Another Quiet Halloween at Home

Great Oppressor J has another paper due tomorrow, so in lieu of answering the door at Halloween this year she decided to cut out the middle man and let them all have at the candy before they even hit the door.

You might actually be able to read it if you click on the picture.

In the true spirit of Halloween, here is a picture of me with the scariest multi-headed furry bobble-head kitty EVER.

I've seen that Pet Sematary movie, and this thing is way scarier.

Hell Hound

Okay, is it just me or does this dog look she's been Photoshopped to meet some predetermined standards of beauty? Her eyes are suspiciously large and she looks distressingly similar to a Disney ingenue. I surprised they didn't give her breasts. What kind of message does this project to our puppies? Does it say that all bitches should desire to be sexual objects? Does this tell them that all bitches are meant to be pretty and vacant, good only for their looks? What about female dogs dressed like doctors or lawyers? Or what about a good old-fashioned witch or demon costume? Why do the children of the Great Oppressors get to run around dressed up like demons while those of us dogs who want to dress up like hellhounds and things that go bump in the night are subjected to these sorts of humiliations? If I were to partake in some sort of Halloween ritual, the following costumes fall more in line with my worldview. Bitches, I say we all demand a costume that defies stereotyped gendered roles. Observe...

Master of Nothing

I apologize for my lack of posts lately, but SOMEBODY has been HOGGING THE COMPUTER because of her stupid master's thesis proposal and B is in AUSTRIA so I am not getting ANYTHING DONE. Master? HA!!! Master of nothing! We certainly know who the real master around here is. C'est moi. I've said it once and I'll say it again, graduate students are boring boring boring boring boring boring boring and they HOG THE COMPUTER!!! Seriously unfair. Why does my social life have to suffer just for the sake of yet another pointless brick in the edifice of public relations theory or gaseous emissions theory or chocolate chip cookie theory or whatever pointless thing the Great Oppressors choose to study? How about liver treat theory or the theory of keeping your dog intellectually engaged with something other than the couch or the spot of sunlight on the rug? I can't wait until B gets home.

Back Off Man, I'm a Scientist

The esteemed winners of last year's Ig Nobel prize...

I like to think of myself as a scientist. Sure, my research budget may be limited, but my experiments in how old a particular item in the trash needs to be before it is no longer fit for consumption have resulted in some valuable data. Three-day old chicken carcass? Edible without reprecussions such as gastrointestinal distress. Five-day old rice and beans? Not so much.

Sadly, my own experiments have come to an end since B and J have made efforts to seal up the trash once they realized that my scientific nature and passion for intellectual, yet tasty discovery made it impossible for me to resist. However, the Great Oppressors of the world sometimes come up with some fascinating scientific discoveries and I have found some comfort in this year's Ig Nobel Prize award winners.The Ig Nobels are awarded each year for scientific discoveries that "first make people laugh, then make people think." According to the official Ig Nobel site, the winner of the 2006 Ig Nobel Peace Prize is "Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers." This product is known as "the Mosquito," and according to the official website, is beloved by policemen in the U.K who are stumped by the hordes of antisocial youth who are ripping at the delicate social fabric by loitering. Huzzah for the Brits!

Evil Clowns

So, it hasn't been a great weekend. As a result, I feel like taking myself too seriously today. My young male playmate down the street even tried to hump me this morning, something he's never done before, and I can't help but think of it as a sign that the world is going downhill. I'm beginning to expect that my blogging experiment may have run its course. After all, surely there are better outlets for my creativity? Something more respectable, like the visual arts... For instance, I have always wanted to go back to school and try my hand at painting again. Here is a clown painting I made in my youth.



It's not much to look at, I know. But come on, I'm a dog. At least I can sign my name. It's decidedly non-edgy, which might be what you'd expect from an animal who gets regular walks, affection, a spot on the couch, the occasional table scrap, good access to medical care, and enough free time to do extravagant things like blogging about myself. There's not much ambiguity here. Non-threatening clowns? Cool. It's hard to get worked up about clown paintings in gilt frames any way you slice it. Cute. Great. Good dog, Sid. Nice painting.

