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is a Professional Geek for Microsoft Australia. More info lives underneath the About Box...

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Explaining my Avatar

By Nick Hodge | April 30, 2009

Hodge The Cat

The above avatar is a car­toon drawn by the fam­ous crikey.com.au’s Firstdo­gon­themoon. (twit­ter: @firstdogonmoon)

My request was “a black cat with glasses”. Firstdog stated that a black cat with glasses was a tough ask, but we can see the excel­lent result.

The black cat, Hodge the Cat, was one of Samuel John­son’s cat. Samuel was a mer­cur­ial man of let­ters from the 18th Cen­tury, hav­ing cre­ated A Dic­tion­ary of the Eng­lish Lan­guage. Hodge the Cat immor­tal­ized in a char­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally whim­sical pas­sage in James Boswell’s Life of John­son:

Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fond­ness which he shewed for anim­als which he had taken under his pro­tec­tion. I never shall for­get the indul­gence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he him­self used to go out and buy oysters, lest the ser­vants hav­ing that trouble should take a dis­like to the poor creature. I am, unluck­ily, one of those who have an anti­pathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I fre­quently suffered a good deal from the pres­ence of this same Hodge. I recol­lect him one day scram­bling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, appar­ently with much sat­is­fac­tion, while my friend smil­ing and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, say­ing, ‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked bet­ter than this;’ and then as if per­ceiv­ing Hodge to be out of coun­ten­ance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’

Glasses, for stu­di­ous­ness and learned­ness; both to which I aspire. Black cat to describe my moods, and against a grey back­ground to sym­bol­ise the shades of grey­ness in the world. A cat as obvi­ously, I am a cat per­son.

Hodge the Cat sym­bol­ises me. Thanks First Dog!

My second favour­ite albeit ran­dom avatar is Mr Alien Pur­itan as taken by Delic8genius. There is a story here, but that is for another day.

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