Well it has finally happened. I’ve had to move to moderating comments due to spam-bots. Even the captcha isn’t keeping them at bay. Sorry about that, folks. I’ll approve the "real" comments just as quickly as I can. Darn spammers.
Update: OK the spamming has stopped, knock on wood. Comments are back to real-time but I’m leaving captcha on for now. (Not that it helped last time.)
Daily Dose of Spam Read More »
TW was just in the bathroom, she is in there a lot but this trip she discovered something new – puppy points. She asked me to go to Cottonellepuppy.com so I umm did. I discovered TW isn’t hallucinating about puppies on toilet paper packaging. Cottonelle has a new loyalty program! Puppy Points!
If you save your puppy points you can buy nifty puppy products for a reduced price! Umm ok. I don’t want any puppy points stuff but some people might. And that’s troubling. But what is more troubling is Kansas. Or people in Kansas. Or people from Kansas. I’m not sure exactly which, maybe all of the above.
You see people in Kansas are only allowed to purchase the puppy frame. No puppy purses or puppy cellphone bags or puppy pajama bags for Kansas people. Why is that? TW said maybe people in Kansas have outlawed incredibly ugly puppy purses? I’m sure that’s not it. I know people from Kansas and this seems right up their alley. I think it more likely that Kansas lawmakers had to pass laws preventing their population from going puppy purse mad. I’m sure they all would be carrying puppy purses non-stop if their government didn’t keep them under control by restricting their puppy purchases.
What do you think?
Daily Dose of WTF – Kansas? Read More »
We went to church yesterday. First time in ages. Well it’s the first time in ages that I have been. TW and the kids have been at least once since last spring. I have not. This was my first look at minister number one, female version, for our church. We’ve had interim ministers for two years and finally we have the real thing. (not that Reverend Barbara wasn’t the real thing, she was – but she was still interim)
Anyway, about church yesterday. Forgiveness. Duh. Yom Kippur. If there’s one thing you can usually count on with the UU folk, they’ll hit Yom Kippur with gusto. (They may not mention Jesus at Easter, or even Christmas, but that whole forgiveness thing of the Jews – UUs can handle that without problem.)
Interesting little sermon given by this new minister. We had a story about an AF reserve pilot who needed forgiveness. A story about a Hispanic drunk driver who also needed forgiveness. And, the minister herself who needed forgiveness for a car accident she was involved in. Tidy little forgiveness package of stories.
I’m interested now in seeing the minister number two, male version, now. I wonder when he’s up to bat errr preach. Ack, hopefully not on the 15th because I am hoping we can skip church again. It will be GLBT feeding time at the zoo service and I’m really not into that.
Unitarian Universalists, interesting people and interesting services.
Daily Dose of Religion Read More »
Since September is about survival around here I didn’t expect to scratch many items off the list.
Which is good, because I didn’t. I read more non-fiction books (I’m actually surprised by how many I read. I didn’t think I read many, which is why that was on the list in the first place.) I cleaned out my feeds and I’m about to update my blogrolls (I tweaked the code yesterday and then forget to actually add it to the blog, silly me).
I expect next month will be a more successful month of crossing things off. But I need to figure out how to define some of those list items first. For instance, what does it mean to take a "real day off"? I’m not sure I know – which is weird and troubling. Do you know what it means to take a real day off from work?
TGIOctober.
Daily Dose of Life – 101 Update Read More »
Over at the Crazy Hip Blog Mamas. I still like them, though. Edited… they’ve changed the phrasing of their topic so it is no longer heteronormative. 😉
Daily Dose of Heteronormativity Read More »
Happy Roller Skating Month! Yea roller skating! Maybe my ankle will miraculously heal and I can go skating to celebrate! Probably not. So you can just make roller skating cupcakes for me instead, how’s that? OK fine, just make them for the next roller skating birthday party you throw and if you have kids, you know you’ll be throwing at least one of those parties in your lifetime. You can’t beat these Roller Skate Charms at $17 per dozen, including shipping!
Daily Dose of Cupcake Toppers Read More »
Someone on a search engine wants to know which came first, Slurpee or Icee? Well, that’s like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. OK it’s not the same thing but it’s just as confusing and debatable. Contrary to popular Flamingo House opinion, ICEE and Slurpee are the same thing.
