No April Foolin' this year...

Normally at this time on the 31st of March, I'd be uploading something for April Fools' Day, but doods, I don't feel like it. Sanjee is feeling poorly, so poorly that she thinks it's almost time to move on and it might be tomorrow. I don't feel like making a stupid joke when someone I've known almost since the beginning of my blogging, someone so sweet and beautiful, is getting ready to make her way to the Bridge.

That's selfish, I know. She's had a very hard time of it lately and when she gets to the Bridge she's going to have nothing but Awesome...but I'm going to miss her. I'm going to miss knowing she's still here with us. Someday I'll see her again and I hope she'll be happy to see me and will grace me with a headbutt, but right now...I'm going to be selfish and feel bad.

If you haven't yet, maybe pop over and give her some mojo?

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Okay. Just so you don't think my people are actually tidy or anything. This is the room that they actually use. There's clutter all over the place, though you can't see a lot of it.

It's comfortable, though, and we like it. You don't have to be careful in here; if you spill something or hork up a hairball, no one really cares. It's like, okay, it'll get cleaned up. So Buddah can scratch his funky scratchy toy and get pieces of it all over the place, and no one gets bent. I get fur all over the carpet or any of the chairs, no one cares. Eventually it all gets vacuumed up. But it can be a mess sometimes...things die in here. Like hopes and dreams. And bugs.

Tomorrow the people are going to Vegas because the Younger Human is turning 30 and apparently that means taking him someplace where there are a lot of people to mock him for it. And they're going to shove him out of an airplane. If he survives, he gets to go to a people circus. I'm not sure, but there's a 50-50 chance they've sold him to the circus...I hope not, because if they do that means That Damned Dog Butters will probably come live here.

But while they're gone, WE GET THE GRANDMA! 

Don't let the picture fool you...

This one from yesterday.

Don't let the lack of clutter and stuff fool you; this is the room no one uses. It's the room where the dammit machines used to live, and they died of neglect, so the people replaced them with furniture.

Wait, I should amend that. No people use this room, thusly it is clutter-free. If you were the person taking this rude picture and you turned around...holy carp, clutter city.

That's the room the people use. The "living" room, where everything they own goes to die. At least I think it's all dead. Hard to tell, what with things stacked on top of each other, smothering in the dust.

If you look to the right (presuming you're the photographer), you can see where all the books live. The library doesn't look quite that good now. There's another bookcase in front of the window and one of the dammit machines is there, rotting away. And the Younger Human took that chair, so there's a different on there. The Woman doesn't like the room as much as she did, but there's really no place else for the inside walking machine that she doesn't use and thinks about selling, and no place else for the bookcase, though if she can figure that out, she'll totally move them.

But no...the house is usually a mess. Not, like, dirty, but cluttered. Lived in.

I heard the Woman say she's gonna at least vacuum on Sunday because she and the Man and the Younger Human are going to spend his inheritance in Las Vegas starting Monday, so that means the Grandma is coming! And the Grandma rates vacuuming.

Oh. There's an obstacle course in the hallway. I hope she rates putting that crap away. She might hurt herself on it. And if the Grandma gets hurt, who will open cans for me?

Why can't I just take a nap?

Look. Clearly you can see I was sleeping quite nicely, and I was comfortable.

So what does she do? She tries to sneak up and get a closer picture.

Can't a guy get some alone time? Uninterrupted? Sheesh.

Lap Time

Ever have one of those days when all you want to do is curl up in a lap and snooze? Yeah, that's been me for the last couple of days. I wasn't sick or anything; it's just that there was an available lap and I took it. And I kept it. Well, except for the other night when the People left the house and came back five hours after when I was supposed to have dinner, and I'm still a little miffed about that.

I heard them talking the other day, too, and learned that they're going back to Las Vegas so they can mock the Younger Human in a really nice hotel about turning 30. I think it's mean, but whatever. It means one thing to me: I get the Grandma for a few days. And the Grandma FEEDS ME. And she's nice to me. Did you know that the last time she came and stayed with Buddah and me that she slept on the sofa because when she was going to go to  bed we were already there and snoozing, and she didn't want to bother us?

So yeah, we're looking forward to that.

But that's over a week away. In the meantime, I'll probably grab as much lap time as I can. From the Woman, anyway. The Man will probably be in the room with the rumbly bikes a lot. He's been going out there to make pens and stuff, and he's made so many pens and stuff that the Woman was all like, You need to sell that crap and get it out of the house.

Okay, so maybe it was more like, Hey, these are really good, you should sell them. So he's selling them. And people are actually buying them! Who knew he had talent?

