1. Grab purse from computer room.
2. Realize you forgot backpack, so go back to computer room and grab backpack.
3. Realize umbrella is no longer in backpack, run upstairs to get it.
4. Remember camera.
5. Dig in collectible pile on dining room table for camera until you remember it's actually on the coffee table.
6. Set alarm and close front door.
7. See rain clouds.
8. Unlock door and disarm alarm.
9. Grab raincoat.
10. Set alarm and close front door.
11. Remember crock pot.
12. Unlock door and disarm alarm.
13. Run to kitchen to check if crock pot has been set on "LOW" instead of "WARM."
14. Start to set alarm.
15. Run back to kitchen to verify crock pot has been plugged in.
16. Begin to set alarm.
17. Set off motion detectors.
18. Begin to set alarm again.
19. Lock front door.
20. See #43 bus pulling away from stop.
21. REPEAT.

OMG dudes, lookit, we totally did crochet in the round!

Onlies, now we notice we did dc where they said sc, so we're gonna pull it all out again. Oh wells....

Snobama.

Jimi looks cold.

( cut for tl;dr, image version )


Here's our tiki footprints on the deck.

The back yard at Casa de Tikistitch, after Snowpocalypse.

There was just a truck that rolled past, salting the road. Ya know, like they do in real cities.

We also saw a man going past on skis. But, he fell down, so he stopped.

View from the deck.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Operating Update

To: LIST - All Staff
To: LIST - Faculty

Hi Everyone,

All non-essential operations at the Seattle Campus have been suspended. This would include all adminstrative staff in admin, predoc, research, and residency support staff.

Holy shit.

"It's like walking in a winter wonderland, only with car crashes!!"
--Mr. Tikistitch



So, here is the stupid that happens every day now. They send big Metro buses up our hill, despite the fact that our hill is now covered in an inch-thick sheet of ice. Oddly enough, sometimes the big buses cannot get traction. Fancy that! Like, say, this bus.



Which in turn blocked this bus.



Which in turn managed to back up traffic - on an icy hill - all the way down to Broadway.

Oh well, there's nothing much good on TV.

They've blocked off our street! We've been in this house since '00, and we've never seen that before.

Now we can go places!

And do stuff!

(Was actually kinda weird spending the last couple weeks without one. Like, "A tiki without a country," sniff!)

Also also, they gave us a newfangled Space Passport this time, with the chip thingie in it, so the CIA (and the space aliens) can more easily track our movements.

Hey, Obamagarage made the local news! (You have to wait through a commercial, so turn the sound down for a bit.) Trivia: If you look over the shoulder of the pink-haired dude they interview last, that's Casa de Tikistitch looming in the background.

We need to go lean left now.

tiki was up at the crack o' dawn today, finishing packing and loading the TikiMobile with ebay-ey goodness. Then we bumped into our old friend Buster Doggie whilst unloading kit 'n kaboodle at the post office. He was up early too, walking his buddy, Boneboy. We had an in depth conversation conversation, and concluded that he's a good doggie (yes he is!!!), in fact, the BEST doggie (yes he is!!) and he likes walks (yes he does!!!). Also, Boneboy liked the Wacky Packs book we got him as a "thankee for being an awesome friend above and beyond the call of sanity" gift for helping us unload the 8,000 lb Stitch sign.

Then off to the doctor, where we apologized for not really being terribly sick (and got to compare insanely low blood pressure measures with equally hypotensive office assistant). Doc was terribly nice and chatted amiably about another patient who came in with equally unimpressive symptoms and then only a few months later came down with OMG DEADLY DISEASE! Just the kind of thing that keeps our hypochondriacal heart a-poundin' (though, not terribly hard, as we are hypotensive).

And THEN checked in with PO box boys, who were glad to off-load the 187-odd boxes coming into Casa de Tiki, and which had piled up when we neglected to attend to our postal oddments over the weekend. Having actually secured a parking spot IN FRONT OF CASA DE TIKI, we were understandably reluctant to depart, but needed to get into the office in order to deliver regression results to some hungry, hungry professors. So, we'll just leave you with a tiny peek of the pickings:



From the scorings on the back, it looks like this piece was actually meant to be part of a bigger display, for, of course, Stitch! the anime. But, it's big and obnoxious by itself, so, we likee.

