We Have a Winner!

I wrote down the name of each commenter on a slip of paper once for each comment they've left on the blog during the contest period. Folded them up, pulled one out of a box and unsurprisingly, the person who left the most comments won. They left almost half the comments that were made in that time period, so the odds were with them. You gotta be in it to win it, baby.

So, congratulations Marsha! E-mail me your address and I'll get a box of goodies out to you next week. If I really get organized, I'll photograph and post all the stuff before I send it out.

I feel like I should write something more pithy, but I'm a little spaced out on Oops! fumes. Oops! is this spray stuff that you spray on things to get stuff off of them. Like if you need to remove the price tag from a plastic thing. You spray Oops! on the tag and it and the adhesive holding on come right off. The reason for the Oops! fumes is that I have made Seek and Find bottles for the NINE children in my extended family that I give holiday gifts to. I used a tutorial from Melissa Rambles On, and even used some objects that she sent me after she posted the tutorial. I used an assortment of bottles, including a bug oregano bottle with a big label stuck to it and the same big Aquafina bottles that Melissa used. I tried to avoid buying bottled water, but almost every other plastic bottle out there now has a textured surface with lots of indentations, which would make it impossible to see what was inside the bottle. You wouldn't think so, but grope a few bottles the next time you're in the supermarket and you'll see. I think all the indentations allows them to make the bottles using less plastic or something. I'm all in favor or using less materials, but I was freaking out over the possibility of not being able to find the bottles in time (I'm giving most of these gifts at my parents' Christmas/Hannukah party this Saturday). I came thisclose to buying 5 bottles of oregano and pouring all the oregano into a plastic baggie. But then it would look like a massive amount of pot and I am not going to be dealing with that.

So anyway, between the oregano bottle and the glue left on the water bottles after I pulled off the labels, and the complete lack of ventilation because my kitchen has one wee window over the sink that I can't reach easily, whoa. I've opened some windows to air the place out and will not make that mistake again.

Awesome Stuff That Will Make You Happy

First up, an etsy store where all the crafts are Twin Peaks inspired. This one was posted on Facebook by Craft Magazine. Become a fan to find out about cool stuff like that directly.

Next, via Martinimade, here's an amazing Steampunk home restoration.

Finally, today is the last day of the contest. Leave a comment by midnight tonight and you may win some stuff, including cookies.

It's Toasted!

One of my favorite lines in Soapdish is when Kevin Kline says, "Oh yes, the old days. So long ago, we had cigarette commercials done by doctors."

In late 2008, the NY Public Library had an exhibit of old timey cigarette ads. It was hee-larious. (It's also infuriating when you think of people like my Grandfather who died of cancer directly caused by 40 years of smoking and most of those years, they was encouraged by such ads. But I decided to go with hilarious.)

I meant to blog about it at the time, but organized, I am not.

You can see most of them in this online gallery. Aside from doctors and dentists recommending specific brands, and pictures of Santa lighting up, there are several ads that use the slogan, "It's toasted!" I guess they tasted differently, but it just sounds random to me. You could just as easily say, "It's brown!" or "It's smoky!" The ads say that the toasting removes the "dangerous irritants" that "cause throat irritation and coughing" but ya know, I'm kinda not buying it.

Seeing those ads, I felt like the Ferengi in that episode of Star Trek DS9 where they got sent to Roswell in the 1940s. They were offered cigarettes, tried to smoke them and then scanned them with their tricorders, which revealed how deadly they are. One of them said something like, "if they'll smoke these things, they'll buy anything. We're gonna be rich!"

What ads make you cringe at the memory? Which current ones do you think we'll be rolling our eyes at 40 years from now.

Remember the contest. Leave a comment before December 9 and get a chance to win some stuff, including cookies.

Traditions

There are two things I need to do to make it seem like the Holiday Season. For me, the holiday is Christmukkah, but as an ex-Catholic, the season is more about Charles Dickens for me than Jesus or Santa. All that peace on earth, good will towards men, let's be excellent to each other? That's what I call the secular/Charles Dickens aspect of Christmas. Christians often celebrate both the religious and secular aspects without realizing it, while anyone who does the tree and presents without going to church is doing the Charles Dickens/Santa thing.

To quote the great Willow Rosenberg, not everyone worships Santa. But Charlie D lets you have Christmas without him.

Thing #1 that I have to do to feel like it's Christmas is read A Midnight Carol by Patricia K Davis who seems to have written just this one book and no others. It's a fictionalized telling of how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Some of the drama in the book is factual (check the wiki) and the rest isn't and who cares where the line is? It's a good story and makes you appreciate all the decoration overkill most of us are subjected to. Would you prefer living in a gray, bleak London with no Christmas decorations because no one really celebrates the holiday? Think about it--winter, but never Christmas.

