Big Finish

I received a new award from Mama Dawg this week. It came with a meme that I promptly forgot about until I saw it again over on Unmitigated. I don't think this is the meme that was attached to mine, but just the fact that I'm responding to a meme is something. Not that I don't like them, I really do, I just suck at getting them done. I haven't even started the one Heinous sent me and I'm actually excited by that one. Doh! Steenky tagged me the other day too and I told her I was going to do it. That woman can throw down a stink eye so I'd... hey. Hold on a second. I've already mentioned three bloggers. Ha! You know,I'm a goodfather, but once I'm Blissfully Caffeinated this place turns into a 3 Bedroom Apathy Lounge. If I don't get my morning coffee I'm on the Edge of Insanity so Gimme The Juice and I'll go call my Vodka Mom for some Bad Karma. Hey, that's My Life In A Nutshell. Bwah ha ha ha haaaa! Two birds with one stone, baby!

Christmas

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Gift bags would be the environmentally correct answer, but I like the look of a nicely wrapped present. Plus, I live in a province whose economy is resource driven and forestry is our number two industry. Ok, that's not entirely true. Marijuana production would technically be our number two industry, but we're not supposed to advertise that even though we produce an exceptionally fine product. (Not that I've ever tried, just something you hear.)

2. Real tree or Artificial? Real. Trees are not something we are going to run out of here. And we buy farmed ones. AND, when we're done, our fire department takes them in exchange for a charitable donation. Then they give you a really cool example of why it's important to keep them well watered.

3. When do you put up the tree? Uh? Don't really have a specific date. It'll be soon though.

4. When do you take the tree down? Again, it varies.

5. Do you like eggnog? I loved it when I was younger. I still like it, but only in small amounts, like an expensive brandy. Not that I drink brandy, it's just an example.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Can't think of anything in particular and I can't think of anything funny either. Ah hell, how about some whale blubber? Is that funny? My own sled dog?

7. Hardest person to buy for? Supreme Leader

8. Easiest person to buy for? Myself. I always love whatever I get myself.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? No.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail, but we don't know enough people to send cards.

11.Worst Christmas gift you ever received? The decapitated head of my nemesis. Sure I was thrilled, but Christmas day in front of the family was not the place.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Die Hard. "Yippee-ki-yay..."

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Meh, whenever. Closer to the deadline the better.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Absolutely. Circle of life.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? One thing? Who wrote this? I don't know, how about Eggnog and Ginger Bread Lattes from Starbucks? Oooh! The cookies! I was thinking about the penguin and polar bear cookies at Starbucks with all that delicious icing, but then that made me think of Supreme Leader and her sisters who bake crazy amounts of cookies this time of year. Mmm, cookies.

16. Lights on the tree? WTF? People have trees without lights on them? Seriously?

17. Favorite Christmas song? This is a dumb question, I'm not picking just one.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We do one year at home and one year with my family in the interior, so both.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes, and as an aside (cause it's what I do) I actually saw wild reindeer in the Arctic Circle in Norway. That was pretty cool. I'll never forget my friend jumping out of his seat (train) and yelling "Fuck me! That was a reindeer!"

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Whatever we got. I always feel bad for the angel though, that can't be comfortable.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning. Christmas morning before breakfast. We always open one present Christmas Eve though.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? PC assholes who deserve to be dipped in honey and staked to a fire ant colony for pushing 'Happy Holidays' on everybody. I'm not a religous person, but I'm celebrating CHRISTMAS motherf*cker! The only people I have EVER heard complaining about offending different religions and ethnic groups have been middle class white people. DIE!

Sorry.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Colour? How about all of them.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, Yorkshire puddings and graaaaaavy. I just quivered a little.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Peace, love, health & happiness. And two large screen plasmas (living room & bedroom), a new Mac, an Airbook for bed, a Canon Rebel, an iPhone, a Turbo Bentley and enough money to reno the house and take a trip to Europe while it's being done. Santa, baby.


And that is it for NaNotDoingThisAgainAnyMo. Oh, Friday pics shall live on. I knew people would be busy with the holiday and all, but I just wanted to see if I should keep doing it. This week: your ride. What do you drive. Car, van, truck, bus, motorbike, walk (send pic of shoes) whatever.

