October 31, 2006
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween everyone! It was a good night here. Kevin was off at his Chinese class so I was holding down the fort with the big bowl of candy. Digory doesn't like people to come to the door, so he started going nuts as soon as the doorbell started ringing. I put him in the back bedroom and tossed him various bribes for a while (pig's ears, rawhide chips, a Kong, etc.) but after a bit he was just barking and scratching down the door. I finally put him in his crate and just let him bark it out.
Then Kevin came home and took Digory into his room where he was still carrying on. Finally Kevin comes out and asks when the last time was that Digory went potty. Oops--a while. He let him go and Digory made a beeline for the yard and instantly got to business. I felt so bad! In all fairness, he was really carrying on because of the strangers at the door, but here he had to go outside and I ignored it!
Anyway, there were some really cute costumes this year. My favorites are always the toddlers. We got a little ladybug this year who was adorable, followed closely by a tiny little fairy. We also grossly overestimated on the candy. Last year we ran out so this year we got twice as much and I was more stingy giving it out. Too bad now that we're stuck with a 5 pound Costco bag of chocolates. Kit Kats anyone?
October 29, 2006
Busy Weekend
It's been a busy weekend here! Friday night some friends of mine from all over came to visit. One from Long Beach (whoa--FAR!), one from San Diego, and one on her way to San Jose from Florida. We hit Downtown Disney and had a great time. Last night we had our friends Dave and Chelsea over for dinner. Dave is a classical guitarist and Chelsea is a soprano--together they make up "Chanson du Soir." Visit Dave's Myspace page and listen some of his wonderful music. Chanson du Soir's Myspace page has some wonderful music as well. Tonight Kevin's family is coming over for a lovely dinner, and Kevin is making his second chocolate cake (from scratch) for the weekend. Yay!
We also had a special overnight guest last night but I'll write more about her later.
October 23, 2006
World's Most Bizarre Comment
Last night I received the world's most bizarre comment on my blog. As far as I can tell, it's not spam (though correct me if I'm wrong--oh thou who art smarter than I). The comment is the last one on my "Shelby Needs..." entry from November 15, 2005. I'll summarize for you.
The entry was a meme in which you type "[your name] needs" into Google and post the first line of the first 15 pages that come up. I also included snarky remarks next to my entries. It was fun, and 5 other people named Shelby did the meme that lead them to my page. A good time was had by all. Until last night, that is.
I got a comment from another Shelby saying, "I'm not liking coming to this and it saying shelby needs a life, lil rude." Actually, nowhere in the entry did it say "shelby needs a life" (the closest proximity said, "Shelby needs me in her life"), but we'll place that aside for now. The "lil rude" part cracks me up. It's rude for me to say Shelby (in general, not pointing at one particular Shelby) needs a life, but it's not rude to leave a comment criticizing my entry, which was clearly posted in jest? Second, you're not liking it? Here's a solution or two--there's a little arrow pointing to the left on the upper left hand corner of your screen. It's called the "back button" and instantly removes you from my page where you can pretend like you've never seen it. If more drastic measures would suit your needs, you may notice a red "X" in the right hand corner. This will solve all of your offensive web surfing needs. Well, not all of them, like if you go to a porn site (accidentally or purposfully) they have those never-ending streams of pop-ups that keep bombarding you no matter how quickly you shut them down. But some good software can take care of that for you.
And third, do you need to get a life? I'm going to go with "yes." Hey, don't feel singled out! I need to get a life too! But just the mere fact that you were sitting at your computer, decided to type "Shelby needs" into Google, followed the link to my page, read the entry (albeit obviously not very closely), and then went to the further effort to write a comment expressing your dislike of my entry--when you clearly could have been doing something more productive and meaningful--indicates to me that you need to get a life.
Just like I need to get a life instead of writing this entry--ha ha.
October 19, 2006
Tan's In Trouble
You may remember seeing some previous posts on HappyBeagle.com about our Republican Congressional candidate, Tan Nguyen. Here's one of Kevin's posts, here's another one, and here's one of mine, for example. Up until now, Tan has been merely an annoyance with his flourescent green signs adorning every street corner and rather sad campaign flyers. He's up against incumbant Democrat Loretta Sanchez (actually the only Democratic representative in Orange County) and his sad little campaign has been pretty much doomed from the start, not being able to even come close to Rep. Sanchez. Therefore it was kind of fun to poke at him a little.
Well, holy moley, it just became a lot more serious. Joining the ever-increasing list of Huge Mistakes Made by Republicans this century, Tan now finds himself the target of a major investigation for voter intimidation. And it's pretty clear he's indeed to blame.
Essentially he (allegedly) faked some letterhead from a well-known anti-immigration organization here. He then culled his list of voters to identify Latino voters (press reports say that the number could be as high as 14,000 Democrats) and sent them a letter in Spanish telling them that it's illegal for immigrants to vote. These were sent to naturalized US citizens with full voting rights. He also asserted that federal officials have a database that tracks voters and that anti-illegal immigration groups have access to it (which is actually not true).
Oh my.
The mind boggles at the collosal stupidity here. After it was definitively linked to Tan's campaign, Tan claimed that it was the product of a renegade staffer who has now been fired. Unfortunately for Tan, Scott Baugh, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, stated publicly that he knows it came straight from Tan.
Ouch.
