NEVER JET HOT

12 Yes, according to that website, I could beat 12 five year olds in a fight. And there's a rough-looking preschool just down the street, so it may come to that.

I think I know why everyone around here was cranky yesterday... It's all that FOOD. Fudge. Those sausage and cheese things. ALMOND ROCA. Red and green MM's. The other fudge with the peanut butter. And where does Teresa stop to pick up lunch? TERIYAKI. It's a wonder we're not all writhing on the floor in gastronomical agony.

Just an idea I had, after all, he's already THERE. The last chimney inspector we had made a hell of a noise, and damaged some roof tiles, with all that dancing around up there. And he drew a bunch of stuff in the driveway too

I'm still trying to figure why I need this "twitter.com" - If I saw a monkey walking down my street, I would probably use my cellphone to email a picture of it to the mrs. - I pay T-mobile $60+ a month just to ensure I am ready for such eventualities. Twitter really shines when you're away from your computer. By hooking up your mobile phone, you can receive updates from those you're following (or just some people) when you're waiting in boring lines. And you can send updates, like "OMG, there's a monkey walking down the street!"—which, lets face it, you're unlikely to see while you're indoors.

Our local "consumer guy", Herb Weisbaum, is really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to come up with "How to spend less on those last-minute gifts" tips. Get this; First, be skeptical of all sales. Sometimes the discounts aren't what they seem to be. "Because they're not based on the MSRP, the manufacturer's suggested retail price, but on a made up original price," said Shop Smart's Lisa Lee Freeman. What do they think the MSRP is? Somewhere along the line, someone has to pull a made-up price out of his or her ass. It's all made up. But wait! There's more; If you're shopping online, do it first thing in the morning. Shop Smart says you'll get the best deals that way. "They often offer good deals early in the day. That's when traffic is lighter so they're really trying to grab people and get sales," Freeman said. Yeah right! Like we have time to fart around with the website all day. I don't know ...

From IusedToBelieve.com; When I was about 9 or 10, I heard about the internet. I thought that when you bought things off the internet, you had a little box attached to your computer with a hole and you'd drop coins in the hole. When you'd put in enough money, they'd send whatever you bought. Sarah W She heard about the Internet when she was TEN? I heard about Woodstock when I was ten. Sigh.

Here in Hellhole, Wa. people don't wait until it gets snowy to forget how to drive. Last weekend there was a 17 car pile-up on I-5 up by Mount Vernon. It involved several SEPARATE collisions in perfect driving weather. Most of them were caused by inattentive driving, according to the state patrol. The problem is, there isn't a gadget the police can make them blow in that measures that sort of thing.

D.B. Cooper, where are you? For Pete's sake, it's been 36 years. Give it a rest already. Shouldn't you guys be more interested in finding a certain tall skinny bearded fellow?

What kind of "Restless Mouse" site would we have without a windup, furry, creepy novelty mouse toy? However it sort of creeps me out the way the tail moves as it goes. The one we took for product testing drives the dog NUTS. The windup mice come in white, gray, black, or brown, you can request your desired color(s) in the comments field when you order, most folks don't really care, in that case we will send whatever is top of the box. They are inexpensive fun, Get your furry skittering mice here

We at The Restless Mouse are very excited about our latest adventure, we have purchased the remaining inventory and website of Lakeside Novelty Co. - I first bought from them when I was like, 12, back when they were running full page magazine ads all over. So naturally when we started this online venture I went back to the well. I still need to get the website transfer and design done, but you can see the kind of products we will be adding HERE - We will be selling items at wholesale there, I know a lot of you buy in quantity for school events, ebay, or what have you- This is a splendid opportunity to get some hot prices on items that we can offer really cheap, this is stuff we will be importing or buying in large quantities (truckloads!) from first-tier US suppliers. The items listed there now - Novelty licenses, funny money, etc. - will be arriving here toward the end of November. Please let us know if you are looking for ANY novelty product, we thought we "knew where the bones...

THANKSGIVING The turkey shot out of the oven and rocketed into the air it knocked every plate off the table and partly demolished a chair it ricocheted into a corner and burst with a deafening boom then splattered all over the kitchen completely obscuring the room it stuck to the walls and the windows it totally coated the floor there was turkey attached to the ceiling where there'd never been turkey before it blanketed every appliance it smeared every saucer and bowl there wasn't a way I could stop it that turkey was out of control I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure and thought with chagrin as I mopped that I'd never again stuff a turkey with popcorn that hadn't been popped.

From a recent survey form we got back; "It took me 3 days to complete my order because you have so many cool - bizarre items..." Thanks for the lift, anonymous customer person. It made my day.

With growth of a business comes more headaches, ergo this.. RUNDOWN ON INVENTORY OUTAGES (There may be others I will add later) CU0664 I.T. Cubes - NUTS We won't have any until JANUARY! EP0501 Shakespeare Insults with gum - Ordering Monday, should have by Thursday. HP0301 Handy Extending Metal Backscratcher - We have a bunch of these coming, no clue from the supplier, but based on past experience, I would give it an arrival date of about the 21st. MA1215 Two Headed Quarter. I expect several dozen of these, any day now. PJ1207 Sneaky Extending Spoon. Our supplier says no more until January! PR7202 Giant Toothbrush - UPS says they will be here 11/26 - We actually have one green one in stock, let me know if you need me to post it on the website for you. Anyone? Anyone? PR7203 Giant Comb - On the truck with the giant toothbrushes!

Kitsap County man uses shotgun to loosen lug nut I feel bad for this guy because cars hate me too. Apparently it's a very bad idea to use a shotgun at this range. Typical of the Herald, they don't say whether it loosed the lug nut.

I got an email from a Karen H. via Classmates.com - I was racking my brain, Karen, Karen... I used to to know this German girl named Karen in high school, she invited me to play tennis one time but I declined because I was not prepared to spend an afternoon retrieving her balls and mine. It turns out that some other Karen (probably one of those girls who had to pretend I did not exist, lest she lose control of her barely contained lust, dig?) is organizing our 30th reunion! 30 years? What, did I graduate when I was four?