But I'm not really feeling like the clowns in my painting are really representative of my inner feelings right now. Besides, the eyes are completely out of proportion. My mood being what it is right now, I feel somewhere in between Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King's "It...."








...and the evil clown doll who attacks Robbie in "Poltergeist."




I'm going to get abstract and pensive here since I don't feel like being witty today. I feel like being serious and dark and arty. Mysterious. J once made a point of turning in piece after piece of "evil clown art" after her junior high school art teacher informed the class that "all art should be beautiful." J's ouevre included a devil clown sculpture, a devil clown mosaic, and numerous drawings of clowns with sharp teeth. Junior high was not a particularly good time for J (from what I can gather, it isn't a particularly fun time for most young teens), but releasing the evil clowns and putting them down where everyone could see them felt good even if she got the impression that nobody knew quite what to say.

Personally, I am feeling like I could use a good piece of evil clown art today. Something with horns and teeth. Not to get all philosophical or anything, but I think we all need to acknowledge that we all have the capacity to be evil clowns in whatever we do. We all need to acknowledge our evil clown and ask ourselves how we choose to deal with it. Do we let the evil clown do whatever it likes? Do we file down the teeth? Do we keep ourselves and our evil clown locked in the basement, out of sight? Perhaps we chain the clown up like the Gimp in Pulp Fiction and bring him out for parties and special events when we need a little evil clown to keep us sharp. But upon reflection, I do not think that the clown can be eliminated from our lives or sent on a predetermined path like a wind-up doll. He sits there in the corner of the room with his pointy yellow teeth and eyes until he rises up and pushes us from behind into a wall. This lets us know that he is still there with us. Our inner evil clown.

Shameless Self-Promotion

You like me! You really, really like me! Opy the Original Gruffpuppy has just informed me that I have been nominated for Awesome Blog of the Month over at the Bone Zone. A shout out to those who nominated me for this great honor. I haven't had much luck with campaigning before, as my attempts to become the new spokesdog for Old Navy (scroll down to the bottom of May's archive and read up to get the full scoop on my failed efforts) were met with indifference from the panel of celebrity judges. To which I say, damn you Betty White and Kristen Chenoweth!!! Anyway, I'm not bitter about my past losses. I'm moving on... I've got more political lives than Bill Clinton! And to even be nominated for such an honor is, well, an honor. So thanks! And don't forget to go to the polls and vote for Sid!

House Party

So, I noticed that my last several entries have been text heavy and short on me. And I like me. So here are some pictures of me from my August trip to Montana that I meant to post but never did. I hope you enjoy me.
I'll start with a picture from May 2004 to give the following pictures some context. This is me with Great Oppressor J in front of our old house in Bozeman. I meant to graft Angelina Jolie's head on to where Great Oppressor J's head is supposed to be, but I'm feeling lazy today. Anyway, it's hard to get a really good sense of the house's lines, but as you can see, it's a house with a nice yard.

During our visit to Montana in August of this year, B and J thought it would be nice to drive by and see the old homestead for one last time. Here is the gaping hole that was once my glorious yard. We found the house across the street....






...over here, all packed up and ready to go. I guess our little house, which is actually a log cabin under the siding, just decided it couldn't take all of the yuppies moving to Bozeman and decided to set off for where it might be appreciated. Good luck, little house!

A Breed Apart

I just returned from a trip to Idaho. It was a good trip overall. I visited J's family, my alma mater, and hung out in Boise which I always enjoy. The downside was two 13 hour car rides across Wyoming. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't like I-80 in Wyoming even if it was paved in bacon instead of concrete and asphalt.

