Category Archives: Blog Stuff

does anyone else find these as funny as I do?

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Since I have absolutely nothing interesting or funny to write about, it’s time for another installment of “what strange keyword searches are bringing people to my website?” I’m omitting all of the porn-related searches, because there are just too many of them to mention, and most of them are seriously, disturbingly gross.

Windshield wiper fluid gets in the nose?
Dude. Ouch.

Michael’s Bar & Grill, Rawlins, Wyoming
Hey, we were there! Best mozzarella sticks I have ever had in my life. And the guy who owned the place bought Kris a beer, so we liked him. Sucky town, good bar.

I hate Missouri
Boy, do I. No offense to anyone who lives there, but good LORD, it takes forever to drive across that state.

(My dad’s full name)
This struck me as odd because I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my dad’s name here, so I don’t know how I got 3 hits from that. Huh.

short and bald do I even stand a chance in dating
Aww. Of course you do, little fella. There’s someone out there for everyone. You just don’t have a chance with me. (Not because I have an issue with short, bald men – I honestly don’t – but because I’m taken, bitches.)

Penis was 5 feet long.
I know I said I wouldn’t mention any porn searches, but HA! HAAAA!! Oh, how that made me laugh. (I’m pretty sure they got linked to this post, which still horrifies me.)

now what
This is my favorite search phrase yet. No kidding.

duh

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Um, I figured out the Flickr thing in my sidebar, and it was so obvious that I now feel really dumb. So nevermind that last request.

I had an absolutely horrible day today, and I’ll write more tomorrow if I’m feeling up to it. But now, I’m a little bit drunk and I’m going to bed. Whee!

finally flickr-ing

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For the past couple of years that I’ve had this little bloggy thing, I’ve tried to be all hardcore about doing everything myself. I was all, “Noooo, I won’t use Flickr, because I can store all of my photos on my own site. I know how to edit PHP a little bit, I can make my own photo albums. Screw Flickr and it’s missing little ‘e’!” Fine. You know what? I have finally caved to the peer pressure. All the cool kids are using Flickr on their blogs, so now I am too. And I must say, it is pretty darn neat. I love being able to leave little notes on my photos. I’ve only got a small chunk of my photos uploaded so far, but I’m working on it. You can see what I’ve done so far here.

Here’s my question: I notice that a lot of you have a place in your sidebar that shows your most recent Flickr photos, or it just pulls a few random photos. How exactly do you do that? I’m using WordPress, and I have looked all over for a plug-in that will set that up, and so far I haven’t found anything. If anyone can help me, leave a comment or email me or something. Please? I’ll send you something pretty. (Although, be warned that “something pretty” might just be a thank you e-card. I’m not very creative with gifts.)

By the way, if you still want to see all of my old photo albums, I have a link to them up in my header, but in case you’re extra lazy and don’t feel like scrolling: here you go.

smooshed whoopie

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First, a blog note. I’m trying out a few new features to get rid of this one dude who keeps leaving dozens upon dozens of spam comments on my old entries. (And it is one dude, I’ve traced his IP address.) Anyway, since he’s always “anonymous,” one of the things I changed is that you now have to fill out your name and email address to leave a comment. It won’t be displayed and I’m the only one who sees it, but if you’re worried that I’m going to spam you (ha!), you can say that it’s blah@blah.com. I don’t care if it’s a valid email address or not, I’m just hoping it’ll get rid of Mr. Anonymous.

So, a couple of weeks ago there was a discussion on Angie’s blog about a delicacy in Pennsylvania called the whoopie pie. Being the southern-girl-transplanted-to-the-northwest that I am, I had never heard of these or tried them. So Angie, being the sweetheart that she is, mailed a few of them to Dave and me to try. And may I just say how awesome it is to find dessert in your mailbox? I think all bill collectors should start utilizing this tactic immediately, because if they mailed me sugary goodness along with their invoices, I’d be much more inclined to open them promptly. However, if you clicked on Angie’s blog, you probably saw the photo of what whoopie pies are supposed to look like, and by the time we received ours, they were a little bit squashed. Witness:
Smooshed whoopie pies
I know, they look pretty bad (damn you, careless post office employees!), but it really had no affect on their taste whatsoever. They are still all wonderful cakey-and-ultra-gooey-frosting yumminess, as evidenced by the fact that by the time we got the camera out, one of the whoopie pies (the chocolate one) had already disappeared. And Angie, you’re right, they are nothing like moon pies. I’m not sure which one is better – I mean, I do love my moon pies, after all. I think I’ll have to eat a few dozen more of each to be able to properly give an informed opinion.

This is actually not the first out-of-her-way super-nice thing Angie has done for us. She also used this photo that I took (that’s the same mountain in the banner on this page), jazzed up the color and gave us a great 8×10 print of it, which has since been framed and hung up in our front hall. And of course, I am a horrible person and never sent her a thank-you note (much like the several other dozen people who gave us wedding presents who I haven’t mailed thank-you notes to either, and yes, I feel very very guilty about that, and if you’re one of the people who hasn’t gotten one, I swear that you will somewhere before the end of time, it’s just a matter of when I can get off my lazy ass to write them). So this entry is sort of my little Angie shout-out. But really: I will send you something nice in the mail someday, I promise.

whine sneeze cough whine repeat

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Our Halloween plans (see freak parade, below) didn’t happen because Dave and I both got sick. I have a full-on sinus infection (whee! Thank the baby Jesus for Puffs plus with lotion so my poor widdle nose doesn’t shrivel up and fall off), and I’m not sure what’s up with Dave, but I think he’s caught it from me. Right now he’s just complaining about feeling sort of headache-y and fuzzy. If what I currently have is any indication of what he’s in for, let me just say now: sweetie, I am so sorry. Love, your germy wife.

