Alien Spouse

Three Men on a Blog.

When writing a blog you also tend to be a regular reader of other blogs, and then you tend to find yourself experiencing post envy.  Sometimes the blog you are reading is about a lifestyle that you wish you had, but more usually the envious reaction is triggered by a nicely turned phrase, or a particularly good observation, an excellent joke or even just a well chosen subject.

The reading blogger then thinks to themselves "Damn it!  I noticed [...Fill in suitably fascinating observation here...] too, but did I write about it?  No!  I wrote a post about how my cat chatters at the birds when they land on the bird feeder, as if no other cat has ever exhibited this behavior!"

To add to my feelings of blog envy, I have recently been reading "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" by Jerome K. Jerome.  It is a damned shame that man died in 1927, because that necessarily means he couldn't have even considered the possibility of the existence of blogs, and yet, I firmly believe, he would have been a phenomenal blogger.

It's quite something to be envying the blogging capabilities of a man who has been dead for over 80 years, especially as you'd think observational comedy from 103 years ago would lose a little something, but it is still hilarious.  Not to mention free to download from the Guttenberg Project (if you are in the USA, if in other countries your copyright laws may vary), which is another distinct point in it's favour.

A Little Harsh.

After work today I was reading "Crazy Aunt Purl" and Laurie blogged a post about how much she likes Thom Felicia and his new show "Dress My Nest" on the Style channel (Well, it starts off about that, and then she segues into earthquakes and their lack of effect on her cats).

I clicked the link that Laurie provided, because naturally I *heart* all of the Fab Five, and follow their post-Queer careers closely.  Then I used the zip code checker to see if I could watch the show.

And the website said "Sorry to report, your area has no Style".

Oh Sweetie!  Tell me something I don't know!

Note to Spammers.

Hi! 

I know that I've decided not to moderate my comments, because, hello, I'm not Dooce, I only get 4 or 5 comments a week, so I can cope with monitoring them when they get published; however this is not an open invitation to start spamming me.

I have a few regular commentators, and so when I see a new name I click on it, if it takes me to a website for a business and, unless that business is relevant to the post and the comment left, then I am deleting the comment.  If, to take this morning's example, I have written a post about sandwiches, your comment is about oatmeal cookie dough ice cream and the URL you supply appears to be a site selling a pricing gun or something, then I am going to delete it.

Indeed I have no problem taking down my  own posts if they seem to be attracting too many random google hits.  My New Year's Eve post became wildly popular with a couple of Google bots recently and so I took it down until Typepad assured me that was normal.  And then I felt as though I had been overly paranoid, but damn it, I am paying for the domain name, I am paying to blog here and I am not about to let spammers jump on-board like a bunch of fleas to suck all the free advertising revenue they can get.  It annoys me.

So, please, if you have something fun to share with the group by all means do, I like comments (even if I am shockingly bad at responding to them, I'm even worse at answering e-mails.  It's my secret shame.) but if you are here to litter the place with spam then I am going to delete you and report the comment to Typepad as spam so they can work out a nice little software fix to block you.

Thanks!

Extended Sentence.

Recently I've been getting breathless letters from domain name providers letting me know that my registration of Alien Spouse was due to run out!  In March!  That's only three months away!  Oh My God!  Hurray!  Sign up with us now!  Ignore the fact that this letter came completely unsolicited from a company you never heard of before!  Send us money!

I waited until my actual domain name provider sent me a polite and calm e-mail reminder, then I popped over there and registered Alien Spouse Dot Com for another two years.

Looks like you're stuck with me for a bit longer.

She Doesn't Have a Bad Angle, Darling.

So I am pretty sure Edith can read and logs onto the computer after we've gone to bed. 

I think this mainly because almost as soon as I wrote a post saying that I don't want to write about the cats quite as much she decided to pose on the stairs in a patch of sunlight with the shadows from the Christmas decorations behind her.

Which was pretty impossible to ignore, so I took some photos instead.

Edith actually sat there and waited until I had run past her to get my camera, and then she let me take two shots before miaowing at me and running over to me for some fuss.

I think she'd proved her point.
 

2009! Let's Go!

Hello, and Welcome to 2009!  If you will look to your right you will note the new NaBloPoMo badges in the sidebar; one announcing that I successfully blogged everyday in December, and the other indicating that I fully intend to do the same thing in January!

So far every time I've put those buttons up in the sidebar I have had a small panic because I can never remember how I did it last time, but when I put the new ones up this morning I couldn't find the instructions and I just worked it out for myself.  Hoorah for trial and error!

Other projects for this year include learning to drive on the wrong side of the road, crocheting a creepy/cute amigurami, and making a short video of Edith to record one of her more eccentric but definitely charming habits.  We shall have to see if she feels like performing to command, but since she adores getting any sort of attention I am fairly confident she will.

Today I plan to get to know my new phone better (I will be posting the story behind how I finally got it, but I didn't want to start the new year on a rant), and maybe try to work out a way of making my own non obnoxious ring tones.  So there will be a lot of tinny electronic music in my house today, which will absolutely delight Edith if no-one else.  My favourite ever phone let me record a sound-bite with it, and then set that as a ring tone, so I had Fred Astaire tap dancing as my ring tone for ages.  I can also highly recommend having the sound of the TARDIS as your ring tone, which I downloaded it from the BBC website, but I'm not sure if you can outside of the UK.  That was a great ring tone because every time my phone rang people would literally stop in their tracks and look around hopefully, it was as if for one split second they believed Dr Who might be real.  Which would be brilliant!

Blogger's Lament.

It's New Year's Eve and as we are approaching 2009 it's a time to take stock and, I have to be honest here,  I'm not particularly chuffed with how Alien Spouse has been over the last few months. 

