• She’s very protective of it. If it starts to move and she don’t like where its going she’ll reach up and pull it back and start licking it and taking care of it like she would one of her kittens.
• Central Mississippi T.A.I.L.S. organizer Jim Watson • On their cat, Emmy, who has adopted a squirrel. Not only has she adopted said squirrel, but the squirrel has even started purring. “Oh the squirrel, you can pick it up and pet it and it will start to purr just like a kitten does,” Watson said. Nothing more to add except for this: There’s video at the link. THERE’S VIDEO AT THE LINK. (Thanks Nick Snider for the link.) source

• Reader Emily johnson’s cat Larry had a recent spat of bad luck. He apparently decided to jump out of a broken window, so now he’s wearing a cone. If it makes you feel better, Larry, we’re wearing a cone right now, too. And it’s not a fashion choice.

• Ad people get to have more fun than you. See, a British ad firm working for IKEA got to fill one of their stores with a bunch of cats and tape it. Can you believe that this is someone’s job?Awww. (Thanks Andrew Ottoson) source

• WHOO CATS! YEAH CATS! WHOO! Today is a day for the cat people of the world to come out of the woodwork while we bombard you with reader-submitted cat photos. (And our buddies at Cavalcade of Schlock bombard you with cat obscuro; no porn, but we’ve heard rumors of foodicide. We’ll be keeping you posted on their output throughout the day.) Since it’s the second year we’ve done it, we can call it “Second Annual” now. So let’s call it that! Hi, everyone, and welcome to the “Second Annual” Catstravaganza! WE LOVE CATS! WA-HOO! (And for our non-cat fans, go here, and you’ll see the blog without any of those stupid cats.) Still want to send us cat photos? Try these options:

• oneTweet them to us! Send us your cat photos via Twitpic or Yfrog. Then send us a tweet. Be sure to hashtag them as #catstravaganza.
• twoPost them to Facebook! Our Facebook page (like us yet?) accepts photos and videos, so feel free to submit your fancy feasts over there.
• threePrefer to keep them a little more private? Send them to us via our official e-mail address, [email protected]. We’ll throw them up.

The backstory behind Maya

• Hey there, here’s a photo of my cat, Maya, when she was a kitten. It’s just so awesome I want the whole world to see!
• Reader Chris Gorman • Regarding the awesomeness of his cat, Maya. And trust us. This cat lives up to the hype, looking ultra-dignified in the pic above, waiting for her moment in the sun. Here’s your moment, Maya. Savor it.

• This slow-moving little guy was brought to our attention by Andrew Ottoson, who called Catstravaganza “the new Festivus.” It’s only fitting, then, that we have activities to match that postmodern holiday’s lineup. We think we need to make cat remakes of popular movies a big part of the whole Catstravaganza experience. We’d like to see a few kitties take on that still-in-progress “Arrested Development” movie. We’d love to imagine what a kitty Michael Cera would be like.

• This submission comes from our friend Sarah Palmer, someone we know from college back in the day. In other words, she knows how annoying we were back then. Which means she understands how annoying we are now.

• It’s that time again. After some soul-searching and a little talking over cat food, we’ve decided to bring back Catstravaganza, our popular cat feature last year. We’re teaming up with our good friends at Cavalcade of Schlock this year in ensuring total cat saturation. We’ll be bringing you tons of cat photos and cat-related news, and Micah and company will be bringing you lots of cat movie reviews. It’s win-win. (Are you a blogger who wants to saturate your site with cats next Thursday? Bug us. We’d love another sponsor.) Anyway, we want your cats. Here’s what you need to do to submit us cat photos:

• oneTweet them to us! Send us your cat photos via Twitpic or Yfrog. Then send us a tweet. Be sure to hashtag them as #catstravaganza.
• twoPost them to Facebook! Our Facebook page (like us yet?) accepts photos and videos, so feel free to submit your fancy feasts over there.
• threePrefer to keep them a little more private? Send them to us via our official e-mail address, [email protected]. We’ll throw them up.

• » And a footnote to readers: We’re aware that there are two kinds of people – cat people and people annoyed by cats. To people annoyed by cats, we promise that your regularly scheduled programming will be back on the tenth. And we’ll also set up a non-cat version of the blog for you guys. Promise. 🙂

• 
• What is Catstravaganza? To our readers who have only been reading the site for a year or so, we had a sort of fake battle with Urlesque, which ran “A Day Without Cats,” a day where no cats would prowl the interweb. We responded by turning the site into a mecca of catdom, complete with reader submissions.

  Our question for youDo you want to see another Catstravaganza, or would you prefer to get more short, sweet news? Acutally, you’ll get news either way. But there’ll be more cats hanging around on 09/09/10 than usual. Most of them will be strays, though if we find any with tags, we’ll do our best to return them to their rightful owners. And trust us; your allergies won’t kick in.