Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Yes, I’m late with this since we’re almost a week into 2011 at this point. But I still wanted to take a look back at 2010. I won’t call this a “top 10″ list as many other pet bloggers are. I’ll just ask you to revisit some of 2010′s moments with me:

The best achievements of 2010 went to the dogs.

New champion!! Axel’s AKC championship was one of the highlights of my year. A week after this, he would earn his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and the following week his RN (Rally Novice) title, making January 2010 a hugely successful month for him. I was more of a happy cheerleader than anything else. The credit goes to his handler Julia Foster and his breeder Denise Pluta.

Just a few more Freya title thoughts Later in the year we would have some training setbacks and I’m still not sure whether Freya is retired or just on hiatus from rally obedience training and competition. But in March 2010, we kept things together long enough for her to earn her UKC Rally Obedience Level 2 title. This is an off-leash title and given that I am the worst handler in the world, a huge accomplishment for both of us.

If I were a real pet blogger, I’d have more posts like these.

Freya: class notes 1/16/10: I have a few other “class notes” posts where I take some raw video from a training session, class, or practice session, and break it down into what went right and what still needs work. It was helpful to me to review Freya’s progress and decide what to work on. I hope it was interesting to at least a few of you as well.

Some Freya video and my iMovie learning curve: I used one of the “class notes” videos to learn how to use iMovie ’09 and also create an “intro to Rally Obedience” type video. It did not end up being that effective as an overview, but I learned a lot about iMovie while creating it. Thanks to our obedience trainer Allan Ross for all of the class videos.

Total recall: We experimented with taking an online class as well, with some surprisingly good results. I don’t think online dog training can ever totally replace working one-on-one or in a small group with a good trainer, but I found this recall class to be an effective supplement to our training. Susan Garrett’s blog is a great read even if you are not doing one of her online classes and even if you have very little interest in agility.

Review: Pet Botanics Healthy Omega Treats: If I were a real pet blogger, I’d probably get more opportunities like this one to review pet products. I was happy to give these treats a good review. The dogs loved them and the healthy ingredients and low calorie count were a bonus.

These very disturbing news stories accounted for quite a bit of last year’s traffic, sad to say.

Update: Mary Wild sentencing: Dog handler Mary Wild got off with an unbelievably light sentence for the actions that caused the heat-related deaths of seven show dogs due to her negligence. She was convicted on eight counts of animal abuse and the light sentence was a horrible letdown considering what the penalties could have been.

Update: Lora Hunt sentencing: Lora Hunt was painting her fingernails as she drove, and rear-ended motorcyclist Anita Zaffke, killing her. For this, Ms. Hunt got only 18 months in jail. Another unbelievably light sentence and a big letdown for all of us who really do want to believe that justice can be served.

I’ve gone off-topic to non-Rottweiler, non-technology items quite often in the past. I’m trying not to do that going forward, but sometimes it’s hard not to write about food and entertainment!

Snack break: teriyaki meatballs: If 2009 was the year of kal bi, 2010 was the year of these retro teriyaki meatballs, taken from a ’60s cookbook put together by my aunt’s service club in Honolulu.

TV break: The Rocky Horror Glee Show: I’m not good at recapping or reviewing movies or television shows. I usually talk more about myself than about the show!
Continue reading

Because it’s one of “those weeks,” this is recycled and adapted from a post I made at TWoP.

As you know from a previous blog entry, I was one of “those people” in 1978-79. I saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Biograph in Chicago fiftysomething times. I sometimes dressed up, I always had rice and toast to throw, and I helped my friends with their costumes because my one domestic skill is sewing. It’s thirty plus years later and I can probably still quote this movie word for word and song for song. So, do you think I loved or hated the Rocky Horror Glee Show episode?

To me, the whole point of RHPS is not about recreating it perfectly, it’s about making it your own. And in that sense, the episode worked for me. Glee made it their own. Maybe not the same way you would, or I would, or some other TV show would. But that’s a good thing to me.

Mr. Schue’s line about Rocky Horror being for outcasts bothered me a little bit (as did many things about Mr. Schue in this episode) because back then I never thought of myself as an outcast or a misfit, although I probably was. To me and my friends, it was just a place we could go and get creative, act a little crazy, have some fun, and of course, do the Time Warp again.

