Ran a low fever today, because apparently we are still on this. I'm spinning my wheels on New Moon between cough syrup-induced comas and not getting anything done. Outstanding. And tomorrow being Happy Eating Day, I doubt I'll get much else done then, either. God, I want my life back.

Hm. Well, I think what we need is some cute. If you are in the Homewood/Birmingham (AL) area, there is a three-month-old puppy at our vet's who is in need of a home. They have dubbed him "Snoopy," but obviously he could be renamed:





Also, here is Sam home fresh from his bath this morning:




Now to decide if I want to pass out again or not.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: cute, dogs, health, my life is so hard omg, picspam, sam, writing
Current Mood: working

... on THAT OF WHICH WE DO NOT SPEAK:

I went on another photo safari (this seems to be a new Saturday morning tradition), this time at Hobby Lobby, a terrifyingly huge artsy-craftsy emporium. (The reason the photo safaris happen on Twitter is because you can take a picture on your phone and email it straight to TwitPic from there, which then appears automatically on your Twitter feed.) I mean, I spent fifteen minutes in that thing and I am ready to craft THE SHIT out of something. You take TLE there, he'll think he's died (again) and gone to heaven. Note on photos: we did not even get into any of the vertical aisles at the store. This is simply the shallow end of the pool.( Read more... )

Back to work. Apparently the best part of the movie (minus John Cusack's best line) is online completely legally. Enjoy.



(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: 2012, books, christmas, copyright, cute, dogs, mail, movies, picspam, sam, scout, shelby, twilight

I know people for whom Friday the 13ths are actually lucky; I am not one of them. But--knock on wood--so far, things are going pretty well.

( SPARKLEMAS COMES EARLY THIS YEAR )


BREAKING NEWS: SHIRT-ALLERGIC JACOB KEN DOLL. ARE YOU FOR REAL. WHAT IS THIS. I DON'T EVEN. FUHHHHHH.


(Zomg e-book! The Annotated Movies in Fifteen Minutes: Wizards!)

Tags: bad cat, barbie, dogs, dolls, movies, picspam, scout, sparklemas, the lovely emily, twilight

( that's a really low branch are we sure it's dead )

( Look, I will sell my blood plasma to pay you NOT to bring that home and give it to me )

Tags: are you kidding me, conversations with my sister, dogs, mortal peril, movies, my sister, scout, twilight, wtf

So, to recap from Monday:

@cleolinda: Diagnosis: twenty year old house, never had any plumbing repairs. Thus, $1500. $800 of it today. I just don't even bat an eyelash anymore.

( Pics of our terrifying new dishwasher )

Tags: dogs, my mother, scout, tribulations
Current Mood: tired

Okay, the new Poufwa Exchange podcast I'm on is up--you can get it at iTunes or at www.poufwaexchange.com. I don't have preview snippets of this one, but these are the fine people who previously brought you the Twilight Sex Education "I think he did a lot of reading... maybe he scrapbooked it afterwards" discussion last year. I'd have to go through it again to give you specific times, but we do talk about the Russet Noon fanfic fiasco (ETA: okay, that starts around the 50-minute mark), pseuicide ("He couldn't even stay dead for 24 hours!"), Twitter, American Idol, and--for a good long time--The Secret Life of Dolls.


Meanwhile, I did find my bottle of BPAL's High John the Conqueror and am now judiciously daubed with it. Mmm, grapey herbs.

(Still footnoting. Not much else to report, except that Scout got worse, in that "Aaaand now it's all out of his system... and on our carpet" way, and now he is better.)

Tags: bpal, dogs, fandom, podcasts, poufwa, scout, wank

I was there and I still don't quite understand what happened. Mom was cutting up chicken for her green salad--she's on a medically-monitored protein-bar diet at the moment, but she can have "real food" for dinner--at the time. Now, what we think happened was, the dogs started snarling over theoretical rights to the chicken, because they love them some chicken. Little Sam (pomeranian) and Shelby (50 lb terrier mix) faced off, and the next thing we know, they're having a full-on rumble and Scout (other 50 lb terrier mix) is involved and we're all shouting and I manage to get Scout by the collar, but Mom's trying to wrench Shelby off Sam because Shelby won't let go of Sam's neck, and the next thing I know there is ( This gets a bit gory )

Short version: the whole thing ended up like a mashup of the gory shower incident and the Flesh-Eating Catbitis saga. At least this time the bite victim GOT IMMEDIATE MEDICAL TREATMENT, THANKS.

