Hot Fuzz Kicked ass. Go see it NOW before Spiderman crushes it. Better than Shaun of the Dead and I LOVE that movie. Just great. Mr Man raved too and he rarely does that if it doesn’t have Hobbits in it. Lots of blood and explosions, so that’s probably why.

I learned something this week that is timely with the upcoming 400th Anniversary. Earthworms were extinct in the US before the arrival of the Jamestown colonists, who brought them in the soil of the plants they brought from England.

The pincushion-book-that-I’m-in’s cover is out.

I didn’t make the cover! That sucks since I think my projects alone are nearly a third of the book. Oh well, I have my big fat 80GB video ipod to cushion the blow. Boo hoo.

And that new ipod is gonna come in handy on the trip! Woo! Nearly every ep of Robot Chicken on demand! Texas Holdem in Kentucky! Tetris through Tennesee! Bejeweled in the Smokies!

Think I’ll bring some crafty stuff to work on since it’s such a long trip and we’ll hae some dull night inthe hotels I’m sure since what we consider a good channel selection and what other people think is a good channel selection are not even close. DirecTv or death! And yes, I will miss the TiVo, possibly as much as the dogs. Okay… more.

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Bone chilling tale of woe! The horror of blimps!!!1!

Mr Man sent me this as a suggestion as a place to visit with a possible upcoming sightseeing and gen hunting trip to the Carolinas… Dismal Swamp!. It’s far less dismal than I was lead to believe. Damn.

Saw “Ghost Rider” the other day, it was decent! I totally didn’t mind Nick Cage other than he was at least 10 years older than he should have been according to the age of the lead actress and the plotline. But the movie, did not in fact suck hard.

more later!

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1. Typical spring week in Ohio… sunny 70, sunny 85, rainy 50, sunny70. Yup, spring is here alright.

2. I am loving my new shampoo. I have been using Aussie stuff for years, especially 3-Minute Miracle, the Hair Insurance leave in conditioner spray, and the Moist sham/cond. Years I'm telling ya, over 8 at least. Since before P&G the bastards kings bought them a few back anyway. Haven't noticed too much of a difference thankfully. Anyway, they just came out with Shampoo and conditioner under the Hair Insurance name and I'm freaking in love. Works great on my curly self, it's soft as hell and let me tell ya thats the holy grail for curly hair, but also just smells frickin' wonderful, like I should be running down an alpine mountain in a billowy sundress… uh… Sorry, girly moment there. Won't let it happen again. Just wanted to let the ladies know it kicks unholy ass. Uh, Yeah.
3. My other blog Ohikea is all new on wordpress too! (The building has begun!!!)

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So I saw an icon like this on Livejournal and went in search of a t-shirt for it. Finding none, I got busy in illustrator and slapped it up on cafepress so I could make myself one, and decided to see who else wanted one. I see myself giving one to my hair stylist next time I go in.

Click to see!

I’m really happy with the skull, it came out friendly and not scary.

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The pincushions book I’m gonna be in is available for pre-order on amazon! I have about 6 or 7 projects in it. Here’s the preliminary listing from the main publisher. I can’t wait to see it in November!

And then in December I might be in Threads Magazine doing pincushions again. I don’t know how I go to be a name in this, but Flickr helped as that is where I foudn other peopel doing it and where the book people found me. Worth the $25 pro account totally!

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There’s been a HUGE recall on cheap canned “chunk and gravy style” cat and dog food. Mostly store brands but some premuim brands like Nutro and Iams are also affected. No cause given, but animal illness and possible death are risks. Here’s the site for the recall.

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Blufr follows a fine tradition of time sucking addictive websites missing a vowel second from the end.

