It's Hump Day on Geek Week

We are halfway through Geek Week on Youtube. I know, you are just totally thrilled. I spend a lot of time on the interwebs, whether it's Geek Week or not. Here are a few things I tend to look at while I'm online. Some have to do with Geek Week, and others, not so much.

1.) From the Colbert Report: What happens when Daft Punk doesn't show up

2.) Actually part of Geek Week: Celebrating the Mars Curiosity Rover 1 year anniversary with "Mohawk Guy" Bobak Ferdowsi. (he really does work for JPL)

3.) More space stuff from a link a friend posted via Facebook. Video of Shuttle take off via cameras on the Booster Rockets!! (if you get nauseous, be warned)

4.) A link from my twitter feed today: 27 problems only introverts will understand. I am one, so now you know, it's not that I don't like you, I just don't want to be near you right now. hee hee, no really.

5.) Also on my Twitter feed today form TheOneRing.net (you are not a LOTR or Hobbit fan if you've never been here) (ok, not really, I didn't follow this site till about 2 years ago): Lego version of why Tom Bombadil was not in The Lord of the Rings movie.

There is plenty more, but I'll stop here. I don't think I want to show you my Tumblr feed. So I usually read through Facebook, and Twitter, and Tumblr. Then I usually get distracted by a link, which sends me to a video, then I get distracted by clicking on a different video. Then I get distracted by finding out more info about said video, which leads to searching something else. You get the idea. I go down the rabbit hole everyday! And it's fun, so leave me alone.

It's Geek Week!

It's Geek Week on Youtube. I don't necessarily frequent youtube all that much, but some noteworthy geeky things have happened already this week that are on youtube that I think are pretty cool. Even if they didn't actually plan it to be on Geek Week.

1. The 12th Doctor was named on Sunday. Link to his announcement on BBC clicky clicky

2. Today (Monday August 5th) marks the 1 year anniversary of the Curiosity Rover's landing on Mars. If you don't follow Curiosity on twitter, you are missing out. Here's a serious link about the anniversary here. click me Why does the landing always make me cry?

and here is a not so serious one. tee hee clicky clicky

3. A link to a video taken by a lady who just had a daughter and asked Will Wheaton to give her a message on why being a nerd is awesome. This didn't happen this week, but I thought it is worth the watch anyway and sends a great message to anyone who is passionate about pretty much anything. click me I dare you

4. There is a big discussion on tumblr and twitter and well everywhere online about who will be the new Batman in the next Superman movie. The rumored contenders are (in no particular order): Josh Brolin (perhaps too old? unless they are going for the older worn out Batman looking for someone to replace him thing), Ryan Gosling (a bit to... girly?), Joe Manganiello (pretty but perhaps a bit too muscley), Richard Armitage (my dreamboat, but I think would be much better cast as the villain), Max Martini (I don't even know who this is... off to google. Ok, I know who he is now), and Matthew Goode (I actually think he would be a good one. No one really knows who he is, but I like him. First saw him in a horrible Mandy Moore movie). click me, I'm not the Mandy Moore Movie

5. And finally, no actual link or anything. This is just something I've been thinking about and working on (in my head) is the lack of female comic/tv/movie/action heroes... that are actually believable and actually heroic and don't just prance around in skimpy outfits waiting to be rescued and having their bras magically unclasp. I can name only a few that I find awesome and worthy for girls to look up to and aspire too. I will give you my #1 right now, just in case I never get around to actually writing about this. Aryn Sun (played by the awesome Claudia Black) from the Farscape tv series.

So enjoy Geek Week and get your freaky geeky on!





Oh, and it's also Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Chomp chomp

Steel Testicles

My house, Fuzzbucket, has for the past week, smelled like death. Why? Because we heard some rodents playing under our house and in our walls, and I had the genius idea of throwing rat poison under the house and sealing all the vents. It worked. Something had died. When the smell first appeared, I thought the little dog had peed again, and was getting quite mad at him. I was thinking, he’s peed so much now in the house that it has leaked through the floor into the sub floor and we can’t get rid of the smell now without ripping out the floor and replacing the urine soaked sub floor. It took about a day for me to realize that the smell I was smelling wasn’t urine at all. It was decomp.

We lit candles for a few days, but when my room started smelling up, I had had enough. It was time to suit up, grow a large pair of steel testicles and go under the house to find the dead things and remove them.

Here is me suited up. I’ve got my rain pants and rain jacket on, mittens with rubber gloves over them, bandana because we didn’t have any masks, hat to keep my hair back, and head lamp to see with. Also had a garbage bag for dead things and the hot pockets box to use as a scoop.

Luckily there was no standing water under the house. Usually during the winters there is a small pond under there. But there hasn’t been a whole lot of rain this year, and so it was just very wet and it is more like a freezing mud pit.