And now I'm going to bed. Fnarr.

Tags: are you kidding me, dogs, horror, i am never making it up, my mother, tribulations, wtf

So my stepfather's family is having a 75th family reunion or something, I don't even know--they are very big on the reunions--and we're now hosting a dinner (more of a grill-out, really) the first week of August as part of the festivities. Originally about ten or twelve people were going to come, but now we're looking at thirty-one, and my mother is PANICKED. My parents are having to do a lot of stuff to the house, partly because our house is just a money pit like that,* but mostly because the dogs wrought hell on it the year they were puppies. So we're having to replace the den carpet (the dogs chewed it up), the kitchen wallpaper (the dogs chewed it up), the slatted door into the foyer (third verse, same as the first), and the ferns the squirrels ate (variety!). Also, we've already resodded the little backyard (again: dogs) and replaced the gardenia and camellia bushes they wrecked (the dogs used to run run run run runnnn around them in tight little circles, and then, when they were done, pass out and nap against them) with azaleas (MY PRETTY SCENTED FLOWERS NOOOOOOOOOOO). And, of course, the Angry Jasmine, which has been buzzcut twice and only come back wrathier, and the yellowjacket nest within that had to be zapped. Oh, and the countertop in the kitchen has a huge crack in it for some reason, and one of the burners on the stove died, so we're replacing both of those (hence the helpful delivery guy with the dishwasher advice). My stepfather's out back sanding out the claw scratches on that slatted door and repainting it, and my mother and I just got back from buying incidentals at Wal-mart--extra pans for the banana pudding, foil pans to keep fifty hamburgers warm in the oven, a few wooden folding table-trays, new towels for the hall bathroom...

* Did I ever tell you that we recently found wadded up newspaper instead of insulation in the house walls? Yeah. I remember when this street was being developed and the houses were being built--my best friend at the time moved here--and apparently our neighbor's ex-husband cut all damn kinds of corners. There's a reason he's her ex now, let's put it that way. God bless this house, I love it to death, but we've had to redo it by brick and stick over the last eight years.

And then... we went to Hobby Lobby. Mom needed to replace some of the raggedy silk flowers by the front door. My God. That is one of the most dangerous, terrifying places I have ever been. We wanted to buy everything. I wanted to start doing crafts I had previously not even known existed. All I needed was craft-safe sealant/varnish and some cheap paintbrushes to improve the sparkle* of a certain vampirus scintilla minimus; I was very good and only splurged additionally on some Glue Dots, but I had to be forcibly removed from the doll furniture aisle if we were ever going to get home. In theory, my mother only needed silk flowers and artificial moss for the artificial tree** (guess who tore up the old moss). That... is not what she left with. All I know is, I hope my stepfather likes $10 Murano glass giraffes, because we've got some now.

* As a point of ever-so-little interest, here's what the previous Secret Life installment looked like before our sparkle got rained out (I never actually tried to take the pictures described). Honestly, I think the version posted turned out better, but there's a nice mental image that got left behind.

** Every single time I pass the fake tree, I make sure to greet it à la Wahlberg. "Hey, tree... you're looking good. You been working out? Say hi to your mother for me."

Meanwhile, I tried the new full 200 mg Lamictal dose on Wednesday. Mid-afternoon, I suddenly felt like crying. Not a good sign. Sounds like it's time to start cutting the pills to get some approximation of a 175 mg compromise--which I hate, because you lose some of the dose what with the crumbling and all. Maybe I'll just cut a bit of the end off (it's a diamond-shaped pill) and call it a day. Right now, though, I've gone back to my normal 150, because I've got something that has to be finished ASAP and I don't have time for this crying shit. On the other hand, I've been feeling a bit manic, which can't be good either. Maybe it's just the panicked OMG REFURBISH energy in the house right now, I don't know.

Tags: actual sparkle motion, chez jones, depression, dogs, medications, onoz, shopping

1) House rules: Don't fight on my journal. Don't. Disagree, discuss, that's great. But you will be civil and non-snippy to me and each other on my own journal. Take it somewhere else if you can't.

