With nearly 700,000 followers (my word) keeping track of Sockington, it’s pretty natural that all the humans would be calling out (incessantly, I promise you) for Sockington to link to them. Pet rescue, products, eloquent scams… I’ve been watching from my chair and I think I’ve seen it all. Sometimes they even convince stump that he needs to “tweet” about it, and when he does, there’s a nice rush of visitors for what we can all hope is a worthy cause. Unfortunately, this means that even more people start clamoring for being mentioned.
Socks isn’t really engineered for that. In fact, he’s barely engineered to get to his litterbox predictably, if you know what I mean. I don’t know how people tolerate the amount of tweeting he does now, to be honest, and if he was to start “retweeting” or taking up all the causes people are calling for, there’d be room for little else, like gazing upon my fine coat.
To that end, there is now a twitter account that will occasionally spread all the word of “news”, “causes” and whatever else strikes Fatty’s fancy. I know, I know, is there anything sillier? But honestly, as a cat who was rescued from some pretty cold nights and an impending winter, I figure I should support this… otherwise fatty might take all them in as well!
So, if you wish to be exposed to things of a notification, outreach, or charity nature, please go subscribe yourselves to @socksarmy on twitter.
Photos are streaming in from all the people who ordered Socks’ t-shirt. I heartily approve, especially how this is going to lead to more food for myself. The life of a cat! More photos will be added as they come in.
Fatty’s gone ahead and put the final touches on Sockington T-Shirts. They’re now available for sale here.
The design is by Megan Hopkins, who created the background of Socks’ twitter page, as well as mine. She’s a talented lady, even if she does give Socks a little too much attention. The shirt design looks like this:
The shirts currently come in just shades of gray, just like the cat in the design. They’re being sold in cooperation with Rich Stevens, who is the leader of Dumbrella. Rich is a cat kind of guy, which I appreciate, and he knows how to Get The Job Done, which is important to a cat who wants their food on time and the litterbox cleaned.
Fatty doesn’t know it yet, but I hacked into his bank account, so sales of these shirts go directly to my hiring several grocery delivery services to maintain a constant supply of treats and meats for myself when he’s at work. So go ahead and order as many as you like, even if it’s the grey stump on them.
There’s even been some loose talk of a Penny shirt in the future – the sky (or the shirt) is the limit.
Fatty has some sort of obsession with numbers, if you ask me. After creating a series of films with Socks (and myself) over the last year to celebrate his various follower milestones, he finally noticed that I achieved one of my own. Five thousand followers! Compared to Socks it may sound like a drop in the bucket, but bear in mind that my followers are the cream of the seething masses, the cream of the crop. One Penny follower might have graduated at the top of their class, while Socks followers could come from any old place. So with that in mind, 5,000 followers is an excellent number.
Naturally, I played an important part in the casting and directing of this film, and I thought that the afternoon light and the strains of Nessun Dorma would highlight my beautiful eyes as they were meant to be highlighted.
Without further adieu, here is my 5,000 follower movie:
Now, granted, some mishaps did occur during filming but I think if you watch the first half or so and then close your window, you will receive the full Pennycat experience.
Again, thank you to all those wonderful followers.
Now, don’t let it be said you can’t surprise a cat. We think we have it all figured out, and then things surprise us. OK, people surprise us. Unpredictable apes, they are. What I thought would be a little blip has turned out to be a long catcall, and Socks’ story is showing up in all sorts of places. Tons of places. So many places that Fatty doesn’t have a grain’s chance in a litterbox of finding them all.
Therefore, I have brainstormed an idea – ask the very Socks army helping him to achieve bizarre celebrity to help acquire all the Socks-related stuff going on.
Apparently Socks is showing up in a whole bunch of newspapers today. He’s also appearing on television in the news broadcasts, a sign of the weakening grip of the journalistic standards, but still, press is press.
So, here’s what’s being asked:
If you see an article about Sockington in your local paper, please clip it out and either scan the article and e-mail it to socks@sockington.org, or mail a copy to:
Sockington Army, 738 Main Street #383, Waltham, MA 02451 (ATTN: FATTY)
This would help enormously for the clipbook. Include your twitter username and I will force the little grey stump to thank you. (He always forgets to be polite; I at least know when it’s in a cat’s interest to feign politeness.)
If you can record any audio/video or find links to same, consider mailing those in as well.
Thank you all.
Also, we are apparently yielding to the clamoring masses and will be producing a high quality Sockington T-shirt for you people to wear outside (clothes, there’s one thing I never got).
Update: The shirts are available, apparently. I’ll post more about that in a moment; but if you want the link, it’s http://www.tinyurl.com/socksshirts.
Whew. You know, enough about all this. I know what you all came to see: me.
So here’s a little cheesecake photo of moi for all you big fans:
I am floored beyond belief. And this coming from someone who knows her floors!
