Back again with a few funnies from our police blotter.  This week we had some gems!

Thursday @ 10:56 – arrested xx xx for possession of alcohol under legal age & public urination

Friday @ 11:44 – woman is on oxygen and worried about fireworks being shot off in the area  (for some reason, I find this both hilarious and sad at the same time!)

Saturday @ 6:11 – sinkhole: officer called in to report another sink hole

8:12 – reckless driving: reporting a subject on a moped hit a parked car knocking off the mirror, caller followed subject and he wrecked his moped in a ditch behind the mental health center  (WOW)

Sunday @ 1:23 – call re possible road cave-in

1:41 – report of goose injured at park; unable to get to goose, Mother Nature to handle (what on earth does that even mean?)

Monday @ 5:04 – two calls reporting a goose with fishing line caught around its leg

Tuesday @ 12:13 – walker at lake reports white goose on grass that has fishing line wrapped around its legs; officer located, could not get close to it but it was moving around freely

All I can think is – poor goose!

It’s been awhile since my last post about the ridiculous police blotter in our town.  Here’s my favorite one from this week:

2:41 report of a beaver in a window well, xxxx street.

He’s pretty cute, right?

I saw this yesterday, and it made me laugh.

Does tweetstalk really exist?

Yesterday while I was catching up on some old posts from some recently subscribed RSS feeds, I found this hilarious post from Our Suburban Cottage.  AnNicole sat down and looked back at some wonderful dated decor – like sunflower gold and avocado of the 70s, natural oak fl0rescant lights and bad linoleum of the 90s,

or mauve and hunter green plus wallpaper EVERYWHERE of the late 80s.  Oh man, some of that stuff…yuck!

But I’m sure there’s things from today that some day we’ll look back and say to ourselves, “what were we thinking? That is SO 2005!”  So in the spirit of something light hearted and fun, and totally stealing the idea from AnNicole, here’s a little list of what I think will soon become dated. And keep in mind, some of these things I actually LIKE

1) Vinyl wall decals

I mean, some of these are neat, but little mottos or cutesie quotes on walls just scream tacky and dated to me.  Plus, someday we’ll all have to use an x-acto knife to scrap all our little sayings off and our walls will be ruined.

2) Distressing Everything

I think it started with the grunge era of the early 90s, and then led into the dirty cowgirl look that Madonna rocked in the late 90s and all of us buying jeans with holes already in them, which then led to Pottery Barn selling everything painted and scraped to pieces.  That’s my theory.

I’m not sure if we like this craze because it makes us feel like we have old furniture that’s worth a lot, or if it’s because we all have cheap furniture that chips so easily and at some point, a thrifty person figured out this was a good way to “make it work.” (Thank you, Tim Gunn)  Either way, I think it will eventually look dated.

3)  Painted Accent Walls

We have one of these that we inherited when we moved into our house – a red room with a black accent stripe from floor to ceiling.  Weird.  And some accent walls can look decent, but I think someday someone will look back and think, “Did they run out of paint? Cheapo.”

And why are accent walls always red?  Seriously.

4) The Tuscan Craze

I’m borrowing from AnNicole on this one.  The fruity wine Italian looking dark and stony look will be OUT.  In fact, I think it’s already on it’s way…

5) White kitchens with granite countertops and silver bin pulls

I don’t know how many times I have seen pictures of this exact same idea in magazines or on websites.  It’s a beautiful concept, and in most homes, I think it can look rather timeless.  In fact, I would LOVE to have a kitchen like this.

But I think this will either be the next Tuscan or natural oak craze.  At the same time, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’s not.  Because it’s still beautiful.  And because it will mean a LOT of expensive remodels in 10 years…

6) Oil Rubbed bronze

Why is this such a big thing? AnNicole is right – we’ll laugh at how we all spray painted everything ORB.  Me included.

7) Chalkboard paint

There are some fun ideas out there for chalkboard paint.  We even have a small chalkboard wall in our basement in what used to be a children’s playroom.

But the chalkboard globe might be taking it a tad too far.

Trellis Print

In moderation, this design is cute.

But this wallpaper is taking it a bit far, don’t you think?

9) Stainless steel appliances

I really like SS appliances – they look professional and spiffy.

But my guess is this will go in circles – we’ll be back to white and black soon.  And then back around to SS.  And around and around we’ll go.  And maybe colored appliances will reappear at some point (I’ve already seen a few fun kitchens with cobalt blue stoves that look fabulous!)

10) Graphic Rugs

Zebra print, chevron, swirly do-dad paisley…birds, flowers…I could keep going.

Yes, this is an actual dining room.

Honorable Mention

1) Wooden Words – you know, the “Live, Laugh, Love” block letters painted blue?  It’s like the charm bracelet of the ’00s

2) Birds – they’re everywhere!  Go check out Pottery Barn right now.  Figurines, nests, cages…

3) Red Kitchen Appliances and Tools – I think Target started this trend.  And I think KitchenAid overcame it when they began offering every color under the sun for their mixers.  Unfortunately, red is classic. And I chose red.  Oh well.