So… Uhm, as expected Hilary Clinton is running for president. I, a staunch democrat who votes party line pretty much every time (and one who misses BIll no less), hope to hell she fails to win the nomination. It hurts to say that, I think it’s time we had a woman leader like most of our biggest “freinds” like the UK and Germany, and the dozens of others. I sjut dont think she can be the one to do it, even thought I think she could. It’s just that she’s hated in every state other than New York or California. And believe me I’m not overstating that, she’s HATED. Like everyone hates Mimes and tofu birthday cake. Her taking the primary will insure the Republican’s winning the election by a humiliating ratio that can only be called “landslide”. Not some modest 51/48 this time. I’m not saying she’s not qualified, just that she’s posion to the democratic cause, the message and progress since November. I’ll still vote for her if she’s the only democratic choice for the election, but I know I’ll be in the minority and the end is nigh.

The Cure has a free concert all month on DirecTv - score!

My iPod is Wunderbar. He needs a name.

Diane Keaton bugs the living hell out of me. I thin it’s the fact she wears too much white, too many turtlenecks, scarves, man-suits, granny glasses and too many other things to count. Grrr!

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I found my slipper, spank my butt can call me Cinderella!

I know I hadn’t mentioend I’d lost it here, but it was a point of much consternation here at the Miester von Mannhausen.

And there was much rejoicing — until I realized the wash (where it had snuck in) had ruined it and it didn’t fit now like the other and put holes in the sole and so I have to buy a new pair anyway. I loved that pair, they were like fuzzy easy bake ovens for my feet. Winter is a coming.
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I need a job, if anyone local knows of a place worthy of my unique talents and abilities, let me know.
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I’ve had to put Sophie the giant retard calico in a cone collar this last week. She got a big case of OCD about grooming her nether regions and gave herself a brazilian with a bad case of razor rash. Of course the first few days of watching her hit corners with it then just stop dead and stare at the wall for three hours were hilairous.
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Our Directv tivo I thought was dying is being kept in the land of the living after finding out that they Directv won’t send you a replacement that is a tivo because the agreement ran out, though updates and support will continue for god knows how much longer. They now send the generic DTV DVR, and i’m sorry there is a HUGE difference. Tivo is like a family member. The guy at DTV thought I was nuts and actually was surprisewd when I said I was upset at getting a generic DVR, but if you have one yo know what I’m saying (right Shannon?) It thinks about you, it knows what you like and records it for you and tries to make you happy, It’s like the perfect spouse.

Anyway I managed to track that the horrid noise ours is making is the fan (since this house is a fur, and dust trap thanks to the steel plant) I bought a replacement on ebay for $4 (inc shipping) which should be here soon. I think thats the only thing wrong with it so I’ll be sneding back the new DTV DVR unopened to Directv and will be asking for the last two years of monthly payments for replacement as a bill credit. We can buy a working replacement of the model we have on ebay for like $20 or so, so we have a back up there as well. Just keep swapping hard drives and junk I guess. That’s what the other dtv guys on the Tivo communtiy forums do. I guess alot of people have been returning the new nontivo units, and complaining, so who knows maybe it will come back.

Top this all off with the fact that someone on freecycle today gave me a nearly new, and I mean that, 80-hour series 2 Tivo in box and all for free. They said they got it for xmas in 2005 and used it for six months and boxed it back up when they didn’t use it much. How sweet is that? So if the one we have drops out for real we’ll go to pure Tivo with even more whistles and bells with the directv alone. We’ll have to sub to Tivo seperatly ($12 mo), but once you drop the replacement plan monthly fee ($6) and the DTV DVR monthly fee ($6) it pays for itself. But in the mean time It’ll live on a shelf in the back room.
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I scare myself with my ability to make incredibly cute crafty things as of late. ew.
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I haven’t mentioned it here, mainly because I forgot, but I’ve been asked to present said cute things in a book by Lark Books to be called “Creative Pincushions” that they are prepping to come out in 2007. I’m pretty excited. Cool part of this is they discovered the Flickr Pincushions group and went “WOW, we need to do a book on these!” and asked several of us specifially to submit participate. I will have several projects in there it looks like. (Cha ching!) See? Flickr pays.