Pushing The Dumb Ass Envelope Daily

It's 10:58pm Friday night. Blogger just ate my post. I'd be angry, but the post sucked. Honestly, it really sucked. You should thank Blogger. I should thank Blogger. Blogger... wait, wasn't I calling them Blooger? Blooger, thank you for eating my wet smelly wino-ass of a post.

What was it about? The usual. Man vs himself in his daily struggle to out-stupid the rest of the world. Himself vs Man, where his brain violently seizes control and causes Man to swallow his own tongue in order to prevent him from saying something incredibly bad.

Let me set the scene. It's November the 26th and the United States is celebrating Thanksgiving. Due to this national holiday the rest of the world is screwed out of the usual Thursday night line up of prime time. More importantly, Captain Dumbass is without the weekly high-jinx of Seattle Grace Hospital (Grey's Anatomy) and the time traveling kookiness of the 125 Precinct (Life on Mars). How can I go a week without Denny and Izzy? And speaking of Denny, he's dead, why can't he get rid of the stubble? Yes, sure, it's sexy and all, but that stuff is like a course grit sand paper, would he really be seeing any action without being sent to the bathroom with a razor first? I sure as hell wouldn't. But then, it's all just Izzy's brain tumour talking, right? Or Meredith is still in a coma and has dreamt the last two seasons. Or it's all just the dream of an autistic child. Wait, wrong show. I may have inadvertently stole the coma bit from Blissfully Caffeinated. You call it plagiarism, I call it flattery.

Where was I? Right. So Supreme Leader comes home from work sick and totally messes up my usual routine of letting the Wii babysit the kids while I park my ass in front of the computer all day. I am promptly sent off to buy groceries and rent a couple of movies. Fast forward six hours and SL is struggling to open the DVD box and can't do it. Twelve year old at the rental place forgot to take off the security tags so it won't open. I take it back and they giggle and remove the tags. I suggest that it might be nice if they give me an extra day since by now I've spent enough gas to have bought the freakin movies. While they're taking care of this my attention is drawn (moth to the flame) to the GIGANTICORE flat screen TV the store has put in above the sales desk. I'm about to comment on how I'd give a testicle to have that TV when my brain interrupts to advise that while the male clerk might find it amusing and totally agree, the two female clerks at the desk might not. Agreeing, I'm about to exchange "testicle" with "fingers" when my brain actually took control of my vocal cords and made me shut up. One of the girls, whom I've seen in there a million times, has something wrong with her hands and only has partial fingers.

Dear Brain, thank you for taking in this important detail and saving me from having to chew off my own tongue.

Friday Pics: Art

And it's Friday again. How is everybody feeling today? Was it worth it? Of course it was. Before I get on with the pictures, I wanted to pass along some information to those of you who tweet with me. Yesterday I had a little message from Twitter:

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

What the hell does that mean, you ask? It means that if you respond to some random message I just posted from my cell phone and I don't answer you it's not because I hate you, it's because I didn't get it. Or that, much like American cell providers, Canadian cell providers are GREEDY BASTARDS!!!

*ahem*

Anyway, the pictures. My pictures turned out bad, but at this point I have movies to watch and can't be bothered to go redo them. I love this picture. A little house tethered to a balloon with cherry blossoms and a giant koi. What's not to love?



This looks like a small poster, but it's actually at least 6 feet tall. It's an advertisement for the Vancouver Opera and nicely filled out a gigantic wall space. And what says home like a giant picture of a homicidal Italian woman who eventually dives out a castle window and plunges to her death? O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!


Ellie from Me & You & Ellie. "Here's my favorite piece of art hanging in our house. A triptych by St. John (U.S.V.I.) artist Elaine Estern. Which we bought in a local gallery in Cruz Bay one year we were there. It hangs in my house in New London, CT, and makes me think about St. John every day."


Mary Anna from Random. "Here are some pics of my favorite art from around my house. Sorry the quality isn't great. I didn't use a flash because of the glass, and my house has a two-story family room with windows from the ceiling to the floor - there is no shortage of natural light, which is nice but it does cause some strange glares sometimes!