What do you think will be SO 2005?

You must go check out this post with some crazy pictures of stairs – makes my brain hurt!  Between Naps on the Porch: Sunday Fun….

A little preview

A little fun for your monday.  Enjoy!

Ok, so I don’t frequent YouTube super often, but I know there’s a lot of great stuff on there.  It’s a huge procrastination black hole just waiting to happen, so I generally avoid it.  I ended up on a co-workers blog and she had this posted.  It’s pretty hysterical.  Oh, and this isn’t really a political statement, just me sharing something amusing.  :-)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65I0HNvTDH4]

Today I got a phone call from a reporter/columnist (or their minions) at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – don’t I feel special?  Normally I wouldn’t take that kind of call and make up a nice excuse to get back to work, but I had a hunch it would be interesting, so I went for it.

Mostly the standard political questions – are you a registered voter, what party, did you vote in primaries, etc, etc.  Then the nice southern lady started asking about my opinions about different political candidates – whether they would be fit leaders, who you think would be the best for the job of president, what’s your current approval rating of President Bush (ha!  only asked if you approve or disapprove, how’s that for fishing for an article!), who do you think has the advantage on certain “issues”.  

But my favorite two questions came right smack in the middle of a bunch of other value judgements – if you could pick one person to go to dinner with who would it be? (names all current candidates, plus Clinton)  Hehe.  As if THAT’s a good measure of public interest and voter responsibility.  I think Obama would be the most interesting to talk with.  McCain would probably be a snooze-fest, and I’d probably get super annoyed with Hilary.

The other question that I found most interesting was – who do you think is most fit to lead this country….(and then some sort of jargon-y thing I can’t remember that was pretty generic).  I laughed and said, “Well isn’t that the question we’d all like the answer too!”  The lady laughed as well, and I said “I don’t know.”

Media polls are pretty hilarious – the questions are too generic and have very targeted answers.  The personal information they seek is obviously going to be used to establish categories of political support.  Case in point – she asked if I was a protestant or catholic or….(I answered before I heard the rest).  But the only subcategories were evangelical or fundamentalist.  Ummmmm, yeah.  I think that is just dumb.  The media is obviously fishing for an interesting article on evangelical support for so-and-so or such-and-such an issue.  It annoyed me.  And frankly, it just made me realize just how much the media wants to spin an issue.  Can’t someone be an evangelical pro-life democrat?? Or a catholic African-American independent that cares about national security?  What about a traditional Lutheran with republic leanings that’s not in favor of the war in Irag?  Nope.  Scandalous.  That just doesn’t fit into the pie chart as nicely.

I have the greatest roommates and friends!  This Saturday they through me surprise bridal shower, and trust me, it was a complete surprise!  I was in total shock when I walked into the house all normal, and out of no where, everyone yells surprise and Cindy says, “welcome to your bridal shower” – I was floored.  Seriously, I didn’t know what to say or do!  A lot of the girls from Mount Holyoke were there, as well as roommates and friends.  It was great!  The theme of the shower was related to the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so the invitations even had a Greek flag on them, just like the movie.  There was even a bundt cake with flowers in the middle!  (If you have no clue what this has to do with anything, see the movie, it’s hilarious!)  We did a relay race outside, all with different stations related to the movie – bridesmaid dresses, bad teased hair, making a gyro, dancing, baptism – it was hilarious!  Eventually, I need to post (appropriate) pictures, because it was a blast.

 I’m so grateful for all the fun (and gifts!) shared with such amazing friends – you guys rock!  I feel bad for doubting or wondering if my roomies would put something together, especially since one of them is moving to Germany this week.  I was hoping to celebrate before she left, but then it didn’t seem like it was going to happen.  I was a little bummed, but didn’t want to be demanding or anything.  Turns out I didn’t have a thing to worry about!  They even had Jerod in on the whole thing, he knew months ago!  Hence the complete surprise and shock when I walked in to find all my friends waiting to celebrate.  Thanks Meredith, Cindy, Kristen, and especially Sarah for all your hard work and thoughtfulness

Yesterday was Jerod’s birthday – 29! Yikes!  He celebrated with his good friend Scott over a late-afternoon beer at the Moan and Dove (best place for a drink in the valley).  I picked him up and took him for a scrumptious dinner at Judie’s, a cute little restaurant in Amherst that has a good variety of Italian foods, seafood, and GREAT popovers.  I had the yummy seafood gumbo, and Jerod had the scallops.  We don’t go out a whole ton, so it was a special treat to enjoy a nice meal there.  Continued our birthday evening with a movie that was pretty interesting – “In Bruges.”  If you can get past extreme amounts of swearing and some pretty off-color non-PC phrases/jokes, it’s actually a good and slightly ironically funny movie.

I finally got to give Jerod the scarf I’ve been knitting for several months.  I’ll try to get a picture of it since it’s my first cable-knit project.  And since flowers for guys doesn’t really have the same effect it does on girls, I went for one of the fun shiny helium balloons they sell at grocery stores.  :-) Happy Birthday never brought quite so much joy to my day!