Why Is This Cookie So Sad?

     We encountered this poor, sad cookie at a bakery not to be named. Maybe he is afraid of the prospect of being eaten. Maybe the other cookies are taunting him because he's different. Leave your reason why in my comments, and the winner will be announced on November 10th. Entries are due by November 5th. Good luck!

The Curse of the Giant Cookies

The Girl Scouts marching in their cookie outfits.

     Help! I'm about to be eaten by a giant Carmel de Lite! (Or for you other folks out there, Samoa!) Last year at the Old Settler's day parade these giant cookies rampaged the streets, nipping the heads off of innocent bystanders... or not. *Sigh*. Unfortunately, not, but they were pretty darn terrifying.

     This one looks hungry...

That banner was hard to carry, okay! The wind was blowing in our direction.

     So, anyway... We have to sell Girl Scout cookies soon, and we don't like it any more that those parents out there do, so buy cookies! We will love you forever! Support your local Girl Scouts!!!
     Sorry, got a little carried away there. (Breath in... breath out) Today also happens to be my blog's first birthday! To all you (relatively) young whippersnappers out there, start a blog! Name it Darth Vader's Kittens! Do something with it! Don't just sit on the name! But most importantly, have a nice day.

 Credit for the photos goes to DF, Darling Father.

Children and Tigers and Snacks, Oh My!

     This was not staged. Darling Father, the master of photography and photo angles, managed to snap this picture of the small child becoming the subject of this supposedly wildcat's snack. (I think it's an albino tiger.) Perhaps the school board should investigate this heinous (and hilarious) act. Perhaps not.

Apologies, Tin-Tin, and the Olympics

1. Apologies
    Sorry it's been so long since I've hit the keys; summer vacation tends to overtake me with camps, vacations, mission trips, etc.
Summer brain is in my ears and in my heart...
Again, apologies.
2. Tin-Tin
     Tin-Tin is a small rubber green chameleon, unfortunately, he does not change colors. While I was at my friend's birthday party, I acquired Tin-Tin, Tin-Tin met a fish, and got lost. We turned my friend's house upside- down looking for him while he was sitting in my purse, probably mocking us the whole time.
3. The Olympics
    Oh, how I love the Olympics. My sister's favorite event is gymnastics, while mine is a tie between BMX and track and field. I just discovered BMX racing, and I am addicted. Track has always been a favorite of mine. Gymnastics scares the crap out of me because I'm always afraid they'll die. In perspective, BMX should also scare the crap out of me for the same reason, but oh, well. I love it anyway.

Dyeing, Ornaments, Solders, and Teeth

These words were chosen by Darling Father, and I have been wondering how on earth I would pull this off since he gave them to me. Here we go...

Gingercat can see her reflection in the brightly colored ornaments hanging from the school Christmas tree. As she looks, she can see something else. The reflection is distorted and green, but she can clearly make out a flying Oliver 9. She slowly turns around to face the typewriter. It is hovering just above the wreath on her teacher's door, and a faint humming emanates from it.

The Oliver's keys look like teeth in the bright light of the hallway. It leads her to a whole flock of Oliver 9s hovering in her science room. As she inspects them more closely, she sees that they are dyeing Easter eggs with hydrogen peroxide.

"Um... Guys? Probably not a very good idea." she says. They look at her, a bewildered expression in their typebars. Then a sad little Oliver comes humming up, holding a broken dipping spoon for the eggs up.

"This was our last one." he says. "Will you fix it?"

"Sure. Do you have a soldering station?" she asks.

After scrounging for a decent soldering iron, Gingercat solders the dipping spoon back together. The Olivers thank her profusely, and go back to dyeing their eggs. 

As she walks out of her formerly crazy science room, Gingercat wonders what her teacher will think when she finds all of the hydrogen peroxide gone.

There you have it. Happy Memorial Day.

 

Jolt, Judge, Rule, and Stolen

Today I was bored, so I decided to pick four words out of the dictionary and use them in a paragraph that kindof sortofishly made sense. Here's what I came up with for jolt, judge, rule, and stolen.

