Remy and River

When the pups are inside, Remy goes out of her way to ignore River. When they are outside, they look like best friends, playing all the time. I don't know what happens when they cross the threshold to cause them to become mortal enemies, but I wish they would get over it.

For one, Remy's doing weird things like crawling under my desk and laying where my legs are supposed to go. It isn't so bad that she's extra clingy (she's also sleeping on top of me in bed) but she gets all tangled in my keyboard cable and pulls my keyboard from its home, which is annoying. Secondly, she's not doing any of her normal stuff. She doesn't even lay on the couch like normal. It's like she's put out in her own home and really upset about it. And finally, when they are outside playing - or vying for dominance, I'm not sure - they refuse to come in for anything. I really need to complete my yard fence so that I can just leave them out there without standing at the door to watch the whole time.

River, on the other hand, desperately wants to be Remy's friend indoors and out. She keeps trying to edge closer and closer to her... all the time. You know, that is when she's not distracted by something shiny, or moving, or fluffy, or chewy...

Doot doo... just lying on the couch like you...

Nothing to see, I'm not doing anything...

I touched your tail! Look how close I am!!!

I'm not sure if they finally overcame their issues or what, but they started playing together tonight inside the house! The pictures look much more vicious than it really was. Remy is such a good dog. She's so nice about the biting, even though I know River's teeth are sharp. She can put River's whole head in her mouth and not hurt the baby. I can only hope that she rubs off on the newbie and I get two great dogs out of this... though I can't imagine having a dog better behaved than Remy.

So, whatever is going on, I'm hoping Remy wins.

I'm trying to play them hard tonight so I don't have to wake up a million times in the middle of the night like I did last night. I think it's working... look who's tuckered out. This is about how tired I felt this morning.



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Naming Update

Okay, I tried out Lexi. It's hard to say a bunch of times in a row. The more I use it, the more I don't like it, so it's back to the drawing board.

I thought about using Riley but Dad says it's too close to my sister's dog Ripley. Riley is cute and easy to say. It's on the back burner.

Right now I'm calling her River. I like it. It's a little different. It's also a Joss Whedon character (Firefly) like Riley (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), if that makes a difference to anyone.

River. Rivey. Rivs. Rivers. Rivseys. Riv.


I think I like this one the most so far... to be continued...


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No Name Started Responding to "No Name"

It's about time I name her already.

The leading one (since I've gotten all my friends involved) is currently Lexus. Or Lexington.

Thoughts?

Are Remington and Lexington too similar? How do you feel about Lexi or Lex or Lexus?

Lexington = super American, first revolutionary war battle, even though I hate history. Lexus = foreign car maker, better sounding name to yell, kinda classy... or maybe snobby. Lex = villain in Superman.

Naming children is hard.


End Blog.


PS, I took her to see her sister tonight. They had loads of fun.

Oops, I Accidentally Got Another Puppy

Today I found out the hard way that it is impossible to look at puppies and not bring one home. I went to the home show with one of my friends and I came home with a puppy. Granted, so did my friend, but she's actually been kinda looking for a puppy since hers passed away. Was this decision well thought out? Absolutely not. But puppy! Adorable! Squeeeeee!

The puppies are from the same litter. Mom is a pointer, dad a husky. Her sister's name (that said friend took home) is Scout. I'm still working on a name for my puppy.

She smells like a puppy. She has puppy breath. She is amazingly adorable because I think she looks exactly like Remy would have as a puppy. If only she had the white stripe on her head! This puppy looks like Remy's daughter. It's fabulous.

She's been silly, rolling around in the grass and playing with Remy's toys which are as big as she is. Remy's tried to get her to play a few times and her reaction is always the same: she hits the deck and rolls over into submission. Is there actually a dog in the world more submissive than Remy, the Omega dog?

Here are some pictures:

Stick!

Stick!

Food!

Food!

Are they the same dog? Have I discovered time travel?

Probably.

Help me think of a fitting name. The ones currently in the running are - Roxy, Riot, Magic and Blaze. I couldn't think of a good gun type name to go well with Remy... so if you can, I'd like some suggestions. She's also got the little white tip on her tail, and her tail is curly. I guess it's the husky in her. No idea if she'll mohawk or not.

Here's some video for help with personality.





Also, Brenda adopted a cat today... Wonder Twins activate... in the form of... Adoption!


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Mustache Mayhem

You may know that one of my friends, Daniel, has grown a mustache and has had it for quite some time now (like, a year). When asked when he would shave it off, his response was, "When it goes out of style." I'm not sure how Mustache Mayhem came about, but I'm not one to ask too many questions when something like this comes my way. Five girls in fake mustaches? Hilarious.

