October 30, 2013

Doggone Halloween...


Halloween 2013... Alfred as the adorable animated title character in Finding Nemo... it should have worked, a cute dog as a cute fish....

But the dog did not love the headpiece of the costume, so that lasted about two seconds, and once I pulled it back, the costume looked more like Flat Elmo climbing up Alfred's back...

Here is the not-so-happy Alfred wearing the full costume...

And the much happier canine with the costume pulled all the way back to a sweater, and exuding happiness and maybe a bit of a smirk at being fed many treats to pose for the camera....

October 28, 2013

Truly Terrifying Jack-O-Lanterns...


Even as a kid I was never really one for carving pumpkins, and I don't really do the costume thing anymore --- except for Mr Alfred, of course -- but I do love the creativity you see around Halloween... and no I am not talking about Paris Hilton dressing up as Miley Cyrus, cuz that is wrong in about 37 ways.

Sure, I did not come up with these, but I laughed out loud... those someecards people make me laugh every damn time...




October 25, 2013

Five Doggie Halloween's...

It's that time of year again... every October I dress the little dude up in a Halloween costume. I wrestle it on him and then take a picture, and then never put the costume on him again.

Yes I know some people disapprove of costumes for pets, and no I don't really care, as I find it so incredibly cute, and is yet another small way I am trying to support the economic recovery by shopping.

Alfie is not especially a fan of this, however he does enjoy the treats and cheese I bribe him with to get a half-decent picture.

Alfie is six now, and we just bought this year's costume so pictures are coming soon... for now let's call it 'Finding Alfred'...

Here are the past years' costumes to catch you all up:

Year One, a six-month old Alfred dressed up like a very small Superdog (not yet camera friendly, he was looking up at me)...



Year Two, in a an orange sweater with a pumpkin sketched on the back (which we cant see in this pic)...



Year three, Brokeback Alfred...



Year four, my little bumblebee...


Year five (last year), even though he hated the cap, we had to do a prisoner costume at some point...



Coming soon... Halloween 2013!

October 18, 2013

Binge-Watching TV Is The New Black...


We are all busy ----- I know I am with life, work, travel, adoring the world's cutest canine, reading all those Sue Grafton books, and trying to hit that treadmill on a regular basis; this is mostly good, however it does tend to interfere with important TV viewing.

With the advent of DVD sets, Video-on-Demand, Netflix, PVR's, and the internet, we can pretty much watch TV when we want to now, and the new thing seems to be "binge watching" a series --- watching multiple episodes back to back, from several in a row to a full season or series overloaded into a single weekend.


There are some series I love and watch regularly, on TV and online, such as The Big Bang Theory and The Good Wife.

Then there are shows that I have not watched before, or do not watch regularly, and then catch up on in binge viewing.

I am currently wrapping up season 2 of Scandal, 22 episodes of the crazy political soap crammed into about two weeks, and loving it... and good TV series, of which there are many, tend to be way better than most of the crappy moves out there.

I have also binge watched Homeland, House of Cards, Veep, the Dallas reboot, the early seasons of Bones, and Bitter Is The New Black.

Now with Netflix doing original series, and releasing a whole season at a time on the internet, they are creating series designed for binge watching...  House of Cards came out all at once, and I watched all 13 episodes in a weekend. And LOVED it.



There is more to come... I have yet to see any of Breaking Bad, all of which are on Netflix, and I just discovered the uber cool series Orphan Black and watched the first four episodes on an airplane -- now I have a season to catch up on!

What do you binge watch?

October 16, 2013

Fave twitter comeback...

I don't usually get into politics, especially US politics, but this is too good to resist...


October 13, 2013

Greg Louganis Gets Hitched!


Olympic legend and gay icon Greg Louganis married boyfriend Johnny Chaillot in Malibu last night... hey we were in that area last week, where'd our invitation go?

"It was amazing because I have so many people from all facets of my life here tonight and they are all here and celebrating it is all wonderful," Louganis told PEOPLE immediately following the sunset ceremony. "I already feel different. The ceremony was so reflective and representative of who we are." 

Louganis and Chaillot began dating in 2012 after finding each other on the online dating site Match.com and got engaged almost exactly a year later on April 8.


Congrats guys!


October 9, 2013

... that time on The Talk



We are on vacation in sunny California, seeing the sites, being tourists, checking out beautiful places like Newport Beach, doing some shopping, enjoying the gorgeous weather, heading to the Getty art centre, reading and relaxing just like we wanted to.

Today was our first rainy day, and as it tuns out the day we had tickets to see a taping of The Talk.

We were among the few out-of-towners -- and yes the few men -- there, and folks it takes way longer than an hour to be in the audience for an hour-long show; there are hours before, plus they filmed two other bits after the show, and then we had to line up to get our gifts afterwards. And yes gifts are good.

Aside from acting like we care even remotely about anything Kardashian, the taping was fun -- the chat parts are light and gossipy, actor Blair Underwood was charming promoting his dud show Ironside, some guy I have never heard of (Terrence J) was promoting his book about his mother.

It is Sharon Osborne's birthday so we all got gifts that were allegedly what they gave her - a cell phone, a terry robe, a gift certificate for jewellery, a spa certificate, a tea gift certificate, a bag of CoverGirl cosmetics. And that damn book by the dude I have never heard of, who is apparently an actor and TV host (I think our server at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday was an actor and host...). 




There were some surprises... Aisha Tyler is glam and gorgeous, Sara Gilbert is scary skinny (no wonder she always looks so glum, must be hungry), they change the Talk table during every break (not the settings, the actual table top), host comedian Billy was raunchy and funny, and unlike Jay Leno who at his show is approachable  and interactive, the hosts on The Talk wave briefly at the audience and then laser focus on the army of makeup artists that swarm them during every break.

Most surprising... the waiver we all had to sign before the show; note only did we agree for our images to be used in the audience, and promise not to sue if anything went wrong, we also signed that we acknowledge the hosts' advice is not therapy or treatment, that during the talk-show format I may be "surprised, angry, disappointed, embarrassed and or otherwise emotionally upset or distressed", and that they can use our images "for any use throughout the universe"... hello Houston, do we have The Talk in outer space? If so I really should have shaved for my interstellar debut...