My 2007 Christmas List

Rev 2.0 Updated Dec 5, 2007

Things on my list:

• Two-in-One Citrus Juicer
• Kyocera Adjustable Ceramic Peeler
• Wüsthof Classic Chef’s Knife, 4 1/2″
• Malaia: Reminds me of Tide — my favorite laundry detergent
• 75cm yoga ball
• Jawbone Bluetooth Headset
• A nice box of dark chocolate truffles
• Spa certificate
• Nike + iPod kit

Things not on my list:

• Kindle: Call me old fashioned, but reading is an indulgence that I wish I had more time for — nothing beats reading from a hard copy book.
• Bath robe
• Slippers
• Another bath robe
• More slippers

Things that were on my list, but are now canceled:

• Dancing with the Stars Wii Got it this weekend. It’s lame.
• Electronic Ice Bucket Bad review via Adam on Twitter
• Dyson Animal Thinking I might be bitter about receiving an vacuum cleaner for Christmas — like the year Mr. Skrocki gave me an iron
• 2-3 wrinkle-filler injections Same theory for the vacuum applies here
• I’d like to adopt that adorably considerate, smart kid, Alex, on Kid Nation — he’s the one with glasses and the giant front tooth He’s clearly not available for adoption. Plus, based on his profile, he’s really interested in politics and every time I get into political discussions, I end up using terms not suitable for children’s ears

What’s on/off your list?

Why I might just have to get a divorce

I signed off at a reasonable time today to go color my hair (I’ve mastered the home coloring system thanks to multi-faceted Feria). So, Mr. Skrocki gets home from work and and I’m sitting at my computer with my back toward the office door and I send out a verbal warning that “I have new hair color!”

He walks in and says — seriously, not at all intending to be snarky — “Oh! What did you do, wash it?”

Give me a break! Admittedly, now that I’ve been working from home for over a year, occasionally, there are times when I get into a work groove and don’t make time to shower, but I’ve never gone so long without a shower that it would actually change my hair color! For Pete’s sake!

Somebody just earned himself a weekend filled with Sandra Bullock movies!

Note to self…

…when eating at your desk & you sense food is about to fall from your face, instead of instinctively leaning forward as tho’ your plate is a safety net, remember that your keyboard is in the plate position & all the compressed air in the world won’t reverse the affects of tomato sauce in the keyboard.

PS…your roots need a touch-up.

Christmas card humor…

I love Christmas cards (serious ones too)! Here’s the funniest one I’ve received thus far this season (thanks Shane & Tim!)…

Project running late?

Try shifting it to a methodolgy that is based on metric time.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed that the above video clip is no longer available. Bummer. I’d provide a brief synopsis here, but my explanation would take the humor out of it. Sorry!

Dog Training Woes

My 10 year old is attempting to train our relatively new greyhound Lola to sit. It sounds like this:

“Lola, sit.
Siiiiiit, Lola.
Looooola…
Lola, you’re not going to sit if you don’t do it.”

I wander by just to snoop and notice Abby has a wad of lunch meat bits that she’s using as a bribe. I think “Hmmmm…I haven’t bought lunch meat recently.” so I ask “Abby, that’s not rotten meat is it?”

“No it’s bologna.” she replies.

School Supply Shopping: Not a Contact Sport

What is it about school supply shopping that turns generally pleasant people into meanies? I could avoid the whole mess by shopping online, but my daughter enjoys the thrill of the chase for some unexplainable reason.

Here’s a little advice to make school shopping more pleasant:

Retailers: Don’t cram as much as you possibly can onto the designated seasonal floor space. Forcing crowds of crabby people on a mission into tight quarters is a very bad idea.

Fathers: Share in the joy of school supply shopping. I could certainly be off base here, but based on my experiences, the ratio of women to men in school supply shopping settings is usually 10:1.

Educators: I realize funds are tight, but keep the supply lists short and economical. The general population of parents can barely afford the long list of supplies, so things like a $100 calculator are unreasonable. Try teaching kids to learn how to do math with say…a paper and a pencil.

All school supply shoppers: If your feet and shopping cart wheels stop at any point in the cramped school supply shopping quarters, you are what we call in the biz — an isle clog. Nobody likes isle clogs. They’re bad. If something in your soul requires you to study a school supply product before committing it to your shopping cart, at least park your cart outside of the designated school supply shopping area so people are not required to navigate around your body and your cart.

