Who's your dog wearing?

I read blogs. It's true. I've been a blog-ger and a blog-reader for about a year now and throughout that time I've stumbled upon numerous blogs. Most of these blogs I will read a post or two and decide it's not for me. Other blogs, I will read a post and think it's right up my alley, but upon further perusal, I realize that that one post was for me and the rest is crap.

And every so often I stumble upon a blog that I dig immediately. After reading a few recent posts, I will go back to the beginning of their blog and read the entire thing start-to-finish over the course of days/weeks. If I still give a fuck about what they're talking about, I'll bookmark them and visit their site on a regular basis.

More often than not, I give up reading the blog, either because they post so infrequently that I've forgotten who they are and what they're about, or else I decide that they're not funny anymore, or I no longer have an interest in what they have to say.

There's one blog in particular I want to bring your attention to. I have no idea how I found it, but I remember the first post I ever read. The post was practically devoted to vodka and I thought "Now this I can relate to!" I read her blog from the beginning onwards and I started visiting her site nearly everyday. (She posts nearly everyday, so I don't feel like a stalker).

Since then, I've gone back to re-read her blog from the beginning at least once (but I think two more times), I've commented on her posts (and received comments back!), I even set up a "Blogger" account so that I can officially "follow" her.

Why? Because sometimes it's nice to know when people are reading and they care about/enjoy what you write. Because sometimes you need to know that people like you. Because sometimes you need someone to bolster your spirits, even if you don't know them.

And that's why I wrote this post. In hopes that, maybe, you'll visit her blog and like what you read. And maybe you'll turn someone else onto her fabulous site. That maybe, just maybe, she'll achieve her dream of being a famous blogger/writer.

Now, go to her site: http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/ and read dammit!

Just in case you're a little gun-shy, here are a couple of my favourite posts:

http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/2010/07/celibacy-is-fun-not.html

http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/2010/07/taste-for-disaster.html

Pretty awesome, right? But please don't stop reading my blog, m'kay?

Kinda like horse hooves, but in the mouth?

I came home today to do some laundry (Sunday is my officially unofficial laundry day) and found the laundry room in disarray once again. And just in case you guys thought I was over-reacting, I took some pictures.

This is what I see when I come in the door. Except, my clothes aren't in the washer yet, because she had a bunch of stuff in there.

That table is about 6 feet long.

On the upside, I found plastic martini glasses when I was shopping today. I've been looking for those for a couple years... Now I can bring them on camping trips so when I'm drinking girlie drinks they look all fancy and stuff but without risk guarantee of breakage.

Time to air my dirty laundry

I may have mentioned before that my upstairs neighbours are assholes/super annoying/loud as fuck. Every time I get a new neighbour, I hope that I'll like them better than the last ones. And in some ways, I do, but then they turn around and are so annoying in other ways, ways that I never imagined.

I share the washer/dryer with the upstairs people and because of that I've taken measures to make sure that I'm not an asshole about it. I try to stick to my officially unofficial laundry days. I make sure I switch around the loads as soon as they're done. I empty the lint trap and the garbage. I clean out the sink. I wipe down the machines.

My upstairs neighbour does laundry the way I did when I was 14. She takes everything she owns and separates the loads on every horizontal surface in the laundry room. She has three loads on the go and any given time (one in the washer, one in the dryer and one on top of the dryer) plus the random loads scattered on the floor and the counter. I will walk into the laundry room, see the chaos, realize my clothes aren't that dirty and back away slowly.

I'll give her some time to get through her obvious back log of dirty clothes (sometimes a day or two, sometimes three or four depending on my schedule and how many clean pairs of underwear/socks/pants etc I have). When I go back in, however many days later, the laundry room is exactly how I last saw it. The same load of laundry is in washer, now stinky with mildew.

That's about the time I realize that my clothes are that dirty and I have no choice, but to wade through the filth in an attempt to maintain personal hygiene.

Short Post Central

I recently took part in The Warrior Dash, which I will write a post about soon and which EliseArt will illustrate. I mentioned to her that I want pictures. She asked me for sketches (put that in the record-books). I asked incredulously "Do they actually help?!?!" (feeling hopeful) and she said "Sometimes...."

I guess all hope isn't lost. Maybe I can draw one day if I practice enough. (Still need to buy the tablet).

The Great Turtle

I'm a pretty horrible person. I'm sure this isn't much of a surprise to you two, but I came to the realization recently that I'm a particularly horrible person. Let me explain.

My brother's birthday was a month ago and I swore to him that I'd cook him a birthday dinner. Which I promptly became too busy to cook and subsequently forgot about. Well, he brought it up. And even though it took him 3+ weeks to have me over for my birthday dinner, I have officially passed him; he said to me "Yay - I'm not the worst sibling anymore!". It's nice when you make others feel good about themselves.

Mentioning feeling good about yourself... in the same conversation, I decided to ask him if he still reads this shit I call my blog, partially because I was curious, but also because I wondered whether or not I could count him as one of my readers. You know for those times when I refer to "you two", maybe I could say "you three".

His response? My posts are "a bit long-winded". Fuck. He said that they are funny and interesting, but they go on for far too long for "someone who doesn't read". I'm not sure if I should be angry at him for calling me boring, or if I should feel pity because he obviously has adult-onset-ADD.

And that (^) is my attempt at a short post. I feel like there's so much left unsaid.

Also - I've been thinking I need a better name/address for my blog. Even though I thought I was clever when I came up with Ramdon Ranblings... a quick Google search indicated that I was not clever at all. So, I wonder if another name is more suitable. What about "Long-winded Sally"? Or "Heather Talks"? Or "I like stuff". Or "Things are cool". Or something else greater than or equally as cool. Think about it and let me know.

Back-passin' Mike

I mentioned in a previous post (although briefly), that I love foosball. Just in case any of you were hoping for a post about foosball, I decided to oblige and write one. Enjoy.

It all started about 6 weeks ago. As part of a workplace fundraiser, a foosball tournament was scheduled to take place. I didn't even consider taking part until someone sent me an email saying "I may not be good at the game, but I'll likely be really excited about it. Who wants to be on my team?".

Having never played before, I couldn't help but think that, I too, would not be good at the game, but would be quite excited about the experience. I replied to the email saying as much. Another colleague came forward and professed to being the Foosball Master; the playing training began.

Our playing has built up over the weeks and it has gotten to the point where we play constantly. Sometimes multiple times a day. I (we) now have to calculate the hours worked in the day based on:

1. when I arrive


2. when I go home


3. how many minutes of foosball played during that time

Even though I have a lot more experience with the game than I did 6 weeks ago, our games still follow the same pattern. (*dramatization - may not have happened)

Our games always start off the same way. We're both eager and ready to let off some steam.

Within minutes (seconds?) of playing, the ball ends up in my zone with him on the attack. It's a very stressful moment as I pass him the ball and he lines up the shot.



Inevitably, he scores. There's no stopping the rocket that he calls 'just a shot'.

Yet, I'm just as concerned every time.

It continues on. As I get better at defending the net (that's really all I can do), he soldiers on.

It gets to the point where I've exhausted all of my efforts towards The Rocket and admit defeat.



And then he turns around and is a complete jackass about the whole thing.

Just when I don't think I can take the abuse anymore, he spends an hour coaching me on techniques; showing me where I go wrong and how I can improve. Maybe I just need more practice and then I'll be able to stop The Rocket. If that's the case, I'll be able to stop anything! Then, I'll just need to work on scoring.

I think I'm going to be a Foosball Master too. Thanks Gorm!! :)

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations.