YouTube is great! Thanks EA for getting me addicted!
I'm so planning out a Buzz video already! If only I had his extensive wardrobe with me.

Burger the angry cat

This is why Buzz is afraid of cats!

Panda

I fear this is the type of mother I'd be . . . munch munching along day dreaming of- you know stuff and things when suddenly I remember I have a baby! Ahhh!

I've been going through my pictures. I decided I need to organize. I've been using Picassa, which is a photo editing program from Google. And Blogger is from Google, so they are linked.
I can post pictures directly from Picasa. (Now I know, since I just posted this one.)

I decided to post this one because it seems I'm facinated with the Coloseum. I have tons of pictures of it, especially the inside. Maybe I'll share them with you someday.

Someday when I've finished organizing!
 

It's so many doxie butts it blows my mind!
http://www.hotdogblog.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3035&forum=8

The Miniature Dachshund Creed
1. If it's in my mouth, it's mine!
2. If I like it, it's mine!
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine!
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine!
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way!
6. If I'm chewing something up, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks like mine, it's mine!
8. If I saw it first, it's mine!
9. If you are playing with something and put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it's in the same house I'm in, it's mine!
11. If it's broken, it's yours!

Okay this is the last dachshund tidbit, but can you believe there is an entire page dedicated to the fact that dachshund paws smell like Fritos?

sad but true- grown people sniffing doxie paws . . . Fritos . . . mmmmm I gotta to sniff my dog!

http://www.hotdogblog.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2740&forum=8

Pablo Picasso had a dachshund named Lump.
Lump was depicted in several of Picasso's paintings.

The skinny black elongated mouse on the bottem is Lump.

No wonder I never knew Picasso had a dachshund, who would have ever looked at that thing and said, "Oh, Picasso must have loved his dachshund so much! Look, he's in this painting!"

http://www.jimcaputo.com/picasso_paintings.htm

You learn something everyday.

I forgot about my sea wee- sigh- so it goes.

Today is some sort of Ganesh festival- what that means to me=

The temple started blasting the puja at 7:15 this morning.

There are what appear to be Christmas lights strung up all over the place (I only say they appear to be Christmas lights because there are little outlines of pine trees on the ones down my street.)

There are newly erected palm leaf and plastic sheeting huts all over the neighborhood housing statues of Ganesh (the mostly elephant- some human shaped god.)

When I got home from church, the music emanating from the hut at the end of my street (ally) was so loud, Buzz was hiding in the corner of the bathroom looking like he had just received a visit from the dog eating boogie man.

And I had been looking forward to a nice nap.

Not happening. I felt a little guilty leaving Buzz alone with the noise again, but I couldn't take it. Indian music as low levels is something I can bearly tolerate in small doses.

Indian music blaring and reverbrating off the concrete walls throughout the street and all around my apartment- too much.

I closed Buzz in the quietest place I could find and left.

I hope this is not an all night celebration.

Microsoft insisted that I put up a bio on their silly website nobody reads except us- and we already know each other!

Here's mine:

"Shannon started working at Microsoft in June of 2006. She graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in December of 2005. Shannon likes reading and writing but abhors arithmetic. She also likes dachshunds, turtles, mermaids and although she’s a vegetarian, slim jims."

It was furious battle for the sea wees, but in the end I was not willing to spend $45.00 for 8 20something year old mermaid dolls with ratty hair, chewed fins and chipped paint.

But I'm not discouraged because I've found one pristine sea wee of my liking complete with accessories! I'm sure this one doll will cost almost as much as that lot of 8, but I'm going to watch it carefully . . .

signed- sea-wee fanatic

http://i24.ebayimg.com/01/i/08/13/8a/7b_1_b.JPG

I don't remember ever pretending to be a princess when I was a little girl.

I told pk this and she said her nieces weren't allowed to pretend to be princesses on account of the princesses killing their mothers.

I protested, I never heard of a princess killing her mother!

She pointed out that they always have dead mothers and/or (evil) step mothers. What is a good and alive mother to conclude?

Let’s think about this:

Cinderella’s mother- dead
Snow White’s mother- dead
Beauty (of the & the Beast)’s mother- dead
Did the little Mermaid have a mother? I don’t remember her.
What’s her face of Aladdin’s mother- no where to be found.

It does appear to be a trend . . .
I said, “Sleeping Beauty had a mother.”
She said, “I never heard of her- she must not have ever done anything great.”
True- in fact she let her daughter get cursed by an evil (fairy?)

This is a digression from my intent because- in fact, I didn’t really want to talk about princesses; because I didn’t want to be one when I was a kid.

Except for WonderWoman- she was a princess, but she was a kick-butt princess. I didn’t want to be her because she was a princess, but because she 1. she had a cool outfit 2. she had a golden lasso of truth and 3. she had an invisible jet.

And her mother- ALIVE!

Any way . . .

Since I didn’t ever pretend to be a princess I was thinking about what I did pretend to be when I was a kid.

My cousin and I had these mermaid dolls. They were called “Sea-Wees.” I loved my Sea-Wee. She had red hair and a turquoise body. She was a tub toy. She came with accessories: she had a baby, a comb, and a lilly-pad shaped sponge she and the baby could float around on.

My cousin’s Sea-Wee had blonde hair and a pink body. The past few days I’ve been obsessed thinking about these silly dolls we had when we were about 5.

So I looked on E-bay to get a picture of a Sea-Wee and I hit a bonanza of Sea-Wees! If all goes well I will have a bunch of Sea-Wees to do with what I may!

(A fool and her money are soon parted when she looks up childhood toys of E-bay.)