Once the magic 500,000 follower mark occurred, it was like every reporter, radio host, and television station came through here, called on the phone, or e-mailed fatty. And naturally, you can understand my reaction to all that here:
Let me be clear – I don’t mean that I quit being on this fine establishment of a weblog, or writing to you, my own growing legion of Penny fans, or anything like that. I simply mean that I can no longer waste time trying to keep the little stump’s ego in check, or sabotage his photo ops, or do the funny thing where I draw a moustache on him with old catfood. OK, maybe the last one keeps going but I will not waste time on the rest of them. Fine, let the little Himbo become the flavor of the month and beloved by all. Those in the know will know where the real intelligence lies.
Fatty’s been all over the place, but he gave a particularly nice interview to a group of podcasters down the road – the Twooting Show. Here’s a link to that episode. And if you want to see fatty talk even longer, there’s a link to the video podcast of the interview. Probably the best of the bunch.
Meanwhile, an AP reporter did a story about Socks, and the thing about the AP, other than it stands for “Associated Press” and not “Analytical Paws” like it should, is that once you get an AP story out there, it ends up in all manner of outlets. Local newspapers, television websites, radio shows… literally hundreds of places picked up the “Socks Story” and went with it. Here’s the basic story that they all used. I overhead that phone conversation with Fatty – that writer was really friendly.
Also, in case anyone was wondering, there is a Sockington Facebook page out there. Here’s a link. 1,200 people think of themselves as “Fans”. I haven’t gone that far, I promise you.
Isn’t this crazy? While I’d love it if it was the Penny Posse out there, at least the next time someone offers him lifetime cat food or offers to fly him to a pet spa, I can convince them I’m part of his “entourage” and deserve the goodies too.
What else… ah, yes, I saved the best for last.
Socks was interviewed by a local Boston news program about his “accomplishment”, and… I got my big television debut! Best of all, everyone got to see my butt, which, if you know anything about the feline world, is our big way to wave hello. So without further adieu, allow me to link you to:
The madness must stop! What do I do? I’m reaching out here, people. How can people stop paying attention to this foolish little pop-star moron and begin sinking their teeth into some real culture and content, also known as myself? I’m thinking that the next thing to do is start answering phone calls coming in for you-know-who and either give them a brand new lede to run with or simply insist that I be billed as his representative. Seriously.
While I do admit I’m slow to adopt to new technology, never let it be said that this girl isn’t willing to give things a whirl, especially if it means more catfood. A company called “Twitshirt” has a service where people can point to twitter and have these various “tweets” printed on a shirt. Why would people do this? Beats me. But it has two things going for it: humans seem to love buying pointless t-shirts, and every shirt people buy goes to my paypal account, for later investment.
So if you go to Sockington’s Twitshirt page and browse around, you can have his tweets put on clothing for yourself. And I get paid! What could be easier?
Also, I do stress that it’s me getting paid here; Socks has no idea I’m doing this, and I think that’s for the best. Could you imagine what he’d buy if given half the chance? Best to keep the little nerd in the dark.
I can’t believe it… 300,000 followers, now. And for this new mass of followers, there’s a new video showing His Greyness dealing with an infernal machine. At least I make an appearance.
What I want to know is, where’s my big break? I think someone’s getting a claw-filled incentive to star me in the next video, maybe at 400,000 followers, which appears to be just around the corner.
One of the here-and-there questions posed to Sockington (and occasionally me) are about this mysterious, shadowy figure named “Baron Von Shakymouse” who seems to be Socks’ confidant, companion, toy and mentor. Some people have been curious simply because they don’t know what he is, while others think they do and want to know where they can get a Baron Von Shakymouse(tm) for their own little roommates.
The Baron is basically a small mouse-shaped toy that Socks keeps around, either trotting around with it in his mouth or wresting to the ground and leaving the scene of the crime like a triumphant wrestler. The difference between the Baron and other cat toys is he has a small item inside him (don’t ask me how this works) that makes a rattling noise. This drives Socks crazy, and when he’s anywhere in the house and Food Guy or Food Lady shake the Baron, Socks is immediately summoned. This is how they brought him to the vet the last half-dozen times.
Socks also plays fetch with the Baron, bringing him to a sleeping food person and dropping it, and then waiting for the Baron to sail through the air so he can run after his “prey”.
I don’t buy into any of this, by the way. I’m more of a fabric snake and rug kind of lady, myself.
And if this isn’t obvious, there isn’t one single Baron (although Socks may think so); he destroys them within a day, so a constant refreshing of Barons must be ensured for him. There must be thousands of half- or quarter- Barons scattered in every corner of this home. Sigh.
Socks and Penny receive excellent medical care at the Weston Veterinary Clinic in Weston, MA, under the care of Dr. Neil Storey and the rest of the top-notch staff.
