Category Archives: Randonymity

Some completely non-book links for your Friday

Thinking of buying an HDTV? Gizmodo’s decision-making flowcharts aren’t likely to help you make a decision, but they’re definitely funny. There’s also a more generic gadget buyer’s decision making flowchart.

Potential canned pumpkin shortage?! Excuse me while I rush out to hoard…

Help out your local pet shelter by donating pet food.

Gadzooks! It takes 147,456 PowerPC processors to out-think a cat brain.

Don’t feel like darning that handknit sock, or you’ve ended up with a stray mitten? You can use them to protect your sunglasses in the glovebox or drawer.

Marsha has a lot of great links to knitted toy patterns (including an adorable Linux penguin!).

Hee hee – anti-malware detection and the original Trojan Horse. Think twice before clicking the “Allow” button when your anti-virus finds a problem next time, hmm?

If you use MS Office and hate Clippy, you should be very afraid.

Not sure whether you should repair or replace your electronics? Consumer Reports put together a handy chart to help you out.

Very cool alarm clock – too bad it’s just a concept.

Ever wondered how it ended up that nearly every country has a different electrical plug?

Wouldn’t this be more useful if there was a way to secure it to the refrigerator?

This is totally old news, but it sure cements us as a flyover state, eh?

Mayhem’s head would explode if she saw this many furry mice flying through the air.

Rumor has it there’s going to be a completed knitting project posted next week. Posted here. On this blog. Can you believe it?


“I’ve got you, sparkly white feathery angely toy!! What do you mean, you’ll tell Ceiling Cat on me?! That’s no fair!” -Mayhem

(There’ll be more detail on that card behind May’s ear at some point…)

“See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the Dancing [Princess]”*

  • Congrats to elaing, GSM, CrystalGB, Estella, and Little Lamb Lost, who all won copies of Kate Perry’s Chosen by Desire in my recent contest!
  • At long last I have finished notifying winners in the Completely Out-of-Control, Over-the-Top Book Giveaway (and should finally mail books on Monday). Congrats to Moonsanity, Eve S, blodeuedd, Guinifer, Anne Marie, and KitKatKnit! Amusing trivia about the winners: two winners were from Finland and one winner lived close enough that we met for coffee yesterday so I could deliver her books! *waves at Guinifer* And I even knit a few inches on my second sock (no longer a protosock!) while we had coffee and chatted. (Hey, can someone pass Jeanne some ice? Looks like she bumped her head pretty hard when she read that I was knitting.)
  • I’m taking today off from work to enjoy the hopefully warmish and sunnyish weather – have a great weekend, everyone!

“I am a Dancing Panther Princess!” -Mayhem

“Get your ghost paws out of there, May. I’m locked and loaded – that toy is toast!” -Chaos

Falling backward

  • My upgrade went well, albeit a bit differently than I’d planned.
  • Apparently, there isn’t an upgrade path from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional, so I had to do a clean install. (As in… format and install.)
  • How happy was I that I had the operating system isolated on its own partition?
  • Pretty damn happy.
  • True, I’ve had to reinstall a lot of software that lost registry keys and settings during the format, but it’s definitely not as bad as I feared it would be, based on my Vista experiences.
  • Make sure you have a good backup (preferably not compressed, in case you need little bits of things) before you start such a project!
  • I know that I was very, very grateful that I did.
  • Windows 7 is so much faster than Vista, it’s almost like I have a new computer.
  • *happy dance* My downstairs neighbor moved out over the weekend. (Backstory here and here and here.)
  • Please cross your fingers and think good thoughts my way for a sane, pleasant, non-smoking downstairs neighbor next time! Thank you.
  • Oh, how I love the extra hour of sleep when Daylight Savings Time ends.
  • Oh, how I hate the first week of kitty dinner time after Daylight Savings Time ends.

“Starving… to… death… Dinner… late… Not… going… to… make… it…”-Chaos

How did it get to be Monday again?!

  • And stop back tomorrow for a new book contest…
  • This time we went to the Paperback Exchange, which has an impressive selection of used romances.
  • Along with a rather complicated trade-in system that took us a long time to decipher from our receipts later.
  • Fortunately, we were comfortably seated in Dragonfly Coffee, which is right next to the Paperback Exchange.
  • I’m so going back to Dragonfly again, because they had gluten-free muffins and bars!
  • Sadly, I wasn’t hungry while we was there.
  • After I posted that, the radio didn’t come on for two days.
  • Not intermittent, true, but not exactly what I was hoping for.
  • Thanks to everyone who commented or sent email last week with reading and book-related song ideas! Now I just have to track down a few of those and integrate them with what I have…

“When the contest is finally over will I be able to get off the books, Mom? Please? My butt is getting sore.” -Mayhem

The Great Kitty Grass Massacre of ’09

  • There aren’t any pictures of the Great Kitty Grass Massacre of ’09 because I cleaned up the mess before realizing how bloggable it was.
  • D’oh!
  • Picture light terra cotta tile looking as if it’s morphing into a grass mat, with puked-up kitty grass here and there to add to the ambiance.
  • Now I remember why I don’t buy kitty grass very often.
  • I’m trying to put together a mix cd about books and reading and am having a heckuva time. Any song suggestions?
  • Is it sad that one of the highlights of last week for me was taking my car in to get the tires rotated and telling them about the tire that I thought had a really, really, really slow leak (as in takes six to eight weeks to look lower than the other tires)… and having them find the leak and patch it?
  • Speaking of my car, I’d like to take a moment to have a bit of chat with it.
  • Dear beloved car – I’ve had enough of your intermittent radio shenanigans. If you want to continue receiving premium… Do we have an understanding?
  • We had sunshine and warmth over the weekend!
  • And now it’s raining and cold again.
  • This time, knitting was complicated by an ulnar tunnel flare up.
  • Hmph.
  • Darn, this bulleted list blog post looks a little skimpy, doesn’t it?

