Blah.

I have to work today. I HAVE to. If I don't get a good chunk of this squirrel suit done today, I'm going to be in trouble. It needs to be finished soon. But I don't want to. I want to sit and vegetate and do nothing and wallow in misery and be depressed and lazy and blah.

Ugh.

Just what I needed.

Well, I managed to buckle down and get some work done, I think I'll have this bodysuit laid out, cut, and with the stripes sewn in today, which is what I need to get done. But I took a break to check e-mail, and I found this:

"thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank
you! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you!
thank you! thank you! thank you! i got them today!
you are amazing!, ill remember you next time i need
something"

It's from a customer who bought an ermine/while weasel tail and ear set. *grins* Stuff like that just totally makes my day.

Bwa ha ha ha!

The RIAA takes another hit. And they have to be howling over the lost revenue on this one! Radiohead has decided to release their newest album independently of any label. Howard Taylor of Schlock Mercenary covers this wonderful and startling event rather better than I could.

I have no idea if I like Radiohead or not. I'm familiar with exactly one song by them, which is one of those songs that I can take or leave, don't love, don't hate. I ordinarily wouldn't buy it, but I'd leave the radio on it if it came on. But heck, to give the RIAA a great big flipping off, I think I shall go shell out actual money for this thing! I might find that I like their other stuff, or I might find I don't, but either way I get to laugh at the copyright gestapo. If you like, or even can stand, Radiohead, I suggest you go toss a couple of bucks at this. And that's the best thing. They have it set up so that you pick what you pay. Want to be generous and pay $100 for a single album? Go ahead! Want to pay $1 for the whole thing? You can do that too. You might even be able to pay nothing, or one cent, or something, I don't know. I think I'll give 'em $8. That's enough to not be insulting, while still being affordable for me.

Man. I agree with Howard. I hope they make scads and scads and scads with this, and the labels all shout about it never working and then look like the idiots they are when it does.

Today's events

Today I did two things which I haven't done before.

The first was to feed Anthony an adult mouse. He was on fuzzies when I got him (fuzzies are baby mice that have just barely grown fur, as opposed to pinkies, which are newborn mice that are still furless) and he's been eating them well for a while, but lately they've stopped making a lump, and the last two he didn't even sleep and digest, he was cruising around, looking for more food, immediately after finishing one. The size jump between fuzzies and adults worried me though. There is an intermediate size of juvenile mouse, called "hopper" that I've seen at some online feeder stores, but nobody local carries them. They say you can feed a ball python something that's slightly thicker around the middle than it is though, and Anthony's pretty thick these days, If you stretch the mouse out full length it's definitely no larger than he is, so I went ahead. I crossed my fingers, because I really would hate myself if I'd fed him something too big and he regurgitated, or even worse tore his throat skin. *shudder* I read a forum comment about that happening, and it just gives me the heebie jeebies. I don't know what I'd do if something like that happened to Anthony!

He worried me a bit, particularly when he got to the hind legs. He was going so slowly, and his throat skin was really stretched, and he stopped entirely for just a bit when he got to the back legs, which is the fattest part. But he got it down, and it didn't stretch his sides once it was in him. He's napping and digesting now, and after a meal that size he probably will sleep for several days.

Also, mice from the reptile store, where they breed their own in the back, never smelled like anything. This mouse reeked of dirty rodent. Ugh. I was so glad when the snake got it down and it stopped smelling so bad.

The other thing I did that was new today was I bought a bottle of whisky. I've bought more alcohol in the last month than in my entire life before. But this is easy to do because I've never bought alcohol at all before. But I got a bottle of cooking wine so I could make Pasta Fresca a few weeks back, and today I got whisky to make this Jack Daniels whisky sauce stuff. I stumbled on this recipe from a rather hilarious cooking site, here: http://www.thepioneerwomancooks.com/2007/06/bread_pudding_f.html I adore bread pudding, and this looked way too good not to try. So today I tried it, sauce and all. It was funny, because as I was stirring the sauce, I kept sniffing it, and of course it reeked of alcohol, 1/4 cup of 80 proof will do that, but then, rather quickly, it changed texture and stopped smelling like alcohol. And started smelling like butterscotch, which for just a second made me go "WTF?!" And then I laughed, because I realized that's exactly what it was, butter, and scotch! (Well, by some definitions I understand that Jack Daniels isn't scotch, but it's close enough.) It was rich, and did taste ever so slightly of alcohol, but I found it didn't bother me in this setting, which is interesting, given that usually the least trace of alcohol taste makes something totally inedible. I think it might be that some artificial butterscotch flavors try to have that hint of alcohol taste to them, and so it was a familiar taste, rather than being alien, like alcohol in chocolate fondue.

Anyhow, the whole experience was a success, and I have enough bread pudding with whisky sauce now to last a week or two.