Brown Cylindrical Mustache Faucets

**Can You Do Better?
The tiki gods chose to smile on my efforts at Kane County this Sunday. My first trip to that show this season found me coming home with a whole backpack full of new additions to the collection. And, since I kept myself from looking at LPs, and there weren't any decent board games to speak of, my haul was 100% tiki related. With a total take of around 15-20 items, that's quite a rarity. Plus, I actually didn't buy every single thing I saw. There was one menu from Trader Vic's that was moldy and water damaged, a really crude block tiki that was way overpriced, and Scott had his usual table full of stuff,. That isn't to say that Scott didn't end up with more than half of my money for the day, I just have never felt the need to clean out his stock. On this particular day, I purchased a really neat ashtray with a removable lighter, a pair of salt and pepper shakers, and a bank-all were things I hadn't ever seen before. I also found a Westwood mug that I'm fairly sure I don't have in my collection. It's cracked, but for $2, why not. Found another pair of salt and pepper shakers almost identical to the ones I bought from Scott, except these were a different color, and were made by someone in a ceramics class. There was a slightly faded Orchids R-45 that I got for $8, again mostly because I wasn't sure if I already had one, and it was in good shape. And a basket full of ephemera that I almost walked passed yielded about a dozen menu inserts, menus, and random Hawaiian art pieces. And I found an amusing carved wood moai necklace. The mango smoothie I had while I was there was pretty tasty too, but I really hate getting brain freezes.

**I don't care if it does date me, I still enjoy watching '16 Candles'.

**And So It Begins...
A relatively sunny, dry weekend ended up meaning one thing for me: I could no longer avoid getting started on the yard work. I am fairly sure that my banana plants didn't survive, based on the rather sad appearance of them when I opened up the mounds of mulch that were meant to keep them safe over the winter. Doesn't seem to have worked. The one pup that I did take in the house and somehow keep alive over the winter is also starting to look really sad. If none of them make it, I will have gone 0-4 with this plant. It may be time to try something else. But I got the grass seed down in back, and one of the front bays is tilled up an reseeded. The front yard got raked and mowed, and the rock line got tidied up. I think I should be done for the season, but I know that's not the case. I still have to clean up the fence line in back and decide when to plant my morning glories. Then there's the whole creeping charlie issue to be addressed.

**I'd like to know more about Freckles' parallel universe.

**Hey! Where's The Party?
Cinco de Mayo. The first 'official' gathering of the neighborhood. It was too chilly outside for my taste, but I wasn't the one making the decisions. As far as I know, my neighbors are pretty good people. I just don't really have all lot in common with any one of them in particular. So, I would have much rather gone over, had a bite to eat, and then continued on my merry way for the rest of the evening. The person I live with decided that I should 'play nice' and stay for the evening. The most interesting point of the whole night was my discussion with Maryann regarding the nature of science and it's part in religion as well as the agnostic vs. atheist argument. The weirdest point of the evening was listening to one person sitting next to me describing in great detail how hard it is to get government benefits to help support her 2 (soon to be 3) kids, while the person sitting right next to her was explaining to someone else how they intended to furnish their summer house on the lake. By about 10 PM, I had had enough, and decided it was time to take a sanity break. About an hour away from the whole mess was sheer bliss, but left me with a craving for Cheez-Its. Go figure.

**Cromag goes to Costa Rica? Sounded unbelievable, till the stripper got thrown in. Then it sounded like an eighties sitcom.

**We Are Gellin
This is the week we switch to the new technology in blood bank. The gel card method has been around since my days as a student, and we are finally taking the step to bring it in-house. Now all we have to do is get used to using it. Who knows how long that will take.

**I had yet another haircut. This is starting to get annoying.

**Face Time
I like the concept of MySpace. I tried it, and even had some fun with it. I left when it got to be less about communicating with people and more about all the add-ons you could attach to your page. Now, Facebook is quickly moving in that direction. I don't do much with my Facebook account anymore. It's nice to have a contact point for all the people there, but this is still my primary thing. So, I just clean out the ol' inbox there every now and again, and respond to anything that gets sent my way. But if people want to know what I'm doing, all they have to do is click.

**20 versions of 'Kitchen' are now complete, and not one of them is quite completely 100% right. And who was it who was hoping to be an inspiration?

**Make An Offer
DeKalb had an interesting event planned that I didn't find out about until two days before it was actually scheduled to happen. Seems that they were having a 'garage sale' at the convo center. Not a bad idea. Cost a buck to get in, and there were maybe 20-25 dealers there, so it wasn't like the place was packed. Still, the layout was good, and I managed to leave with a bag full of books, and old Coco Joes ashtray ($1!), and a few DVDs. If they have it again next year, I'll go. What I didn't realize was that was being held the same weekend as Cortland's town garage sales. Oh, well. Can't be everywhere at once.

**I got blown off for the whole entir weekend by Eve at about 2030 on Friday night. So. Not. Cool.