I spent most of the trip home thinking about the many breeds that compose old Canis Familiaris and the strange ways the Homo Sapiens relate to them. My opinion is that the best breed out there is no breed at all. This isn't meant as a slight to my purebred friends out there in cyberspace. This is more of a general comment about those sorts of Great Oppressors who go beyond basic affection for a particular breed and insist on the superiority of one type of dog over the other, effectively reducing the rest of us dogs to some sort of inferior class. I'm proud of my mostly Austrailian heritage, but I don't like how some Homo Sapiens fetishize dog breeds. For example, B and J were walking with me in Boise on Saturday and a guy came up to J and wanted to know what breed I am. He was quite insistent, and while I was flattered, I got the distinct impression that he wanted to find out so that he could procure a dog just like me. In fact, he seemed a bit disappointed when J informed him that I was a shelter dog. This has happened to me before and to be honest, it was a little creepy.

I spent most of the rest of the trip dreaming up names for nonexistent breeds for the next time this happens to me. That way when some creepy person asks B or J what breed I am they can say "Oh she's an Austrian Schnitzel Hound" and when that person starts looking for an Austrian Schnitzel Hound hopefully they will see the folly of their ways or at least feel silly.

So here are some fake breeds that I might be:
*Iraqi Marsh Hound
*Tierra Del Fuegan Penguin Retriever
*Arabian Water Spaniel
*Canadian Touque Retriever
*Indochina Curry Hound
*Lindbergh Terrier
*Mexican Staring Dog

So, my dog friends... help me out with some more fake dog breeds.

Song of Simon

So, my friend Simonhas submitted his draft of the very first dog-authored Gospel of the Bacon Bridge. For those who didn't catch it in the comments section of a prevous post, I reproduce it here in its entirety, although Simon mentioned this was a first draft so I don't know if he meant to add on later...

The Gospel of Simon
by Simon, the Deaf, Half-Blind Beagle with Acid Reflux

"If you shall smell a butt, so let your butt be smelled.
Hound, heeler, lab or mutt, we are all but one; Dog.
Bark, if thy bark, but bark bark only through bark's bark.
In dog's name we bark. Word be to bark."

Sheer poetry! The Gospel of Simon speaks the truth. I have some gospel verse of my own, and I fully encourage any dog out there to contribute their own gospel. I think Simon is on to something here.

Gospel of Sid
by Sid the Dog

"Whosoever passes into the Land of Bacon will smell the glory.
The righteous dog, and we are all righteous by virtue of our kind,
Shall be rewarded with a multitude of bacon strips, fish heads, and soft serve.
Ask not what the Bacon Bridge can do for you, for it does everything.
Buttdraggin, biscuits, bones, ceaseless balls thrown strictly for our pleasure.
I heart the Bacon Bridge."

Oh, I was also thinking that we need a human to sort of explain things to the humans when they arrive at the Bacon Bridge, since this probably won't be what they're expecting. I nominate Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher and popularizer of inductive reasoning.




Sir Francis Bacon

Bad Day

So, whilst walking with J this morning, I was viciously attacked by a wasp. This made the walk home a little painful and slow, and has put me in a bit of a foul mood. The attack was completely unprovoked, and senseless acts of violence tend to make me extremely irritable, particularly when they are committed against me. Anyway, so then I spent the morning on the couch, feeling a little better at this point, and then J came back from her morning stint as a teaching assistant a little irritated with herself for not exactly hitting a home run with her morning lecture. Then J had to call a former employer of hers to interview him for a project, and she got really irritated with herself upon completing the interview because she really hates doing that sort of thing over the phone and felt like it didn't go very well. I mention this only because I could sense the tension and irritability, and that tends to upset me because I am one sensitive bitch. It's also a little gray and muggy today.

But, despite being a dog, I hate whining. Call whine-one-one, it's the waahmbulance! I believe in taking action in the face of ennui. So, I thought about what would make me feel better. After some deep reflection, I decided that posting this picture of myself would help exorcise the demons.



Who says you have to go to heaven to find God?