Friday, November 12, 2004

Friday, November 12, 2004 - Dream Careers

First, a couple quick notes:

Thank you for the blog suggestions - I'll be sure to check them out soon.

Thanks to Mia for providing the story about the "cheeky Scotsman" picture.

Now, let's see...when I grow up I want to be a....

  • jazz singer (fly me to the moon...)
  • mad scientist (bwah ha ha ha!!!)
  • big-haired heavy metal hot chick bassist
  • video game tester
  • Jedi Knight
  • certified public accountant (just kidding)
  • Shaolin monk
  • goon hockey defenseman (defenseperson?)
  • ruler of the known universe

or...maybe something completely different...

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Thursday, November 11, 2004 - Check This Out

I was LMAO over this picture from Discombobulated Mia.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - More Fabulous HK Pics Available!

Hooray! I got some more photos up on The Hong Kong Follies for your enjoyment!

Sorry I didn't get the snow pic up today like I said I would; Ironwolf has absconded with my camera cable so I can't get it to the pc yet.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 - On The Hunt For More Cool Blogs

I have come to the conclusion that most of the blogs out there suck.

Every now and then, when I'm thoroughly bored, I hop onto the list of recently updated blogs and start picking out blogs with cool titles. I think I maybe find 1 in 100 worth reading. I know, I know, most of what I read is "mom" blogs, but you'd think that at least a few percent of the blogs out there would be cool! *sigh*

Monday, November 08, 2004

Monday, November 8, 2004 - What's That Outside???

Yes, folks, there is snow on the ground in Buffalo, NY. Winter is here. I'll have a pic for you tomorrow to prove it. Boo.

A couple days ago, our new bedroom dressers arrived. Yay! We needed them badly, particularly because Ironwolf's dresser was in sad, sad shape. Let's just say, it was his great-grandfather's dresser. Yes, that probably made it an official antique, but I think it was past saving.

So we put the dresser out on the curb this evening for garbage pickup tomorrow. A couple hours later I take a very broken child's bicycle out to the curb too, and find instead of a dresser, a television. What the heck? I guess someone liked the dresser more. A couple hours later I look out, and there's..nothing!

Ah, I have fond memories of garbage picking too, but I was really surprised to see it go so quickly. Hmmm...I have a glider/rocker in really poor shape, I wonder if I should put that out too tonight and see if it disappears before I go to bed...

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Sunday, November 7, 2004 - A Few Random Thoughts

  • It seems that I am getting a whole week's worth of postings done in one evening. C'est la vie!
  • The Bills won again! Yeah! We don't entirely suck!
  • I look up and realize that I still haven't managed to get all my clocks changed yet.
  • I know I complained about it a couple months ago, but I still have too much stuff. It's time for a proper cleaning o' the closets.
  • I'm not really horrified that Bush is still President. Saddened, perhaps, but not horrified. Life goes on, and after all, he's only got 4 more years to screw things up. Most dictators get a few decades!
  • I have decided that I can move to HK because...they have a handbell association :-)

Sunday, November 7, 2004 - Poopies of a Different Shade

Ok, now that I've turned off all potential readers who are not moms, let's begin:

One of the stranger but oddly fascinating things about parenting very young children must be, on occasion, what can be found within their diapers.

I was changing Zipper today and found the contents of his diaper to be a really bright turquoise! It reminded me of Play-Doh (though you can rest assured that I was not about to be creating little sculptures out of that!). Now this surprised me and confused me for several minutes while I tried to figure out what could have caused this lovely coloration.

I determined that it must have resulted from a donut Zipper consumed yesterday. It had sprinkle decorations on it - orange hearts, and black bats (must not have gone through all the Halloween sprinkles yet). Of course it was the bats that were the culprit here, as I determined that they were not black at all, but actually a very dark blue. Ah, the interesting things you learn as a parent!

Sunday, November 7, 2004 - Someone Must Be Buying This Stuff, Vol. 2

I have here in front of me a catalogue for The Sportsman's Guide, which, not surprisingly, sells things like hunting gear and other outdoorsy stuff (the catalogue was inadverently delivered to our house).

