pandonkey

Looks like this isn't even necessary now -- it's already the number one result! -- but every little bit helps:

Amazon Rank

It's come to my attention that I've failed to mention an extremely significant life event on here. I blame this on the fact that I almost never think to create an actual post about big things -- just the little "while I'm thinking of it" stuff. So, yeah, Doug and I are expecting our first child! We're expecting her any day now, in fact -- I'm due on Sunday (January 11). Of course, I've been told I'm showing absolutely zero progress toward labor, so, uh... who knows when she'll actually get here? SOON, I hope! It's getting a little difficult, y'know, moving and walking and all...

Just saw a commercial for the SciFi channel's show Sanctuary. It appears to be bad sci-fi TV in its purest, distilled form. Sample dialogue, spoken while on a doomed sub blah blah Bermuda Triangle blah blah:

"Just go deeper!"
"We can't!"
"Just DO it!!"

Classic. (Also: That's what she said.)

I'm so proud -- I was just called a douchebag on the Internet for the first time in my long and lustrous online career. I've been a late bloomer, but at long last, this greatest of milestones has been reached.

Well. That was...not...quite what I'd hoped. Was somewhat more enjoyable once I decided to view it as an extremely well-funded piece of mediocre fanfiction. Through that lens, it was more fun. But still...not.

ETA: Somebody smack the pen out of George Lucas's hand, okay?

Yay! (Please don't hit me, Northerners.) Took the dog for a quick walk in it, and held the cat on the porch. Both were far more excited by just being outside, but I liked the snow.

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Among our first trick-or-treaters this year were two little girls, one dressed as a princess, the other as a shark. I said, "Ooh, a princess and a shark -- that's an unusual pair." The princess got very excited and said, "The shark eats the princess! EEEEEE!!!!"

So it was a good night.

So today was a bad day at work.

On the way home, I imagined how my nervous breakdown will go: I will snap one day and realize that I have Never Achieved My Dreams. I will sneak out of the office (I'm not the storming type) and set out to follow my star. Scrambling for what exactly My Dreams are, and here I'm going with the assumption that my mind is a hat full of slips of paper listing my various desires, I'll dig around a little and pull up one from my childhood. This will be the very early one involving riding horseback across the country along the side of various interstates. I found this particular fantasy to be quite useful on long car trips; it lost its shine a bit when I was old enough to realize that riding a horse along an interstate would be smelly, unpleasant, and highly dangerous. But in this nervous breakdown scenario of mine, I forget all that and decide to do it.

So I would steal a horse and get out on the road. Please picture a nearly thirty-year-old woman in business casual attire, her eyes wild, bumping along I-40 on the back of what's most likely a stodgy old Quarter horse from someone's backyard. Tack consists of a faded nylon halter, let's say purple, with a mismatched lead line and probably an old Western saddle that's seen better days (and they wouldn't get much worse than this one). I would probably be singing.

Some kind soul would call my husband, and he'd turn up in the Outback, driving slowly alongside me with his hazards on. He'd roll down the passenger-side window and lean across to try to talk some sense into me. I'd ignore him, bent on reclaiming my joy, grasping happiness, and Achieving My Dreams, dammit.

At some point, he'd pull out the fact (entirely made up by me for this breakdown scenario) that according to a very old law, horse theft is still punishable by hanging in North Carolina. Good news, though! The law only takes effect if I take the horse outside of the county. Finally, somewhat disheartened by the threat of being hung by the neck until dead, I rein in my faithful steed just before the county line.

...So anyway. That's how I think it might go.

Love triangle kidnap pampernaut preps wingnut defence

Great headline...or greatest headline?

Another 12-hour day at work. Only positive: tasty chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe's that remind me ever-so-slightly of Grover's cookies, my very favorite cookies in the world. Grover was a friend and coworker of mine in New York, and he made the best goddamn cookies known to humankind. We haven't been in touch since Doug and I moved. He was a clarinetist -- I hope he's got a chair now in an orchestra someplace quirky and affordable.

I thought I'd have a go at this meme that's going around.

Ten references I expect my nearest and dearest to get (at least some of): This is really more accurately a list of things I say all the time without really expecting people to get them, but some of them are pretty well known. I'm leaving out anything from The Princess Bride, 'cause I could easily do a list with nothing but that.

1. But why'd I have the bowl, [name]? Why'd I have the bowl?!
2. I hated her SO ... much, that it... flames, flames, on the side of my face, breathing, breathless ... heaving breaths...
3. What are you, a wizard, a genius? ...You stupid...hotel manager!
4. Close it! Close it! Close it up again!
5. Black eyes, like a dolllll's eyes. [On seeing a very hideous home in Virginia a couple of weeks ago, Doug and I somehow co-paraphrased: "He had a pink house...like a dolllll's house."]
6. You're bastard people, you're just bastard people! [I usually misquote this as "You people are bastard people!"]
7. Smell baaaaaad!
8. Diagnosis? Bad babysitting. [Insert any given word in place of "babysitting," and Doug and I say this constantly.]
9. We'll be reaching speeds of three! [often accompanied by "I could go faster, but I'd have to drop the waxing compound!"]
10. Nojo on the rojo. [This isn't even close to one of the best lines from the source, but for some reason, I say it all the time.]