So now he has a real website and an Etsy store, and he's selling the pens that he makes. Yesterday he made a couple of different things to help women put bracelets on their wrists when it's hard to do with just one hand...the Woman was all Oooh shiny! but he hasn't put those on his store yet because he needs to take pictures, and the Woman made him quit playing in the rumbly bike room because he needed to go to work and pass gas.

Yeah, he's not allowed to pass gas at home. He has to get in the car and drive 45 minutes away, and doods, someone pays him for that.

Man, I do it and it's all damn Max, what the hell? No one pays me, and trust me, I'm AWESOME at it.

In fact, I think I'll curl up on the Woman's lap and give it a whirl.

Oh Wow!

In spite of the sadness I still feel, today turned out to be a pretty freaking good day. First, the Woman actually checked my email and there was one from Skeezix's Food Lady telling me that I'm a finalist for the 2013 BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Best Meow Blog!

Now, I'm up against mousebreath! which is like the most awesome thing out there for cats, so I'm not holding my breath, but doods, it still means I got nominated in the first place and now I'm in the finals!

I can't go to BlogPaws this year because of Stuffs (like, I don't leave the house) and the Woman can't go because she's already spending all her money on going to Vegas (plus she's kind of a loser), but if I win, other bloggers are gonna be there and I hope they clap for me.

Then later, the Man went to check the mail, and there was a big box for me and Buddah, and holy smokes, it was LOADED with presents!

I mean, lookit all of this! A friend sent 2 zebra mats, toys for both of us, tuna flakes and shrimpy treats and about a years' worth of nip! We didn't even let the People get everything down on the floor before we were all over it.

Hahahaha Buddah already looks stoned.

Actually, once the Man put the camera away, I started pawing at one of the nip bananas so the Woman opened that for me, and she gave Buddah one of the pink toys, but what he really wanted was to try the munchies.

There was a lot of gross noises coming from him while he scarfed down some shrimpy treats and tuna flakes and a Greenie treat...and doods, you might not believe this, but I wanted the banana more than I wanted to eat right then.

I totally love a good nip banana. I'll try the treats tonight. The Man did put some on a plate for me but Buddah ate it all. That's okay, I was a little too...happy...to even think about it.

To the friend who sent all this--and you know who you are!--thank you so much! It was like Christmas! And the tightwad Woman is all, nice, I don't have to buy toys or nip for a long time!

Seriously. My people are so cheap...

Eric, My Man, Fly Free...

edited a couple hours after posting, because..doods...Eric...

Guys, I was just on Facebook, and got the most awful news.

Eric, longtime blogger along with his brother Flynn, went to the Bridge today. He'd been having some problems the last few days and we all hoped he'd get better, but he had some strokes...and had to go.

I am heartbroken. He and his bro were early bloggers, back when the cat blogosphere was pretty small, and I was stoked when they started blogging. They shared so many pictures with us, and doods...they were pretty tight.

I know their family is really hurting right now; if my heart hurts this much I can only imagine how much they hurt. So please go say a few nice words, if you would.

And Eric, dood, I'll see you on the other side.

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What follows is what I posted earlier today:

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Doods, a bunch of you guys have asked about borrowing my latest book from Amazon, like you don't want to do that because you're nice as chit and don't want to"cheat" me out of royalties. Go ahead, borrow it! Amazon has this nifty thing where they have a pool of dollars every month, and it gets split pretty evenly between all the writers who have books that can be borrowed. Last month it worked out to a little over $2 per borrow, and it'll be close to that for this month. And that's not too far off what I would get if you bought it. So feel free to borrow it if you have Prime and a Kindle; there's no point in paying for it if you can read it for free legitimately. I still get paid.

Oh, and all my books are DRM free, so even if you don't have a Kindle or a tablet with a Kindle app, you can still buy it at Amazon; just download it to your computer, and you can convert it using Caliber. Then you can sideload it to your preferred e-book device. All I ask of that is that you then don't turn around and give it to a billion people. Or upload it to someplace online. Or other mean chit like that.

That actually happened with the Woman's first book, kinda. That was back when she was with a traditional publisher, and they "accidentally" had the entire book available for download instead of just the first chapter. 25,000 downloads happened. That's a life-changing amount of royalties, presuming full payment for every one...which would never happen in the real world, but it's still the IDEA.

Even after that, she hates DRM-locked books and stuff, because, hey, if you paid for it you should be able to convert it to anything you want. And even share with a few friends. Just not...the entire freaking Internet.

