I’m just gonna leave this here…

Not sure what’s going on with that flippy thing in my hair. Which is newly partially blonde, by the way…

Oh hey look what I got today! Thanks Amazon! The game is really for Mike, just an example of me being the best girlfriend ever. But I’m keeping the comic (and the $10 credit to my Amazon account for pre-ordering…).

aidosaur:

OMIGOSH IT’S A CONTEST

Hey Chickadee is a small company run by two pals of mine — they make apparel and jewelry designed by a spread of super-talented artists (Jess Fink, Emmy Cicierega, and Miss Monster to name a few).

I’ve now done two designs for them (the matryoshka doll pendant/earring design in the banner, as well as a Musicians of Bremen tee design), and Andrew and Claire were nice enough to give me a $20 gift certificate to give away!

So here’s the rules: Reblog this post (‘liking’ doesn’t count, sorry) and you’ll be entered into the contest.  Next Tuesday (August 2nd, a week from today) someone will be randomly chosen to win the gift certificate.  I’ll make a crazy blingee with the winner’s username, because I guess that’s what I do now.

Thanks, guys!  Have fun!

I came home with a surprising amount of swag from CTcon. I went there all three days, and was for the most part, stuck in the Dealer Room. I was sent there on work business, with an Exhibitor’s pass, getting paid hourly to sell Magic and Pokemon cards and hang out. I did, at one point, get the opportunity to make my way to the Artists’ Alley or whatever it was called, and saw a couple friends. All in all it was a pretty sweet deal.

Feeling like I didn’t want to betray my store (and, you know, spend money) the only place I bought things from for the first two days was the Buried Under booth. The first day, I bought two Angry Birds plushies that make noise and an Obama bobblehead for my momma. Obama for my momma. Ha. Anyyywhooo, the second day, again, I only bought from Buried Under and I bought a Sailor Moon figure and this little wacky Japanese coin holding robot thingy.

Day 3 was a big day for me, though. It was the shortest day, but after more CTcon sketches from Brendan, and super sales, I was in a great mood. So I took a walk. I bought: A Hello Kitty Japanese Relief plush, Yankees earbuds, Crayon Shinchan Vol. 1, Beartato and the Secret of the Mystery by Anthony Clark who kindly drew inside the cover for me and signed it. I also bought a big Mario plushie backpack thingy which I will probably never use as a backpack but it is so cute. Andddd a Tokidoki/Marvel shirt with Captain America watching baseball on it. And my final purchase of the day was Johnny Wander Vol. 1: Don’t Burn the House Down. Yuko drew a Yankees hat on top of the Maw for me and a Stetson on the inside of Brendan’s (because Stetsons are cool).

We were positioned across from Sarge’s who had a similar, but much LARGER selection than us, and they were really nice guys. The ladies to our left were from exoticlenses.com and they were very nice, did a lot of business. The lady in back of us was a quiet, Asian woman, who occasionally asked us to watch her store while she ran to the bathroom because she was running it all by her lonesome and we had three people.

But the best was the guy to our right. It was this 50-something Japanese man, who, on the first day, came in wearing a wig and eventually took it off and wore a Nazi uniform. Day 2 he wore the wig and a dress, and Day 3 he was back to the Nazi uniform. The poor girl who was working with him was subjected to all this, and he even made her, at one point, tell a girl who was browsing their dresses than the plus size section was at the other end. Ouch. You could tell she hated that weekend. The guy polished his sword basically the entire weekend, too. So creepy.

Okay I’m done. So tired. Much love, glad to be home (you know, like two towns over?). 

I’m convinced I have mild dyslexia. Sometimes I put letters in the wrong places. Like, I just almost wrote “milk” instead of “mild.” Also, I was writing “ridiculous” and almost wrote “ricidulous.” Reading is fine. Maybe my fingers just work too fast and don’t pay attention to what my brain is saying…

The majority of the time I’m fine but sometimes I really do have to stop and think about how to spell pretty simple words. I do get headaches sometimes when I read, and I’m pretty sure I’m doing these optometrist check ups wrong. They’re like, “read the last line you can out loud.” And I’m like *squinty squinty squint* hrmmm…. F, R, D… uh… C, T, S.” “Great!” And then half way through I think, maybe I should have read the last line that I can read WITHOUT straining…

Too focused on how hot my eye doctor is, I suppose.

It’s fucking hot here in CT. In this picture, I am fanning myself. Also I look hilarious.

So here in CT there was a .35% increase in sales tax. That’s less than half of a percentage point, and everyone in up in arms about it.

Just so you know, I work retail, and we have a small sign up at the front counter about the sales tax increase and most people don’t even notice it. The people that do, don’t complain. It seriously went from 6.00% to 6.35% that’s all. It’s still not in the double digits, like Arizona or Illinois for Christ’s sake. 

The people who didn’t notice the sign, legitimately did not notice the increase. Because it’s so damn insignificant! Let me paint you a picture. Two days ago, if you were purchasing a $49.99 item in CT, the sales tax would bring it to ~$52.99. Now, if you buy that same item, it comes to ~$53.16. That’s a 17 cent different. 17 cents! You can find that in your couch cushions, your car, your pocket, the bottom of your purse, and half the time, in the take-a-penny thing at the front counter.

It is amazingly effective at not hurting the consumer, but building revenue for the state. See, if we sell $5000 worth of goods in a day, that would have been about 300 dollars for the State, now it’s 317.5. An extra $17.50 over 365 days, is an extra $6,387.50 generated for the state. But no one ever actually sees it coming out of their pocket.

I hate that more of my friends are upset about a guy who shoved a matchbox car up his ass and photographed himself drinking with friends before his car crash than they are about Clarence Clemons. Clemons tragically passed because of complications from a stroke, and influenced people to create beautiful art, not pull stupid stunts…

I’m not saying that losing a life, any life, is not sad. But only a select few of my Facebook friends mentioned Clarence Clemons and for the most part, they were older than I. It’s unfortunate that my generation seems to associate themselves more with people who became famous for doing bad or stupid things, than those who tried to influence people in a good way.

Rest in peace Clarence Clemons, aka The Big Man, because I love music, and I listen to or think about, or even make music every day. And I have never once shoved a matchbox car up my ass.

So far I’ve lost about 35 pounds since January. I’m counting calories, trying not to be as lazy as I usually am, etc. I still allow myself sweets every so often, but I stick to reading serving sizes and being good.

For instance, right now I’m munching on a couple Sour Patch Watermelons. They’re delightful! However, I’m only eating 11 pieces, because that is the serving size, and if I ate the whole bag, I’d be eating around 500 calories instead of the 140 in a serving.

But I’m a girl, and sometimes I just want to eat those awesome tasty snacks. So in return for being good and keeping the loss going, I allow myself one day a month where I get to binge. I’m sure that’s not necessarily “good” for you, but really, I wouldn’t survive without my junk food.

If I see something I want really badly, I stash it away for the 15th of the month. So on Wednesday the 15th, I will be indulging with twix pb (250 calories for just the two bars!!) and maybe some honey roasted peanuts (310!) and of course, my loving boyfriend Mike takes me to get some fast food every 15th so I have decided that more than anything, I want an Angus from McDonald’s. Sometimes I’m good enough that even on my cheat days I’m staying under in calories (obviously fat and sugar go wayyy over) but when it comes to Mickey D’s, no such luck.

However, I will say, before I go, the McDonald’s Southwest Salad with grilled chicken, is the greatest fast food salad in existence. And for only 420 calories (including dressing)!

So long, spare tire!

-Siobhan