black cat

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Light Stripes

For Weekend Cat Blogging and the Photo Hunt, we preset this photo of Luna with stripes of light.

This was once again taken with the Hipstamatic on the iPhone, using relatively simple lens and film effects that bring out the light.

Weekend Cat Blogging #340 is hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes, with help from Coco.

The Saturday PhotoHunt has a new home. This week’s theme is Lights. Thank you to tnchick for hosting over the past years.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this weekend by Samantha, Clementine and Maverick at Life from a Cat’s Perspective.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Homecoming and Birthday

Both Luna and I returned to CatSynth HQ this week after our respective sojourns. And just in time for her 7th birthday this past Wednesday.

Luna received this birthday card from a close friend of ours in Canada.

It’s been a very busy week since returning, with both a curated show and a performance, a major application due, and a pair of shows next week as well. But we took time out to celebrate. Here Luna is enjoying some yummy food. Often she dismisses such offerings, but on this occasion she devoured it with abandon.

And then of course it’s time for play:

Good food and play. It’s just a normal day for a house cat (except for the card).

Weekend Cat Blogging #339 is hosted by Meowza.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Samantha, Clementine and Maverick.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

CatSynth video: Ghost Rider Modular (CatGirl Synth)


From FOCtv on YouTube, via matrixsynth.

“Mr. Hand demos a synthesizers.com patch utilizing a CatGirl Synth Sub Octave Divider module. The sequence is a facsimile of Suicide’s song Ghost Rider done with a Synthesizers.com Q119 Sequential Controller. It’s not the complete riff since Marty Rev’s riff is poly-rhythmic and I could only use 8 steps of the analog sequencer. The organ-like tonality is from the CGS Sub-Octave module which can function similarly to the divide down technology used in electric organs.”

Look for a black cat early in the video, and also the sounds with the CatGirl Synth module.

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt: Two

For our combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt theme of two, we present a pair of Hipstamatic photos of Luna. A single pose, but two sets of lens and film effects:


It’s a sleepy morning for us, after I recover from two music performances over the past two days, and Luna basks in some sunshine after a wet and rainy Friday.

This weekend also marks the 400th Edition of the Carnival of Cats. That is quite a milestone, and we are happy to help celebrate! It is hosted by Mog, we has been the “Carnival Caretaker” over the past couple of years There is a history of the Carnival posted by last week’s hosts Nikita and Elvira of Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

Photo Hunt #291 is hosted by tnchick. The theme this week is two.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

11:11 on 11/11/11

At 11:11 on this day 11/11/11, I snapped screenshots of both the iPad and iPhone featuring Luna.

Of course, the symmetry and homogeneity of the date and time is quite attractive, and unique (at least within a given century). The number 111111 is also interesting when you decompose it into primes:

111111 = 11 * 13 * 3 * 37 * 7

I find the prime factorization quite poetic.

We can also factor the date and time together (11:11:11 on 11/11/11):

111111111111 = 11 * 13 * 3 * 37 * 7 * 101 * 9901

Note quite as poetic as the previous example, but still interesting. In particular, 9901 is interesting as the greatest prime factor for any repeating series of 12 numbers. Other related properties can be seen at the site Prime Curios.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Hallowe’en Black Cat Edition

We at CatSynth welcome everyone to the Hallowe’en Edition of Weekend Cat Blogging! It has become a tradition for us, as we have hosted the Hallowe’en edition since 2006.

Luna poses for today’s event in a Hipstamatic photo with shades of orange and green for the season. Black cats are of course beautiful, sleek and elegant. Yet they are often the last to be adopted, and still subject to the (peculiarly American) superstition about black cats and bad luck or the occult. These stories are told over and over again – but one particularly amusing one intersects with another American tradition in October, the World Series:

Early-20th-century New York Giants manager John McGraw was notoriously superstitious, so fans tossed black cats in front of the Giants’ dugout to jinx him. In response, humane societies suspended adopting black cats during the World Series, which is played just before Halloween.

Many shelters continue to suspend adoptions of black cats around Hallowe’en, out of fear of abuse or the situation where people might adopt them as “living decorations” for the holidays only to return them to the shelter afterwards. The instances of abuse are fortunately few and far between in reality.

So this weekend we want to have a positive celebration of the Hallowe’en holiday. We welcome the participation of all cats, including those who have not participated in WCB before, but we especially welcome black cats this weekend! To participate, leave us a comment below, tweet us @CatSynth on Twitter with hashtag #WCB, or leave a comment on our facebook page with hashtag #WCB.

First up, we have a black cat Teebee representing with music gear, submitted by Stefan Robbers via our facebook page. Thanks for submitting such a perfect picture for this weekend!

In addition to everything else that happens in October, it is also the height of college football season, and Truffle is rooting for the University of South Carolina this weekend and decked out in the school colors.

Our friends from Vienna Kashim, Othello and Salome invite everyone to play trick or treat this Hallowe’en. It looks like this trio is ready for some treats.

 

Our friends from Nova Scotia Tillie and Georgia are sharing Hallowe’en photo shoots with us. Tillie’s house-panther photo shoot didn’t go exactly as planned. But it’s still very cute, and has a nice black-and-white contrast. Georgia’s photo shoot came out great!

Our friends in Texas, Samantha, Clementine and (honorary cat) Maverick have some spooky Hallowe’en pictures. But they’re all in good fun, and they wish everyone a safe holiday.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, Nikita and Elvira have a scary song for humans who share their lives with cats. Sung to the tune of “This Little Light of Mine”.

The family of Laura and Taffy are remembering Jet Dragon, their handsome house panther who unexpectedly went to the rainbow bridge last year. Hallowe’en is sad time, as it would have been his birthday. We send them our thoughts.

The Cats of Wildcat Woods are featuring the youngest house panther in their family, Sweatpea who is attempting to escape from under a black wig. They also share the interesting history of the Addams family and its origins in The New Yorker.

Gracie may be gray, but she wishes all the black cats a Happy Hallowe’en and she rests up for the weekend’s fun

Sometimes Hallowe’en means being tortured with costumes. Rusty managed to escape, but his feline friend wasn’t so fortunate.

More costume fun. House panther Carlos is a cowboy this Hallowe’en. It’s clear that he is thrilled by this. In fact, all the cats over at Twinkletoe Tails seem z absolutely delighted by their costumes, as seen in their slideshow.

By contrast, we think that Growl Tiger (GT) has the right idea for how to celebrate today.

Our friends at Animal Shelter Volunteer Life wish everyone a happy MEOW-lo-ween. We particularly like the “Chef Moosey” costume, but also the fact that some of the cats from PAWS, black and other colors, are joining in the festivities. We appreciate the work they do for the cats at PAWS all year.

We will continue to add entries as they come in through the end of Sunday (Pacific US time), so keep them coming. And thanks to everyone who submitted to make this a great holiday edition!