Plus, it also gives you an excuse to run around saying things like, "Mario!" and "Luigi!" and "I'd like a pizza pie!"

And fight with your best friend.

And walk to the grocery store for beer and cake.

People are so friendly to you when you're in a fake mustache. And they don't even care that you're in a fake mustache when they card you for buying beer. I can't even begin to describe what a great time we had watching people's reactions... especially those driving by our caravan of three cars.

And it gives you an excuse to play lawn darts and judge accordingly.

And claim ownership of things by placing your foot on them. The Anderson's couch was claimed in the name of mustache. I can't tell you how happy I was to still own this hat. It complimented my mustache so well.

And an excuse to look at Playboy. The boys have real mustaches in case you were wondering.

Even my Watchmen sticker grew a mustache for the occasion.

Hilarity ensued all day. But this was my favorite moment. Brokeback Mustache... our hand faces drank their way off into the sunset together... and lived mustache ever after.

I know, sometimes it's awesome to be me. All of these women are getting an extra point in my friend book... +1, will wear fake mustache in public for no good reason. Happy Snake Saturday.


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Flashback to the 1980s

My birthday was last Saturday and I planned an 80s party for it. I put up a bunch of 80s movie posters that I printed from my computer and threw in some 80s bands for good measure. I went to Party America and found bottle caps and pixie stix and garbage pail kids (they seemed less gross than they used to) and candy necklaces and pop rocks and razzles. "Don't swallow it, just have faith, it will turn into gum!"

I wrote a big "NEW" on the 2 liter bottle of Coke and crossed out classic. I had a mix of 200 songs from the 80s. We didn't get through all of them even though we were up until 5am.

And I got people to dress the part. The best part was, everyone was totally into it and seemed to have a great time. The saddest part was that lots of us got parts of our outfits from Target and Walmart. Why is this fashion coming back?

Me and my coworkers!

Tanya won the "bring an 80s picture of yourself photo contest that has no prize" with a photo of her from a lipsynching contest in the mall when she was in high school. I will never know anyone cooler than this woman.

Troy's holding a tennis racket, in case you can't tell. I love his hair but he refuses to wear it like this in public.

This man is a rock god. You can tell by his Hannah Montana temporary tattoo.

Can you believe she got her entire outfit in Target?

It's Watts from Some Kind of Wonderful!

We helped Beth graffiti her jacket. This thing is totally rad.

Win, Lose or Draw.

Inspiration: Flashdance and Madonna. That's right, I found white lace fingerless gloves.

Is that Jennifer Beals hugging Robin Sparkles??

They got the beat.

Magnum, PI sits between adoring fans.

I bet this picture looks like ones you have from the 80s... minus that computer and printer in the background.

Remy dressed like Spuds McKenzie and drank Bud Light all night. She even attracts the ladies like him.

Until she became a rockstar and went on tour with Slash.

We ate pop rocks and coke, played Win, Lose, or Draw, put on a couple movies like Ghostbusters, Dirty Dancing, and Some Kind of Wonderful (after all, Watts - aka Brenda - was in that movie), and ended the night with Guitar Hero... or RockBand, I don't remember.

It was probably one of the best birthdays of recent memory, even if it snowed five inches the night before and I had to shovel my giant driveway so that all my people had somewhere to park.

I'm very happy for all my people. Thank you all for making it such a great night.


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Squeee!

I got my new monitor tonight. I'm super exhausted because I took the day off of work and played 9 holes of golf (I'm so horrible but it's really fun) and had the cable guy fix my DVR that was no longer working after their software update, and then went and found my monitor. It's soooo pretty.

The plan is to actually blog about it with pictures, watch something fun on it, and blog about my birthday party as well... tomorrow night (probably this weekend). I was just too pleased to not fangirl squee about it right now.

I am happy. And here is the best part:

Remember when I said the birthday plan was to pool money and be lame so that I could make this purchase and that I didn't really need an actual present? When you total up all the money I got, I ended up paying seventy nine cents for this monitor. And that was excluding the money my parents gave me for my birthday. Yes, some of the money I used was given to me for Christmas, but that's okay.

I love my seventy nine cent monitor.

We can all thank Belinda for the interesting change. She gave me a mason jar full of silver coins for my birthday that totaled $28.76. One penny slipped in.

Promise to update soon. For now, I must get to bed. So sleepy!


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Totally Awesome Guest Bloggers!

