Have a random update from last week.
Rangerish stuff: - I looked up at my roof last Thursday and realized I really needed to clear off the snow ASAP. I had some ice dams forming along the eaves. I called the hardware store and amazingly, they had three roof rakes left in stock, and no, they wouldn't hold one for me. Luckily, I live five minutes away. Sixty dollars later, I walked out with a flimsy aluminum roof rake, some assembly required. I ended up getting a splinter under my thumb nail rummaging through my bucket of tools and cut my hand on a sharp edge of the rake part while I was tightening the screws and bolts. With a blood sacrifice to the maintenance gods, success was assured. But my left arm felt like it was going to fall off at the shoulder by the time I got the job done. And my landlady will reimburse me for the cost of the roof rake.
Also on Thursday, I got a call from Michael next door telling me to look out the window at the compost pile. I looked out, and there was a small, skinny coyote digging in the compost pile. Not sure if it was after the compost itself, or digging for the rodents who tunnel into the pile. Either way, it means that the wildlife is getting desperate in the cold and deep snow for them to show up in the yard in broad daylight. I opened the window for a better look and it took off like a shot and hasn't been back since. I really don't want the coyotes to get comfortable around the house, Bandit is getting old and wobbly and wouldn't be able to defend himself if they showed up and ganged up on him. I took some beef fat that I'd poured into a can along with some seriously freezer-burned meat that I should have thrown out months ago and dumped in a spare dog dish and hauled it out into the woods away from the house. I would never do this normally, but it's been an exceptionally rough winter on the wildlife here and if it keeps the predators in the woods and not in my yard, I'll do it until the weather gets a little better.
Reading: A bunch of fluffy girly romances you don't want to know any more about, and more Louis L'Amour books. I think they balance each other out, lol.
Playing: Still playing Tales of Xillia 2. I'm really liking it. I'll write more about it in a separate blog entry.
Listening: Lots of parodies about the weather. And Social D. Jason works for a company that sells men's suits and has to dress up for work. Every time he wears this one particular suit, all I can hear in my head is "Machine Gun Blues", so of course I have to listen to Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes.
Watching: Saw a fun, mindless Norwegian movie on Netflix called Ragnarok. I've forgotten a lot of my Norwegian and had to have the subtitles on, but a lot was coming back by the end of the movie. Caught up on my favorite TV shows via Hulu Plus, and started watching Gilmore Girls. It's not a series I would have considered watching, except I kept seeing references to it in terms of the books mentioned on the show. It's very cleverly done, and Jason likes it, too.
Well Pixlbit Nation, I'm off to type my next catch up blog.
Gotta watch out for those coyotes, they'll use every trick in the book. Including rocket powered roller skates.
Pick me out a character in Tales of Xillia 2 that you think I would like.
You can tell the problem coyotes - they all have ACME stamped on whatever device they're using.
Hmm... Elize. She has a talking plushie named Teepo. And her battle abilities are pretty kick-ass.
My wife finished watching Gilmore Girls a couple months ago. I accidently got into it too. 
It was fun to watch. I laugh at the dialoge from Lorelai and Rory and I like Luke and Michel. 
She just recently finished watching Parenthood. It's not as fun as Gilmore Girls, but it was good.
I like clever dialogue, and Gilmore Girls definitely has that.
oh man I hate splinters. I got one a couple months ago. There's nothing I hate more than that crap.
it's insane how much snow you guys are getting and the record cold on the east coast.
Not only was it a splinter, but I drove it under the thumbnail. I got it all out, but it still hurts!
Yeah, we're at 80" of snow for the year so far. And it was 2 degrees without taking the wind chill into consideration before I rescued the sensor for my weather station from being blown away.
I need to brush back up on my foreign language skills. Likely very far behind in duolingo.
The one Gilmore Girls ep I saw was when they had Sonic Youth on. I feel I missed out on what seems to be a good show thanks to its "girly" social stigma. Hell, the girl I had a crush on at the time said she'd like a guy who'd watch it, so that's opportunity #2 I missed out on avoiding it I guess. Yet I have always watched Friends. Huh.
Gilmore Girls is very cleverly written. Like I said, Jason really liked the first episode when we watched it together Thursday night.
Wait. You speak Norwegian? I never knew this. That's awesome!
I lived there for three years, one year with a Norwegian family. I'm pretty rusty, though, as I haven't spoken it much in over 20 years.
I had a neighbor that had wolves once. It was neat. They had a whole network of tunnels dug in his backyard. I don't think I've seen a coyote before though. At least your landlady will reimburse you for that roof rake.
Eastern coyotes are twice the size of western coyotes, a full-grown male weighs about 60 pounds. The theory is that they may have mated with wolves on their migration east, because they aren't native to the eastern part of the continent.
Got a Roadrunner? Works every time.
Beep beep!
