Fizzle & Pop The sound my brain makes in milk.

More randomness than you can shake a whale at.

Why a whale? Because it's big and your arms would get tired after one or two shakes, because, honestly, there's not much to this post today. I figure that I'm feeling a bit run down and was reasonably entertaining yesterday, so eh.
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The other day my daughter was trying to keep our dog's toy football away from him. Apparently – I was at work at the time, so this is all second hand – he knocked her to the ground and took it from her. Her response: "I've been vanquished."
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I plan to once again take part in the utter crap-shoot that is the Woot T-Shirt Derby this week. Not because I think I've gotten any better since I last took part in it. I haven't, especially on deadline designs. No. It's because now the reward for having one of the top three shirts for the week is up to $1000, and $2 per shirt that sells after the first day. I lucked into a spot once before, perhaps I can again. So, barring illness, this Thursday after they announce the next theme, I'm going to get my happy ass designing.
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Over at Redneck Diva's home she had been talking about a recent visit to the dentist. Both my kiddos just had an check up on Monday and they are all kinds of messed up. The girl managed to swing four cavities, although two were on the teeth touching her spacer so they were expected. "Expected" doesn't mean "free to fix" though. Naturally. I should also mention that she got a huge bag of all kinds of candy from her BFF for her birthday, and now she can't eat it. At least not as fast as she would like. The boy has cavities on his incoming wisdom teeth, so they are going to need to be pulled. Fun times. Anyhow, over at Diva's I commented on how we need little birds like alligators have that would sit in our mouths and clean our teeth. Or is it crocodiles? Either way, we need those birds. It would also be nice if they were mint flavored so you could suck on them when they were done, then spit them out and have all kinds of fresh breath. So, get to work on that God. And since birds might not be workable, even with divine direction, my fallback idea is nanobots. Mint flavored nanobots. Get to work on that science. It's a race!
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"Out of left field." Why? Specifically, why left field? I realize it's probably a baseball related saying, and I know as little as I can manage about baseball, but does stuff traditionally come unexpectedly from left field? As traditionally as something unexpected can be, of course. Aren't there more unexpected places for things to come from in a baseball stadium? "Jesus! That came totally from the hot dog vendor!" I suppose I could research it, but as I've said here before, no.
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We have another podcast. In it I say, maybe, three words. Five at the most. Unless Derek dubbed some more in without telling me. Click to listen.

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That's long enough. Here's the next stage in the first SloMo Design:

What the hell? I don't know. I really don't.

What a politicelicous day!

Not this post though. This post is almost 100% politics free, however it could contain trace amounts of peanuts. If while reading this you experience shortness of breath and a swelling in your throat, or you have a history of peanut related allergies, stop reading immediately and consult a physician. You're dying! Hurry!

I used to have horrible allergies when I was a kid. It was first misdiagnosed as asthma by some officer tard at the Peterson Air Force Base Medical Center when I was – wait for it... – nine. So for a long time I was the dweebie kid with an inhaler and a fear of physical activity that I'd been told could lead to a thrashing-on-the-floor-clutching-at-my-throat, gaspy death. Fucking inhaler. I hated that thing.

Many years later when I was 14 and living with my dad in Pueblo, I went in for my first and only allergy test. I don't know if it's still done this way, but as I recall at the time they had a rack of needles that were each coated with some form of evil that was poked into your back, it was covered with a sheet of paper or something and then they sat back and watched what happened. Half my frickin' back blew up. When the doctor lifted the sheet he did that sharp inhalation of breath like "hsst..." and said, "Oh my." The biggest bumps were cats and politics, and there were about six other lesser bumps that were pulsing for attention. None of the allergies were peanuts of course. That's not one that creeps up on you, especially if half your diet up to that point was peanut butter in one form or another; Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, peanut butter infused Carnation Instant Breakfast Bars (back when they were good), peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter on a spoon, etc. What can I say? I'm a fan.

Over the last 26 years most of my allergies have abated somewhat. I'm still pretty allergic to cats, but not all cats, and if I can avoid touching my face after handling a cat I can usually manage to not run screaming to the bathroom in search of water. It's a huge step up from where walking into a room with a cat would make my face turn red and cause me to try to claw my brain out through my eyes out for the blessed release that death might bring. I'm still not on board with owning a cat though, which wouldn't be a problem except both Heather and my daughter would love to have one. My daughter helpfully points out that there is medicine I can buy that would help me be less lame regarding cats. My problem with that theory is, if I don't have the medicine handy, I would have to leave the house naked (because when you have a cat the hair gets everywhere), hose myself off in the back yard and then hope somebody gets me more medicine. Plus there's the fear that it will one day decide that I must die and sit on my face while I'm sleeping and nobody is watching.

Well, that's pretty much all the time I have for posting today. I hope it was more fun than the last several have been. Here's the current SloMo Doodle:

It just felt like a balloon kinda day.

I wish it was Sunday.

'Cause that's my fun day. My "sit around playing Fable 2 for half the damned day" day. But no, it's time for another Monday. My apologies to The Bangles.

I'm trying to hold at bay some kind of head sickness that involves sinus pain and a horrible pain back behind the right side of my jaw, just below my ear. Thanks to the new "health plan" that I went with this year – a high deductible with a Heath Savings Plan – and the likelihood that I'm going to take a 7.5% pay cut on top of the 25% cut I took last August – assuming my job doesn't just go away entirely– I'm going to have to ride this fucker out, wherever it takes me. The good news is the pain that I had behind my jaw has lessened to a dull ache from the stabbing, drop-me-to-my-knees pain that I had whenever I opened my mouth wide or put any pressure on my right molars yesterday. I'm thinking it was caused by drainage from my ear since there wasn't any swelling as far as I could tell. I also recall this happening before and that was the diagnosis then. The bad news is the sinus pain started this morning, accompanied by a bit of dizziness. Anyhow, here's hoping this is the worst of it.

Enough of that.

I'll hopefully be writing again tomorrow, and with luck have something worth writing about. Here's the doodle

And Trashman, thanks for putting thoughts of a "deformed nipple" in my mind. Still no plan of direction for this one.

Friday Fun!

Well, not fun really. But it is Friday. That's gotta be worth something.

My wee girl turns 9-years-old on Sunday, and we're having a small party for her tomorrow afternoon. So she's pretty stoked about that. Her mother bought 24 cupcakes for her to take to school and share with classmates today. Justin was unaware of this plan, what with spending most of his time yesterday in the basement studying some horribly complex computer related course that he purchased with his Christmas Barnes & Nobel gift cards. After dinner he said, "Ooh! Can I have a cupcake?" and was instantly told "No!" by everyone else in the house. I think even the dog said no. At the very least he wuffed. Poor guy. You would have thought by our reaction that he'd asked if he could eat a baby.

Also, an update on the unfortunate rhyme incident I wrote about last week. There have been two suggestions so far that would have been better received by my dearest than "peckerwood" was. The first was from Conqueress who offered "Pretty good - as I should!," and the second is from Heather's friend Shannon; "Pretty good, Hollywood!" Both of which further illustrate that I'm a moron, and should probably have a court order prohibiting me from attempting rhyme.

I'm feeling a bit ill today, so after this post I think I'm going to lie down for awhile. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Here is today's SloMo Doodle: