Zombies knit?

Magnet #1113 - Zombies are crap

I'll say. I haven't any understand how zombies came back in vogue again, but I hope they go away soon.

So apparently, zombies are crap at knitting. You know who isn't crap at knitting?

DC Sister. She made me my very own TEN!

Yes, yes, I know. It's really crochet. Or Amigurumi to be exact. Still. Awesome.

I have my very own stuffed David Tennant! Thanks, DC Sister!

Woot!

Good grief, Charlie Sheen

Magnet #1104 - Bitch set me up

Well, at least Charlie's not saying there's a big ole conspiracy out to get him, or that any of those goddess chicks or hookers set him up in any way. At least, I don't think he is. I'm trying to delve too far into what he has to say lately.

Not that I stayed up to watch last night's 20/20 or anything. Or that I waited with the rest of the world to see what @charliesheen would Tweet first. Or that I read that weird pyramid of power going around the interwebz today. (I'd link it here, but it's gone around so many times that I honestly don't want to have to dig for who the actual creator of it was.)

I will say that I've also been Tweet-reaming his PR team for weeks, wondering what the hell they've been doing as Sheen gives interview after interview, making a cracktastic, manic, bi-winning fool out of himself everywhere. Then I found out he was George Clooney's publicity dude as well. Oops. Well, I guess for every great client, you have...Charlie "the winner" Sheen.

No judgment here, but I do hope he finds what he needs, that Charlie Sheen.

In the meantime, this magnet - made with reclaimed paper and a vintage (no less) typewriter - is part of a Craftgasm set called "Pearls of Wisdom from Marion Barry." This 1990 quote relates to Barry allegedly (I dunno if he's actually been convicted - what? I took Journalism 101!) smoking crack with a hooker.

Hahaha. I love it. DC Sis got these for me, because she can't figure out how a guy with Barry's record ends up mayor of one of our most influential towns. I'm assuming it's for the same reason a guy with Sheen's imdb and rap sheet ends up one of the highest paid stars ever.

Until now, I guess.

All others will be toad

Magnet #1073 - Princess Parking Only

I stocking-stuffered one of these magnets for my middle sister last Christmas. Heh, ya'll shoulda seen her smirky face when she saw it.

Couldn't help it, though, cuz it's such a cute magnet, and somehow I ended up with two. I kinda liked it for today because it's the SAG Awards tonight, yet another of a zillion awards nights where all the actors get to dress up like little princes and princesses and take some hardware home.

Love this time of year, because we do get to live vicariously through them, as they make their way down the red carpet, squeeing over each other and what they're wearing. My favorite is when the actors themselves get all giddy at seeing some of their favorite actors in person. For some reason, it always feels like they're all friends with each other, even if they've never met before.

Award shows always look like fun, but, I dunno about ya'll, I honestly couldn't do it.

Sure, it's fun getting dressed up for a night on the town, but remember last week or so when Christina Hendricks lost that 193 carat, $850k piece of jewelry? Uh, no way. I had a hard enough time freaking out when I lost my mom's 24c gold earring when I was 14! Ooof, and trying to pick out something that wouldn't land you on the worst-dressed list, plus trying to remember who and what you're wearing? Oh, no. Couldn't pay me to do that.

Though, I suppose if I had to pick one awards show to ever attend in my life, it would have to be the Golden Globes. Tv actors. Film actors. Alcohol.

Yep. Fun all around.

By a Lady - Guest blogger, DC Sister

Magnet #855 - Winchester Cathedral

I've been deemed inhuman in some circles because of my non-fluency in the Jane Austen oeuvre.

I know. I can't help it - even after my seventh grade English teacher reco'd Jane to me, I just couldn't get into her. I skipped Jane and jumped right into Loveswepts.

But, my middle sister has a thing for Jane Austen. So I figured since she brought this back for me from Winchester, she'd be the best person to magnetblog it out.

- joy

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Joy's off having quality BFF time, so she asked some of us to pick from a selection of magnets to blog about.

Well, of course I chose this one. I gave it to her!