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Church Marketing Sucks has lots to read. Which church signs suck, how awful church newsletters are… but I just sent them these sites (that my brother sent me).

New Birth Church’s intro must be seen to believed in it’s flash excess. It was done by this guy who only seems to do work for black megachurches who need sites that vibrate (The ladies like it, if you catch my drift….

In other news, saw some of the new tv NBC shows last night.

I saw Heroes. I think I liked it, I liked parts of it for sure, but I think it’s gonna be one of those shows you just have to watch for it to click much, I’m fine with that. Nothing esle is on that night. I loved the japanese guy, but not sure what the Stripper mom’s powers are yet. My freind MizG said “Avenging Angel” with a kind of personality implant… I think that might be it. LIke the Hulk, only blonde, hot and in a g-string bulging with singles.

I finally caught Studio 60, after missing last weeks pilot and hearing good thigns. Uhm… whoever said the nice things needs a lobotomy. It really reeked of West Wing for me; that is lots of walking in hallways, and talking, and talking while walking in hallways, as well as lots of little “issues” crop up with thinly vield attempts at drama. Not to mention I REALLY HATED West Wing. The Sorkin Touch is posion as far as I’m concerned. i’m sure I’d eat cookies he made. And I love cookies.

Another thing that bugs me about Studio 60 is that NBC thinks we give a shit about Saturday Night Live and that we want to know what goes on behind camera. I can honestly say Uh, no I never have. They can’t keep it funny in front of the camera, what makes me thing the backstage is any more inticing. Funny is serious work. Serious work is boring. (And NBC seems to think we wanna know SO much about SNL-type shows they have TWO of them! GAG!). Did I mention I also hate shows about shows?

I like Chandler Bing and all, but if I watch this again it will only becasue NOTHING else is on monday nights since they moved Medium to SUNDAYS after football (emmy winning show moved to mid season??) WHY I have no idea! Build and audience on a DEAD night, and then do a bait switch. So far i’m not seeing anything to keep me on NBC Monday Nights and not going back to what I watch the rest of the year - Unwrapped on Food Tv.

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“Life is too short for generic store brand Q-tips.”

The extra 50 cents makes all the difference. The cheap ones feel like sandpaper.

I know youre not “supposed” to put the qtip into the ear canal, I do it anyway as I find my ears seem to have taken up wax production for export sales to Mexico.

TMI, I know, but there you go. Thats what I have today.

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I have been swamped today between family stuff (sadness ahead) and an interview scheduled on Tuesday - that would be busy for anyone then add on a few reporter phone calls about IKEA (yes more) and the IKEA North America Media and Location Planning guy (the voice of ikea I guess you could say) called as well… just to say “hey we see you over there” and remark how stupid the CIncinnati news guy was.

I’ll just send you over to OHIKEA to read what I’ve put up over the last couple days. Today I’ve been typing up a storm over there. why bother to repeat it.

Media darling status still fully locked and engaged. A reporter asked me how it felt “to be famous.” HA! I wish.

I’ll be moving ohikea to it’s new domain soon (thanks sugi!) after all this damned traffic slows back to normal. I hope it goes well - I’d so hate to loose my google ranking!

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The good: I’m iin the Cleveland Plain Dealer today with OHIKEA. My media darling status is due to run out any minute.

The bad: I need to find a job.

The ugly: This site beats even some japanese sites as busiest piece of pixelated crap I’ve ever seen.

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My pal Dave, AKA ADDBlogDaddy, master of a thousand and one blogs of varying and indeterminate lifespans, (as opposed my three) has closed one door and opened another. Dave, who also blogs at TUAW for pay as well as other publications, is a blogoholic. And I’m largely responsible as I gave him his first blog off VBB a few years ago that started all this madness. His wife should sue me for being a bad influence. I feel like a unachieving mentor who’s student has far surpassed them.

