue instead (no appalling mechanical talking cat, please!)
  
• The perpetuation of the myth that cats have an affinity with milk. I don't like milk. Never have. No cat Kate has ever had liked milk. I've heard that cow's milk is bad for cats, anyway. Is this true? Do any of you like milk?

Great to see a cat plastered all over the billboards of Hobart, though.
Cheers,
--Pabs

An inconvenient truth?

[Will global warming turn my fur pink? Sure, it looks good in a Warhol-style portrait, but permanently?]

I'm a bit worried.

The housepeople have been talking lots lately about something called 'global warming'. At first, I thought it sounded awesome... I had visions of some elaborate worldwide air conditioning system that would standardise the global temperature to PTFC all year round (Perfect temperature for cats: 22degC. That's around 71.6degF for my Northern Hemispherean cousins). That would be sweet. But global warming won't be like that in reality. Here's just a few reasons that I think global warming will probably be bad for cats:

1) More erratic weather patterns: Those of you in Australia will know what I'm talking about, given our weather in the last few months. 32 degrees, strong winds and bushfires one day, rain, hail, strong winds and snow the next! Fewer PTFC days, waaay too many THFC days (Too hot for cats). And a bit of wind is great (it carries a lot of interesting smells along with it) but strong winds mess up my fur and put my whiskers out of order.

2)Melting of polar ice caps > rising sea levels: especially bad for cats who live on small islands/low-lying/coastal areas/near the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. I hate getting my paws wet!! This will result in territory loss, and more cats competing for less territory. It will be all work and no play.

3) I can't see these things being very good for our prey, either. Farmers won't be able to grow chickens and cows and turkeys in drought conditions. On the positive side, I have heard that it will be good for pest animals like flies and mice and rats, which I love to catch. But we'll have to hunt more for our food, which will again reduce important sleeping time.

I don't think it's a risk that we can afford. What are your thoughts, cats of the world?

--Pabs

Not the first princess to grace West Hobart...

As those of you in Australia and Denmark would be aware, Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary and Prince Christian arrived in Tasmania for a private holiday today. Their first destination? West Hobart, of course! They've spent the day here visiting Princess Mary's sister Jane, who lives in this, the finest of Hobart's inner suburbs. Local people are so excited... one of Jane's neighbours was so amped up about the media circus that she forgot to put bicarb soda in her banana cake! I kid you not.

Out of respect for the privacy of the Danish Royal Family, the West Hobart Tigers decided not to hold an official feline welcoming party for them. Even though we're extremely keen to open a dialogue with the cats of Denmark, we (and when I say 'we', I mean 'me') know what it's like to have unwanted public attention foisted upon you. Anyway, it's not that big a deal to have a princess in West Hobart. One used to live here:

Princess lived in on the Westside for a number of years at the turn of the century (apart from a stint in a Sandy Bay student sharehouse where I briefly took over from her as the cat-in-residence in 2002, just before my own move to West Hobart with Nick and Kate). So although I didn't meet her, I know what she used to smell like. Princess (sometimes known as Princess Poo) was a truly legendary cat; a cat of consummate style and glamour (much like 'Our Mary'), as well as a skilful hunter (I don't know if 'Our Mary' can compete there). I plan to do a feature on Princess as part of an exciting new series on this blog in 2007- stay tuned! But for now, witness the glamour and beauty of this legendary lady of West Hobart. (N.B. Princess didn't ever play for the Tigers, but was a long-time patron and was awarded retrospective Life Membership upon her disappearance into the wilds of Knocklofty in late 2002.)

Cheers,
--Pabs

My international fan base...

Meet Phoebe and Monica, the co-chairs of my official fan club in the USA. They've constructed a blog in my honour! You'll find the link on the Links sidebar on the right of this page. While I'm flattered, I think they're making romantic overtures towards me! I think they're just carried away with the success of Mike and Christine's online romance. Could an online romance work for cats? I have had the offer of a long-distance romance before, but that's a story for another time.
Cheers,
--Pabs

L'amour sans frontiers...

On behalf of Pablo Enterprises and the Southern Feline Football League, I'd like to offer my furriest congratulations to Mike and Christine, who have just announced their engagement. A match made in cyberspace. I'm currently negotiating with them for the rights to the movie about their romance. Am trying to use it as a ruse to reunite Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe. Or Brad and Jennifer. Or Tom and Nicole. Or Johnny and Wynona. Or Uma and Ethan. Or Kylie and Jason. Or Paul and Heather. Or Angelina and Billy Bob...

