Feb 21 2013

Lions and Dogs and Squirrels, Oh My

Yes, yes, I know I post really infrequently. Life has been… crappy horrible insane busy. Shut up.

I was “catching up”  on my lolcats RSS feed today and stumbled upon the brilliantly adorable short film starring Zachary Quinto, Dog Eat Dog.

From the video’s description:

“Dog Eat Dog” is a short film based on the true story of how actor/producer Zachary Quinto finally adopted his first dog in a Los Angeles Animal Shelter.

About 5:30 into the film, I noticed a piece of decor in the background.

 Lion Plaque WTF

SEE!!!

OMG Lion WTF

I am not at all ashamed to say that there was a lot of flailing, pausing the video, backing up to the right spot and taking a screencap. I had to share my discovery with Trey and no, goddammit, it could not wait for me to finish watching the heartwarming story of how Spock adopted his first doggie.

Trey has had that little lion guy his whole life. He’s kitschy and speaks to you saying, “Greetings, I come from the 70s.”

Some research (aka, random Googling for “vintage lion plaque”) dug up that he does come from the 70s, was sold under the company name of “Homco” (think Mary Kay, but for home decor), and is apparently a minor collector’s item.

Also by looking at various etsy, ebay and other online auction/collector/reseller websites, there are matched pairs of the little dudes, one facing right, and the other facing left. Obviously, that means our lion guy is the long lost brother of the lion guy hanging on Spock’s wall. They should be pen pals. Clearly.

Anyway, watch the video. It is incredibly adorable. Then, if you are so inclined or enabled, go adopt a shelter pet. =^_^=

Aug 27 2012

New Keyboard = Yay!

Over a year ago, I mentioned that I was going to write a post about new pens and notebooks and the overwhelming desire to break them in, nearly immediately (I made that post and then proceeded to post a picture of the doodle, only).

Well, the same impulse applies to new keyboards, it would seem as well. In my ever-expanding need to change/improve/revamp/organize and rearrange my working space, I found myself in need of a smaller keyboard.

And yes, I did buy the one that was pretty over just a standard solid-color one. Neener.

This post brought to you by the need to break in a new keyboard and just type something. Tra la la!

Aug 17 2012

Fostering Young Nerds

I was killing valuable time at Target last weekend, among running other errands for the house. Whenever I wander off to Target unsupervised (always a dangerous prospect), I try and find a small trinket or toy to bring home for the husband. This trip, I decided to pick up cards for the 2013 Magic: the Gathering Core set.

While deliberating over starter decks and boosters and Fat packs (oh my), a dad and his two boys come up beside me to look at Pokemon cards. The older of the two, who was maybe 8-years-old at the most starts explaining the difference between boosters and starter decks to his dad as:
*pointing at the starters*: “Those have more cards.”

I couldn’t help but clarify the difference for them. The three of them looked taken aback and confused by what I’d said. I asked the dad if he played Pokemon before. He chuckled and pointed at his boys, “No no, they do.” The oldest was quick to interject, helpfully, “I do.” From that point, I addressed my knowledge to the kid card shark.

I told him, sure, starter decks have more cards than the boosters, but they’re all set, pre made decks. You want to get booster packs if you’re good at making decks and starters if you aren’t. His dad was in awe and said, “I don’t know how you know all this.” I just smiled.

I’m sure dad appreciated that I helped his kid understand, and subtly clued him in on what he was looking at, too. If kid was trying to weasel his way into the “more cards” avenue by playing dumb about the difference between the packs and decks, I’m sure he didn’t appreciate my “help.” Otherwise, he probably liked me taking him seriously and honestly helping. Even if I am a girl. 😉

I feel my duty to foster young nerds has been fulfilled for a little while. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go finish making my magic deck cozies…

Apr 04 2012

Office Redecoration: Take 1

So, I’ve finally gotten around to redecorating my office from being a disorganized drab room into a place where I can be productive. As someone who works from home, four days a week, this is essential for my sanity.