What happened was that I mentioned that I blog to someone I didn't know particularly well, and I sent her a link.  She then proceeded to tell a bunch of other people.  Who I work with. 

Actually she told them before I even got the job.  She suggested they read my blog when they were, in fact, preparing to interview me because my blog is just "so funny!"; I only found this out after I got the job, when they all assured me they hadn't read it.  When one of them first mentioned it to me I honestly felt my heart stop for a moment as my mind raced to think of anything that I might not want them to have read and I did go back and edit some of my archives.

Now it's always been a rule of mine that I don't blog about work directly anyway, but somehow knowing that your Departmental Director might just be bored one day and decide to check out what you've been blogging about recently really makes me think twice about sharing my thoughts on some subjects.  I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do that, but I can't know for certain, particularly as I must admit that if I knew one of my colleagues had a blog you can bet your bootstraps I would read it.  And please don't think for a moment that this is because I don't like any of the people in my office, they honestly do all rock!  But since knowing they are aware of Alien Spouse I have felt slightly uncomfortable, purely because I don't really know them very well yet, and I would have preferred to be the one who told them about my blog if I wanted to.  I suppose it's mainly that I am wary of offending anyone inadvertently, because I make a joke on my blog that they don't find funny, or that I'm having a bad day and rant about something that I don't think is in any connected to them, but, because this is a very small town, it turns out I'm actually saying something rude about their cousin.

Of course I know full well that this isn't controversial blog by any stretch of the imagination, it's written mainly for my mother's entertainment after all, but I certainly never meant for it to be primarily about my cats!  I was envisioning the odd cameo when they did something particularly cute, but lately they have taken over and  I don't want to write a crazy cat lady blog  (Although Nancy actually just play fought with me!  It's a breakthrough!  She even rabbit kicked!).

I'm not sure what to do about this situation, hence this slightly passive-aggressive post on the subject.  I haven't told anyone at work that I would feel uncomfortable knowing they read this, because that would probably be the quickest way to raise their curiosity about it, but I've kept an eye on my stats and there don't seem to be any new local readers lurking so I'm assuming they've simply forgotten all about it. 

It's funny how over time the sense of anonymity has become something I really wish I had protected more.  At first it seemed restrictive, but now that a large chunk of it has just been removed without my being able to do a thing about it, I realise how liberating it really was to have the opportunity to say pretty much anything I wanted.  It's most frustrating.  So much so that I have created a secret side project blog where I go off to scream rude words occasionally.  And, no, I'm not telling anyone where it is.

I may have said too much already.

Bacon!

Megg over at Quiddity had the Baconiser (she got it from sf signal, and they got it from Whatever and he got it from Bacolicio.  And I think that's the complete chain off attributions, I don't know where Kevin Bacon fits in, but surely he must!), and I thought it was funny.  So click here to Baconise Alien Spouse!

And, yes, I am still vegetarian and have been for fifteen years, but funny is funny!

Not So Constant Comments.

On a blog housekeeping note, I've been beta testing the new Typepad Connect comments accounts and I had some feedback asking what the heck was going on!

Well the idea was that you could sign up for a Typepad Connect account which keeps track of your comments, and when people click on your user ID it takes you to a profile page.  If you comment on my blog when signed in that way anyone can then click on your ID and see where else you have commented, and that might introduce them to a new blog or just give them a better idea of who you are (Not your name and address or anything like that, just a better idea of your personality).  Setting up an account also means that you can select an image to have next to your comment instead of those spirograph images, although I do think those are pretty cool.  Essentially it's a way of creating ownership of comments, and making commenting much more of a community thing.

However I found that people didn't like having to set up an account, and it seems a bit buggy in relation to non-typepad blogs, so I've played with the settings so that you don't have to sign in to a Connect account anymore.  I mean you can if you would like, and I do use mine because it's just a really nifty idea, but it's not mandatory on Alien Spouse!

Comments will still require a name and an e-mail address, but I have also decided not to moderate so  they should now come up straight away.  Although, please note, any comment that doesn't meet my strict guidelines (on both commenting and chocolate) will still be smite down with a stroke of the mighty delete key.

Abby, I'm looking at you.

I Made Christmas!

Look!  I made mince pies!

I literally just made them, they are still warm and they are delicious with a cup of tea.  I am actually even still wearing my Buckingham Place Pinny, that is how fresh these are!

At this point I would like to give a shout out to Jayne The Barefoot Kitchen Witch (Who is now twittering too, which is great!).  I was following a Nigella recipe and Nigella's instructions on pastry making involve using a mixer and she specifically says that is the best way of doing it.  Great; except I I do not have a mixer.

Fortunately sometime ago Jayne mentioned in a post that she had used a pastry blender to make pastry manually; they look a bit like a potato masher, but not really and I am here to tell you that pastry blenders ROCK!

In all honesty I do need to do something to the mincemeat to bring it up to M&S standard; but I did buy my mincemeat in a jar in an American supermarket and Americans do not make mince pies, so I wasn't expecting perfection.  And, really, these are quite acceptable until I can get my hands on a bottle of brandy or something.  What does M&S add to their pies these days?

How Bettie Page Saved Christmas NaBloPoMo.

Bettie Page saved me from skipping a day of NaBloPoMo posting because I was so sad to read that she had died that I posted first thing in the morning, which is unusual for me.  I meant to post after work as well, but we were going for drinks at a friends house, and I was so tired (is it just me or has this been a really long week?) that before we left I opted to take a nap.  Doc said he'd wake me in 10 minutes, but acually I got in 25 minutes of Zzzz Zzzz Zzzz before he came to get me.  It was a lovely nap.  

In case you have ever wondered about my position on napping I can tell you that I am in favour of them, and I particularly like to curl up fully clothed on top of of the bed covers with an extra pillow and a light cotton throw for maximum napping efficiency.