One day, gingercat was walking around school, and stopped with a jolt. She looked upward. There was Godzilla, standing on her science room.
"Excuse me mister sir, but would you mind stepping off of my science classroom? We were scheduled to do rat dissections today."
Godzilla looked at the brave gingercat, and let out a roar. The mighty gingercat continued. "I know who has stolen your property. If I give back what has been stolen, will you let me go?"
As many of you may know, Godzilla is a very good judge of character, so he agreed. He had a feeling that he could trust this puny human. With that, gingercat ran out of the school, breaking the ever important rule of not running in school.
She tracked down the thief, eventually coming to her own house. She stomped upstairs, and knocked on her brother's door.
"Whadda ya want?"
"Give back the plutonium."
A groggy, half dead teen came to the door.
"What's that?"
Gingercat sighed, and stormed into his room, grabbed the plutonium and ran back to school.
"Here!I have it for you!" Godzilla grunted, and moved out of the way. She rushed into class, took her seat, and cut open her rat.

So there you have it.

Pictures Improved Part Three

The cows never had a chance.

Episode three: Rise of the robots!!!!!
So anyway, as you all should know by now, it was about twenty minutes before we would be summoned to sing to our father and devour pie, and I was still in my room, deep in thought about what to give him. Metallic markers, blah, blah, blah.
I actually happen to like this artist, but it was in the art calendar, and it was lacking robots. Oh, well. As you all know, whether something is good art or bad art, if it needs robots, it gets robots. It needed robots.

Perfection

     Have you ever tasted perfection? If so, list your perfection in my comments. I know that I have. Our local bakery, Sweet Perfection, lives up to their name. Their cupcakes: delicious. Their pie: amazing. Their bread: superb. I will be covering each of the topics mentioned in loving detail in the paragraphs below. Unless gluten free, you will DROOL.
    First off, cupcakes. They have TONS of variety. Chocolate, lemon, caramel, red velvet, vanilla with sprinkles, lime, green tea, strawberry, orange, and many more. Each cupcake is perfectly crafted, and has an amazingly pretty blob of icing on top. The cupcakes are moist and possibly the best cupcakes on earth.
    Now for the pie. Best pie ever. Strawberry rhubarb, fresh strawberry, key lime, and my personal favorite, peanut butter chocolate creme. On Pi Day, we celebrated by eating lots of pie. LOTS of it. Yummy!!! The Strawberry rhubarb is pleasantly tart, not overwhelmingly sweet. The peanut butter chocolate creme is delightfully smooth and creamy.
     Finally, the bread. Again, so many choices. It is light and fluffy, but substantial when necessary. The Kansas sunflower seed bread is perfect, so nummy. (Nummy is a phrase used in our family that is beyond yummy.) The artichoke bread is delicious, and normally I am not a fan of artichokes at all. But this bread was quite fantastic, and I enjoyed it very much.
     Drooling yet? Remember to put your perfection in my comments. Here is Sweet Perfection's web site.

www.sweetperfection4u.com

Correction: gluten- free is available. 

Pictures Improved Part 2

    Okay, so maybe this one is a little strange. Same scenario, it was my father's birthday. Calendar, markers, you  know the rest. If you don't remember, then go back to the first Pictures Improved entry.
    We love cats. We all wish that we had a cat, but unfortunately, Darling Father is allergic, as is my sister. One of our friends  has a polydactyl  cat with 27 toes. They named her Polly in honor of all her special toes. Whenever we enter a pet store or animal shelter my sister and I find an adorable cat, stand in front of it, and make the biggest puppy eyes ever. Alas, we still are lacking a kitty in our home. Sigh.
    Anyway, I thought that this lively picture was missing something. The butterfly seemed to not realize the peril it was in, so I thought I'd give it a little perspective. Instead of flitting around, the butterfly broke all records in the history of insects. Word around the block is that it broke mach 1. Join me next week for Pictures Improved Part 3!!!

