This is probably why you shouldn't try to lick someone's balls without permission.

Purr-fect station chief brings passengers back

TOKYO - A money-losing Japanese train company has found the purr-fect pet mascot to draw crowds and bring back business — tabby Tama.

All the 9-year-old female cat does is sit by the entrance of Kishi Station in western Japan, wearing a black uniform cap and posing for photos for the tourists who are now flocking in droves from across the nation.

Tama has been doing such a good job of raising revenue for the troubled Kishikawa train line that she was recently promoted to "super-station-master."

"She never complains, even though passengers touch her all over the place. She is an amazing cat. She has patience and charisma," Wakayama Electric Railway Co. spokeswoman Yoshiko Yamaki told The Associated Press Monday. "She is the perfect station master."

Appointing a cat to turn around fortunes makes cultural sense in Japan, where cats are considered good luck and are believed to bring in business.

People are snatching up novelty goods — postcards, erasers, notebooks and pins — decorated with Tama's photos. There's even a special 1,365 yen ($13) book of photos of Tama called, "Diary of Tama, the Station Master."

The Kishikawa line had been losing $4.9 million a year as passenger numbers fell steadily to as low as about 5,000 a day, or some 1.9 million a year.

After Tama's appointment last year passengers have been gradually returning, recently rising 10 percent to about 2.1 million a year.

In December Tama was rewarded with bonus pay — all in cat food.

I have no doubt the trains run on time at this particular station. The station master comes out and sucks out the souls of any conductor unlucky enough to be late.

It's probably just a sad sign of our times that cats are put into managerial positions. Seeing as they're willing to work for cat food (and the opportunity to further to forces of darkness), more companies are likely to follow suit in catsourcing their labor. If you thought that calling customer service is a nightmare now because of call centers in India, just wait a few months and see what happens when it's staffed by lolcats.

I am sort of curious what the next level of promotion is for Tama. I mean, there's station master and then super station master. What's next? I'm betting it'll be happy lucky super sparkle station master. They'll probably also allocate it one magical transformation per day and the ability to wield a 5-foot long sword.

Every couple of months, I feel this weird compulsion to head over to craig's list and see what the morons there are up to. The chaos on the site never fails to boggle my mind. I've seen plenty of people who claim they're able to sell items on the site and that it's better than eBay, but it just looks like the shittiest classifieds in the world. The sort you'd see printed up in those free papers that hobos try to sell to tourists for a dollar on the streets.

Anyway, the only redeeming part of the entire site is the 'best of' section where they pull and itemize the weirdest entries made in the recent past. That's where I found out about the catbus.

I HAVE A 1995 MO' VAN THAT GOT TRANSFORMED INTO THIS CATBUS. I BROUGHT IT TO A SHOPS AND I WAS LIKE HEY, CAN YOU TURN THIS INTO A CATBUS? SO THEY DID. THEN THAT DAY I DROVE IT HOME. THE CAT BUS ONLY HAS 50K, WHICH ARE ALL HIGHWAY MILES AS I DROVE IT TO WORK 2 DAYS A WEEK AND THAT WAS IT. IT'S IN REALLY GOOD SHAPE AND ALL THE FUR IS STILL ALL THERE. THE STEERING WHEEL HAS A CAT ON IT. IM ONLY ASKING 2900 FOR THE CATBUS BECAUSE ITS REALLY FURRY AND SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET SICK ON IT.

Well, you can't tell me that's not pretty fucked up. And yet....I have to admit that there something interesting about the idea of someone driving this thing to work, or anywhere for that matter. It's almost like having an Oscar Meyer weinermobile. Still, I'm sure that this is one of those things best admired from a far. It's no surprise that people sometimes 'get sick on it'.

I think I want to borrow someone's cat. I'm not quite sure how you would usually go about something like that. It's not exactly like going next door and asking if you could have a cup of sugar or borrow a ladder. Still, I think it's absolutely vital that I manage to acquire myself a cat and a giant roll of masking tape. I ran across this video last night and I'm really anxious to give it a try.



You've just gotta love the japanese. They come up with some of the most interesting things. I'm curious to find out if you wrap the cat's entire body with tape, does it implode.

Misfired artillery crashes into girl's bed

JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (AP) -- A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.

