Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

I thought that entering the final year of my twenties (Eeek!) was going to be dramatic enough today, but as of late last night Mr. Pith and I are first-time homeowners — well, condo-owners. Somehow getting older doesn’t seem so bad when you get to do exciting things like buy real estate.

“This is truly a gorgeous piece that will brighten any room. If you’re a Steve Martin fan this is the perfect present for you!”: Byzantine style oil painting of Steve Martin as Saint John the Apostle

The world of feline art. Includes tips on discerning real cat art from human-made fakes, and “methods for testing Feline Creative Intelligence”. I’m going to use this as my new euphimism around the house: “Ewwww! The cat made art in my shoe!”

The Travel Channel (US flavour) is looking for experienced casino gamblers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to be featured on their new reality competition show. If you make the cut let me know so I can lose money vicariously through you!

Someone was going to buy this for me the other day, and now I almost wish they had: the 2004 Nuns Having Fun Calendar. Aside from the cover shot, apparently one of the months features nuns skeet shooting, which is super sweet. (I’m pretty sure these ladies wouldn’t want to be confused with the “Nuns with Guns“.. and thong underwear too, apparently.)

Hi! I’m back! And I blew all my money in a cathartic week of debauchery!

I am hashing out a lovely trip report right now, but in the meantime here are a few highlights:
- We checked out the Michael Jackson media frenzy at one of the casinos he was hiding at. We made sure to identify reporters who were making live reports and then walk or drive by veeeeeery slowly behind them gawking and taking photos.
- Our plane back home was delayed by Air Force One. Dubya just lost my vote!
- We saw a very tasteful “topless extravaganza” show, featuring a retelling of the Titantic disaster. The set started off with a quaint little song featuring the chorus, “Oh, what a lovely day for a boat ride.” Mr. Pith was laughing so hard tears of pure cheesy joy were running down his face.
- At one point I imbibed more than was prudent (shock!) and attempted to start a fight with a statue of a Gorn at the Star Trek casino.

Good times, people. Good times. (Got wanderlust? This Gorn has travelled more than I have..)

So as was the case over the summer, the company I work for has let me put together another scholarship essay competition for post-secondary students in the US and Canada. This time I thought I’d have a little fun with one of the potential topics, but the response has been sadly lacking — everyone seems to prefer the more traditional subjects. So, I put it to you, dear student readers, to make my essay reading more fun and take on this topic:

The O’Reilly Publications Unix Creature (a tarsier), Tux the Linux Penguin, and the FreeBSD Devil engage in a Battle Royale. Who wins, and why?

Express your abstract side with the entrancing Mr. Picassohead.