Thanks for all the advice. As you predicted Mark, our carpet is his favourite spot to leave his barfy deposits. And if we try to put a piece of newspaper under him as he's throwing up, he'll just walk away and leave a trail on the carpet while we chase him down with the newspaper...so we gave up on that and we just leave him be. New floors later this month will mean less carpet in the house and easier cleanups.

He always gets groomed daily. For the last week, I've been grooming him about four times a day. I'm taking out enough fur to build a fully grown squirrel every day. He's a big cat so there's a lot of him to brush!

About a week and half ago I started giving him a hairball treatment. It's basically fish flavoured petroleum jelly and he LOVES it. I gave it to him for four days straight and now he gets it every other day. It's his favourite treat (who knew?!). Should I be giving it to him daily? Can a cat have too much of this stuff?

We had a cat when I was growing up. She had long hair and coughed up massive hairballs on a regular basis, but she never vomited food. The food thing is new to me. I didn't know if I should be concerned about the throwing up that isn't hair, but it sounds like this is pretty normal and we may just have to face the fact that we have adopted a barfy cat.