Angelo and I have been working on our elf esteem lately. You can see the animated results here. ;P

Ciao for now and ho, ho, ho (or ha, ha, ha if you’re an Australian Santa, or are easily offended).

Despite the fact that his desk is roughly eight feet away from me, Angelo often sends sweet little emails while I work. We both use gmail, so there are ads along the sides of the messages that are supposed to relate to the content. For example, if I mention shoes in my email, there might be ads for shoes accompanying that message.

The other day Angelo sent a cute email, and as I was coming up with a reply, I noticed an ad along the side for something called GIANT Microbes Plush Toys. The ad had absolutely nothing to do with our exchange, which, ironically enough, is why I had to check it out.

Turns out there’s a company that makes stuffed toy versions of everything from the common cold virus to toxic mold. Talk about a niche market. Then again, one of these cuddly pals could make the perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for person on your list.

If you look closely at the left-hand side of the above photo (which was recently submitted to the Seattle Times by Christopher Bacon) you can see a salmon swimming across the street in Silverdale, Washington. Perhaps the salmon was on his way to hook up with Port Townsend’s infamous stunt trout; who knows? Read more »

It-often-seems that those who most zealously believe in God think, that despite his omnipotence, the big guy in the sky created everything except humor, and frowns upon us mortals for delighting in it. (Of course, anyone who persists in this belief has obviously not looked at a duckbill platypus lately.)

On the one hand, we have a teacher in Sudan who narrowly escaped 40 lashes and prison time for naming her classroom’s Teddy Bear ‘Muhammad.’ As if that’s not harsh enough, some protesters even favored the death penalty in her case.

On the other hand, we have the infamous Hanukah Ham: When Nancy Kay Shapiro, who is Jewish, noticed this goof-up at her favorite deli, did she wig out, yell at people, send death threats to the store manager or, at the very least, sue? No, she merely returned with her camera, took several photos (such as the one above), posted about it on her blog to amuse others, and even set up a little store on cafepress.com with some cute items (like frig magnets and a bbq apron.) Read more »

According to my family’s emails, it’s snowing in the Pacific Northwest, which is why I’m posting a photo I took last year. Thought I’d better not crop out the flag, lest someone think it was snowing here in southern Italy at first glance.

You can tell this is a western Washington snowman, because he’s already wilting. When it snows in the western Washington, you’d better make your snowman right away, and toss those snowballs before it rains. Because it will rain. Today, for instance, there is a warm front predicted with winds gusting to 60 mph in the Northwest - and rain, of course. So enjoy the white stuff while you can!

In eastern Washington, where I grew up, you have time to bond with your snowman before he melts. He could be around for days, maybe even weeks. You might as well name him in eastern Washington where there’s less carpe diem, and more Jungian projection. In eastern Washington you can even get all Fritz Perls about it and build a snow family to converse with Gestalt therapy style if you want. (Not that you, gentle reader, need therapy. I’m merely saying…) Read more »