Anyway, congrats, guys.
--Pabs

Pablo: A friend to the needy

Just a quick community service announcement to let those of you living in the Hobart area know that the Hobart Cat Centre is currently staging its annual cat food/fundraising drive at local Woolworths supermarkets. You'll see the donation bins near the supermarket entrance (having never been to Woolworths, or any supermarket for that matter, I'm relying on Kate's memory and spatial skills for the accuracy of this information. Apologies if she's got it wrong. She does make mistakes, conrtary to her self-appraisal). The Cat Centre are after donations of tinned cat food and/or cash. **Please note, kittens at the Centre prefer to eat food that does not contain fish, because fish upsets their tummies**

I urge all supermarket-going people to seriously consider making a donation of some kind to the Cat Centre, which does a lot of great work rescuing, caring for and re-housing the stray cats and kittens of Hobart. I'm not asking you to permanently divert your giving to human causes to cat causes (although I'd like to), I'm just asking you to remember the stray cats of Hobart this Christmas. You know why? BECAUSE IT'S HUMANS' FAULT THAT THERE ARE SO MANY STRAY CATS IN THE FIRST PLACE. People don't get their cats neutered. People take on a cat without properly considering whether they can adequately care for it for the duration of its life. PEOPLE DUMP UNWANTED CATS AS IF THEY ARE RUBBISH. You want evidence that cats are affected by The Fall? (apart from death and sickness, thanks humans!) There it is. Stray cats give Cats in General a really bad name due to the damage they do to wildlife, but it's not their fault! A cat's gotta live, any way it can. Who dumped them? Who stopped looking after them?

Become part of the solution. Step up to your God-given responsibilities as stewards of God's creation! Help stray cats in your area!

I've now got a link to the Hobart Cat Centre in the 'links' section of this blog. Check it out to find out more info on how you can help our local strays. If you're not in Hobart, please consider giving to a cats' home in your local area.

Thanks for your time,
--Pabs

They bought me a digital camera!!

It's true! They must have felt bad about not being able to afford a bigger, better headquarters for Pablo Enterprises, so a digital camera is my consolation. So now you get to see more pictures of me doing all the everyday things that I do so well...

This is me eating

This is me having my nightly post-dinner lickbath on MY chair

Hmm... this is just a bit too close

Anyway, I'm stoked because this camera is the key to my new cyber-Pablicity campaign. It means you'll be seeing a whole lot more of me on the internet, and hopefully the boys from the Tigers, too. Stay tuned!

--Pabs

No pets

The expansion of Pablo Enterprises has hit a snag.

Intolerant landlords.

I was hoping to relocate the Pablo Enterprises headquarters in West Hobart to bigger premises somewhere in the greater Hobart area, preferably inner-city (I don't think I'm much of an outer suburbs kind of cat, frankly). But those plans have now been shelved due to the irrational bias of the landlords of Hobart against pets.

Above are just a few damning examples of the kind of intolerance that pets requiring decent housing face EVERY DAY. ( I realise that there's one there that doesn't say 'no pets'. But give me a break. You try using scissors without opposable thumbs!)

If it was up to me, these landlords would be NAMED and SHAMED... but Kate made me censor the phone numbers of these heartless despots. I'm currently waiting to hear back from Naomi Robson of Today Tonight to see if she wants to come and do a story on the issue. It's an outrage, a story that no Australian can afford to miss! Everyone knows that pets (cats, anyway) increase the value and prestige of a property.

When Pablo Enterprises gets a better cash flow, I'm going to buy a house and put an ad in the paper to lease it out. And guess what the ad is going to say? 'No people' (or 'No people without a cat'. That's less catchy though. We'll see).

But every cloud has a silver lining. As I'm staying on in West Hobart, the West Hobart Tigers Organising Committee has renewed my contract for season 2007. Unanimous vote. I'm stoked. Thanks, boys!
Cheers,
Pabs

...and that's why you don't rub my tummy

What was she thinking?

Kate, of all people, knows the Seven Commandments of Pablo Touching:
1. No rubbing or scratching of the tummy- even when asleep.
2. No pulling of the tail- even when asleep.
3. Any kind of interference with the whiskers is a no go.
4. Don't pick me up in that way.
5. Don't pick me up (in any way) and sing to or about me and/or dance with me.
6. Especially to ABBA music (bad memories from my first housepeople, Nikki and Heidi).
7. Is that seven yet?

