"That's very punk rock."

This winter, I was noticing that my purse was very dirty. That is, visibly dirty. We all know from horrible, terrifying email forwards how truly dirty a purse can be. So, I decided to toss it in the wash. That's one of the side benefits of owning a nylon purse. Very washy.

Anyway, in order to wash it, I had to remove all of my bug pins. Those of you who have seen me in the last year or two know that my purse has been covered in many jeweled bug pins, to keep it from looking so boring. (And because I like sparkly things, and bugs.) A bunch of them had come off recently and needed to be repaired, so taking of the rest wasn't so bad.

However, once I got my nice clean purse out of the washing machine, I decided not to put the bugs back on. Instead, I put on some pins that I had got at Christmas time.

And so I give you - The Weather Purse. (Eat your heart out, Mark Eubank!)

Now, the obvious downside here is that I have to update it every day. (Well, in theory. We've been stuck in a weather rut here for a little while.) But I think it looks like fun. It's still suitably nerdy like the bugs were, and Danger Boy says the pins look "very punk rock."

Pictures!

I told you that I'd load a lot more pictures once we switched to high speed at home.

Behold - I have baked cookies! They're delightful and delicious.

Everybody Loves Elliott

Everybody loves Elliott on his birthday. Probably more than he wants them to.

Tragedy!

Tragedy today, as I discovered that there was some sort of error with the memory card in the PS2. All of the stuff saved in it has disappeared! That means all the high scores, all the saved games . . . all of the Guitar Hero careers . . . my 5-star performance on "Heart Shaped Box." On HARD.

Sigh.

So, when you come to visit, I'm afraid you'll have to start over. So I guess the good news is that since you're already pretty good at it, your low scores will be pretty high, and you'll look better than you really are.

As we say in the radio business, that'll sound great on the radio.

For those of you in the Salt Lake/Ogden/Provo area, I will be on the "morning zoo" tomorrow morning at seven on 94.9 KZHT. Wish me luck - this will be my first encounter with Danger Boy.

Fingers crossed, I'll be on Radio From Hell next week. Here's hopin'.

S-M-R-T

Sometimes I wonder how smart people really are. Take, for instance, this email from the BYU Alumni Association:

"BYU Athletics will honor the 2006 Western Conference championship football team with an a autograph signing on the concourse level for a half hour beginning at 5:30 p.m. The team will also be honored at a half time celebration with video highlights, trophy presentations, and remarks from coach Mendenhall and other members of the team."

So . . . we're honoring Boise State? Wuh?

Did they mean the Western Athletic Conference? The Mountain West Conference? Logic leads me to the latter option, since that's the conference the BYU actually belongs to. But you never know . . . Boise State did have a great bowl game.

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K

It's ridiculously cold outside. Just ridiculous. Count yourselves lucky, those of you in St. George and Texas and Colorado. Today I was trying to wash the salt off my windshield at lunchtime and you could see the water freezing instantly on the glass. Really pretty patterns, but not exactly what you'd call encouraging.

Actually, I was downtown for lunch today and it was snowing hard. It was very pretty - big, fluffy flakes drifting down between the tall buildings. Then we drove back to work, and it was like someone flipped a switch at 5th east. Snow just stopped like there was a wall. By the time we got back to work, it was blue skies and sunny.

In other random news, we just got a bunch of new stuff at work to use in education classes and such. You know, nerd toys. One of these is a model of DNA. It's about 18 inches tall, a nice double helix with all the base pairs, etc. Only problem is, the phosphate chains along the outside are represented by strips of rubber. And the rubber stinks. You know how brand-new rubber things are when you get them. Smelly. So now my office stinks like DNA.

Robot Roll Call

I know you're out there! Occasionally, someone will reference something I've written here. So I know you're out there reading this. So just leave me a comment, let me know who you are.

Please?

Boredom is a funny thing

Here is what happens when Suzanne stays home sick for a few days over Christmas and is, in general, under stimulated.

Don't judge me!

Shiny!

See, things really are a lot prettier after it snows. Snow is nice.

I'm afraid that Alex did end up having to drive in it and to shovel a lot of it.

The absolute worst thing

I was talking to Alex today, and I said that I wish it would snow. Seems like if it's going to be cold, it should at least snow. Otherwise it's just a waste of cold. Snow at least will pretty things up a bit and make everything sparkly.

Alex disagreed with my idea initially, but then relented a bit and said that he didn't mind if it snowed as long as it didn't he didn't have to shovel or drive in it.

Which brings me to my main point here: what, in your opinion, is the worst part about winter? I know usually we all try to dwell on the positive, but it's January and we're in a post-holiday slump here. If you're going to succumb to SAD, you should at least post about it online, right?

In my opinion, the worst part of winter is the dirtiness. All the dirt and the salt and everything just seems to build up on the snow, leaving a film on your lawn when it melts.

What do you dislike most about winter? You can only pick one thing.

Slacker

Well, it's the new year and everyone's back home again from all their holiday travel. Going back to work, seeing the piles of stuff there is to do . . . calling in sick, hoping to extend the holidays just a bit . . .

Oh, I kid. Though it is tempting.

I'm back at work, which means I'm back to reading everybody else's blogs again. (DSL cannot show up too soon at home.) I must say that Adam and Shannon are really making the rest of us look like slackers, what with their 4-7 posts per day. Or is it that they are the slackers, and we are the ones getting stuff done at work? Hm?

Anyway, I felt a little duty-bound to produce something bloggable. Here is is: I like Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory caramels. And the almond clusters. Ooh, and their bridge mix. Their bridge mix is the best - it's not just raisins and nuts like all of the other bridge mixes you'll find out there. It's full of good stuff. Next time you're in an airport out west and you need a snack, pick up a bag.