Anyway, DaddyDaze (his daddy blog) has killed “kermit the blog” (his personal blog) in deadly hand to hand combat for the dave.typead.com title in a three round battle.

Long live his new non-dady blog, TEH_SUCK. Blog list it.

Today he posed the challenge:

I have a list of songs, as I’m sure most people do, that I can hear again and again and enjoy every single time. I’m talking about those special songs that I will never tire of hearing. , in no particular order.

I’ll bite, since I’m at a loss for more interesting posts, below are mine. I’m also very eclectic, so I could do five for each of the last 5 or 6 decades (and a few different genres). One will do for now. I’m an 80s girl, so I stuck to that.

1: Duran Duran - Save a Prayer (I limited myself to ONE DD song)
2: The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes (hard choice, I love them all, I just picked one)
3: XTC - Dear God (Brilliant and angry)
4: Elvis Costello - What’s so funny… (ditto)
5: Clash: Rock the Casbah

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Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen? By Robert Kennedy Jr.

Talks a lot about poll and voting problems in Ohio that of course benefitted President Stumpy. Remeber this Ohioans when you go vote for Govenor. Ken Blackwell is evil incarnate. It’s in the current issue of rolling stone, get one and zerox it a million times and post iin bathrooms, breaks rooms and mailboxes.

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How NYC got screwed because it voted blue. Dept of Homeland retardation says NYC has “zero landmarks or icons” and cut it’s security funding by over 80%. WTF?

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Global warming my ass! The last month or so has been remarkably mild in Ohio. I dont think it’s gotten over 75 - most the time it’s been hovering around the 65 mark, sunny and clear and remarkably low humidity. Nights we’ve actuallly had frost! They got down to 40 last week.

Normally this time of year 70 would be the low temperature and I woudl have fired up the A/C a few times to move some air out of here. June usually is in the 80’s pretty early on, if not higher, then the rest of summer it’s hot and humid until September.

I have the huge front windows, as well as others, open nearly all day anymore, it’s been nice.

(Ginevra you have the BEST weather fore moving I’ve ever seen.)

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Dear Gary,

I love you dog, you are my little spunky boy, but….

WHAT THE HELL do you have against me working in my office now? HUH? If I am in the livingroom goofing off you lay in bed all day and sleep like a lump. If I DARE go to the office to actually DO something you immediatly hop out of bed and bark your ass off to come in, then out, then in , then out. And If I ignore you you just bark until I end up screaming at you. Little bastard.

I’m sorry I ever taught you to bark to go out to begin with.

Jen
Your owner at the end of her rope.

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Mr Man is in Vegas right now. Left Saturday, back Friday. While he’s gone I plan on catching up on sewing costumes for the SCA, I can make a huge mess and sew all day which is how I like it. I’ll be online when Im not sewing (and even if I am) I have the IM up, so If anyone is bored, pull me up on IM and chat me up. I’m pretty bored and usually online.

aim: dsignfunk
msn: jen@verybigdesign.com
yahoo: jengrizel

(If I dont’ answer after a couple minutes I’m likely sleeping or at the sewing machine, but will be back before too long. So don’t be a stranger, say hi! I’ll answer when I come back!)

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My brother passed on this:

Inforomation Interactive - You’ll blow an hour of your life going deeper and deeper into the photo, and be fine with it.

Video Funtime:
There are lots of these movie mashups where you take a classic movie and do a video and edit it to look completly different genre, this one is I think the best so far.

This guy is one heck of a video editor.

The hateful asses who brought you “god hates fags” and other lovely thoughts like protests at funerals have made a lame disgusting and bad rip off of JibJab to spout thier evil hateful crap. I only link it becasue it’s so astounding that living human beings made it. If anyone needs a killin’, it’s these guys. It’s offensive, in so many ways. There’s no one they don’t seem to hate.