But a couple *very* strange things caught my eye. Once again I cannot believe that anyone would buy this stuff, but here goes:

Intellectually, I'm ok with this, but at a visceral level...ewww!


Sunday, November 7, 2004 - Would You Believe...

that for some unknown, ungodly reason, the local Fox affiliate preempted the new Halloween Simpsons episode, replacing it with Malcolm in the Middle? No explanation, commercials for the Simpsons episode just a few minutes earlier. What the hell? The new Halloween episode (and hence the new season) is an actual event in our household. We are pissed! I think I'll email my local station and vent my displeasure.

Sunday, Novemeber 7, 2004 - And Here I Was, Trying To Get Back To My Normal Life

I haven't posted in nearly a week. I'm sorry, faithful readers. Maybe some of you thought that I had flown across the border after hearing the results of the presidential election, but alas, that is not the case. :-)

In truth, I have not turned on the computer since Tuesday at all (or maybe I read blogs Wed., but it doesn't matter). There's a couple reasons for this:

  1. I've been overwhelmed having to deal with the kids by myself. I swear, I don't know how single parents do it.
  2. Ironwolf came home from HK on Friday, and I've (rightfully so) had to baby him the last couple days. It is so nice to have him back home though! We missed him so much!
  3. Foolishly I succumed to Netflix's seductive advertising, which included a $2.oo/month rate reduction and rejoined the mindless throng. Therefore I am obliged to watch movies as quickly as possible. [Get that envelope back into the mail! We need more movies to make the service worthwhile!] Actually, Netflix is a wonderful thing during the cold and snowy Buffalo winters. (btw there's supposed to be flurries tomorrow *yuck!*)
  4. Sad to say, I'm still in a vacation rebound phase. I have to admit it, it was nice not having to cook or clean or take care of kids for 1 1/2 weeks. I guess I'm a little depressed. But really it's no big deal.
  5. There's no real excuse. I'm just lazy (grin).

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - Fear and Loathing

I'm afraid to tune into the election coverage.

I have had enough of this electoral college crap. Will you stand behind me to support a change to a straight-up popular vote for President? As it stands, we are now reduced to having the votes of a few hundred people in key locations make the difference in deciding who will be the ruler of the free world.

I also hate that as a voter in New York State, my vote essentially doesn't count, because the liberal vote will always carry the day in NYC. (Mind you, I voted for Kerry, but it's the principal of the thing). I'm sure there's Dems in strong Republican states that feel the same way - if you are in the minority, you're essentially disenfranchised.

And I've said it before, and I'll say it again: At least for national elections we need a standardized voting methodology. No using a dozen different methods of voting. Not every state has its own way of handling things. One national vote, one way.

That's about as political as I ever get (I don't have the stomach for it on a regular basis). Thank you for listening.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - Peter Gabriel Gets His Due

Peter Gabriel was awarded the Music Industry's Trust Award in London yesterday. I have always felt him to be one of the most creative musical artists out there, and it is good to see him honored for his hard work. For more details check the AP story courtesy of Earthlink.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - In case you ever wondered

Did you ever wonder why my blog is all in lowercase letters? It's not because I have self-esteem problems (which I do, but that's besides the point). It's something that happened early on in the blog's lifetime when I edited the template to remove the banner ad that used to appear at the top of every Blogger page. I can't explain it.

I decided to look into it a bit on the template, and yes, some sections of the blog are set up to do all lowercase letters, specifically the blog title and the post headers/footers. Ok, fine, but there is no such descriptor for the posts proper. I did figure out how to make the posts all uppercase, but I figured you would rather not have me screaming at you! :-)

So, you're just going to have to deal with it until I get bored some night and redo the template entirely. Too bad! :-p=

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - New HK post

There's a new post up on The Hong Kong Follies. No, I haven't managed to finish my travelogue yet, but we're getting there.