I want to get an MP3 player for my mom who is in her 80's... She has to be able to figure out the buttons, and they can't be horribly tiny like the Creative Labs MUVO I gave her a couple years ago. It will be streaming jazz, she likes all of stuff I plan to put on it, so searching for tracks won't be an issue. Is the Ipod the only good options? I listen to music on my Palm Tungsten at work, and a lot of people call THAT an ipod because I am listening to music on it. I suspect their brand name is going the way of the "Band-Aid" if Apple doesn't nip that in the bud. Any suggestions?

It wasn't a health department violation at the skating rink last week, just a plastic skeleton in a coffin. I still think it would put me off my feed at the snack bar though.

Teresa saw this "Oreo Spam" and said "Now THAT would make a good breakfast!" ... On what planet is this considered breakfast food?

Well, be afraid that he will bark at you to the point of insanity. That's what Petey D. Dog's MO is.

Went to the library today, even checked out books wihout googling them first. Googling at the library just seems wrong. I know, I'm an old fart, but whatever happened to using your quiet voice at the library? People in there talking at full volume, plus crying/whining toddlers. If there were video game noises and bad smells I would have thought I was at Chucky Cheese.

The Humongous Steel Pig Mascot is for sale on Craigslist... There are so MANY things you can do with a giant steel pig, but my wife shoots down EVERY SINGLE ONE. And then she wonders why I'm not rich. How can I get rich when all of my grandiose endeavors are blocked at every turn?

Lois lane comic on ebay by somebody I don't even know I'm disinclined to pay 13 bucks for a ten cent comic book, but this one is kind of funny, I like to think Superman has a dark side just like captain Kirk... Making Lois ride in that thing is just humiliating... LOL Lois Lane is super pissed... Looks like her rival Lana is already on her tiny cellphone telling everyone.

Fiber is good for you

Some callers surely wonder why it always takes us about 8 rings to answer the phone here at the Restless Mouse Novelty Company. You see, our business line is routed to an old phone with a real bell in it, and it's LOUD SHRILL and OBNOXIOUS. I have a night job, so when people call mid-morning, we are still drinking coffee, coughing and scratching ourselves. Naturally when the phone rings we are all "CRAP! Already? Stupid phone!!" Then we laugh at our crappy customer service attitudes. After that, it takes maybe two more rings to compose oneself, another to cough some more (And nobody even smokes here!)... Only then are we ready to answer the phone in a pleasant and professional manner. So, bear with us.

We are mailing our ballots back today, or soon anyway- Wasn't going to but I want to vote NO on a roads and transit tax- That's supposed to be what all the gas tax was for. Anyway, it's mainly to widen certain roads to benefit developers and bring in EVEN MORE people. If it was just for transit I might have considered it. They will probably just tax & build whatever they want anyway, that's what they usually do. All you who live in more enlightened states or less populated areas may commence feeling smug now.

It was probably only a 6 and a half foot python. The media likes to exaggerate.

With Election Day less than three weeks away, Venus Velazquez hopes voters will look past her Wednesday night drunken-driving arrest as they cast ballots in the intense, sometimes bruising contest for an open seat on the City Council. (Seattle P-I) Yeah, but you know what? I don't think I want to dive into the cesspool known as the "voting booth" anymore. Been voting for 25 years, and nothing good has come out of that.

We already have one of our customers winning a costume contest using one of our products- T.L. of Lincoln, Nebraska won a prize for funniest costume... ... She's an over-the-top dentist, with one of our Giant Tooth Brushes as a prop. Although I suspect the household cordless drill in the other pocket may have been what sealed the deal.

I hope whoever is trying to call us the last day or two doesn't hate us forever- It seems that the incoming calls just aren't getting through, I see some calls on the log but the phone number is cut off! And, no name of course. Anyway, whoever you are, if you read this- please LEAVE A MESSAGE or send an email, so I can find out what it is that prompts you to try so hard to reach us. ITS TOO BAD NO MORE TELEGRAMS STOP BUT ANYWAY IT WOULD BE LIKE A NICKEL A WORD STOP I WOULD GO BROKE STOP BECAUSE I NEVER STOP STOP TALKING STOP

Is there nothing new under the sun? Apparently my favorite old sitcom, Green Acres, was originally just a side bit on Lucille Ball's radio show. This from the OTR.COM feed; GRANBY'S GREEN ACRES, situation comedy. Broadcast History: July 3 - August 21, 1950, CBS. 30m, Mondays at 9:30. Cast: Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, ex-bank teller and wife who moved to the country to become farmers. Louise... GRANBY'S GREEN ACRES, situation comedy. Broadcast History: July 3 - August 21, 1950, CBS. 30m, Mondays at 9:30. Cast: Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet as John and Martha Granby, ex-bank teller and wife who moved to the country to become farmers. Louise Erickson as Janice, their daughter. Parley Baer as Eb, the hired hand. Announcer: Bob LeMond Music: Opie Cates Writer-Producer-Director: Jay Sommers. Granby's Green Acres grew out of characters played by Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet on the Lucille Ball series My Favorite Husband. The names were changed, b...

I had not remembered about Columbus Day* until I tried to print postage for Monday ships and stamps.com pushed it up to Tuesday. I remember when I was a kid, all the stores would remind you by having big Columbus Day sales ("Ladies Underwear half off for Columbus!" OK, I made that one up) but not so much anymore. I understand it's a real big deal back east. They love him in Sheboygan. Apparently there are many who don't like him because he started the whole colonization thing. But hey look, if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else. Eventually an airplane capable of going to the edge of the world would have been invented, anyway. At any rate, we can't ship anything until Tuesday morning. I hope this doesn't put a crimp in anyone's toothpaste. * Columbus Day, not "Columbo" day, whereupon everyone wears a raincoat and asks lots of questions

How do you like our, umm, seasonal logo? I wanted something that would subconsciously remind you folks, it's getting to be that time of year, without getting all pre-halloween Christmassy like at the department stores already. Hey, I have an excuse, mail order takes a little longer to get to your house. At least WE aren't shoving a Christmas Tree down your throat until you choke on the tinsel.

This is an odd juxtaposition. Do ya think they did it on purpose?

Have you noticed the WWW is a big mess? Good grief, Al Gore what have you wrought? It's good to secure funding for things, but be a little choosier next time. (EDITORS NOTE: If these blog posts make even less sense than before, it's probably because I have a new job that's graveyard shift, and I also have a Westie dog. It's not a good combination. Last week, two UPS trucks decided to back up to each other and do a package transfer of some sort. I thought the dog was going to have a heart attack! He was repeatedly jumping 5 feet straight up while barking and trying to push the door open from the wrong side. That sort of thing is not conducive to a good night's sleep.)

