No Lions Or Tigers, But We Do Have Bears

This is going to be one of my mish-mash posts--a little bit of this, a little bit of that. At the end, you will see what the title means! :)

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The Nephew left yesterday--hopefully for good. Why hopefully? He said he isn't too sure how well he did on one of his exams--the one for the class he MUST pass in order to graduate. I'm REALLY, REALLY hoping he is just being hard on himself. Again, as I have said before, he really wasn't any trouble while he was here, but I. DON'T. WANT. ANYONE. LIVING. WITH. US. AGAIN! I like my freedom and privacy a little too much. And there would be no gracious way to say he couldn't stay here again if he had to come back for another semester. :(

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The room where The Nephew stayed is all ready for whoever (whomever?) comes for an overnight visit. I couldn't rest until I got the room all cleaned up and squared away, so I spent last night doing it. It feels good to have that done.

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The Wings lost to Edmonton in a shoot-out tonight. There went another seven-game winning streak. Z got two goals, so that was a very good thing. Overall, I don't think they played as well as they are able. I guess the injuries are starting to take their toll--tonight there were three players out. The biggest problem is that there really isn't a set timetable as to when any of them are going to be able to come back! Holmstrom's knee is bothering him and he should be out for at least one more game; Draper is just now starting to skate with a brace after hurting his knee on 27 November--and he will be out till Christmas, at least; Maltby got some sort of injection in his back to relieve the pain--they really aren't sure what happened to him and no word on WHEN he might be ready to play. The only good thing: it is still early in the season and far away from playoffs, so they can get the injuries out of the way now and be healthy later on. I certainly hope that's the way this will play out.

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I have been getting a sh*tload of hits on this blog recently--today alone I had 34! This is very unusual for here, so I had to investigate. The second biggest number of hits come from people searching for pictures from Body Worlds. The search leads to the pictures I posted when we went to Chicago this spring and saw the exhibition. All of a sudden there was a surge in people searching for pictures, so Body Worlds must be opening in several places.

The most hits I'm getting is from searches about the Geminid meteor shower. I'm surprised so many people come to read my short piece on the shower and don't just go to a scientific site to get info. Interesting.

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Here is a list of some upcoming shows/series on TV:

--Clash of the Choirs (reality show)
--Duel (game show)
--The Singing Bee (reality competition/game)
--Power of 10 (game)
--Dance War (reality competition)
--American Gladiators (reality competition)
--Make Me A Supermodel (reality competition)

That list scares me. PLEASE, PLEASE end this strike already! I can't take it anymore! We are being overrun by ridiculous programming! HELP, someone, HELP!

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I thought I would post a picture of my new Christmas tree. It doesn't really look ALL that different from last year's tree, but still...

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For those of you who have never heard of, or been to, a Build-a-Bear store, here is a little background. These stores allow you to go in and 'build' your own bear--or other stuffed animal/character. They have 'carcasses' in bins and you decide what kind of stuffed character you would want to have. You then take the carcass to the machine where they fill it with stuffing--this is done to your own specification as to how firm or squishy you want your bear. (There are other options to decide at this point, but I won't get into any more specifics.) When you are done building your 'friend,' you get to register it at the computer and then clothe it. As far as the stuffed characters are concerned, the prices aren't too bad--they make their money on the clothing and accessories for these things. (I get a bear for each grandchild as it is born, I put a set of clothes on it as a gift, and then forget about it--I would go broke if I had to try to continue buying clothes for all of the grandkids' bears!) I own two bears, myself. And I buy them clothes. They are part of my decorating scheme all year long--I clothe them according to the holiday or season and they are on display in the dining room. (I know, pretty damn lame!) Considering it is the Christmas season, my bears should be dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, however, since buying my boy bear his last outfit, I couldn't put anything else on him. I now present to you Pikku Bear (this is the girl--'pikku' means 'little' in Finnish) and Iso Bear ('iso' means 'big' in Finnish--and this is the boy bear).

Pikku Bear




Iso Bear

Now, if I could only get that uniform on my cat I would have a really GREAT picture to send in to StuffOnMyCat.com! Like that could EVER happen. :)