Multi Medium

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from the very bizarre and very quotable low-budget film, The Item:

I’m completely convinced that in our culture, having a lot of cash is the most avant-garde thing a person can do.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s tiny kittens:

Those are some seriously tiny kittens.

Add comment November 21st, 2008 at 08:59pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from Angels And Insects, with Kristin Scott Thomas, Patsy Kensit, and that guy from Primeval:

I shall mold her like a mushroom when my time comes.

I have no idea what that means.  I can quite honestly say that of all the impure urges I have had regarding the opposite sex, molding them like mushrooms has never been one of them.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s kittens:

Aww. Sometimes it’s fun to torment the ones you love, just to show how much you care…

Add comment October 17th, 2008 at 09:32pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Pug Blogging

This week’s quote is from Jean-Luc Godard’s surreal science fiction film, Alphaville:

Those not asphyxiated by the absence of light circled crazily like ants.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s wee pugs…

Awww.

Add comment October 3rd, 2008 at 11:15am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from the original Dudley Moore/Peter Cook Bedazzled:

Good morning, ma’am - we’re the Froony Green Eyewash men.

It makes perfect sense in context.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s cats…

It sounds like a cross between a kitten and Darth Vader…

(h/t WT)

Add comment September 26th, 2008 at 07:29am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Orangutan Blogging

This week’s quote is from the Roy Scheider helicopter movie Blue Thunder:

I think morals are good for ya - I love morals. And the moral of this story is, if you’re walking on eggs - don’t hop.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s orangutans…

Aww.

Add comment August 29th, 2008 at 05:51pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Orangutang Blogging

This week’s quote is from the Jim Varney classic, Ernest Goes To Camp (the Ernest movies are actually much funnier than most people realize):

I can take it, Miss St. Cloud. Real men can take it, and I am a real man. A man with a hearty smile, a stout back, with grit in his teeth and nails in his knuckles. A man who has never tasted quiche… Is that your smallest needle?

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s orangutans…

I like orangutans. They always seem so mellow and relaxed.

1 comment August 22nd, 2008 at 07:24am Posted by Eli

If You Liked The Chart, You’ll Love The Database

George W. Bush: Lyingest president ever. All other presidential liars pale before him.

Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that the Bush administration racked up 935 lies on the way to Iraq; they lied every time they opened their vile mouths (boy, it sure would have been nice to have this 4 years ago, eh?). And it’s not just the Republican Congress that covered for them:

So what, you may well ask, ever happened to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s promised inquiry into whether the White House intentionally deceived the public in the run-up to war? That, presumably, would provide an accountability moment of sorts.

You may recall that more than two years ago, in November 2005, Democrats were so upset about Republican foot-dragging on the inquiry that they brought the Senate to a halt with a rare closed session to demand that work resume.

The Republicans, not surprisingly, continued to stall anyway. But the Democrats have controlled the Senate for more than a year now. Where is the report?

Wendy Morigi, spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, told me this morning that it will be out before the end of spring.

Why the delay? Due to the “lack of comity on the committee” when Rockefeller took over the chairmanship, he decided that pushing ahead with the inquiry right away “would again create tension,” Morigi said.

Nevertheless, the committee staff has “continued to work” on the report, she said. And a hearing on the matter will be held “within the next few months.”

Uh-huh. I’ll believe that when the image of the report is seared into my hot little eyeballs. Here’s how I see it playing out:

Report encounters delays, possibly due to White House stonewalling (the hell you say!). Report release pushed back to late summer/early fall. Rockefeller then decides that it would be inappropriate to allow it to influence the imminent election (God forbid voters should ever be reminded if what dishonest criminals the Republicans are at a time when it might actually make a difference), and delays release until December/January.

It’s not like the Democrats have given me much cause for optimism.

3 comments January 23rd, 2008 at 09:15pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Backward Puppy Blogging

This week’s quote is from The Matchmaker, starring Janeane Garofalo and Milo O’Shea (Duran Duran from Barbarella):

I wasn’t made in a laboratory! I’m a United States senator!