Locate and Share Bad Neighbors in Seattle Washington Before and After You Move This "Rotten Neighbors" (anti)social site is a really bad idea, imho. Although it is an interesting read. Consider the case of "accordian guy". The disgruntled neighbor, Houstman, is posting this about 5 am- an hour before accordian guy starts playing. Houstman can't sleep, he sits in the dark, no noise except the clock on the wall, a distant train. Waiting for it. Finally, he snuffs out his cigarette. Time to unroll the garden hose. Anyway, who wants to take bets on how long it takes Parker Brothers to sue because of the Monopoly-house logo? Blogged with Flock

A businessman was in Japan to make a presentation to the Toyota motor people. Needless to say, this was an especially important deal, and it was imperative that he make the best possible impression. On the morning of the presentation he awoke to find himself passing gas, in large volumes, with the unpleasant characteristic of sounding like "HONDA." The man was besides himself. Every few minutes "HONDA", "HONDA".... Unable to stop this aberrant behavior, and in desperate need to terminate these odious and rather embarrassing emissions, he sought a physicians aid. After a full examination, the doctor told him that there was nothing inherently wrong with him and that he would just have to wait it out. Being unwilling to accept this state of affairs he visited a second and then a third doctor all of whom told him the same thing. Finally one medic suggested that he visit a dentist. Well although he could not see how a dentist was going to be of any help, he vis...

Paulie, the rude ^$@# parrot It's getting to be the time of year when early birds are getting the swearing birds, Paulie (Is that the best @!$#% name they could come up with?) - Paulie is the bird of choice for having a cussing critter in your stocking on Christmas morning. And why not? We have the best price, and the singing wall fish thing just won't fit. Blogged with Flock

Folks, you should check out some of these "trade for points" websites. Get DVD's, CD's, VHS tapes, Books Etc. In exchange for ones you don't want anymore. All it costs is postage for the ones you send. My favorite one is TitleTrader.com Yesterday I got a Jimmy Dean CD specifically so I could add a certain song to my collection of novelty music... "I won't go hunting with you, Jake, (But I'll go chasin' Women)" I must say that for the most part I like those Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage patties better than his music. (Notice I phrased that very carefully)

SignGenerator.org is as addictive as Sweet and Sour Chicken.

Symptoms from Flapjack Toys - Itchy Scalp Giant medicine bottles? Huge pill bottles? With monsters? Yea, we got 'em. Blogged with Flock

Combines bartender and psychiatrist jokes... Guy telling his bartender his troubles; "My wife thinks she's a pretzel!" Bartender sez, "Did you take her to a psychiatrist?" "Yeah... he says she's twisted." OR "My wife thinks she's a piano!" Bartender sez, "Did you take her to a psychiatrist?" "Are you kidding? Do you know how much it costs to move a piano??"

"Rattlesnake Egg" oval magnets They call them rattlesnake eggs because the noise they make when you toss them in the air supposedly sounds like a rattlesnake ready to strike. I just like to use them as artsy fridge magnets, they sure are strong magnets. Someday I am going to try to saw one in half for an interior view. Blogged with Flock

Rolf Harris, Ladies and Gentlemen. I rediscovered him by buying a best of CD on eBaY to get "Nicoteen and Al K. Hol" - I love every track.

A man walks into a bar pulling a heavy chain. The bartender asks the man what he can get him and why the man is pulling that chain around? The man answered " HEY!! you ever tried pushing one of these things?!!"

Kind of liking this new "swap stuff via points system" site, titletrader.com - We mailed a couple items today but can't use the points we made until someone posts feedback that they got it - That's sort of a bummer, because they don't really have an incentive to do so, I like that bookmooch.com gives you a tenth of a point for posting something and a tenth for letting the system know you got something. Anyway, will post here when we know more. This is what we have up on titletrader right now:

Lunchtime decision maker This may seem like a silly item but I moonlight (literally) in a factory, and even with the limited options we have, sometimes it's hard to decide; PB&J from the lunch sack? Horrible Cafeteria food? Argue about who has to go to the gate to haggle with the teriyaki guy? Or maybe raid the day shift fridge? The possibilities are mind-boggling. Blogged with Flock

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Blogged with Flock

Habitrail For Humanity Under Fire | The Onion - America's Finest News Source This is so wrong. Blogged with Flock

The Comics Carmudgeon Josh must have this secret comics war room in his basement, with a huge computer to keep track of all the comic strips. (He got it at the “Superfriends” liquidation auction, along with Aquaman’s old Plymouth and some office furniture. ) Otherwise he lives in a newspaper-filled hovel, blearily searching his Curtis clippings and bickering with the wife, who holds forth at the ironing board in an old nightgown, with curlers in her hair, and chain-smoking. Maybe both.

This Homer update was brought to you by our Dashboard Talking Homer Simpson and the letter "H"

Neighbors are nice enough here but the dog next door apparently is descended from some pack of barking, whimpering critters, I don't know what evolutionary advantage it served, but he still has it. In spades. So, I turn to the free OTR Old Time Radio site, and listen to Orson Wells as Harry Lime, "The Third Man". What can I say? I like bad French accents and zither music.

We just changed the vendor-supplied template on ThatRestlessMouse.com - it solved an issues with search in firefox browsers, and more importantly, made it much easier to change the quantity on items in the cart. Of course, this has no effect on orders or shipping. It just looks different. Many thanks to Foodgirl.com for mentioning our Corndog scented car air fresheners in her newsletter. They must have a large, devoted following; we had a HUGE run on those. In fact we got 72 today but only a few left now! Ordering more.

We were having a problem where Ebay multiple-item orders were being charged $4.99 per item for shipping, instead of $4.99 for the whole shipment. Of course this involves me having to come up with a workaround, all the while bowing and scraping like the chastised waiter on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It annoys the customer and makes us look like we either don't know what we are doing, or worse yet it makes us look like we are pulling a fast one. Anyway, turns out the problem was as simple as unchecking a box on one of the shipping settings screens at my web store provider's site. That thing is truly cumbersome and puzzling to me, it's a Rube Goldberg contraption, and I always hesitate to monkey with it. I think that's how they like it. Again I apologize to those who were temporarily thwarted in their purchasing efforts.