"The painting of the fall scene was done by my husband's grandmother. It hangs in our living room and makes me smile. Mitchell and I like to talk about what kinds of animals might live in those barns. Noah loves to look at it too."




"The clothes line of artwork is in the boys' playroom. We hung some twine on the wall and added a bunch of clothes pins. It's holding up all different art projects - including Noah's very first drawing and a pretty cool robot my hubby drew. I keep trying to encourage Mitchell to do more artwork so we can switch it out, but he gets all upset if he thinks I'm taking something down!"



"The fruit and vegetable prints hang in our breakfast area. We bought them at an antiques market years ago for next to nothing then spent several hundred dollars to have them framed! At our old house, they hung side by side down the long wall in our kitchen, which I loved. When we moved into this house, there wasn't a perfect spot for them, so we tiled them on the wall. (Excuse the motion detector for the alarm system in the upper corner of the photo. I absolutely hate seeing that thing but the alarm people said it had to go there!)"


Middle Aged Woman from Unmitigated. "In an effort to stave off writing tomorrow’s post, I have decided to overwhelm you by sending NEXT Friday’s material THIS Friday. And some text. The black-and-white scratchboard portrait was of and by my son. With it he won a Scholastic Art & Writing Award last spring. It was on display for awhile in a juried art show at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. The gorgeous photo is one I found on cog’s website Driving the Flies. I have not yet had the funds to have it properly matted and framed. Isn’t it amazing?"



From Sherry at Sherendipity. "This is part of my antique Chef Menu chalkboard that I got for Xmas last year. He hangs in my kitchen. He's big and bold, and old and I loves him."



Participation seems to be waning for Friday pics so I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it up or not. Maybe it just needs a rest.

A Message From The Boys

For all of our friends south of the border (south of my border, not Mexico! Turn around, dammit!), whether you're in the States, overseas or even here in Canada and feeling very sad today.



We hope you have an awesome day and get to share it with loved ones. Eat a lot, ignore your diets. If you do happen to murder a family member over dinner, remember that you'll have internet access in prison and will still be able to blog. Think of all the great stories you'll have!

*PS. Dear Supreme Leader, before you freak out about all the ketchup I poured on the table, I used it all for my sandwiches so it didn't go to waste. And yes, I cleaned off the table before I did that. And yes the kids ate the table ketchup too. What? They've eaten worse.

THIS! IS! SPARTA!

For the kids who didn't get it:

Entourage

"Rebel scum!"

"Imperialist lackeys!"

"You want some, it's right here!"

"Say the word, beeotch, say the word."



Me: Hey hey hey! Stand down, boys, all of you!

Rebel Scouts: Imperial Stormtroopers, sir, we've been holding them until you arrived.

Stormtroopers: Hold this, candy-ass!

Me: I said knock it off! That's an order! Listen, guys, I invited them in-

Rebels: What!? How could you? Wha-

Me: Hear me out, boys. I know this is a bit of a shock, but we're all going to be working together, ok? This is a big office, plenty of room for all of you. You guys have been doing great, but we need a little more help around here. I know they're technically the enemy, but I'm going to have to ask you to work with me on this. Ok?




Rebels: Yes, sir.

Me: Alright. Now how about you guys go check if my coffee is ready.

Scout: Captain? You know I'd never doubt your intentions, sir, but there were rumours last time, and now this? What are we supposed to think?

Me: I appreciate your candor, soldier, but you have to trust me to make the big decisions. Now, my coffee.



Stormtroopers: Thanks for bringing us in, sir.

Me: No problem. I've been looking for you guys for a long time now.

ST: We're here now, sorry you've had to put up with the little Rebel Barbies.

Me: They're not so bad once you get to know them, they're just lacking a little in the organizational skills. Things are getting busy around here. I'm going to be counting on you guys.



ST: We've got your back, sir, even though it's roughly the size of a Star Destroyer to us.

Me: I've got complete confidence in you. Now, things have been drifting this week with all the work around the house I've been doing. Your first thoughts?

ST: Well, first off, we noticed the angle of your pictures show your new calendar from Green Chair Press. You might want to give them a plug, sir.

Me: Done. Good catch. I love their stuff. And now I actually have an office to use them in.

ST: Second, about this book meme for Pope Heinous? We understand this was supposed to be up today.

