Party's over.

Time to get back to work! Here are a couple new designs available in the shop:

Enjoy!

I Was Sure He Was Gonna Mention "Hell's Angels' Clubhouses" Next.

I've always wanted to be the type of person who might be categorized as a "Maven".  A person who some might consider an expert in a particular field, who tries to share their knowledge and expertise with others.

Not that people would necessarily be listening.  But I would try to share anyways.

Achieving "mavenhood" requires a certain amount of research and brainspace.  You need to keep up to date on all the cutting edge stuff going on in your particular field of expertise.  As you get older, it becomes harder and harder to maintain the maven status, because frankly, you just stop caring.  Or life comes along and replaces your interests with necessities, forcing you to give up the title of "Cell Phone Maven" and take on the new role as "Diaper Maven".  ( by the way, did you know that Canadian Huggies and American Huggies are *totally* different?  With Canadian Huggies, you might as well wrap your kid up in cardboard.  Honestly.  And that's the kind of junk a maven would pass along to you.)

Reviews are like crack to a maven.  Product reviews, Consumer Reports, Amazon star ratings all call to us with the promise of more insight and more information.

So, at a loss for a specific area of expertise, the other day I was watching a show on hardwood floors, thinking I might become the guy everyone comes to when they need flooring advice.  Not as glamorous as HDTV expert, but awesomely practical nonetheless.  The guy confirmed what I already had discovered: maples dent easily.  He didn't recommend them for high traffic areas.  But he then went on to make another statement where he recommended laminate flooring for high-traffic areas, using the specific examples of "young families" and "dog breeders".

Apparently, having a brood of dalmations running through your home is somewhat akin to having a few kids.  High traffic.  Piss and drool.  And if I don't get to them often enough, the click, click, click of nails on the floor.  

But he totally neglected the most important part: what breed?  I think mine are more of the beagle variety.

No Animals Were Harmed In The Making Of This Blog Post...

Can fish have a personality?

Carol bought the kid a blue male betta fish for Christmas. I don't like the fish.

It's not that whole "sensible", "reasonable", "logical" dislike of fish in general.  It's not the fact that you can't pet it or walk it that makes me dislike it.  It's not the fact that it can't do tricks that makes me dislike it.  Or the amount of work with no gratitude that makes me dislike it.  

I just don't like the fish.

He seems snobby.

And not just your run of the mill, nose in the air, snobby.  It's almost like a weaselly kind of snobby.  Like if you saw Dustin Diamond at the mall and yelled, "Hey, Screech!"  and he just gave you a look and kept right on going into the Old Navy Outlet Store.

It's exactly like that.  It's like I'm getting dissed by Screech in my own house twice a day.

And then I read that these things can live *years*.  Which seems like an awful long time to put up with this.

But a part of me hopes he makes it that long.  Because by that point, I'll probably be getting more sleep, returning to semi-sanity and not trying to pick fights with him quite as often.

It's only fair that he gets to see my good side before I flush him.

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Available in our store now.

Sampling

As promised, here are some photos of the renovations that occurred over the Christmas break. First off, here are some 'before/after' pictures of the bedroom (oh, the horror):

The 'nook' before (Lee's responsible for the extra-fancy ceiling border.)

and after:

Here's a shot of part of the closet/storage before:

and after:

The wall next to the bed:

after:

This is the brick fireplace wall that I was talking about. I don't think I have any befores because the whole project was a bit of an afterthought. The pictures were taken in semi-dim light and I haven't yet learned how to play with the settings on the camera to make things look pretty. That would take way too much brain power.

opposite wall in same room (kiddo play area is hidden behind the couch)

And one of my favorite spots in the house.... would make a great bar, no?

And my $0.99 Ikea find in the clearance bin.... go me:

I'm hoping this will be the first installment of quite a few projects I've got going on. The next one will either be the Florida room or my home office.... oh, the suspense.

Alive.

Well, we made it through yet another holiday season. However, I must say, this time around? Much more tired. Much, much more tired.