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Be afraid: I AM ON MYSPACE And no, I have no idea who “tom” is. He appeared on my list moments after making the account. (edit: kicked his ass off). Why did I do it? I’ll jump on any fad. I’ll prolly never look at the page again after a week.

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Movies to avoid on PPV or rental:
The Ice Harvest - dark, dismal and confusing. Even John Cusack being in it could not save this for me.

The Legend of Zorro - The pain, OMG the pain. I think the continuity director died from a self inflicted wound. (All Bev’s fault… Too many snarks to list. Bad, bad, bad! Might be good candiadte for drunken movie night with friends though - MST3K’able. Even Rufus “Pretty Eyes” Sewell being in it could not save this for me (and I’d watch him eat toast). Plus they straightened his pretty curly hair, Ick.

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Patton Oswalt cancelled, the comedy club seems to be ignoring this fact. I have however booked my tickets for the Photoshop confernece in Columbus, who else is going?

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Oh. My. Freaking. God.

I have found the place where all Target clearance goes to die, and it’s just three blocks from the house. It looks like everything that doesn’t sell gets auctioned off in a HUGE truckload and these guys buy it and sell it for next to nothing. Tons of lamps, clothes, bags, homewares and linens, the works. most are open package, but some $30 tablecloths curtains were marked a buck or two. Also has furniture, fixtures, entry doors, shower surrounds, tubs, spas, or laminate flooring cheap… So, If anyone in the Dayton/Cinci area wants the scoop, it’s only open Fri-Sunday. We bought SO much for next to nothing. T’was wonderful and dangerous. Screw Goodwill.

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Patton Oswalt is coming to Cincinnati May 26 and 27th.

Me, Mr Man, My brother FunkyBlue and his lovely wife are all going. Tickets are bought! Woo! Gonna give Patton a Tivo antenae bobber since he was largely behind us getting one. I’ve still got one or two poking around since they were $1.50 from the Tivo website and $3 shipping, so I bought a few extras to make the shipping worth it. Hopefully I’ll have a way to get it to him, might send it back to him via a waitress.

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Speaking of my lovely sister in law: She was in Yellow Springs at the Little Art Theatre regarding a photography show (she’s a photog), and Dave Chappelle walked by (remember he grew up in, and currently lives, in town). I haven’t gotten the entire scoop yet (she’s supposed to sign on and give me the story in it’s entireity) but I’m entirely jealous. I’ll post more as I have it!

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I heard back from upper management at PF Changs. They agreed that the difficulties we had were completely disgusting. Offered me a free meal to make up for it, I turned them down. We’re not poor, we eat out (all too) often at some upper end places. And I don’t care if the foods free, it’s still not worth it if it’s not good.

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I’m still making Pincushions - some are so cute I could just kick my own ass. gonna try to sell some next weekend. I don’t expect much biting, as SCA people are infamously cheap for anything that’s not a book. Maybe I’ll sell them online. If someone sees one they want, drop me a line privately. I’m not charging all THAT much ($2 to $20 depending on size and amount of embroidery work). Make me an offer, I love to haggle.

Other news:
I predict a “Daddy Dearest” book by Suri Cruise in 20 years. Run Suri run! (SURI?????)

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Steve jobs appeared in front of the Cupertino City council to propose a second 50-acre apple campus. Anyone else bet it’s for iTunes/iPod stuff?

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Rolling Stone’s new cover will certiainly get some right wing fire - but YAY them!

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New lobster species discovered no word if its delicious. You just know the Japanese are already hard at work to try to catch some for the most expensive business lunch ever.

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My brother sent me this link to a old read-a-long record we used to own as kids. I didn’t remeber it till I listened to a bit of it. Man I feel so freaking old.

