For this week’s Whiskers on Wednesday, I decided to test Henry’s intelligence with a test I found online.

The total score for Henry is 16.

Cats scored an average of 3.6 for each test (total of 7 tests); Cats total average was 19.2, Ragdoll average was 22, Tabby average was 20.8.

I don’t know if I did it wrong, but here are some notes about Henry’s results:

Your cat appears to be right-handed. Right-handedness in humans is often associated with language ability and a logical mind. There is some evidence that right-handed animals can be better at remembering and using words, so maybe your cat understands more of your conversation than you had thought!

Your cat understands the way that horizontal objects relate to each other. This may not seem like much, but many animals have difficulty with this test. Pets that move about more in 3 dimensions should do better at this than those that move only on the ground.

Test Your Pet’s Intelligence (many variety of animals!)

The cover copy selected by Random House doesn’t explain the book very well and doesn’t do the story justice. The easy way to explain the book is: It’s 1988 in Pakistan and we are following the stories of two characters: A soldier / air cadet whose roommate goes AWOL and is taken in for questioning, whose father “committed suicide”, and who wants revenge for his father’s murder; and the President, who became president by military coup and was re-elected twice more, who now thinks that he is being plotted against.

Basically we are following these two characters, their stories, their lives, the characters surrounding them, all in a parallel storyline and waiting for their paths to intertwine. There are also a number of minor characters that we are introduced to briefly whose stories conclude later.

Mohammed Hanif does an excellent job of pulling out lots of strings and fastening them together in an intricate design. Not only do you want to find out more about every character, but you can’t wait for them all to collide and conclude. Hanif puts in details that may seem insignificant but later are explained in detail.

He does an excellent job of making 1988 Pakistan understandable to the modern reader, even if you have no knowledge of the current events of those times (Communism). My only complaint is that it seemed very long in about the third quarter — the beginning of the end — and I really just wanted to find out what was going to happen to the characters that had already been introduced.

However, I would definitely recommend this book to a variety of readers — regardless of interests — as it is a generally well-written novel. I would read another book by Mohammed Hanif as he is an excellent writer.

Claimed from the Mini Book Expo | Bond Street Books Canada | Interview with Mohammed Hanif | Website for the Novel | Audio Excerpt | Longlisted for the 2008 Booker Prize

Wow! That took a lot longer than I anticipated. Sorry for the delay everyone! I really wanted to customize the prizes slightly and to do that, I had to draw the winners… and then after customizing the packages, I needed to take photos for this post. Time consuming — not to mention I went out of town for the weekend. Anyway, onto the good stuff:

When I began the contest, I had…

• approximately 550 comments
• around 10-30 hits daily
• 1,000 posts!

On the day the contest started, July 5th… I only had one entry to my contest, because I literally begged Michelle to enter. Thanks Michelle!

• I had 16 entries on the second day
• My blog hits spiked to 384 hits on July 8th
• I began getting anywhere between 20-60 hits a day after July 10th
• I now have 1,026 posts!

Neato Contest Stats

• Over 120 individuals entered the contest
• In the Knitters Category: 176 entries (including ping-backs & additional comments and suggestions)
• In the Readers Category: 159 entries (including ping-backs & additional comments and suggestions)
• In the Pets Category: 109 entries (including ping-backs & additional comments and suggestions)
• The person with the most entries: Jessi (so many comments from June & July when she didn’t even know there was a contest! Awww!)

KNITTER’S PRIZE

WINNER: Wendy (of A Day in the Life of Wendy). I tried to crawl her blog (no Ravelry profile!) to find out her interests, but in the end I had to take a stab in the dark. I hope she likes it, the yarn has mohair in it and that case is great for knick-kancks… take a look:

READER’S PRIZE

WINNER: Julia (of Julia BC)! This is so crazy that the Random Number Generator picked Julia because I picked up one of the prizes before going to a knitting meetup. I showed the knitters the book I found and told them not to tell. Ironic!

I initially put together a package centered around the novel I picked out. I read Chocolat a couple years ago and enjoyed the story (I love the movie) and the novel focuses more on character development than the plot line. It’s a bit of a romantic movie, but the book can get emotional (hence the tissues). Here’s what Julia will be receiving:

PET-LOVER’S PRIZE

WINNER: Wendy aka Literary Feline! I was planning to customize it for whatever pet the winner had (as some people said they had dogs, cats, bunnies, etc… but I think it’s quite obvious what she’ll be getting; cat goodies (and something for herself too!):

RANDOM PRIZE – COMMENTS GUESS

• 48 people wagered a guess
• The lowest guess: 97 by Gladys
• The highest guess: 3,033 by Alisia
• Actual comments by the time the contest was finished: 801 comments total!
  
• WINNER: Trish guessed 775 comments! Congratulations Trish! You win the “Random Guess” category!!

The Prize is lots of various goodies: A gorgeous box, a silly cross-stitch project, stationary, and pampering goodies! Take a look:

To be honest, I’m not much one for current poetry. I’m more into the 17th century literature poetry… but Rita Wong is a good writer. Some of the poems I had trouble following, but several of them are responses to certain acts or events in the current news or in on-going discussions.

However, I particularly enjoyed the layout with quotations around the border of a number of poems and pages. Sometimes the quote would enlighten you as to the influence of the poem, or supplement the facts regarding Rita Wong’s passion for the cause.

I believe my favourite poem was entitled ‘forage, fumage‘ and was about how the current Western Provinces used to belong to various native tribes and how the names we currently use all have special meanings in those Native Languages. There are definitions included in the script around the border as well as an endnote after the poem; languages such as Iroquois, Cree, Algonquin, Salish. There is also a note about how the Eastern / Maritime Provinces bear more European-based names. Very interesting.

Some other subject matter included: pollution, war, drugs, urbanization, social housing, Vancouver and the downtown Eastside, genetic modification, and a number of articles or books that Rita Wong gives credit to for the inspiration of the poem.

BC Book Prize Winner 2008 – Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize | Nightwood Editions | Interview with Rita Wong at 12 or 20 Questions | Praise for Forage | Biography & Books |

LOVE

Today is our 3 year anniversary.

We’ve been dating for three years as of tonight at like 10pm. It was a Friday, after the weekly dance at camp, and we were sitting on the back porch behind the dorms and he asked me if I wanted to go out with him. We’ve been through a lot — long distance relationship — but I think we’re closer for it, and it certainly makes me treasure the time we can spend together.

P.S. I know I’m suuuuper behind on the ABC along, but I’ll get them all done by year end so I’m not worried!