The break gave me a chance to unplug for a bit and really put my nose to the grindstone on some interior home projects I've been working on. Here's a sampling of what I was able to accompish this past two weeks (pictures to follow in the next post):

-Painted bedroom in a shade that everyone said would look awful, but I knew better
-Completely redecorated said bedroom, including several teary-eyed attempts at crown molding (Lee saved me there)
-Painted two accent walls in the living room --- one being a brick wall around the fireplace. Painting brick = pain in the ass. Painting brick with cheap paint = stab yourself in the eye.
-Decided the new accent walls in the living room required that the entire room be rearranged and redecorated
-Hung new curtains and fixtures in master bathroom
-Hung new lighting fixture in the kitchen
-Lee laid new flooring in part of the basement
-Hung room-darkening blinds in my office so that I can actually get design work done during the hours of 8:00a-5:00p
-Bought a fish for Jack (thought it would be considered home improvement until I saw how gross the fish-bowl gets every day....blech)

I still have to frame a couple giant mirrors, completely renovate the Florida room (do Florida rooms even exist in Canada?) paint my office and add some trim to it, repaint the hallway and doors and possibly change the light fixtures in the dining room and basement. But, I think I'm a little too pooped to party this go around. Maybe during spring break?

Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Retro Bloggage - Originally Posted July 17, 2007

I was perusing old blog entries and realized that we had made a shift to blogger at a point in time AFTER actually starting the blog.  Therefore, there's this little stash of blog entries which do not show up in our blogger page.  Yet.

In the interest of restoring and reinstating these entries to their rightful place in history (and also because there *are* days that I'm lazy, busy, tired, etc.)  I thought I might pull one out every now and then.  I realize that this will probably only save me for about 20 lazy days (or two months in real time)  but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

-----------------------

I have nine close friends.  We've pretty much known each other since high school, dreamed small, and stayed close.  With me, we're 10 guys.

 

10 makes for an interesting number, because it's easy to line us up with statistics.  If "4 out of 5 dentists recommend it", then 8 of us have a dentist who likes the gum.  If there's less than a 10% chance of dying from West Nile then it becomes a non-threat, since it means that we would need more people in our group in order to kill one off.  Sure, you statistics and logic people might not get on board with this train of thought, but it helps me sleep at night.

 

50% of all marriages end in divorce.  That means 5 of us will end up split up.  The third is happening now.  It hurts to see friends going through this.  And it's scary when real life gets this close.

 

But at the same time, there's a feeling of relief as the group inches towards meeting our quota without my inclusion. There's an odd part of me that believes that if only two more friends would split up, I'll be safe.  And I'm sure there's two other couples who are on shakier ground.  Communication, mutual respect and love stand for nothing.  I have faith in the longevity of my marriage because of the quota.

 

They say 1 in 10 people are gay.  I'm still waiting to see who claims that ticket.

 

No one told me...

...that dressing a toddler would be akin to wrestling a wild raccoon.

...that after years of learning to eat slowly, I would eat my dinner as fast as I possibly could.

...that after professing my hatred of boob-tube babysitting, I would rely on Barney in order to go to the bathroom in peace.

...that my once carefully decorated house would become a museum of primary-colored plastic.

I really could go on and on. Am I missing anything?

I'm the nice one.

Lee's stocking:

Jack and Sam will be getting the same tag. Mine's the 'nice' one.

There's a few in the Etsy shop if you'd like some for yourself...

It Looks Too Ferocious To Have Been Just A Raccoon...

Me: Hey, Carol. I think there was a bear in the boy's room.

Carol: What? What are you talking about?


Me: I think a bear got into the boys' room and was looking for something.


Carol: ?

Me: Well, apparently the bear must have gotten into the house, made his way into the boy's room and... he really needed a diaper.


Carol: What? Oh, that. Shut up.


Me: Well, at least the kids are safe.

(You should see the cereal boxes when she needs her Raisin Bran fix.)

On a totally side note, does anyone else with a Diaper Genie automatically think "poop sausage" every time they empty it?

Or is it just me?

Joel McHale Is A Comedic Genius

For those of you who don't know about it or don't get it or just don't care, there's a show on TV called "The Soup" that summarizes and ridicules clips off TV from the past week.  Now, I don't get to watch too much TV, so I love this show as my half hour "Reader's Digest" version of everything that happened on TV during the previous week.

Well.  I'd like to "Reader's Digest" the "Reader's Digest" version and pick the funniest thing from "The Soup" this past week.

I don't know what's so funny about this.  I don't know if it's the whole I-see-London-I-see-France-ness, (which would mean I have the intellectual humor level of a 6 year old)  or if it's the fact that the guy's flossing while he's trying to be all serious or if it's the guy in the audience laughing "ho, ho, ho, ho"  uncontrollably.  But frankly, I think this is the funniest thing since forever.

Just saying.

Whether you support Prop 8 or not...

... you just can't beat Jack Black as Jesus.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Meet Hot Singles In Your Area

You know you're working late when the singles ads start running on TV.

You know you're working really late when the gay singles ads start running on TV.

