If felines ever take over the world, blame the iPad game “You Vs. Cat.”
Friskies has developed what it claims is the first duel-species video game. Yahoo! Games compares it to air hockey: “Pet owners flick an animated piece of cat food towards a goal, while the cat…tries to deflect it, generally by pouncing on the tablet.” (Good idea — let your cat pounce on your $600 iPad! Maybe the game should be called “How Long Before My Cat Scratches the Shit Out of My iPad?”)
It’s being shown at this week’s South-by-Southwest conference. And the cats are kicking human ass. The game’s world champion, Buddy the Cat, was flown to Austin — and he has yet to be defeated! Worldwide, cats lead humans 2,091 to 1,250. Friskies believes the game will develop Mr. Fluffy’s brain. I hope not! First kitty plays on your iPad, then he’s playing “Gears of War,” then Overlord Toonces enslaves the human race. My advice? Keep your damn cat away from your iPad!
(via Yahoo! Games)
The Japanese have some bizarre culinary and sexual practices. I’ve recently discovered one such practice that incorporates both.
There’s an underground restaurant in Japan where wealthy patrons pay to have sex with an animal and then eat it. At first blush this seems perverse and cruel. But then I got to thinking….
If I were a chicken I’d rather be groped by a lonely farmer than turned into nuggets. But maybe chickens, and the rest of the lowly animals, don’t want sex from humans under any circumstances. Fine. But no animal wants to be slaughtered and consumed by humans. And yet that is permissible. It all seems a bit hypocritical, doesn’t it? If you’re going to allow slaughter, then you should allow the loving. But the powers that be say, “Make food, not love.”
Further, there’s nothing illegal about having sex with an animal after it is turned into food. You can hump chicken nuggets all day long (in the privacy of your own home, of course). The trouble, really, is all in the sequence of events.
To sum up: Humans okay for sex, not okay for slaughter. Animals okay for slaughter, not okay for sex.
The moral of this tale is that if you want to have sex with your meat, cook it first.
I think I just witnessed an insect suicide.
Every night, as I work on my computer — yes, work — out of the corner of my eye, I watch this tiny football-shaped bug crawl up the wall. He comes out at the same time, about 2 a.m., and at the same location, right behind my pen and pencil holder (for the sake of this story, let’s assume it’s the same bug). I’ve been known to go to extremes — busting lamps, hurling shoes, spraying Lysol, jumping up and down like a man on fire — to kill an insect. If he was one of those creepy-crawlies with a thousand hair-like legs, he would have been bug paste long ago. But he’s small enough and harmless enough that I leave him alone. In his persistence and consistency, he’s rather endearing. All of this makes tonight’s event so much more tragic. About an hour ago, I watched him again trudging up my wall, toward the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” movie poster. All seemed right — then, without warning, he plunged to his death*. It truly looked like he leaped, as he kind of suddenly popped off the wall by about an inch, hurtling to the doom below. Bugs, in my experience, usually have sure footing, so I must call this what it is: an insecticide. Let it be known to the bug population that this is one insect death in my apartment that I had nothing to do with — whatever mental anguish afflicted upon him by the things he witnessed in my room notwithstanding, of course.
(* I say this really for dramatic effect. Bugs, in my experience, are pretty resilient, and tomorrow night I might see my tiny roommate again. God willing.)
BIZARRO NEWS ITEM: Just a week before Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest, the Japanese frankfurter-eating phenom Takeru Kobayashi has suffered an injury that could sideline him from the competition. The six-time Nathan’s champ is listed as “day-to-day” after suffering from jaw arthritis due to his extreme training.
On his blog, Kobayashi writes, “My jaw refused to fight any more. I feel ashamed that I couldn’t notice the alarm bells set off by my own body. But with the goal to win another title with a new record, I couldn’t stop my training so close to the competition. I was continuing my training and bearing with the pain but finally I destroyed my jaw.”
Kobayashi says he can open his mouth only to the width of a fingertip, but still plans to compete in the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest in Brooklyn, New York on July 4th, which he has won for six straight years, as well as the Pizza Hut P’Zone Challenge July 10 in Manhattan. Last year, the 29-year-old set a record by eating 53.7 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the Nathan’s contest.
The injury could put the kibosh on the anticipated showdown between Kobayashi and American hot-dog-eating upstart Joey Chestnut, who recently broke Kobayashi’s record by wolfing down 59.5 hot dogs in a qualify round of the Nathan’s contest. Kobayashi and Chestnut are ranked first and second, respectively, among competitive eaters, according to the International Federation of Competitive Eating.
Apparently adopting an “if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em attitude,” “Star Wars” mastermind George Lucas has signed on to direct several future episodes of the Sci Fi channel series “Battlestar Galactica.”
Lucas, of course, has a long history with BSG — he sued the producers of the original show, claiming they infringed on the “Star Wars” copyrights. Lucas eventually lost his suit. “Battlestar Galactica” lasted one season (1978-79), and Lucas went on to make three more, really bad, “Star Wars” films.
Now, Lucas says, “You know, back then ‘Star Was’ was obvioulsy superior to Battlestar, but now the tables have turned. Maybe I’m getting too old. If I can get a piece of the merchandising, I might stick around BSG a while longer.”
Fans of the Sci Fi series, however, are deeply concerned that Lucas’s involvement will signal the end of “Battlestar Galactica.” “I think this is George’s revenge,” one former BSG cast member was quoted as saying. “He has been deeply jealous of the success of the new BSG. Whereas ‘Star Wars’ only got worse over the years, ‘Battlestar’ got better. Now, the only way to ruin it is to let Lucas get his paws on it.”
(Warning: This is an April Fool’s joke. This story is not true!)