The ironic thing is that Tan himself is an immigrant, and had another candidate sent out a similar letter, he probably would have been the recipient of one.
Voter intimidation is a federal crime and carries a maximum penalty of 3 years in prison. That's gotta suck.
Adding to the stupidity is that not only did Tan send out such an idiotic letter, he wasn't even smart enough to cover his tracks. The bulk-mail permit he used was the same on he used to send out the rest of his campaign material. In addition, his campaign financial disclosures indicate that he paid for data sorts from the registrar's voter database, which would clearly enable him to weed out the Democrat Latinos.
At any rate I bet District Republicans are really, really sorry they chose him in the primaries.
Orange County Register Article
Another OC Register Article
The Denial
LA Times article
Whoa! Tan made the Associated Press! From the opening page of Yahoo! News.
October 17, 2006
I'm Unique--Just Like Everybody Else!
Hey, this is cool.
That's for my married name, and my last name isn't all that uncommon, so woo! Me and the other 12 of us should get together sometime and party.
But big kudos go out to Mom and Dad who picked out a great name for me:
Woo hoo! No Shelby Rosiaks! Well, there was one, but I'm not anymore. Interestingly, according to this site, there are only 510 Rosiaks in the country.
And guess who else is unique?
My niece Seana! So unique she doesn't even register! Apparently this website is based on US Census data, and doesn't actually count first and last name combinations--it counts each separately and calculates the likelihood of someone with that combination occurring. Still, pretty cool.
October 16, 2006
Hey, How About That?
I am now among the employed. I'm a part-time Bear Builder at the Downtown Disney location of Build-A-Bear Workshop. The way Build-A-Bear works is this: you start out picking a bear (or other animal--there are a few to choose from). The bear is unstuffed. You then move to the next station where you can pick out a sound or make your own recording which is then inserted into the bear (like in the paw). Moving again, you go to the stuffing station where there are machines of bear stuffing and the Bear Builder (me) helps you stuff your bear. After that you go over to the grooming station where you can brush its fur and whatnot. Then there are tons of clothes, shoes, and accessories that you can dress your bear up in (check the website for many of the options). You enter your name and the bear's name into a computer which generates a birth certificate, and then you get to take it home in a very cute box. It's a lot of fun as a customer, so I thought I'd give it a try as an employee. No word on my start date--they're setting up an orientation/training session that might be this Sunday. Yay for a little extra paycheck!
October 12, 2006
Help! I'm Lost!
There's a corner on the way to our house that I call the "Help! I'm lost! Intersection" because I am frequently being stopped at this particular intersection by people asking for directions. Stopped as in I'm sitting at the stop light rocking out to my iPod and someone next to me is making a frantic roll-down-your-window hand signal, followed by a shouting, "Can you tell me where...?" I bring this up because I was asked for directions yet again tonight bringing the total up to 5 (five) times I've been asked there. This particular intersection is on Harbor Blvd., about 1 mile north of Disneyland and 1 mile south of the 91 freeway. Once I've been asked where the 91 is (keep going this direction and hang in there, you'll drive right over it), three times I've been asked where Disneyland is (keep going this direction and hang in there, you can't miss it), and tonight someone wanted to know where Katella Ave. was (keep going this direction and hang in there, it's the first East-West street after Disneyland). I love performing this valuable public service.
October 05, 2006
Vote for Lynn Daucher for State Senate!
You may remember our candidate Lynn Daucher, who sent us an impressive flyer but failed to mention what it was that she was running for. Well we got another flyer today and I'd like to think that Lynn took my advice to heart, because today's flyer proudly sports Lynn's "Lynn Daucher Senate" logo. Good move Lynn! Also, the flyer came in English and Spanish (and was addressed to our home's former occupants--you'd think after 2 years of marking mail "Not at this address" and sticking it back in the mailbox, they'd realize he doesn't live here anymore) which I think is a smart move. I think Lynn's campaign manager is one smart cookie (and that she's well-funded enough to send out such impressive materials). Three bonus points for Lynn!
And then there's our congressional candidate, Tan Nguyen. It looks like Tan must have also taken my advice since this mailing actually addresses some of the things that America thinks are important, like: Hezbollah Terrorists (but mysteriously not the Al Queda variety), Iraq, Corruption, Long Term Care for Seniors, Re-Importation of Medicines from Canada, and Securing Our Borders. He seems to have stopped advertising (on this flyer) his opposition to NAFTA and CAFTA as well as his strong push to protect workers' pensions. While Tan's answers to these issues are predictably vague, at least he's bringing them up. We'll give him one bonus point for that.
Also, in case Tan's folks are reading this, "Choose the person not the party" needs a comma. Thanks!
October 03, 2006
A Literary Meme
Anyone care to guess the last 2?
This is too fun. First lines from books--you guess them! Leave your answers in the comments.
1. "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
2. "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun." The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
3. "Clare: It's hard being left behind." The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. "Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened." The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
5. "When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disageeable-looking child ever seen." The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett
6. "I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning." Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
7. "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
8. "The play--for which Briony had desgined the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding scree tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper--was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch." Atonement by Ian McEwan
9. "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
10. "When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her." Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
And because I'm having fun:
11. "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."
12. "My suffering left me sad and gloomy."
October 01, 2006
This One's Just For Mary!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm3_MO-JzUE
Wall Drug? That's it???