Merry Tharsismas, everyone. On this day in 1998, Tharsis, a genius among cats, the Platonic ideal from which the very idea of “cat” is descended, namesake to the Land of Tharsis, the westernmost land on Cat World, and the flagship of its defence, the Dread Zeppelin Tharsis, was born.

Chief Petting Officer Vidma, now empirically proven to be cuter than borscht, is using her skills as Chief Engineer of the Dread Zeppelin Tharsis to get fur into the hardest-to-reach corners.

Monday morning. Malenky is already hard at work ensuring there’s enough fur on the couch.

As a Canadian, how did I not know this until today‽

Sometimes the 21st century lives up to the golden age of sci-fi. This morning I had trouble parking the communal hybrid-electric car I’d reserved using my pocket-computer/video-phone because a coronal mass ejection on the Sun yesterday was causing radio interference in the magnetosphere, upsetting the accuracy of the global positioning satellite network.