Saw Night at the Musuem. Nothing deep, I mean Ben Stiller is in it, but I really enjoyed it! I’ll probably get it on DVD, so that is sayin’ something.

The museum geek in me of course was thinking half the time: “What are Teddy Roosevelt, an Easter Island head, and Romans doing in a ‘museum of natural history’? It’s more of a “just plain history” museum.”

But past that, I though it was lots of fun!

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE’ TALKING ABOUT. We just watched this in the hotel (we’re in Michigan hitting the IKEA and the Casino) and it was NOT funny. Urgh.

This hotel is nice though, we do o love Doubletrees. We’re in Dearborn, which is where all the “celebrations” we happening in the news, though we never saw any) in the US since this are has a very high islamic population. (Higher per capita than anywhere else over here I think.) We left IKEA and ate at “Al Ameer” for lunch and gorged on much meat - and a nap was required of course. Mmm, meat.

Full IKEA trip report on OHIKEA.

Too bad we won’t be back, ours is supposed to start building soon.

Whew, working is tiring. Okay quick sum up of the last few days…

Thursday we met up with a woman off a CheapCycle list whow as selling up a brand new iPod Nano for $75. Yep, $75 BUCKS. 4 days old, opened and played with for 20 minutes. Nothing wrong with it.

Here’s what I’ve managed to put together:
She bought it on Monday and her hunny, the IT genius, opened it and when it of course didn’t work he threw a fit and said he didn’t like it. She had lost the reciept (still she could have gotten store credit) so moved to sell it on Cheapcycle. Over four days she went down from $150 on day one to $75 on day four- where I snapped at it thinking Mr Man should have one (and he liked the idea for an upcoming trip). We set an appointment to meet after work since she worked near my new job.

When we met to do the swap she said he was cussing it had no software and that it wasn’t working even though it seemed to be, then I explained to her (after checking to see it did work) that the booklet that comes with it says to download iTunes, and that is what it uses to load the music on. She looked like I kicked her to the face. They had never even looked at he 8 page business card booklet with nothing but pictures and simple text telling you how to use it. It’s on page one.

I got it home and popped it in my dock. 34MB of hard drive space were used. So I opened it up on the desktop to see Mr Tech Whiz had managed to plug it into the computer and even drug on a few music cuts (wmv’s which dont work on ipods and mp3’s) over the desktop. When it of course didn’t work, he threw a hissy fit.

The moral of this story is RTFM Muthafucka. Otherwise your loss is my gain! Well Mr Man’s gain. On the way home he was going “well it’s not MY ipod, it’s yours, I’ll never get to use it after the trip, you’ll steal it all the time. I only got it because it was a amazing deal.”

Okay - I have a 20GB iPod 3G and over 30GB of music. This is a 2 GB Ipod Nano. I can’t DECIDE 2GB of music I’d want to carry along. Sheesh, as if.

So we go home I mount it on the G4, I make him a play list to load on it, set it up to laod from that list and proceed to pull off ALL His music I have on my system for him and it totals 1.3GB.

Ooh, he says, and asks to go shopping at iTunes for some other stuff he wanted. $66 dollars of 80’s hair bands later, his ipod has 30mb of space left. An ipod filled completly with music I can’t stand. yeah, I’m gonna steal this 5- times a week. I did at least get to take off his music on MY ipod. I only carried it so he’d have it on call when we were in the car.

Upside - since my iPod is running out of Apple care in Feb I asked Mr Man when I get the $700 check for the pincushions book I am a part of if I can use half or so for a NEW ipod. Oh yeah 80 GB Video Pod here I come. Upside I can gift the old one to my Sister in law who has been wanting one, and maybe my ipod photo card reader too (since she’s a photographer). I’m realllllly gonna try to hold off till the new models come out. (Dave, whats the scoop on that? i’m gonna be chewing my arm off waiting for the right time.)

Other news… Four dogs.