I give you evidence of this unpopular fact – Slurpee history and ICEE history. Omar Knedllik invented the machine that made the frozen “concoction” in 1959. In 1965, the machines were sold to 7-11. In 1965, the trademark “Slurpee” was born.
Now when I was a child watching Happy Raine and longing for her to give me a coupon for a free “frozen concoction from 7-11” they were originally called ICEE and I did not like it one bit when they changed to SLURPEE. In fact, I still dislike “SLURPEE” even though I’m grown up and should understand it’s just a name. IT IS JUST A NAME. They are the same doggone machine. Same doggone ingredients. Polar Bear on the cup does not make it taste different. So there.
Technorati Tags: slurpee, icee, 7-11
Daily Dose of Confusion Read More »
It’s bed time. I don’t care if it is only 10:17am, it is still bedtime! That’s what happens when you wake up at 2:13am with a headache. A headache that is either a brain tumor or a sinus headache, those are the same thing, right? Tylenol at 2:13am helped but by the time the headache was gone, I was wide awake. I really hate that.
I was ready to sleep at 5:30am but the alarm, of course, went off at 6am. Coffee has not helped me stay awake. Work is really not helping at all. I’m to the point where I’m considering cleaning house as a stay awake method. Does anyone have any experience with that? Does it work?
It’s going to be a long, long day and a longer night. Gilmore Girls is one! Michelle is working til “close”! I must. Stay awake.
Daily Dose of Sleep Read More »
In January, I posted about a mysterious bird that appeared in our yard. Today, that mystery was solved!
The 1/2 child was wandering the neighborhood today, trying to solve a little vandalism problem that’s been going on around here. Well not solve it, but at least find some evidence that would allow someone else to solve the problem. In his wanderings, he stopped to talk to a woman who lives up the street. She said she’d pass the word and see if she could find someone who might have some clues.
Later, she stopped at the house to see if he’d had any luck. We were sitting outside on the stoop. The 1/2 child went over to her car to talk to her. I eavesdropped. And then I heard her say something that directly effected me “I’m the one who is responsible for the parrot.”
I jumped up and said YOU!?! You did that?? She laughed and said that she and her husband loved our flamingos so much that they wanted to give us a gift. So she snuck up to the front yard, or tried to since her husband thought it would be funny to blast the horn a few times and get her caught (which didn’t work, oddly enough).
I thanked her and told her how I’d tried to figure out where the bird came from. I told her I’d blogged it. It was funny. What is funnier is she owns the restaurant that my son works at. She had no clue that he lived in the house where she left the parrot. Heh. Life is funny. Mystery solved.
Daily Dose of Mysteries – Solved and Unsolved Read More »
It’s time for me to rant a little bit about Newberry Award books and about young adult literature in general. Thanks to Readable Feast and her recommendation of Welcome to Lizard Motel and Rick Riordan’s recent blog entry about Newberry Books.
About 15 years ago I got on a Newberry Award kick. I had 3 children and I was going to get serious about building our home library. Newberry books seemed like a good place to start. So start is what I did. I bought them, I read them, I attempted to read them aloud to my kids and while they loved being read to, they did not enjoy the books very much. A few years later, I tried to convince my oldest to start reading Newberry books – she refused. I mentioned this to my mother and her response was something like "Newberry books are for adults, not for children. That’s why you never enjoyed reading them when you were a kid either." Hmmm. I thought about this for a good long time. I wanted to argue with her but ultimately, I couldn’t do it.
Newberry books are fantastic. They’re well written. They’re often a wee bit daring. From an adult perspective, they teach kids some wonderful life lesson and what parent isn’t for a good life lesson? Unfortunately, they aren’t books kids want to read or enjoy reading.
Oh sure, some of you can argue with me that X was your favorite book as a child. Or Y was your child’s favorite book. But generally speaking, kids don’t love these books. Hand them Harry Potter and they’re much happier. Harry Potter is not Newberry material.
Welcome to the Lizard Motel does a great job of pointing out just what is wrong with these Newberry books and what’s wrong with the "problem" book that is so popular in American middle school classrooms. Rick Riordan and his son’s experience with the Newberry also do a good job of explaining the problem. American middle schools need to cut back on the "problem" book and the "Newberry book" reading list – I’m not saying wipe them out entirely, just cut back. Kids who love to read are finding themselves faced with books they hate. Kids who hate reading aren’t going to become readers by reading these things.
The problem with children’s literature…. Read More »