So, 'twas a sad tiki day.

We spent our precious lunch driving to our mailbox place, only to learn that we literally had too much stuff to fit in tiki's car!!!! This despite the nifty fold-down seats, plus the convenient warping of time and space inside.



But even sadder, we returned home to discover that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PACKAGES (including the teensy ones) WAS ACTUALLY FOR MR. TIKISTITCH (who's out of the country, and not even around to enjoy them).

( Woe is us )

Look! We did a really good job parallel parking the tiki car this morning! See? And, close to the curb.

OK, so maybe our life isn't terribly exciting at present. But, we did help bail out Wall Street! Hey, you ungrateful Wall Street weasels, we sure hope you appreciate this when it's bathtime and tiki shows up to use your solid gold bath tub that you bought with your ill-gotten gains to go with the $7,000 shower curtain. We're bringing our rubber duckie!!!

So, today as Tiki Labs LLC popped out of the shower (the door's kinda tight, so when our entire staff of Science Guys tries to all squeeze out at the same time, there's an audible "POP." And if you believe that, there's a Bridge to Nowhere Alaska we'd like to sell you....) and noticed a little cluster of perfume samples recently mailed to us from the highly scientific twotone begging for our attention.

But, which one should we choose for analysis this morn? Seeing as we were already kinda late to work, due to the R&D Division of Tiki Labs LLC hogging the shampoo.

Being all scientific 'n stuff, we employed the scientific principle of RANDOMNESS to pick a sample. Of course, if you want randomness, you need a highly mathematical algorithm. This is our favorite:

F(b)=\int_{-\infty}^b f(b') db'

Onlies, Tiki Labs LLC was still all drippy from the shower, so we got the algorithm kinda wet and soggy, so we had to end up using the other scientific method of randomness, ie, closing our eyes and picking one. And so, after knocking over the Colgate, we picked Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's El dia de Reyes for scientific analysis.

So, we carefully opened the bottle and applied to Tiki Labs LLC's left wrist. We hastened out to greet Tiki Labs LLC's Unofficial Chief Engineer, Mr. Tikistitch, and bade him smell.

"Coffee!" spake Tiki Labs LLC's Unofficial Chief Engineer, Mr. Tikistitch.

"Yeah, coffee!" spake Tiki Labs.

"You can smell the roast," said TLLUCEMT.

"And a hint of cinnamon," said we.

"You smell like you spilled a latte on your wrist," said TLLUCEMT.

We were much pleased by this most successful scientific trial, especially as compared to the recent disaster in evaluating Blood Drop's Cafe Zazou (a coffee scent in which we were unable to detect a single shred of coffee likeness). We hastened to read the marketing material which twotone had helpfully enclosed with the samples.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab El dia de Reyes. "Hot cocoa with cinnamon, coffee, and brown sugar."

Er.

Hot cocoa?

OK, Science Guys, it's back to the labs!

Got Boba?

NOTE: No, this is not really tiki's lunch. We actually had a bowl of boring soup, like we usually do. This is just our reward for having to sit through a boring con call. "Lunchblogging" just sounds rilly kewl.

NOTE NOTE: Yes, we have Stitchies on the other side of the computer too.

Not doing a whole lot of the updating our LJ today due to dealing with eBay buyers who want Pullips sent to Brazil plus inquiries from potential buyers who want us to make our auction ending times more convenient for those who live in Australia (yeah, really) plus severe lack of sleep resulting from attendance at a wedding reception in Portland, Oregon this weekend (a 3-hour drive each way, unless you're Mr. Tikistitch, in which case it's a 2 and a half hour drive with the top down at 2 am and lots of the VROOM thing because oddly enough there's not many other people VROOM-ing around on I5 at 2 am) and going out drinking with a French person last night until it was not last night but this morning but he paid for all our chocolate martinis so that's cool and what was that we were saying?

You probably have to live in Seattle to get this. But, we don't care. We don't live in Ballard any more, but we just might leave our turn signal on tomorrow just for old time's sake.