Catching Up Linkages

Happy Solstice.

You must watch the video Mark Evanier linked to, which has the BEST Christmas song ever.

I admit, I'm laughing at the poor dogs. Thanks for pointing this out, Gordondym.

LucasFilm Christmas Cards.

Cute Overload revisits Nora the Piano-Playing Cat.

Harry Potter and the Bickering Geneticists.

Captain Kirk mistletoe training video.

Nerd Trailers.

Oooh, hydrokinetic energy!

I have a strong desire to try this recipe, and freeze them as suggested by Aaron Williams.

And 400 years later, 2009 will be the Internation Year of Astronomy.

Medical Myths.

The Hajj has Free WiFi for the pilgrims. Awesome.

Can a virgin human give birth? Well, not a GUY human.

Starbucks' most expensive drink. I don't drink coffee, so this sounds truly disgusting to me.

Harry Potter plus South Park equals...

Bloggity reader Jack Pendarvis makes the NYTimes.

I'd like to point out some eBay auctions for ROM Spaceknight Paintings, the proceeds of which will be going to Bill Mantlo's medical care.

Paying it forward by paying for the car behind yours.

Pocky Marketing Ploy. Y'mean they have to actually MARKET Pocky? It doesn't just sell itself? No, I don't want the painting packages. I'll settle for the dark chocolate pocky, personally.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #134. Cypher, Kryptonians, and The Champions.

Torchwood Season Two Trailer. Not for the kiddies.

Monday Thoughts

Numb3rs goes graphic... I heard about it first from Colleen Doran, then Wil Wheaton reported that he will have a part in the episode. Wil then reported from the set, which Colleen blogged. And of course, Warren Ellis also put in a thought.

Wake Up Call (for the one or two people who haven't seen this yet):

Via Cute Overload, the full history of Winston, in blog entries.

Haunted Houses on the real estate market... do realtors have to disclose that information?

Kitten Lasers Charging.

Comcast Block Bible Downloads. Yeah, yeah, they are really blocking BitTorrent traffic, but it makes for an impressive headline, doesn't it?

Do you eat your breakfast cereal so slowly that it gets soggy before you finish? Boing Boing has a bowl for you.

The days of BBS and yore, when 9600 baud was fast.

Mmmmmm, Pumpkin Pocky.

And a book to definitely see: 900 pages of Hembeck. Me want.

Doctor Who: Ghost Light in LOLspeak.

Not Safe For Work - Comic on Cancer Awareness is shut down on a university campus.

For the in-laws: Pug Paw Power! and Baroo?

Loot!

Michael Sensei, as mentioned in the last entry, sent me a nifty "care package" from Japan. I believe that had to do with my entry about the Melon Pocky I found. Well, in addition to toys, he sent some Pocky:

I was expecting maybe a box, two... three at the most. He sent a dozen boxes! Now, I don't know what ALL the flavors are... but starting on the top row, left to right: decorated pocky, dark chocolate, strawberry giant pocky, five fruits (goka), mousse (mango?), and mousse (green tea). Bottom row, left to right: milk & honey (two boxes), Hello Kitty (strawberry?), coconut, Tahitian vanilla, and non-Pocky Kisyu Ume (sour plum).

In addition to boxes of Pocky and a few loose toys, there were nine of these boxes, resealed. At first I really thought that they had Godzilla toys in them, but when I opened them to check, I found each box had a bunch of different items! No Godzilla to be found.

I don't know if Michael Sensei is aware that collect penguins. My penguin collection is a bit strange and goofy, and I can't imagine any better additions than these fine fellows!

On the back of the Penguin's Lunch box is a list of the penguins available in the set... I haven't tried the actual crackers yet, but if they are excellent I may end up trying to order more through one of the local import shops.

More toys! These are based on works by Beatrix Potter.