“Wha…? Kitty grass? Mess? Must’ve been the big kitty, Mom! Look at how cute I am!” -Mayhem

In which I lament the shockingly short fall we had

Don’t forget to leave a comment on the contest post before 7 pm CDT, Friday, October 16, for your chance to win a copy of Shannon K. Butcher’s new romantic suspense novel, Love You To Death!

Congrats to the lucky random winners in the Show No Fear contest: Sydney, TeresaW, Lea, Dottie, and Lisa!

Lorette, the Knitting Doctor, is celebrating her birthday and new blog home and probably her newish job, too, by giving away some lovely yarn she picked up while traveling in the UK recently. Subscribe and tell her your favorite travel destination for your chance to win. Contest closes at midnight PDT, October 15.


  • After our ten days of fall (most of which were rainy), we had snow early Saturday morning.
  • If you want proof of snow, Susan and CJ took pictures.
  • Personally, I was too disheartened.
  • I mean, only a few of the trees have even changed!
  • Some trees have dealt with this sudden wintery shock by dropping all of their (green) leaves in a heap – sort of an “oh shit!” reaction, I guess.
  • Speaking of CJ, I drove north seven blocks Saturday afternoon to pick her up.
  • Although we live on the same street, we live on opposite sides of Hennepin Avenue, so the drive was rather more complicated than it sounds.
  • We headed over to Uncle Hugo’s to peruse new urban fantasy and paranormal romance releases and look for treasures amongst the shelves and boxes and piles of used books.
  • Whoops. 😉
  • Then we stopped at French Meadow Cafe and chatted some more over bowls of chili (black bean for her, chicken white bean for me) for another hour or so.
  • We spent an inordinate amount of time laughing.
  • Isn’t it great to meet blog friends?!
  • Speaking of which, Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers!
  • Oh yeah, several inches of snow are predicted for us today. *whimper*

“Hey, baby, come here often?” -Chaos

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!*

I got home Wednesday around 2:30 pm and have moved on to vegging for the rest of my vacation. Look for more regular blogging next week, including a book giveaway!

Mayhem proceeded to guard the front door so I couldn’t leave. Subtle, eh? (Ignore the messed up rug and gnawed tissue paper. Merely evidence of feline busyness.)

“My eyes are set for stun, Mom. You aren’t getting out of here again.” -Mayhem

Chaos hasn’t moved on to his usual mad at me for being gone phase. Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn’t!

*purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* * biscuit making* -Chaos

*Hey, at least nursery rhymes don’t have earworm properties, right?!

“…strung out from the road…”

(Phrase first heard in Bob Seger’s song “Turn the Page.”)

Not quite home yet, but I will be tomorrow. Currently, I’m in a motel in Janesville, Wisconsin. I’m only five hours from home, but please refer to the title of this post for why I stopped here for the night. 🙂

What have I been up to since last I posted?

  • I spent more quality time hanging out with Brigitte and the Little Dudes. Waaah! I wish they lived lots closer!
  • I went to dinner at Lorraine’s house with Brigitte and got to meet Lorraine’s family and the famous Kitten Chow! Waaah! I wish they lived lots closer!
  • At Lorraine’s, I experienced the tasty Canadian phenomenon of Swiss Chalet chicken.
  • I met Lea! Waaah! I wish she lived lots closer!
  • I rode the subway and the GoTrain.
  • I met MamaTulip! Waaah! I wish she lived lots closer!
  • My love for Kuroi Neko has increased tenfold.
  • I saw Niagara Falls. Whoa. There will be pictures at some point. (When you see signs that say “Unusual mist conditions”? You better believe them!)
  • I spent the night at a motel in London. Ontario, that is.
  • That was the first time I’ve stayed in a motel room that didn’t have art on the walls.
  • Perhaps they realized that no art could possibly complement the brilliantly patterned bedspreads. (My eyes! My eyes!)
  • I was happily surprised to not have a wait at the US-Canadian border in Detroit Windsor.
  • I made the border guard guy laugh when I declared my five gf beers.
  • I’m still bummed that they don’t stamp passports for the US-Canadian border.
  • And… I’m creating a post that doesn’t have a picture of Chaos or Mayhem in it. Fear not – today we have guest black kitty Gandalf.

“Rumour has it on blackkitties.net that you are in so much trouble when you get home.” -Gandalf

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again.”

– Willie Nelson (with apologies to those who now have an earworm)

For the next ten to 14 days, I’ll be on vacation. I’m sure I’ll post about my visit to Toronto, my journey there and back again, and the many wonderful bloggers I hope to meet, but said posts will be sporadic and eclectic. Stay out of trouble, ok? (And does this look like Chaos and May or what?! Too perfect.)

“Wait a minute… Mom, where are you going?! Why are you taking your pillow with you?!! Oh, this does not look good at all…” -Mayhem