Hello gentle readers this is Brenda and Ashley as guest bloggers at Nikki's totally awesome 80s party. We have been told to not edit ourselves to show the maximum radicalness and drunkenness of ourselves at this point of the evening.

At first entering the house we were totally astonished at the movie posters around the building and the rad candy left for us to devour (it popped in Ashley's mouth, aye!) There were booze, and laughter, and many many many many ptho... hmmm photo ops. at this party.

We played some Win, Lose, or Draw... we played some Guitar Hero and there was much hairspray and bangles and of course leggings in the buildling as well as some narly male costumes (mostly Canadian tuxedos and hair bang wigs!).

The booze flourished and pizza abounded as we recalled the times we were remembering or falsely remembering as many of us were wee babes at the time.

But total awesomeness was had as 80s movies were in the background with a soundtrack of fantisticness.

Rock Hard.

Rock with Spandex.

Rock on.

End Blog.

Whaat goes around comes around.

Faulty Forensics?

This week a report came out from the National Academy of Sciences entitled "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward." It was a congressionally mandated study from the National Research Council and it basically states that there are serious deficiencies in the forensic science system and calls for major reforms and new research in the field. They recommend mandatory certification programs and stronger standards and protocols for analyzing and reporting on evidence. They also think that there is a scarcity of peer-reviewed studies establishing the scientific bases and reliability of many forensic methods.

This came as a really hard blow to my entire community. The only science that isn't really being challenged is DNA technology and that discipline is probably the reason that every other one is under such scrutiny. Researchers have mapped the entire human genome. There are stats in DNA.

Not so for many other sciences - yet this is what the report wants, every discipline to be able to report some sort of stat and a known error rate. The problem is that DNA is relatively unchanging so those numbers, those stats, they aren't changing much either. However, (for example) fibers are changing constantly. Not only fashion, but fiber technology (nanofibers, anyone?), what people purchase, the fading of dyes, the inconsistency of dye lots, and what products are manufactured from is always changing. How are we ever to keep on top of this? Will knowing that a certain fiber is owned by 16% of the population help at trial? What if half of those fibers are dyed blue? Does that change anything? Is that something we can track?

What people don't seen to understand is that all evidence is not individualistic. If you get a good DNA profile from something, sure, we can identify it to a specific person. Fibers are not that sort of evidence. Fibers are the sorts of things that have similiar characteristics, to the point where one sample is indistinguishable from another. Can fibers from two different sources look the same? Absolutely. Can a victim have fibers on them that look just like fibers from a suspect that did not come from the suspect? Absolutely. Might they have come from the suspect? Yes. Might they not have? Yes. The problem is that the science isn't completely discriminating.

One its own, this evidence doesn't necessarily mean a lot. But if we have lots of this evidence stacked against a suspect, well, then it probably will lend more weight to a jury. It there is an abundance of it, maybe it means more. But you see, that's not for forensic science to decide. That is the jury's job. It is the forensic scientist's job to make the jury understand what the evidence means, and I believe that this is where the breakdown is occurring. Most of us are not teachers, and I dare say that some of the jurors either aren't interesting in learning, have already made up their mind about the case by the time we take the stand, or didn't bother listening to what we had to say. There are many of us who have caught jurors nodding off in the box.

A case study example from The Innocence Project:

On March 12, 1981, the victim in this case was walking along a road looking for help after her car blew out on the railroad tracks. A black man walked up to her, accosted her, threatened her, grabbed her by the neck, and dragged her from the road to the side of some buildings. He pulled her hair, punched her in the face, choked her, and bit her. He then ordered her to take off her pants, stockings, and underwear, and then raped her. He repeatedly choked her and hit her head with a pipe. After the rape, the assailant cleaned the victim's fingernails with grass. The victim ran away and was picked up by Deputy Domangue in a patrol car. Domangue identified Charles as a hitchhiker whom he had ordered to get off the road an hour before the crime was committed. The victim later identified Clyde Charles as her assailant in a one-on-one show-up at Terrebonne General Hospital. The defense claimed that the deputy gave the description to the victim before her identification. Nevertheless, Clyde Charles was convicted of aggravated rape on June 22, 1982, and was sentenced to life in prison at the Angola penitentiary.

The prosecution's evidence included the the victim's identification at the one-on-one show up and her testimony that the rapist called himself Clyde. A microscopic hair analyst discovered two Caucasian hairs on Charles's shirt and testified that they were microscopically "similar," but not conclusively identical, to hair from the victim's head. Because there is not adequate empirical data on the frequency of various class characteristics in human hair, an analyst’s assertion that hairs are consistent or similar is inherently prejudicial and lacks probative value.