Me: Ya... that's proving to be a lot bigger post than I had planned. I'm thinking of breaking the post down into smaller sections and then posting them every few days or once a week or something.

ST: Why don't we try the once a week angle. You still have a guest post due and we think it would be best to get working on that as soon as possible. You left your last guest post until the last moment, and honestly sir, it wasn't your best.

Me: You're right. I told Kat I'd give her a make up post for that one. Ok. Excellent first day, boys. I think this is going to work out well.


Me: Soldier?

ST Pilot: Sir, just wanted to let you know, you have any problems with another toy, a neighbour, house hold appliance or whatever, I'm your...well, small plastic figurine. I can make your problems disappear, sir. Clean or dirty. No questions asked.



Me: I think we're going to get along well.

Getting Dressed

"Where's your underwear? Are you going to wear your socks on your pee-pee?

In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.

Woman And Children First

Today's post was supposed to be a book meme from Pope Heinous the Deceptive, and the ground work is there, but the evening has been interrupted by a large family dinner (both family and the food... large amount of family, not that the family is large, you know, like ass-wise) and the consumption of several bottles of Chinese beer and Argentinian wine. You probably couldn't tell by my prose now could you? Or maybe you couldn't. Whatever, I'm just trying to focus on my monitor. It keeps getting blurry.

The book meme is going to take far more concentration than I can devote to it at the moment so it'll have to wait until Monday. In the mean time, here's a conversation I had with my brother earlier today. Yesterday.

Ring

Supreme Leader: (from downstairs) Hon, pick up the phone, it's your brother.
Click
Me: Bitch.
Brother: Bitch. You ever turn on your (cursing) cell phone? I've texted you 10 times in the last three days.
Me: I got one asking about the kids Christmas presents.
Brother: Well... ya.
Me: (smug) Hold on. (yelling downstairs) Hon! Pick up the phone.
Click
SL: Yes?
Me: Aaron wants to know if he should get the kids gift certificates or cash for Christmas?
SL: Well, the kids actually have a lot of stuff they really want this year... long explanation... (from 500 kilometres away I can hear my brother's teeth grinding through his cell as he's being charge $100 a second)... and it would be nice for them to be able to open something Christmas day.
Brother: ...
Me: (silent laughter)...
SL: Ok, I'm cooking. Bye.
Click
Me: (openly laughing)
Brother: Ya, I'm married now, I get it. Shut up. What's wrong with a simple "no"?

Tip of the iceberg, my friend, and you will always be the Titanic.

Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo

I hate it when some random thing happens in your life and you instantly have a fantastic idea on how to spin it into a blog and then it gets screwed up. Last night as we were sitting down to dinner, Supreme Leader's nose crinkles and she asks, "Who smells, cause it sure isn't Mommy?" I immediately point at Connor. Connor points back at me. Liam points at Connor. Connor points at Liam. I point at Liam. Liam points back at me and we all cackle maniacally. Classic Mexican standoff. Suddenly my head is flooded with Quentin Tarantino and John Woo movies. Do you think I could find a freakin' picture of a bunch of guys pointing guns at each other? I tried True Romance first. Nothing. Pulp Fiction? Nope (though I don't remember one of those from Pulp Fiction). Reservoir Dogs? Just this, but it wasn't really what I was looking for.



The Killer or Hard Boiled?




Both pillars of the Hong Kong action genre, but with only two guys in each shot, still not what I was going for. In the end, I went for the original and was sadly disappointed. Try as I might, I couldn't find a picture of three guys holding guns on each other.



I guess I'd be Clint since I'm the biggest. Liam. Definitely the sombrero.



Who was the culprit? Does it really matter?

Friday Pics: A Week In Food

Small turn out for Friday pics this week, probably my fault for not advertising it more. Oops.

Mine. What else would I have taken a picture of?


From Sprite's Keeper: Sprite's birthday cake. My sister and I killed ourselves making it and the kids maybe licked it a couple of times before trying to put it back on the tray. You can see the middle row where we tried and then the rest of the "bugs" where the words "throw a little purple on it and call it a day!" became apparent. You know you want a bite. Don't worry. I had a bite. Or several. HASAY forgives me.


