Five Things Friday

1. The last thing Daniel wants to think about the week before Easter:

2. Our friends' baby = Gizmo?  I'm going to have to say yes on that one.

Editor's note: Her dad put these photos together.

3. Sloth photobomb:

Speaks for itself.

4. Just in time for Easter, it's a 27-lb gummy bear!  Burn off all 10,000 calories by doing kettlebell swings with it before you chow down.

Or if you're more of a megadrile fan, there's a 3lb, 2 ft. long gummy worm.  Coming soon to Daniel's side of the bed when he least expects it.  Maniacal laugh.  Maniacal laugh.

5. On a semi-serious note, this is a really cool live map of wind flow in the US: http://hint.fm/wind/

Have a good weekend!

Eagle-cam

If watching paint dry is just a little too exciting for you, check out this video stream of an eagle's nest in Decorah, Iowa.

Broadcasting live with Ustream

Two babies hatched yesterday, and if you get lucky, the mom might move 2 inches in one direction so you can see one.  It's strangely addictive.  The camera stays above the nest for a long time, and last year one of my coworkers watched them until the babies learned to fly.

While you're waiting, you can take this quiz of American regional English terms and test your knowledge of the meaning of phrases like "Skunk's Misery", "kram", and "tush hog".

Source

Who's excited about seeing The Hunger Games this weekend?????

Anyone?  [Insert crickets chirping]  No?

I totally am.  For what it's worth, it seems to be getting good reviews, despite the fact that it's pretty metal for a kid/teen movie.  Some of the best lines I've seen written about it were:

From Slate: “Some at Lionsgate were also concerned that out-of-context shots of teenagers hunting and stabbing one another and snapping one another's necks could alienate potential viewers.”


From the NY Times: "“The Hunger Games” is rated PG-13. (Parents strongly cautioned.) Brutal child-on-child violence and death."

Which is not the kind of thing I typically pick to read/watch, but the books were really entertaining and I have high hopes for the movie.

Daniel isn't going because he's afraid that it's going to be like Twilight in a gladiator arena.

Which, come to think of it, actually does sound like a movie Daniel would want to see.  And if he changes his mind and decides he does want to get a ticket...

  

This is a big week for me in nerdy entertainment overall.

We got the new Muppet movie from Netflix and are planning to watch it tonight.

How is that not going to be awesome??

AND... we're almost (I cheated by looking at the episode guide on Wikipedia) at the point in The Big Bang Theory where Amy starts appearing!  I think the episodes with her are quite a bit funnier than the earlier ones.  I especially liked the scene with her power ballad rocking the harp.  

Can't have all those childhood music lessons go go waste!

On a Sunday theme

Bible Stories... Seldom Animated:

Spring!

It is officially spring in Madison!  I've been riding my bike to work and Daniel wore shorts today.  I know there's a lot of red on the weather map in the rest of the country, but we're loving our little bit of yellow.  I'm going to cry when it snows again in April.

The official end of winter was captured via time lapse photography.  Check out this neat video of the ice on Lake Mendota melting.  It's a little long, but things start to get interesting at about 1:30.

In other March, related news, last night we went to Hubbard Diner for dinner and split a slice of pie (Mint Oreo, if you were wondering - They were out of key lime) for pi day.  Although I was tempted to buy a cheesy pi-themed shirt, I resisted.  This is actually cuter than the designs of the shirts they were selling, but it gives you the idea.

  

They haven't switched the HVAC system over from heat to AC yet so we are all praying for the freezers to stay on and not to fall asleep at our desks after lunch.  Stay cool out there, everybody.

First day with the windows open, 2012

It's 66 degrees out!!!  Time to let in a little fresh air.

This has actually been a fairly eventful weekend for us as early spring weekends go.

Friday night we went out for pizza and skee-ball at Rocky Rococo Party Pizzeria.  Yeah, it sounds like a plot line from the Harold and Kumar franchise, but we had a good time.  Or at least I should say *I* had a good time defeating Daniel twice at air hockey.  He'll tell you he let me win, but everyone knows the truth; Daniel likes to win.  The pizza, while somewhat unfortunately named, (Anyone want a slice of the meatworks motherlode?) was not that bad.

Don't tell my cardiologist*

 It was no Roman Candle, but at Roman Candle you can't "accidentally" hit a kid in the face with your elbow, steal their tickets, and blow them on plastic stretchy rings.  It's an even trade.

Daniel went to work on Saturday morning and I did the usual chores, etc, to keep us from having to re-use forks or underwear, and Saturday evening we made a trip down to the Stoughton Opera House to see Junior Brown, which was a great show.  Daniel's already decided he's going to learn how to the doxology for church by just turning the tuning pegs on his guitar.

We celebrated the return to daylight savings time with a late night and early morning of getting to church to set up at the Majestic so I'm going to try to take a short nap (With the windows open!  Did I mention that???) to catch up on sleep before the work week begins.

 Glad that the log-in system is working for everyone!     

*Not my picture, but you get the gist.

Back

I blame it on my state... state of mind... state of residence

but I've decided to come out of retirement for ONE FINAL (blogging) MISSION.

Yeah... I've kind of missed blogging.  I haven't, however, missed attempting to "market" my blog to other people by playing the comment back rub game.  Now I've switched the settings to make the blog private, which is why you have to log in to read posts.

 I picked a simple password that will be easy to remember: YKC0.108330689655UB
That's "BUCKY" spelled backwards with pi/29 (my age) inserted in the middle.  Got it?

Just kidding.  It's whatever you used to log in to read this post in the first place.

The upside to having a private blog is that now I can write things like, "Daniel's on vacation, and I'll be eating dinner alone and defenseless at 6:30pm each evening at Babcock Ice Cream Store" or "The apartment below us (address: XXX Eagle Heights Apt X, Madison WI 53XXX) smells like boiled turnips - even with the door closed!"

You can look forward to posts on all your old  favorite topic like:

• #$%#$^! it's cold!
• @#$#! it's snowing!
• @#$#@%##$%#$% it's snowing in May!
• @#$#$@#! it's hot! (Just like shark week, it's a one-time annual event not to be missed.) 

Plus new additions like

• It came from the pickler

Japanese pickled shoulder blade onions anyone?