Deputy Domangue's testified that Charles was wearing a dark jogging jacket with white stripes when he saw him (the victim testified that the rapist wore a dark jogging suit with stripes) and that Charles was wearing a red cap and blue jacket tied around his neck when he found him hitchhiking. The police found a red baseball hat and blue jean jacket near scene of the rape and Charles had admitted that he had been wearing a blue jacket. The prosecution also introduced spermatozoa found in the rape kit.

This came from the innocence project, which is why it says: "Because there is not adequate empirical data on the frequency of various class characteristics in human hair, an analyst’s assertion that hairs are consistent or similar is inherently prejudicial and lacks probative value." I have issues with this statement. Yes, we do not have empirical data to tell you how frequently these characteristics all happen together, but that doesn't mean that it's prejudicial or lacks probative value.

They claim that the reasons Clyde was falsely imprisoned were because of an "Eyewitness Misidentification and Unvalidated or Improper Forensic Science". It's true he was misidentified by the victim. It is not true that the science was faulty. The jury just didn't understand exactly what it meant.

Although, if you were on a jury and the victim pointed out the suspect and all the other information was relayed to you, excluding the hair information, I bet you would be hard pressed to find him not guilty. The point I'm trying to make is that it's not all forensic science's fault. Everyone performing the analysis is human, prone to errors, but so is the jury. And the jury is made up of people who may not understand what they are being told, or understand the legal system... or understand exactly what "beyond a reasonable doubt" means.

There are so many confounding factors well beyond the scope of the report. I haven't even touched on most of them. But it has everyone I know in an uproar. And probably all defense lawyers chomping at the bit to get us on the stand and try to discredit us because of this report.

Well, lawyers, it's time that you take some of the blame as well. The forensic scientist can not control how their testimony is spun in the courtroom, particularly during closing statements.

But I digress... There are so many things I haven't touched upon, like fingerprints. I'm having a hard time with cohesive ideas about this particular topic because it's so close to my heart. I can't begin to go into every thought I've had on this matter and it really gets me into an emotional uproar thinking about it... so, I shall leave you with this thought:

The Innocence Project has only released 230 people who were falsely imprisoned out of all the people thrown in jail every year. What these activists refuse to admit is that forensic science may very well be the leading preventer of wrongful convictions. Why don't they give me a stat on how many guilty people have actually gone free? Oh, that's an unknown? It's an impossible stat to figure?

Welcome to our world.


End Blog.

Tax Time

I usually owe money around tax time. It makes me angry, simply because I know they've been stealing my money all year long and it feels like a kick in the proverbial nuts to have to give away even more money... especially if I know that other people are getting a refund. Granted, it's never been a large amount of money, but it was substantial enough to be annoying. Last year I owed the federal government $339, and the state gave me back $177. So, I was really only paying a little over 150 bucks, but that is enough money to be worth complaining about.

That was last year. Last year when I didn't own a home. Last year when taking the standard deduction was the best I could do.

This year I got to itemize my deductions. I have tons of student loans! I've paid what feels like only interest on my house! So this year, I'm getting a refund. A refund I'm sure that I wouldn't get if I was still renting.

I'm going to pay off my credit card with my refund.

And I'm really excited about it.

How lame!

I suppose home ownership has its perks. Maybe if I have any money left over, I will reward my house by buying it curtains.

I can't believe I did them already. They aren't even due until April. God, I sound so grown up and junk. Gross.

Boogers!


End Blog.

Pictionary Bowl

I went to a friend's Superbowl party tonight. Seeing as how I didn't really care who won because at least the Eagles didn't make the Superbowl, I ended up playing pictionary most of the night. It was super hilarious.

The little bit of the game that I watched was pretty good. But even better were the clues "diagram", "mad cow disease" and "not guilty". Though, I suppose that you had to be there.

Overall, enjoyable night. Just another reason why we need to instill a weekly game night.


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Golden Birthday

This year is the year I have my golden birthday, when I turn 28 on February 28th. It would also mark Tracey's golden birthday, turning 29 on the 29th of January, if she were still alive. I just came to this realization tonight and it made me sad. Think of the fantastical party we would have! I'm not sure why, but I imagine her in Kansas City with me, even though she, like everyone else in my family, probably would have struck out on her own.

For those who have asked what I want for my birthday, I think that I've decided. The problem with that is, you can't get it for me because I don't even want to spend that much money on myself. You see, I'd like to get a new computer monitor since I watch so much television from my computer. Therefore, although it seems rather lame and unimaginative, I'd appreciate the pooling of money into my pocket. That way I can save a few bucks when it comes to buying the thing. If you give me five bucks, that's five dollars less I have to spend.

