Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

When we show up, we win.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

In after Baud. Damn.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Pet Calendar / Open Thread: For All The Cat Lovers Out There

Open Thread: For All The Cat Lovers Out There

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For all the cat lovers on Balloon Juice, I will share the screen capture my niece sent of the Australian Firefighters Calendar for 2023.  Adorable kittens!

It seems only fair to share this calendar since our Pets of Balloon Juice calendar is stalled, waiting for the calendar stock paper to arrive.

For All The Cat Lovers Out There

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SuzieC:

    You can see more images for the remaining months by going here and, um, embiggening on your screen.

    ETA: You have to scroll down to the Cat Calendar. Because I doubt you’d be interested in any of the other calendars on the site.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    I love the brown-gray kitten in the bigger photo

    Don’t tell Mr. Bear or Miss Willow, but I would bring that little kitten home in a heartbeat.

  9. 9.

    Alison Rose

    See I tell people I’m asexual but that I’m also aesthetically pansexual and they’re like what does that mean and I’m like it means I very much enjoy looking at this and also very much wish there was one with women but I just wouldn’t want any of them in my actual bed.

    This has been your semi-regular TMI Saturday with Alison Rose.

    Also, you can see all the photos here, but only in thumbnails from the back of the calendar.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    I have family in Australia, and when their friends would come to visit America they would always bring me a little koala bear stuffed animal.  I had a whole collection and I adored them.

    I waited too long to take them with me when I was done with college, and my Mom threw them all out.  So sad.

  12. 12.

    WaterGirl

    So I have been playing Wordle and Waffle and Absurdle.

    What do you consider winning for Waffle?  I am kind of disappointed whenever I can’t get it with 5 stars, which is most of the time, and if I get less than a 3 or a 4 I feel like I have lost.  Not to mention the occasional one where all the stars are gone and I still don’t have it completed.  All that black is not a happy thing!

    I have evolving strategies for all three games, and I’m wondering if other people do, as well?

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    Especially for Absurdle.  Sometimes I try to use all the weird letters first, and I thought at first that was a good move but now I’m not so sure. Also, what do you consider a “win” in Absurdle? There doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of tries.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    Now in its 30th year, The Australian Firefighters Calendar has raised over $3.4 million for various charities.

    Wow.

    edit: I apparently love talking to myself.

  18. 18.

    Jess

    @Alison Rose: At this point in my life, I feel that way about the cats as well. I’ve grown increasingly allergic to them, so my late cat (as of last June) is also my last. Alas.

  31. 31.

    Miss Bianca

    Love the hunky cats and adorable kittens, but I can somehow never see a calendar spread like this one without cracking up. See, long, long ago when I was an undergrad at UM, the athletics department put out one of those “Men of Michigan” calendars every year.

    Well, one year, not to be outdone, the Gargoyle, which was the campus humor magazine that seemed to largely populated by guys I knew, none of whom were…shall we say…ideal “Men of Michigan” material put out their *own* calendar, entitled “The REAL Men of Michigan”, featuring their geeky, pasty, oft-times pudgy or scrawny selves climbing sodden out of the pool with antlers on their heads, or being flipped off while bucket-driving on the Diag, or huddling protectively around their favorite video game consoles. The memory still cracks me up 40 years later.

  32. 32.

    Dan B

    Cats?

    Oh, now i see them!

    And… the trapezius muscles on some of these guys! Yowza!!  Lots of pull ups.  And probably genes.

    BTW White House cat Willow looks like my BaBoo.  I wonder if Willow rockets around the White House like the BaBoo?

  34. 34.

    Almost Retired

    Whatever.  I suppose some people find those guys to be pleasant-looking enough.  But, meh.  Just wait for “The Men of Balloon Juice” calendar!  Hunks aplenty!  Speedo Baud is on the cover.

  35. 35.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Thirty-three comments in and not a single “hose” or “pole” joke?  What’s wrong with y’all? Lol

  38. 38.

    sab

    Guy and kittens look happy, but I am a touched creeped out. Huge guys, tiny kittens, everyone okay?

    ETA My husband is 6’3″ and loves kittens, and our cats (no longer kittens) love him.

  40. 40.

    kalakal

    I was waiting for something on the lines of

    Are they raising money so they can afford to buy  uniforms?

  43. 43.

    Lyrebird

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks to you and your esteemed husband.  I needed a laugh.

     

    The firefighters are hotties all right, but probably a tad young for me, since I am a little younger than Cole.

     

    @WaterGirl: So thankful you love talking to jackals.  This was PREMIUM content!  The kitten on the left made my day.  It’s like, wha? huh?

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @Almost Retired: That’s a great idea for next year! :-)

    By the way, your comment was in moderation because you had an A instead of an S in your email address.  I fixed it for that comment, but you’ll want to fix it on your end or every comment will go into moderation.

    Also, I think I’ve got a still of you (not really) from one of the zooms, would you like to be January for the Men of Balloon Juice calendar?

    I nearly shorted that to the usual, but men of, ahem, BJ would be a whole different calendar.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    For the cat lovers….? Okay, sure. Do we get one with women and puppies next for equal opportunity reasons?

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: If my niece sends me one with women, I will put it up.

    edit: This is the niece I shared “The Loophole” with after you posted it on the blog.  The one who clicked play from her phone while on the bleachers at her daughter’s swim meet.

    oops.

  58. 58.

    TaMara

    @Miss Bianca: Ok, that cracked me up.

     

    @SiubhanDuinne: And there’s video…

    Once a year, the male dancers of Thunder Down Under put out a calendar video and that is where I learned there is an actual job where your job description included oiling down male dancers for the photo shoots.

  59. 59.

    Phylllis

    @WaterGirl: Adds Absurdle to the daily rotation. Shakes fist at Watergirl for introducing another obsession.

    As for Waffle, I’m happy to get it without running out of stars. It’s the deluxe Waffle that gets my goat. I think I’ve gotten it once without running out of moves.

  64. 64.

    Dangerman

    @WaterGirl: Waffle win is 5 stars and I haven’t figured out the secret (beyond the obvious). I’m bummed at 4, crushed at 3, and let’s not talk about 2, 1, or bubkis.

    I’ve done Quardle in 6. I figure 5 is like an NFL team choking away a 33 point lead. Not gonna hap – ……

  66. 66.

    sab

    The kittens are adorable. Could we have any shots with grown cats?

    Everyone wants a kitten. Not everyone wants a grown cat shredding the furniture and  pooping outside the box.

    We want such misbehaving felines. Five now. Every one has litterbox issues. “Those other cata are vile.” Because they poop wrongly. Such shallow judges. Every one of our cats is an interestong personaliry.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Dangerman: Some days I’m really good at Quordle, some days I am not.

    For Waffle, I too am bummed at 4, sad at 3, and unhappy/chagrined with anything lower.

    Probably stating the obvious, but with Waffle you have to be thinking about more than one word at a time before you make your moves.  Sometimes I can do that, other times it’s much less obvious.

    What surprises me is that some games I think I have been doing everything right and I come up short.  And sometimes I make a bad swap and I’m bummed, and I get that one with 5 starts.  shrug.

    edit: Also, I did the Ko-Fi donation thing so I could get more stuff.  You get an extra Deluxe waffle and you got access to archives.

    Now everyone gets access to archives, and I have still only gotten one extra deluxe waffle.  Sad.

  75. 75.

    eclare

    @sab:   There was an article about Shaq in People decades ago.  The photo had him posed with a kitten, it was adorable.

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