I read a very interesting article about napping here.  I have since taken the advice to heart and will nap on the sofa in Doc's office at lunch time occaisionally.  It's not ideal, because it's a two person sofa, and I really am more of a three-to-four person length woman so there is some small difficulty in getting optimum comfort.

Anyway, so after my nap I just had time to get changed, put on some lip stain (Benetint: Making me look less washed out since 2006) and rush out of the door.  It was a great to be out on a Friday night and we were introduced to some really nice people, who I believe I will be facebook friending later today.  It was so much fun, but by the time we got home it was almost one.  So if I hadn't posted that morning, this experiment in blogging keepie uppie would have ended in failure.

And that is how Bettie Page saved Christmas NaBloPoMo.

At Long Last Fabulosity is Mine!

Last night Doc C was unwell, and this morning I have to be at work early for much overdue budget training.  And it's Tuesday.  sigh.

With these less than glamorous aspects of daily life to book end it, it is particularly sweet to have garnered extra bonus fabulosity points for identifying Planet Fabulon's latest Mysterion correctly!  Thank you Thombeau, and thank you Goldie!

Welcome Home Thombeau!

Can I just say how nice it is to have Planet Fabulon back up?

I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind readers that whilst Fabulon may not be safe for work or around small children (it's not unsafe for small children, but it could generate some awkward questions), it does provide you with 100% of your recommended daily amount of Vitamin Glamour.

NaBloPoMo: Complete!

I have completed NaBloPoMo 2008!  Look I've even got the badge in the right-hand side bar.

In fact you may also have noticed the yellow and pink NaBloPoMo December badge just above that, well that is because November was just so much fun, that I think I will keep going.  Let's see how long I can sustain it for!  It'll be like blog posting keepie uppie!

I'd love to manage a whole year, but that might be a little ambitious; my main hope is that the cats really step up and start doing something very entertaining.

The theme for December is "Thanks!" and let's kick off by saying thanks to my Mother, who I know read every single one of the November posts.  That's one of the things they don't warn you about before you have kids.

I am iBlogging!

The first application I downloaded? Typepad, naturally!

Three is the Magic Number.

I would like to publicly state that all book giveaways conducted by Jayne The Barefoot Kitchen Witch are fairly conducted and totally above board.  Any doubt that I may have cast on the proceedings of the last such contest were entirely unfounded as Jayne clearly illustrated in this post.

Furthermore I wish to apologise to Jayne and, of course, the adjudicators Alex and Julia for impugning their good name in anyway.  They are beyond reproach.

Please note:  No butlers were harmed in the course of this re-count.

Catnip on a Sunday Morning.

This morning my benevolent overlords Edith and Nancy, let me sleep in until almost half past eight!  I don't know why they felt so generous, but it was very pleasant.

After I'd tended to their needs I got out the catnip and put some in Edith's cardboard box for her.  It's a box that we got a delivery of paperbacks from Amazon in, and it fits Edith perfectly, especially now she's destroyed one corner.  She rolled around in that happily being a lunatic for a bit, whilst I took photos to submit to "Stuff On My Cat" (Keep your fingers crossed!).

Nancy has never seemed that bothered about nip, so I don't usually give her any, but this morning she expressed an interest so I put some on the floor for her.  Unsurprisingly for a cat nicknamed Piggy Big Eyes, she settled down and just ate the lot with no perceptible change in demeanor.

So those are our cats.  One eats everything and the other is an I Can Has Ceezburger stereotype.  In fact, please feel free to suggest a LOL Cat style slogan for this shot of Edith from this morning.

p.s. If your wondering why Edith is having more pictures posted of her, it's not because we have a favourite; it's because Nancy still has an allergy to something and has scratched off a lot of fur from her head just in front of her ears.  I still think she's adorable, but she's a sensitive girl and probably wouldn't want photos of herself not looking her best being put on-line.

Even Though, Really, Blogging is It's Own Reward.

Just so you know I have signed up for this year's NaBloPoMo.

That means I will be blogging every day through out November.  Which is pretty much what I would have done anyway, so there should be no perceptible change to our scheduled programming; although I am hoping that being part of a big group blogging event like this inspires me to write about something other than cat poo, and I am reasonably confident that you are hoping that too.

You may already be aware of this, but you can do NaBloPoMo any month you like now, but November is still the big one with prizes for different categories.  I'll be brutally honest here and say I would absolutely love to win a prize for blogging, that would be brilliant! 

Actually I'd love to win something full stop; I spent ten minutes filling out a questionnaire for the University's library last week, even though I have yet to check out a book from it or use it to do anything except attend meetings.  I did it purely because they e-mailed the thing to me and said I would be entered into a prize draw for an iPod Touch if I graded their performance on a scale of one to ten. 

Alright then, I'd say you were, oooh, about an 8 as far as Libraries-that-I-don't-use go.  Could perhaps do a little bit better, but you're not bad at all really.  Carry on!

If the Presidential Debate Ends in a Walk Off, I will be KICKING Myself.

So the second presidential debate is on this evening, at the same time as the "Project Runway" season five finale. 
Obviously I'm going to be watching "Project Runway", and I thought I may as well live blog it!

If you haven't been watching the show and you want to play along at home you can go to the show's website here, or the Fug Girls attended the Bryan Park show and actually handicapped the contestants in New York Magazine.  They have pictures of the runway show, bless their coal black hearts.

If you'd rather follow the debate, may I direct you to Defective Yeti?  Matthew Baldwin is live blogging this debate, and I can virtually guarantee you will find him immensely entertaining.