2) My stepfather decided to buzzcut the Angry Jasmine again. The jasmine then got so much angrier, in fact, that it disgorged a swarm of yellowjackets that stung him upside the head several times. I'm not even making this up.

3) Yesterday, I opened the front door to take Scout outside on his leash, and there's a dead bird toes up on the doorstep. A fairly large bird, too--you know, the size of a pigeon, rather than a sparrow. We have no idea what it was doing there, because it was under the little porch overhang fairly close to the door, so it couldn't have just fallen out of the sky or something.

( Linkspam )

Tags: 9, alice in wonderland, awards, barbie, batman, cameron!avatar, coco avant chanel, dark shadows, deaths, dogs, dolls, harry potter, i am never making it up, inception, makeup, movies, narnia, o snap, oscars, pirates of the caribbean, public enemies, robin hood, runaways, scout, sparkle motion, terminator, the box, the fighter, the last airbender, true blood, tv, twilight, vampires, watchmen, werewolves, why we can't have nice things
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Garbage - Push It

A busy morning--errands, chicken biscuit, swung by Target to pick up the Three-Disc Exclusive Twilight Whatever Omg (I saw about six different people "casually" milling around the display, waiting to grab the DVD until they thought no one was looking--particularly one shifty-looking guy--and a pair of girls loudly ransacking the DVD section on the other side of the electronics department in search of it), visited my grandmother on the way to her hair appointment, mailed off a couple of packages at the UPS store, and then we picked up Sam from his summer haircut, which, I must say, is probably Alfonso's best work yet.




Meanwhile! More pictures of the newest Shelf arrival (go here to find out who it was, if you haven't read it already):

( Read more... )

Tags: dogs, dolls, his dark materials, picspam, sam, the secret life of dolls

I went on another yard safari this week, but ended up posting so frequently that I didn't want a picspam to get buried. And now that Scout has so many fans, I feel like we need moar Shelby.



And also, I have moar from my yard, because I'm sure it is so fascinating. ( Read more... )

Tags: chez jones, dogs, picspam, shelby

1. The new Made of Fail episode is up, wherein we have a Very Deep Discussion about Watchmen. (It's also the origin of Tiny Rorschach's Journal, although I don't know if that part of the discussion actually made it in.) I've just started listening to it, so I don't know if I've made a fool of myself yet.

And yes, they do ask me about the Secret Life of Dolls, by listener request.


2. My dog is a very strange dog.

Tags: dogs, made of fail, movie discussion, movies, podcasts, scout, watchmen
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Divinyls - Back To The Wall

As threatened promised. And yeah, it did make me feel a little better.





( Dogs included )

The rest of the pictures are under the "march2009" tag; I won't burden you with them here. There's a few pictures of my cat and random things around the house, nothing terribly exciting. Although our faux-French clock is nice.

Tags: chez jones, dogs, picspam, sam, scout, shelby, yard safari
Current Mood: lazy

Taken from my kitchen window:


Scout likes to chase the snowflakes (he tries to eat them), and once he got bored with that, he flopped out in the snow and started rolling around like he was making snow angels. And then he came inside and we made pancakes. Later, I will probably make hot chocolate. Right now, I am getting back in bed to watch the snow from my window.

Tags: dogs, scout, snow!
Current Mood: snow!
Current Music: SNOW!

Fact: February is the beginning of spring in Alabama.

Evidence: Pictures I took in my backyard earlier this week. ( Spring has sprung )

Bonus: Sunday morning at the Jones house. Apparently my dogs went on a bender last night or something. And now you know why Shelby's nickname is Right-Angle Dog.

Tags: chez jones, dogs, picspam, scout, shelby, yard safari
Current Music: Kylie Minogue - Stars

Let's do a picspam before I try to catch up on two days of links:




( EVIL CAT IS EVIL )

Tags: bad cat, dogs, picspam, scout, shelby
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Quiet day. Checked email and things on and off, but mostly spent the day outside in this foreign thing you call "sunshine" and away from the computer, if only because my strain-induced eyelid twitch was starting to get really bad. I feel like a total punk, but... if I needed the rest, I guess I needed it. Decompression time, maybe. I was getting to one of those OMG STFU INTERNET points again.

(Nope, not doing NaNoWriMo. It's still National Save My Family's Finances Month over here.)

