Alone in the world is a little Cat Dog

[Mr Cat Dog]

Aloha.

First things first, I feel ridonkulously guilty posting this here. Though I'm able to see the Supporter forums on account of being a staff member here at PC, I've never donated at all (and, to be honest, have no real intention of doing so... got all the perks I need for the time being!) So, even though I'm posting this here, a small part of me feels kinda bad about doing so.

But never mind that. Life's too short to worry about feeling guilty over small things on a Pokemon forum. And with that proviso out of the way, let's get down to business.

First off, I'm Mr Cat Dog. Or Jonathan. Or Jon. Feel free to call me any of those (or any other witticisms that may cross your mind if we ever end up conversing). I'm 22-years-young (soon to be 23) and have been a super moderator here at PC for coming up to 3 years now, off and on. I joined in April '04, left for a few months, came back in September '04, rose up the ranks, left on acrimonious terms in October '05 for nearly 6 years, came back in March '11 and somehow managed to rise up the ranks again! In my time here, I've modded Pokemon and non-Pokemon related forums (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, Pokemon Gaming Central, Pokemon General, Chit-Chat and Polls (ex. Other Voting Polls) and General Entertainment (ex. Culture & Media), and each one of those has proven to be quite illuminating.

Offline, I currently live in London and have done for the past 5 years. I work as a corporate lawyer, which is probably more boring than that sounds. I love film and television (especially foreign of the former and American of the latter), good food and award shows. I can literally talk your ear off about award shows, as it's because of them that I got into most of the other interests in my life.

Feel free to ask me anything. I don't think there's anything off limits and, while I've scoffed in the past at the attention-seeking nature of numerous AMA blogs, a part of me is secretly curious as to what PC's memberbase thinks of me. Especially given that I don't do as much interacting with them as I should, given my position.

So... ask away! :D

P.S. I change my avatar to a new cartoon character every Sunday. But you probably knew that... it's kinda my thing.

P.P.S. I love gifs. Almost as much as award shows.

 

[tabor62]

Don't worry, I'm a staff member with a hack supporter status :P Though I'll donate when I can find a way to do so, problems with online payments and such.

There's something I've always meant to ask you; is your username based off of the cartoon CatDog?

 

[Sydian]

Sorry, the one thing I wanted to ask you kind got asked by Tabor above but still...do you, or did you, actually like the show Cat Dog?

How was that McDonalds you had on January 1, 2012????

 

[Fairy]

To follow up on Tabor's question..

Why CatDog? :)

What's the best moment you remember having while watching a reward show?

What's your favorite thing about being a super moderator? What's your least?

 

[Hikamaru]

What inspired you to do random children's/cartoon characters in your avatars?

Out of all the various characters you've used in your avatar, which is your fave?

 

[Her]

Do you think you are physically attractive?

 

[vaporeon7]

Which character that has been your avatar has been your favourite?

(idk if that even made sense)

 

[Overlord Drakow]

Why are you alone in the world?

 

[Spherical Ice]

Why are you a parasite that refuses to donate £2 a month you horrible person?

I understand you were a SMod ages ago and then left? What made you want to return? How'd you manipulate the hstaff into remodding you?

 

[abarai]

Hey CatDog =).

Wow 04, and i thought i had been a member for a long time lol.

What kind of foreign films are you into?, and who are some of your favourate foreign actors?.
Personally my all time favourate would be seven samurai. Some recent good watches have been 13 assasins, A bittersweet life and Outrage.

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

Don't worry, I'm a staff member with a hack supporter status :P Though I'll donate when I can find a way to do so, problems with online payments and such.

There's something I've always meant to ask you; is your username based off of the cartoon CatDog?

Honestly, I don't remember. I've had this username for nearly 10 years now, and it was based off an old e-mail address that I had before people felt comfortable using their real names anywhere online. (Seriously, most of my friends at school had much weirder e-mail addresses than [email protected] but they're suitably ashamed of them.) But, in terms of its origins, it probably was based off the show, but I can't remember for sure. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast most days, so going back 10+ years into the recesses of my memory was always going to be a stretch. Sorry.