• 9.00 - I missed the first few seconds of the "Previously..." montage, but that's ok I'm up to speed.
• 9.03 - Tim Gunn's first appearance!  Hoorah!  Swiftly followed by Kenley-Disagrees-With-Tim shock.
• 9.17 - A model brought her puppy to a fitting and cleaned up the inevitable poop whilst wearing Leanne's evening gown.  It seemed a bit weirdly staged really.
• 9.20 - I would love to go accessory shopping with Korto, she has a great eye for a striking piece.
• 9.21 - Michelle Trachtenburg alert!
• 9.26 - Jennifer Lopez pulled out of judging the finale because of a foot injury.  When I first heard that I thought it was a joke, but, no, it's true.  Anyway Tim is doing it instead.  Kenley made a comment about how she should have worked on her attitude.  Umm, yeah, that might have been good.  Kenley starts the show.
• 9.28 - Shot of Rachel Zoe in the audience.  Nice product placement there Bravo!
• 9.34 - Korto's collection is a lot stronger with her new dresses.  Well played!
• 9.35 - Index tags!  That's what Leanne's collection reminds me of!  In a good way!
• 9.42 - Judging panel.  Let's hope Michael and Nina have been working out their bitchy muscles in preparation.
• 9.47 - Korto kicks off the crying for this evening with a few discreet tears, Leanne was completely self-possessed and under control but Kenley actually blubbered.
• 9.56 - Kenley's out. And crying again, and complaining about how unfair everything is.  Poor baby.
• 9.57 - Leanne wins Season Five!  And a hybrid car!  And Leanne's model wins her own magazine spread too, which is nice.
• 9.58 - Korto is the runner up, but we already know that she won the fan's favourite so she'll be getting $10 000 anyway and her little girl is super cute, so Korto's doing pretty well too.
• 9.59 - Is that it?  I feel like that was a bit of an anti-climax really.

Ok, well that's all for Alien Spouse's live coverage for tonight, but in real life I will now be watching "Top Design" with India Hicks.  I love Bravo...

The Current Economic Situation, And How It Is Effected By Hairballs.

I am watching the presidential debate, whilst playing with the cats.  It's surprisingly pretty similar, but I bet things would liven up if you dumped some cat nip on McCain and Obama.  Now that would be a debate worth watching!

By the way, Defective Yeti has live blogged the debates (and, indeed, is right now), and even if you haven't seen the debates they are really funny and insightful posts.

Comment from Abby: Deleted.

Ooh!  I just had my first vaguely unpleasant comment!  That's a real right of passage for a blogger!

The details are that apparently I "suck" and Malteasers "rule", which as insults go isn't particularly stinging; especially as I happen to be very secure in my own opinions on confectionery.  So, thanks for that perspective Abby, but you'll notice that I have deleted your comment.  Why?  Because this is my blog and, as I already suck, I may as well be a controlling cow too. 

Alien Spouse is not a forum for random strangers to fling drive-by insults at me, or anyone else.  This is precisely why I have that convoluted sign-in set up for comments, and why I'm moderating comments before posting them.  Perhaps this particular comment was meant as a joke, but as I don't know Abby I really have no idea how she meant her comment to be taken; and frankly to be told you suck, even in jest, first thing on a Monday morning is a bit bloody much.

To be clear I do not have a problem with constructive criticism or debate, but I definitely reserve the right to delete any comments left on my blog.  What gives me the power to censor the comments section?  The fact that I am the one paying for the server space, and because I would never do that to someone else, so I don't see why I should have to put up with it here.

And for the record, if Abby had actually bothered to read the post she commented on she would have noticed that I was saying that I personally believe that Malteasers are vastly superior to Whoppers.  In actual fact I believe that pretty much all generic UK chocolate is superior to generic US chocolate, because US chocolate, particularly Hershey's, tastes to me as if it had large quantities of parmesan cheese in it.  This, fortunately, doesn't apply to the high-end stuff like Green & Blacks and Love Chocolate, otherwise I would not be able to live here.

There, I've said it.  I've insulted Hershey's Chocolate.

Let's see what comments I get now!

Skins on BBC America (Sundays 10/9c)

Something unusual happened on Thursday, I had an e-mail from a nice lady called Daphne who works for BBC America and wondered if I would be interested in writing a post about "Skins".  I hasten to add that I am not being paid to write this, and, although I did use to work for the BBC, I no longer have any professional connections with them. 

That out of the way, here is a thirty second trailer (with what sounds like a middle aged American man doing the voice-over, which I find odd):

 "Skins" is a drama about a group of friends aged between 16 to 18 who live in Bristol, and although it's about to begin it's third season in the UK, it has only just reached the US.

As it happens I was very pleased to see that the show was coming, because I didn't really get to see much of it when I was living in London and it's good to get a second chance to see it.  The only reason I didn't watch the first two seasons the first time around was frankly because Doc C didn't want to watch it.  I think he was put off by the marketing, which is weird because that was precisely what I found fascinating.  It had a fantastic poster campaign (despite one image being banned after complaints), and the website emulated an internet social network idea to introduce all the characters.  Very clever I thought.  The BBC have used the same Facebook-esque format on their website for the show, and you can see that here.

So far I've seen two episodes that I hadn't seen previously, and I honestly enjoyed them both (Doc C, however, left the room).  Whilst I wouldn't say that it's my new favourite show, I would be interested to know what is going to happen next to the characters and I will try to see it again.  I particularly liked hearing the Bristol accent, and the fact that some, but not all, of the dialogue has been deemed in need of subtitles!  I can understand all of it perfectly, so to me it seems to be pretty much at random, but I'm sure it is just the thicker accents, or perhaps a more regional use of slang, that's being picked up on.

(Click on image to go to the Skins Flickr set)

If you are at all easily shocked by teenage sex, drugs and bad language than probably you won't like "Skins", (for example Doc C doesn't like it, because he doesn't think the characters have any moral sensibilty and seem unaware of how selfish their actions are).  However if you think you might enjoy watching a group of articulate intelligent teenagers who are definitely not the saccharine, boring, cardboard cut-outs of the "High School Musical" type, than just maybe this is a show you would like.  At the very least, it's nice to see a drama not set in London and the fine city of Bristol is most definitely worth a look.

