Zombie Mirror Clings

A trip to Archie McPhee today at lunch yielded a much needed household item: Zombie Mirror Clings.

You can put them on your bathroom mirror (or mirror wall if you have a house built in the 70's like me) to design different ways you'd look as a zombie.

Zombie Colin

Zombie Lucy

You can't help but find something you really need like this at Archie McPhee. If you don't live in Seattle, check out all the good stuff on their website here.

"The Hunger Games"

I am obsessed with a new series of books.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

I read the first book on Saturday.

I read the second book, Catching Fire, on Sunday.

And then I read the third book, Mockingjay, on Monday.

The story is about a post-apocalyptic world where there is a central government district that rules everything, and a series of 12 outlying districts. The further out the district is, the crappier life is. Every year the central district hosts an event called The Hunger Games. 2 teenagers are selected in a lottery-style drawing to compete in the hunger games arena. It's a fight to the death with only one winner. A teenager girl from District 12 named Katniss is chosen to compete and the story revolves around her.

The subject matter is pretty dark and heavy, but this was actually a series of books written for the teen genre. Don't let that stop you from giving it a try. There are a lot of books from the teen genre that are just good books, regardless of their intended audience (Harry Potter, for example).

Here's some awesome fan artwork I found doing a google image search:

Going Dark

I went dark.

I cancelled my Facebook page. I decided that all in all Facebook was kind of a time waster. I don't really need to know what various people in my life (of varying degrees) were doing at any given moment. Were they at a restaurant? Sick? Having an epiphany about something?

Hey, if you are doing something I need to know about, just call me.

Part of my decision came from watching my son living in this new computer oriented era. He plays interactive online games at Club Penguin. Lots of his friends at school also do this and they can meet up in online game rooms as their penguin personas.

Or sometimes Colin will call one of his friends on the phone while they are playing. They will talk about the game with each other while they play.

When I was eight years old I played with my friends in person. We went outside and did 1980's Kennewick things like dig holes in the empty field down the block or make a crappy fort in the neighbor's tree.

Facebook is kind of just a grown up version of Club Penguin, I think. I'd rather see, talk to, or build a fort with my friends than just read random blurbs.

So I cancelled my account. All those friends, all those posts, all those likes. And you know what? No one even noticed!

Costco rebate time

Every early March the Costco Amex bill brings us our annual rebate. My theory is that rebate money HAS to be spent on something fun, or at least something you wouldn't normally buy. What's the fun in just using it to buy your next load of groceries at Costco?

Last year's rebate led to a big debate between a new fancy coffee maker or a new iPod.

I ended up getting the coffee maker, and I love it just as much today as I did a year ago. Maybe I love it even more ever since it was announced that Starbucks will finally be making K-cups.

But what to buy this year?

Large planters for the back patio?


Camping gear?

Memory Foam Mattress pad?

I'm leaning towards camping gear. Of course, we've thought about taking the kids camping every summer and never do it. But maybe that would change this year if we actually had nice, new gear to use?

Earthquake!

The big disaster in Japan has earthquakes on everyone's mind. And no region is more paranoid about the impending "Big One" than Seattle.

There are three different types of earthquake- subduction, transform faults, and mid-ocean spreading ridges. And Seattle is sitting right on top of all three kinds. We are just asking for trouble.

I took an earthquake preparedness class last week. Turns out earthquake preparedness is a lot like zombie apocalypse preparedness. Ideally you set yourself up to be totally self-sufficient, and assume that you will be cut of from all communications, power, and food supplies. Just in the zombie version, you need a lot of guns and ammo stored up. Hopefully in a regular earthquake aftermath, we won't be needing a lot of fire power.

I'm not so sure that I'll start stockpiling survival gear in the garage, but it does seem smart to do the simple things that mitigate damage during a big quake.

See these nice family photos on top of the armoire? They could easily brain your small child during the quake.


See this award winning artwork? It will likely fall and shatter glass all over that you and your children will have to step through in their bare feet.

See this shelf you hung in your son's room? The contents will be falling on his bed and giving him a concussion if the quake hits at nighttime.

But what would happen if the big quake hits in the middle of the day? I'll be in the middle of Seattle, Mike and Lucy will be at home, and Colin will be at school. If phones and power go out, what will we do? How will I get home if the major highways are blocked? How will Colin get home?

I haven't figured this stuff out yet, but I'm going to start. I don't know if the "Big One" is really coming, but if it does, I'd like to try and be prepared.

Are you ready for a disaster?

Easy Bake Oven

When Lucy turned four last month, I knew I had to get her an Easy Bake Oven.

I never had my own Easy Bake Oven, but I must have played with one at a friend's house, as I remember it being very exciting to bake with a light bulb.

Speaking of light bulbs, our house only has those stupid, twisty, eco-friendly bulbs now. We had to make a special purchase to accommodate the oven.

Once you take apart the back panel and install the light bulb, the oven needs 15 minutes to heat up, and you are ready to bake.

This is the picture of the yellow cake with chocolate frosting on the box:

This is the cake we made:


I was disappointed, but the kids were super excited. They devoured that little hockey puck and said it was delicious. I kind of envied them.