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I watch a lot of documentaries and a lot of them are narrated by brits since I tend to medieval history. The Brits sometimes have thier own stubborn old ways to pronounce things (aluminium = aloo-mini-um), and recently it’s been annoying me more. A few weeks ago one limey narrator was doing a WWII documentary and repeatedly mispronounced Roosevelt (correct Ahmerricuhn way: rose-a-velt) as “Roos-velt”.

The one that was the worst recently was on the Maya, Inca and Aztecs. As a result I’m now convinced the English are incapable of pronouncing spanish names. EVERY single name was so badly off the typical way to say it I barely could keep understand what or who they were talking about. (And the Man and I have seen MANY other docs on the cultures, one of our little fascinations). Teotihuacán is modern spanish since the original names to all these places are lost, so it’s not a guess… it’s Spanish . And it’s pronounced “Tayo-tee-hwah-kahn” not something like “Tee-otee-hoo-whack-on”. It might look subtle here but it was literally almost unreconizable when it was done (this was just one of the few we could guess) every incan/Aztec name and city was equally mangled. We finally got so frustrated trying to figure out WHICH place he was trying to say we turned it over because screaming at the tv didn’t help anything.

Does anyone one else get annoyed by British narrators or is it just me?

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So, I went to this auction of a “private medeival collection” last wekend about 5 miles from the house. Some old guys estate. Well it was largely crap. all stuff the medieval times resturaunt would balk at, minus a coupe actual real pieces.

Anyway, this guy was a HUGE european history buff, and as a result went over DOZENS of times on trips. I bought three huge boxes of these old scrapbooks filled to the bring wth postcards, pictures, books, musuems guides… the works from the 60’s through 2003. I got all three boxes for a grand total of $3.

Well I sat up last night and began to wittle the pile to a manageable size (that means rip and divide the crap out of it)

I sat down with a exacto and scissors and cut and trmmed EVERY dang postcard out of the books. See, Mr World travel taped everything in, after 1964. Before that he glued everything in. NO good for postcard values I tell ya. I prolly have $20 of fair condition cards now. I’lls ell them at a card show in columbus in the fall. Anwyay… now I have ONE box of slides, pics , anm books, and two little bozes of JUSTpost cards. Well less than half the space.

One of the surprising gems in the old 60’s boosk where these luggage stickers from back in the day when they were real and not a cartoon cliche. I think they are really neat, A couple got magled, more than one of them is still glued to the backing paper that I just trimed away. These are thin muthas.

I think I’ll frae them and hang them in the Key West inspired bathroom or something (Which I never told you but I bought the COOLEST shower curtain for at target with handsewn chenille flamingos that match to a T).

Other news… I tookthis huge range of qualifying tests a couple weeks ago and I just got the call. I have a job, well kinda.

It’s a part time job at the sensory testing lab as a taste/smell tester traniee. Three days a week, 6 hours a day, $10 an hour. Not much but I bet it’s interetsing! and I’ll get out of the house. I think it’ll be nice to mix web design up with this. I’ll still have plenty of time for design work.

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Cruise and Holmes engaged to marry - he got the poor girl into his cult. If I were her parents I’d be getting her into deprogramming instead of a wedding dress.

At the same press conference, Tom tried to crush Dakota Fanning’s head to get to the yummy creme filling he uses to ensure immortality.

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Please go read The Sneeze while I’m in Medieval Wonderland. You’ll be glad you did. Really.

Something I actually said, and was proud about: “I just made this new dress, and I have a new wimple set up and with the apron I’ll look just like a nun - COOL!”

My lovely and witty brother, FunkyBlue, will be without cable internet till the 15th because of a move. If you hear a loud POP it’s his brain imploding from internet withdrawl. Due to this move into the dark ages he will not be blogging prolly till I am almost home, if then.

Every store should be Target.

I’m excited it might be rainy and cloudy while I’m camping next week. Usually it’s hot as hell, muggy and miserable. I’ll take cold and drizzly and ugly anyday. In period costume it makes it more comfortable and all the more authentic.

I know what a huge geek I sound like saying that.

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