"Skins" is showing on Sunday nights at 10pm/9c on BBC America, and/or is available to purchase on iTunes

Pause.

I have recently started reading a blog called Forty Three Folders, and they had a very interesting post today on why on-line social networking could do with a pause button.  You can read that post here, and I think it's very interesting.

Networking on-line and electronic communication is becoming so ubiquitous, that you can join Face Book support groups for pretty much anything, and sign up to be texted with the latest news on presidential candidates.  With over 175,000 new blogs being created every day, there is now even an on-line magazine from Typepad to help blog readers get an overview of what is going on out there on the net.

It made me think about how I approach my on-line presence, and indeed blogging.  I post here every day, and I think, necessarily, the blog posts I write have peaks and troughs of success.  So sometimes I'm very happy with my posts and I think they work and sometimes I'm just convinced that the entire internet can hear the bottom of that barrel being scraped. 

I still want to stick to posting every day, and that is because I want to get into the habit of writing something every single day and I also want to post pictures because I want to observe where I am every single day.

Ixnay on the Objay

Just to keep you in the loop, I thought I'd confirm that I will be maintaining radio silence about the day-to-day details of my new job, which has been my general policy on the subject since I started blogging; because I don't think it's an appropriate subject for me to be cracking jokes about. 

Plus I discovered yesterday that my manager and colleagues knew all about Alien Spouse before I even interviewed for the job (they hadn't read it though), which is, you know, something to bear in mind. 

I will say that everyone has been lovely, and although there is a lot of information for me still to process about the job, I can quite confidently say they will be keeping me busy.  For example this morning I had some accounting training, then I helped choose a cake (Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cake, with the department's name in dark yellow icing) for an event next week, and in the afternoon I sat in on a branding meeting, which was fascinating.

So it's all good, and that is the last I shall say on the matter.

Three Cheers for the Excellent Engineers at Typepad!

I'm very pleased to say that the Typepad engineers have fixed the issue I've been having with some of the categories. 

Even better they managed to connect the broken links (or whatever had happened) so the Green Card and Visa Category points back at all 64 of the posts I'd designated as falling under that heading.  I was really not looking forward to trawling the archives to re-categorise those posts, and now I don't have to!  Hooray! 

Even better Typepad are giving me a free month of blogging to compensate for the issues I've been having, which I really wasn't expecting them to do.  

All in all I feel particularly warm and fuzzy towards the Typepad help-desk, and their good friends the IT genii today.  They rock.

Preliminary to Our City Break.

We are all packed and the bags are in the back of the mini ready for us to go to Washington DC.  I've packed the laptop, the Skype headset, the camera leads and every single recharger cable I could lay my hands on.  I have the technology and I will be blogging whilst we are away, but I can't commit to my usual two posts a day because I may well be having too much fun!

At the moment I'm blogging from Doc's office while I wait for The Doc to finish teaching his last class and then we will leave town for the weekend.  In the meantime I nipped back to my old desk to do one or two things that I had forgotten about that I felt needed to be taken care of.  You see?  I am a very responsible employee!

I was planning to leave you with a nice picture to look at whilst we are on the road. Unfortunately the pictures I was going to post were all out of focus, which is annoying.  You will just have to see pictures of the fabulous, framed, Day-of-the-Dead wedding diorama (which includes an adorable skeleton dog) that Randy and Laura brought back from Mexico for us.  I think it was the reflections on the glass that confused my poor little point and shoot, so I'm confident that I can get a good picture once I fiddle around with some lighting.

Oh, I think I forgot to mention where we will be staying.  Doc C is great at finding on-line deals on travel and accommodation, so he was clicking around and found a four star hotel for $90 a night.  Bargain.  So we will be in the Hilton, which is two blocks away from the White House!  We looked at their website and it looks really nice; the only thing I was slightly confused by was why they had a Presidential Suite when they are only two blocks away from the White House.  Is that where the President goes when he has a row with the First Lady and is sent to sleep in the spare room?

Another Twelve Months of Alien Spouse: Paid For!

I was paying some bills on-line, and I decided to pay my Typepad bill for the next year.  Previously I was paying month to month, but as I'm pretty certain I'll be blogging for a while to come, I thought I may as well pay for the year and get two months for free.

Hoorah for bulk buying!

I Blame Online Poker.

I'm sorry that I'm posting so late in the day, but you see Doc C played on-line poker for 16 hours straight, and out-right refused to let me have internet access.

Ok, that's not strictly true.  In fact he was writing a lecture about feminism, and he refused to let me have the computer.

Well, I suppose it's probably more accurate to say that he was writing a lecture on feminism and occasionally interrupted my enjoyment of "Law and Order" to check whether I was feeling oppressed and to ask for my opinions on the education of women and some snippets of appropriate celebrity gossip.

And if I'd asked he actually would have let me use the computer, because he is a sweetheart like that, but crocheting got away with me again.  What can I tell you?  It's absorbing, especially when paired with a good detective drama.

 

Remove the Ginger Cat and Voila!

Garfield Minus Garfield is being turned into a book!  And apparently Jim Davis who created Garfield really likes it!

I feel all warm and fuzzy.  I love when things I like become more successful then one would have thought and I was so worried that Jim Davis might lawyer up and do to GWG what Hasbro have done to Scrabulous.

Brain DJ.

This morning I was perusing Fabulon on the laptop at home before we left for work (If you don't know Fabulon I should say that it's brilliant, with the occasional not entirely safe for work moment), and Doc C likes to read that over my shoulder, so we both ended up watching an early 80s music video from someone called Ellen Foley.  The video was weirdly great, the song not so much our cup of tea and inevitably the chorus got stuck in Doc's head.