Sorry, the one thing I wanted to ask you kind got asked by Tabor above but still...do you, or did you, actually like the show Cat Dog?

How was that McDonalds you had on January 1, 2012????

I liked the show well enough to remember its theme tune to steal parts of it for the title of this thread. It wasn't a Dexter's Lab or anything, but I probably watched it whenever it came on TV. And before anyone asks, I'm more of a Cat than a Dog. Definitely.

And the McDonalds was probably fine. It's McDonalds, so it's not as if there's much variation. (Apart from in Japan where OMG that McDonalds was delicious, but everything in Japan is delicious.) For the most part, the best McD isn't too far off from the worst in terms of quality.

To follow up on Tabor's question..

Why CatDog? :)

What's the best moment you remember having while watching a reward show?

What's your favorite thing about being a super moderator? What's your least?

Wow, lots of questions. Here goes.

Why not CatDog? I guess I've answered it above, but I honestly have no idea. No intention of getting rid of it any time soon, though. A better question is why Alexial357!?

I've loved award shows for longer than I've been on PC, but I only started watching them about 4-5 years ago. So as much as I'd like to say Ingrid Bergman going "The winner is... IT'S A TIE!" at the 1968 Oscars for giving Best Actress to Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn (especially for how she misquotes "The Lion in Winter" as "Lion in the Winter"), given that I watched it on YouTube two months ago, it feels a bit disingenuous to do so. My favourite moments are probably Asghar Farhadi winning Best Foreign Language Film for A Separation because its one of my favourite films of all time and totally deserved it, and Meryl Streep winning Best Actress for The Iron Lady, because while it didn't deserve to win, it was a surprise (as much as Meryl Streep winning awards can be considered a surprise, Viola Davis was seen as the favourite that year) and she gave one of the best speeches I've heard, completely off the cuff and totes amazeballs.

Favourite thing about being an S-Mod is modding members. Easily #1. It's great knowing that I have a direct hand in selecting who the leaders and (hopefully) role models are to be for one if the biggest forums on the 'net. Least favourite is the fact that a bold/orange name instantly makes me more intimidating in the eyes of many people. I don't think I've changed all that much in my time here, but the level of interaction I have with the members has dropped like a stone since my promotion nearly a year ago, which does concern me.

What inspired you to do random children's/cartoon characters in your avatars?

Out of all the various characters you've used in your avatar, which is your fave?

My favourite avatars are always the animated ones. If I can find a 150x150 animated gif of the character, that's just brilliant. Having said that, that I can't remember any animated gifs that I've used probably says a lot about how much these avatars stay with me afterwards! Off the top of my head, my favourite characters that I've been are Homer Simpson (the very first), Louise Belcher, Ice King and Bugs Bunny. All for entirely different reasons.

Do you think you are physically attractive?

I know I'm no Ryan Gosling, but I don't think I'm ugly, by any stretch of the imagination. It also helps that I've got great self-esteem, so I'm very secure in who I am. I wouldn't know what to say if you asked me to rate my 'hotness' from 1 - 10, but I don't think I'm too bad.

Which character that has been your avatar has been your favourite?

(idk if that even made sense)

It made sense, but please see the answer above to Hikari. :D

Why are you alone in the world?

Because that's a lyric to the theme song for CatDog. In real life, I'm lucky to be surrounded by friends, even if many of them have decided to ditch me today for the bank holiday.

Why are you a parasite that refuses to donate £2 a month you horrible person?

I understand you were a SMod ages ago and then left? What made you want to return? How'd you manipulate the hstaff into remodding you?

I came back because my room-mate at university was going to buy either of Black or White and wanted me to buy one so he could trade. I subsequently bought Black and thought "hey, why not see what PC has gotten up to?" Beforehand, I'd passed through one time around HGSS release time but didn't post at all. This time, however, I had to clear out my PM inbox (which was stuffed full of reports; a sign of how old I am), and by the time I'd finished, I had VMs from Lightning (who I knew from my last stint) and Went (who was just being a stalker). Though I hadn't planned on staying, I got chatting to people and one thing led to another and here I am!