The flock browser has 7 windows open, using less than 100k! I was using Firefox earlier under about the same load, it was using over 400k of memory. So far I like this new browser...

Checking out this Flock browser, supposed to make blogging, posting to flickr, etc. a lot easier- Looks like it does that, and I like the intro screen that presents your recent sites, etc. without any tweaking first. It made me a bit leery at first, took a long time to install (by modern standards) and seemed to be doing a lot of fiddling with my computer's internal dials and switches. Does seem to run faster than Firefox though. More on this later. PHOTO: Teresa at the Everett "Sausage Festival" in 05. I thoughtfully included porta-potty row in this picture. Blogged with Flock

I got to thinking, maybe those Ebay customers who are only wanting maybe one giant pen, or a Cubes delivery guy, maybe they are put off by the $4.99 flat rate shipping - So I made a deal in the auction/ebaystore template whereas we will send them a no-strings coupon worth $3 on their next order if the shipping is more than a dollar over what our shipping cost is. Nevermind the fact that there is more to shipping than just postage, we have to buy the non-priority boxes, plus there's bubblewrap, all sorts of tape, and equipment like you would not believe. Plus the tape-gun repairman is taking two of our tape guns to the shop for complete rebuild and destickify process. Also and most unfortunately for us tax-wise, we live in Washington state, them in Olympia and some other fat-cat friendly states are setting up tax-collection rules that will swat tiny internet businesses like the fruit flies around the festering trashcan of business that we are. OK, my analogy got a little haywire, bu...

The Restless Mouse fully and without hesitation supports the effort to get a star on the Hollywood "Walk of Fame" for Weird Al. Parody is an important aspect of the music scene. And before you scoff, check out The list of stars . If Mariah Carey gets one, Weird Al should have three.

Wasn't sure if I had ever gotten around to blogging about Bookmooch. Just noticed that between Teresa and myself we have "mooched" over fifty books! and given away three dozen to other moochers. It's all free except for the outbound postage. I have found lots of treasures there, Teresa likes trashy romance novels and there's plenty of those too. You probably won't find books on the NYT best seller list right away, but later there will be plenty of copies, did I mention they are free? I know, the postage to send one is a bit more than you would pay at some thrift stores, but it's so convenient. This guy has written a good article about how to use bookmooch. The one thing I disagree with is his assertation that you should get books from the free pile at library sales and post them (you get 1/10 point for every book posted) - excuse me, I don't want to wade through your garbage. I have also noticed that there are booksellers who try to cherry pick valu...

We just got an order for a bunch of our #GG1222 Naked Lady pens from a major company for an office party. Wish I worked there! My "night job" at a factory would never allow that... They don't want to offend anybody, but they don't realize that a strict PC policy is killing office morale. There has to be some happy place between a starched-shirt strictness and a junior high locker room.

I was just going to purchase Aston Windows Shell online, I had it a few years ago on my Windows 98 machine and it was kind of cool. So I click Paypal, it brings me to a screen which demands that I type in all my details, down to phone number and bra size if I was a girl, nevermind that paypal already has my billing details. But I figured, well, I have a website that does that to customers, (they say it will be fixed in the next release) so OK, I dutifully type in all my particulars. To my shock and dismay, at the order confirm page, they add $3.00 for "manual processing" - Why do they have to "manually process" a PAYPAL order? I still wanted the program though, so I backed up to switch to a credit card (I was going to use my Paypal debit card- nyaaaah!) ... But all the information I has so laboriously typed in was GONE! So I gave up and blogged. PS I went to tell them about the problem but could not find an email link on their home page!

I just picked up a new handy tip reading in the bathroom... If you lose a tiny object, put a bare light near the floor, which will cause the lost object to cast a shadow, making it much easier to find. (This sounds like a job for our #HP0641 Handy squeeze LED flashlight! ) I am concerned that I will become an annoyance to younger people when I am older, offering advice that no one listens to (Get out of the room, old dude! I dropped my cellphone on the floor somewhere!)

I took Daphne to the BECU annex at the Albertson's so she could open a savings & "checking" account. I was going to have her get checks too but the teller (?) said that a lot of people don't get checks anymore, since you can use "online billpay" and BECU will send a check on your behalf, free of charge. Upon perusing my checkbook, I see a few instances where that wouldn't work; checks mailed that require a detailed explanation or a copy of the original invoice, such as to The Jethro Gazette (for multiple subscriptions) and the Herald (Special price, although I am not going to renew my newspaper subscription because they pulled "One Big Happy" from the comics) Or written on behalf of someone else, as for Daphne's yearbook. Other than that, I might have abandoned the checkbook entirely. Some people are abandoning their land telephones in favor of those horrible annoying intrusive tiny-handset tiny-button cellphones, but I will give up my ...

I was just reading that a couple in China has applied to name their baby "@". (In Chinese the english "at" sounds like "love him", I am told.) People used to say that "Coke" translates to "Bite the wax tadpole", which is making me hungry. I hope this mom in China doesn't decide to make this a theme, with the punctuation, and naming the dog asterick, etc. She'll be calling out the back door, @!! #!! &y! (andy) $! Get in here right now! Get * out of the driveway! They will know they are in trouble when she calls them all at once with the middle names too- @)#!&y^$$ (calling them) @)#!&y^$$ (swearing) What's in a name? # will go on to work for the telephone company. Expect big things from $. That is all I got.

We changed to one of our cart vendor's extra-fancy whiz-bang store templates for our main novelty store at ThatRestlessMouse.com - One of my favorite features is that "You May Also Like" suggested other items box. We think you will like it too, at least subconsciously. Grokdotcom.com says; "Early-stage buyers, on the other hand, are still gathering relevant information with the intent of eventually making a decision. They're still task-oriented, but their task is to decide what to buy, or from whom to buy it, instead of actually buying it. What they come for is insight, and the more of that they find on your site, the more time they will spend with you." ... The downside is that we have to go through all of our over 300 items posted there and convert it to "WiKiTeXt" for "forward compatibility". So until we finish that, some items will have bunched-up text and possibly no picture except the thumbnail. We have also noted the problem wher...