My cat had won the prize gift basket at my vet’s and we went to pick it up. Walking in we ran into a lady with a gorgeous whiteish lab with some ginger spots on her nose and paws. Just docile and perfectly lab-like as you get. She didn’t even react to the three boxer puppies or the cage of kittens. The woman had found her wandering IN the road, she opened her door to move her and the dog jumped in. She drove tot he closest vet to see if they knew who she belonged to. They’d never seen her before.

She has a collar but no tags or microchip, of course. The vet scanned her. She’s not dirty at all or wet (and it’s been raining for days) and has nails that were recently trimmed. She’d not starving or undeweight, I dunno how long she was out before being picked up but it wasn’t long. (MICROCHIP YOUR DOGS PEOPLE!)

The lady was from Cinci visiting family can’t take a dog to her apartment, we took her off her hands while she went back to the area to ask around. she called back sayign one house was pointed out to have a white lab, left our info, but 8 hours later, no call. So it’s looking dim. We’re gonna be watching the paper for an ad.

Good news for “Newbie” (what I’m calling her since she’s, well, the newbie.) I have a pal in Pittsburgh who has been wanting a dog, and labs are his favorite breed. She’s a perfect a “lab” as you can get. She’s melded pretty well into the dog pack so far, a little growling from both sides but that’s normal pack stuff when there is a newbie trying to work out where they fit. She’s docile, calm and just adorable. Nothing hyper in this dog, period. Sometimes I wonder if she got into a bottle of Xanax. She’s that mellow.

So instead of the drive to IKEA in Detroit like I was planning next weekend, we’ll instead be heading to PIttsburgh with dog in tow to a new home if her owners don’t crop up. Complicates xmas day though.

This is what I got treated to on the way home Friday… A rainbow AND a killer sunset AT the same time. It was so awesome that the radio station was actually telling people to go outside and catch the sky.

Dallas Food - What’s Noka Worth?has some some scathing remarks, and more than a few made me laugh.

To think anyone could do a 1800% mark up on chocolate… I’m pretty much sure it’s a Sin worthy of the lowest levels of hell. The one where goats to naughty things to your innards.

But interesting read on the value of hype - and how the chocolate industry works.

In other news, I have a “thing” in my ear just inside the ear canal, I can just feel it with my finger. I thought it was just a pimple, but it’s not going away and it’s sore. Week two. So now I have to take a half day off or something (of my new job) and head down to Kenwood to my ear doctor. It’s probably cancer knowing my luck.

I got them from work (not just groceries there) for $17 - steal! I absolutely could not resist. Warm muthas too. You can buy some here for nearly as cheap.

I am SO going to wear these at a SCA event. Whoo yah.

As listed on Wikipedia
“Today in History: Dec 17
283 - St Gaius becomes Pope.”

I so want to add:
284 - Cylons invade.

Okay, on ANY picture that you can leave a note on… make one…

Type in “ho ho ho hat” and scaleable santa hat will appear.
Type in “ho ho ho beard” and you get a santa beard.
(of course no qoutes, duh.) Be sure to hit save!

I did this to photos from many of my flickr contacts today (check your recent activity page). Merry Xmas if you got one, or even if you didn’t. (I probably didn’t find the right kind of pic for it.)

This is reader HoneyBunny before:


Click the pic to see “after”. Muhahah! Ho ho ho!

Throwaway stuff like this is why I love flickr. Too much fun.

This guy has a collction of rubberstamped money.

I’ve seen more than a few of the Where’s Georges (and write it on more and few myself time to time) but looking at these makes me want to come up with a silly nonsensical one and have a email address on there… see what kinda of mail it gets.

Every day with Rachael Ray is one day too many from the Dayton Daily News.
(Passwords here if ya need one.)

Be sure to read the comments… whoo.
For the record I think her mouth is too big and I’m tired of seeing her face everywhere too.

Okay, I’m a wholly blue girl, I actually see Bill Clinton on tv and sigh. I miss him. I miss someone smarter than me running our country, someone personable that other leaders liked and could make things happen. And I don’t terribly mind Hilary myself but I’ll tell you - while top Democrats and those on the coasts might love her - everyone else hates her. I don’t think she has a chance in hell of winning.

