Let it never be said that I don't win anything.

It can, however, be said that I only win things I have no idea how to use.

I just won a smoker.

No, not the Marlboro Man.

A smoker as in, "Put that on out there in the backyard and we'll get us some meat and smoke us up a little jerky! Woot!"

After a 6 month absence, the new deli in our office building opened this week, and as part of their grand opening, they had a drawing for a smoker. Not one to miss writing my name on a little piece of paper and sticking it into a hat, I threw my name in on it. And they just called me a while ago to tell me I've won it. I vaguely recall looking at it as I put my name in and thinking, 'Huh. What does that do? Apparently I should have asked.

So it looks sort of like this. It's about 2 1/2 feet tall, round, black. And I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it. Before you send helpful suggestions, I know I can use it to "smoke things." I figured that part out on my own. I just don't know what I'm supposed to smoke. Cheese? Salmon? Mequite trees?

Help? Anyone? Where I grew up we had grills. I can handle grills. I can turn them on. I can put meat on them and know when it should be taken off. I can cook vegetables on them. I can do grills. What my Yankee self cannot do is a smoker. But much like becoming a Southerner, I am willing to learn.

Suggestions anyone?

Happy Birthday Steph!!

And in the spirit of giving, here's Steph's Wish List. I'd like to point out how lovely Amazon.com wish lists are. And that sometimes (as Steph can attest), I like to buy random items from them. And none of my other friends - except Dave - have wish lists. Just thought you should know that.

Aside to Gryph: Don't feel inadequately sluttish - I have the, umm, advantage of not having married my high school sweetheart. It gave me many more years to perfect my craft. Yeah. That's it.

Gryph?

Bear?

72%. And you know I don't have any tattoos, or stray piercings.

I'm one of those closet types, apparently.

Word of the day today: Noodge.

It can be an expletive - "Ya noodge!"

It can be a term of endearment - "Ya noodge!"

It can be a verb - "But that would just be noodging them, wouldn't it?"

It is also extremely amusing to shout for no apparent reason. "Noodge! Noodge!"

Multipurpose, wonderful word. Try to use it at least once today.

(Update coming tonight! No, really, I swear!)

And now - I'm going home from work.

Zombie girl must sleep. Zzzzzzz.

If I were a bird, I'd be tall and flightless. Right Gryph?

Yes, it is embarrassing to have anyone see through your transparency. Damn!

I'm sitting at work, staring out the window at a pair of hawks who are circling and circling above our parking garage and wishing I could go outside and just laze around. But I can't. I'm stuck here for... 7 more hours. Yawn. I'm too old to pull 16 hour days. Wonder if anyone would notice if I crawled under my desk with a blanket?

It's picture day! Or Tuesday. But in some cultures Tuesday may be picture day, no?

Alright. In my office, Tuesday is declared picture day. (Especially since I'm sitting here going through hundreds of screenshots.)

I keep uploading pictures to the site, but have been too lazy to make a separate page for them. So, umm, hence... Picture Day!

Casa de Susan. Prior to treefall.

The Chet Man. He's orange. He sleeps. Love him.

Sammy. This is the look that says, "Whatever that silver thing is in your hands? You should throw that for me."

Gimmick sucker. I am. I admit it.

And now, Digression is fucking brilliant.

But I already knew that.

Yay! My car is officially Texan now! Completely with lovely little license plates with cowboys and space shuttles.

Because if there is anything I see plenty of in Texas, it's cowboys and space shuttles.

Oh good lord. I haven't been required to cough up my birth certificate for a driver's license since I was 16. I know someone who I suspect moved away from Texas to avoid getting her car registered. I'm beginning to understand why.

Sigh.

I dislike rudeness, anonymous abuse, and self-righteousness far too much to be doing what I do for a living.

According to a nifty little survey on the Wall St. Journal, I am best suited to live on Long Island. Or in New Jersey. In fact, my top ten list is a veritable plethora of places I've never heard of.. in New Jersey.

I just never saw myself as a Jersey kind of girl.

Today was the deadline for turning in our yearly employee reviews. Ugh. I hate doing any sort of personal assesment reviews, so of course I put it off to the last minute.

No, I didn't include procrastination as something I need to work on. Ahem.

I hate the questions about "What My Weaknesses Are And How I Plan To Improve" in the next year. Here's the thing. My major weakness is self-scheduling. I'm terrible at it. I always schedule too little time for projects and end up late. But, and here's the thing... I've been like this for 31 years. I'm pretty sure if I could have improved it, I would have by now.

New stuff! New stuff!

I updated my wander page to include the musings of my dear webbified friends. Because, you know, I'm such a hit monster. They'll be overwhelmed with traffic I'm sure.

I went out to the garage to throw some clothes in the laundry a little while ago and there was a nice big tree roach sitting on top of the washer waiting for me to reach close enough to attack. I'm sure he was planning to leap onto my arm, scramble up to my face and lick me.

I thwarted him though. I screamed and threw a sock at him.

Bask in my bravery.

Alright already! In the interests of updating this site a bit more often, and given that for some reason I can't FTP to my site from work, I've thrown in with the Blogger lot.

Besides, this will give Suz and Gryph something to read a bit more often.

I'm all about playing to my audience, dontchaknow.