I think that's an appropriate golden birthday gift. If you feel like you can't just give me money, take a look at my Amazon wishlist. There's a link to it on the right. And, as always, you do not have to get me anything, but I have had inquiries as to what I would like. That would be the only thing I can think of other than finally putting curtains up in my house. And that's nowhere near as cool as a computer monitor, and probably just as expensive. (Being why I've lived here so long without them.)

So, that's the plan.

I am going to have some sort of shindig at my house on my birthday since it falls on a Saturday. I suppose that I will send out some sort of invitation when it gets closer to the date. Until then, I'll be shopping around for the best deal on a new monitor.


End Blog.

Banner

I've been toying around with a new banner. I like the one I put up, even if it's simplistic for how long it took me to make. We'll see how long it lasts since I don't often like change. I may make some others before I finally settle on one, but this one makes me relatively happy... and I don't know when I'll sit down with photoshop again. It's amazing how much you forget when you don't use it.

Remy yawning makes me happy for some reason. Plus, now it's okay if I bore you because you were basically warned.


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Blogger Videos

The videos in the previous post work. I've seen them play, but I can't get them to work on my Firefox browser on my computer. I am told they worked on Carolyn's Firefox browser on her laptop and I got them to work on my computer using Internet Explorer. So, if you're having lots of trouble and you use Firefox, I blame that... although I love Firefox and don't really want to.

I refuse to spend more time messing with it than I already have because it just makes me frustrated. So I am not. Deal with it yourself, yo.


End Blog.

Retro Flashback: Thanksgiving 2008

I once said that I was working on getting up some videos of the Economic Stimulus Package Thanksgiving Road Trip Spectacular. Well, truth is, I forgot about it for quite a while until Brenda asked me why they haven't been put up yet. I was planning on putting together all the videos into one like I did with my Texas Road Trip, but it appears that this is not going to happen since I haven't done it yet. So, I've decided on giving you the highlights in chronological order, as uploaded to Blogger. This took forever, the autosave kept failing, and my 'connection to blogger' kept getting 'lost'. So, you better like it for all the frustration it caused. No wonder I hadn't done this before now...

The first thing I learned was that all you have to do is point a camera at Brenda and she will perform like a monkey without any prompting. Here we are stopped at a gas station to fill up and have dinner. It is very cold. Very. Very very. And as you will see, we're not wearing coats because we are geniuses.

I just got back in the car after running Remy around outside so that she would do her thing, which is why I am breathing so heavily, and why I am so cold and glad to be in the car.

We spent the night at a La Quinta in Indianapolis and got on the road again after a few hours of sleep. Brenda drove from Indianapolis until right before the Pennsylvania boarder, where I took over. Right after that happened, there was a wreck on I-70 and we got stuck in traffic... forever. Here I am, thrilled about the situation. As soon as we made it to the next exit, like an hour later, I took it and trusted Garmin to find our way back to civilization. I believe that we detoured through Washington, PA, home of Washington and Jefferson College, which I think we may have drove by. There were very dark and twisty roads. I do not recommend going to this town when it's this icy out.

After the detour, the driver's side windshield washer fluid sprayer froze up and stopped working. Why is it that you can always see better out of the passenger side of the windshield than the driver's side? After a few terrifying minutes of driving while unable to see because there was salt all over my window, I finally found a place to pull over and try to remedy the problem. You'll see here that I do not manage to get the driver's windshield washer fluid sprayer to work, but it started to dry up outside and the window wasn't nearly as bad after that. Although, for a while I did think that I may have to time travel back to high school and spray a Windex bottle out of my window like I used to in the Mustang. (I had one on hand, just in case.) Days later it finally warmed up and I haven't had this problem since.

Also, we've reached Pennsylvania, home of Tasteykakes.

The reason for this trip was ultimately to go to the Madonna concert in Atlantic City. I drove to Atlantic City and saw her limousine on the way there. Here is the video proof.

I like musicals and when the drive was getting long, we usually opted to put something in that we could all sing along to. Wicked was one of my favorites, and a fun song to sing was What is This Feeling? Funny thing, I accidentally replaced Galinda's name with Belinda's name once and thereafter, anytime that song came on, it was about Belinda. This camera angle is from the dash just so you could enjoy the dash dirt and dash dog hair and the Garmin being all awesomely in the way.

I had a really hard time switching my camera between video and pictures. A really hard time. In fact, I have several videos just like this one (or shorter). But you're only getting to see this one. I can hear your "thank yous" already.