And I "manipulated" the staff by being a really good poster in a section that I had a great deal of interest in which didn't happen to have a mod in. That's all there is to it; no great conspiracy to it, honestly. Though I do have photos of most of the h-staff, come to think of it...

Phew. That was a fun way to kill 45 minutes while queuing for theatre tickets! :D

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

Hey CatDog =).

Wow 04, and i thought i had been a member for a long time lol.

What kind of foreign films are you into?, and who are some of your favourate foreign actors?.
Personally my all time favourate would be seven samurai. Some recent good watches have been 13 assasins, A bittersweet life and Outrage.

Sorry, I completely missed you when I was doing that big deluge up above!

And to answer your question, as bad as this will sound, I'm just into 'good' foreign films, irrespective of genre. My absolute faves are The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Spirited Away and Cries and Whispers, and I'm struggling to come up with thematic links between the three of them! :P In terms of foreign directors, I'm a big Wong Kar-wai, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Asghar Farhadi fan and normally really like their work whenever it comes out. (To say I'm looking forward to The Past would be an immense understatement!)

In terms of foreign actors, I really like Tony Leung, Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche and Toshiro Mifune. (I'm not a big fan of Kurosawa, gotta say, but I am a big Mifune fan. :D) Again: quite eclectic!

 

[Esper]

Do you follow any celebrity blogs/tweets/whatevers, or any similar thing from anyone active in one area of media or another? Do you have a celebrity crush? Who was your first celebrity crush?

 

[Mew~]

Are you going to the London MCM Expo on May 25th? If you are, and you hear someone shout 'OI GOVERNOR' can you knowledge it and shout back 'FETCH ME MY LEMONS'?!

If not, that's quite alright.

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

When you left PC however many times you did, how hard was it to do that, given the fact that you kinda make friends and whatnot here?

Honestly? Not hard at all. If you have a look at my leaving thread, you can see that I pulled no punches in telling people what I thought of this place. And though I probably talked to more people back then than I do now, I wouldn't really have considered many of those people 'friends' in the way that I do with PC peeps nowadays. Indeed, leaving PC was one of the best things that I ever did, as it forced me to grow and mature as a person offline. Coming back with all the extra ugh "life experiences" put me in much a better shape as well.

Do you follow any celebrity blogs/tweets/whatevers, or any similar thing from anyone active in one area of media or another? Do you have a celebrity crush? Who was your first celebrity crush?

I don't follow any celebrities on Twitter nor read things like Perez Hilton or TMZ. I'm really interested in the media/entertainment industry as... well, an industry or a business! I could talk til the cows come home about changing demographics impacting advertising on TV or how intellectual property laws have no way to really interact with how people consume media or even something as 'simple' as how films make money (and it's not as simple as one would think; box office nowadays is increasingly becoming smaller and smaller). As such, I follow a lot of media commentators, a lot of whom happen to be TV/film critics or just people with an opinion of how media operates. As far as 'celebrity' culture goes, I'm really not interested in that. I have no idea who's dating who or who's in rehab or who's adopting an African baby. No idea at all. And it doesn't really interest me all that much: it's the work and the products that celebrities are in that interest me more than the inner lives/demons of the people involved.

In terms of crushes, I don't really get them with celebrities. That's not to say that I find all celebrities hideous or anything (Jennifer Lawrence is one hella attractive woman!) but most of my crushes have had an element of knowing their personality beforehand. With celebrities you don't really get that: you get the image that they want to portray but you don't get to know them as a person. I know this is me being weird, but I guess that's how my mind operates. The first time I had something like a crush was with Leslie Mann in George of the Jungle. But even then, as much as Leslie Mann was attractive, a big part of it was just me wanting to be the character of George himself: living in the jungle, having a talking ape as a best friend, having a beautiful wife etc... I was 8. Sue me! :P

Are you going to the London MCM Expo on May 25th? If you are, and you hear someone shout 'OI GOVERNOR' can you knowledge it and shout back 'FETCH ME MY LEMONS'?!

If not, that's quite alright.

