Here kitty, kitty

From the file of odd things people do to show their devotion to an animal, I bring you www.cat-scan.com. Just when you thought things couldn't get stranger than a website dedicated to mullets of all shapes and sizes, Cliff Bleszinski gives us a site where alleged cat lovers can see their feline fetishes realized on a computer screen-by placing their cats onto scanner flatbeds and posting the resulting images online.

The site boasts pages upon pages of the squirming furballs, some posing with catnip, some posing with other cats, some posing with their owners. What we have here, ladies and gents, is a strange and sadistic way of expressing love for a fellow-creature.

Now, I should admit that I am by no means a cat-lover. In fact, I've been known to angrily spritz my friends' feline, Chairman Meow, with a water bottle in order to keep the furry pest away from my bowl of cereal. But no matter how annoyed I got when the damned cat insisted on climbing onto my lap and leaving its itchy black hairs all over my work clothes, I never-repeat, never-considered smushing it into a scanner for all the world to see.

But Bleszinski, a 25-year-old game designer who lives in Raleigh with his wife and five cats, insists that no animals were harmed in the making of this website. "This website is far less traumatic than a trip to the vet," he wrote in an e-mail. "It's about as traumatic as taking your cat to a photo shoot."

To Bleszinski's credit, he has posted a disclaimer deep in the website's archives: "If the cat looks like it is in serious pain, if you have to hurt the cat to scan it, your entry will not be allowed. I love cats, I just believe that a scanned cat is hilarious."

Yeah, well so is tossing a cat into a washing machine or a microwave-but common sense says that you probably shouldn't do that, either.

And although one representative from the Eno Animal Hospital said there were no known health risks associated with scanning cats, I remain skeptical. Call me a buzzkill, but instinct tells me that squishing a live animal onto a machine that emits strong light rays and maybe some radiation is probably not a good idea-physically or psychologically.

I just wish these guys would just go back to photocopying their own asses. Now that's funny.