Manx Cats - The best cat breed in the world

Seeing as I haven't posted anything new lately, I thought I would write about my cat.
Well not really about him, but about the breed of cat that he is. Actually it's a bit about both him and his breed!`

He's a Manx Cat. But not a purebred one thankfully. I'm not a fan of those pure breed cats really, I'm a cat person, but I like cats for their companionship and personally feel that having a pedigree cat is a bit like owning a Ferrari and just reeks of being snobbish!

He's just a normal cat with his tabby markings. But one of his parents (I think his mother), was a proper Manx cat and that is how he and his siblings all turned out as tailless cross breeds that just make perfect pets.

He's seriously my best friend at home if not out of home too (sorry everyone else who is my friend, but he does depend on me more than I think you all do!). I've heard of Manx being referred to as the "Dog-Cat" and I totally agree with this statement.

He follows me around the house like a little dog and while dogs can bark and wag their tails to communicate, he seems to be able to use his eyes and his big 'voice' (his meow) to tell me what he wants. And I do get it right about 75% of the time with what he wants/needs/is demanding I do for him.

There have been many times where he has followed me or another member of my family down the street and either lost me/them when he became distracted by something else he found along the way and then later made his way home again, or has seen him patiently waiting for our return at the point where he lost us along the way.

Sometimes this has however meant we have to go looking for him several hours later and then carry him home as he's been waiting for so long that when we find him he's too tired to want to trott home beside us and demands to be carried in our arms!

He's also the perfect lap warmer and just about every night he will hop on my lap and sit there happily for several hours, whether I like it or not! In fact as I write this, he's on my lap purring away.

I got him at aged 7 months in January 2000, so he's been with me for 10 and a half years now and sadly he's getting old, though at the moment you wouldn't know it as he's still very much active, but I do wish he could live a longer life as I would love him to be around for the rest of my natural life instead of leaving me one day like he sadly will through death.

I have never had to train him, which is most likely a good thing as I wouldn't know where to start, so him being toilet trained when I got him was a great start in our friendship as he prefers to go outside when he needs to. Other than that he's fully house trained and there is nowhere in the house that isn't off limits to him. He decided right from the beginning of our friendship that he was the big boss and that I was just his slave to look after his well being. It's an arrangement that I must say works well and I wouldn't change it!

I will however always view the Manx breed of cat as the best breed of all cats and thanks to my best friend here, I've decided that I will always have a cat in my life and I've vowed it will always be a Manx cat :)

So to Mr. Cat, I want you to know how much you mean to me as my friend and pet and I hope I can have many more years of fun and companionship together before we must finally and sadly part ways.

40 years of achievement, a kind of tribute to Apollo 11 and 13

Well today I write this on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the US Apollo 11 Moon landing and I'm actually pretty excited about it.

Despite what other people think about it, I think we did land on the moon and I hope the plans to one day return there, even though all the reading I have done about it this weekend points to it sounding more sci-fi than the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That movie in reality has shown that some of it's ideas have come to be true though so I shouldn't rubbish the stuff I've seen and read just because to me they seem far fetched. Though the only one thing I can think of off the top of my head from the movie that has come to actually exist is the video phone Dr. Floyd uses to call his daughter when he is at the space port awaiting his "Pam Am Spaceway's" flight to the moon. And that's because I use Skype and make video calls over it!

Though with all the stuff that all the various forms of media will be shoving in our faces tomorrow, I wonder if anyone will ask former US Astronaut Jim Lovell what he thinks about the 40th anniversary of the moon landing? I ask this because Jim Lovell was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, the only planned manned mission to the moon that never landed due to an accident that could have potentially killed the crew, but thankfully returned the crew to earth safely instead.

I watched Apollo 13 again on Saturday night and I have it on DVD as well as own the novel and I must say that before the lunar landing, he sounds like Lovell was quite possibly the most famous American Astronaut with NASA (read his Wikipedia article I have attached below). Though sadly history has had him lose that crown to Neill Armstrong. But I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily seeing as Jim Lovell doesn't seem to mind not being the one in that spotlight that Neill Armstrong is in in the world of celebrities (yes I actually consider these pioneers of space celebrities as they actually have done something compared to movie stars and singers who just sing and act).

Though talk about luck with Apollo 13! I'm glad though that they got back to Earth OK in the end, but I do feel for Lovell for not ever getting a chance to be one of the few men who have been on the lunar surface. That figure would have been two more astronauts higher had the misfortunes that befall Apollo 13 not happened.

It also makes me wonder if there would have been more lunar missions had the US TV networks bothered to keep the public interested by showing the astronauts 'home videos' on TV over there. But I think the fact that Apollo 13 had issues along with the networks not being interested except when the accident befall the mission caused the Apollo lunar missions to come to an end.

Instead of writing more, I suggest you read for yourself and make your own mind up on this topic. This is just my rant here seeing as I can write what I feel like in my own blog and people can choose to read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Lovell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_%28film%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_%28TV_miniseries%29

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/Apollo_13/