She SO should have known better. Next time, maybe.
-- Pabs

Stringplay

Apart from eating, sleeping and rumblin' with the Tigers, this is my favourite thing to do.

It's called stringplay.

I don't think that this still image (left) does stringplay justice... though even I have to admit that I look pretty damn fine mid-pounce. Stringplay's just so dynamic and fast-paced. How it works is I get one of the housepeople to sort of fling the string around and I chase it. It's great indoor training for hunting and rumbling. I can do awesome pounces, leaps and turns when I get going. I've experimented with various media in the string genre over the years: twine, ribbon, wool... but for weight, flight, claw-ability and chew-ability, you can't go past shoelaces. Long ones.

So that's stringplay. It keeps me sharp and looking fine. And it's wicked fun. Stringplay: try it sometime!
--Pabs

Sign o' the times...

It's a scary world we live in. Scary times. I know that September 11 is the anniversary of some big bad event in the human world (it happened in 2001- I was a youngcat in Liverpool St then, didn't really pay attention to world affairs), but I'd like to use the platform afforded to me by this infamous date to bring another 'sinister force' to your attention...

Cat hate.

The notices to the left of this writing were cowardly and anonymously left on the desk of my houseperson Kate at her office at work. Each was left on a separate occasion. It's obviously calculated cat vilification, aimed at making cats and their people feel threatened and vulnerable. You probably can't see the small print at the bottom of these notices, but each one is attributed to the Dog Defence League and is authorised by 'A. Dog'. In the words of GOB Bluth and Lleyton Hewitt, 'come ON'. 'A. Dog'. As if cats can't see through that. It's just like dogs to come out and slag off cats without being big enough to put their own name to it. As if we're threatened by it. Yawn, Dog Defence League. Yawn, 'A. Dog'. Lame-o. You want to be us, but you can't be us, so you hate us.

Felines and ailurophiles of cyberspace, join me in a large, cat food breath-tinged 'yawn' at the Dog Defence League! Then lick your private parts, turn through 180 degrees and assume a sleeping potition.

Yawn.

--Pabs
P.S. if you don't know who GOB Bluth is, Wikipedia 'Arrested Development'. Rent it on DVD. It rules.

Don't mind doin' it for the kids...

[Me in the jungles of West Hobart, circa 2002]

It seems that this blog has generated a considerable amount of controversy among the cats of Hobart (those with net access, anyway). If you've been reading the comments made on this blog, you'll notice that I've even received some hate mail! Turns out that it was from a little guy called Beto who lives in Sandy Bay. His whiskers were in a bit of a twist because he thought I was copying him by starting this blog. It's all sorted now, though. Poor kid was just jealous of my success. Who could blame him?

Anyway, I've agreed to help him out by plugging his blog here on my site. Happy to help a young up-and-comer join the self-promotion caper. It's quite good, for a kitten. It tells the story of a little guy from the sticks who moves to the big smoke to make something of himself, and features some great photos of Beto as a kitten with his mum and siblings. You can access Beto's blog by clicking the link on the right hand side of my blog. There's some other great cat-related links there, too. Check them out!

[This is a photo of young Beto in his home yard on the NW coast of Tassie. Comparing this photo with the photo of me above, you can see that he's styled himself on me from an early age. Again, who can blame him?]

Cheers,
--Pabs

A tribute to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter

[This is a photo of me in the jungles of West Hobart that I sent to Steve Irwin to see if he would like to come and collaborate with me on a show about ...me. And the other West Hobart Tigers. But featuring me. Sadly, Steve's death today means that this can never be...]

The West Hobart Tigers dip their ears, whiskers and tails as a mark of respect to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, who died today doing what he loved, filming a nature documentary off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Now, you might not think that 'domestic' cats would have any regard for a naturalist like Steve, and I'm sure he held a very dim view of us, given our 'effects' on the natural environment and endangered species; it's true, we have not always seen eye to eye (a cat's gotta eat, Steve!). However, we acknowledge the contribution Steve made to the protection of animals the world over, especially tigers, our big brothers and sisters who are in a lot of trouble in the world these days. If everyone cared about animals as much as he did, the world would be a kick-ass place. And so, as spokescat for the West Hobart Tigers and Pablo Enterprises, I send my very best purrs to Terri, Bindi Sue and Bob. SFFL players and patrons please note: one minute's yowling will be held at all SFFL matches this weekend in Steve's honour. Cheers.
--Pabs.