I've been to Jolly Olde England about five times now, starting with a high school band trip. I wonder if my parents had some kind of 19th-century "all girls must take a grand tour of Europe" philosophy because we all went to the Continent in high school. Anyway. Back then I had only a slight interest in Jane Austen. We'd seen the 1980 Pride & Prejudice adaptation in English class, I loved the chemistry between Elizabeth and Darcy, and I muddled my way through the book (still my fave ever). So you'd think I'd have known that Jane Austen was buried at Winchester Cathedral when I was, you know, at Winchester Cathedral way back in 1995 on that high school trip.

But no. I was kind of distracted at the time (cute boys will do that to you), and so I totally missed that fact. So ever since then I've wanted to go back to Winchester.

And since those halcyon days of high school, my love for Jane Austen has grown exponentially. A few years ago I re-read all her books in order of least familiar to most familiar (if you must know: Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma, Sense & Sensibility, then finally P&P).

Right afterward, I went on a Great Great Britain tour: two weeks of traveling through the country via train. LOVE. When planning the trip, I asked my friend: Do you want to see or do anything in particular? His reply: Not really.

Wheee!

Left to my own devices, I scheduled us tons o' Jane Austen stuff! We went to Chawton Cottage, where she spent several years and saw the little table where she revised P&P and Sense & Sensibility and wrote Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Emma. Imagine: this woman all hunched over this tiny table laboring over these books that, during her lifetime, were published anonymously, described as being written "By a Lady."

Today those same books are a veritable industry. Crazy!

We went to Bath, where I succeeded in suppressing my squees at seeing the Pump Room and Milsom Street and Queen's Square (all associated with her books) and the Assembly Rooms (closed for a private event -- boo!). Then we got to the gravel walk where Anne and Capt. Wentworth reunited in Persuasion -- my second fave book -- and I couldn't hold it in anymore. Squeeee! People looked at me funny.

An we went to Chatsworth, the Peak District home of the Duke/Duchess of Devonshire and the supposed inspiration for Darcy's Pemberley estate, though a few estates are said to have that same distinction. Chatsworth, y'all? Amazing. I mean, damn.

It actually was Pemberley in the 2005 P&P movie with Keira Knightley, who incidentally returned to the home again to film scenes for The Duchess [as in Devonshire]. In a nod to Austenites like me, the estate's sculpture gallery still has the bust of Matthew Macfadyen that played a part in the P&P movie. Of course I have a picture with it. So go if you can. The ride on the bus there was cool too - lots of barren peaks and moors.

Very Heeeeathcliffffff!

So with all those Austen-y adventures planned, you'd think I went to Winchester on that trip, right? Wrong. I was at Winchester a few months ago on my woman-on-her-own trip to London. Finally.

We just couldn't fit the town into the Great Great Britain Tour or on any other visit to the U.K. I've taken in the past, oh, 15 years. It took an hour to get there and I spent about 30 minutes total in the cathedral and about 45 minutes at the gift shop, buying this magnet and a book examining the social context of Austen's novels.

They have a few of her letters on display in the church and she has a memorial window, a marker inlaid in the floor plus a plaque on the wall. All in all it was very cool. Still, though, I think of all the places I visited, I still love Chawton the most, with its whole OMG-she-lived-in-this-very-house vibe.

Anyway, I was going to include links and interesting facts about Jane Austen, such as she moved to Winchester in 1817, the year she died.

But you know what? You only need to know one thing: Jane Austen kinda rules.

A dairy great adventure

Magnet #557 - Fair Oaks Farms, Indiana

During that Chicago roadtrip earlier this summer, my sister and I pulled night-driving duty through Indiana.

No offense to Indiana but our impressions? Dark. Flat. Never-ending. Frankly, boring.

And where are all the people? Don't they have to live near highways?

So, then on our way back in the daylight, we were shocked. Shocked!, I tell you. Light. Flat. Never-ending. Frankly, boring.

That is, until we started seeing these superpunny cow billboards convincing us we needed to stop at Fair Oaks Farms. Not one, not two, but at least a few superpunny cow billboards. So, of course we had to stop.