Needless To Say, My Coffee Tasted Like Crap

This morning, I wondered if you could make milk from cream.  My reasoning goes something like this: as you take more and more cream away from milk, you're left with skim milk.  Which is essentially water.  There might be some crap still left in there, but if you ask any whole milk drinker, skim milk is just cloudy water.

So, I thought, if you took cream and reintroduced some cloudy water and beat the hell out of it, would it turn back to milk?  Hmmm...  interesting.  So cream and water could achieve milkhood.  And likewise milk should be exchangeable with cream and water.  

For those of you who think you can tell where this is going, I didn't put water and cream on my Cheerios.  (though I have tried putting melted ice cream on my Cheerios in the past)  No, today was about trying to make cream from water and milk.  No cream for the coffee, so I made the coffee extra strong (decreased water in the coffee)  and added milk (increased water in the cream)  so that it should have all balanced out.

But it didn't.  Sometimes logic makes no sense at all.  

Can I share a double mile-stone with you?  Yesterday the kid ripped his first hole in the knee of his jeans.  Pretty cool, huh?  And then, as I was getting them ready for the laundry, I found a rock in his pocket.

Oh.  We're heading down a dangerous road.

  

And the winner is.....

After using the painfully logical Random Number Generator, the winner is Mannie Vincent and her story about her granny panties! Yay!

Lee and I had many a laugh reading through the comments and making fun of everyone's awesome presents (because seriously, some of them were awesome). *And* we want to thank everyone that took time out of their day to throw their name into the hat.

So, congrats to Mannie Vincent and the distant relative that didn't want her to "go around wearing working girl underwear". Thanks to her, that phrase has made its way into our daily conversation.

Lee and I are off on a family vacation this weekend with the kiddos (Lord help us), and I'd like to leave you with a picture from a wedding that we just recently attended:

Maybe he's just trying to give Nona a piggy-back ride?

Two Dollars Would Be About Twenty Bucks Now With Inflation. That Ain't Bad.

My dad was big on diaries and goals and plans. Looking back, he was doing a lot of the new crap that schools do now, except he was doing it in the 70's. And back then, we hadn't yet invented the manly title of "journal", so the thing I wrote in was called a *diary*, plain and simple.

---

Excerpt: Dec. 26, 1978 (I was 6)

Daddy, I will try my best to not fight with my sister. And I will try my best to not shout. And to not get mad so fast. And be a good boy because, last year I had a lot of toys from santa. (sic) But this year I only got two dollers. (sic)

---

This entry has led me to three conclusions that I would like to share with fellow parents:

1) Kids, even first graders, could spell waaay better in the 70's.

2) Guilt trips work great on little kids.

3) Even little, fighting, shouting, anger-management needing, money-grubbing kids can turn out to be semi-respectable adults. Don't sweat it.

By the way, have you entered our contest? C'mon. You must've gotten a worse present than "two dollers" that you could tell us about.

There's a contest up in here, y'all.

Let's have a contest!

This year, we want you to tell us the worst gift you’ve ever received for the holidays.

Comments will be open until 11:59pm Wednesday, November 25th .

We’ll draw a winner out the comments using a fancy random number picker on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day (US).

What do you get? How about ONE OF EVERYTHING!!! We’ll send you the ENTIRE COLLECTION of HateMail and JunkMail greeting cards, as well as a 2009 HateMail 365 Calendar! This has an estimated retail value of $204.00! That’s a lot of dough, as well as a lot of special occasions COVERED. You’ll appear as though you’ve really got your shiz together when you pull out the appropriate sentiment at the perfect time.

Just go with your bad self.

So, get on with it! Tell us your most awful gift and be sure to check back on Thanskgiving day to see if your holidays just got a little sweeter.

Yum! The taste of almost-victory!

It was a TIE! I absolutely love the other card and to be honest, I was sure that they were going to win.

A big, giant thank-you to everyone who took a few minutes out of their hectic lives and voted for us. We really appreciate the support...

With that said, we're going to be having a pretty nutty giveaway on Tuesday, November 18th.

You'll understand why I'm saying 'nutty' when you see what's in store.

***Contest moved to November 20th, thanks to Super Colic Baby From Hell.

If, for some reason, you haven't voted on Etsy...

...please, do it for the babies

clearly, they're hungry

VOTE FOR JUNKMAIL HERE

Another Opportunity For You To Vote For Change

Go VOTE for us in Etsy's Best Holiday Cards 2008 contest:

VOTE HERE

('Restraining Order Be Damned')

And after you vote, buy the card.