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February 27, 2007

Screw you, spam

The comment spam has been building up quite a bit lately. I regularly junk 10-15 comments from my site and I know that is low compared to some sites. It's all useless crap unless you want your penis enlarged or you are looking for a hot tip in the penny stock world.

I'm looking at 2 options for authentication. One is to have you commenters leave a legit email address. I know that some of you don't want to post your email address. The other is to use TypeKey. I'm leaning towards TypeKey because it is a solid program and while you have to give TypeKey a valid email for authentication purposes, it does not have to be published when you comment on the site.

I know some of you are all like "I don't want to give out my email because blah blah blah" and I can appreciate that. Sort of. So, leave a comment, tell me what you think and I'll make my decision in a day or two. Fair enough?

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February 26, 2007

HA! Screw you! SNOWBITCH

We got something like 8 inches of snow or something. We shoveled it up and put it away and it's done. The pain will be this evening when we bust out the snow boulder pile left on the sidewalk by the plow.

In direct defiance of the snow, David and I got up early on Saturday, drove 8 million miles across town to the office of the International Vet of Mystery to pick up Maddie's ear medicine and then spent something like 3 hours at Fleet Farm. Sexy, no? We left there with 80 pounds of dog food, 4 dozen canning jars, 300 different stuffed dog toys, a flannel shirt, a bag of pig ears, pecan caramel clusters and 2 smoked pig kneecaps.

I bet you didn't even know you could purchase smoked pig kneecaps! you can. They're $.79 on sale and the dogs love them.

We are never going to Petsmart again. Petsmart is nice and all, but almost every dog related thing we looked at was 50% cheaper at Fleet Farm and when you have two dogs you have to consider these things. Of course there's the added benefit of spending 3 hours in a store that sells "Poultry Meat Maker" chicken feed and had 3 fat guys inspecting the jeans trying to figure out the new "styles" for this year.

It's this entire store marketed to a demographic that isn't me in any way and yet I love it so much. I got 80 pounds of dog food people! 80 pounds!!! What is that? like a 4th grader or something?

Holy christ.

Yeah, I wish I had something more exciting, like a drunk fest or a moon raid, but it was just many hours at the farm suppply mega store and the finishing of the dino purse (photos soon)

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February 23, 2007

The Storm is Coming!

Everyone is talking of the storm. There are whispers and warnings and amazing wonderments. It's like somehow, one snowless winter has made everyone forget their Minnesota Heritage. Come on, people, we grew up with this. We know blizzards! There is nothing the sky can vomit on us that we can't just wipe away with a ruddy nordic scoff.

And hell, I think we can all pretty much agree that those childhood photos of us standing in front of 6 foot snowdrifts are a thing of the past for Minnesota. Since the Halloween blizzard of '91, our snow fall has diminished steadily. We know this. News of 6 foot snow drifts will only be coupled with "lake effect" and "colorado" from now on. And as things get warmer they will only be referred to in sort of a strange historical sense.

The snow is coming this weekend, sure. Fine. I imagine it won't be nearly as awful as anyone expects.

I, for one, will be making a white bean and cabbage soup tonight along with some rosemary bread. If we get snowed in I'll spend the weekend dining on soup, crocheting robots and dinosaurs and making jam.

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February 21, 2007

happy birthday!

Let's all wish the nipple grabbing Irish Boy a very happy 32nd birthday and declare "Cá bhfuil an leithreas? Tá Dáithi ag glacadh cithfholctha sa ndorchadas."

EDIT: If you have had trouble making comments on this post, the problems have been fixed. Apparently, Movable Type hates Irish. It's not surprising, everyone hates everything from Ireland so a software program hating on the language is no real surprise. Please, leave a comment and wish him a very happy birthday (this means you, Anna, he introduced you to Mike and you owe him big time for that)

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February 19, 2007

Sticky goo

Last night I made 2 batches of jam

1) Waikinky: pineapple, mango, lemon, orange marmalade that could also be called "holy crap, i need to do something with all this fruit"
2) Merciful Peaches: peach and tangerine jam

Now that I have this jam making thing figured out it's going to be nutty. If anybody has received jams from me and would like to receive more, please return the jars and the rings (the flat lids can be tossed, I cannot reuse them) and I will refill the jars with jams as I make them. sexy.

« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »

OCD OCD OCD

On Saturday I bundled up my little tiny box of Ghengis and his collar and his stinky dinosaurs and David and Chester and I headed over to Dena and Levi's for the afternoon.

Levi is making the box that will hold Ghengis' ashes. To be honest, he is the only person I trust to do the job. I've seen his work and not only does he have mad carpentry skills, but our sense of taste and aesthetic is very similar. I also know that he is one of the few people who can truly comperehend what this means to me. Dena and Levi lost their beloved Bela in December. It's been a hard year for pet owners. Many tears were shed that afternoon.

Right foot. Left foot. The earth keeps turning and you find you are still walking. The main point of the visit was to get Chester over to play with Milo. Chester, being not very well socialized before I got him, needs to work on his intercanine skills a bit. He's great with people, he loves people, he just doesn't care for other dogs.

