Muffy and Biff had been together for about two years and decided they wanted to move in together. They were making a list of what they were looking for.
Muffy: We need lots of windows for sun puddles.
Biff: And close to shopping. I might need to make a late-night kibble run.
Muffy: Close to our families.
Biff: But not too close.
Muffy: What’s that supposed to mean? I love my family.
Biff: I know. But we want to be independent.
Muffy: Hmmph. It needs to be affordable.
Biff: Do you know what part of town you’d like?
Muffy: Not really. But I’d like to be close to a milk bar. And maybe a yoga studio.
Biff: Okay let’s see what’s available in KittyConnector in our price range.
They found several places that looked like possibilities. They contacted a KittyConnector agent and set up an appointment for the following weekend. They met at her office.
Biff: Hi, we’re Muffy and Biff. We have an appointment with Drusilla.
Drusilla: That’s me. I booked the places you are interested in. Ready to go?
Muffy and Biff followed her out and got into her car.
Drusilla: Let’s start with the furthest place and work our way back to the office. The first stop is the place on Cranberry Lake. It’s a beautiful location. Lots of space and plenty of small animals to keep you entertained.
Muffy: It seems to be taking a lot of time to get there. Are we even in town anymore?
Drusilla: Technically, it is within the town limits. We’re here!
Muffy: There’s no house here. It’s just a barn.
Drusilla: Plenty of cats live in barns. Just look at the view.
Muffy: I am not living in a barn. Let’s move on.
Drusilla: All right. The next stop is an apartment on Willow Road. It’s a high-rise on the river. It’s close to everything and gets excellent reviews from the tenants.
Biff: That sounds better. Let’s check it out.
They took an elevator to the tenth floor, and walked into the available apartment.
Drusilla (reading from a brochure): This place has several really nice features: in-apartment washer and dryer, sunken bathtub, and built-in vacuum system.
Biff and Muffy looked at each other in confusion.
Muffy: Why would a cat want any of those features? A built-in vacuum sounds terrifying.
Drusilla: Those aren’t intended to attract cats.
Biff: So who lives here?
Drusilla: It was built for humans, but anyone can live here.
Biff: How many of the apartments have humans in them?
Drusilla: It says approximately 85%.
Muffy: Let’s get out of here. I’ve been afraid of humans since a small human pulled my tail. Really hard.
Drusilla: Okay. On to the duplex on Maple.
Biff: Sounds good.
They pulled up to a beautiful house with lots of windows. The location was good too. Before they could get out of the car, one of the door opened, and two dogs came out. The dogs were having some sort of fight, with lots of snarling and bared teeth.
Muffy: Who are they? Are they moving out of the flat we’re interested in?
Drusilla: Umm, no. That is currently empty. The dogs would be your neighbors.
Biff: In the same house? Sharing walls?
Drusilla: That is correct.
Biff: Not interested. What’s next?
Drusilla: The rental on Concord.
They arrived at a big, old house. It was well maintained. Biff and Muffy were hopeful as they got out of the car, and rang the doorbell. A large, fluffy calico opened the door.
Calico: Hello.
Drusilla: Hi. My clients are interested in the space you have for rent.
Calico: Welcome! I’ll show you the room.
Biff: Room? Isn’t it an apartment?
As they walked through the house, they saw a group of cats working on a puzzle in the front room. There were also a few cats in the kitchen.
Calico: No, we don’t have apartments. Everything is communal, except the sleeping quarters. We divide everything else up.
Muffy: So we wouldn’t really have our own space?
Calico: No, we don’t believe in individual property. You would have chores to do for the greater good.
Muffy: That’s just weird. Cats don’t like to share.
Calico: You really don’t seem like a fit for our commune. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Muffy and Biff left the house feeling very dejected. Nothing was even close to what they were looking for. There had to be a better way to find somewhere to live.
Next week: The search continues.
All pictures generated by Gemini AI.
Adventures in Cheeseland 
That sure was some interesting house hunting, hopefully you’ll find what you’re both looking for x 😽
Thank you. It’s a lot harder than we expected.
bezt fizhez guyz tryin ta find a plaze…it sur seemz hard in thiz day N age ta get eggz act lee what cha want…purrhapz ewe could buy sum ground N build yur own houz ?! !!!! that mite bee fun…
( wunder who winned that fight…de rottweiler ore de shepherd ‼️‼️‼️😸🐾🐾 happee week end two all 💚💚💚
Hmm. Designing a place sounds good.
Maybe they could buy their own place if they save up for a while. 🙂 XO
That’s a thought. Renting is not looking good at the moment.
I think I know where this is going. Lol
I also noticed the Milk Bar had two of the same thing for different prices. Maybe due to sizes?
Hmm. Gemini must have glitched on the prices.
I asked Gemini to generate a map of the Milky Way for me with things like the Sol system, Sagittarius A, Wolf 359, Epsilon Eridani, major nebulas and known black holes marked.
It made a mess of it, putting E. Eridani on an opposite spiral arm and our system right near the galactic core. The map was visually impressive but the text and locations were all wrong.
Likewise on an attempt to generate a 1:1 script for a fake writing system.
New generation of GPT has really ironed out all those text problems and I’m sure Gemini will very soon as well.
I think it will be difficult to program the level of detail needed to mimic some very specific scenarios.
They don’t program LLMs, that’s the major innovation of algorithmic AI and the reason why it’s so difficult to figure out what’s wrong when the AIs “hallucinate.”
AIs like Gemini and GPT are algorithms which are “fed” MASSIVE amounts of data, called “annotated training data.”
At first the algorithm can’t draw or identify a cat, for example. But after it sees 500,000 images of every type of cat imaginable, from every angle, and those images are carefully annotated with text that describes what they are, the AI gets pretty good at it.
Once the AI “ingests” 2 million images of cats, it’s incredibly good at it. And on and on…
That’s how it works, that’s why the demand for quality annotated training data is through the roof, and it’s why some people are suing OpenAI, Google et al, because they allege the LLMs (AIs) ingested their books, paintings, whatever, as training data.
Crucially, there is no central cognition, no “brain,” so the AIs do not have agency and they can’t do anything similar to what we would consider “thinking.” But they are very, very good at simulating the feeling that they can think. The classic Chinese Room thought experiment is a perfect example of what these AIs are doing when we talk to them.
Thanks! It is amazing how much better pictures are looking from even a few months ago
Mee-yo what alot of runnin around to find a nice place Muffy an Biff….THE Search continuess!! There has to bee sumwhere rite!
***purrss*** BellaDharma an **blowss kissess** BellaSita Mum
They’ll find someplace they’ll be happy. 🙂
The part about moving into the barn reminded me of one of my favorite books, “Pecked to Death by Goslings.”
The rest of their adventure sounds like something that would have taken an hour episode (filled with 30 minutes of commercials) on an HGTV series.
The housing market isn’t great right now. Even for cats.
Those elitist commune cats weren’t being honest anyway. There were dogs in the background, taking up the good couch spots and not even offering to help with the puzzle!
Excellent point! They must have been somebody’s friends.
Wee sure hope so Snoopss an Crew! 😉
We always have a big smile when we’re reading your stories and the pictures…and we hope they find what they’re looking for too🐱Double Pawkisses for a Happy Weekend to all of you🐾😘💞
Thank you!
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This kinda reminds me of once when I was house-hunting. Nothing was what I wanted or expected.
My son and his girlfriend are looking for a place. I think it’s getting harder