From Steenky Bee: Let's just call this a Mormon Jell-o Shot. It's four flavors of jell-o sandwiched between creamy filler. Yes, a form of this or other jell-o salad is served at every Utah function. It's required by law. A standard favorite is lime jell-o with shredded carrots, but I didn't feel right to show that just yet. I need to ease your readers into the oddness that is Utah.


From Unmitigated: These two travel as a pair. The place we visit for our scrapbooking is called BrookLodge. It was originally owned by the Upjohns, as in Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. Now it is run by Michigan State University, and the part of their business school that focuses on the hospitality industry. Hence, the service is amazing and the food is to die for. Saturday night’s dessert was Baked Alaska. Here’s a “Before” and “After” shot



From Mama Dawg: I like how my tea bag is telling me that they can do that. I always want to ask, "You can do what, exactly?" And yes, that's my Peter Pan mug. Shut up. I'm a proud Disneyphile. I also like how I captured the steam. It was a cold night.



Next week, favourite art work around the house. Painting, sculpture, abstract stain on the floor, whatever. We won't judge. No, we'll totally judge, but you get to judge others as well. It's fun.

Spin Cycle: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Spin Cycle time. This week, favouritism, or your favourite post. This post is from July of 2007, only a month into my blogging career and around 700 posts ago (not an exaggeration, I have 704). I wouldn't say it's my favourite, but it was near the beginning and, honestly, I got tired of looking. And it's another example of me doing something stupid and that's always a crowd pleaser.




It all seemed like a good idea at the time. A local mall was having a display of dinosaurs. Connor loves dinosaurs. Let's take Connor and Liam to see the dinosaurs. Weee! Not only that, let's hype it up for Connor all week long, not telling him what it is, only that he's going to get a surprise. What could possibly go wrong?

It started out well with the usual Saturday morning gridlock and insanity of 3 Road traffic and RAV Line construction. Actually, it wasn't that bad. There was minimal profanity and once you let go of the basic rules of driving and any semblance of manners driving in downtown Richmond is quite fun. It's like a giant video game.

Anyway, we get to Aberdeen Centre, find parking and enter the mall. There's a big sign in the entrance talking about their Jurassic display, blah blah blah, animatronic dinosaur ride. Cool. So in we walk, Bern with Liam and Connor with me. We pass the animatronic ride first and Connor is already holding me tighter. It's a freakin Velociraptor with a saddle on it. Remember what those things sounded like in Jurassic Park? Remember when they stopped being cute and started eating people? The line up for that one was for big kids 'cause the little guys were having none of it. There was one little girl in a pink dress that was yelling at her parents. I'm not sure what exactly she was saying as it was mostly incoherent and in Cantonese, but I'm sure it was something like, "you put my ass on that mo'fo' I will make you pay for the rest of your sorry lives!"

Needless to say, we didn't hang around that one. Anyway, the main event is a life size Tyrannosaurus Rex in the centre of the mall. Connor's still keeping a wary eye on the Velociraptor but I can see the midsection of it up ahead. Then he sees it. WTF!? This is somewhat different than the usual friendly dinosaurs in our bedtime books and on Treehouse. If you've never seen one of these things, let's just say it's a good thing they've been dead for 65 million years. It's over two stories high, it's head is the size of a volkswagon and most of that head is made up of teeth. I take Connor out of the crowd a ways so I can take some pictures of him with the dinosaur in the background, just like a hundred other fathers around me. I got the picture above and one other, and then it roared. Then all hell broke loose as a thousand little kids including both my sons figuratively and literally shit their pants. Not only did it roar, it was animatronic too. And there was steam from a pretend volcano. Very impressive. Unless you're four.

I couldn't put him down again until we'd reached the safety of the Daiso store at the other end of the mall. Then it was a non-stop talk on how scary the dinosaur was and how we weren't going out there again.