Monday, November 01, 2004

Monday, November 1st, 2004 - A Small Pet Peeve

First of all, let me say this: I can't believe it's November already! Ahhh! There's going to be snow soon! Where did the summer go?! (oh, wait, the summer never really came to Buffalo this year)

Ok, the pet peeve:

In the town where I live there is an ordinance that people are not allowed to rake their leaf piles into the street. Instead, the leaves should be raked to the curb, between the sidewalk and the street, and the "leaf-sucker" truck will come by once a week or so to collect the leaves (which then gets turned into mulch and is given to residents for free).

But of course, all the other residents of my street have as usual raked their leaves into the street. The town talks about issuing citations every year but never actually does it. It's a hazard, since you don't know if something might be concealed within the leaves that could hurt someone or damage a vehicle.

Despite the hazard potential, I was annoyed enough about today that when I was out driving I would run my car through the leaf piles in the road so as to scatter them again. What the heck, if I run into something, my car is worth, oh...$350 on the open market, so who cares? It was fun, and maybe I pissed a couple people off.

But here's a fun little addition to the story. I'm driving through these piles, as I mentioned, and there is a truck behind me. I'm sure the driver noticed what I was doing. Well, we come to a point in the road, and someone has taken a long, flexible stick of perhaps 6 feet in length and stuck both ends into the holes of a sewer cover in the street, forming an arch not unlike an oversized croquet wicket. I drive around it, since my car is small, and as I look in the mirror I see the truck following me take particular pains to run right over it. *hee hee* The stick popped right back up after the truck had passed. I still thought it was funny.

Monday, November 1st, 2004 - Halloween Hullaballoo

Halloween as always was a fun day, even though I didn't throw one of my trademark parties this year (I thought I would be too tired and busy after the trip and boy, was I right). We went to church in the morning - there was no avoiding it because I was singing a solo. I go to drop Rascal off at his classroom and surprise, surprise - the kids were all supposed to have dressed up as a biblical figure this week (for an All Saints' Day parade around the chapel during the service). Nice of my mother-in-law to tell me about this; she brought the boys to church the last two Sundays in my absence. The teachers stuck a pair of bunny ears on his and called him one of the animals from Noah's ark. Fine. There were other kids in the same boat and worse - there were kids dressed as Spiderman and Batman, neither of whom I believe ever made a biblical appearance. :-)

After church we headed as usual to the church's coffee hour, also known as "the donut room" by my boys. The chess club has a few chessboards set up. Rascal settled in watching the game for over half an hour before a board freed up and I invited him to play with me. We had a good time, and we actually reached a stalemate (a little to my embarrassment), and Rascal caught the eye of the chess guy who was running the whole thing. He was impressed by Rascal's good start in the fundamentals of the game (considering his age and the fact that he has me for a teacher) and suggested a few drills to help him along. It was really cool (except that he got to see just how badly I play chess).

Rascal dressed as Harry Potter for trick-or-treating (he was exceedingly cute, too bad I don't have any pictures), and I put Zipper into a little "traditional" China boy outfit that I purchased for him in HK (none of the kids wear anything like that there btw).

After a couple hours at home it was off to Nana's (great-grandma's) house for a brief visit, then a not-so-quick quick dinner at BK, then a quick spot at Grandma M.'s house before setting off on our trick-or-treating. One of Grandma M.'s neighbors had a spooky sound effects CD playing really loud outside there house, and it scared my kids so much that they were crying. If you are making little kids cry and they aren't even at your place yet, it's too much.

Let me tell you, when you have a 2-year-old in tow while trick-or-treating, you don't end up hitting a lot of houses because it takes so long to get anywhere! Rascal was getting tired and cold after only an hour so we cut it short. That's ok though - it means we kept it to the immediate neighbors and they still got lots of loot.

I made caramel apples for the boys. Rascal turned up his nose at them, but Zipper demolished one - I think he may have consumed a few apple seeds. Anyone want a caramel apple? I made a bunch and I don't know how we are going to get through them all.

I usually stay up late watching bad horror movies on Halloween, but I was so tired that I conked out early again. *sigh* Oh, well - I've already watched so many bad horror movies in my life that I've filled my quota several times over. Hooray for Halloween!