Meet the New Bosses
Posted on February 19, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 25 Comments
On one hand, their spelling is atrocious. On the other hand, they have really good ideas for action scenes, as long as you ignore their suggestion that every such scene should end with a disemboweling.
Also, they won’t tell me what they did with Patrick Nielsen Hayden. I think Teresa may want to look through any inordinately large piles of Fresh Step clumpable litter that might have mysteriously appeared near their domicile. You know. Just to be sure.
Teresa? Check on the hamster. Renew his ammo stocks. It looks grim.
Similar scenes in my office inspired the game of Toss The Kitty (it’s metaphorically named. You’d lose the round if any kitties were actually tossed or even startled in the course of it), which involves control over the space (shorter rules: you gain points for each tactful eviction of the furry overlords, and lose points if someone sits or lies down and stretches in the space between the keyboard and the screen. If the cat falls asleep on your workspace, you lose.)
Around the middle of December I was given an early Christmas gift – a kitty tree, which appeals to their hypothalami and overlooks the Outside, from they are unfairly barred. It works… …sort of… and looks mighty fine beside my desk.
YCRMV
Strange, I first read that as “such scene should end with a disemvoweling.” Maybe the cats are actually Teresa’s avatars. Which would explain the strange “sudden” appearance of Zeus right about the time deadlines became very important. Hmm?
Ah, the ever-present bottle of Germ-X. I’ve got one just like it on my desk. Makes me wonder if it’s a geek thing, or a writer thing.
It’s a “I don’t want to get sick” thing.
ooh I can read the text on the monitor. who wants to know what it says?
At least you can spell disembowel.
Ah, well, yes. There is that.
Zeus’ expession in that picture is great, he looks like he’s looking straight into your soul.
mmm…twice…or is it thrice ?…the:
I could swear I was working at my computer. I could have sworn I was…now all I’m doing is looking at the back end of a four-footed furball while said furball fascinatedly furffs and mewls and head-bumps and growls at the monitor. Eww…that and I seem to be smothered in tail…
Between your cats and my darling feline , they can start their own publishing company. Zeus Publishing has a nice ring to it.
Watch out Tor!
I am peering ’round kitty right now to write this. Not the place to wash, kitty. Ooh, and the favorite game of lap to desktop and back. Double points for stepping on the keyboard, treble for stopping whilst on key. Name the cat V.M. Smith and he thinks he gets the run of the place.
O Great Scalzi, you have truly outdone yourself this past week with two excellent pictures of Her Gloriousness. In both studies Her Essence has come through wonderfully and serves as an inspiration to us all.
The Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club notes your admission of Her Inestimable Influence upon your work, something we have also mentioned. It is good to give credit where credit is obviously due, even if it is in lolcat form.
And it is good to see TempCat Zeus clearly under Her Benign Gaze. We expect great things from him in the future as one of Her Minions.
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
PS – But what news of Mighty LopsidedCat? Has he managed to kill his buffalo yet, or is he sticking to deer for now?
Kittens learn by watching Mommy, watching what Mommy watches, and watching what Mommy does with what Mommy is watching. Since John is Mommy, the kittens are naturally interested in watching what he’s doing.
The head bumping and rubbing is accompanied by the release of pheromones that tell the other cat the first one is friendly. Basically what Lee’s cat was doing was making friends with Lee’s monitor, since Lee was obviously being so friendly to said device.
It helps to remember that, for all their skill at getting along with us, cats are downright stupid. Smarter than a rat by a long shot, but dimmer than the average dog. (Pugs are not average dogs.) Their understanding is limited, and their adaptability is about as bad. Cast out on their own most cats soon starve to death, or get killed one way or another. They are fundamentaly dependent on humans.
Cats also bond deeply with humans they know. As I noted before, John is Mommy to those two cats, so naturally they want to be close to him. To see what he’s doing, to take part in it when they can, and to get some attention and affection from him. And this appears to be behavior typical of Carnivora that bond with humans. Grizzlies raised by humans like humans, and even hand-reared weasels will engage in play behavior with people. You get right down to it, cats like us, and we don’t know why.
Weer out to proov infinitee kittee theoree.
Only last week I was handling sheets covered in PNH cooties for a Viable Paradise get together. He’s really getting around.
Web editors? Heh. Ghlaghghee was on her way to post a momentous annoucement: her candidacy for SFWA president, with Zeus as VP!
Idle thoughts:
1. Can you “embowel” someone? Metaphorically, perhaps? “Previously I hadn’t had the guts to take on the General in person, but I found that my encounter with Sara had embowelled me.”
2. Why isn’t it just “disbowel”? We don’t “disencourage” people.
In rural Ohio, cats edit you!
I had a cat who was the most deadly hunter I’d ever seen. a Blue Jay, a Ermine, snakes, rats, mice, moles, sparrows, a cardinal, chipmunks, red squirrels and various other small birds were all found in horrific, nightmarish and visceral conditions around the house that could never be recreated by even the most graphic and depraved movie maker. She had sinisterly surgical expertise to her hunting, and was fast and deadly as lightning. There are only there confirmed survivors of her deadly attacks. a Hummingbird which we rescued from her mouth and survived, our dog that harassed her but to this day, still has a slice in her nose, and the vet at the local clinic, who needed butterfly stitches on his hand after she struck with her paw of wrath.
Ajay,
Thanks to the wonders of the English language “embowel” means the same as “disembowel”.
Awww, those two are so cute.
Well, I can see the cats are good for one thing. The last shot of Scalzispace (the work zone) looked quite a bit more cluttered with gadgets and wires. Now things are neatened up a bit.
Funny, I think there would also be a lot of scene suggestions involving tuna.
Same as the old bosses?
I think Patrick might beg to differ.