Pictures Improved

Recently it was my father's birthday, and I pondered what to give him. I thought, 'Hey, I have this old art calendar! Look, there are some metallic markers!' and ta- da! The big dino thing is one of my favorite characters that I draw. I have improved so much over the years in my drawing. I was horrified to find one of my old sketchbooks from second grade. No, horrified doesn't cover the way I felt. I was properly mortified. My darling father made comments like 'But I think that that looks cute!', 'That just shows how much you've improved!' and other parenting words designed to make me feel better about my formerly terrible drawing 'skills'. So over the course of the next few weeks, I will show you the rest of my fathers present, as well as some other improved drawings. Stay tuned.

Obsessions and Pet Peeves

Actual sign outside the DeSoto McDonald's.

Pet peeves and obsessions can be very strange in this family. For instance, my father tapping a pen on his teeth annoys me to the end of the universe. My sister feels the need to put all of her Apples to Apples cards in alphabetical order, and is overjoyed when they come in such order. My mother only uses .5 mm lead in her mechanical pencils. A recurring theme in all of our pet peeves is...(Drumroll, please!) Misplaced apostrophes. Yes, misplaced apostrophes. A sign reads:

lot's of new stuff!

Or maybe...

Free kitten's!

Grrr... This type of atrocity is the thing that drives us over the edge. (I actually saw the former sign just last night.)

Possibly:

Dads the gratest!

Yes, Timmy, we know that last night you attacked your father with the cheese grater, but tell us something that we don't know.

We also have a thing about typos. One of our favorites was:

'Beep Beef!'

This was for an article about an Easter egg hunt for the vision impaired. The eggs beeped instead of leaking toxic neon- colored dye into your front lawn. On that happy note, I bring your attention to yet another pet peeve.

Another shared pet peeve is working in groups where you do all the work. Example:
In science class.
Parasitic 'Worker': Hey, can I be in your group?
Nerd: Umm... Do you even know what the subject is?
P 'W': Wellllll... It's supposed to be a poster on the American Revolution, right?
Nerd: Looking at assignment. Not even close. Go away. I work alone.

And the list goes on and on... But unfortunately, this blog will rise and fall, and crash into an unending abyss before I finish listing all of our pet peeves, obsessions, and other various quirks. Happy Easter.

TEDx and TEDEducation

If you have not heard of TEDx, then I will hopefully make you happy today.  TEDx is an amazing nonprofit organization which started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together Technology, Entertainment, and Design. They now have two annual conferences, and do TED talks. They have their videos on their website and on youtube. TEDEducation is a program in which teachers can post lessons in a video, and animators can animate those videos. Here is a link to TED's website.

http://www.ted.com/tedx

You should thank me, I may have just turned your day from boring to awesome.

Name Squatters are Evil

       Don't you hate it when people go in a store and walk around for ages, seemingly always staying in front of the item you need, then walk out empty handed? It's the same way with blog squatters. They pick an insanely cool name for their blog, put up one or two posts, then it just disappears. Take the blog Killer Robot for example.

http://killerrobot.blogspot.com/

 Awesome name, but guess how many posts it has. That's right, NONE!!! Awesome name+ no posts = GRR!!! These people are just hogging good names and not using them. They are outlaws in the world of bloggers. If this ever happens to me, leave a bunch of comments reminding me to stay alive.
       Another horrendous example. Star Wars. Could be an amazing blog, right? But yet again, this blog is under construction. And it has been since 2001. Alas, it is dead. Sigh.
       
 http://starwars.blogspot.com/
 The list goes on and on...
  http://kittens.blogspot.com/
 
         This one is interesting. It is not only a name squatter, it used an amazing name like Godzilla, put it in their web address, then started writing the great American novel that never made it. The novel is also called Cockatoo Creek, which has nothing to do with Godzilla. At all.

http://godzilla.blogspot.com/

       And another, and another, and another. It's maddening. Here are some more dead blogs.
http://www.icecream.blogspot.com/
http://www.ilovestuff.blogspot.com/
http://www.animals.blogspot.com/

The ultimate bloggers goal: Do not let your blog go extinct.

