Aubrey Plaza is delightfully weird.
Anyone who’s seen her on a late night talk show or in an impromptu interview knows what I’m talking about. Instead of the practiced, carefully crafted anecdotes celebrities tell to make themselves seem more interesting, or the hard focus on promoting a particular project, Plaza seems to revel in awkward pauses, bizarre responses and stories that most people would never tell about themselves.
She does it all with a deadpan expression so you can never quite tell if she’s joking. That’s part of the fun.
I hadn’t seen her in much until Emily the Criminal, about a woman whose frustration at trying to make ends meet with dead-end jobs leads her down a highly illegal path, revealing a talent for deception she never knew she had.
Now she’s starring in Kevin, an animated show about an eponymous tuxedo cat who decides that when his humans break up, he’s going to break up with them too. Instead of going with one of them, Kevin decides to move “into a local pet rescue in Astoria, Queens, where a band of misfit animals helps him discover what he truly wants out of life,” according to the series’ logline.
Plaza co-created the series with Joe Wengert, and Jason Schwartzmann, who we loved in Bored To Death, will voice Kevin. The show will premiere on April 20 on Prime Video.
Cats prefer sleeping on their left side, but why?
Two out of three cats prefer sleeping on their left side, which immediately raises two questions: why do they prefer sleeping that way, and how do we know such a seemingly obscure piece of information?
In 2025, a team of scientists from Italy and Germany analyzed more than 400 random online videos of our furry overlords in their rest state, and the numbers were consistent. Cats definitely have a preferred side to sleep on, and it’s the left.
As for why, in a research paper published in Current Biology last summer, the scientists say there are several reasons, but the primary one is that the right side of the brain processes shapes and visual sensory input.
Since the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body in mammals, due to the way nerve fibers cross at the base of the brain, a cat opening its eyes and seeing the world from the left side is able to more quickly assess information and react.
That’s a pretty big deal for cats, as a story in Science Focus notes. As both predator and prey, felines have to respond quickly not only to potential threats, but also potential lunch.
That is especially true for a species that spends the majority of its time sleeping deeply or napping, meaning they’re physically vulnerable to attack most of the time. That explains why our cats are able to spring to alertness immediately from a nap, and why their most restful sleep comes when they’re absolutely sure they’re safe.
Anecdotally, that makes sense. Bud clearly feels safest when he sleeps on me or burrows between my knees, and it’s subsequently harder to rouse him from slumber compared to, say, when he catches some Zs on the couch by himself or retreats to another favorite napping spot.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also bucks the trend and likes to sleep on his right side. We are, after all, talking about a cat who still hasn’t figured out that wand toy games simulate hunting, and that they should end with a “kill bite” rather than Bud’s favored method, which is bouncing happily on his back paws while bobbling the toy in his front paws.
He may have the instincts of his wild ancestors, but all he knows is the comfort and warmth of human homes.
via Pain In The Bud