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Buddah had a good birthday, I think. He got lots of naps, I let him have the Woman's lap for an evening time snooze--when I would normally be there--and there was real live fresh dead shrimp. Plus, a couple weeks ago he got a new box, and he still thinks it's like the most awesome thing ever, so I played a little with him while he was in it. And hell yes, whapping him on his hollow little head counts as playing. At least he thinks so.

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Oh...and y'all know I have an advice column at mousebreath!, right? If you don't read mousebreath! you're missing out for sure. There's a ton of great stuff over there, like Chey and Ichiro's Meezer Meditations, Fred's Mancat Caves, some AWESOME interviews by the Funny Farm Felines, and a whole bunch more. All the really cool cats read it. And then they ask me stuff.

But, one way cats and people could ask me questions was by leaving one for me at Formspring...which is shutting down. There are still two ways to ask me questions: 1) Just leave your question in the comments on my most recent Ask Max Monday column, and I'll answer them the next week, or 2) Message me a question on Facebook. That's probably the best way to ask a question if you want to be anonymous, but make sure it's somehow marked as a question for Ask Max Monday, because people do ask me stuff there that's just for them.

Emailing me doesn't work so well, because SOMEONE keeps forgetting to check my email. And there's like 5,000 things there, and so much gets lost in the spam filter. So asking right there at mousebreath! and on FB are the best bets in getting a question answered.

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Last night, there was real live fresh dead chicken. And the people did not offer me any, even though I was very good. Well, the Man didn't eat all of his and he shoved it into teh garbage disposal and walked away, so you can bet I reached my mighty paw into it and grabbed me a piece.

My mistake was that I went right--into the living room--when I should have gone left, into the kitchen. The Woman was all OH NO YOU DON'T YOU GIVE ME THAT YOU FURRY LITTLE BASTARD and she chased me around and grabbed me, and made me spit it out. Cripes, it was just chicken, but she was mumbling about onion and garlic and THAT'S NOT FOR YOU.

Yeah, well, next time run the garbage disposal, and you won't have to chase me and call me names, you puny hairless white thing. Yeah you heard me. PUNY.

So. There.

Happy Birthday, you little monster

It's Buddah's 8th birthday

His best side....

I suppose I have to be nice to him today. I hear there might be some real live fresh dead shrimp tonight, and I'd like to get some, so...

Happy Birthday, Buddah Pest. I didn't buy you anything because the Woman wouldn't take me to the store, so my gift to you today....you can have the Woman's lap for half an hour tonight while she reads or watches TV. You're welcome.

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Oh, and I need to mention something...three people bought a copy of my new book, expecting it to be pawtographed, and were a little disappointed when it arrived un-signed. In order to get it signed, it has to be purchased from the Paypal link under where it says "Purchase Options" and has the yellow BUY NOW button.

Books purchased from Amazon or Barnes & Noble will not be pawtographed, because they won't let me in the distributor's warehouse. And because I don't want to fly there.

I have 2 copies still on hand, and will order a few more if those sell.

And no worries...I gave the people who bought unsigned copies an address they can send the book to, and I'll pawtograph and send them back. I'm mean but not that mean. Usually.

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Oh, and I gave Feedly a try in place of Google Reader, and so far I really like it. If I try another one I like, I'll report back.

In The Mail!

Ok doods, if you bought a book to be pawtographed as of this morning, your books are now on the way. The Man and the Woman took them to the guy with the blue shorts this afternoon and mailed them, so you should have them in about a week. Maybe a little longer for the U.K people.

Oh and if you guys didn't hear...if you use Google Reader to read all your favorite blogs, it's time to find a replacement because they're shutting it down in July. And that really sucks.

Stuffs, and...stuff

Doods...did you know that if you have Amazon Prime and a Kindle, you can borrow my new book FOR FREE? That's, like, ZERO dollars and cents. And you can also borrow some of the Woman's books, too. FOR FREE. In fact, I think there's only one of hers that isn't free to borrow, and that's because it's to raise money for boobies.

My other books...nope, not free to borrow. Yet. We're thinking about that. They're pretty cheap to begin with, less than two bucks each. We might be re-formatting them soon, because they don't look right on some of the non-Kindle devices, so once we do that...perhaps.

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Those who ordered a pawtographed print copy; UPS says the books will get to me on Tuesday. I'll sign them and address them and hopefully the Woman will get them to the post office no later than Thursday. I think there will be 5 leftover copies, so...you have time to buy one.

coughcoughhintcoughcough.

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I was thinking about doing a bunch of essays, you know, my opinions of things, but I need topics. Things cats would think about and worry about and muse over. And things I haven't written about a lot before, like why the hell I don't get food when I want it and as much as I want. Or the stabby guy. I don't wanna beat a dead horse while I write, because that's just mean. Plus, it attracts flies.