That afternoon I got to see the actual extent of my dog's OCD problems. There was treasure EVERYWHERE!! Everywhere! The entire living room was covered in toys that no one was bothering to hid. He was beside himself, what the hell was going on in this place that toys were just laying out here and there, squeaky pork chops, rawhides, fuzzy hedgehogs!

His first order of business was to collect everything and hide it...but where. He ran here and there with Milo perplexedly following him. He tried to hide the rawhides but every time he turned around, there was Milo watching him, seeing exactly where he put it.

Time for a different plan. This plan had him collecting every toy and treat he could find and depositing them under my chair. This is good. Everything is collected and in one place and certainly the fatty that feeds him and protects him is going to extend her umbrella of protection to the treasures he just found.

Except the fatty don't care so much and would probably prefer that Chester not be so impolite when he is a doggy guest at another doggy's house.

He also got to play a bit with teeny tiny Doti, the new puppy. Doti is a lovely, roundy, 6 week old American Bulldog. She's completely deaf and that means that she can sleep through any chester related catastrophe. Good for her.

Chester then got to spend the evening at Petsmart where he got treats and stuffed toys and rope toys and whatnot. Wembley the Stuffed Whale lasted all of 20 hours! I need to find a cheaper source of stuffed toys for him.

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February 16, 2007

More proof of my insanity

This morning in my regular running late flurrious rush I grabbed my Hello Kitty lunch box out of the fridge and it was covered in cold, wet goo. Ah fuck, something in my lunch must have leaked. It wasn't the chili because that is reddish brown, not clear, it wasn't the clementine, those don't really leak so much and it wasn't the tortilla chips because...well that's just crazy.

I figured there must have been a breach in my yogurt seal and it was leaking sweetened yogurt whey goo all over the fridge.

Nope. Dry.

So, obviously, the Alien decided to hide in my fridge and drip goo everywhere. Do not touch the goo.

I emptied my lunch box, tossed the perishables into the fridge and left.

At work I realized that I put my lunch back in the fridge. That was stupid. Now I can't eat my lunch because it is 5.3 miles away. The goo never actually touched the food, just the lunch box. I am retarded. Retarded and hungry.

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February 15, 2007

All the ho's drive Volvos

Let's see, how do I write this and not come across as one of those gooey in love types that ends up alienating her single friends....

hmmmm

Valentines day was straight up lovely and traditional with cards and glitter and cut out hearts and boxes of truffles and delicious dinner out and greek food and wine and snuggling.

And gooey and happy and all that

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February 12, 2007

Treasure Island

Come to my house and sit still. Let the quiet of the morning wash over you. Completely relax.

Once you are relaxed start to look around. Don't look with any intensity, just glance from once spot to another. Eventually, like those magic eye posters, they will come into focus. Little bits of orangish brown poking out here and there. You'll realize their everywhere.

They are treasure. Little doggie treasure. Chester maniacally hides about 50% of his dog biscuits and all of the dog biscuits that Maddie doesn't eat. Sometimes you'll look over and see him snuffling in a corner, his demeanor frantic. His head will pop up and he'll have a dog biscuit dangling out. He's 'dug' one up and is trying to find a new place for it. Sometimes, late in the evening, he'll dig one up and settle in to eat it.

He's an industrious little guy. My job now is to find a way to focus this industriousness so he feels like he is working and does not become completely neurotic about it. Anyone know how to make a rat terrier feel like he is working (besides seeding the house with live rats for him to catch)?

PS this week the dogs are officially known as Duke Chester III of Nokomia and The Right and Good Princess Maddie of the Boombalatties.

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February 8, 2007

PHOTO

I finally got some photos posted!
a new ephemeral photo
a few new photos of the dogs
AND the chenille scarf and the much anticipated robot scarf.

Take off your pants, click the icon on the right side of the page and revel in the new photo glory!

Note to Jason, the robot end of your scarf is complete, if you want it to say something other than beep! please let me know ASAP. Anyone else want a robot scarf? It'll cost you. email me for details.

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February 7, 2007

Catsup...ketchup

So, my laptop is still broken which means I still have to use David's computer. David's computer is in the basement and with our local temps reaching close to absolute zero, I hate venturing into the basement to use it. Hell, I hate even going down there to do laundry!

Instead of the bulleted list or the endless paragraphs of "first I did this then I did this and then this" I'll try to break is down into subjects and you can just skip ahead to the subject that interests you most.

Dogs
Maddie's definitely on the road to recovery. Every day she becomes a happier and more responsive dog. As such, she's not putting up with Chester's exuberant shit anymore. It's good for the little dogs to get their asses kicked sometimes. They scrabble and wrestle and chase each other around. The massively cold temps make it hard for them to spend any time outside, the dog park is definitely out for now. Chester especially is going a little stir crazy. He has class tonight, hopefully that will wear him out a bit.