Next we're going to try the sugar cookies. This is the picture of sugar cookies on the box:


I'm sure ours will look just as pitiful as the chocolate cake. And I'm sure the kids will love them just as much. I didn't expect the Easy Bake Oven to give me a philosophy lesson, but you've got to admire the way kids are totally unconcerned with perfection and completely happy with just the small things.

Best Phad Thai in Seattle, part 2

The quest for Seattle's best phad thai inevitably led to me to Thai Tom, the U-District's best known Thai place. For many years now, Thai Tom has had a great reputation for their food, and a horrible reputation for everything else.

The horrible reputation for everything else is well deserved. The restaurant is tiny and narrow. Most seating is at little tables for two, if you have three in your party, you are out of luck. The counter space seating is about a foot apart from the table seating, with the server running back and forth in the narrow opening, carrying hot plates of food. It's far from comfortable.

If you think sitting at the counter is the way to go, think again. You'll be right next to the cooking stoves, and flames will heat your face while you sit there. It's not the most pleasant way to eat a meal. Not to mention the server's arms reaching across your face to grab at orders.

The whole restaurant is covered in a layer of grime, and your hair will absorb the smell of the place if you eat there. Also they are always playing some awful, caterwauling music really loudly over the speaker system. And did I mention the multiple citations from the King County Health Department?

So why eat there? Well, the food is delicious. So delicious you are willing to put up with all the horribleness of eating there.

I got the phad thai with tofu. It was perfect. Spicy, savory, and noodles cooked just right.


Thai Tom easily rates five stars for food. But the ambiance is only one star. The best phad thai in Seattle is going to have to not only taste great, but be served in a restaurant that doesn't give you the willies.

The next phad thai adventure will take me to Capitol Hill. Thanks for all the suggestions last time, and keep them coming if you have others.

Toy shopping has never been scarier

You are probably familiar with Bratz dolls - hyper-skinny, big head, slutty teenagers wearing hooker clothes.



But have you seen the new Monster High dolls?





Aren't they a classy bunch? Who doesn't want their little girl playing with a doll who lists her hobbies as shaving and flirting with boys?

I read amazon.com reviews of some of these dolls. They are so freaky disproportionately wrong from real anatomy, that their arms have to be removed in order to change outfits. How sexy!

And if trampy girls weren't bad enough, now we have trampy horses?!

Meet Struts the Pony!

I guess even lady horses should have really skinny legs. Who knew?

Now women and horses can feel equally bad about themselves!

Emerald City Comic Con

I'd been looking forward to attending this year's Comic Con ever since last year's. And when I learned that the headliner was going to be my all-time idol, William Shatner, I was crazy with anticipation.

And then two days before the convention, I got sick. Not just regular sick, but freak sick. I realized on Friday that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to attend on Saturday, the only day Shatner would be there.

As Kirk would say, "Kaaaahn!"

Sunday was the final day of the convention, and had a lot less activities going on. I still felt like crap, and I know it would have been wiser not to go, but I was determined not to miss out on everything, even if it meant going while in a Nyquil induced haze.

If I hadn't gone, I would have missed all this:

This is some local theatre group that performs Rocky Horror. They were kind of awful. But very brave.

This is from an extreme balloon animal booth.

As always, lots of Star Wars characters were running around.

This is the line-up area for autographs. The second guy from the right, with no one in his line, is Bruce Boxleitner.


I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, but it was a really neat costume.

Walking Dead actor, Norman Reedus

From Fringe and The Lord of the Rings, John Noble. This isn't a great photo, but it's funny because it looks like he's giving the finger.

I was very excited to meet local real-life superhero, Phoenix Jones.

From Star Trek TNG, Brent Spiner

Another awesome Comic Com. It was totally worth risking my health over.

Shootin' and Drinkin'

What better way to spend a Sunday than at the gun range?

That's what Living Social thought, and I agreed. I bought tickets to their first ever organized Seattle area event, called Shootin' and Drinkin'.

After being bussed from downtown Seattle to Bellevue, the shooting part took place at the West Coast Armory. For two hours we did various gun related things including safety lessons and swat team demonstrations. And we also did some shootin'.

This was from the fake house we had to canvass and shoot the zombies hiding inside of:

(I killed 3 out of 4, not bad, but still zombie food)

Here's the target room we used for the real shooting.


These are a few of the guns we shot, don't ask me what they are.


Here's a side view of me shooting an AK-47. It was very loud and hurt my shoulder.


The drinkin' part came afterward when the charter bus took us to the Rosebud on Capitol Hill. They had a Master of Whiskey there to give us tasting lessons on three different scotches. They were pretty darn good. The drinkin' came with dinner and live piano music, too.



I'm not a gun person, and this experience didn't make me want to become one, but it was sure fun to do for a change of pace. I always suspected the movies were totally wrong about how easy it is to pick up a huge gun and start mowing down everything in your path, and now I know why.

If you live in a large city, I'd recommend signing up for Living Social's daily deals. The events are a new feature being piloted, and the company is trying to organize more unusual but affordable local excursions like this one.