Thursday, November 12, 2009

OMG! OMG! I WON! I WON!

The names were written on sticky notes and sealed shut.

I put them in an empty Healthy Choice pasta cooking bowl.

I shook them.

Then Hans rubbed his hands together gleefully and said, "Who's going to love me? Who are you?

*rustlerustle*

"Jay!"

"Jax," I said.§

"Jax!"

Curious George, faithful pug companion of my gorgeous and sassy cousin Jacquelyn, will be dining from a luxury pet dish while his mom's B-i-r-d Watcher's Weekly# magazines are neatly contained in their chrome cage.

Congratulations, Jax.

See? People really do win at the Rickety Blog.††

FOOTNOTE (crossed): Which afforded me minutes of entertainment as Hans tried to paw the winning entry open.

FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Experimental office lunch. I saved the bowl to see if I could cook my own pasta in it. It's been sitting on my credenza for two weeks under those auspices.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Apparently Hans crosses his Y's.

FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): From another... grandmother? Jax is my cousin's cousin, but the three of us make such good cousins we stick with the honourary cousin position. Besides, did you see how many words it took for me to explain that? And that's the short version. It's much easier to just go with "cousins."

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I can only say that because she's far enough away not to smack me. Jax detests b-i-r-d-s. We can't even say the word in front of her -- that's why we spell it.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed: And I feel like Ed McMahon.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tick Tock

Tomorrow at 3:00 pm MST, Hans will draw a name out of a hat and some lucky winner will walk off with a stunning, warming pet food dish and a sleek, modern magazine rack, courtesy of AllModern.com.

Just for the record, I'm not getting merchandise, cash or fame from this, just the satisfaction of knowing your kitty or pug or dear husband is eating food that is lovingly kept warm while not tripping over piles of knitting§ magazines.

Tell your friends.

XOXO
M


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Marin Standard Time, which is fifteen minutes early for everything.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Or a microwave-safe bowl. It's 80 degrees in Denverish... I don't know if we'll be able to dig up a hat for the occasion.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): ...woodworking...pig farming...Penthouse...

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Or your enemies. Perhaps you think your enemies deserve a festive, leopard-print warming pet dish.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Bored of the Rings...

...has been on my bookshelf in one form or another since 1980.

Now, finally, after 40 years, the Harvard Lampoon has taken on another mega-star.

Be still my stupid sparkly beating heart.


FOOTNOTE (crossed): Well, one ratty paperback after another, really. The "form" of which I speak is mostly a matter of level of disintegration and magnitude of coffee-stained pages.

FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Srsly. Very Short List says so.

Contest! Win a Fabulous Prize!

And this isn't like the time I tried to foist my ill-fitting socks on an unsuspecting public.

No, this is a REAL prize. Hand-picked by yours truly via the good graces of AllModern.com.

Jamie at All Modern contacted me and asked if I'd like to check out their merchandise and maybe pick out a couple of little items to give away here at the Rickety Blog.

Jamie says they love that I'm "Honest, up front and blunt."

[SUMMARY: And I quote.]

Is it bad that makes me chuckle just a little evilly?

Anyway, I dutifully went to peruse the websites and spent a fair chunk of free time mentally re-decorating my home.^ There's SO much I liked,% so I'm just going to share that one thing that captured my imagination more than any other:



The whole Vitra store speaks to the sleek, modern side of me.§ And the Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec Collection is like the next logical evolution of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Plus, y'know, it's like LEGOs for grown-ups.

You can take thos widgets above and hook them together to make screens like this:




Or maybe like this...




Or maybe in a sleek, skeletal Christmas tree, which can then be covered in tiny knitted sweaters and traveling lights with a blinking, musical angel on top.#

Class through kitsch is one of my favourite emotions.††

[SUMMARY: The self-aware cop to kitsch first.]

So now maybe you're wondering what I have for you, oh my imaginary friends.‡‡

One lucky winner, residing in the US or Canada,§§ will receive these oddly useful things.

The first, a luxury pet dish with a warming function.¶¶ Simply put hot water in the reservoir in the bottom and your Fluffy or Fido can enjoy a home-warmed meal.

Plus, y'know, cute animal print.##




And the other part of our prize package is this sleek, unobtrusive magazine rack. You can put it on the floor, on a side table... and don't even *try* to tell me you don't have a couple dozen knitting/quilting/cooking††† magazines strewn about your living room that could use a little wrangling.




Plus, y'know... shiny.

So here are the rules:

[SUMMARY: There are always rules.]

1) Comment on this post for entry -- BE SURE TO ENTER YOUR EMAIL. If I can't find you, it's going to be hard to shower you with gifts.

2) One entry per person, except in the case where you drive my readership through the roof by mentioning this on your blog or sending other people to me.‡‡‡

SO...

3) You can earn an extra entry by posting a link to this post and putting a link to that link in the comments on this post.§§§

OR...

4) You can earn an extra entry for each person who comments and says you sent them.

A winner will be drawn randomly@ on Wednesday, November 11.¶¶¶

What are you waiting for? Don't you want your kitty to have warm kibble?###


FOOTNOTE (crossed): Srsly. That wee tiny OCD flap in my brain agonised for ages over the perfect, oddly useful goods. I figure everybody can use a nice magazine rack and most of y'all have a pet or two -- or know somebody who does and might appreciate a luxury pet dish. As I mention later in these footnotes, Christmas is right around the corner.

FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Perhaps they caught my delicate snort at the Neiman Marcus Christmas book bargain offerings.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): And mentally knocking down the neighbour's walls so I have room for all the couches and chairs I want.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): They have pet stuff and kid stuff (ask me how much I love the chalkboard dots) and modern bedding (ask me how much I love the Missoni collection) and accessories and... well, there was a lot to re-decorate with. Is redecorate hyphenated?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Which is locked in a lifelong death struggle with the cute animals and things-that-sing-and-light-up-and-are-possibly-covered-in-skulls side of me.

FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): There would never be a better segueway than this one, so I must take this tangent: remember the Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO sets I was lusting after? The first two are released! Just in time for Christmas! OK, one was released in May, but still.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): You can take the girl out of the trailer park...

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): All due respect to Truvy Jones.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Even IRL friends can play!

§§FOOTNOTE (smug and twisty): Sorry, Ally. If you wanted to play with the cool kids, you shoulda stayed on the continent. See? "Expatriate" doesn't sound so glamourous now, does it?

¶¶FOOTNOTE (two thumbs sideways!): I'm not making this up.

##FOOTNOTE (zebra crossing): Also available in zebra print!

†††FOOTNOTE (three more crosses to bear): ...fishing/watch-collecting/nudie...

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (how did I get off track?): *snort* I suspect if I were that worried about readership, I would've stopped posting pictures of zombie chickens a long time ago. Hey, Jamie at All Modern was nice enough to say nice things about my rickety little corner of the Innernets, so I'd like to give them as much exposure as possible. It doesn't hurt that they have wonderful things like LEGOs for grown-ups and chalkboard dots either.

§§§FOOTNOTE (triple spin zoom meta!): Oh, baby, that's not just meta... that's meta in the mirror.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Hans will probably be involved.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (three-gun salute to Mom): To commemorate Mom's second birthday; Dad thought it was the 11th the first year they were married, and Mom was in sniffly, silent martyr mode from the 7th -- her actual birthday -- until the 11th when he threw her a surprise party. As punishment, she made us all celebrate on the 7th and the 11th ever after.

###FOOTNOTE (pound pound pound kitty with entitlement issues): Please don't tell Quill (a/k/a Cat for Scale) about this. If he knows there's potential for hot meals, I'll never hear the end of it.