Be The Pigeon

Not too long ago, I was absolutely shocked at a commercial I saw. You may have seen it, too. It's an oatmeal commercial that shows a bunch of kids in the back of a van happily eating their oatmeal in bowls. The Horror! See it for yourself. Is this not the most ridiculous thing advertisers have come up with in a very long time? The commercial ends with "Every day should be this good." Do you really think that it's gonna be a good day when kids are spooning warm oatmeal all over your car, rubbing it into the carpets, making designs on the windows, and using it as ammo against their siblings?! These high-paid Manhattan metro-ites obviously a) have no kids, and b) have never taken care of a child for more than 30 seconds. Fire them all! I can imagine how the conversation in our van might go with oatmeal: Amy: Misha, watch this! ~~Amy takes spoon of oatmeal and sticks it to the window to watch it glue~~ Misha: Wow, cool! Let me try. Kristen: I like oatmeal! ~~finger...

I'm in need of some encouragement. You see, Jolayne convinced me to take a bet. Actually, I'm not sure "bet" is really the right word. It's more of a challenge. For those who don't know Jo, she's extremely diligent about regular exercise (so much so that she often does two workouts a day, with the first one starting before 5:30am most days). I admire her greatly for that. I'm nowhere near that, and I've long been content that way. I really want to be fit, and I take pretty good care of myself. I'm no slob, but I just don't have the motivation to work out religiously like some folks. Over the last couple of years, I've put on a few pounds. Nothing serious that would land me on a primetime TV show, but pounds nonetheless. Winter has always been a tough time of year for me to stay fit. It's usually cold and/or windy outside, and I'm not really an inside-exercise person. I'd much rather go do some miles on my mtn bik...

I got this silly mail from my Dad yesterday and it just made me laugh over and over. Now I understand how he deals with IRS audits. The IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney. The auditor said, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable.' I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it,' says Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?' The auditor thinks for a moment and said, 'Okay. Go ahead.' Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.' The auditor thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet.' Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor's jaw drops. Grandpa says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.' Now the auditor can tell...

Jo said she was going to post this one, so I figured I had to beat her to the punch. The faucet on our kitchen sink continually comes loose (due to a lovely design that makes it impossible to get a wrench on the fittings properly.) So every so often I get to lay under the sink and tighten things up as best I can. Jo's dad was working on it last week while visiting, but I felt bad for him and jumped in when Jo snapped these shots. You could certainly enter your own captions here. Jo's was "new way to do pilates" since I had to keep raising my butt up.

It's come to my attention that my friends consider me the "deal king." I can think of better nicknames, but I can also think of a few worse ones, so ok. I got to thinking about all the places that Jo and I find deals, and thought I'd share a few. In truth, I think she finds way more deals than I do. The toughest part of deal finding is what I call the "Costco Effect." The Costco Effect explains the phenomenon where you walk into a place like Costco (or a web site) and see all sorts of stuff on good deals that you didn't know until right then that you couldn't live without. You know what I'm talking about: the stainless-steel 22 piece barbeque tool set, the 5-pack of flash memory cards, or a 3-pack of 24" summer sausage! We've all fallen victim to those deals. On the net, here's a short rundown of my favorite deal sites: Spoofee . I like deal sites that a) show me a picture of the item and b) don't have so many deals that...