I'm terrible at homework, I always have been. I can test well and I learn stuff pretty quickly, I just hate homework. Even easy community ed dog obedience class homework. I hate doing it. Today I will hurriedly make up dog training journal entries for the past week. I suck. But I just can never do homework.

Superbowl
Went to April's for the Superbowl this year. I'd say the first 14 seconds were way exciting, the rest was just meh. Dang yo, that girl can throw a superbowl party. She stuffed us full of snacks including trashy velveeta dip (the kind with the chili) til we were ready to burst then at half time she and Keith broke out the handmade sausages from Kramarczuk's and went out on the deck to grill them. It's 80 billion below and Keith's out there grilling. To cover the sausages they offered up kraut, and Keith's wonderful 9 chili chili! I totally wanted to pukify. I'm fat for a reason and I love it.

But it doesn't end there, no it doesn't. My sister produced one of the best apple pies I'd ever eaten. Seriously, if ever I need a pie for an occasion, I will go to her.

After the Superbowl they indulged me and we watched the Puppy Bowl. The Puppy Bowl is simultaneously the greatest and most retarded thing on television. Take a room, fake it out to look like a football stadium, hire some cheap actor to pretend to be a ref and fill the place with puppies. It's like 2 hours of puppies playing. There was a kitty half time show that sort of looked like a dirty titty bar, they should have called it the Pussy Half Time Show, but whatever. During the halftime show we watched the World's Strongest Man competition and we watched gigantic Swedes flipping cars and running with torpedos. Then back to the Puppy Bowl to watch the cutest puppies do stupidly cute things. I think my favorite was the French Bulldog who was too snooty to play and only peed on the logo midfield.

After that, I waddled home, took two shits and died. That's how these things happen.

Pancakes
If you keep mentioning pancakes over and over you can convince your boyfriend that you will die without pancakes and he will agree to take you to pancakes. Then you have to convince him that the only pancakes you can eat are OPH pancakes. Nothing else will do. Nothing even comes close to the OPH pancakes and you are willing to stand in the super crowded lobby for 45 hours to get the pancakes. He will agree because he's a good egg and he won't even realize you have ulterior motives!

The pancakes were excellent, of course. I do love me some OPH on a Saturday. The ulterior motive was that OPH is by Joann Fabrics, purveyor of cheap mass market yarn. As opposed to my Local Yarn Shop (LYS) which has a plethora of beautiful but super expensive yarns.

Craftin
With the bevy of new yarn I made a prototype robot scarf for Levi (pictures soon), a super dense ribbed chenille scarf for April (pictures soon) and I am working on a second robot scarf for Jason and another fat pink bunny for a baby in California!

Still working on the lacy beaded scarf, but I needed a break from that. The work is tedious and progress is slow.

In the hopper, a dinosaur purse, a godzilla scarf, a monster scarf, a totally different flower purse.

Work
My boss threatened to call a department meeting and have me voted off the island. In response I pointed out that I only need to show up with a platter of maple nut sticky rolls and I'd win. Also, in retalliation for his betrayal of my heart, I told everyone that his birthday is tomorrow. Threaten me and I'll jack you big time.

Of course, now he's all "let's form an alliance and split the money!".

Sex
Valentines Day is coming up and I'm so psyched (can I still say PSYCHED? do the cool kids still say that? Is there a different hip work I should be using? I never know.). I am one of those truly irritating people that loves Valentines day so very much. I don't know why. I don't usually go for Hallmark cutesiness or anything, but I love candy hearts and paper flowers and special dinners. So, the dilemma is that I need to dye my hair and I was thinking of doing green streaks but someone pointed out that I should do pink for Valentine's Day and save the green for St Patrick's day. I don't really care about St Patrick's day, so being green for that isn't really a goal and also, I usually don't go for color coordinating things.

So I guess I'm going for green.

Ponderings
Every time I go to Blockbuster I see a DVD for a guy called Larry the Cable Guy and in this movie he is a health inspector. I'm so fucking confused about this. Why is a cable 'guy' working as a health inspector? Are health inspectors allowed to wear ripped, sleeveless flannel shirts? I would think there would be some sort of dress code to be a health inspector. But why does he call himself a cable guy if he is a health inspector??? What the fuck is this? The best I can figure is that his true calling is to install cable but it doesn't have good health benefits so he has to be a health inspector which doesn't pay well but does have health insurance. With the two jobs he is able to make enough money to live on and maintain and modicum of health.

I would like to believe that the movie itself is a commentary on the absurdity of living in one of the wealthiest nations with one of the best healthcare systems and not actually being able to access it because you somehow have not "earned" enough money.

Sadly, I think I am wrong.

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February 5, 2007

screw science

One day last summer it was 107 degrees outside.
Today it was -16 degrees.
That makes for a difference of 123 degrees in the course of a few months. You'll forgive me if I don't care about the scientists and their petulent whining of a few degrees increase in the last million years or whatever they're going on about.

It's hard to pay attention when your whole skull is frozen.

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