Most of these toys are destined to be given out as reading prizes at the local library, if the teen librarian gets back to me and says that she wants them. For the record, Michael Sensei, I was born in the year of the Pig... so I'm an Aquarius/Capricorn Pig. Hmmm. And I married an Aquarius Horse. That sounds kind of kinky. By the way, I will be keeping the Seattle Mariners compressed towel.

Fish! As you can see, I'm going to have to figured out which fish belongs to which stand. Michael Sensei, being a good teacher, suggested I look them up myself. Heh. These fine fishies may show up on the Aquaman page in some form or another.

In return, Michael has asked for some cheap comics to give to his students. I need to hunt some down soon and make up a return care package. I also need to sample those Pocky! And Penguin's Lunch! And Sour Plum non-Pocky!

If you haven't read Michael Sensei's blog recently, you MUST check out his entry on Cucumber Pepsi. I like his idea for Watermelon Pepsi. I might even be willing to have pop again to try it, if it came out.

Melon Pocky and the Infinite Sadness

Errand day today. We planned it out last night... post office, library, grocery shopping, drugstore, and speciality shops...

One big reason I wanted to go out today was to visit Uwajimaya and see if they had any more speciality pocky, particularly the flavor I got last time that I really enjoyed, melon.

We planned out three trips... grocery and drugstore first. We hit the grocery store and were surprised to find a ton of people in suits with QFC nametags on them hanging out all over the store. We were playing "dodge the VIPs" while we shopped. As it turned out, the store was having a "Grand Re-Opening" after several annoying weeks of remodeling (which we have endured grumpily). I asked one stocker if this meant no more construction, and she got a happy, dreamy look on her face as she said, "no more construction... yes..." We finished our shopping shortly before the ribbon-cutting ceremony was supposed to take place, and I snapped a picture of their cake on the way out the door.

The drugstore was much less interesting and very quick. We headed out to the car to go home and found a group of drummers, obviously there to perform for QFC's re-opening, blocking the parking lot. Hubby-Eric managed to get around them with a little difficulty, and we went home. One special thing we picked up at the grocery store I'll have a little more about on Tuesday, assuming all goes well.

With one trip down, the groceries put away, we decided to hit the specialty shops next. I had called The British Pantry earlier to try to have them hold some custard pies for me, but they don't do same day holds. I should have called yesterday (d'oh!). So we decided to go there first to see if we could get pies before they ran out.

Happily, they had the custard pie, and Nanaimo bars. We also picked up some more lemon curd for me, since my last jar is nearly gone, and something special for a friend.

Next up was Uwajimaya in Bellevue, to check out their Pocky selection. I was hoping to score some more melon pocky, but was afraid I probably wouldn't be able to, as I'd learned since my last visit that melon pocky is a seasonal flavor and considered pretty rare by pocky fans. I'd really enjoyed it and wanted to try some more, so I was hoping... but I was fated to disappointment.

They had a decent selection of Pocky, including the green tea and strawberry, and the other standard flavors. But I was looking for the unusual. I did buy another Dark Chocolate Mousse, though I would've tried a different flavor if I'd remembered that I got it last time. I also picked up the Thomas the Tank Engine pocky-clone and the Gothic Lolita Hello Kitty pocky-clone. I just couldn't resist. They were too strange.

The last trip was a walking trip, and went exactly as planned. We went to the post office to drop off 97 party invitations, then to the library to drop off a CD I borrowed and donate the latest Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat (the young adult librarian was delighted when I started donating my copies as soon as I finished reading them, as she apparently has lots of kids who want to read those Manga anthologies and only one subscription for the library, so I double her ability to keep library patrons happy. yay me.). We also picked up tonight's movie, "Chicken Little". We find that "renting" movies from the library is generally less stressful and much cheaper than any other movie service around. Although badly abused DVDs are a problem, as not all library patrons are as thoughtful and careful as we are.

The walk was a decent two miles, and took care of today's exercise. And when we got home after all those errands, after everything was said and done... it wasn't even lunchtime yet. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. I love it when I can actually accomplish something.

Post Boxing Day Adventures

Early this morning, hubby-Eric took the car out to the shop to get the windstorm damaged fixed up. We have a rental now for the next week or so. Because Eric's been shifting furniture (and all the stuff on the furniture) to get his Oz room fixed up, we've got room in the garage to put the car again.

Hubby-Eric and I went on a post-Boxing Day shopping trip today. Our first stop was the British Pantry, a local speciality shop featuring lots of goodness from across the pond. I'm afraid Bully got me pining for some good British stuff. We got Jelly Babies, Lemon Curd, a couple of Christmas Crackers and a half dozen Custard Pies. We were hoping to find a chocolate orange, since the grocery stores around here seem to have stopped selling them, but they didn't have any. Oh well.

As we drove into Redmond we noticed that a lot of cars had snow on them. As we headed to our next stop we found out why. Lots of the Redmond/Bellevue area had snow on the ground, and even on the streets in some places. It wasn't a driving hazard, but it was a little surprising. At least I thought it was.

In Bellevue we went to Uwajimaya. I had to step over a pile of snow to get into the store, which amused me. Neither of us had ever been to Seattle's premier Japanese grocery before, and I think we still haven't. We need to go to the downtown store. The Bellevue store was great, don't get me wrong, but it didn't feel like the Uwajimaya experience that everyone talks about. In any case, our goal was to get some unusual flavors of Pocky. They didn't have the ones I was curious about, but we got some "Men's Pocky" (bittersweet dark chocolate), Melon Pocky, and a dark chocolate Mousse Pocky.

It was an interesting way to start the day. We went to two international shops, both of which featured a lot of great tea. It's actually a bit of a shame I don't drink much tea, because I could have picked up some fantastic flavors while we were out.

While we were at Uwajimaya, I also looked for some Bento box stuff, but found nothing. I saw "adult" Bento boxes, but not the cute kids' stuff I've seen on-line. When we go to the downtown store I'll look a little harder.

After our international experience, we headed out to Staples to get a postal scale (hubby-Eric is going to put much of his Green Lantern collection on eBay soon). It looks like the scale we got will double for a kitchen scale, which is great... because my little sister got me a wonderful low-capacity kitchen scale for Christmas that is pocket-sized and can do most of the weighing I'll need, but it only measures up to 16 ounces. Now I've got one that will measure up to 5 pounds if I need it.

We then hit Home Depot for a few pieces of needed hardware for hubby-Eric's Oz room. By this time we were feeling tired and stressed from the driving and the people and the snow and everything, so we went home to relax. Here's a picture of some of the stuff we got:

We plan on opening the Christmas crackers tonight for dessert.

Ah... Christmas. I've been completely devoid of the Christmas spirit this year. Even the holiday itself didn't trigger it. I partially blame the windstorm, which effectively canceled our one party we were going to have at our house. We rescheduled it for Twelfth Night, which means I'll be decorating for Christmas sometime next year. *sigh* There are worse possibilities in life.

I did get some very nice presents. My niece gave me a plastic basketball from the one dollar store. I don't think she knows it, but I plan on taking it swimming with me next time I go to the pool. There's a basket in the therapy pool, and I think it would be terribly amusing for me to play with it in the water. I also got a very nice measuring tape and a big hardcover about modern comic book masters. Got some reading to do. I also got a pair of handknitted Norwegian wool socks. Ah... warm feet. Let's see... I also got more bottles of sparkling cider than I care to think about... some money and gift cards... the aforementioned pocket kitchen scale... another penguin to sit on the telly... And a Yoga deck. Another sister got a Yoga deck at the same time, and we considered playing against each other, until the sister that gave the deck explained that they weren't a CCG. I'm sure I got other gifts, but they integrated into my life so well I've already forgotten them.

But enough about me. How's your holiday going?

And, in case I'm too boring for you, have a Kodak moment: