ChrisMohney.com

Death Cat for Granny

A cat that predicts the deaths of nursing home patients? Hah, silly weird news from the AP wire! No, actually, the New England Journal of Medicine. Guess they got tired of trying to cure cancer and stuff. Supposedly, "Oscar" has successfully predicted (or caused) the demise of 25 people by curling up next to them within hours of their expiration. There's almost too much creepy crap to parse in this story (or "story"), but here's a sample

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

Give me your tasty soul, human! That scene is only slightly more disturbing than the straight-faced treatment Oscar's getting in the press. Don't you people know that you're just increasing his dread power?

The $23 Million Mediabistro Sale, Explained

Re: Web Site for Job Seekers Is Sold.

$10 million for the Mediabistro classified ad I responded to in 2003, which led to renting half of a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side for $650. After seeing many horrible apartments for much higher rents, I met with the leaseholder, ran out and bought a bottle of wine, then returned and used said wine to convince said leaseholder that I was the right guy for the room. Several longtime New Yorkers nearly strangled me in jealous rage after they saw this place and heard what I was paying. It wasn't glitzy, but it was big and clean and comfortable, and my roommate was great and did not axe-murder me, nor I her.

$7 million for the first Mediabistro mixer I went to, hoping to scare up some work and contacts. Became depressed at the revelation that I was the one people were hitting up for work, despite the fact that I worked for a small publisher based in Alabama.

$4 million for the second and final Mediabistro mixer I went to, where I scared away the few people I spoke with after I mocked the proceedings as a crush of sweaty desperation. Ran into my roommate, and we got drunk.

$1.5 million for charging me $350 for their Resume Revamp service, which probably did serve as an improvement on a resume template I'd been using from whatever version of Microsoft Word was popular in 1994. At the university press job I landed soon after, the publisher complimented me on my resume. He was also about 9,000 years old.

$499,999 for then-editor Elizabeth Spiers running my egomaniacal story of getting my first job at Gridskipper. She said she couldn't pay me but promised to give me a year of free AvantGuild membership. She quit Mediabistro soon after, and I never got my free year of AvantGuild. Burn!

$1 for having to go through four different Mediabistro functionaries to completely remove my embarrassing and outdated Freelance Marketplace listing.

Congratulations! Feather boas for everyone!