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The Man feeds us in the morning when he comes home from passing gas, but I still wake the Woman up at an appropriate time because, hey, she needs to get up and be productive. This morning I went in to wake her and she was all "Oh come on, Max, it's too early, leave me alone, it's not even 8 o'clock yet."

She needs this clock...it runs around the room

Well. No. For one, it's not my fault she stayed up until 3 in the morning reading and watching that TV show on MSNBC about men in prison. For another, it was a lot later than 8. My internal clock said it was 9, but the clock by the bed said it was 10, so I got really close to hear head and kept meowing in her ear.

When she finally looked at the clock she muttered, "Holy hell," but did she apologize for grumping at me? Did she thank me for not letting her sleep so late that she would have had a really hard time sleeping tonight? NO. She did NOT. Some day she's going to appreciate all I do for her, and it will give me a heart attack.

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I'll give her a few points...last night she made real life fresh dead cow for dinner; it was a huge chunk of roast beast and she made it in the What A Crock Pot, and doods, it was delicious. I had to smell it cooking all day, so I knew I had to be extra good while the ate to make sure I would get a bite. Even Buddah scarfed it down.

Tonight is real live fresh dead chicken. I have to smell it cooking all day, too.

If only she would cook like this every day. She'd be thinner, and I'd be happier. Because, doods...Crocked real live fresh dead anything pretty much makes up for the lack of appreciations we suffer every day.

Spring...dangit. Or Yay. Both?

My view looks a lot like this...

Yeah. I looked out the front window and the cherry tree out there has all kinds of flowers on it, like it got attacked by the bloom fairy overnight.

The people have also been opening the front door during the day a lot; it's nice because we get a breeze most of the time and after surviving winter in a house with Buddah, we need the fresh air.

But man...with Spring getting here and the stuff outside popping out with flowers and pollen and bees bouncing around out there, it means it's getting warm enough that pretty soon, the Woman won't turn the fireplace thingy on for me at night.

And that, my friends, that gives me a sad.

Nom Swapping

Buddah and I have a thing worked out, but I don't think the Woman has quite clued into it. If we're having something that one of us really likes and the other doesn't, whoever doesn't like it eats most of it, but leaves a little bit on the plate for the other kitty. I don't remember exactly when we started doing this, but it seems to just happen.

Back when Buddah was smaller and we ate next to each other

Like tonight. We had some stinky goodness that was good, but it's not my absolute favorite. Buddah really liked it, so he scarfed his and then jumped down to the floor to wait and see how much I would leave. The Woman was all, "Oh no you don't Buddah, you let him finish," but he wasn't trying to stick his face in my plate. He even waited while I stepped back and decided if I wanted to finish it.

When I was done, I walked away; there were a couple of decent bites left on the plate for him...and it blew the Woman away. Like she never noticed that we do this. It's kinda like the steak from last week or the week before; yeah, I jumped on the counter and ate it, but Buddah was done. He didn't care; he sat there and watched, but if it had mattered to him, he would have gone about 4 kinds of apechit.

Granted, I did get onto his spot on the tower after, but that just made it funny.

One of these days, she's going to finally clue in: we don't necessarily like each other, but we're fair.

Well, except when it comes to soaking up the fireplace warms. I'm not sharing the primo spot with him. He can plop down a few feet away and get the leftovers. He tried getting close last night, but I popped him on his head. He was so scared, he rolled over, a half an inch away.

Oh yeah, I made him move.

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Oh! For those who want a print copy of my book but don't want a pawtograph, Amazon now has it listed. It says it's out of stock, but that just means they won't order anything from the distributor until someone buys a copy. The Woman bought one, just to push it along. But at least they have it listed now.

Clicky here if you would prefer to get it from them. I haven't checked to see if B&N has the listing yet. We're curious to see who gets copies first: if we get our 25 from the printer first, or if Amazon drop ships before that.

PrintPrintPrintPrintPrintPrintPrintCopies

Ok, doods, we have ordered 25 copies of my newest book (and can get more, no worries about running out) so we can take orders for them--but it'll be a week to a week and a half before we get them and can then ship them to you.

If you don't live in the U.S., no worries; I'll ship, but I have to charge a couple extra bucks for the difference in shipping costs.

Purchase Options

US Purchase $15.95 USD International Purchase $18.95 USD

Link will be in the sidebar, too...

Many thanks to those who have already bought the Kindle version; we're still trying to figure out a way around the exclusivity thing to get Nook copies to those who want them.

And don't worry...pretty soon I'll blog about things other than my book. Surely one of the People will do something so stupid that I'll HAVE to talk about it.