As you know the only way to get rid of a song stuck in your head, is either to hear it again or listen to something even more catchy.  It was therefore my job to find another, more acceptable, ear-worm to replace the song I'd inadvertently jammed into the Doc's cranium, and so on the way to work I played a carefully selected play list of songs.  To kick off I went with The Red Hot Chili Peppers version of "Love Roller-coaster" (which has an excellent use of kazoo), followed by as much of the latest Kylie album as we could fit in, making sure we heard both "Two hearts" and "Boombox" because they are quite possibly the ear-wormiest.

It was a very fun journey to the office today.

Twits.

I've added a Twitter widget, because all the cool kids have got one and, you know, I was bored at work.

It's in the right hand sidebar, which is the official sidebar of externally sourced widgetry.  If you really wanted to you could follow Alien Spouse's Twitters, just click where it says "Follow Me on Twitter", but really it's going to be exactly the same type of thing as the blog but in 160 characters or less.  Which could be an improvement.

Three Paragraphs About CSI.

The other evening I was flipping through the channels trying to decide what to watch on television, when Doc said, in a very firm tone, that he wished to watch some sort of detective drama involving a team led by a slightly grumpy, and yet charismatic, middle aged man.  As such he declared that he would accept "CSI", "CSI:NY" (occaisionally referred to in the AS house as CSI: Star Trek, because they have the best gadgets.), "Without a Trace" or "Criminal Minds".  (I probably could have got away with "Law and Order: Criminal Intent", or at a push "Numb3rs", but those weren't specifically name checked by The Doc.  "Numb3rs" is the point at which our love of detective procedurals begins to diverge; I think it's fun, he thinks it's daft.) 

Having expressed his entertainment requirements Doc paused for a moment, and then said he would also accept "CSI: Miami".  Up until quite recently, both of us would have refused point blank to watch "CSI: Miami", but we have discovered a gleeful joy in mocking Caruso's one note performances.  Does everyone do this?  I can't otherwise fathom why "CSI: Horatio's Shades" would have the best viewing figures of the three; what with all those portentous pauses whilst H stares off into the middle distance and then totally kills whatever puntastic line he's been given.  Excruciating, and yet somehow highly amusing.  I also learned recently from a particularly bizarre episode that bloggers love to hide insider dealing information within posts of bitchy gossip.  I can't find the Typepad encryption application to do that, so if I do ever get any secret insider dealing hot tips I'll just have to tell you straight out.

Fortunately "CSI: Original Flavour" was on, and it was a back-to-back screening of the four noir-ish episodes in which Grissom is on sabbatical and so new guy Keppler (played brilliantly by Leiv Schreiber) is in charge of the unit.  I was reminded of how great those episodes were, in fact I would even say that though I am naturally very concerned about William Petersen leaving, the Keppler episodes reassure me some what that "CSI" will continue to be great.

Techy.

You may have noticed that I have changed search engine.  That's because the old one vanished and when I went to the developers website to find out why, it looks like they have shut up shop over night.  Most mysterious!

But no matter, as it happens I think I prefer the new search engine which is from Lijit.com; I like that it was already green fitting in nicely with the Alien Spouse aesthetic, I like that if you've arrived via a search it suggests other posts on the same subject and I especially like the "Surprise Me!" feature.  Click on that and it will take you to a random page, it's like having your MP3 player on shuffle, and who doesn't love that?

After putting up the new widget I also reorganised the columns, so that the left hand column wasn't having to communicate with third party web content providers and that should mean Alien Spouse will load a little bit faster.

Musicals ROCK!

Over the weekend I watched "Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" (which is no longer streaming for free, but you can download it from ITunes.  and I might just have to) and "Mamma Mia", the tunes from both of which are on random shuffle in my head. 

For the whole of this morning when I haven't been singing about how my freeze-ray will stop the world, I'm humming the chorus to "Does Your Mother Know".

This is MUCH more fun than it sounds.

These Things Come in Threes.

Augh! 

As I believe Asterix would say in moments of stress.  I've somehow managed to disable one of the categories, unfortunately it's the Green Card and Visa category.  So, you  know, arguably the one part of this blog that had an actual useful purpose.  What happens now if you click on that category is that it just takes you to the main page, and that's it.

I knew today wasn't going to be good when that bug ambushed me in the car, and then I nearly stepped on a dead bird.

Don't Look at Me, I'm Shy.

Yesterday was quite exciting in that Alien Spouse had it's largest ever number of hits (all looking for that post about the underskirt!), but the only problem with that is that today I have stage fright.

There are several subjects I was considering writing about:

• How excited I am that someone particularly lovely is planning to visit us in September.  Hoorah!
• Why I'm not going to hear anything until August about that job I interviewed for last week, and how waiting for news like that makes me a little bit anxious.
• The inappropriateness of wearing a tartan mini-skirt to a career networking thingy, however informal it may indeed be. Which led me to ponder how very glad I am that I own a nice knee-length pencil skirt or two. 
• The appalling customer service of certain credit card company that rhymes with Gnarklycard
• A good old fashioned "Aren't Friday's the best thing ever?"

All of which certainly do deserve a nice post in their own right, but I just can't seem to make them funny enough today!

Even more frustratingly, the one really funny thing I did think of is a story I reluctantly came to realise is one I should not fling out onto the web to fend for itself, because it would undoubtedly wander off with completely the wrong person.  Which would be bad, although potentially hilarious.

sigh.

Sometimes it's not easy writing a semi-anonymous blog about living in a small American town where not a lot happens, but, damn it, that's the task I've set myself and I shall simply struggle on bravely.  I am British, you know.

Technical Issues.