To Mrs. Cranky Pants who was all coiled up ready to strike and chose to use her shopping cart as a weapon: Please relax and take comfort in the fact that there are plenty of #2 pencils in the world, so your child will not have to settle for the barely visible markings of the #1 pencil that you were forced to use as a child. The #2 pencil shortage that occurred during your 1960′s childhood ended when the nice people in technology developed very smart hardware and software that enables all pencil manufacturers across the land to better track and predict product demand. Please pick up your damn pack of #2 pencils and move your body and shopping cart on to the paste section quickly and peacefully.

The world needs a nail salon name generator

Yes, it needs far more important things, but that’s not the point of this blog entry. Does anyone really need “Immortal Nails”? Sure the prices are obnoxiously low, but that too is beside the point. DiTucci told me there’s a Bostonian nail shop called “Spicy Nails”. If your nails are spicy, it’s time for a good scrubbing.

How about going with the safe naming conventions:
Owner’s name + nails (Example: Snoop Dogg’s Nails)
Business location + nails (Example: Whoville Nails or Main Street Nails)

[This concludes the levity break. Hope it got some endorphins flowing.]

I don’t mean to generalize about the male intellect, but…

…the cluelessness in certain areas is seriously enigmatic. For example, my husband just realized today that our six year old cat who we’ve had since he was a kitten is not female. Sure, he has a gender neutral name (Jordan), but really.

It leaves me wondering what other left field facts are floating about that cute little brain of his.

Wookie Cookies, Anyone?

In the uber geeky cuisine category, have you seen The Star Wars Cookbook? My little brother is both a Star Wars geek and a food lover, so I picked up a copy for him this weekend. The illustrations are hilarious! My favorites are the TIE Fighter Ties and the R2-D2 Treats.

Organic Monitor Cleaner

Here’s a cool feature of iWork (Sun‘s work from anywhere solution). My home office comes equipped with this automated, organic monitor cleaner.

Blink O Rama…

…in the obscure humor category, check out Blink O Rama – a site dedicated to photos of people blinking…I know, sounds weird, but it’s quite funny. Here’s an example from the site:

Random Geek Horoscopes…

…a bit of Friday levity. Check out your Random Geek Horoscope. Here’s mine for the day (which causes me great merriment!):

“Pisces – Your opinion of your new cellmate (er, cubicle-mate) reaches a new low, when, upon asking if he has Adobe Acrobat, he sarcastically replies where in the world he could possibly keep a clay sculpture of a gymnast in this tiny workplace.”

Another Mysterious Image Appears on Bread

It’s very subtle. At first glance, it looks like a raisin, but if you sort of squint and stand back, you can kind of make out an image of MC Hammer in this hunk of bread for sale on eBay.

Things freaks make…

…or perhaps things freaks buy? What in the name of all that is holy would inspire someone to make, purchase, display these things?

Cowboy Armadillo

Beer Drinking Armadillo

Another beer drinking Armadillo

Now, the standing beer drinking armadillo does have the built in feature to ‘hold a Texas flag instead.’ Yes, that would be much better.

Things that make you go ‘hmmmmmm.’

I can see your cholesterol in that outfit!

Words from my nine year old as I ran out the door this morning. I didn’t have time to dissect the confusion, but will figure it out tonight. Maybe she has an unusal built-in cholesterol detecting gift? I did make a quick stop in the ladies room as soon as I got to work to make sure nothing ‘cholesterol’ like or otherwise was inappropriately on display…I think I’m OK.

I got in trouble for blogging…

not by my mgr, but by my real boss – the one I married. :-/

In a conversation tonight he said “Why don’t you just blog once a week? That’s 52 blogs a year! BLOGs…there’s something I don’t like about that word.”

So, to make up for being obsessed with blogs, I thought I’d dedicate this special blog to the man who puts up with me day in and and day out.

Dear sweet vente mocha, blogging is beautiful – and in effort to win you over to the wonderous world of blogging, I wrote this special song for you. Please sing it to the music of “Let me be there” by your idol Olivia Newton-John.

Let me blog you in the morning.
Let me blog you in the night.
Let me blog whatever’s wrong, and make it right.
Yeah, make it right.

Let me take you to that blogging land
that only two can share.
All I ask you-ooo-ooo-oooooo
is let me blog there.
Yeah, let me blog there.

XO,
Your piping hot soufflee