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I’m not a cat killer

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Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not a cat killer. In case anyone was wondering.

I don’t have anything against cats. I’m not a cat-ist. Some of my best friends are cats.

In fact, I have two cats at home. I buy stuff for my cats. I’m a pretty good cat…haver…person.

However, I recently realized that the way I talk to my cats could be…misconstrued. You see, I love the little bastards. How could I not? Just look at them:

Cats Chilling Poses

Idiots!

But my language doesn’t always reflect this love. No sir. Every once in a while, I tend to issue elaborate threats that I have no intention of carrying out.

For example, I regularly tell Django that I’ll chop off his legs and make a snake out of him. True story. I literally say that. I threaten to de-limb my cat.

Occasionally, while Django’s lying down, I even grab his shoulders and push him forward in a zigzagging motion so as to simulate snake movements. My wife usually finds this amusing, so we’re basically both going to Hell.

Other times, I tell the cats I’ll play Tetris with parts of their body. I’m basically Saw‘s Jigsaw, but with cats. I also vaguely recall once informing Pebbles that she’d be hanged by the tail from a lamp post outside.

A few days ago, my wife went to the built-in shed on our balcony and left the door open behind her. Django started to slowly creep toward the open door, knowing full well that he wasn’t allowed to do so.

I yelled something innocent at him, like “I’ll kiiiiill you!” or something along those lines. My wife came back and informed me that my voice carried well and was probably heard by multiple people outside.

That got me wondering what our neighbors must think of me. I’m pretty sure they’ve heard at least some of my raging outbursts and threats of bodily harm. Do they think I’m a lunatic? Or some guy who’s having traumatic flashbacks? What if they think I have kids and am yelling at them? Would that be better or worse than the actual explanation? I just don’t know.

So just for the record, neighbors: I don’t murder cats. Most of the days, we’re a pretty regular family with perfectly alive cats. Here’s proof:

Gniazdo Family & Cats

Do what we say, or the kitties get it!

See? The cats look very happy and not at all reluctant or sad in that picture!

Oh God…what happens when we become parents?!

Guest Expressed: “7 Of The World’s Strangest Homes”

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Today Amy Fowler returns again with more weird stuff. Moving up from strange sofas Amy shows us some strange homes to put those sofas in. Enter Amy:

When you think of a home, you probably think of a bungalow, a cottage, or perhaps an apartment block, but not everyone lives in such mundane buildings.  Could you imagine living in a tree house?  A giant tea pot, or perhaps a UFO look-alike?

There are dozens of weird and wonderful homes out there – and while they all have doors, and most have windows, that’s where the similarities end.  Check out the following seven strange and interesting homes.  Which one is your favourite?

1. The Space-Ship House, TN, USA


This Space-Ship home looks like an old-school UFO.  It features 2,000 square feet of living space with windows around the upper part of the structure and boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a large entertainment area.  This is the kind of home that you’d be proud to host parties in.

2. The Tea-Pot Dome, WA, USA

Image Credits: Gayle Kingston: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathrine/)

The Tea-Pot Dome was built in 1922.  It was originally a gas station, but is no longer in use.  It was moved from its original location, to a spot closer to the interstate, several years ago.  The tea-pot shape was designed as a commentary about a scandal involving President Harding and the Federal Petroleum Reserve.

3. The Boeing 727 Home, Mississippi, USA

http://www.airplanehome.com/

If I were a millionaire, this is probably the kind of house I would opt for.  Joanne Ussary bought an old Boeing 727, moved it to a spot in Mississippi, and converted it into a house.  The cockpit now houses a jacuzzi.

4. The Toilet House, South Korea


The toilet house was built by some South Korean sanitation activists.  It’s shaped like a giant toilet bowl, with windows around most of the structure – but hopefully not looking in to the actual toilet in the house!

5. The Shoe House, Pennsylvania, USA

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM5W9Y_Haines_Shoe_House_Hellam_PA

Do you remember the shoe house toys that you used to play with as a child?  Well, there’s a real shoe house!  It was originally built as a guest house – with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room.  When the owner died, it became an ice-cream parlour for a few years.  Today, it is a museum.

6. The Mushroom House, Ohio, USA

Image credits: The Rocketeer (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kt/1117993812/)

The mushroom house was designed by Terry Brown, a professor of Architecture and Interior Design from the University of Cincinatti.  It’s an ornately decorated building shaped like a mushroom, with windows discretely worked into the design, and a small “dormer” style area jutting out from one side.

7. The Strawberry House, Japan

The Strawberry House is a brightly coloured home that, as the name suggests, looks like a strawberry – complete with the stem and leaves at the top.  There are discrete windows dotted around the upper part of the house, and the entryway is built into a smaller strawberry that sits next to it.

Many of these weird and wonderful homes have been up for sale in recent years.  They tend to fetch pretty spectacular prices, though, so most of us will have to settle for living in a home with four walls and a roof.

By guest author Amy Fowler on behalf of specialist window installers, Stormclad. For more from Stormclad, follow them on Twitter.

Concrete and stone can break my home

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Remember how I’ve told you that we were basically finished with the new apartment? Yeah, I lied.

Turns out that blind optimism mixed with poor judgement result in wrong timeline projections. Who would have thought?

Yes, we have bought all of the furniture. Yes, I have assembled most of the IKEA chests of drawers during the first few days of the past week. But I have grossly underestimated the amount of time and effort required to make our wardrobe fit.

You see, we have this niche inside the bedroom that rests on a step. The dimensions of the niche match perfectly with an IKEA wardrobe we purchased. Well, almost perfectly. There’s a concrete bar hanging up at the ceiling that steals a centimetre of the space needed for the wardrobe to fit.

Actual picture of the actual concrete bar

We have purchased our wardrobe in the strange hope that the extra centimetre would magically appear by itself. It didn’t. Not to worry, I decided to buy some equipment to shave a bit of that concrete off.

I’ve played enough with Lego to know exactly how the real world works!

Quiz time! What are some of the things you would least want to happen to a power tool? If you said “exploding”, then wow – you’ve seen some crazy shit! If you said “the handle falling off in your hands” or “safety screw popping out during operation”, then congratulations – you have described both things that happened to the first angle grinder I purchased. Thankfully, nobody was injured and I’ve managed to exchange the angle grinder for a more expensive and hopefully less deadly one.

To make a long story slightly shorter, after hours of my power-tool-happy friend grinding through concrete and us trying to make the wardrobe fit, we have realised that we will need to butcher the concrete even further. Here’s how it looks now:

Sexy, eh?

Now imagine that…times four. That’s how long it will have to be. My friend is only able to help again in two weeks, so until then our bedroom is off limits. What used to be a nice and almost finished bedroom is now a storage room for all the crap we’ve got in the house. It’s also a place where (my) nightmares live.

If you look closely enough you can spot Waldo!

All of the construction work is also accompanied by high levels of stress and blood pressure as I see our brand new apartment get mutilated. Thankfully, the others (my girlfriend in particular) are dealing with my panic-mode calmly, instead of stabbing me in the neck with a screwdriver. But now I’m giving them ideas…

Anyway, the apartment is a good few weeks from finally being done. By then I expect to bring you some “after” pictures that hopefully look a bit more encouraging than the ones above.

In between the stress and waking up at night thinking of wardrobes and concrete grinding I hope to still remain sane enough to bring you some fresh posts. Stay tuned.