The 'Paris' Commercial - Rant #1

Is it just me, or is the new Paris Hilton/Carl's Jr. commercial really offensive? I mean, come ON people, can we just advertise a hamburger creatively without demeaning the entire female gender in 45 seconds? Shame on you, you advertising types! You get paid millions of dollars for an ad campaign and all you can come up with is a woman with seemingly no self-respect flaunting herself in front of a camera?

Can you spell "t a s t e l e s s"? Let's just say, "You won't see ME at Carl's Jr. anytime soon."

Yes, I did my part, I wrote Carl's Jr. an email (in 200 characters or less *argh*) and told them we wouldn't be patronizing them again!

Subtle Pressures

I've been thinking about areas in life where I feel subtle pressure.

1) When I take my new baby out in public! There is this subtle pressure to make sure he's dressed right (i.e. cool and trendy) and well-behaved...at all times! Talk about 'achieving the impossible'.

2) Having a BLOG. There's this subtle pressure that ALL THESE PEOPLE will (should-would-might?) visit and comment on my BLOG. Thank goodness for my good friend Amy or there'd be ALMOST-NO COMMENTS on my little blog...accept for mine! Yonks!

Does anyone else feel subtle pressures like these? What are your's centered around? Where do you think these 'subtle pressures' come from? Is there a factory somewhere? Does it really MATTER if my baby is trendy (trust me, HE has no clue) or if my BLOG is popular? I don't THINK so...but then again...maybe?

A Month of Softies

Hey friends-
I've found a new fun website that I'd like to try my hand at one of these days. I've just gotten used to doing the weekly illustrations for Illustration Friday (see link at right) but now this! AMAZING! FUN! What will 'they' think of next?

A Month of Softies
http://loobylu.com/softies/

Illustration Friday : Aquatic

Here's Robot 052872 in his natural habitat. This was done in honor of my sweetie's birthday. I'm not really sure WHY or HOW Robot 052872's natural habitat could be so aquatic, as I've heard salt water can be kind of corrosive and problematic for diodes and gears and thingys like that...

[Ink snazzed with Illustrator.]

Dear Liebe

thanks for your neat letter. Yup, being loose when
your people are away is really good....Somehow, since
i behave when my people are away, they dont pen me up
much. guess they think no one around to bite, is
a-ok.

the trip to the beach wasnt quite as expected. they
kept me in the dang cage for much of the trip,
especially after i got wet and muddy.

the almost good part was when chief stopped and said:

"LOOK, a whole herd of elk!"

i ran around the inside of the car really fast, but
they wouldnt let me out....i guess in my frustration
briggie ended up with a fang scratch....not sure how
that happpened by i did cover 3 miles in about 2
minutes. omi and hildegaard and jutta were screaming
"help help save us from the dog"
those elk were really big. i bet i could have drug
one over to the rig.

they didnt sing many german beer drinking songs but
holy cow....can you imagine 11 hours and 42 stops. it
was terrible!!! but the chief found a complete whale
skeleton at the beach!!! 38 feet long. but he
wouldnt let me chew on the bones....drat. why there
are enough bones on a whale to last you and me
for...at least a month!!

and then hildgaard and jutta got lost in walmart
parking lot, when we found em ....they had a whole
bunch of plants and i had to ride with all these
smelly weeds.

so we've been back for a week, and my nose is hurting,
really bad. Chief looked at it and said:

"holy catfish, its a tick. Woman, bring the
Leatherman"

well i can tell you i put up quite a battle. ended
up with the two of em holding me in towels and
such....but he finally got hold of the tick and ripped
it out..... I will wait till one of these nights when
he's sleeping and rip his big toe off.

enough of this, theres a shoot this weekend (that chief is taking me to) and i
need to get hungry so i can eat all the left over hot
dogs and chips and such.

with practice, and lots of good food, I can now belch
as loud as Chief.

charlie

[For those of you who aren't familiar with the characters in the this story:
Chief is my dad.
Charlie is his dog.
Liebe is my dog. Liebe calls Charlie 'Uncle Charlie'.
Omi is my granny. Hildegaard and Jutta are friends/relations.
The person referred to as 'Woman' is my mom. She's also called Briggie.
Please scroll down to see Liebe's original letter to her Uncle Charlie.]

Illustration Friday : Mischievous

Friederick the Fiendishly Mischievous

Dear Uncle Charlie

I wonder how your trip to the beach went!? As for me, the most fun I had this week was Sunday. Sometimes, when I'm very, very quiet and my parents are running around like chickens with their heads cut off as they are trying to not be late AGAIN...sometimes, just sometimes...they forget to close the laundry room door.

It happened this week! Well, whenever that happens, I patiently wait until the garage door closes and then I go berserk! FREEDOM! Unrestrained FREEDOM!

This time I managed to have fun in every single room! In the office, I found an old candy bar wrapper. Can you spell 'shred'? In the baby's room, I found stuffed animals lying on the floor. One of them was Hawkeye, the baby's favorite stuffed puppy. I took him into the living room so he could lie in my favorite sunny spot. I also fondled some little stuffed critters with my teeth. Hmm yummy!

Then I did some really fast laps. When I get going really fast I can get the area rugs to move several feet!

In the bedroom, I jumped up on my parents' bed, just to see what was up there. Not too exciting. The bed was made, so I couldn't really get under the sheets to shed all over. Too bad. I did leave some footprints on the guest room bed, though.

In the bathrooms I found loads of tissues (in the garbage) to rip up and spread all over the place! It was great...except I think they may have been leftovers from someone's cold. Kind of gross, but by this time my time was short so I didn't care! When I heard the garage door open again, I hightailed it for my crate...nonchalantly waiting to see what they would do.

It was a great Sunday. I heard Mom mumble something about, "You better not even THINK about touching Hawkeye again."

They still haven't figured out how I got 4 of the baby's toys off his blanket in the family room into my special holes outside in the dirt! I'll never tell...

They think I may never grow up. But I've learned lots of things: Never EVER pull the stuffing out of someone else's toys, especially through the eye sockets. Never EVER make a noise when your parents leave...lest they remember to shut the door!

Love-
Little Liebe



Liebe (L) and Uncle Charlie (R)

Illustration Friday : Ambition

Here is Miles doing the most ambitious thing he can think of.

[Ink on Vellum snazzed with Illustrator. Sort of.]

I could be a Hermit.

So, yah, I think I could be a hermit. Imagine the long, lovely-lonely hours just to sit and think and think and think. No having to cook...since hermits don't eat balanced meals, do they? No having to clean because no one is coming over, right? No having to be socially mature because who is going to notice if I'm not? NO ONE!
Yah. It'd be great... except...


Husband (L) and Baby Boy (R)

those eyes get me every time. AW...I can't resist. I'm coming out of my cave.

Hermits don't make good wives or moms anyway.