New collar

[Photo of me in my old collar at my old house, circa 2002]

Hi. Pabs again.
I got a new collar last week.
Nobody even asked me if I wanted one.
It's not that different from my old collar, so I guess it's no big deal. It's black and shiny. My last one was black and felt a bit like furry skin. Suede, Kate called it. But this one is like leather. I don't think it is leather, though. I don't think that BigW in Kingston sells leather cat collars.

When my housepeople came home with my new collar, they took the old one off me and let me walk around in the nude for a bit. It felt nice, like when I was a kitten. I feel in touch with my wild cat ancestors when I don't have a collar on. It's nice just to be an anonymous cat every now and then. Sometimes it gets very tiring being Pablo, bearing all the responsibilities that being Pablo entails. But that's a story for another time.

I was a bit scared when they brought out the new collar, because it was a ringing collar. I hate ringing collars. Some cats have them, you know. Poor bastards. They can't sneak up on anyone so they can't fight properly and they can't hunt properly... I've instituted a 'no ringing collars' rule for the West Hobart Tigers. It puts some cats out, but we can't lower our standards. You don't see James Hird or Brendan Fevola running around the MCG with a ringing collar, do you?

Anyway, the ringing collar. It scared the kitty litter out of me at first because I thought that there was another cat inside. I looked and looked and sniffed and sniffed around the lounge room, but nothing. Then I saw the ringing collar. I thought I was done for. Skinny Ginge and Graham White would never let me keep on as Captain/Coach of the Tigers if I had a ringing collar. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends have ringing collars, but I'm just not that kind of cat. Thankfully, Kate knows that, and she took the ring out of the collar before she put it on me, even when Nick begged her to put the ringing collar on me for a little while, 'just to see what I would do'. Pounced on him with my claws out, that's what I would have done.

To cut a long story short, the new collar's ok, though it took a good few days to get my fur nicely arranged around it. Always takes a while to break in a new collar. Black goes well with my stripes, too. Kate put my name tag on the new collar, so everyone knows that I'm Pablo.
And that's the way I like it... most of the time.
Cheers,
Pabs

Don't read this if you can't handle gross things

I vomited today.

Twice. Inside. Under the table.

No one was home.

It looked like (and basically was) liquid cat food, but a bit redder.

Don't worry. I'm not sick or anything. It's just something cats do sometimes. A little vom. Today, I think it was due to a hairball -- no, a bit of hair just caught the wrong way. I'd actually forgotten all about it when Kate discovered it tonight. Lucky Nick wasn't home. He's not so understanding about these things. He would have put me outside.

Like that would have solved anything!

Kate was funny. After she wiped up the solid bits, she put all this food on top of the stain to try and get it out! Rubbed stuff called bran (smelled rank) into the carpet, left it there for a bit, vacuumed it up, wiped vinegar on it (smelled even ranker), poured bicarb on it (didn't smell like anything). Left it there for a bit. Vacuumed again. I think she was trying out stuff she heard about on the cleaning talkback program on the radio. I don't know what any of that stuff is, I just know the names because Kate was talking me through the whole freaking process. Like I cared. It only kind of worked, anyway. You can still see it. I was happy to leave it there. Why bother? It's only vomit. I might've eaten it tomorrow.

Anyway, I hate the vacuum cleaner.
--Pabs

my first post

Hi. My name is Pablo. I'm a six-year-old cat from West Hobart, Tasmania. I've been wanting to do this blogging thing for ages now, but my housepeople (Nick and Kate) are always on the computer... and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to type with paws! So I saved up my pocket money and bought some meow-recognition software, so I'm now finally good to go. It is my vision that this blog becomes a platform for the promotion of my business interests (Pablo Enterprises), my football team (West Hobart Tigers- I'm captain/coach this year) and the general advancement of cat culture and ideology. That's all for now, I'm due for a feed.
Hope it's chicken!
Until next time,
Pablo
(PS big shout out to Blackie, Skinny Ginger, Fat Ginger and Graham White... 'Go forward to kicks the goal, boys!')