It was always fun to piss off Garmin or sit idly by as he went completely insane. This joy may only be appreciated by those in the car with him for four days... recalculating!

Brenda apparently loves Diet Coke. I don't even know why she was doing this. There was no reason. This is Brenda. If you have ever wondered exactly what her personality is, or what she is thinking, or how she behaves... This is the epitome of Brenda. Now you understand why we are such good friends.

This is also very Brenda-esque. Do not judge her. Spice up your life.

I was pretty excited about the time changes. Phones are super smart. Do not judge me.

I talked repeatedly about doing a Chinese Fire Drill (I know, but there is no politically correct term for this, and if the Chinese are going to get mad at me, they already did for my Summer Olympics blogs) the entire time we were on the trip. So, when we were nearly home, we decided that we better do it or be forever regretful. I thought it best to have the jumpy video of me running around the car instead of a stationary camera on the interior. Just so you know, the reason I am screaming as soon as I get out of the car and the reason I cannot stop laughing is because when I got out, I jumped in a giant puddle that made water cover my entire shoe. And it was very cold.

Surprise, it snowed again... and though I didn't have problems with my windshield washer fluid sprayer this time, my driver's side windshield wiper just about fell off my car. Man, those things are awfully tricky to get back on. Okay, they're impossible. The only reason I have a windshield wiper on my car is because Brenda played the hero.

So, those were the main highlights of the trip. I hope you can see why I agreed to drive instead of fly for this. It was really a pretty fun vacation all around. I thank my traveling companions for so much fun.


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0 Days 0 Hours 0 Seconds

President Obama was sworn in yesterday and thus my backwards countdown to President Bush leaving office has run down completely. I have to say, that little fixture on my blog will be missed. I suppose I shall have to find something else as enjoyable someday.

Also, President Obama just sounds plain weird, does it not?

A Horse With No Name

As I mentioned recently, I am trying to teach myself how to play the guitar. I have a feeling that it will be slow going for a while. I am trying to learn some chords and learn how to transition smoothly between them, but I can tell it's going to take a long time with some of them, mostly because my hands are small.

(Fun side note: Someone keeps ordering extra small gloves at work every time they are supposed to be ordering small and medium gloves, which always seem to be in short supply. This apparently happens when I go on vacation and when I come back, I have a million gloves that no one else can use. Today I found out that I had even more gloves. All for me. Right now I have 3/4 of one of my bench cabinets filled with extra small gloves from top to bottom. So while other people don't have gloves, I could probably wipe my ass with them and make balloon puppets and wear them on my head and still have enough to do casework.)

Anyway, just learning chords is really boring. So, I thought that maybe I could find some simple songs and learn chords for the song and transition between them and actually make some sort of music as opposed to the randomness I was doing. That way, I'd feel like I accomplished something.

This is probably how you actually learn how to play the guitar. I'm a pretty fantastic teacher because I keep my student involved and motivated.

SO, the point of this post:

A Horse With No Name by America is the easiest song on the face of the planet. I can basically play it. Me. Play a song. On the guitar.

I rock.

Even though it only has two chords, I cannot seem to play the guitar and sing at the same time.

I've never been a very good multitasker.


End Blog.

The Blockbuster Miracle

I recently watched two of my DVDs from Blockbuster and returned them in the mail expecting to get the next 2 DVDs in my queue, as per usual. Instead, when I returned Wanted and Get Smart, they sent me Friday Night Lights, The 40 Year Old Virgin, AND Bullitt. Including the other DVD I haven't watched yet and still have in my home (Cannibal! The Musical), I now have FOUR DVDs from Blockbuster. (Don't you love my range of movies?)

Interestingly, according to them, my plan is as follows:

• BLOCKBUSTER Total Access Premium
• $17.99 / month (plus taxes)
  3 at-a-time, Unlimited mailings
  Unlimited in-store movie exchanges
  +2 FREE bonus Movie or Game Rental E-Coupon per Month

Haha! I have four DVDs at a time! I win!

It's a Blockbuster Miracle! I wonder how long it'll take them to correct this. I hope forever.

Movie Marathon at my house!


End Blog.

2009

Internets, you ask what I have been doing? You say that you miss me? You wonder how Remy's eaten face is doing? I have all these answers and more.

What have I been doing? I've decided that I'm going to not eat out as much as I have in the past in efforts to (1) save money, (2) eat better, (3) hope that a side effect will be that I might lose some pounds. Or ounces. Or grams. And not gain any more. Therefore, I've been doing a lot of cooking.