All that to say: when I was a kid, I pretended to be a mermaid, not a princess. (Unless it was WonderWoman, who is a princess, but not a mermaid.)

When My cousin and I went swimming we would take our Sea-Wees and have great adventures with them. Then we would take our hair out of the pony tails and the braids and swish it around in the water and tell each other how beautiful our mermaid hair was in the water.

So- I didn't grow up to be a mermaid- but I am a princess . . . I should have known to practice!

Buzz wants a job

Are those dachshunds dancing near the back waters of Africa behind David Hasselhoff?

My job . . . it's something like this . . .

send me an emu

Bangalored

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bangalored is a neologism and used as a verb. Bangalored is used to indicate a layoff, often systemic, and usually due to corporate outsourcing of the business function to lower wage economies. The word is derived from Bangalore, India, which houses outsourcing centers for Western economies.

It refers to people who have been laid off from a multinational company because their job has been moved to India (outsourced — a business practice designed to save money that is arousing passions in some countries, especially Britain and the United States). Bangalore is cited in particular because of its reputation in the USA as a high-tech city, and widely regarded as the Silicon Valley of India that has benefited significantly from such outsourcing.

Them is meeting words: my favorite words and phrases from this week's staff meeting.

“a giant sucking sound”
“so you don’t have to peer”
“a cascading level of detail”
“a warm hand off”
“They are quite happy, but they want to be more happy.”
“I’m listening to what I see.”
“It’s good, but not what it needs to be, or should be, or could be.”
“short sharp options”
“tighten and righten”
“align your offerings”

Also used the words:

Tertiary
Linkages (three times)
Lingering
Jargon
Extrapolate
Howfar
Stymied
Cannibalize

Driven (nine times)

Meetings are so much more fun when I have fun games to play.

The national sport of India is . . . . HOCKEY!

FYI

http://www.theholidayspot.com/indian_independence_day/national_symbols.htm

The end of the sari story:

This sari business is far, far more complicated than I at first expected. I mean, it just looks like a few yards of cloth strategically wrapped around a girl.

I bought this pretty blue sari with a gold and copper boarder. I went to the tailor to check out the scene. I decided to give him an easy project before we got into a sari blouse. I had him make a kamese- one of those knee length loose fitting tunic-type shirts. He took my measurements, being overly cautious to not touch the ample goods. That was fine by me. I figured, he was the tailor, he knew how to take measurements and make clothes according to his own measurements.

After what seemed like forever (Wal-Mart has instilled instant gratification into my very heart and soul) I went back, picked up my new clothes, and went home to shimmy into them. To my (great) dismay my boobies were pressed flat like pancakes. I’m not even talking sports bra flat. I’m saying it was like I was getting a mammogram inside my shirt . . . it was disturbing to say the least.

I knew that this tailor was not my choice for a form fitting sari blouse. I had to find a lady tailor who would understand the delicate nature of the female form.

I wandered around the neighborhood until I looked into a dark little shop and found a lady sitting behind an ancient sewing machine. I told her I needed a blouse for my first sari. She measured EVERYTHING. Honestly- there was a lot of measuring going on to make a half shirt, but I’m down with thoroughness.

Again I waited less than patiently to go back to pick up the newest addition to my wardrobe of the world. When I got there she wanted me to try the blouse on before I left.

Okay- so I had to put it on over my T-shirt (remember that sari blouses are generally tight little numbers.)

So I tried to get it on, but it was too small. The tailor lady said, “No, it’s not small, it’s only because of your T-shirt and your ‘vest,’ it will fit.”

My ‘vest’ what the . . . I guess she meant my bra- so am I not supposed to wear a bra with a sari blouse? Who should I ask? Is there like a “Dear Aleezahtasha” in the news paper that I can pose all my embarrassing questions to?

As I pondered these questions the tailor lady came to “help.” But, as it had been true only moments before, it was still true at that point, the blouse was too small- so two more ladies came to “help.” Now there were three women trying their best to push my girls into a too small blouse.

Finally they were convinced it wasn’t going to happen. –whew- there was almost a riot!

I have come to the conclusion that these people take my measurements; write them down then, when they go to make the item, they look at what they wrote and think, “That can’t be right- that’s HUGE! I’ll make it smaller and it will be perfect.”

Crazy little-tiny-brown people!

Anyway- she made it bigger- well, big enough to get it on my body but barely. Eh- I need to lose a few pounds anyway.

I was walking through my neighborhood when suddenly I was confronted with a herd of goats. Not just 1 or 4 goats as that could be considered “normal” in my neighborhood, a HERD of goats- like 29 goats (or something like that.)

As I considered the oddity of that sight- something caught my eye and I turned my head and saw a sheep . . . on a bicycle.

Think about that. I want you to picture it in your mind’s eye. Let me help you. It was a black sheep, curly wool. It was a big sheep. It was an old fashioned bicycle, with a heavy frame and large wheels. The bell was ringing, (because if any form of transportation is moving, the bell or the horn is also sounding.)

So- big black sheep on old fashioned bicycle –BRRRRIIIIIIIIG! BRIIIIIIING!

Okay so what you just pictured, it wasn’t like that at all. How could it be? But it was fun to think about right?

It was more like this- two teen aged boys, a big black sheep and an old fashioned bicycle.
One boy was driving, and BRIIIIIIING! ringing the bell. The other boy was holding the big black sheep on his lap. The sheep was hanging over on both sides of the boy’s knees. The sheep didn’t seem to think anything out of the ordinary was happening.

click on the funny to read . . . about my life

Someone asked me how Pakistan and Bangladesh were related. To my great surprise I had a really informed answer off the top of my head.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the amount of useless information I retain.

Bangladesh used to be "East Pakistan" FYI