May Snowflake Jake bring you spices upon spices!




Also, happy anything else you might be celebrating right about now. Hope you have a terrific festive season.

And never forget Jake's wise words: Specificity be the enemy of unity!

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***Snowflake Day is celebrated with the exchange of care-satchels, the ceremonial lighting of the snowman, and the celebratory Snowflake Day cabbage-patch dance. Traditional foods include lamb tacos, bite-size wieners, and jerky balls. The central figure of the holiday is Snowflake Jake, a cheery pirate who gives spices upon spices to good little boys and girls, traveling the world on a pirate ship. Children listen for the cannonballs that signal his arrival. Obvs.

And if you have never seen this episode of Clone High, I pity you. Truly.

Thanks for listening to me prattle.

Your comments are much appreciated.

I have been boiling cinnamon and water all day.  It has masked the bad smell, whatever it is. Thanks for caring.

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Garrison Keilor? And the pussy grabber still has his job? What gives?

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Woman asked to leave Abbotsford mall stabs security guard, police say

Being asked to stay IN  a mall makes me feel like that...

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Look at this dream kitchen:



I bet you could make all kinds of gawdawful jello things in there.
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These guys probably wouldn't  stab anyone at the mall.  Probably.

Same ol' Monday night song!
Watch Travelers!


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it was sunny and cold today. But sunny! I like the sunny bit!
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So the guy who was going to launch a rocket to prove the earth is flat (because B follows A, obviously) has not been able to live his dream yet:

Flat-Earther 'Mad' Mike Hughes forced to delay launch of homemade rocket

The Bureau of Land Management apparently doesn't want him launching his gizmo on public land. Thereby proving (to him at least) that the earth really IS flat, and that there is a government conspiracy to cover up all that flat flatness. Way to go, BLM!
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Except for a woman in New Brunswick finding a lot of headstones on a beach, Prince Harry getting engaged to Meghan Markle, and that idiot doing something idiotic, the only big news today is Dictionary.com picking its word of the year, which is:

COMPLICIT

Okay then.
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I feel you, guy.

One month.

ONE MONTH!
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wendelah1  asked for it, so here it is!

Even worse jello!


Oh, I think we can all agree, this is pretty awful.
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Another episode of When I am Hired as an NHL Coach

It's 3-2 Washington vs Toronto, with one minute to play, so OF COURSE Toronto's pulled the goalie.

I've seen this work ONCE in 50-odd years of watching hockey. 

Bet it doesn't work -- oh wait - now it's 4-2

Why does no one listen to me?  Why??

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The light bulb on my sewing machine blew.  I have had that machine almost 30 years.  This is the first time its gone.  I should not complain.  I still might. 
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Facebook thinks I care - and care deeply - about the upcoming Fifa World Cup.

Facebook is very, very wrong.
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Here's a puppy!

I can't remember which numbers get hyphens.  Maybe none of them any more. Nothing seems to have commas anymore either. 
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Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating!

How was your day?  How was the food?  Any of you get to eat this?


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How did olives get to be a Thanksgiving thing?  Just a California marketing triumph? Or something more? 

If you know, please tell.
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My daughter and son in law showed up with Mexican food! No cooking! Woo!

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Three coffees a day linked to more health than harm: study

I should be as healthy as a well-caffeinated horse.  And yet...

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This poor dog:

It was sunny and surprisingly warm (12C).  It was also crazy windy.  How windy?  My backyard is full of oak leaves.  The nearest oak tree is almost two blocks away. That is crazy-windy.
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Don't these look cool?



They are music boxes you build from bits.  (Awesome description there, Amanda.  Why didn't you go into technical writing, again?)

I wonder who in my life desperately needs one of these for Xmas. I wonder if it is me.

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IKEA was the usual rollicking good time adventure of excitement and fun it always is ... when it's not the weekend. I went to get a duvet and some storage boxes  I got a duvet, some storage boxes, and three new toilet brushes.  I somehow resisted all their holiday stuff, which I've never managed before.  It's probably because they didn't have Christmas trees for sale in the parking lot yet.  The smell of evergreens is fairly intoxicating.
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Alton Brown in on the tv making delicious-looking chicken and dumplings...in 2010. Yes he's making me hungry for food that is at least 7 years old. TV is a time machine. 

Now he's making catfish ceviche.  The man is a wizard.
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I did inventory of my cookie making ingredients so I'd be prepared.  I have 6 bags of icing sugar  - 6 kilograms! Why???? I cannot imagine.
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Puppies gossiping about me having 6 kilos of icing sugar.
   

It's been trying to snow all damned day. I have a feeling it will eventually succeed. 
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Best headline of the day:

France wrestles with the line between seduction, harassment

You don't say? That's a wrestling match that's been going on a long time now.  I'll be sure to let you know when they've got a clear winner.

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I really want to make this.  I am not going to, but I sort of want to.



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Tomorrow is the 70th wedding anniversary of Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. 70 years.  That is a lot of years. That is a lot of married.

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I am hosting a Make, Bake, and Take cookie party again this year. I started two years ago because I thought it might be fun to be involved in a Christmas activity where I was not in charge of EVERY DAMNED THING+THE CLEANING UP.  While looking for inspiration, I ran into this simple step-by-step guide to really cute cookies.



They are simple the way that sub-atomic particles are simple, but they are super cute, nonetheless. Also, I often find the issue with heavily iced cookies is that the icing is too sweet or really unpleasant to the taste or both. There must be a happy medium.
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Apparently the must-get must-give gift of the season is an electric vegetable spiralizer. 


It's so versatile! Not only does it spiralize your vegetables, but it turns your vegetables into spirals!  How have you lived this long without one? Are all your vegetables lumpen clumps?  

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Hubby is off to a week of business meetings in Montreal. Which is where they generally keep the snow.  I will miss him, but not enough to want to be where the serious snow is.

This guy's expression perfectly captures my feelings re: snow.

Sun! There was sun!


Of course it was cold, too. Weather, so fickle.

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My husband forced me -- FORCED ME, I SAY -- to eat this.

It's good stuff.
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I am not excited about the new Star Wars movie.  Are you? (This conversation feels familiar - I bet I said the same thing the last time there was a new Star Wars movie.  And the time before that. I see a pattern. 

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Speaking of patterns:




so cute! But why is one sad? Cookies cannot be sad! Unless they are gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, taste free...

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How do people blog for a living?  They must DO stuff or KNOW stuff or SOMETHING.
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Happy Ides of November!
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I was interviewed for XFiles News.

Read my words of wisdom! Go on, read them!!!
And then read some of the archives. So much wisdom!
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Today was another day without sunshine. UGH. I am a solar powered machine.

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After 37 years, rule of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe appears to be ending

If only they'd had oil someone would have gotten rid of that bastard a long time ago. I hope things improve for the people of Zimbabwe post-coup, but that is so rarely the case.

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Google Docs just ate your homework

Google says a Wednesday outage has been resolved. Guess you'll have to stop binge-watching and get back to that essay instead.

I was editing some stuff today and had the pleasure of hitting refresh over and over and over and...Why is Google Docs so bad?  Why do people use it?  I miss plain text. .txt files weren't fancy, but they worked.  Google Docs? Not so much.
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Bose is crowdfunding noise-cancelling earbuds that can help you sleep

My husband has offered to buy me these if they go into production.  He snores like a buzzsaw.  It is a gift I would accept happily.

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I wish I enjoyed snow 1/135 th as much as this guy.
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