No people were injured when the two-pound piece hit the Jefferson Township home about two-and-a- half miles from the Picatinny Arsenal and landed in the girl's bed, said Peter Rowland, arsenal spokesman. She wasn't home, but her cat was sleeping on the bed.

The homeowner told authorities she heard a loud noise around 2:40 p.m. and found the 6-by-4-inch object.

Picatinny officials told The Star-Ledger of Newark they were investigating. The base had been conducting tests Friday, and it wasn't immediately clear what type of artillery hit the home.

Picatinny is the site of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, whose mission is to conduct research, development and engineering for weapons systems.

Death from above! The counter revolution has begun and the military is on our side. No doubt they were developing secret cat-seeking explosive shells at the instillation and this was just a test run. Well, that or the family was sick of trying to keep the cat off the furniture. We can be relatively sure it's never going to shed on the bed again.

Remember the tale of Ceiling Cat from a couple of weeks ago? I ran across an update to the story but haven't gotten around to posting it until now. It turns out that the furry menace was not just content to sit around and drive down property values through the stench of its corpse. It's since goaded the poor human residents to tear down a ceiling and knock holes in walls to pull it out.



Barring one of those crazy-ass cats that glow in the dark, this might be one of the most expensive satanic furball in existence. They should have just fumagated the place with something noxious and deadly and then pulled the corpse out with a bill hook. He'd never watch anyone masturbate again, that's for sure.

Ceiling Cat iz in yo house, wrecking ur property value.



Just wait until the stench of its rotting corpse kicks in. He's no doubt thinking, 'No wonder the old owners were so quick to sell.'

Purina is still absolutely certain that I have a cat. I just received another email today.

Dear HENRY,

Your kitten xanadu is now 13 months old!

Oh behave! How to have a perfect cat.
Unlike their canine counterparts, cats don't typically attend obedience schools. Fortunately, good manners come second nature to most cats. The key to a well-behaved cat is being consistent with your discipline and praise. Should your cat start misbehaving, there's usually a reason. Cats don't understand human concepts like revenge so if xanadu suddenly starts acting up, it could be caused by stress, separation anxiety, or illness.

Ya, if you cat starts misbehaving by sucking out your soul, there's a good reason for that. It's eeeeevil. You should then discipline it by applying the old burlap sack and twisty-tie treatment. Then proceed to the nearest river.

While that seems to be the easiest way to deal with things, Purina seems to think that bribery works better. I'm just not sure that a handful of 'Whisker Lickin's' will keep them from serving Satan.

This is almost enough for me to want to get a giant sackful of cats.



And luck for me, I know exactly where to go to acquire the cats. Thank you crazy cat lady.

70 Cats Seized From Unsanitary Home

Humane Society Officers Forced To Get Warrant For Cats

NORTH STRABANE, Pa. -- Washington County Humane Society officers removed more than 70 cats from a North Strabane home Friday, citing unsanitary conditions.

Humane Society officers said they were forced to get a warrant to enter the home along Acme Road.

Once inside, they said they began loading all the cats into crates and then took them to the Humane Society for evaluation.

Officers said the cats were well fed, but the home was filled with feces and garbage and was unsuitable for not only cats, but also humans.

"They all seem to be as far as good weight and there are some cats that are sick," said Vicki Schmalzried, with the Humane Society. "It's just that basically there are so many cats living in unsanitary conditions."

Humane Society officers said they are not sure if charges will be filed against the owner.

Once the cats are evaluated, they will be available for adoption.

Here's another gem from Craig's List:



My first thought reading this was WTF are cat hats? I know that people often choose to dress up their dogs in ridiculous looking outfits but I hadn't heard of a corresponding fetish for cats. Not to mention that a hat would seem to be the last thing you would want to try to strap on a cat seeing as they're usually neurotic as all fuck and will bite/scratch at a drop of a hat. Ha, no pun intended.

Lucky for all of us, the hapless individual saw fit to include photos of some of the hats, still sitting on the head of what I can only assume is the late Snowman. By the way, was anyone really surprised that this dingus lives in California?

( On to the cat hats )

I got an email today that disturbs me greatly. It was from the Purina Pet Food company and contianed the following:

Dear HENRY,
Your kitten xanadu is now 12 months old!