Fuzzbucket’s crawl space is quite small. You can’t crawl on your hands and knees. You have to scoot on your belly. It is only about a 1 foot 6 inches worth of height down there and gets smaller the farther you go.

I found the first dead rodent under the hall bathroom. It was a fuzzy grayish mouse. It stunk. Scooped it up with the hot pockets box and into the garbage bag. I continued the search, scooting, scooting, scooting. Found the next dead thing under the living room near where the fire place is. It was pretty gross. It was completely flattened, bones sticking out everywhere and as I scooped it up, realized it was also covered in maggots. Nasty ass mother f@%$&! Got it in the bag and twisted it up so the maggots wouldn't start creeping out.

By then I had about had it under there. I started the trek back up and continued to search for more dead things on the way. Didn’t see anymore. However, there is a nice collection of red plastic bowls down there, along with various nails, screws, and other unidentifiable things. The original plan was to get the dead things and also rewire the cable lines coming into my nephews rooms, but the cable lines are a complete mess down there, and I didn’t want to pull the maggot/rodent bag of death around anymore.

Sorry nephews, you will have to wait till summer, when it is dry down there.

There is so much moisture down there that the dirt is growing fuzz. Not green fuzz like moss, but it’s white hairy fuzz. It was kinda cool.

I was going to have an after picture of me as well, but I kinda had to undress while in the hole. But here are my clothes after coming out.

It has been two days now, since this adventure, and the house still smells! So we are still burning candles. Oh well. My sister thought I was very brave though. Those steel testicles are awesome.

Butt I...

So apparently admitting that I have shat myself was a big hit. That post got the most page views ever... well except for the one on space invaders. But that was most likely by accident by people searching for blogs about gaming. My nickname in college wasn't loggs for nothing. Not saying that I did that in college as well, only that I was willing to share, whether you wanted me to or not, about my bodily functions. It was college, give me a break. So in honor of my embarrassing moment, I’ve come to the realization that embarrassing myself is good for the blog. You all seem to like it. It is somewhat liberating in a way.

How do I top shit? With this little sweet cherry from my childhood of course.
It starts out great. It’s the summer of 1986. Twas a good year. And I’m 8 years old.
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Good form.
Nice 1980’s short shorts.
Cute little haircut.
A wide open teammate.
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to
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total girly girl bubble butt flail.

Bad Fangirl

Am I a bad fangirl if I haven't purchased this yet? I really do want it. But I don't even have a Blu Ray player. Oh my, does that make me an even worse fangirl? Oh dear. I'll go hang my head in shame over here in the corner... without my elf ears.

*I don't own elf ears or hobbit feet. Going back to my corner of shame.

Roadtrip 2012: Sunset

And so the sun has started to set on our adventurous road trip this summer. On Tuesday we went out to Uncle D’s house and had a very good dinner and some of his homemade wine! By Thursday we were packing up the truck with our haul because mom and pop were leaving for home on Friday. We played around a bit though too.
Miss Princess got a ride in the wheelbarrow courtesy of Longboarder

Then Longboarder wanted a ride. It didn't quite work out.

So Longboarder gave First born a ride instead.

But then it was time to load up the truck.

Amazingly we fit almost everything. Only things that didn’t make it in were 2 coffee tables and a chair that Grandma claimed. Not sure we will get that one back. Mom and pop said they will be going back to Cheyenne in September so they can bring back the stuff that didn’t make it this time. The poor truck when everything was packed in was a bit back heavy and slightly lopsided.

It made it back to California though with no problems.

Frontier Days had started so First born and I went downtown to the park to try and get in to see Young Cowgirl in the Junior Barrel Races. We got all the way to the arena before we got turned away. We saw it on Cousin Sweety truck driver’s phone. She placed 3rd! After being turned away, First born and I walked around the booths and shops and went down Wild Horse Gulch. I got put in jail. I swear it wasn’t me. It’s a conspiracy!

We watched the pee-wee stampede. Hilarious!

Went over to the Indian Village and got fry bread. Yummy! And then went back to Grandma’s. Saturday was spent just lolly-gagging around and playing games with Grandma. She may be 90, but she still wins almost every time! Gosh darn her!

It was time to leave on Sunday. We said our tearful goodbye to Grandma and saw her off to church, and then we headed down to Denver Colorado to pick up Miss my car and Longboarder who were visiting their dad over the weekend. We stuffed the car, quite literally. The guy in the starbucks parking lot in Denver was quite impressed. We headed out west on I-70 through Colorado and Utah.
Colorado

Utah

First born drove the day shift this time and I tried to sleep. We got to see a tornado in Utah. But don't worry we were far away. I didn’t sleep much at all, so I watched a 4 hour BBC mini series called North & South (not about the civil war). I took over driving duties at the Nevada Utah border. I only made it to Reno before I was starting to fall asleep. I woke First born up and asked her to drive us to Sacramento California, and then I would take over again. She ended up driving the rest of the way home.