She has NO CHANCE in the midwest or in the south or pretty much any area without a coast. She isn’t merely hated, she’s despised as satan incarnate (and I’m not sure why short of having the name Clinton and being the right wing radio favorite fodder). Most democrats dislike her, and Republicans outright hate her. Dems need to keep those republicans who went Blue this last election. Hilary making it past the primary would essentially ensure a Republican win.

If the dems want to win in 2008 they need to back away from that lipsticked hot potato. She’d be nothing but a pure campaign money-pit and stop the blue wave of progress that needs to keep rolling.

Some gear to prevent Wii controllers from flying out of your hands since it’s in all the news that people owning them are flacid handed morons.

I’m thinking a branded lanyard and some fingerless golf gloves with a “wiicking cloth” to absorb sweat. Make them white and come up with a catchy name and you’ll make a mint selling them in Best Buy.

MIght I mention I came up with the idea of the winged and haloed Dale Earnhardt 3 the day he died, but never did anything but mention it to Mr Man. I coulda been rich!

Should be a good Colbert Report on Monday.

Colbert — who once derided the folks at Springfield-based Merriam-Webster as the “word police” and a bunch of “wordinistas” — was pleased.

“Though I’m no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me,” he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

“And what an honor,” he said. “Truthiness now joins the lexicographical pantheon with words like ’squash,’ ‘merry,’ ‘crumpet,’ ‘the,’ ‘xylophone,’ ‘circuitous,’ ‘others’ and others.”

Brilliant.

START KEY MUST DIE!!!!!! URGHHHHHH!!!!!

See while most windozers don’t seem to touch that key much, working in photoshop and using extensive use of keystrokes (cntrl and alt on pc, command and option on mac) I find that the STINKING START KEY IS GETTING HIT EVERY TWENTY DAMN SECONDS!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHH! I have to find a way to disable it that doens’t require regedit… or I’m gonna yank the key off.

EDIT: I found a control panel for this MS natural keyboard that does EXACTLY this very thing - ahhh!!!!!

Now if I can just remap the keyboard for mac layout… without being an admin anyway:
alt into control (mac: command)
start into alt (mac: option)
THEN, and only then, it’ll be one step closer to familiar. I’ve already had to put scotch tape on the keys and put their mac names on them so I know WTF I’m hittin’ in photoshop, since for me they are reversed in order…

So, every year I kick off the Holiday season with the world’s most depressing and awful holiday song - this year is no different!

Faith in Santa by Red Sovine

Well my freewheelin’ days as a homebound recluse/web designer are over. No more naps, no more Dog Wrestling Wednesdays. That’s right I’m going to be employed again.

I just got the word I’m to be the new gal on the creative team, and in charge of the website for Jungle Jims, the awesome grocery store I have raved about for oh… since before the blog began. If you need more info check out the latest post on OHIKEA since I wrote up a big thing on it for a upcoming series on other places to see when traveling to to our future Ohio IKEA store.

My job will be mostly web stuff, (hopefully move them into a new site design and new CMS system over time) but also ad and flyer layouts, digital and printed signage, digital photography of products, etc… and any other crazy old thing that is fun that the bossman thinks up next. (and believe me that could be anything) I’m looking forward to it. It looks to be anything but boring, that’s good. It looks like I’ll be doing half weeks for a couple till I’m up on all the various aspects.

Since I don’t talk about my jobs or clients on VBB you might not hear much about it after this. Maybe I’ll mention sales or something cool that just got installed in the store, links to articles about the store online, etc… but other than that not much will change other than maybe I won’t post quite as often.

Lots of creative things to do there so it will be nice to spread the wings a bit again.

Being I haven’t seen NBC Must See Thursday since Channel 5 In Sinsinnasti pushed all the shows till tomorrow spread out over 12 hours… for a stinkin’ Bengals game I haven’t seen The Office or I’d include it. (but I hear it was most awesome.)

I’ll hide it for those who don’t want spoilers…
(more…