Happy Birthday to xanadu!
Happy 1st Birthday, dear xanadu! Your kitten is now officially an adult cat, so you'll want to schedule her annual visit to the veterinarian to make sure all of her vaccinations are up-to-date. You'll also want to transition her fully from kitten food to adult food. You can provide textures and flavors in her diet, by offering wet as well as dry adult food. With all this nutrition, great taste, and variety - it's a great time to be a Purina cat!

WTF? To my knowledge, I've never had a kitten in my life and now all of a sudden my kitten's become a cat? Even if I were insane enough to have a cat, why in the world would I name the damn thing Xanadu? That name is totally teh ghey.

At first I just chalked this up to some sort of spam or database error and went to delete it. Then I thought to myself...what if they're right? After all, this is a huge company with thousands of employees and makes millions of dollars a year. What if they know what they're talking about and there's actually been a cat somewhere in this house for the past year. If I haven't seen it all this time then it could only mean that it's purposely hiding from me. Since I haven't even caught so much as a glimpse, it may mean that the cat is invisible or has other supernatural powers. It probably only stalks in at night when I'm sleeping to try to suck out my soul. What I really need now is a bear trap.

Man Arrested After Cat Finds Child Porn Stash

AUSTIN — They say curiosity killed the cat — but one Texan feline's exploration of its new home helped uncover a huge stash of child porn.

The cat was snooping around its new flat in Austin, Texas, when it came across a gap in the wall.

The woman who owns the cat remarked on it to a friend, who put his hand into the gap and found a number of DVDs apparently hidden by the apartment's previous owner.

She took the discs to the police who discovered they contained child porn.

Officers tracked them to Luis Jimenez, who had moved out of the apartment some time earlier.

They say he probably forgot about the discs when he moved from the house.

Jimenez, 24, has been charged with possession of child pornography and was being held on $40,000 bail. Possession of child pornography is a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail and a fine up to $10,000. There was no attorney listed in Jimenez's jail file Friday.

Eh, I dunno. I think he has a pretty good defense lined up if he just claims that the child porn belonged to the cat. After all, we all know cats are capable of something like that and it was the cat that 'found' the stash. If possession is 9/10ths of the law, then it should work in this case too, no?

Now, I'm not suggesting that the cat actually made the videos, at least not until their evil breeding program manages to achieve opposable thumbs, but it might have hoarded a stash of it in order to frame innocent people. People report that their cats bring them dead animals after all, no doubt hoping the ASPCA will find out and think that the humans killed whatever it is, so I don't think it's a huge stretch that they might sneak into your home and leave child porn lying around. It's just another reason to remain vigillant and check your dvd's regularly and make sure fluffy hasn't added something to the pile.

Woman Drowns In Rain Barrel

SANTA FE, N.M. -- A woman drowned when she apparently tried to retrieve a kitten from a 55-gallon rain barrel at her home southeast of Santa Fe.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said 48-year-old Deborah Hill was found by her husband Sunday afternoon after he returned home from running errands. Solano said the couple had dragged the plastic barrel inside their home because they wanted to thaw ice that had formed in the barrel.

The barrel, which Solano said was tied to a door so it wouldn't tip, was about one-third full of water when the kitten fell in. Solano said Hill apparently was standing on something to reach down for the kitten when she slid in.

Which is exactly what the kitten had planned all along. Just think for a moment how diabolical this murder plot must've been. This woman was killed drowning in a fucking rain barrel! You know how I'm certain that this was a planned and calculated murder? Notice how they make no mention about that the kitten drowned as well. That's right. We all know they would have mentioned the dead cat as a human interest story if it had died as well. No doubt when the husband got home, the kitten was sitting on top of her lifeless corpse, looking pleased with itself. Frankly, now that it has had a taste of murder, I woudln't give the husband the life expectancy of a snowball in Hell. Within a month we'll find that he's died with his head in the oven, no doubt having gone in to 'rescue' the kitten. If I were his relatives, I'd be buying some pretty heavy duty life insurance for the guy. It's a sure bet.

Once again, the deluded hoards of the pro-demoncat lobby has perpetrated an obsenity upon righteous people everywhere. Just when you think there are depths to which they could not sink, they're waving to you from a new sub-basement.

