Secret Santa

Thank you and mahalo, Secret Santa from Idaho!

Death and Love

For some reason I've been hearing a lot recently about people who have unexpectedly lost their loved ones.

My youngest, Miss Thang, has a very tender heart. Whenever someone we know dies, be it four-legged, two-legged or finned, she always asks me if I'm ever going to die. And I have to tell her that everyone dies, although I don't plan to die for a very long time.

But I also let her know that none of us can control when we die, and the best thing to do to deal with that is to love each other as much as we can while we're still here. While we can't control the world, we CAN control how we love others, so that's what we do.

Photo by Rena Marou for openphoto.net

Happy Birthday, Barcode!

Let me beat you to it: I am a geek. Not one of those genius geeks who make their fortunes coding the Next Great Application, but one of those geeks who enjoy spending quality time doing things no normal person would find interesting, such as wishing the barcode a happy birthday.

According to Wikipedia and a few other sites, the first bar code was patented on Oct. 7, 1952. Granted, it looked a bit different from the ones we recognize nowadays and the technology for its modern use didn't come into play until much later. But it was a barcode all the same and I applaud its inventors.

Other than serving as a quick identifier for almost everything we buy nowadays, the barcode also serves to entertain me. I found a really cool Web page that shows you how to read a barcode and have spent at least the last half-hour practicing my new skills on items from my pantry. I think my eyeballs are ready fall out of their sockets now. Good times.

Try it yourself, if you dare, and go to http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/upc3.htm. Tell your eyeballs to get over it.

Because I'm Easily Entertained, That's Why

Where's Blog Blockwatch When You Need It?

There are so many wicked-awesome blogs out there. (Um, besides this one, of course.)

I'm a glutton for outstanding photos, interesting stories, descriptive writing and humor. When I find these qualities in a blog, I am all over it, like a stalker, but one who lacks the free time to actually stalk. (Oh, wait, that's called a fan.) Sometimes I am inspired to emulate them, but one thing I would never want to do is rip off their postings and present them as my own.

This has happened to an outstanding blog called House of Annie, where foodies Nate and Annie post mouth-watering photos of foods they enjoy as well as share some really interesting cultural stories, as they have recently moved from California to Malaysia, Annie's home turf. The writing is terrific, and to call the photos food porn is an understatement, kind of like saying Deep Throat was just another dirty movie. (Disclaimer: I never actually watched Deep Throat but I HEARD -- that's right, I HEARD -- that it set the benchmark for many porns after that. Don't judge me.)

So you can imagine how incensed I was when I visited their blog tonight and found this entry, in which they detail how another blog re-posted a House of Annie posting (verbiage AND photos) and passed it off as its own, which is kind of hard to do when Nate and Annie's trademark is on each of the photos. The blog-thieves even changed internal links to point to their own site.

Personally, I think that in the time it took to do all that copying, they could have done something more original, like create their own blog entry about blog-thievery with a cute little graphic of a thief stealing something. And maybe reference Deep Throat. I'm just sayin'.

So what have we learned here? Plagiarism is BAD. Nate and Annie put their copywrite on all their blog photos and that is SMART. I'm obviously way out-of-touch when it comes to porn titles. And Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches are surprisingly yummy. (Guess what I had for dessert?)

Oh, yes, I also learned a very cute new haiku, created by Nate and intended for the blog-thief:

I wish you would get

A hundred thousand bug bites

Where the sun don't shine

See? I copied his haiku. But I used attribution. So there.

Under the "Good Intentions" Heading

Aren't they precious? The Lil' Drums are just as yummy as the original-sized Drumsticks, and they are the perfect-sized portion, except for people like me and my if-one-is-good-another-would-be-better congregation.

They really help me in teaching my kids the importance of portion control. Then, after the little darlings have learned this important nutritional lesson, they will go to bed and I can help myself to another crispy sweet cone of dreamy goodness.

Years ago I used to bake tiny little cookies, just smaller-sized versions of the original recipe, for portion control. And guess what? I'd eat twice as many. So now I bake cookies as big as they were meant to be baked and I just eat one or two.

Portion control definitely has its place in our daily nutrition, but leave my ice cream alone.

Happy Fourth of July!

So here's how we'll be commemorating our country's independence:

• nearly 16 pounds of ribs
• hot dogs, salmon burgers and all the buns that accompany them
• one giant watermelon
• assorted soft drinks, juices, bottled water, wine and bottled sangria
• chips and dips
• coleslaw fixings
• veggie platter
• a variety of poppers and sparklers (none of the heavier stuff because our city doesn't allow them and we're wusses)
• many, many friends in our tiny back yard

Do you think we're doing enough to help stimulate the economy?

Hope you all have a great Fourth of July weekend. Stay safe and don't lose any fingers!

And to Seattleites who are thinking of hitting Gas Works park for the fireworks show, don't say I didn't warn you: Click here and bring your bathroom supplies.