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I Can't Think Of A Title

Why no, I don't have anything to write about, why do you ask? Unfortunately, because of contractual agreements with NaBlow I have to freakin post something every day. Generally this isn't an issue since I do it most every day anyway, but being forced to really sucks. And speaking of sucking, I just found out NBC is canceling My Own Worst Enemy. NBC sucks. Apparently Heroes has been losing viewers because, boo hoo, the writers actually need to fill out the GODDAMNED STORYLINE! and it's a little confusing to some who don't like the dark and spooky side. SUCK IT UP! Anyway, because of that it hasn't been able to draw enough viewers to My Own Worst Enemy. Sigh. I know, lets fill the slot with some more reality shows! Woo hoo! Hey! How about we put a camera on a dog and follow it around for a day!? Ok, we're done. Go find somebody interesting to read.

Uh, no, not the biggest fan of reality tv. Don't take it personally if you are, we're still friends. Honest. I hope you can still like me. I just feel an obsessive need to tear out my own eyes when I come across one. Oooh! And you know what really drives me to a homicidal rage? When I'm waiting for a show to come on but because the previous show was being picked up by an affiliate station they don't switch over and I end up having to sit through the preview of one of these shows while I miss the beginning of my show. It keeps happening to me for Heroes, coincidentally. I get stuck watching Has-Been Celebrity Fuck Ups Trying To Lose Weight While Acting Like Assholes for a minute or two. And who are these people? No! That was rhetorical. I don't want to know.

Whew! Thanks. I feel so much better now. I was sitting here reading other people's blogs with NOTHING to write about. Guess I just needed to work off some angst. While I was cruising around I found a trailer on Kottke for a new movie, 2012. It's pretty short, check it out. I love cool trailers that hook you in with only a few seconds of footage. Kottke also mention in his post that the music is from the original trailer for The Shining. I remember that commercial scaring the hell out of me when I was kid. Huh? Shut up! I was a little kid. Anybody else remember it? Was that not one of the scariest movies ever?

Out Of Order

That's alright. I have my own, and she's never out of order.

I Don't Smoke, But Now I Need a Cigarette

Trailer 2 If you only watch one, watch this one.

Trailer 1

I need to go lie down...

The Olympics, Cannibals & Lesbians

It was supposed to be a lazy Sunday with the family, emphasis on the lazy. Then I made the mistake of going over to Colepack. Carrie has this giant headed evil animated fitness nazi on her page who keeps track of how much she's run. I hate her. She mocks me. The animated Nike girl, not Carrie. No, she mocks me too. Anyway, every time I go to her site, that bitch (not Carrie) is always pointing at my muffin top and calling me jelly ass and something just as endearing. So today I flipped her off and decided to jump on my bike.

And really, that's about it for the exercise bit. I rode my bike. The end. So how about some pictures? Like the winter Olympics? This is the speed skating oval which is being built in my city. I was going to do a post about it a couple of weeks ago but then I found out it will be opening to the public in the middle of December. Might as well wait until I can show you some inside pictures.



Where was I riding? No Proposition 8 in my province, in fact, we build nature trails for all sexual orientations. I can get married to whomever I want, except that I am married and can't add a second line to my team. We're pretty liberal here, but not that liberal.



And my youngest, while cute and cuddly looking, has developed a taste for human flesh. Still, he's my son and I will always support him. One piece at a time.



Finally, to Casey and Team HASAY,



(sorry, bad sound. "Being fat and out of shape hurts less.)

Grilled Cheese Murder

Mid-November List

Mid-November good things:

1. Blogs that make me laugh out loud, really laugh out loud.
2. When the red cups come out at Starbucks.
3. Pumpkin Spice Latte.
4. Leaves.
5. Waking up to find one of the kids have joined you in the middle of the night. Warm, so warm.
6. Word verifications that can be turned into all sorts of bad things.
7. Getting the coffee, sugar & milk just right.
8. Flannel sheets
9. Dancing with abandon and making the boys laugh.
10. Really getting into a book and seeing you still have a bazillion pages left.
11. Mandarin oranges.
12. Lists. I love lists.
13. Convincing Supreme Leader that because we have so many American cyber-friends that we should have a second Thanksgiving this year in their honour.
14. Toques. (Those are woolen hats for my friends south of the border who might not know the correct term) (And I really need a new one this year but haven't been able to find anything decent. This shouldn't be so difficult here of all places)
15. Heavy wind & rain warnings from Environment Canada. I love the little red bar that shows up on the Weather Network.
16. The bubble gum smell of the kids bubble bath soap.
17. Hoodies. My new LL Bean with berber fleece lining. Hey LL Bean, why isn't there fleece lining in the sleeves? That silky-like liner is cold!