I don't know if I'll be going yet. Because of my job, I sometimes have to work weekends and don't really find out until a few days before at the most. So... I might be going, or I might not. Just depends, really. But feel free to randomly shout out that phrase. With any luck, I might get you to fetch me some lemons! :D

 

[Jake♫]

You should bring back more Community GIFs. Just saying =P

As for an actual question, what would you say has changed the most from PC when you left to where PC is now? Would it be a positive or negative change?

Just to step away from that, what would you consider your favorite award show?

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

You should bring back more Community GIFs. Just saying =P

As for an actual question, what would you say has changed the most from PC when you left to where PC is now? Would it be a positive or negative change?

Just to step away from that, what would you consider your favorite award show?

The biggest change is that, for the most part, members actually talk in coherent sentences with proper spelling and grammar. This is most definitely a positive change, as I always hated the way that lolspeak and *glomp* stuff ended up travelling through the forum (and, to be fair, the whole of the internet) like a virus just infecting everyone. Nowadays, people actually have conversations that sound like something out of real life and make the effort to make them vaguely presentable. Which goes a long way with me, given that most of my friends can barely spell-check their e-mails to me at work! So that's definitely a positive change on my part.

The best award show depends on what your metric is. If you mean the best award show to watch, then that's the Tonys hands down. Because it's celebrating people putting on live shows for a living, the show itself is always really professionally done, and it flows really well. Shows like the Oscars just try and be too self-important and the Emmys just try and stuff too much in and end up being really weird to watch and the Grammys aren't even an award show (just a collection of live music interspersed with about 5 awards!) and the rest are just kinda boring. Second place would be the Golden Globes: as an award show, they're execrable, but as a piece of filmed entertainment, they're kinda great. Give celebrities alcohol and networking opportunities and televised glee ensues. If you mean the best award show in terms of the awards given out, then that's the Oscars. It genuinely reflects large parts of the film industry and, while they're not perfect, within a certain range of films, the winners are usually not-too-bad. I would say the Tonys again but, because there's such a limited pool of nominees/winners, picking the 'right' winner is comparatively a lot easier.

 

[Treecko]

Do you have any favorite gifs?

Is there any movies you really enjoyed? Your favorite?

Speaking of gifs, how do you pronounce it? With a J like Jiff or like a G like Ghiff?

 

[Esper]

Is being a lawyer something you "always wanted to do" or wanted to do for a while? Did you have little kid dreams of being an astronaut or a pirate or anything silly and did you have more realistic dreams for what you'd do in your future?

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

Do you have any favorite gifs?

Is there any movies you really enjoyed? Your favorite?

Speaking of gifs, how do you pronounce it? With a J like Jiff or like a G like Ghiff?

I don't know why I love this gif as much as I do. Partially because it's from one of my favourite TV shows on the air, featuring my favourite character licking the frosting off a cake thinking it's skin. I love the expressions on both of them, the animation, everything really! That being said, I have a soft spot for any gif from a TV show that I like. I'm very easy to please in that regard.

I keep a top 10 of the best films ever made. They are - in complete and meticulous order:

1. Network (1976)
2. Fargo (1996)
3. WALL-E (2008)
4. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
5. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
6. Psycho (1960)
7. His Girl Friday (1940)
8. Spirited Away (2002)
9. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
10. Cries and Whispers (1972)

I'd heartily recommend each and every one of them, and there's probably at least one film in there for everyone, depending on taste.

And g as is 'gas'. Anything else is just weird.

Is being a lawyer something you "always wanted to do" or wanted to do for a while? Did you have little kid dreams of being an astronaut or a pirate or anything silly and did you have more realistic dreams for what you'd do in your future?

I only wanted to be a lawyer from about the age of 16-ish. Before that, I wanted to be a psychiatrist; before that, I wanted to be an actor. I imagine I probably had silly dreams of being an astronaut or prime minister or something equally ridiculous, but I honestly can't remember. Those three slightly more realistic career goals are the only ones I can properly remember. And interspersed between all of these is my actual 'dream', for want of a better word, which is to write something. Be it a book, play, film or TV series, that's the goal at some point. Hopefully I'll get to do it... but for now, the law is where I'mma be! :D