introducing Claude

Look who decided to join us, ahead of schedule and under budget — it's Claude!



Claude is, of course, not amused by anything, as you can see. Especially not having his picture taken. Especially when he's decided that he would like a bite to eat. And especially especially when he's decided that he would like to cook that bite to eat.



Claude has discovered a delicious pile of lettuce. But what to do with it?



Claude could say, eat the lettuce, but that would be playing the lettuce's game. He'll just incubate it until it's not expecting anything, and then eat it.



But before that happens, Claude is distracted. What is this? A stove? A pan? How does this work?



Claude examines some of the work in progress.



Perhaps a different angle will produce more understanding, eh Claude? Now he is ready to try it himself.



Oh Claude. You are dumb.

It's Stupid Creature Time!

A few weeks ago, I picked up a book called Stupid Sock Creatures by John Murphy. It looked kind of fun, but as alas, I am really not a "crafter", I figured I wouldn't do anything but laugh at the funny sock thingies and drawings within.

But lo and behold! I actually felt driven to give them a go and got materials that very afternoon and completed one before the evening was out. It was pretty fun, actually, and now I have four of them. I'm working on a fifth, but it's quite a bit more complicated, so it's going slower. Should be done by tomorrow, though.

Here are my thingies so far:



That's Pismo on the left and Lombard on the right. Thanks to his exceedingly flat ass, Lombard can sit on his own, but if left to his own devices, Pismo will just lie flat as a board.



The long sexy fellow is Kanga, and his stubby friend is Wallstreet. Wallstreet can stand on his own (woot for a tripod tail!), whereas Kanga has a really floppy neck, like he's been strangled to death. It's kind of creepy, really.



Here are Lombard, Pismo, and Wallstreet posing. They are pretty silly like that.



Here they are mourning a creepy dead kanga.

I made them all from socks on clearance, except for Lombard, who was made from my own old argyle sock. They're quite amusing to make, except for the way my left hand cramps up when I stitch for a while. I'll have to stop after a few more, since I don't think we have room for that many in the house, what with our lemur collection and airplane collection and everything.

Workout Day

Today I went out for 2 miles, according to good old Google maps. I actually ran for about 3/4 of a mile of that, but I did do the very dorky power walking while during my recover times. My plan is to go for the same thing two more times to get more comfortable before pushing to 1 mile of running and then adding more mileage incrementally.

I swear I'm going to get the hang of this being in shape thing.

I do want one thing that I haven't been able to find. It could be either a web-based thingy or a full program, though it's probably not necessary. It would be one where you could enter a location and mileage and have it generate your run. One out and back and a loop, maybe. It would be great for varying your workout scenery somewhat from day to day, and for quickly coming up with a route when you're traveling.

You could even make a pro version that takes altitude into account and you would then log your times into. It would keep track of your training and suggest routes accordingly. Maybe even suggest additional training, such as crunches or making sure you're getting enough stretching. That would be cool.

My First Widget

To amuse myself , I made (with help from dragons) a Dashboard widget. It was kind of fun, especially making the images. I estimate that it took about 7 hours total for me to do this. One reason was that I was trying to make something completely different before that. But now! Behold the masterpiece!

Download.

Here are a couple screenshots of my widget in action:

and

I know! It's pretty sweet. I have a great idea for my next widget, and here's the best part -- it's also poo related!

Stay tuned.

Hey!

First post! Imagine that.