WHO

My name is Joshua. I am a graduate of Ohio University with a degree in journalism. I dream of one day writing for a living. Nothing gets me more excited about life than music. I play several instruments, but I do not excel at any of them. I feel that sentence could serve as a metaphor for nearly every aspect of my life.

Dancing is fun, too, sometimes.

The name “mouseandcat” has no particular meaning. At least, it had no meaning when I first came up with it. Later on, I tried to tack on some semblance of meaning, such as a subversion of the typical “cat and mouse” phrase in such a way that represents the hunter and the hunted as serving dual roles or switching the roles with which they are conventionally associated. I have since decided that it’s best to leave the interpretation up to the observer, as much as I hate it when artists pull that stunt.

WHAT

This blog serves (for the most part) as a feature blog for articles about various media, from movies to music to books to video games to anything else that could reasonably qualify as media. Most of the media I write about would be called “alternative” in some fashion, but when I say that, I essentially mean that I write about things and artists that one might not hear about in the fervent outpouring of mainstream culture.

Every once in a while, I’ll also post an article about something crazy going on in my own life. I like to tinker with crafts every now and then, so expect to see related posts. Assuming I haven’t already diverged from the plan, my goal is to publish an article relating to music every Monday, an article relating to movies every Friday, and something different every Wednesday.

Being a product of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism, I adhere mostly to the Associated Press style for spelling, grammar, punctuation and other writing conventions. My style diverges in a few regards, most notably in my use of ending punctuation as it relates to quotation marks. I follow the British style, which is to leave punctuation out of quotations unless the punctuation is part of the quoted material. It’s nothing big to worry about; I just like to make that known in case someone tries to argue about grammar with me.

WHY

I love to share new music, movies, books, video games, etc. with my friends. I made this blog as a way to spread the word about all sorts of wonderful artistry that I come across in my life. That is why I call the articles “features” and not “reviews”. For this reason, I also do not provide ratings for media (such as a number of stars out of five, a percentage out of 100, or an indication of which way my thumbs are pointing). Very rarely will I write about something that I do not enjoy. Instead, often at the end of a post, I will give a brief explanation of the sort of person who might enjoy the particular thing that I am talking about in the article.

I am also writing this blog as a way to exercise my journalistic ability. I work for a publication on campus, but I enjoy having something I can use to experiment with different writing styles and to write about whatever I choose. I hope that you, the reader, can gain something from this blog as well.