When we pulled into the driveway, we all couldn’t wait to get out of that darned car. It really was like being packed into a plane this time. Within 30 minutes of our arrival back home, Longboarder had unpacked, showered, and was out the door on his board. Pop showed up with the truck to unload, and mom showed up in the car to bring back her stuff we had loaded into the truck. Miss my car left with mom to the DMV because he had lost his license and wanted desperately to pick up his car and drive it. It didn’t matter that he had just spent 20 hours in a car. We were zombies that day. But we all kept moving and doing stuff. We ate dinner at mom and pops, nothing special, but it was delicious. But that may have been the zombies talking. I slept like a rock that night. I woke up the next morning and don’t think I moved a centimeter in my sleep. It was super easy making my bed that morning.

The trip was great. Seeing family I hadn’t seen in decades was awesome. So glad I did my side trip to Chicago to see my internet besties, and the trip to Minnesota to see my childhood bestie as well. But I am so glad to be home.

I will leave you with this picture of the windmill behind Grandma's bunkhouse.

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Roadtrip 2012: Dirty Laundry

So like I said earlier, almost everyone had left again and left those of us still here with a mountain of laundry. So today, (Monday) which is usually the wash day, right? We decided to do it the old fashion way! 1960's style!

First born and I remember helping Grandma with the laundry back in the day. She was adamant for us to stay away from the ringer! "You can lose an arm", she would say. We had asked Grandma months ago if she would let us have her old ringer washer. We want to use it in the store. She said sure, and that she actually has two. So we asked her neighbor who had her spare, if we could have that one too. She said, "of course, by all means"! So we pulled Grandma's up from her basement and crossed the pasture to her neighbors and pulled that one out of her basement. And we all stood around them and wondered, "Do they still work?" We just had to find out.

We cleaned them up, filled them with water, and turned them on! By golly, they just don't make them like they used too. Of course Grandma still had some blueing left. You put some blueing into the second rinse bin and it makes your whites brighter. Who knew? She also had to give us the lesson of not losing your arm in the ringer.

Grandma giving us our lesson before we begin. "Now pay attention!"

First born was delighted to finally get to use the ringer! She was practically giddy with excitement.

Hey, that's my underwear! Why is Grandma so happy about my underwear?

Even Longboarder got in on the action!

The peanut gallery

And ta da!

We washed about 7 loads of laundry in about 2 hours. The agitators are better, cycles are faster, and uses less water. Bloody brilliant! (actually, no blood was spilt) We got everything on the line, and then decided we deserved a treat and took pop to the Sierra Trading Post. He got two belts, I got a $5.00 pair of jeans, and First born got a $3.00 backpack (saved 97%) and $7.00 pair of jeans. We made out like bandits! But it also started to rain... and hail... and rain... and hail. Hope they got the laundry in! We got back and Grandma, Aunt P, mom, Longboarder, and Miss my car were soaked. They rescued the laundry, but paid the price of soggy shoes, wet denim, and tight curls (Grandma's perm).

By the time the rain stopped, Grandma almost had an island in her driveway!

So of course we had to get in it!

All in all, a wonderful day, and no one lost an arm! Hurray!

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Roadtrip 2012: Family reunions and crazy cousins

They start arriving

And so it begins. I came back from my mini (ultimate) road trip to find that my brother (Unfortunate middle child) and his boys Always Right and Chatterbox had beat me back to Cheyenne and had already moved into the camper trailer in Aunt P’s driveway. My parents (mom and pop) and First born’s oldest son (Miss my car) had also arrived. Pop’s clan had all arrived.

Does everyone have their life preservers on? We went down to Wellington Colorado again to Aunt J’s house to swim. We were soon laughing it up with Cousin Crazy (Aunt J’s youngest son) and his wife and daughter. His eldest couldn’t get out of work to make it.

Later that evening we all went out to Cousin B’s place for dinner and horse rides. Chatterbox fell into his element learning to rope and ride. We ate tons of food, and watched Cousin B’s daughter (young cowgirl) demonstrate barrel racing. Everyone got a horse ride, even the ones who were scared.

Cousin Crazy's lovely wife... she really is! And gosh darn it, she rode that horse!

Chatterbox almost gets roped!

Aunt P rides with style!

