Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Vote early and often (22 of 30/88 of 274)

by

Even though I’m not a big fan of online contests in general, I am always happy to vote for the children, pets and creations of my actual friends and family members if you ask via email, even mass email. I’ll even post your request to one of my blogs and/or social networks if appropriate.

Same goes for friendly acquaintances and their voting requests. And I might even vote at your request if I don’t know you, but you post it to a forum, mailing list or social network where we share a common interest or mutual friends. Or if your Tweet is cute and clever enough.

That is, if you post a polite request or two or maybe even three. NOT if you post every freaking day with multiple thread bumps, or if you email me and I have no clue who you are. If you do that, I will go out of my way not only to NOT vote for your child/pet/artwork/photo, I will vote for one of your competitors. If multiple votes from the same IP address are permitted, every single computer in my house and in my unfortunately rather small office will vote against you (that is still a total of approximately 25 computers).

That is all.

Miscellaneous (27 of 31/62 of 274)

by

It’s the end of a week in which I feel like I haven’t gotten much done. Some of these thoughts need expanding (and some of them will get their own posts in the future), and others are too long even in the short version. Anyway, here goes:

  • Note to self: In the future, don’t let too many versions of an operating system go by before doing an upgrade, budget or not. The Snap Server upgrade has turned into a really nasty project, and could have been prevented by spending around $500 two years ago. I can’t remember what we did spend that $500 on, either.
  • I wonder if an animal communicator would be able to get Axel to say why he hates one of our neighbors so much. Or would he just say the same thing one of my past bosses used to say: You can’t like everyone, there is a certain percent of people who are just idiots that you have to hate and you don’t have to have a real reason.
  • My old Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, Freya-chewed corner and all, has moved on to a new owner. My “too old and too slow” is someone else’s “just enough to get by” and that isn’t all bad.
  • I really do wish there was such a thing as a pet fat transmogrifier. Axel could use the pounds that Freya needs to shed, and Annie could use Oliver’s extra pounds as well.
  • In the process of correcting someone for referring to Spam musubi as “Spam sushi” I found myself admitting to having a $200 rice cooker. Well, I do. And the Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy rice cookers are just about worth it. The model I have even cooks brown rice properly. Not that I ever eat brown rice; being a third-generation Japanese-American I eat normal (to me) short-grain Calrose rice practically every day. The other issue I have about Spam musubi is that all of the Internet recipes claim that you “need” the musubi press to make them properly. What, these people are too good to use the Spam can or… OMG! their HANDS? Then again, a novice musubi maker is not going to compress the rice properly with only their hands, or worse yet, make round musubi, so maybe it’s better they buy those cute little presses. Round musubi are only for funerals, although I think that might be a regional thing so I might be in the minority at being horrified when anyone makes them for everyday food.
  • I have once again procrastinated on getting all of the tax stuff in to the accountant. I don’t know why I hate doing that task so badly. Perhaps I can get my husband to do it next year. Or more likely, not. We have opposing viewpoints on whether a large refund is good or bad. I absolutely hate to get a refund or pay additional taxes of more than a couple of hundred dollars. To me, that just means poor planning and in the case of a large refund, that someone other than us had the use of our money for the year. Not acceptable. Anyway. Everything will be ready to send in on Monday.
  • Once again, the Rottweiler wrecking crew has gone from insane perpetual motion to adorable sleeping  angels. It’s like they run out of gas all of a sudden around 11 or 11:30pm and flop over to nap right in their tracks.
  • Speaking of flopping over and napping, what a great idea that is! Good night, all!

Stuff I don’t get (22 of 31/57 of 274)

by

I went to IKEA this morning for the express purpose of buying a single one-day-only sale item. It was sold out by the time I got there, but that wasn’t the problem. Sellouts happen, and I could have tried to get there earlier. The problem is that the item was advertised as one per household, and there were clearly more than a few people who were getting around that. I don’t want to hear about how they were all honest people and I am wrong to assume that they did not in fact live in separate households. When you see what appears to be a husband and wife with FIVE of the damn things, and no other people getting into their vehicle along with the merchandise… exactly how would you guess I am making a wrong assumption? I’m really interested to hear the interesting fiction that might spawn.

But enough about that minor annoyance and on to my real topic. I don’t get the whole appeal of IKEA. There are things there that I like well enough to buy, and also things that don’t seem any better than cheap crap from WalMart or Value City. I just don’t get why so many people are so enamored of the place. Their whole idea of “experience shopping” leaves me cold. I get that the idea of the annoying layout and lack of escape routes is to run you past as many things you might think about purchasing as possible. And I guess it must work on a certain percentage of the shopping population. It didn’t work on me, but it did annoy me and I did not buy a single thing. The food at the restaurant part did smell good, though. I didn’t buy any food either as the slowly wandering suburbanites were getting on my nerves.

That is another thing that really bothers me, but it’s certainly not unique to IKEA. I truly hate shopping so I am probably less tolerant of the slow meandering gazers than most people. I don’t mind that they might actually enjoy shopping and want to take their time about it. I do mind, and very seriously, that many of this type of shopper seem to have absolutely no concept that someone behind them might not appreciate how slowly they are moving if they are also blocking every inch of space along that path. Waiting for some of these shoppers was like waiting for a glacier, only less interesting to look at.

I feel better now that I’ve vented about all of that. I am glad that most of my shopping can be accomplished online which saves me from these experiences, and saves you all from having to read about it.