After all, how could we resist cows double dairy'ing us to have a dairy great adventure?

Plus, ya'll don't know DC Sister. That girl is a sucker for a good pun - has been ever since the Juneau? Juneau? Juneau? Alaska! joke she (thinks) she made up when she was like five. (Or, in regular people's terms: "D'ya know? D'ya know? D'ya know? I'll ask 'er!" Yeah, that was never going to be funny written out loud.)

Anyway, we all piled into the little red barn, as opposed to the big red barn, and lined up for ice cream. They also had a locavore-ish bistro with cheese and cheese and cheese. And did I mention they had cheese? They even had a cheese-factory tour, but no one there - fairly well-produced videos had to suffice, as it was like 9:30 on a Sunday morning, and us having ice cream was kinda pushing it. (Though not really, if you eat as much ice cream as I do.)

I've now confirmed on their supercute and pretty darn robust site that what little we visited of Fair Oaks Farms was just the tip of the udder, because apparently, there's a thing called Mooville Adventure Center, plus the dairy barn tours, playareas and a birthing barn (ewwwwe) and a 4D theatre, some sort of cowculator, and it goes on and on.

And it's all supercutely branded by a dairy extraordinary marketing team. We were really glad we stopped in at Fair Oaks. These folks know how a create a branded experience - for that, I can forgive your extremely overpriced magnets.

Moo done, you!

Cute, Cuter, Cutest - Guest blogger, DC Sister

Magnet #547 - NC Seal, or Sea Lion?

Still new (still possibly monthly) feature: This magnet came from my BFF, out of that NC Aquariums set.

But, as anyone who knows all three sisters will attest to - this magnet probably matches my middle sister best. She's arguably the "cute-cute" sister.

Well, cute is, as cute...magnetblogs, I guess. Enjoy the cute-cuteness!

- joy

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My sisters and I talk pretty much every day. Huzzah, the wonders of Skype. We can talk, talk, talk so long it's like we're just hanging out at home having a grand old time. But. The one thing Joy hates is when I force her - yes, force her - to look at a cute animal photo online. This is our usual exchange:

Me [voice slowly reaching supersonic pitch] (indeed, no human can hear it - joy):
Awwwww, Joy-joy, lookit the cute puppy/bunny/giraffe/otter/ insertbabyanimalhere.

Joy:
*eye-roll (and yes, you can see eye-rolls on Skype - joy).

Apparently I'm just a sucker for anything cute. That's why I am happy to guest-blog on this magnet. Lookit how cute the little sea lion is!

Cute animals make me happy. And these days - with frustrations at work and a new condo (and all the stress that comes with that) - I'll take what I can get. So when it's one of those I'm-so-annoyed-I-can't-believe-this-crap kind of days, I always go to my Google Reader for little rays of sunshine.

What's there? Well, filed under "Cuteness" are only four of my favorite awww-inducing blogs ever.

1. Cute Overload.
This blog has been around for a while, but it never fails to make me squee. It's where I found otters holding hands. Best. Video. Ever. Of course now I can't find it on the site, but here it is on YouTube. It would take the hardest of hearts to resist its powers.

2. The Daily Puppy.
A puppy a day keeps the grumpies away. That is all.

3. My Milk Toof.
A recent find. Thanks, Joy! The photos and the words work so well together and the entries are so adorable I can barely stand it. It must take quite some time to get each frame of the blog just so. Thank you, Inhae Renee Lee, for helping to fill my cuteness quota.

4. ZooBorns.
This might be the best blog ever, at least in my mind. Poor Joy. She has had to view many posts from this blog because I send her links from the site all the time. I can't help it though! Who doesn't want to see baby animals from around the world?

Cuteness is the stuff of rainbows and unicorns and sugar and spice, and it isn't for everyone. Joy would have you believe she's not into it. But I know her Achilles heel: Bears. Extra points if they're falling asleep. (Ok, that one is cute. Supercute. - joy)

Hmm. I wonder if there's a career in cuteness. I'd like to get in on that.