And I find a new friend with the barn cat

The reason we all gathered

It was time for Grandma’s 90th birthday celebration. Granted her actual birthday was in May, but I think we have all decided to celebrate all year long. All of Grandma’s 5 children were in attendance, plus all of us cousins. It was the first time all of us had been together at one time since 1994! All nine of us! And all but one of the greats (14). We celebrated the big event at the Terry Bison Ranch. We ate buffalo burgers, sang songs, told stories, and listened to Grandma play her accordion. First born and I later got her accordion out, and Grandma tried to teach us to play. That thing is hard! It’s exhausting, don’t know how she can do it. We saw llama’s, camels, a really fat tom turkey, and alpaca’s at a bison ranch, who knew?
This llama was really hungry.

Grandma arrives back home in style.

The next day the majority of us went out to Grandma’s house and just had fun. Playing hackie sack, airsoft guns, bow and arrow, and always chatting and laughing. If this family does one thing right, it’s laughing our asses off.

Cousin Crazy with a whip... this can't be good

Cousin Army with his middle girl LJLGG (looks just like great-grandma)

Miss Princess hamming it up

everyone leaves

It seems that just as quickly everybody came, they all left again. It wasn’t long enough. It never is. By end of Monday, almost everyone was back to their respective homes or on their way. Cousin Army, Cousin Crazy, my brother Unfortunate middle child, Aunt S and all their offspring were gone. Goodbyes are hard. Tears were shed, we're good at that. Hugs all around, and lots of "just one more picture". But we (mom and pop, First born, Longboarder, Miss my car, and I) just won’t leave. Bwahahahahaaa

*wrote most of this waiting for Miss my car in Starbucks. He needed wifi like his life depended on it. And once again I am stuck waiting for Miss My Car, only this time he is taking a 40 minute shower. He has no hair! What is he... nevermind, don’t answer that.

Stay tuned for the next adventure involves dirty socks and is a real hum-ringer! HA, I crack myself up sometimes.

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Previously On "my childhood"

A bit ago, I shared a photo from my youth in which I expressed gleeful amusement at wringing my Cabbage Patch Dolls neck, here. This time, I give you exhibit B. Honest to god truth, that I, have been documented....
wait for it....... in a DRESS! *gasp*

Before I get to the dress, note the broken arm. I did that riding my bike to school one morning, in the third grade, so I am about 9 years old in this picture. Also this is the small cast. Originally when they put the cast on, they set my arm wrong and put the wrong cast on. Wasn't till I started complaining of back and shoulder pains and Mom took me back to the hospital, did they realize that I had the wrong cast for my particular break. Go figure.

Anyway, we aren't here to talk about patient care and "oopsy" Doctors. The dress. This was by far my most favorite dress in the whole wide world! Lord knows, I wore it to church practically every Sunday for that entire year! I loved it because:

1.) it was GREEN! It is still my favorite color.

2.) it had ruffles!

3.) because of ruffles, it was a great spinning dress.

I would spin like the Whirling Dervishes out in the parking lot of the church every chance I got. I wonder how many horrified church goers saw my 9 year old underwear? And if they wondered where my parents were while I was showing my underwear to the holier than thou? A parking lot with lots of moving cars isn't necessarily the safest place to spin in circles like a crazy person. My parents, however, were most likely watching me spin round and round with a grin on their faces. Now whether that grin was in delight at seeing their cute, adorable daughter spinning in her equally cute, adorable dress and seeing me happy too boot, or they were grinning through embarrassment. I'd go with option one, there. Just saying.

And now you have it. Proof that I (at some point in my life) did actually enjoy wearing a girly foo foo dress. Until next time in my childhood where we will examine fluffy kittens and their impact on me becoming the crazy cat lady, or the allowing of older siblings to do what they wished with me and how that facilitated my knowledge of worms, snails, and pincher bugs.

Am I warped?

My Dove chocolate told me to do something spontaneous today. So here it goes. A photo examination of my childhood, let's observe:






you can click to enlarge



Yes, this is me, I was eight. A few things to note.

1.) my short hair. If my brother was in this picture with me, you would notice that I had the same haircut.

2.) my fashion sense was non-existent. Everyone knows you don't wear a blue t-shirt with blue jeans, especially ones featuring dolphins! However, I never did nor do I now have any fashion sense.

3.) (and perhaps the most disturbing)I have hung my cabbage patch doll. And not just hung him, I am gleefully proud of the fact that I did. I mean, look at that smile on my face!


One can only conclude that even at such an early age, I had a warped sense of humor or justice. I can't remember why I hung him. This may have been his punishment for doing harm to my other cabbage patch dolls. Still doesn't explain why I am so happy about it.


*please don't take anything I just said seriously.

Space Invaders

The video arcade game Space Invaders was released in 1978 and was one of the games I used to play on our attari when I was a kid. I do believe the world has been invaded, and people just don’t realize it. Enter the new and improved Space Invader.




heh heh heh