We changed to one of our cart vendor's extra-fancy whiz-bang store templates for our main novelty store at ThatRestlessMouse.com - One of my favorite features is that "You May Also Like" suggested other items box. We think you will like it too, at least subconsciously. Grokdotcom.com says; "Early-stage buyers, on the other hand, are still gathering relevant information with the intent of eventually making a decision. They're still task-oriented, but their task is to decide what to buy — or from whom to buy it — instead of actually buying it. What they’ve come for is insight, and the more of that they find on your site, the more time they’ll spend with you." ... The downside is that we have to go through all of our over 300 items posted there and convert it to "WiKiTeXt" for "forward compatibility". So until we finish that, some items will have bunched-up text and possibly no picture except the thumbnail. We have also noted the problem wh...

This is an excerpt from a bit of spam I got today; "The power of the internet has given this event the opportunity to reach hundreds of thousands of people just like you who want to know more about what's happening in the raw, vegan, veggie and living foods world and how you can easily implement it into your life for maximum happiness, health and joy." Wait... living foods? What are they doing, swallowing goldfish? I almost barfed up my Cheetos when I read that. I'm all for trying desperately to cling to your last vestiges of youth, Hey I'm working on a model train, but living food? My food strategy basically involves eating nothing that occurs in nature unless it has been frozen, baked, microwaved at least twice, refrigerated and lightly salted and/or sugared. It's been good to me so far, I'm almost as old as my jokes yet I live on in reasonably good... health (sorry for the pause, got winded from typing too fast)

Our sites often get hits from people looking for local novelty stores, I.E. "Novelty Stores Vancouver" or "Novelty Stores Peoria". Yes, I understand the appeal of visiting a bricks and mortar novelty store, esp. a huge one like Archie McPhee's in Seattle. That being said, much of what your local novelty store stocks is available on TheRestlessMouse.com, without the sales tax (except for 8% in Washington state), probably at a lower price, sure there is a shipping fee, but it's only $4.99 for standard shipping. So you have to wait a few days. Anticipation makes it more fun!

Another web 2.0 service with a clever name, I installed the Lijit search on the sidebar here, what's interesting to me is that you can search this blog, but on the search results page you can expand it to search other blogs... Now, I know I'm not an expert on a lot of things, but we here at The Restless Mouse are getting good at locating novelty items... Other people are experts in their fields... When they come back to the barn you can ask them stuff. Try it! It's kind of cool!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had given my dad a subscription to "The Jethro Gazette". Jethro is a fictional town located somewhere near Yakima, WA. - that is the real merchants who advertise in it are located there. Recently Google has been sending me folks who apparently are looking to obtain copies or subscribe to the Jethro Gazette. Email me and I will send the mailing address, or mention the word "Jethro" with any order and I will wrap your order in at least part of an old copy of The Jethro Gazette! Because I support the arts.

Here is a banana dancing to "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" . I moved it to another page because you might be viewing this at work, and if you are skating on thin ice like I am at my night job, it might be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

"Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat." -unknown author Sometimes maxims such as this are filled with meaning in the hours of darkness, but the test is whether they hold up to the cold light of day. This one does. I have thought of changing my name to "Unknown Author" and waiting for the money to start rolling in, but it probably doesn't work like that.

powered by FreeFind ...We just added the FreeFind SiteSearch to this site (TheRestlessMouse.com); The search results aren't all prettied up and citified, but like the workhorse, it gets the job done with a minimum of fuss; Gets you to the products you came to see quickly, and generated keyword reports so I can see what the fickle folks out there in web-browser-land are looking for today. Google makes a similar free product, but it it doesn't tell what people are looking for. Give freefind a try, I think you will agree, it's a good tool.

It's quick and easy to use this new Jing.com picture sharing thingie. Here we have some men looking for missing sewer workers in St. Paul Minn. after recent torrential rains. But, aren't they technically storm-drain workers? OH, apparently it doesn't put the image on the PC clipboard, just a link to it. Shoot, what good is that? Back to using Picasa and HELLO I guess.

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes Chris notes that "This has to be illegal in some states" - That would not surprise me at all, that some states would make it illegal to mess with intrusive salespeople.

Just my opinion dept. I'm not buying into the "Groceries are so much cheaper here" myth. The new WinCo foods apparently is trying to give that impression. Cereal is shoved on the shelf in turned-over cases, with one box stood up for display, guess which box customers throw in their carts. I spent five minutes replacing display boxes until Teresa made me stop. The floors and lighting are purposely hideous. There is no muzak. It even smells funny, like something was spilled on aisle 9 but there was no one to call. Many items are packaged in completely illogical amounts. Who wants ten pounds of carrots? I'm not kidding, ten pounds! Even if they were priced the same as the other store's regular size bag, what am I going to do with ten pounds? Rabbits would follow me home. They even make you bag your own groceries! I've got a bit of advice; When people get wise to the fact that the prices aren't much cheaper than Safeway, they will avoid your store in d...

"We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV" - 1000 toilets, it's like the Disneyland of defecating! Look how dirty the floor is already! Ick!

The Hoverscooter; "To accelerate you lean back while gripping the handlebar" - What do you grip when you DON'T want to accelerate? It takes 20 feet to stop the thing! I suspect most people using this thing spend much of the time sitting on the pavement gripping their heads and wondering what happened. I guess if you can slap down 17 grand for this goofy thing, you can hire people to chase you with big pillows or something. (From Hammacher.com - used here for parody and education.)

I took the family up to Bellingham on Thursday, Frank wanted to see some comic/trading card shop up there, we ended up at this really neat Railroading Museum, with typical museum stuff, plus several model trains you can run, and a train operator computer simulation- Plus a geocache inside the museum! Kind of funky, some well detailed models, then some off the wall things, like Barney the Purple dinosaur tied to the track. And it's all right downtown! You wouldn't see that in Seattle. We ate at an old restaurant called the Horseshoe, I knew the food would be good when I saw the waitress had a huge tattoo. That's one of my rules of thumb for fine dining. We didn't get to go everywhere we wanted to, plan to return soon to see the Antique Radio Museum in the same area, the Science museum, and more. Bellingham has a sort of Bohemian feel to it, I know it's a college town but the downtown isn't full of starbucks and mcdonalds on every corner, I wonder if they set old ...