I also decided to buy myself an early birthday present, which is a Jasmine Takamine dreadnaught guitar. So, I've been "learning" how to play it... very slowly. Because I'm not that agile with the finger movements, have itty bitty tiny hands, and bought a somewhat inexpensive guitar, so that it's probably a wee bit harder to play since you have to push the strings down so hard. I'm trying to stick with it though, even though I've lost sensitivity on the tips of my fingers on my left hand. It feels like pins and needles all the time now! I'm kind of getting used to it and hopefully soon it won't bother me anymore or I'll build up good enough calluses that it won't matter. And will be easier to play.

I've also already taken down my Christmas lights and tree, unlike last year where it took until March to do so.

I also repotted Mr. Spidey. He's gotten a lot greener and looks pretty happy compared to his sicklyness as of late. So, that makes me happy.

I also recently saw An Inconvienient Truth and now believe in global warming... I just still haven't gotten around to getting that recycling bin...

I watched the Giants lose to the Eagles and screamed at the television a lot.

All the scabs seem to have come off of Remy's face so I no longer have a reason to use her new nickname (Scarface), but I still do anyway. She answers to anything, really. Her fur is all back in order and doesn't stick out in weird places anymore. All remnants of Quila's attack are gone. She's a pretty little girl once again and all her rough and tumble tomboy is gone.

Um... I think that I've probably done other stuff, too, but it was probably equally as boring as the things I actually deemed worthy of writing about, so I should probably stop now so that you don't fall asleep.

I'll try to be better about the blogging and not let it go two weeks between posts for the rest of 2009, but you can be assured that at some point I will break that promise.


End Blog.

Really?

I really can't believe that you can find stuff like this on the internets. Not only that, but, how do I come across this stuff? It's not like I go out searching things like "guy with slingshot". Seriously. I can't even backtrack to figure out how I ended up watching this. But isn't it kind of amazing?



I promise to blog better than this in 2009. Really. I've just been really busy not blogging, as you can witness from the content shown here.


End Blog.

Remy v. Quila

Remy and Qulia usually get along really well so I don't feel bad about bringing her to Texas for the holidays. I think that she probably has more fun than I even do because her best buddy Quila makes sure that she's never bored. They run like maniacs outside because they're both pretty fast, but it's always the fight for toys or the wrestling matches that I seem to get on video, likely because the camera is close by.

Here they are battling over a toy that belongs to Savvy.






I tried to actually get some video of them in the yard this afternoon, but they didn't do their usual thing where Remy chases Quila around. Usually Quila is interested in playing with her red ball and Remy is interested in chasing her. Today Quila apparently didn't want to be annoyed by Remy because a bit of a scary tussle broke out between them and Quila went all Cujo on her ass... well, more like face.

There was growling and as soon as Mom and I tried to jump in to get them apart, Remy started crying as Quila continued to attack. Mama Nikki stepped up and pulled Quila off of her little baby girl, who was completely full of slobber. One of my fingers got a little bitten in the process (no blood, I'm fine). Remy has a tiny puncture wound on her cheek which bled a little.

Mom and I cleaned her up. Poor baby. Hope they figure everything out. I think Quila is a little too obsessive about her dumb red ball. I think she would die before deciding she was too tired to retrieve.

I wonder if Remy will let it go or if it will ruin their little doggie friendship. Quila cannot be trusted all the time.

My poor puppy.


End Blog.

(Update: They're still playing tug of war with stuffed animals, so I suppose all is forgiven.)

Christmas in Dogtown

Having dogs at Christmas is very much like having kids at Christmas. Sure, they don't stay up all night waiting for Santa's arrival, but they are just as impatient opening gifts in the morning as any five year old.

Of course, since I've grown up, we haven't had to start Christmas at the crack of dawn. We can relax, eat breakfast first if we wanted to, watch the Disney Christmas parade. Except, we have Savvy. Surprisingly the oldest dog, and argueably the most well behaved of the pack, was the one to start Christmas by opening one of Dad's presents before I even woke up.

She ripped off the side of the package so that he knew what it was, and since it wasn't really destructable, let all of them finish opening it for him. (Except for Remy, she knew that it was inherently wrong to shred paper and therefore refused to participate in any of their reindeer games.)

This used to be the bow on that present.

After opening a present that was not theirs, Dad gave all the dogs thier gifts right away. Even with paper and toys and ropes and squeakers, they still came back to help open the rest of the presents. Apparently it's their only joy all year long, and the most stressful day, ever, for the Remster. She did not open her own gift, but Rudy had no problem opening his own and helping her out.

Here is Savvy opening her gift. It's a pink gorilla from clearance after Valentine's Day last year. We only give them the very best.