My model was a bit tempermental.

Friday Pics: "The Office"

It's Friday picture time again and this week was the office. Lots of great pictures again. Not only that, contributors have begun to openly mock me and for some strange reason, I like it. After you're done here, go check out 3Bedroom Bungalow. Kat is beginning her move to England and she gave me first watch. I don't know why anyone would willingly give me the keys to their blog, but they keep doing it.

Ok, so up first, my laboratory of MADNESS! Dude? That looks a lot like a kitchen. Um, hello? The food is in the kitchen. If we had a TV in there I'd never have to leave. Actually, I was supposed to move my computer into a new office this week but my freakin DSL was shut off in there so now I have to wait until an installer comes out and charges me a testicle to rewire it.




Jen from Blissfully Caffeinated. "Here’s my gangsta office space. I come here after my shift at Flinger’s and type up the TPS reports. Two weeks ago I would have just taken a picture of my ass indent on the sofa. *Sigh* (Jen's laptop drank a glass of orange juice recently)



Jennifer from Sprite's Keeper. "Here I go again hitting the wire. This is my master bedroom where I do most of my writing. I would show you the office, but that would be lying because John is ALWAYS ON THE FREAKING COMPUTER!!!!
(No bitterness.) (Not much anyway.)


Jen from Steenky Bee. "Okay, here's my temporary work station at work. Please let it be known that I don't blog from here, but you really don't want to see the dungeon and the laptop and other home computer that I normally blog from. Thanks!!!" (I'll let everyone know. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I really do want to see your dungeon.)


Casey from Half As Good As You Are. "I'm surprised I'm sending you this picture... So much clutter. The red desk
is mine and Jamie gets the other one. We share the printers in the middle.
Notice that we're caged in to keep the toddler out. Smart move, eh? Enjoy!"


"Jamie also thought it would be pertinent to send you a picture of the place
I hide out with my laptop... " (I hate you for your bathroom. You could ride a bike in there!)



From The Tattooed Mini Van Mom. Wanna compare ink? And no, this isn't a contest.




Representin' Florida, Carrie from colepack. Carrie, more wall clutter!


There's no point system here at Us & Them, but if there were, Jeff from goodfather would be getting bonus ones today for not only having my page on one computer, but two!


From Stacy of Apathy Lounge. "This is a little room (off of our bedroom) that my husband built for me some years ago. I do some of my best work in here." (If I could take Steenky's Mac and put it in your office, this is the one I'd want.)



Middle Aged Woman from Unmitigated. "What office is complete without a lint roller? And a paint chip? Not to mention the golf ball, tape measure, bottle cap, pencil, scissors, nail file, Free Press and yummy, yummy $5.00-a-box cereal. My dining room table doubles as my office. This shot was taken on a leisurely Sunday morning, and now I'm wondering what the tape measure was doing there. If it's measuring my gift with prose...I think we're gonna need a bigger one."


From DeeMarie, "Here is my "blogging office". It's my bed. Next to it is one of the many boxes I need to fill with everything I own. But rather than doing that, I thought it would be better to check my blogs and post a quick update..."


Krystal's office from Mommy's Escape. Hey! Your office came with a baby!



And there you have it. I just ran upstairs to check a word with my editor-in-chief (the one who lets me post first and then mocks my language skills before correcting my mistakes) who was watching TV. An ad for Quantum of Solace came on and she started making squeezing gestures towards Daniel Craig's pectorals and murmuring something about his body. I said that I could have that body if she didn't keep making me fat. I did not get that word checked.

I didn't have a topic picked for next Friday, but after rereading this and getting to the 'fat' part it started me thinking about the big piece of banana walnut upside down cake I'm going to eat as soon as I'm done here. So, that said. Send me a picture of something you eat this week. Or drink. As long as it's not Jen's chewy green drink. Ok, that's mean. I'm sure it's quite tasty. I'd just need to put in a lot of honey. Or tequila. Digress! So food. Send me a picture of something you eat this week. Home cooked, take out, restaurant, beverage, whatever.