The Hunger Games

    Today is the day that my sister and I have been waiting for since the day the first previews made their way to youtube. Yes my friends, this is the day that the movie hunger games comes out. My sister introduced the books to me not that long ago, and ever since then I have been hooked. The only book that I have not completed is the last one, and that is because I got busy, (Big surprise there, huh?) as well as some... interesting elements that I did not quite like.
     Although I probably will not be able to watch the movies for a bit, (read the books and you will understand) I still will be drooling over several hunger games movie items. One of my favorite things is a shirt with the lettering 'Cinna said I should wear this'.

Coming Back From the Dead

After remaining dormant for almost 6 months... The gingercat is alive!!! Starting with a post about girl scouts, then a peculiar entry about pi, she is alive!! She slowly makes her way into downtown Tokyo, ripping up all the buildings in sight... then, a voice calls out and lets out a roar! It's Godzilla! The fleeing civilians stop running, turning their heads.

Gingercat looks down at the ground, and catches sight of a schoolboy with a remote control in his hand. She stomps over to Godzilla, and points to the boy. He frowns and looks up at the sky. There is some kind of Mecha- Rodan up there! Godzilla walks over to the boy and picks him up. The boy's eyes grow wide, and he starts screaming. Godzilla pats him on the head, plucks the remote out of his hand then sets him on the ground. Godzilla uses the remote to cause Mecha- Rodan to gracefully crash into a mountain.

Godzilla and gingercat quickly fled the scene. They have not been heard from since.

Happy Pi day!!!

Happy Pi day to nerds and pie eaters alike! On this amazing day, everyone honors the number pi, and fills up on all kinds of fruit filled pastries! (Our personal favorite is strawberry rhubarb, how about you?) For the slightly undereducated nerd, here is a little history on everyone's favorite eating holiday. A great man named Larry Shaw invented pi day in 1988. It was celebrated in the San Francisco Exploratorium, where he worked as a physicist. It was celebrated by marching around one of the circular spaces and then eating pies. Yummy, right? On pi day in 2004, Daniel Tammet recited the first 22,514 digits of pi. I don't know about you, but that is just way too much thinking for me. Cleverness is not usually people's strong suite, but they sure were clever in that they made today, 3/14 pi day, as the first three digits of pi are 3.14.
So go out there! Eat some pie! Find out the circumference of circles! Have fun!

Signs of the Coming Zombie Apocalypse

Some people think that the world's gonna end in 2012, right? So if the apocalypse is coming, it may as well have tons of zombies, correct? Well, here are the signs that I'm seeing of the coming Zombie Apocalypse.
       
      1. Grammar. I swear, people are trying to kill us nerds by using the worst grammar possible.
      2. There is such a thing as competitive yoga. Yoga is supposed to be relaxing.
      3. Quarter cupcake day. Our local bakery offers this, and we're talking hard- core cupcakes here.
      4. Not getting a single snow day where we usually have at least two.

Zombie walk for hunger day

      5. Zombies are everywhere. Seriously, take a look.
So the next time you hear groaning coming from the hotel room next to you, you might just want to grab your baseball bat.

Happy 100th birthday to the Girl Scouts!

Being a Girl Scout myself, I am extremely proud of this day. We, the Girl Scouts are 100 years old. I started girl scouting when I was in kindergarten, as a daisy. That's right, one of those cute little girls with the little blue uniforms. There was a troop at my own school, but that soon fell apart. So I joined another troop, which fell to the same fate. ever since then, I have been in yet another troop that contains other girls a year older than me. We do tons of science stuff, ( Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!) and tend to go camping a lot.

This is an old handbook that my darling father got for my darling mother. Much has changed in those seemingly few years.

On one of our campouts we used these trail signs to make a trail for the other group. We were tempted to get 'lost' just for the fun of it.

Our troop has somewhat lessened in numbers over the years, but it has no chance of becoming extinct as long as the group of us who I have a hunch are the only ones who care about girl scouts stay in. Right now we have seven girls in our troop.
So happy birthday to Girl Scouts!