(Update on Pete: he's better and has gotten his stitches out. But not before he was able to chew his lampshade off. No, I don't know how you do that, either.)

Also, I hear some of y'all are having a hard time getting the page to load in a timely fashion--I hate to say it, but I think my Halloween background was dragging it down. That should be less of a problem now--sorry about that.

Tags: dogs, livejournal, pete
Current Mood: blah

Fairly productive day--a long slow slog, but I kept on keepin' on. I mean, my eyelid's started twitching again, but what're you gonna do.

Today's journal flashback: Van Helsing in Fifteen Minutes, because that's pretty much what started everything. And, you know, Halloween and stuff. Speaking of which, I have something fun planned for tomorrow, if I can get it all to work.

Meanwhile, the dogs went crazy yesterday evening while everyone thought someone else was watching them and they tore a large strip of wallpaper off near the kitchen window. Which means that if we can't match the wallpaper (we probably can't), we'll have to re-paper the entire kitchen. You know, because we have the money or the fortitude to deal with that right now. Also, they ATE THE WALLPAPER, WHAT THE HELL. So now we're going to have to get a second crate (they're too big to both fit in the old one) and crate them during the day because I can't watch them and get work done, which hurts my heart but guess what? It's not like we can let them run around and destroy the house, either--they've already acquired a taste for magazines as it is. Fnarr.

Total change of subject: can anyone recommend a good, free music player/program for my computer that is NOT iTunes? Yahoo Jukebox has decided to suck hosewater since they killed Y! Unlimited and tried to send everyone over to Rhapsody, WHICH IS NOT FREE, leaving the player a shell of what it once was. ( I downloaded Media Monkey and it seems okay... )

Linkspam! ( Blogger bloodbath! )

Tags: annotations, awards, batman, blogs, bond, books, comics, conventions, dogs, fame, games, ghosts, halloween, harry potter, horror, lovecraft, m15m, movies, music, oscars, paranormal, questions, rock band, sherlock holmes, software, sparkle motion, superman, the da vinci code, tour of terror, tribulations, tv, twilight, van helsing, zombies

A surprisingly good day. I think I definitely need to invest in a full bottle of BPAL's Siren for my oil diffuser when I have some moneys, because I felt very workative despite the joyless rainy gloom outside. Maybe it's the ginger? I have no idea.

(So... why are fireworks going off behind our house? I can't see them or anything; it just sounds like Bosnia out there. Either that, or the orcs are coming. Shelby is huddled up on the couch with this haunted look in her eyes.)

(DUDE I THINK THEY ARE GETTING CLOSER)

(Oh, it's stupid Samford's stupid homecoming. Thanks for terrifying my dog, asses.)

Today's journal flashback: a tale of Salt Lake City shenanigans. ( More linkspam )

Tags: alice in wonderland, american idol, batman, bond, books, bpal, changeling, cleopatra, deaths, defiance, disney, dogs, facebook, halloween, heath ledger, jewelry, let the right one in, movies, publishing, sci, shelby, sparkle motion, the imaginarium of dr. parnassus, the international, tour of terror, tv, twilight, underworld, vampires, victoriana, video, watchmen, writers
Current Mood: pleased

Fairly productive today. We've also got Pete on the premises, and that dog and his lampshade are the saddest thing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of going back over some of my old work, the really short pieces, and dusting them off again. I'm sure this will upset the three people in the world laboring under the delusion that I was a good poet, bless them, but the problem with most of my poetry is that I always try to cram a story in there between the lines, and it occurs to me now that I might just try expanding them into vignettes. My prose voice is probably one of my few real strengths, so it's worth a shot, I guess. It might be nice to try submitting to magazines again, I don't know. I'm thinking about posting a few of them here instead. So... we'll see.

Hm. So for today's flashback... let's go with that mini-entry about The Black Dahlia. Note: I only made up one thing in that entire paragraph, and that is "crushed by a falling anvil." Every single other thing actually happened in that movie.

Linkspam! ( Zac Efron NOT in POTC4 )

Tags: awards, batman, bond, crime, dogs, halloween, heath ledger, lost, movies, music, oscars, pete, pirates of the caribbean, podcasts, poetry, sparkle motion, terminator, the black dahlia, the imaginarium of dr. parnassus, theater, tv, twilight, watchmen, writing