Nom nom nom...

Reminiscent of King’s Christine and From a From a Buick 8, this story contains some vivid, creepy imagery and features a car. I read it in a darkened room – just by chance, not by design.

To be honest, I found myself just a tad nervous as the story unfolded. One thing I love about King’s writing is his attention to characters; he fleshes out both major and minor (read: expendable) characters. In just a few spare sentences, he makes you care about these people and dread for their futures. There is plenty for them to dread here.

Unlike those who speed by on the turnpike without a thought, several good Samaratins pull off into the abandoned Mile 81 rest area to aide what they think is a stranded motorist, or, as the case becomes, several stranded motorists.

The tension builds as the story progresses, but left me feeling let down. For all the build up, I thought the ending was pretty simplistic. Then again, it IS a novella, the literary equivalent of a half-hour sitcom. Still, though it was a short ride, it was a decent one.

I would love to see this car described in more detail — maybe in a subsequent book? We never find out where this entity went, so something tells me we’ve not seen the last of the Morphing, Man-Munching Mudmobile.

For under three bucks, get it for yourself and let me know what you think!

Maru, the box-obsessed Asian Kitty on YouTube, would concur.

Too small box and Maru:

He takes box love to a whole new level. I just loves me some Maru kitty.

UPDATE: Oh, my gosh. I was just browsing Amazon and found out there is a Maru book coming out in August: I Am Maru. No way…How fun!

Man, I love the Internet.

Rainn Wilson (a.k.a. the introspective and devious Dwight Schrute) posted this photo on Twitter. It’s the goodbye cake for Steve’s last day.

 

A sad day for NBC's The Office. Farewell, Steve!

Sigh. I wonder what will happen with Michael and Holly. They’re perfect for each other.

They remind Howie and me of our relationship!

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test…

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

22 Impressionist, 8 Islamic, 10 Ukiyo-e, -25 Cubist, -20 Abstract and 2 Renaissance!

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

There were several groups where I did not like any of the choices. I had to choose something, though. A lot of the time, I like a style or technique, but not the subject matter. Other times, the subject is so intriguing, I can overlook it not being in a style or colors I enjoy.

I like Asian art, especially Japanese. This piece, The Great Wave of Kanagawa, by Hokusai – is one of my favorites. It is not typical of Japanese art of that time period, but it’s always grabbed me.

I love the animation and aggression of the catlike waves!

That tickled my funnybone and motivated me to search out more videos of dogs jumping or playing on trampolines. These are some of my favorites from my browsing today.

And lest you think only dogs enjoy trampolines, here’s a video of a cat playing on one.

I have to say, though, that cats don’t seem to find them as entertaining as dogs. The preponderance of bouncy critter videos were of dogs. Most of the few cat videos depicted a kitty annoyed by some 2-legger bouncing around while the kitty tried to sun itself. Then there’s the idiots who do mean things to cats on trampolines; I don’t bother commenting on those videos, but I report ‘em for abusive content. But that’s another blog entry for another day!

And it’s not just domestic pets who enjoy playing bouncy. Check out these two wild foxes someone witnessed bounding and pouncing on his trampoline:

By the way, here’s a video showing a fox showing that same high leap and dive behavior, only going into the snow for prey:

My favorite, though, is Chago; this fella has it down to a science I wish the owner of that video allowed his video to be embedded outside of YouTube, but you’ll have to go there to view it.

This summer, we’re going to have to introduce Stella to someone’s trampoline. As much as she enjoys bounding up onto the couch and ricocheting off its back, we think she’d love it.

Our year ended on a sad note as we said goodbye to our sweet old girl, Sarah. She was our coffee-loving, bean crunching girl. We got her in 1999, the same year we bought our house. Howie and I both grew up with dogs and loved them, but as renters we’d not been able to own one the first seven years we were married. So, with the new house came the decision to add a dog to our family.

We found her by way of a classified ad offering her puppies. When we got to the house, Sarah greeted us enthusiastically, wagging her tail and rolling over for belly rubs. Her pups were four months old and still nursing her in addition to eating puppy food. Unlike their mother, however, they were shy and fearful. We asked if they were trying to find a home for Sarah and they said yes.

Her owners said she was born in 1997 or 1998, offspring of one of their beagles (which they raised for hunting) and a chow. The beagle genes were readily apparent, but the chow didn’t contribute much. If her daddy even was a chow.

