Torrefaction

What is exactly the thing one wants to do immediately after spending many dollars to have a room built in one's basement?  Replace the water heater, of course! 

The damn thing blew its safety valve last night just as we were getting ready to go to bed.  Large piles of water dumped into the brand-new carpet in Mike's office, OF COURSE, because the water heater is just on the other side of an access door from the office.  Fortunately I have one of those pseudo-steam carpet cleaners, which is a champ at sucking water out of a carpet, and since it was clean water, we should be ok on that front. But SHEESH.

Also fortunately, we have a coffee maker that heats water rapidly, so I got to wash my hair with (some) hot water this morning. SHEESH.  The new water heater is in place and doing its thing now, so that's a very good thing, and we even still have a leetle bit of money in the bank for whatever breaks next, as long as whatever breaks next is VERY SMALL, so we are fortunate and we know it. But even so, I say SHEESH. 

A breaded chicken cutlet with bacon, lettuce, and tomato on a croissant is not a chicken club sandwich.

...they don't engage in dog fighting.  A day care in the Chicago area just got busted for being part of a dog fighting ring - if you want to read the article be warned, there is a lot of animal harm in it  -->article.

I called Mike to tell him about it - he was on his way home from our day care after picking up Charlie

Me: A day care in Maywood was running a dog fighting ring! 
Mike: That's crazy. Jeez.  Oh hey, our day care just got an award from the Daily Southtown [newspaper].
Me: The no-dogfighting award?

The people involved have been arrested for dogfighting-related stuff, but not for child endangerment, to which I say WTF? Apparently the dogs and kids were kept separately, sorta kinda.  Kids in the house & yard, dogs in the garage. The article talks about a law--maybe not passed yet--that requires cross-reporting between animal welfare and DCFS, which I think would be a very good thing.

So doing a search on "jade pendant" at amazon.com found me a few nice expected items, and also this...thing.  Which is also nice, for certain values of nice.


(For those who can't see the pic, or for the day when Amazon has a glitch and hides it, the pendant is oblong and curved with sort of veiny things.  It's not entirely penislike but it's more penislike than anythingelselike).

Via NPR: PETA Attempts to Make Fish More Adorable

And here's the PETA Sea Kittens site.  The graphics are cute, but to me it looks like those fishies have chopped and flayed (as opposed to fileted) some kittens, and are wearing them like Aztec war trophies.  

Here is my delicious  adorable Salmon sea kitten, complete with accessories, created with the site's "make your own Sea Kitten!" feature.



I love that you can give your fish a bowl of water.