Anyway, I just love those behind the scenes/the real story novels. This is a quick read and warms my cockles every time.

Thing #2 is listen to Patrick Stewart perform A Christmas Carol. (It looks like the CD version is going for a small fortune, but the audio tapes are cheap.) I saw him perform his one man show of A Christmas Carol on Broadway and it was spectacular. When I was single and decorating a tree by myself, I'd listen to this while I was at it. Now that HA and I do the tree together (or not at all when we're spending the holiday in the Midwest), I listen to Patrick Stewart at other times. I think last year it was during the Christmas knitting. Maybe this year, it'll be while I make gifts that are not knitted. (I'll be doing little to no Christmas gift knitting this year. You heard it here first. But there will be some handmade stuff that will go more quickly.)

What little things do you need to get in the holiday spirit?

Don't forget the contest I'm running until December 9. Leave a comment, possibly mentioning what ads came with this post, and you get an entry to win a box of stuff. The contents of the box will be determined by the winner, but I can promise that there will be cookies.

Unscheduled Brush with Fame

The wristwarmers I knit a coupla years ago are included in a round up of projects made with Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca D.K. yarn on the Plymouth Yarn blog.

So, yea!

The pattern is Rose's Wristwarmers, which were copied from the ones Rose wears on the beach in Scandinavia during that very dramatic scene on Doctor Who. You Whovians know the one.

Since I'm allergic to alpaca and therefore to those lovely wristers, I made a second pair for myself in manmade, non itchy fibers and I lurve them. I haven't bothered photographing them, so just picture the ones above in light green.

Remember the contest. Every comment before Dec 9 enters you to win a box of stuff, specific to what you're into.

Bowing to the Inevitable

Conversation I had with my cousin Sarah yesterday at a baby shower.

Sarah: Are you a Twilight person?

Me: No. I mean, I keep up with it because I like to stay on top of pop culture. I read the first book and saw the movie and I'm going to read the second book. I don't know anything about Jacob as a boyfriend, but I'm on Team Jacob because Edward is such a bad, stalkery boyfriend.

Sarah: [nods in agreement]

Me: [Silently relieved because if she were on Team Edward, the conversation could've gotten ugly and lengthy.]

Sarah: If you know about Team Jacob, then you're a Twilight person.

Damn, there goes my And Then Buffy Staked Edward, The End superiority complex. I officially know too much about Twilight to pretend that I'm above the whole thing and ignoring it completely.

But here's my thoughts on unhealthy human/vamp relationships.

Buffy & Angel: All teenage girls want to date the broody guy. We get over it. (I say that the whole moment of perfect happiness thing is kinda outweighed by all. the. fucking. brooding. By the age of 25, she'd be so over that shit.)

Buffy & Spike: Fucking your vampire stalker is exactly the sort of fucked up thing that someone does when they're going through some really fucked up emotional shit, which Buffy was at the time. Even he knew he was Mr. Right Now, which makes it OK.

Bella & Edward: Dating your vampire stalker is the sort of thing that you do when you're young and haven't dated much and he's kinda hot. And then you grow out of it.

Grown adults swooning over Edward (or Spike, for that matter) and holding him up as the ideal boyfriend: Indicative of exactly how fucked up people are, and a little embarrassing to the rest of us who just want to ogle Taylor Lautner's underage torso in peace.

And by the way, the only time Spike watched Buffy sleep was this one time, after they had already done it loads of times and she had given him permission to share the bed with her. Which means Edward is a worse boyfriend than Spike.

As Sarah & I agreed: If a guy is watching you sleep while trying to decide if he wants to date you or eat you--that's a dealbreaker, ladies!

Permanent Mistakes

Via Spankcracker, which has nothing to do with Spanksgiving (though I hope you all had a good one), I have discovered Ugliest Tattoos, the Gallery of Regrets.

Go forth and look and just imagine that people are wearing these on their skin permanently. At least some of them have no regrets at all.

Though the Robocop riding a My Little Pony unicorn? Ten kinds of awesome.

Which one is your favorite? Perhaps I should say, which one disturbed you the most?

The ones that are placed to peek over the top of the undies freak me out far more than is necessary.

**Don't forget the contest that runs until December 9. Leave a comment, possibly mentioning the amusingness of the Goodle Ad served up with a post, and you get entered in a giveaway of a box of stuff that will include cookies. The more you comment, the more chances you have to win. I should probably mention that the cookies will probably be imported from Japan, so that's cool. There will also be novelty salt & pepper shakers. Depending on who wins, I'll throw in some craft supplies or chocolate or whatever. In honor of WKRP in Cincinnati, there will be a tube of lip balm.