She had a strong prey drive and a busy beagle nose. She was fine with our indoor cats, but woe to any animals she encountered outside! I think the only animal to ever stand her down was an opossum who turned to face her. Suddenly Sarah had other pressing business.

What she really lived for was squirrels. If she saw one, she’d chase it to a tree and sit at the tree’s base, staring up, as long as you’d let her. If you clicked your tongue in a vague mimicry of a squirrel, she’d perk up, whine and go to the nearest window to look for one. She never tired of this! She knew squirrels lived in trees, so when we’d go by trees while out driving, she would get very excited. Yes, she was just a little obsessed with them.

We even had one particularly cheeky squirrel who would come right up to the front window and tease her. At times, they’d be staring each other down, nose-to-nose, with only a double-paned window between them. She also loved to watch the fish in our pond. And she was very interested in the large pleco fish in our aquarium.

But she was also the most obedient dog we’d ever had — and no thanks to us! From the day we brought her home, she stayed right by us and came when called. She routinely dashed out the back door and made a circle through the neighbor’s yard when we let her out (scouting for squirrels), but she came right back when we called her. We wished we could take credit for her manners!

She was our constant companion in the garden, our “moley dog” who burrowed beneath the covers every night, and our fearless watchdog. Actually, the only person she guarded us against was the mailman; she really hated the mail carriers and pitched a fit whenever one would come and dare to drop mail through the slot in our front door.

Sarah had her fifteen minutes of fame in this video:

She won second place in the contest. My photos of her and our other dogs were also pictured on Innova Pet’s line of Karma organic dog food promotional materials. That story is here.

Sarah had some sort of episode overnight and on the morning of December 28, she appeared to have had a stroke. Her head was cocked to one side and her eyes darted rapidly back and forth (nystagmus). She could not stand and walk, but stumbled as she tried to balance. From what I looked up, strokes are rare in dogs and she most likely had canine vestibular syndrome (also called peripheral vestibular syndrome), a common ailment of the inner ear and one which she might have recovered from.

However, we had to look at the hard facts. She was fourteen years old and had recurring problems with her hind legs. No one in our household is physically capable of bending and carrying a 35-pound dog multiple times a day; considering the dizziness made her so she could barely stand, let alone walk, she would have to be carried outside to go potty. Dogs with this condition can take weeks to recover, and often must be given anti-nauseal drugs because the vertigo makes them sick to their stomachs (imagine being severely seasick all the time).

We couldn’t see putting our old girl through all of this. Our vet said it could also have been caused by a brain tumor. Given the many visible lumps and bumps all over our old girl, it well could have been a tumor causing the symptoms. It could also have been a stroke, though unlikely. Our vet advised that we’d likely be prolonging the inevitable if we tried waiting it out. So, with hearts brimming with sadness, we made the difficult decision to euthanize her.

Hopefully it will be many years before we have to face this heartache again. Those of you who have loved a pet deeply know how we feel, know that those who dismiss such grief with “it’s just a dog” don’t get it. Losing a pet is so painful, but they joy they bring to our lives fills me with gratefulness.

Our vet sent us a lovely sympathy card, one which our brindle girl Stella sniffed out of the pile of mail as soon as it hit the floor. She then tried to open for us. Having come from the vet’s office, the paper must be redolent with all kinds of interesting smells. We’re so glad we have our remaining girls to make us laugh!

This is a picture story that illustrates one such gift of laughter from Sarah:

I am a musician, though I don’t read music. I have good pitch, but play by ear; I started with guitar by learning how to play based on basic guitar chord charts and transferred my skills to piano by seeing what notes made up the guitar chords and playing them on piano.A pianist friend told me I played inverted chords on the piano and it’s because of this hearing the notes in the order of the guitar strings. Interesting.

I don’t play bar chords on the guitar as they were always too demanding of my wrist and I lacked the strength in my fingers to do them well. I know just enough to realize the higher the notes are on the little lines, the higher they are to the ear, and I know that certain notes mean certain time intervals, like a whole note is four beats, a quarter note is one, etc.

Don’t ask me to play from sheet music unless I already know the song and there are guitar chords printed above the music so I can sound it all out and memorize it. I don’t even know how to read guitar tabs, but from the looks of it, it shouldn’t be hard for me to learn if I just take the time to learn it.

The time. That’s just it. If I want to get back into music, I need to discipline myself to take the time to learn it, and I don’t know if I want it that badly. Crazy, isn’t it? People who’ve known me for less than thirteen or so often don’t know that I play or that I used to write a lot of songs. I have not picked up my 12-string guitar or played my keyboard in many, many years. How sad is that?

I did take the step of having my hubby bring my keyboard up out of the basement and set it up on its stand in the office, at least. It’s there, waiting. So is my guitar. Unless the strings stay in good shape for over a decade of disuse, they need to be replaced.

That said, there are millions out there who can not only read guitar chords and tabs, but sheet music. They can pick up an unfamiliar piece and bring it to life the first time they read the music and play through it. What must that be like? I can only imagine!

I have some great links for any musician looking for music. And the drumroll please…

8Notes.com
A great site which offers free sheet music for piano, guitar, brass and more. This looks like a great resource with an active forum. It looks like they offer a lot for free and extras for those who subscribe to a paid service.

Ricci Adams’ Musictheory.net
This site offers free lessons, training games, and music utilities online. Further, it offers the complete course in downloadable version!

There are some highly-rated music theory DVD’s, software titles, and books available at Amazon, too:

My grandma wanted to pay for me to get piano lessons when I was a kid. Now I wish I’d taken her up on the offer. As an adult, I don’t know if I have the interest. Also, having played by ear, slowing down to plink out quarter notes would be torture. What do you think?

Do you have favorite music theory or tutorial websites? Please, share them in the comments!

One of the other things I like is how so many of the deals are for small, locally-owned businesses. It’s a great way for them to get the word out about their services. They also have nation-wide deals, though; my latest score was three movie rentals from Redbox for the price of one. Redbox has a terrific business model, by the way.

With everything moving toward streaming content, I suspect their window of opportunity is closing, but for those who don’t want to subscribe to something like Netflix and prefer DVD’s, they are wonderful. We do have the disk-a-month and unlimited streaming Netflix, but sometimes it’s nice grabbing a brand-new DVD release for only a buck. In this case, I’ll get 3/$1.00 — Woohoo for a bargain for me!

Check out Groupon and let me know what you think. Share your bargain stories!

Sometimes I miss that camera. My Sony Alpha A300 is wonderful, but I don’t have the lenses yet which would allow me to get some of the shots I used to get with my Minolta or my subsequent Fuji. Still, I love my Sony! They’re a terrific line of DSLR cameras.

The music is courtesy of the generous Kevin MacLeod. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your offering this caliber of music, free. You bring life to any project I do. I want to give you props! Thanks!

Kevin also has music for sale. Amazon has a nice selection of Kevin’s music available for instant download.

Here’s a list of what you’ll receive in the box of bookish goodness:

Abduction (PB) – Robin Cook
A Case of Need (PB) – Michael Crichton
A Time to Kill (PB) – John Grisham
The Rainmaker (PB) – John Grisham
The Runaway Jury (HB)- John Grisham
The Street Lawyer (HB) – John Grisham
The Testament (PB) – John Grisham
False Memory (PB) – Dean Koontz
Odd Thomas – (PB, advance reading copy) – Dean Koontz
Forever Odd (PB) – Dean Koontz

Odd Thomas is such a great series, but there are only two books in this lot. You can see the whole Odd Thomas series here.

Icebound (PB) – Dean Koontz
Life Expectancy (PB, advance reading copy) – Dean Koontz
Sole Survivor (PB) – Dean Koontz
The Face (PB) – Dean Koontz
Bag of Bones (PB) – Stephen King
Black House (PB) – Stephen King & Peter Straub

Don’t have The Talisman, but you can get it at Amazon

Different Seasons (PB) – Stephen King
Firestarter (PB) – Stephen King
Four Past Midnight (PB) – Stephen King
Gerald’s Game (PB) – Stephen King
It (PB) – Stephen King
Misery (PB) – Stephen King
Nightmares & Dreamscapes (PB) – Stephen King
Pet Semetary (PB) – Stephen King
Skeleton Crew (PB) – Stephen King
The Dead Zone (PB) – Stephen King
The Drawing of the Three (PB) – Stephen King

Sorry, but I don’t have the rest of the Dark Tower Series. The rest I borrowed from my library.

The Green Mile (PB) – Stephen King
The Tommyknockers (PB) – Stephen King < Rough shape, but quite readable
Lost Boy, Lost Girl (PB) – Peter Straub
Mystery (PB) – Peter Straub

Price for the whole lot of 31 books: $20. I will consider shipping them for actual shipping cost based on their total weight of 24lbs 4oz. That should be $13.50 including insurance. I accept PayPal.