General Announcement to PR People

Note: When you send out a press release or pitch a story, the whole idea is to get reporters to call you up and ask to interview the person you talk about in the press release. Therefore, could you please make sure that the person is not going on vacation the day that you plan to send out the release?

Pug internet fame

This blog post has a picture of Lilly that must have been taken by someone who was standing right behind us when we were taking the picture below.

(Note to local photographers: pug pictures are better without accompanying humans. Lilly and Rose were on another local blog a while ago, but I didn't link to it because unfortunately I was in the picture too.)

Deja vu all over again

“There’s nothing new, is there?” Albert asks. “Stealing gas, OPEC, high prices. It’s like the Seventies are being recycled.”

“Yep,” I reply. “First the kids started wearing bell bottoms, growing their hair long, and sporting mutton chop side burns. But when Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow started to become cool again? Oil shocks and economic collapse were sure to follow.”

“I just hope disco doesn’t come back,” Albert says.

“You and me both.”

- Waiter Rant

Goofy trio of pugs on astroturf

Lilly, neighborhood pug Henry, Rose. With Henry's family's kid and a bunch of feet and legs. On the plastic grass field in downtown Silver Spring, at what is supposed to be a party to say goodbye before they fence it off and start building a building. Although actually it looks like any other Friday night on the green, which always attracted its own party.

Pug entertainment review

A few months ago I was sent a review copy of a set of DVDs for dogs to watch. The other day I was desperate for something do that counted as work but involved mostly lying on the couch, so I decided to finally try them out.

The pugs paid no attention to them at all. Yeah, Rose is mostly blind, but she didn't even react to the soundtrack. I think Lilly perked up the first time a dog barked, but that was it.

The only part that interested them? When I unwrapped the plastic wrapping around the DVD boxes - they ran over, thinking that it was the sound of some kind of food wrapper.

Pug wisdom

Roscoe and Zoomar on life and death.

(Roscoe's dad works for Archie McPhee, which is a great place to shop if you need to take your mind off of sobering topics like life and death.)

Addendum: and if instead you want another Roscoe post that will really make you want to cry, click here.

Oh, so THAT'S why they always have their chins down!

Ziggy
Thanks for clearing this up go to Flickr user kerbear4u2001

Don't do it on the cheap

"Today I saw a 40-year old man in a pink polo shirt cruising down the street on a skateboard. It really impressed upon me the importance of saving up for your midlife crisis."

-defectiveyeti.com

Rose pose with tongue

You really can't see too many of these, I'm sure.

Couldn't have said it better

I'm not really much on dog whispering, I find that dog storming off in a huff and pouting is what gets their attention.

-mrskennedy's Twitter (fussy.org)

Competition

American Eskimo with its chin down:



(from faithful reader Jaydub)

General Announcement to Pug Dogs

OK, I know that the reason you get so excited and happy when I'm about to leave the house is because you're about to get a Goodbye Cookie. But do you think you could tone it down a little? It doesn't exactly make me feel loved, you know?

Rose poses

Seriously is this dog cute or what?

A bunch more pictures from this session on Flickr. Just Rose, because Lilly won't go for a walk in the morning unless Not the Mama comes with us, and he wouldn't, so they were sitting home reading the paper together.

Today's success story

Healthy Eating Moment: I just put a half-gallon of peach ice cream back on the shelf, and bought a box of six Chocolate Eclair bars instead.

Oh, did I mention I just got a job blogging for a site that reviews snacks?

Today's Hell in a Handbasket Report

On July 2, the Washington Post ran a couple of pictures of frogs that I know personally from the Reptile House. They misidentified the species of one of them, despite giving a description of that species in the caption that didn't match the frog in the photo. The caption also said the pictures were taken at Amazonia, despite the fact that neither were South American species, which should have given someone pause.

I wrote to them to point this out, but apparently they have decided it was not important enough to run a printed correction. In contrast with the following:

· A Reliable Source item in the July 1 Style section incorrectly described Kansas City Barbeque in San Diego as the site of the scene in "Top Gun" in which Tom Cruise sang "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." Kansas City Barbeque was the site of the scene in which Kelly McGillis played the song on a jukebox, but Cruise's singing scene was set in a different bar.

Yup, that's clearly more important than scientific facts about nature. Who could argue?

Pugs with their chins down with and without babies

Time for some links to other people's pugs:

Pug with its chin down - Montreal.

It's that irresistable Gizmo and baby again.

Doesn't matter how uncomfortable it looks, gotta have that chin down on something.

Old Dogs and New Tricks

Last night, I walked into the dining room to see if Lilly was pestering Rose, as usual, by staring at her while she ate a bone in her crate. She was in fact doing this very thing, in a lovely down position - ON THE TOP OF THE DINING ROOM TABLE.

Now, Lilly was trained in agility at an impressionable age, which is a sport in which dogs basically jump on, walk all over, and jump off complicated pieces of furniture. And, even younger, she learned from the cats that on top of the back of the living room couch was the best place to lie. And now that we have a table in the living room she does occasionally get up on top of it - she can walk onto it pretty much directly from the couch.

But it was only a few days ago, after nine years of living in this house with this furniture, that for the first time it occurred to her that if she jumped up on a chair, she could reach something on the dining room table. I don't know why she never realized it before or what inspired her at that moment. But I guess the next step was an easy one. I don't even have any idea why she thought it was useful to be on top of the table to watch Rose - it certainly doesn't put her closer to her. I don't know what the advantage of the aerial view might be.

Whatever it was, though, everything has changed. I fear our lives will never be the same.

Miracles of modern technology

I got out of the habit of wearing a watch when I was working at zoo jobs. It would get stuck on things, and it would get dirty and wet, and there was usually a clock on a wall somewhere, and precise times weren't usually that critical anyway. Since I didn't wear one at work, there wasn't much point in putting one on for a few hours when I got home and changed, and since I wasn't wearing one most of the time I mostly didn't on my days off either. And gradually all the batteries died and I was pretty much watchless.

I just put batteries in all the dead watches and started wearing them again. It's really cool. All I have to do is look at my wrist and I know what time it is. I don't have to dig in my pocket for my cell phone and push a button. It's so easy! What will they think of next?

No fireworks

Just a nice head-tilt from Rose for the Fourth of July. We went to a local block party looking for a holiday photo op, but there really wasn't anything suitable. I don't know what I was expecting - even if I could figure out how to hold a pug up to shoot with fireworks behind her, it was the middle of the day.

General Announcement to Book Reviewers

I am tired of reading reviews of mysteries (or pseudo-mysteries) in which you're told that you're supposed to want to read the book because it's better than the whole rest of the genre - that it really has good characters, or that it's well written, or, like one recent example, that it's worth re-reading. As if it's incredibly unusual and surprising for a mystery to have these qualities.

I am hereby officially refusing to buy any book reviewed this way. And not just out of annoyance. I actually LIKE the genre. So why would I want to take the advice of a reviewer who apparently thinks that the genre is crap? Obviously we don't like the same thing, never mind the possibility that the reviewer actually has no idea what standards are applicable.

While I'm at it, let's include any book where the publicity makes a big point out of the fact that the author's previous books were not mysteries, implying that s/he is a REAL novelist.