It was a pretty quiet Christmas beyond the dog's antics, but they were so entertaining. We are definitely dog people. After the Christmas fun, we had a nice dinner and then went out and saw Marley & Me. I had gotten the book for Mom a few Christmases ago. It was pretty great, although I have to say, bring tissues to this movie if you go see it. It wasn't a surprise ending, I knew exactly what was going to happen after reading the book, but being a dog owner makes it that much worse.

Besides all that, I read a bunch and found a House marathon on TV. A TV marathon! My kryptonite!


End Blog.

PS, Here are some more dog pictures because they make me happy... and you can't stop me.

Doesn't Qulia always look like she's up to no good?

Sleeping Savvy. She was the last of my parent's dogs that I would blame anything on. She fooled me with the early present opening. I blamed Rudy and Quila for it.

Remy stole Savvy's present from Quila. This was her victory photo. At least they are sharing.

Poor Savvy. Who could ever blame that face for anything? Not me.

End Blog two.

There's the Moose Again

I love the holiday Garmin commercial where they change the words to the song Carol of the Bells, which happens to be one of my favorite Christmas songs. The best part is when they sing, "There's the moose again!" when the guy continues to drive around in circles because he's lost in a snowstorm. This year, they have a new commercial and I had a much harder time figuring out the words, but after seeing it a few times, thanks to YouTube, I've done so. The running nun and the fish who looks at the guy holding him up at the end really make me laugh. Also, I want that tiny little van.



One for a man
In a little van,
Get there with ease,
Hair in the breeze.

One for commuter
On motor scooter,
Rolls down a hill,
Bugs in her grill.

One for the sport,
Where are the shorts?
Ah, very tight,
Made for a bike.

One for a nun,
Out for a run,
Wrist keeps a log,
What she has jogged.

One for a Viking,
Out for some hiking,
Find the village,
He will pillage.

Find what you want,
Find what you wish,
There's even one,
To find a fish.

Give a, give a, give a, give a Garmin.
Find something fun for everyone.
Garmin dot com,
Garmin dot com.

As a side note, Garmins are totally great. Even if you know a better way to go, they're super fun to mess with... that is, if you consider them a second person in your car who is trying to read a map, as I do.

Recalculating.


End Blog.

Ghetto Christmas

This blog was supposed to have pictures of the house with its lights up and a picture of my fancy borrowed Christmas tree, except the batteries in my camera are dead and my computer won't read my camera's memory card. So, you'll have to settle for this picture taken with my cell phone. I know, lame.


Also lame is the string of lights making their way to the wall socket. Originally I had the tree in front of that wall socket, but I thought it would be cooler to put it in my window.

You can't see the string of lights going to the wall from the street. I'm only ghetto fabulous from the inside.

That last sentence is a total lie. When I put my lights up this year they were a little more droopy in spots than last. It looked nice, kinda this little swag thing going on. Well, I'll tell you why this is a bad idea.

It's windy in Kansas City. Therefore all of the lights across the front of my house are no longer in a cool swag pattern, they are inside my plastic gutters. This gives them a 'diffuse' look that will likely cause a 'char' look to my house once it's burned down.

I need to fix it, I know... but it's cold outside, and I'd like to figure out a way to do it without a ladder. Because the one I borrowed has already been returned. Besides, it's been below freezing for the last million eons here, so the heat from the lights it practically nonexistent and therefore utterly fireproof. Those seem like good excuses for the insurance agency to me.


End Blog.

Giants v. Cowboys Game

Me and Carolyn: Nooo!
Beth: Goooo!!

Beth: Oops. Oh, wait, who are we cheering for?

Carolyn: The team in blue.

Daniel: The blue and white guys.

Beth: They are both blue and white!

Nikki: The guys with the blue helmets, not the stars.

Beth: Boo star hats! Star hats suck!


I love Beth.


End Blog.

Why Do I Buy Nice Things?

She has a million toys in this house, but she wants to play with sticks. In fact, she would not come inside without this stick. I threw it out and she retrieved it and wouldn't come back inside. At all. It is, apparently, her new best friend.

Good to know. I cut down a couple little saplings in the backyard last weekend. Merry Christmas, Remy. Don't expect anything else.

Crazy pooch.


End Blog.

Riddle Me This

Q: How do you turn all of Kansas City's interstates into parking lots?

A: Put an inch of snow on the ground.

My evening commute that usually takes 20ish minutes took 1.5 hours tonight. Because of 1 inch of snow.

One.

I said it before, and I still stand by this fact: Kansas City drivers suck. I hate them.


End Blog.