The Philippines' taste for civet coffee

The Philippines has recently discovered it produces one of the world's most expensive and coveted kinds of coffee. But it comes from an unusual source - the droppings of a nocturnal, cat-like animal called the palm civet. Civets, related to the mongoose, are usually seen as pests in the Philippines and hunted for their meat. But their droppings are worth their weight in gold. Known locally as alamid, civets are carnivorous but they also have a taste for the sweet, red coffee cherries that contain the beans.

The beans pass through the civet whole after fermenting in the stomach and that's what gives the coffee its unique taste and aroma.

...

"It goes through some kind of natural processing which you can see from the roasted beans. It's more oily, there's more aroma and it's such a good taste that you can get value for money even if the cost is so high."

Civet coffee is one of the world's most expensive. In the Philippines, only 500 kg are produced a year and the roasted beans sell for more than $115 a kilogram.

WTF? You know what gives it that special taste and aroma? FECES, you crazy assholes. It's the equivalent of picking the corn out of my shit and eating it, you derranged wankers. I just know it's only a matter of time before someone decides to try this with their housecat, but cutting right to the chase. Why not just pick up your cat and latch your lips to its puckered asshole and just slurp up the gravy right from the tap?

South Korean scientists create glowing cats using modified gene

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean scientists have cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays, an achievement that could help develop cures for human genetic diseases, the Science and Technology Ministry said.

Three Turkish Angora cats were born in January and February through cloning with a gene that produces a red fluorescent protein that makes them glow in dark. One died at birth, but the two others survived, the ministry said.

The ministry claimed it was the first time cats with modified genes have been cloned.

Scientists from Gyeongsang National University and Sunchon National University took skin cells from a cat and inserted the fluorescent gene into them before transplanting the genetically modified cells into eggs.

The development means other genes can also be inserted in the course of cloning, paving the way for producing lab cats with genetic diseases, including those of humans, to help develop new treatments, the ministry said.

I always knew there was a good reason to distrust Koreans. Their giant foreheads house brains filled with evil. Sure, for now it's just cats that glow in the dark, I assume so they can see where they're going at night as they stand on your chest and suck out your soul through your face, but soon it'll be death beams from the eyes or God knows what else. This has one of sci-fi horror movie plots tattooed all over it. Scientists should be finding ways to purge cats from existance, not giving them genetic enhancements.

Court: Woman Can Keep Frozen Dead Cats

BOSTON -- The state's highest court said that a woman who stored dozens of dead cats in her Boston apartment can keep two that were seized by the city, as long as she complies with city health codes.

Cat breeder Heidi Erickson was charged with animal cruelty after officials found five malnourished cats, one malnourished dog and more than 60 dead cats in her Beacon Hill apartment in 2003, most stored in freezers.

While the criminal case against her was pending, a judge ordered that four live cats and two dead cats that had been seized by the city be returned to Erickson.

After Erickson was convicted, however, the city moved again to block her from getting the dead animals back.

In Thursday's ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court did not require Erickson to destroy or discard the animals, but ordered that whatever she does with them comply with health codes.

Damn skippy, she should get the dead cats back. One day, in a more utopian future, dead and frozen cats might become a form of currency. This woman would obviously be ahead of the curve, having amassed a large amount of frozen assets.

I will admit I'm a little confused about why she had a malnourished dog around though. You'd think that it'd just eat the cats, no? Maybe it was anorexic or something.

Ever read about something that you just know, deep in your gut is evil, but you can't quite figure out how? It's like opening up your email and seeing someone who promises to make you rich from Zimbabwae. Even if you don't know exactly how it works, you're certain it's goal is to get you boned.

Cat Survives 19 Days With Jar Stuck On Head

BARTLETT, Tenn. -- Tabitha Cain has fed a feral cat she calls Wild Oats for several years, but now she's thinking of changing its name to Survivor.

That's because she said the cat survived for 19 days with a peanut butter jar stuck on its head.

"We tried to get her, but being the type of cat you can't catch, she kept running and hiding," said Doretha Cain, Tabitha's mother.

The family saw the cat several times and tried in vain to catch her. She disappeared for a week, and the Cains feared the worst.

"I thought she was going to die with that jar on her head," Tabitha Cain said.

They found the once chubby cat on Wednesday, too thin and weak to escape. They caught her with a fishing net and used some oil to get the jar off her head.

They gave her water and treated her wounds and on Friday she began to eat again.