There is a movement afoot to Force a vote on Pacific Chorus Frog as (Washington) state amphibian in an effort to stop the designation. Breaking with basic journalism rules, they fail to say why. Is it because it has a "dark mask across its eyes"? Perhaps some bluenoses don't like the fact that this species of frog "even breeds in empty buckets and old, discarded tires!" All I'm saying, if you want me to go collect signatures to defeat some bill, there better be a good reason. (Frog information and pic from SacSplash.com - used here for educational purposes)

One of my service providers has a "newsletter" feature, they sent me these interesting statistics. I blanked their names out because I like their other services and the people that run it. * Since inception ***** has processed more than $500,000 of sales through the newsletter tool. * Since inception the ***** newsletter tool has launched over 2,600 campaigns and send more than 100,000,000 pieces of email. ...According to my pre-coffee morning calculation, that works out to 1/2 of one cent in sales (much less in profit) per newsletter. Personally, I think even a tiny sliver of my customer's time is worth more that a half a cent. A penny for your thoughts? That's always a good deal, I say that and people give me their two cents worth. Unfortunately what they say sometimes makes no sense at all!

Gmail - Goldfish.jpg Sometimes you can repackage an old joke and make it new again.

From a poll, I'm not going to make these numbers look legit by naming the pollster or the margin of error; mainly because I don't know. -------snip--------- 21. Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80% 22. % of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50% 23. % of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58% 24. % of women who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 85% -------snip--------- Now honey, you know these polls can be twisted based on who asks what when and how... It's about as accurate as a stupid newspaper horoscope... Besides, shouldn't you be doing laundry or something? (Ducking, covering)

One of our ecommerce vendors had this to say; At approximately 2:30am PST we experienced a failure in the core SAN (Storage Area Network) of both the secondary controller, and a single disk in the primary mirrored set. The problem appears to be with the backplane of the SAN controller, not necessarily with the secondary controller per se, but the primary controller is unable to speak with it. Translation; someone spilled Diet Coke into the computer rack. Or, it's the catastrophic converter, knowwhatimean?

We were hiking up a gravel road to a geocache this morning, Frank saw a little dead field mouse and of course had to point it out to Daphne. She said "EEEEWWWWW! Aaaaaaw." Apparently her disgust is matched only by her compassion.

Took my ancient 91 Explorer to the Emissions check station, it still passed, even after almost 300 thousand miles. The guy seemed like he thought I should be so very proud, maybe give an acceptance speech, but I wanted to get out of there in case it decided to belch some smoke ala "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". You never know with these older cars. Seems unfair that my sister in a more rural part of the state does not have to get emissions checked to get vehicle tabs. She is fond of driving $500 Vista Cruisers and other land yachts that her husband picks up on Ebay or at auction, or maybe the good old Little Nickel Ads. They usually have rodents living in the glove box, lost the key you can start it with a nail- You know what I mean. I'm just jealous because I don't have the negotiating skills and I'm a sucker for a giant purple gorilla.

I attribute the dearth of new cologne, BBQ accessories, and/or "Number One Dad!" T-shirts for me on this Father's Day to the fact that, about ten years ago, I muttered something about Mother's Day being a "Hallmark™ Holiday" - this is probably some sort of roundabout retribution. I did get a good breakfast though, not the usual prison loaf either. I got my dad a year's subscription to The Jethro Gazette, (more on that later) of course my sister one-upped me and got him Old Time Radio shows on CD's - Who knew he likes Amos and Andy? I didn't mention the fact that you can download all that stuff for free now, the copyrights are expired, and so are the Rinso White coupons. I prefer Fibber McGee and Molly myself, their closet is like my garage. Of course, as the CEO (Chief Envelope Opener) here at TheRestlessMouse.com, my schedule is pretty full (Did you know they are talking about Rosie O'Donnell hosting The Price is Right? That doesn't se...

Children's Party ------------------ This lady is giving a party for her granddaughter, and has gone all out. She had a caterer, band, and a hired clown. Just before the party starts, two bums show up looking for a handout. Feeling sorry for the bums, the woman tells them that they can get a meal if they will chop some wood out back. Gratefully, they head to the rear of the house. Guests arrive, and all is going well with the children having a wonderful time. But the clown has not shown up, and finally, the clown calls to report that he is stuck in traffic, and will probably not make the party at all. The woman is very disappointed and unsuccessfully tries to entertain thechildren herself. She happens to look out the window and sees one of the bums doing cartwheels across the lawn. She watches in awe as he swings from tree branches,does midair flips, and leaps high in the air. She speaks to the other bum and says, "What your friend is doing is absolutely marvellous. I have neve...

I just got an email from a "Paul Smith" regarding "The Late Dr. Everett's estate" - It instructs to open a PDF attachment. I'm sure everyone here knows not to open an email attachment even from someone they know, unless they had previously arranged and know for sure what's inside. Virus spreaders are always coming up with new technological and psychological tricks. I am ashamed to admit that I almost opened that one, but if I inherited something I'm sure that I would be notified by US certified mail as is the accepted procedure. Besides, with my luck I would have to spent the night in a decrepit haunted mansion as a precondition.

My sister made a comment about how she admired her husband for not swearing when household plumbing projects go bad. This puzzles me, I thought that's what swear words were created for! Actually for me it was mostly "Yuk!" when I had to clean out the drain pipe, also had a few choice words for the guy at Home Depot while driving home, but Petey D. Dog had no comment. The guy at my night job who swears the most is a deacon at his church. He pretty much sticks to the four-letter words though. I think I read somewhere that back in the day, a lot of guys in radio were prolific cussers when not on the air. I think it has something to do with liking the sound of your own voice. Is that so wrong?

Finally got the replacement kitchen sink installed, no thanks to the folks at Home Despot-- Saturday night wanted to get adapter plumbing to hook new faucet to old fittings, which were apparently made by the ancient ones, by the puzzled reactions I got at the store- It's unfortunate for me that I am not privy to the secret rituals of plumbers, I don't know the lingo, hell I can't even sex them- Guy at Home Despot gave up in disgust, sent in a pinch hitter who was yelling at me because it was almost closing time, and he wanted to know the gender of my pipe fitting- Kept yelling, MALE OR FEMALE??? MALE OR FEMALE?? I finally broke under the relentless pressure and admitted I DON'T KNOW! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW??? Anyway, they wanted me to rip out the shutoffs too, but I was afraid that it would disturb the whole ancient plumbing system, and I would have smirking plumbers in here, one to fix my botched sink installation and the other to agree with the Mrs. that I should have call...

Daphne's graduation had 531 students, that's why they did it at the hockey rink... Drunken adults, morons on cellphones, screaming idiots with air horns... And that was just in the lobby. Endless speeches and video montages (Think vacation slides with no scenery). Five. Hundred. and thirty one. Students. Horrible mass confusion afterwards, took 1/2 hour or more to find her. Somehow people thought it was appropriate to have a family reunion for a couple hours in the damn hallway. We offered to go have a bite to eat but she just wanted to go home. A word about graduation celebrations. OK, I could see the flowers, maybe roses from a boyfriend. But somebody came in a Humvee limo, big long custom thing with about 30 doors on each side, or so it seemed. Personally I thought that was a bit over the top, what with a war on and all. But who am I to judge.

I recently switched one of our cars from getting oil changes at "Jiffy Lube" to "Oil Can Henry's" - the final straw was when I overheard the snotty lady who was managing the Jiffy Lube making a snarky comment about the dead bees in the back window (So I leave the windows rolled down. So sue me.) The new Oil Can Henry store in Smokey Point is run much more efficiently, although I don't care for the fact that there is no waiting room- They give you a free USA Today and you are trapped in your car for the whole procedure, of course it's the same as all oil change places, they will "recommend" various dubious procedures and manufacturer recommended changes of this and that, My Ford Exploder has almost 300 thousand miles on it, It's like a cut-rate aquarium under there (My seals are old and brittle) huh? nevermind... One thing I like about Oil Can Henry's is their costumes, I guess supposed to evoke the early days of automobiles, but it seem...

Cases of salmonella sickness linked to peanut butter top 600 | KOMO-TV - Seattle, Washington | Health: "Consumers who had jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter with a product code on the lid beginning with '2111' were urged to throw out the peanut butter. The jars or their lids can be returned to the store where they were purchased for a refund." Cripes, I had no inkling about this until just now. Fortunately the Mrs. is a choosy Mother and we have Jif in the pantry. What's up with "Salmonella"? How did they come up with such a nice name for a terrible sickness? "Salmonella" sounds like a delicious fish-flavored cracker spread.

A lot of really funny jokes are based on really far-fetched scenarios; Three French Foreign Legion soldiers who were lost in the forest were captured by cannibals. The cannibal king told the prisoners that they could live if they pass a trial. The first step of the trial was to go to the forest and get ten pieces of the same kind of fruit. So all three men went separate ways to gather fruits. The first one came back and said to the king, "I brought ten apples." The king then explained the trial to him. "You have to shove the fruits up your butt without any expression on your face or you'll be eaten." The first apple went in ... but on the second one he winced out in pain, so he was killed. The second legionnaire arrived and showed the king ten berries. When the king explained the trial to him he thought to himself that this should be easy. 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ...8 ... and on the ninth berry he burst out in laughter and was killed. The first and...

When did I get so lazy that I would allow Jiffy Lube to replace my brake light bulb? Just because it's hot out? I'm a native lesser seattleite, if the clouds part it's too warm for me, let alone pushing eighty degrees! I'm liable to change into shorts... and nobody wants to see that! Besides, I would stick to the car seat, ick. I appeal to the scientific community to find the formula for running cars on water. You know the formula is out there, but every time some shadetree mechanic discovers the secret, the oil people buy his silence with cash or a bullet. (Or so I've heard)

In the course of taking Petey D. Dog for a walk, we encounter many strange and wonderful things. Such as this old school bus that someone has converted into a rough trailer of sorts. It appears to be something that someone handy with a welder and and a wrench slapped together to accomplish some long-ago hauling job; I doubt that it sees much use. The top of the bus appears to have been hacked off using a Sawzall or other primitive means. Apparently someone has a rather dark sense of humor, because we saw this in the bed of the trailer. It's so very wrong.

I was looking at the little "Bicycle safety Quiz" on the back of some box of sugary crap cereal that one of the offspring left sitting out on the table (I know, we are crummy parents) You are supposed to check "DO" or "DONT" - One of the statements to evaluate was "Keep headphones at low volume" - What the hell? Put the iPod in that big wire basket mounted on your handlebars! Oh, ok, howzabout the springy trap above the back wheel, that's so strong it can remove fingers? No? Got a backpack? Pockets? Underpants? In defense of the cereal company, this might have been a trick question, and the answer says "This is a DON'T- put the headphones away while riding." I have no way of knowing the answers, they are printed INSIDE the box, presumably at the bottom, and I will not be fooled again into spilling cereal all over just to find out, seeing as I am a grownup with a car and we all know 2 tons of metal and plastic hurtling down your ...

We had to adjust the shipping rates a bit as the USPS made an astronomical jump in rates. I tried to configure it so we continue our policy of just about breaking even on the shipping department overall, although rates are now so complex that we would spend our whole day figuring if we always charged actual rate, so some will end up paying a little extra, some will be paying less than it costs us to ship their package. But the exact amount you would pay is always displayed on the shopping cart screen at every step. For some reason it likes to display "Overseas" at first, you can of course use that drop-down menu to get to your preferred method. If I can't figure out how to change the default back to "best rate USA" I will get with my shopping cart service to help resolve that puzzling issue. The post office raised their package rates so high, I fully expect my carrier to be driving a new Chrysler 300 with spinner hubcaps and rich Corinthian leather appointment...

We have been using the good old US post office for shipping, unfortunately soon the rates will go up, and worse yet, become much more complicated. How will this impact you? Our policy is to not make the shipping department a profit center. Our overall handling fee was less than 57 cents per shipment for the 30 days preceding this post. We are constantly adjusting our rates to meet your delivery needs without gouging you on shipping.

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I am slowly but surely losing it. The latest mental faculty that seems to be deteriorating is the ability to quickly assess the context of what I am reading. For instance, my local paper had this headline; Man wanted for peeping into dressing rooms ...and my first thought was, I wonder how much it pays?

Synthetic snot boosts robot nose A layer of artificial "snot" has been found to improve the ability of an "electronic nose" to precisely sniff out aromas in foods and perfumes. "Our artificial mucus not only offers improved odour discrimination for electronic noses it also offers much shorter analysis times than conventional techniques," said Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick and one of the team behind the work. Hmmm, and I always thought snot interfered with the sniffing. Especially those big old "boxcar boogers". Shows how much I know.