I actually have two desks: one for work and one for play. My office is in the basement of our house in the “fourth bedroom.” I use the term loosely because to be counted as a bedroom, there must be a closet and a window for emergency egress. The closet rod was barely hanging on to the horrendously installed drywall screws. The window is too high, too small, and I’m not convinced it opens. First order of business when I set the room up was get rid of the closet doors followed by lightly tapping the closet bar and letting it come clattering out of the wall on its own. I moved my desk in, set up my workstation and largely left it at that the past two years.

When the husband and I were getting hitched, I made up a seat assignment board out of steel sheeting, spray painted one of our wedding colors and accented with ribbon. They never saw the light of day because 1) We had no place to stand them up at the reception and 2) It was so hot the day we got married, the hot glue holding on the ribbons, melted and wouldn’t stick to the sheeting. Because of this, I was determined to repurpose them. Or purpose them, I guess, since they never saw their original destiny take form. They are now the backdrop behind my computers where I can put notes to myself or keep information I always need but haven’t committed to memory. And they are magnetic! I have lots of magnets. It’s the little things that amuse me most.

Last but not least for this round are the shelves in the closet. None too fancy shelves from IKEA, drywall screws properly installed with a suitable weight limit and I was good to go. Let’s just gloss over the fact that those shelves have been languishing in the basement for 3 months while I goofed off in my spare time playing video games. (along with the lights I need to install on either side of my desk to give me more light in the space…) I needed a place for my work notebooks, programming, books, and assorted other bits of documentation that I will need when working. One might say I have an unhealthy relationship with flat surfaces, so, I was bound to say “hell yes” to some shelves. That they are level and didn’t fall out of the wall the second I put books on them is a feat enough to make me giddy.

Not pictured are:

  • my papasan on the other side of the room, usually occupied by Felix, my older cat
  • gate leg craft table with drawers in the center console
  • Expedit 4×4 bookshelf on the adjacent wall cluttered up with craft things, old papers and other various flotsam
  • plastic craft drawers for yarn, fabric, and various crafty jetsam (to go with the flotsam, you see)

The room is still pretty messy, but it’s coming together, slowly but surely. I have mad dreams of taking out all the ceiling tiles in the basement and seeing what is up there fully exposed and properly lit. You should know, my dreams are usually terrifying. So far, I’m pretty happy.

Mar 28 2012

New/Old Restaurant in my Town!

Two posts in one day? What is the world coming to!? But, I was checking my oft-neglected RSS feeds and had to reblog this from Frederick Maryland Online.

Mealey’s Table will open in “Spring 2012.” Here are some articles about the chef, the excitement of the town, and jobs at the new restaurant.

Mealey’s Restuarant has been closed ever since we moved up here. I think we started looking to move out this way maybe six months after they’d closed up shop for good. Color me officially super stupid excited.

We have Milo’s which is cute and great and we like Morgan’s which is a hair further up the road out of town. But, getting something new/old back into the mix of offerings is super awesome. It’s also going to be open for breakfast on weekday mornings which has me SUPER psyched.

The only coffee shop in town when we moved in (now closed) was open only on specific days and NEVER early in the morning which was a huge bummer. We never went there because it was never open. 🙁

Join me in shouting “YAY!” won’t you?

/flail

Mar 28 2012

Impatient Horticulture

I am not the gardener in the family. Never have been. My mom had a decent sized garden when I was a kid and she taught me the basics of crop rotation, watering, and weeding. I took advantage of plucking fresh string beans off the vine and popping them in my mouth (and yes, I did get yelled at to wash them first).

Now that I have my own house and yard, I’m still not the gardener. The Husband is the get of a seasoned veteran of growing and tending plants and other landscapey pursuits. I get input on what gets planted and what vegetables we’ll try and grow but, it’s his domain. It’s just as well, though, my flesh is of the “burns crispy” variety, so not spending copious amounts of time in the summer sun, isn’t the worst thing to have happen.

That being said, I do get whims. This is how we ended up with purple carrot seeds.

Today’s silliness is no different. We had a spider plant. We brought it inside the garage before the first frost in the fall, but never treated it with insecticide before bringing it into the house. So. Ex spider plant.