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s moonwalking pug puppies…

2 comments February 16th, 2007 at 07:33am Posted by Eli

Untigerable Cuteness

They’re so cute before the ripping-your-face-off stage…

2 comments February 13th, 2007 at 07:37am Posted by Eli

More Musical Monday Media Blogging

Aw.

I wonder what’s going through Piano Kitty’s head. Is she mimicking what her human does? Does she like the sound of the piano? Or does she just like the way the keys feel? Or is it some combination of all three?

(Courtesy of Cute Overload, of course)

2 comments February 12th, 2007 at 07:07pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Puppy Blogging

This week’s quote is a repeat because I’m away from my quote repository. It’s from the Troma classic, Killer Condom:

I look like your mother and you love me! My therapist says so and it’s true!

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s puppies:

Aww.

Add comment February 9th, 2007 at 09:24am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is a personal favorite, from Ghostbusters II, of all things:

Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right!

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s unspeakably cute scottish fold kittens…

The cuteness, it is almost painful.

D’oh! Belated hat tip to flory, who sent it to me originally. I somehow managed to forget and “rediscover” it. Yes, my brain really is that flaky…

6 comments February 2nd, 2007 at 07:10am Posted by Eli

Uncharacteristic Dose Of Cuteness

I was searching for something entirely different in the SF Chronicle, and I got kinda sidetracked…

Baby milk frog!

Baby panda!

Awwww…

7 comments January 15th, 2007 at 11:19am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from the late Spalding Gray’s brilliant spoken-word film, Monster In A Box. He’s quoting his new psychiatrist:

Your subconscious is so close to the surface, I can see its periscope.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s cats…

The shadowy and mysterious Codename B. looking innocent and meek. DO NOT BE FOOLED.

4 comments November 24th, 2006 at 12:23pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from the much-maligned Nothing But Trouble, which I actually found quite fascinating and entertaining, in a train-wreck kind of way. Plus it had a cameo by Digital Underground.

Look who’s got the front seat to the Mexican hat dance now! Just like a bunch of spiders in a birthday cake!

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s cats…

The shadowy and mysterious Codename B. meets the shadowy and mysterious Codename Foot.

3 comments November 17th, 2006 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote is from The World Of Henry Orient, in which a pair of teenage girls become obsessed with concert pianist Peter Sellers. I have no idea what it means.

And then two small bladders came out of their mouths. Just as she was starting to hum, too.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s cats.

Introducing the shadowy and mysterious Codename B.

7 comments November 10th, 2006 at 07:27am Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Panda Blogging

Today’s quote is from the Airplanesque spoof movie, Jane Austen’s Mafia!:

They say violence is the hand puppet of the ignorant.

And, of course, there’ll be other people’s pandas…

Aww…

Aw. A little more growed up and well on their way to becoming SUPERPANDAS.

Add comment November 3rd, 2006 at 07:29am Posted by Eli

NY Daily News Scoops Everybody!

This just in: Pets not enthused about work.

(Well, okay, the cat might be taking an interest, but everyone knows that cats are Very Serious.)

2 comments June 24th, 2006 at 03:29pm Posted by Eli

How Not To Care For Your Powerbook

Hilarious. But definitely not good for the screen…

Hat tip to Eschacommenter John Gillnitz.

4 comments June 7th, 2006 at 10:26pm Posted by Eli

Partisan Politics Made Simple

In the interests of making politics more accessible, understandable, and, well, palatable for those who are not obsessive wonks like myself, I will now attempt to illustrate the current Republican-Democratic dynamic using adorable kittens:

Any questions?

(Photo courtesy of Rate My Kitten - please don’t sue me)

4 comments March 16th, 2006 at 11:32am Posted by Eli

Stolen Cuteness

Courtesy of NTodd (and one of his readers):

Kitty LOVES Rooster!!!

Kitty possibly a bit… confused.

1 comment February 27th, 2006 at 06:38pm Posted by Eli

Exposed At Last: Secrets Of The Cuteness Scam

Jessie Cohen/Smithsonian National Zoo, via Reuters

I see right through ya, ya wee bastard!!!

Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round ears, floppy limbs and a side-to-side, teeter-totter gait, among many others.

Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say, and attending to them closely makes good Darwinian sense. As a species whose youngest members are so pathetically helpless they can’t lift their heads to suckle without adult supervision, human beings must be wired to respond quickly and gamely to any and all signs of infantile desire.

The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof, and so ends up including the young of virtually every mammalian species, fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese cranes, woolly bear caterpillars, a bobbing balloon, a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock, a colon, a hyphen and a close parenthesis typed in succession.

The greater the number of cute cues that an animal or object happens to possess, or the more exaggerated the signals may be, the louder and more italicized are the squeals provoked.

Cuteness is distinct from beauty, researchers say, emphasizing rounded over sculptured, soft over refined, clumsy over quick. Beauty attracts admiration and demands a pedestal; cuteness attracts affection and demands a lap. Beauty is rare and brutal, despoiled by a single pimple. Cuteness is commonplace and generous, content on occasion to cosegregate with homeliness.

However, there can be a backlash against cute’s insidious Dark Side:

“Cute cuts through all layers of meaning and says, Let’s not worry about complexities, just love me,” said Dr. Dutton, who is writing a book about Darwinian aesthetics. “That’s where the sense of cheapness can come from, and the feeling of being manipulated or taken for a sucker that leads many to reject cuteness as low or shallow.”

Oh, and babies aren’t cute on purpose. Suuuuure.

Madison Avenue may adapt its strategies for maximal tweaking of our inherent baby radar, but babies themselves, evolutionary scientists say, did not really evolve to be cute. Instead, most of their salient qualities stem from the demands of human anatomy and the human brain, and became appealing to a potential caretaker’s eye only because infants wouldn’t survive otherwise.

Human babies have unusually large heads because humans have unusually large brains. Their heads are round because their brains continue to grow throughout the first months of life, and the plates of the skull stay flexible and unfused to accommodate the development. Baby eyes and ears are situated comparatively far down the face and skull, and only later migrate upward in proportion to the development of bones in the cheek and jaw areas.

Baby eyes are also notably forward-facing, the binocular vision a likely legacy of our tree-dwelling ancestry, and all our favorite Disney characters also sport forward-facing eyes, including the ducks and mice, species that in reality have eyes on the sides of their heads.

The cartilage tissue in an infant’s nose is comparatively soft and undeveloped, which is why most babies have button noses. Baby skin sits relatively loose on the body, rather than being taut, the better to stretch for growth spurts to come… that lax packaging accentuates the overall roundness of form.

Baby movements are notably clumsy, an amusing combination of jerky and delayed, because learning to coordinate the body’s many bilateral sets of large and fine muscle groups requires years of practice. On starting to walk, toddlers struggle continuously to balance themselves between left foot and right, and so the toddler gait consists as much of lateral movement as of any forward momentum.

Researchers who study animals beloved by the public appreciate the human impulse to nurture anything even remotely babylike, though they are at times taken aback by people’s efforts to identify with their preferred species.

I don’t really have a point with any of this - I just thought it was kinda cool, in a know-thy-enemy kind of way.

3 comments January 3rd, 2006 at 06:38pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Chick Blogging

This week’s quote:

Do you know what I am? I’m a manufactured personality.

From The Power, a surprisingly good, extremely obscure movie from 1968, involving psychic powers and George Hamilton when he was young and not yet a caricature.

I’m giving the various cats the night off, but it’s not a total loss…

Putting the telephoto to good use, right outside my hotel…

Too many chick pics to choose from, really.

4 comments August 5th, 2005 at 07:30pm Posted by Eli

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week’s quote:

Will you both stop this female drooling? I have a violent headache.

As usual, the first person to guess the movie this is from gets to replace it with one of their own next week. Who could resist a sweet deal like that?

UPDATE: I have just been informed that Blogger commenting still may not be working for some people. If you think you know the quote, by all means, shoot me an e-mail.

Also, here is a cat.

Birthday Dozer looking baffled and alarmed by the proceedings.

20 comments March 11th, 2005 at 08:36pm Posted by Eli