"I've heard of cats having nine lives but I think this one has 19 because she survived 19 days," Doretha Cain said.

Dr. Gerald Blackburn, a veterinarian at Gentle Care Animal hospital in Memphis, said he's heard similar stories of pets getting trapped for days or even weeks at a time and surviving.

Blackburn said the cat may have lived off of its excess fat, but Doretha Cain had another explanation.

"God will take care of animals just like people because that cat is really a miracle," she said.

Ya, I'm pretty sure God had nothing to do with this one. Again, I'm not sure exactly what the cat was doing with the jar on its head, but I'll wager anything it was up to no good. I had been hoping that there would be a picture of the cat with the jar still attached, but no such luck. There was a post-jar picture though.



Ornery looking bastard, eh? I wonder if it's too late to stuff the jar back on.

Be sure to read the following article right before you have thanksgiving dinner. Pay special attention to the accompanying picture.

Doctors untangle the strange case of the giant hairball

It may not be the most appetizing reading before a hearty holiday meal, but the New England Journal of Medicine is devoting part of its Thanksgiving issue to a giant hairball -- and not the feline kind.

The prestigious journal details the case of a previously healthy 18-year-old woman who consulted a team of gastrointestinal specialists.

She complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss.

After a scan of the woman's abdomen showed a large mass, doctors lowered a scope through her esophagus.

It revealed "a large bezoar occluding nearly the entire stomach," wrote Drs. Ronald M. Levy and Srinadh Komanduri, gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.

For the uninitiated, a bezoar is a hairball.

"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years -- a condition called trichophagia," they wrote.

"It seemed like she'd been doing this for several years," Levy told CNN.

The woman underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which weighed 10 pounds and measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.

Five days later, she was eating normally and was sent home.

A year later, the pain and vomiting were gone, the patient had regained 20 pounds "and reports that she has stopped eating her hair."

That's pretty impressive really. A 10-pound hairball in the shape of a person's stomach. I thought it was a fucking dead beaver at first.

It's too bad that they don't don't say what they did with it. At the very least, it should be sent to someone as a practical joke or something. Cover it up with some slime and then drop it on the carpet of someone who owns a cat and watch them freak out when they discover it. That's what Thanksgiving means to me.

Man Found Dead, Stuck In Cat Door

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. -- St. Johns County deputies recently launched an investigation into what they called one of the strangest accidents they've ever seen when a man was found dead after getting stuck in a cat door.

Investigators said 32-year-old Charles Tucker Jr. was using the cat door early Saturday morning as a way to get back into his girlfriend's St. Augustine home after the woman kicked him out.

Deputies said several hours after his girlfriend told him to leave she found him stuck in the cat door.

"Maybe at 3 a.m., my older brother called me and told me -- he was crying -- that she had called him and she found him dead in the door," said Tucker's friend, Will Elliot.

Elliot lives down the street from the home where Tucker was found dead.

"He's a big guy. I don't even know how he could fit through there," Elliot said. "Probably to get in and unlock the door. They said he had one arm through there and his head was caught in there like he was to reach up and unlock the door because there's no way he could fit through there."

Tucker's girlfriend called 911 when she found the 32-year-old stuck, but when officers showed up four minutes later Tucker was already dead.

Officers said when they found Tucker in the cat door, it was not the first encounter they had with him during that weekend. They said on Friday they found him slumped over the wheel of his car and he was taken to Flagler Hospital, but was later released.

A day later, Tucker was dead. The door in which Tucker got stuck had been removed and put out with the trash Monday.

"Maybe he just passed out because there was no sign of struggle or anything. She would have heard him. She was in the house," Elliot said.

The cause of Tucker's death has not been released. Officers were awaiting autopsy results before releasing that information.

Call it a longshot, but I think the cat did it. I mean, there's no trauma to the corpse and he's found dead in a cat door. It's not all that far of a stretch to conclude that fluffy found him pinned and helpless and decided to suck out his soul. This ranks pretty high on the stupid and embarassing death-o-meter. At least the guy wasn't nekkid or something.

Hat tip to maigrey and littlestink

Update:

I just realized what the comic reminds me of. It's like the cards with Lunch Money, but with less of a horror movie feel. It's the same sort of odd photos mixed with typewriter fonts.