I noticed during our Spring cleaning that the spider plant managed to live long enough to seed. I stole some excess dirt from a re-potted sheffalera (different story entirely), grabbed five seeds, and threw them into a plastic cup this morning. I don’t have a lot of faith in its success. But I don’t care! It might work!

It hasn’t sprouted yet.

I’m impatient.

Nope. Definitely hasn’t sprouted yet.

Jan 18 2012

SOPA, PIPA, Censorship & You

I’m incredibly surprised at myself for keeping so quiet about this issue until now. What seems like a million years ago now, I participated in “Grey Day” as a sort of grassroots effort in 2000 for People of the Internet to self-regulate how they generated their web content. It was the advent of “hot-linking” and posting whole swaths of copyrighted content on your website, because who cares? The C&D you got in your inbox very quickly informed you of who cared indeed.

Basically, it was trying to send the message that if everyone steals content for their websites, no one will make anything any more and everything would just be drab and blah and boring and “grey.” So, stealing is wrong, mmkay, don’t do it. It was a cute effort, but ultimately didn’t work. People still steal content on the Internet. All the time. There’s tons of ways to do it. And lots of people don’t even think they’re doing anything wrong.

I don’t like copyright infringement. It makes me kinda grumpy. I like copyright infringement on the Internet even less. People who honestly believe “Everything on the Internet is free” need a boot to the head as far as I’m concerned. Just ask Cooks Source magazine how free the Internet is. I’m fascinated by copyright law. I have extended family members who’ve made it their specialty (I come from a very litigious family).

So, with the hub-bub of SOPA/PIPA/Censorship, etc it’s very odd that I’m not being more active or vocal on it. If there was ever a day to be so, today’s the day. I’ve already written one of my senators, Ben Cardin. He supports PIPA and I was shocked and appalled. Then I saw text from a press release that he’s a co-sponsor of the bill to have an active role in it since he is no longer on the committee that would give it the most attention and also that he wouldn’t vote for it as-is. So, if you’re in Maryland, be a dear and encourage him to stick to his guns on that one.

So, what’s finally spurred me to comment? Google and this: End Piracy, Not Liberty. The last paragraph is the crux of the whole SOPA/PIPA thing: As written, it won’t work to stop piracy.

Jan 13 2012

Oh, Spam, You Rascal

Once upon a time, I had quite a laugh sifting through the weirdo spam comments I was getting on the blog. They haven’t been very funny in a very long time. They still aren’t. However, I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting tons more lately. And they’re all on really old posts. Yay Google indexing?

To all my recent spam readers, I bid you welcome and good tidings… Or something.

This post brought to you by “Doing anything under the sun to make me not notice the horrible headache I have right now,” the number “3,” and the letter “M.”

Jan 10 2012

Waste Not…

So, I’m in Dallas for work. When away from home, I avoid restaurants I can eat at when home like it was my only purpose in life. Technically, I’m in Addison. There are 3 things in Addison: a big fancy mall, hotels, and 873,000 restaurants. Finding an interesting place to eat is not even a little bit hard.

Two coworkers and I ended up at a place called Blue Mesa Grill. Wonderful place. Nice atmosphere, great food, and a ridiculously large tequila menu.

One of my companions and I ordered margaritas. I opted for a blood orange sage and he went for grapefruit tarragon. Our waitress switched them when she brought them. I knew from the first sip I had the wrong drink. My dining companion looked at the drinks and said, “Yeah, you’re right, but you’re not getting this back. Mine now.”

I had the waitress check to make sure the drinks had been swapped. She carried it off back to the bar, confirmed, and brought it back. I put in another order for the right drink and before she got too far, hollered, “Well, there’s no need to let that one go to waste…”

Hehehehe.

Dec 31 2011

What’s It Do?

I got two Desktop Daleks for Christmas. I unpacked them to put them on my desk. While doing so, this happened:

Husband: “What’s it do?”

Me: *blinkblink* . . . Exterminates!

I would have thought that was obvious . . .