One thing that was just getting started around the time I started moving on from RHPS was the trend towards “official” performing troupes at the various midnight show theatres, rather than more informal groups of the obsessed acting out the show. I didn’t care for that trend because it turned something that was more inclusive to just another place where cliques and the food chain took over.

Again, this was more about me than about Glee, so I’ll get back to the show with one more observation. I’ve said in the past that Glee is evil and this episode added another reason: it made me almost like John Stamos. I have never been a fan. Way back when, I watched All My Children, not General Hospital. I’m too old to have cared about Full House and I absolutely hated him as Tony Gates on E.R. even more than I usually hate the inevitable “paramedic who thinks he is too good to be a medic and must become a doctor” character. I found myself almost liking him as Carl in this episode, up to and including his version of “Hot Patootie”. Damn you once again, Glee!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 27 of 31)

Continuing on as one of the very few members of the crossover audience for Glee and Sons of Anarchy, here is my previously-promised SoA rant followed by some thoughts on tonight’s episodes.

I’ll rant first so I can hide anything spoilerish under the “continued” jump.

I think it’s great that Sons of Anarchy has become popular with a diverse general audience and isn’t just a biker cult thing. Many of my co-workers and my husband’s co-workers watch the show, and only a few of them are bikers or motorcyclists (there is a difference). We look forward to discussing the show on Wednesdays (or Thursdays if someone is DVRing).

But I have a problem with one sector of the fan base: the posers. And to them, I say: it’s okay to not be a biker and still like SoA. It is not okay to pretend you are a real biker and try to live SoA. It’s offensive, though still mildly amusing, when you try to impress and it’s obvious your knowledge comes from your one neighbor who was in the local H.O.G. chapter for a year and actually rode a motorcycle on a long trip once, and from watching Gangland on The History Channel. It’s not amusing at all when you wear the ripoff merchandise that resembles a three-piece patch and act like you think you are in a real club or something.

I’m also not too thrilled with actual bikers who nitpick the show to death rather than enjoy it for what it is: a biker soap opera with one of the best casts and possibly the strongest writing on television right now. I know it’s easy to be critical when it’s a lifestyle, subject area, or location you are very familiar with. But too many of us have lost the ability to suspend disbelief and just enjoy.

Rant over… for now.
Continue reading

• I’m still deciding whether or not I like the new Hawaii 5-0. I’ll keep watching to support anything filmed in my hometown while I decide, though. I’m interested to see how they keep it local enough for, well, the locals… and of course the expats… without having to overexplain for the rest of the audience, and without making it seem forced.
• On Rottweiler Nation, I saw an announcement that a Rottweiler plays the role of the main character’s dog on the new NBC show Chase. Since it’s on at the same time as Hawaii 5-0, the dogs and I will have to check out an episode online or on On Demand.
• I joke about being the entire crossover audience between Glee and Sons of Anarchy. Please tell me there are others of you out there!
• Speaking of Glee, this week’s episode killed it, unlike last week’s Brittany/Britney trainwreck. One thing in common that several of my favorite shows share is the ability to go from over-the-top absurd to gut-wrenching emotion without missing a beat, and this episode did just that. I was cringing in advance at the idea of a Glee episode featuring religion. But as someone who has both lost and found my own faith a few times over many years, I could actually relate to most of the portrayals of the different characters’ expressions (or rejections) of religion, faith, and spirituality.
• Speaking of Sons of Anarchy… well, that might involve a rant. Not about the show which is still one of my favorites and in my opinion has some of the best writing out there, but about some of its fans. So I think I’ll save that for another day.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 6 of 31)

Glee is not a television show I really expected to like, but like many, many other people out there, I was sucked into its strangely addictive universe and now hope it doesn’t fall victim to the hype and its whirlwind success. Despite its appeal, I am convinced the show is evil. My reasons may not make sense if you’ve never watched the show, and for those of you who don’t and don’t plan to, it’s fine if you want to cut out here. I’ll be back to writing about the dogs and computers in tomorrow’s post.

Anyway! Here’s why Glee is evil:

Reason 1: Glee made me read fan fiction.

I am not a fan of fan fiction. I don’t write it and never will. I don’t read it. And what the hell is a beta reader, anyway? Isn’t that what you call proofreaders and copyeditors? Or can you use those titles only if you get paid?

