Funky Friday, R.I.P. Summer edition

That Stanley is such a show-off!

R.I.P. Summer -- they are even forecasting snow flurries -- SNOW FLURRIES!! -- for the mountain tops this weekend. W.T.F.?

Weinerdog Wednesday, Wagging the Dog edition

In my search for artistic depictions of weinerdogs for this weekly feature, I learned about Ammo the Dachshund, who is a dog artist of a different breed.  If you follow the links to Ammo's store, you can purchase works by the dog himself, as well as works by the Painting Ponies.

With the critters' original artwork priced at $60 and up, I'm thinking Scooter Pie, with her long, fluffy coat, would make a mighty fine paintbrush....

Monday Meh, After the Party edition

 We end the month with another critter stuck in a tree:

  A homeowner in southern Sweden got a shock when he found a drunken elk stuck in his neighbour's apple tree. (Note: Europeans call moose elk. I don't know what they call elk.)

The animal was apparently on the hunt for fermenting apples when she lost her balance and became trapped in the tree.

Per Johansson, from Saro near Gothenburg, found the elk making a roaring noise in the garden next door.

He called the emergency services, who helped him free the boozed-up beast by sawing off branches. She spent the night recovering in the garden.

The next day she took herself off into the woods with her hangover.

It is not unusual to see elk, or moose as they are known in North America, drunk in Sweden during autumn, when there are plenty of apples about.

Other residents of Saro had seen the elk on the loose in the preceding days.

Mr Johansson said the elk appeared to be sick, drunk, or "half-stupid", the Associated Press reported.

(Original article appeared HERE)

Funky Friday

I forgot to tell y'all -- on my way back from Boston last month, I picked up my daddy's bass fiddle, which a cousin in PA had been keeping in storage. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the thing -- a friend who plays bass is going to tell me if the bass needs any work. If it is deemed playable without any immediate investment of cash for repairs, I'm thinking of taking lessons for something to do this winter. Not that I'll ever hope to sound like these guys....

Weinerdog Wednesday

I guess PETA wasn't around to protest the use of this unwitting weinerdog to promote a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee. I also wouldn't have thought that it would only take one dachshund to cover Gypsy's assets....

Monday Meh

Feeling kinda stuck...

Funky Friday, Do You Remember? Edition

I remember.

Weinerdog Wednesday, Put On Your Party Hat Edition

 That's right - it's party time this week. Scooter Pie's 12th birthday is on Friday.  In lieu of gifts, Scooter Pie is thinking of those doggies less fortunate than she, and asks that you donate to your local animal shelter.  Remember that two-legged critters aren't the only ones feeling the pinch from these hard times.

Monday Meh, metaphorical edition

Figurative headaches, while no less irritating than their corporeal counterparts, have fewer viable treatment options.

Black Square by Kazemir Malevich

Today deserves a day of silence.
Anybody who has profited from the events of ten years ago should be ashamed.
Any innocent life lost in the ensuing wars should be remembered.

Peace, my friends.

Funky/Funny Friday, Don't Lose That Number edition

About two and a half weeks ago I got the following text message:

Hey baby its ricky 

this my nanny phone 

it cost for me to 

text i love you 

please text back its 

been so long
Nanny

I thought how lucky "baby" must be to have such a suave - and thrifty - suitor as "ricky" and disregarded the message, briefly wondering if this "ricky" was the same person who was trying to get me to accept his call from the Washington County Prison a few weeks earlier...

The next morning when I woke up there was a voicemail from ricky -- he loved and missed me and implored me to call back. Hoping to nip this in the bud, I texted back, "You have the wrong number." 

A few ricky-less days followed, but...as intellikid and I were driving Bostonward, ricky called again. Intellikid answered and tried telling ricky, "Dude, you have the wrong number." After listening to ricky's protests for a while, she hung up on him. He called back again. And again. Finally, against my "no talking while driving policy," I answered and told ricky myself that I didn't know him, he had the wrong number, and he needed to stop calling. The young man insisted that he had been texting this number for two months and wouldn't admit to any error on his part -- even though it was obvious to all but ricky that he must have transposed numbers from his "cost me to text" phone to his "nanny phone." Possibly under the influence of some intoxicant, ricky became belligerent...so I hung up. And after ignoring the ringing phone for several minutes more, I had to turn it off for the duration of that day's driving.

That evening I turned the phone back on, and listened to ricky's final angry voicemail promising/threatening to come by my house when he got back to Tennessee. Something to look forward to! Presumably, either Nanny took her phone back and/or ricky figured out his error, because all has been quiet the past two weeks.

Hold on....someone's at the door....

Wienerdog Wednesday, Because I Asked for It edition

Today's wienerdog is a jadedj original. Since jj lives in a place that is probably even more boring than Bubbaville, he has time to do artsy things for his blogging buddies. I hope that one day he'll be able to upgrade to one of those big-screen monitors, however, so that he doesn't have to do all his artwork in pieces.

Thanks, jj!

Monday Meh, Where's My Pool? edition

Meh. I'm spending the holiday doing laundry and sorting through the week's mail - and your blog posts. (Note to readers: Do not tailgate a hurricane when you go on vacation.)

All in all, all is well. I didn't have a very organized itinerary for my trip North - and back - the consequences of which were some scrambling for hotel accommodations a couple nights as refugees from Irene sought rooms with running water and working lights while they awaited restoration of their own utilities.

Enroute back from Boston, I stopped at Old Sturbridge Village because I like old buildings and history, and I had a coupon for $3 off admission. Ironically, the electricity and plumbing was working just fine at this recreation of a 19th-century New England community. Also ironic to be reminded that "Long before the revolution, most New England towns were required to tax themselves to provide tuition-free schools for children," while today vast numbers of citizens hold dear their right to be ignorant.

I guess if the populace can't spell freedom, they won't know when it's gone.