In other news, this morning I had to delete something like 20 spam comments that had been left on old posts, and they all came from the past 2 days. Very weird. So in light of that, I decided it was time to check up on my web stats. Which means it’s time for another round of, “what search terms are bringing people to this website?”

  • “fat kid” – Now, that’s just not nice. We won’t have any of that here.

  • “cougar vs rottweiler” – I might be stupid, but I’ll put my money on the cougar.

  • “movies shot in duvall wa” – Seriously? Someone filmed a movie here? Who are they, and for the love of God, why? Was it a documentary about goats and alpacas? The mind boggles.

  • “kris osborn crystal meth” – I don’t know who this Kris Osborn person is, but dude, if people are googling you and your addiction in the same search phrase, it might be time for rehab.

  • “nouveau duo vegas” – I had no idea that these folks had such a following. I don’t know anything about them or their music, I just thought the sign was hilarious. And I wasn’t even drunk at the time. (Promise. That wasn’t until much later that day.)

  • “what does raccoon poop look like” – Beats me. But if you want to come investigate my yard, you can probably find plenty of it.

  • “I never break out with pimples could it be stress related” – I have all kinds of weird symptom-y things that bring people here, which I suppose is normal since I talk about things like zits and whatnot. This one struck me as odd because it’s phrased like the person is asking their search engine a question. Like google is going to come back to them with a sympathetic hand pat and a prescription. Has no one ever heard of a dermatologist? Come on, people!

  • My personal favorite: “people go poop”. Yes, yes they do. And here we have the exact reason why 7 year-old boys should not be allowed to use computers.

    • And now, back to our regularly scheduled sniffling and whining.

    random bits

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    Job news: Even though I’ve pretty much stopped looking while I focus on studying for the next few weeks, I heard about a possibility today that could be really good. But I don’t want to jinx myself by talking too much about it (or wanting it too much, which doesn’t seem to work well for me either), so we’ll file it away in the back of our minds and just wait to see what happens. It certainly won’t be the end of the world if I don’t get it, it’s just the first good job possibility that I’ve heard about lately. Oh, and I finally heard (only almost two weeks after the fact) that I didn’t get that other job that I wasn’t sure about. Which I pretty much knew, but come on, is it really necessary to take that long to make a decision?

    Studying progress: I’m now on chapter 7. Which means I’m over 25% of the way through this book, and that’s in less than a week. So I can deal with that. Maybe this means I could actually lighten up on myself a bit and break up my day by, oh I don’t know, occasionally doing dishes or paying bills or doing something else useful since I’m home all freakin’ day long. But that’s doubtful. I enjoy feeling like I have some momentum, so I think I just want to hammer this exam out as fast as possible, and then I’ll worry about the state of the house. (And it’s bad, y’all. Really. You have no idea the amount of clutter that two people can generate in a week.)

    The doctor update: I really like my new doctor. She has the same last name as one of the doctors on “ER”, and I got a kick out of that. No other news. Yet.

    Linky-links: I’m doing some blog-cleaning on my link sidebar. I’ve removed several for various reasons. Some I just don’t read anymore (Tattoodles – sorry, and Adam & Sarah I love you guys, but the minute you demand my credit card number to read your very funny message boards is the minute you lose me). Some don’t exist anymore (like Catoptric & Chez Miscarriage). And some of you (Scott and Carl, I’m looking at you) just never write anything in your damn blogs and I’m tired of always clicking over there with false hope. So, it’s tidying time! Whee!

    more boring work stuff

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    So I’ll bet you thought I’d have an update on that job I interviewed for last week, right? Well, guess again! I have no news at all, which I’m pretty much assuming means that I don’t have it. First, some background: the Giant Software Company has this rule that contractors can only work there for a year before they’re required to take 100 days off. It’s some loophole so they can’t keep temps forever, and if you really want to understand it, this article explains it better than I can. Ok, here’s the problem: I’ve already been gone 40 days, but that basically means nothing. I still can only work there for another 5 1/2 months (mid-March is my one year anniversary), and then I’m required to take 100 days off. I can’t break it up – 50 days now and 50 days next spring, something like that – it has to be 100 consecutive days in which I don’t work at the Giant Software Company. Which sucks, but that’s what happens when some idiot temps decide to get all uppity and demand benefits, and all they succeed in doing is royally screwing things up for everyone else.

    Ok, back to that job that I interviewed for? Apparently the one big strike against me is that I could only work there for 5 1/2 months, rather than a full year. I’m guessing that’s probably the reason why I won’t get the job. Again, I don’t know if I have it or not, I’m just operating under the assumption that I don’t. And like I said before, I really don’t care. Meanwhile, Dave and I have talked it over and I think that since I’m already almost at the halfway point, I’m just going to make this period right now my 100 days off, and then starting in late November or early December, I can take on another contract for a full year. The challenge, of course, is going to be trying to keep my sanity intact for the next 2 months. But since I’ve taken on that new certification, studying should take up a nice big chunk of the next several weeks. So that’s good.

    And in less boring, much happier news, I direct you to other people’s blogs – none of whom I have met in real life, but who I am inexplicably joyous for, regardless: Liz got married! Amalah had a baby boy! SJ found out recently that she’s having a boy! Sally got a great haircut, and she has an adorable new kitten! Ok, I think I’m starting to push it, so that’s probably enough. Hope everyone is having a happy Monday.