I guess I must now say that I don’t read fan fiction, except for this time, because Glee was evil enough to totally mangle the Rachel and Jesse storyline. I could have accepted Rachel and Jesse not finding true love together, if the storyline that tore them apart had made sense. It did not, not even a little. I wanted to see these two together, and apparently, so did a rather large number of fan fiction authors. Despite the logic that says that most high school romances are ultimately doomed, and my belief that my own life would have turned out poorly had I stayed with any of my high school boyfriends, I so wanted Rachel and Jesse to be together and go on to a happy future together. Or if that couldn’t happen, at least they should have had a better breakup than what we saw. And by better, I mean one that made sense.

So as much as it pains me, I must thank some talented fan fiction authors for creating a happy resolution for Rachel and Jesse in their alternate universes. I hope some of you use your considerable skills to create characters and worlds of your own as well. Some of you others really need to ummm… hone your craft, yeah, that’s it… before you write where other people can see you, though. Or at the very, very least, just please try using spell check. Please.

Reason 2: Glee made me almost like “Don’t Stop Believin’”

It’s not that I don’t like Journey. I’m really okay with Journey. In fact, “Feeling That Way” from Infinity has been a favorite shower song for a long time… “A new road’s waiting, you touched my life, whoa-oooooa-ooo… soft and warm on a summer’s niiiiiiii-iiii-ght…” Okay, maybe you didn’t need to hear that. But I have never liked “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Who the hell are the streetlight people anyway?

It didn’t exactly help when the White Sox picked it up as the song for their World Series run in 2005. I don’t like baseball in general and I loathe Chicago baseball. Considering that Sox fans continually make disparaging remarks about the general wussiness and lameness of Cubs fans (which I am not and never will be) and by extension all North siders (which I have been since moving to Chicago), they sure picked a wussy song, and from a band from San Francisco no less, for their anthem. I mean, did Styx (South siders), Survivor, or Chicago not have any go-to songs? Please.

And worse yet, when David Chase used it to end The Sopranos in 2007. That ending was maddening enough as it is without having to listen to that song. I am obviously biased, as that is not the song I want playing as the last cut in the soundtrack of my life (so now you also know whether I thought Tony and family lived or died at the end).

So, fast forward to May 2009. I’m watching this brand new show Glee and finding myself enjoying it. Coming up on the end, and… oh, no. Not this song. But maybe because it actually looked like something high school kids would put together and have fun with, I didn’t switch the channel. What a cute, fun arrangement. And so the evil that is Glee almost made me like a song that I’ve hated for almost 30 years.

You don’t need any more proof than this, do you?

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 4 of 31)

My high school years were not the best years of my life. Oh, sure, I have a few good and even excellent memories from those three years (back in those days in my sector, intermediate school was grades 7-9 and high school was grades 10-12). Along with those few moments in time is a surprising amount of bitterness about stupid crap that I thought was long buried, until I start talking about it. So I’ll try not to go there, because that wasn’t the point of this post when I started typing.

I went to McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii. Since I am easily amused, I get a big kick out of the fact that two favorite TV shows of mine, much like my young life, take place at a McKinley High School. And to add to the amusement, the fictional schools are both somewhere in the vast midwestern wasteland, where I am trapped for now.

The obvious and current one, of course, is Glee. The one that I relate to more because it was set closer in time to my own high school years, is Freaks and Geeks. Lindsay Weir in Freaks and Geeks is pretty much who I was in high school.

Back to my McKinley High School. If you do a Google search, we come up first. We are the Tigers. I spent an embarrassingly long time today researching the sports team nicknames of the fictional McKinley High Schools (thanks, @jenroack, for the help with Glee’s McKinley). Is that sad or what? What’s that? Vikings for Freaks and Geeks, and Titans for Glee. You’re welcome.

The school newspaper was still a daily when I was there. Yup, that’s right, we were one of five high school dailies in the nation. I’m not sure when the paper ceased daily publication. I wonder if there are any high school dailies left? With the creeping demise of print publications in general, I’m guessing the answer is “no.” Even though my aspirations for a career in journalism and any illusions that I can in fact write crumbled to dust long ago, I am still proud of being part of the Daily Pinion.

(NaBloPoMo | June ’10: 3 of 30)

I’m not really a big fan of Jimmy Fallon, or the current incarnation of Late Night, except for Slow Jam the News. But I totally love these “6-bee” Glee parodies…

Good stuff!

Speaking of Glee, I didn’t expect to like this week’s Madonna-themed episode, but there was more to like than not. Didn’t really need to see that “Vogue” number two weeks in a row, though.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 20 of 30)