I love blogging with Typepad, I really do, and I appreciate that right now they are in the midst of some upgrades and that can mean some technical issues.  However: Why is it when I suddenly get a lot of traffic that the spell check closes up shop entirely?  I clearly have no idea how to spell maraschino (Marischino?) for starters, and that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for a new visitor.  Although what a camel with internet access is doing reading blogs I really don't know.

Anyway...

Hi New People!  Usually things are spelt correctly round here, I promise!  Please come again!

Congratulations! You Are Alien Spouse's 1000th Post!

You know Alien Spouse is over a year old now, and I've actually just written my thousandth post.  To be honest I'm not exactly sure which one was the 1000th, because I have a few unpublished posts floating around that are screwing up my numbers.  For the sake of simplicity, let's just say it's this one!

That is a lot of talking isn't it?  Wow, I hope at least some of that verbiage was entertaining!

I think I need a nap.

Gadgets.

First of all let me just confirm that the shower seems to be working entirely as normal, and I'm my usual fragrant self.

I have a new and exciting blog widget (that's the technical term, honestly!) which is in the left hand column underneath the list of archives.  It tells you where visitors to Alien Spouse are in the world and how they came to be viewing the blog, so if they came directly to the site, or found it via a search engine, that sort of thing.  It's sort of fascinating to see how much information a website gets from your computer when you click on it; were I feeling paranoid I'd regard it as being very big brother but I'm enjoying being nosy, so I currently think it's really nifty!

I was clicking around the net yesterday and read about CitiKitty, which is a gadget designed to help train your cat to use the toilet.  It's based on the Charles Mingus method of toilet training a cat; yes, the musician and composer Charles Mingus trained his cat Nightlife to use the toilet.  This may well be the thing that has got Doc C to even consider this idea!

I'd seen CitiKitty advertised before and just ignored, because I've always had outdoor cats who didn't require a litter tray.  Now, as I may have mentioned, we are planning to re-home two cats, but they are going to have to be indoor cats for a whole host of reasons.  We could put a litter tray in the downstairs bathroom, but we're not keen on that idea because that bathroom is too small for a covered tray.  The only alternative would be a covered tray in the living room, but the only large enough areas of space are either right next to a heater (Stinky!), or right next to the kitchen (Germy!).  If CitiKitty works as the company website suggests then we couldtrain the cats to use the downstairs toilet instead.  I hate scooping poopy litter, so I'm quite keen on the idea particularly as it's only $30, so it might be worth getting one just for the comedy value.  My question is:  Have any of you successfully trained your cats to use the toilet, or do you know someone who has?

A Study in Green and Yellow. With Ice.

I was browsing through my blog reading list, and I found this fabulous idea for drinking gin with just ice and cucumbers. 

That sounded lovely, but too strong for my tastes.  However we did happen to have a cucumber in the fridge, so I made myself a G&T with ice, lemon and several slices of cucumber.

It tastes nice, it looks pretty and it smells deliciously cool too.  An added bonus is that you get a nice little snackette of gin soaked cucumbers on ice to nibble on when you've finished your drink.

Lovely.

That's My Excuse, And I'm Sticking To It.

Typepad recently rolled out a new compose editor which I've been using for a few days now, and it is generally an improvement to the blogging experience.

However the spell check sometimes flatly refuses to stop running the spell check to report back to me which words are actually incorrect, which means I sometimes I'm forced to simply close the page without the spelling having been corrected.

Also, now when the spell checker works it tries to change all the correct UK English spellings to the US English spellings.  Which means a lot more "Z"s and far fewer "U"s.  Naturally I'm trying to resist this, but one or two may slide through occasionally.

So if you notice any glaring errors, that would be why.

It Really Is A Very Small World.

I was reading A Dress A Day, as I am wont to do the very second my feed reader alerts me to a new post, and today Erin was writing about a swatch of fabric she had just received.  This was especially exciting as it was a pattern that she had had custom printed, and had designed herself.

The company that offers this service is called Spoonflower, and they have a website (currently invitation only, whilst they are in the Beta phase) that allows you to upload your own fabric pattern design which they will then print for you.

I love that idea (I fully intend to sew something one day, and designing my own fabric for that would be amazing), so I clicked on the link and had a pootle around their blog.  I was delighted to find out that they are based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina!

It's so weird to me that just a couple of years ago that would have meant precisely nothing to me, and now I know exactly where they are, and I am really excited that such a creative venture is starting out in the state I live in!

The world.  It is teeny and tiny, and full of cool things.

Wait, Let Me Check My Blog...

When a resident alien, such as myself, moves house they have to let USCIS know within ten days; failure to report a change of address is "...punishable by fine or imprisonment and/or removal."  So I did that yesterday, and all it really requires is filling in a form on-line.  Easy.

It's not a complicated form, I was fine with the past and present addresses, and even my alien ID number; but when asked the date of my last entry into the US and my port of entry I had one of those moments.  I knew the answers to those questions, I really did, but for a few seconds I doubted myself and I certainly did not want to make a mistake on a form required by the US Government on pain of fine or imprisonment and/or removal.  It might not look good.

That is when keeping a blog came into it's own.  I opened up another window, went to Alien Spouse and was confidently filling out those official boxes within moments.

Thanks Alien Spouse!  It's like having an actual memory!

Crumpets!

Before setting off to Boston I e-mailed The Barefoot Kitchen Witch to ask if she had ever made crumpets, because I'm very much missing crumpets with marmite and cheese, and all the recipes I've found seem to indicate this is a horribly complicated endeavour.  The Barefoot Kitchen Witch approach to cooking is very reassuring, and I thought if anyone could explain how to do this it would be Jayne.  She e-mailed back to say she hadn't yet tried crumpets, but that she'd give them a whirl sometime.

And then she got out her mixing bowl.

The next time I looked her masthead featured two perfect crumpets on a pretty china plate.  Yum!  In fact, she's very helpfully road tested two different recipes, and included photographs of the whole process.