This somehow got through our "spam" filters. I read it three times, my conclusion is that Ed McMahon went to law school at some point. Dear Sir/Madam, I am conducting a standard process Investigation on behalf of our Bank an international banking Conglomerate. This investigation involves a client and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client with our Bank. Our client died intestate and nominated no successor in title over the investments made with our bank. The essence of this communication with you is to request you provide us information/comment on this issue so that I can use my position in the bank to establish your eligibility to assume status of successor in title to the deceased.You must appreciate that we are constrained from providing you with more detailed information at this point. Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to explain further details to you.

I found a clue about why I am getting to be the classic chubby hubby... From an old note to my parents.... Thanks again for the ice cream maker. We tried it last night but Teresa put in mini M & M’s and I think it impeded the freezing process, plus I don’t think we left it going long enough (about 17 minutes) and might not have used enough milk (2 2/3 cups whole milk to 5.9oz Choco-Fudge pudding mix, I was trying for extra-rich)- We ended up with very cold, very thick pudding. It was good though. We are going to try Banana Cream next.

Finally, an anonymous tipster alerted us to the 3 carrot ring, found it at Dowry Costumes . I long ago lost the email from the guy wanting one for his 50th anniversary, having proposed with it in an airport so many years ago. I can only hope he will stumble upon it for #51 anyway.

A big deal here in the Puget Sound, the "opening day" of "boating season" is coming up. They were talking about it on the radio, and a question occurred to me, just what is boating season anyway? Aren't boaters allowed to uh, "boat" any time they want? I know it's not like deer season, it would be silly to shoot at boats. Suppose this should be filed under "Conundrums". Uncle Google sat me on his knee and said: Conundrum is a puzzling question. In one variety of conundrum, the question is posed as a riddle and the answer is or involves a pun. More broadly, a conundrum is any problem where the answer is very complex, possibly unsolvable without deep investigation. A mystery or paradox can often be phrased as a conundrum.

I keep meaning to stop at Radio Shack and see if they still sell those, what I called "Giant Q-tips", they used to have them for cleaning the insides of VCR's. The problem with Radio Shack is the problem with auto parts stores; there's usually a bunch of people who don't know doodly squat and one old grouch who knows everything. Find the old grouch. -John

I got for 15 years Service time at the factory where I work off and on, delicious mini corndogs and pretzels all around, plus selected from a catalog, a digital weather thing that displays the time on the ceiling. I don't know how this is going to work out, I sleep in an attic room against a sloped ceiling, and I'm pretty close to the roof already (Captain's waterbed dresser underneath, then plywood, box spring, thick dualzone control air mattress, then one of those foam pads from Costco, then the usual bedding). Oh, and a sleeping bag, because Teresa usually runs the covers over herself and down her side of the bed, leaving me at the mercy of the elements. I don't want a big clock being projected right above my face- what a thing to wake up to! But hey, it's free. I can always re-gift it. If it ever stops raining I hope to get some home improvement stuff done, maybe get all Kon-Tiki in the backyard like this guy; 66 backyard guy

In light of recent local, national, and global events, we have considered discontinuing certain products that shoot, hurl, fling, toss, chuck, or otherwise propel various objects, such as miniature cats, pigs, ducks, and supervisors, in addition to rubber bands and other common projectiles. However we believe that workplace stress is reduced by playing with these kinds of devices, as well as other cubicle toys we sell, The Cubes miniature office sets allow the user to act out various workplace scenarios, and the positive messages smiley 8 ball, financial advisor ball, and other 8-ball toys serve to unstick the mind. Not to mention the obvious benefits of our Martian Squeeze Toy. All in all, we believe the products we sell tend to improve morale and bring a little sunshine into the dark corners of the massive institutions where we work and learn. There was some discussion about these events at the warehouse I moonlight at in the evenings, and we concluded that it demonstrated the ...

So this new series DRIVE has everyone here hooked. Personally I am rooting for the "crazy" lady with the plastic baby, now teamed up with the mad-to-win blond girl; the perfect team. I predict a showdown between the blond and "crazy" lady's abusive husband. Unfortunately, we may never know; Our local TV reviewer guy predicts that we will probably only get to see maybe 4 episodes before FOX pulls the plug on it. I hope you will check it out, you might like it. Watch more TV, kids.

A cold and moist April fills the cellar and fattens the cow. (Old Farmer's Almanac) This isn't useful information for the modern suburban city dweller. I don't even have a cellar, and we get meat and dairy products at the Safeway. I was awakened in the shank of the night by fingers running up my spine, which is not what you might expect. I said "WHAT are you doing?" and Teresa mumbled something (in her sleep) about looking for paper towels. I'm glad I was facing away, if I had been turned over facing her, she might have dreamed my gaping snoring maw was a used-kleenex receptacle.

This cat takes the bus down to the fish and chips shop. Apparently he likes to sit near the man with the nice leather shoes. I was looking at those shoes, the toes seem to turn up like an elf shoe. So I looked at my boots, the toes turn up more than I thought on those too. Now I am going to be ultra-aware of the upturn in the toes and walk funny all day. Gonna have to stay off the net, it messes with my mind too much. (see link to cat riding the bus story in title above)

As passengers are strapped into the two metal baskets on the 165-foot tall ride, the operator recites this warning: "We are required to remove you from this ride if you make any noise. If you feel you might make a noise, please cover your mouth tightly with your hand, like this (The operator then covers mouth with hand). If we hear any noise through your hand, we will remove you from the ride. So please remain silent and enjoy the screamer. " (Screaming banned on amusement park ride "The Screamer". Apparently the machine is allowed to scream, not the passengers.)

I've been doing a little work on the house... How do you like it so far? Actually it belongs to a former gangster in Russia, to wit; "First I added three floors but then the house looked ungainly, like a mushroom," he said. "So I added another and it still didn't look right so I kept going. What you see today is a happy accident." See link at top UK Telegraph article.

Last night I dreamed that some Arab of the terrorist persuasion got all up in my face and started yelling LALALALALALALA - So I got irritated and said "We're tired of being neutral!!" and got out my Swiss Army Knife (dreams are very symbolic y'know) - I carefully plucked out a blade, and went to attack... but, NUTS I got the "spoon" blade. Well, I heard that yelling LALALALALALALA is a girl thing anyway. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.