That Jayne, she is damned good.

Sidebar Re-Design - Complete (Well, Until I fiddle With it Some More.)

Do you see the re-organised sidebars? 

Do you see the shiny new Flickr display panel? 

Doesn't that one single photo look lonely there all by itself?

The panel will have ten pictures at most, and it will just be the most recent pictures.I suppose I could have uploaded a bunch of the previous pictures, but I decided to start afresh from today.  Also I think I'll probably upload to Flickr once a week rather than daily, this is supposed to make things easier not create more work after all.

Ooh, ooh!  Do you see the search engine in the left hand column? 

So you can actually, you know, search Alien Spouse for, um, cupcakes and my opinions on kittens.  I'm loving these widget thingies.

Alien Spouse on Flickr

I uploaded some photos to my Flickr account, and hit my free account's photo-stream limit of two hundred.  So I decided to delete some of the shots that I didn't like anymore rather than pay to upgrade to a pro account.  It's not that expensive to get a pro account so I probably will eventually, but right now any fees that I can avoid are being avoided.

Then I realised that quite a lot of the recent pictures were shots I'd posted on Alien Spouse, and it dawned on me that what I should do is set up a separate Alien Spouse Flickr account.

So I did.  It is here.

Then I can post the good daily photos to that, take down the photo thumbnails from the right hand column of Alien Spouse and install a Flickr widget there instead.  That way I can configure the columns in the way I want and still have some images up too.

I have no idea why this didn't occur to me before.

The First Year.

I just realised that yesterday was the first anniversary of Alien Spouse.  That's weird!

Can You Trust YOUR Hairdryer?

I've been meaning to write about my hairdryer since I bought it back in October, but I kept forgetting to take a photo of it.  I think because my camera is digital (and therefore not water proof at all) and the hairdryer is mainly used in the bathroom when I've just had a shower, so the two never happened to be in the same vicinity at the same time.

Then I started reading the archives of Que Sera Sera, and found that Miss Sarah Brown had done the whole hairdryer in bathroom thing back in 2002.  So I thought maybe I'd skip it, then I thought well hang on a minute she doesn't have pictures, or an ion switch!

So here is my hairdryer.  Enjoy.

I particularly love the tag on the cord, because it's so hysterical, and because the cartoon hairdryer looks as though it's hovering menacingly over the water, ready to strike.

Hairdryers:  The Silent Killer.

Of course I appreciate what the little tag is trying to warn me against, but then in the UK we simply do not have electrical sockets in the bathroom.  Of course there are light bulbs and special tiny sockets for electric shavers, but proper full power electrical sockets?  No.  It's taken me a while to get used to drying my hair at the sink, and I do like it because it is convenient, but it still seems really odd.

Finally my hairdryer has an ion switch on the top.  I didn't go looking for that especially, but apparently all the best American hairdryers have them now. Sometimes I switch it on, but I can't say I've really noticed that much difference, but I do like to imagine it's the sort of thing Colonel Wilma Deering would use.

"Oh Buck! Don't touch my hair, I've only just ionised it!  That's how I get such tremendous volume when my hair is down despite having worn a helmet all day at work as an elite starship pilot."

Aaaah! Geek Out! Le Geek c'est Chic!

Continuing my love affair with Picnik, I've recently discovered that I can actually e-mail pictures, in fact whole posts, straight to Alien Spouse from there so that means I don't always have to save the altered images to my computer before uploading them again.  Sometimes I may want to keep the photos, but not always and I do really need to get out of the habit of saving every single version of a picture.

To post this way I upload the picture I want to Picnik, once I've done that I play around with the options until something works, or I might only crop the image.  After fiddling around with the picture, I click the "Save and Share" tab and from here I can choose to send it to a number of places including my computer, Flickr, Facebook or to any website of my choosing.  To send to a Typepad blog Picnik requires your remote posting e-mail address and your registered source e-mail address (both easy to find from the Typepad control panel shortcuts), and after you've given it those details once Picnik remembers them.  This makes it incredibly simple to point-and-shoot, and then make the picture look decent before I post them.

The Doc is completely underwhelmed by this, but that hasn't stopped me sharing the joy because I think that is really quite brilliant.

Also I have learnt the HTML code to make any links that I insert in the text of a post open in a new window, rather than that link just closing Alien Spouse because that was really bugging me.  It's a tiny bit of a hassle, but really very easy to do.  You simply add the link as normal, then click on the "Edit HTML" tab and find the code for your link, then you type in target="_blank" just before the > at the end of the code for the link.  I did also try simplifying this process by adding in the additional bit of code in the drop-down window for the link, but it doesn't always work.  I'm not sure why.

Here ends today's geeking out.

My Non-Meme.

By the way I've been tagged to do a meme, but I just can't get seem to get enthused over it. 

Essentially the task is to come up with eight things that my blog readers don't know about me, and I'm sort of thinking that would be the death of eight future posts in one fell swoop.  I mean if I haven't already mentioned these things they must either be a) a bit dull, b) something I don't want people to know, c) hilarious and I'm planning to use that story on a day when I've run out of topical material.  Or, in some extremely singular cases, quite possibly all of the above.

I sort of suspect memes were invented as a way of getting new bloggers to think outside of the box, but I've got my copy of "No One Cares What You Had For Lunch", so my blogging box was kicked apart months ago.

Also the final part of the meme is to tag eight other bloggers, and I don't know eight other bloggers.  Of course I read far more then eight blogs (Thank you whoever invented the feedburner, you have given me back hours of my life), but unless I actually know the blogger I would feel weird tagging them when we haven't been properly introduced as it were.  I suspect that's very British, but hey that's the USP around here and I'm not about to dilute my brand identity.

So in conclusion, I am no fun and a spoilsport and I don't want to play, but thank you for the invite.