Blog award! The Fabulous Blog Ribbom

All right, this time I remembered pretty promptly.

Hawk, from browndog cbr, gave me a blog award!

The following are the rules for accepting this award:

1: Post the rules on your blog.
2 : Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.
3 : Name five things you love.
4 : Name five things you hate.
5 : Pass the award onto five other bloggers


So, five of my most fabulous moments?

First, in real life, prior to even dreaming of starting a dog blog (but definitely leading up to today)....going to pick out Elka!

Second: getting Elka's first title! It's an Internet title, sure, but that's a concrete list of tricks that Elka knows, that I taught her. Being able to brag about our partnership like this is pretty rad!

Third: Discovering music that I like. Okay, this isn't a single fabulous moment, I know. But seriously? A good new song, or band, is a transcendental experience. As an example, last winter/spring, I discovered Julie-O, by Mark Summer. It's a cello piece, and there are many people who have videos up on YouTube, solo and otherwise. My favorite one has been made private, unfortunately, or I would have linked it. 

Fourth: cooking. This one is kind of funny, because I was definitely a boxed mac 'n' cheese, spaghetti with butter on it, chicken fingers little kid (okay, I still love chicken fingers). Now? Well, the Internet has a bajillion food blogs on it, that I explore and get ideas from. The library has cookbooks that I flip through. There are wonderful cooking shows (Alton Brown, anybody? Gordon Ramsey's The F Word? [this one is British, and thus the bad words aren't bleeped. Consider yourself warned]).

Last, but not least: I have 92 followers! And that's people that Blogger tells me are following using that mechanism; email followers? No idea. It seems Blogger should tell me that too, but I haven't found it yet. Ah well, no big. I'm just happy to have my lovely followers and readers!

Five things I love:

Dogs (duh)

Reading. I typically read between 100-200 books per year. Fewer since a certain stinker moved in, but I stil make some pretty good progress. A lot of them are dog books; it's a source of wonderment to my fiancé, who has remarked that he'd expected me to run out of them by now!

Writing. Ever since I was little, I made up stories (in fact, when I was little, I made up episodes of "The Real Ghostbusters" that I recorded using my dad's boom box, in which the Ghostbusters got a dog. Named Fido, if I remember correctly). Other than blogging, I write nearly every day, on varying projects. Short stories, novels (that will eventually be finished), etc.

Summer. I love the heat, I love the sun. I much, much prefer the hot weather to the cold weather. I was born in July, so I guess it isn't a surprise!

Netflix: this is a weird one to add, perhaps. But, I don't have television, just Internet. Netflix has feature films, documentaries, and television shows of various sorts that are available on instant watch. I'd love it if they added Stanley Coren's "Good Dog!" series, which I watched on Hulu a couple of years back. I'm  happy that I can get my "Supernatural" fix on there, though (mostly; season 7 isn't up yet)!

Five things I hate:

Acronyms. Yeah, I know it's weird. In the Internet world, and especially the online gaming world (which I occasionally dabble in), acronyms are ubiquitous. I have some kind of a mental block when I look at them, though, and it takes me longer to work them out (or remember them to use!) than to just type out the words.

Breed prejudice. This includes breed-specific legislation, of course. It seems like a lot of people make ill-informed decision about dogs and dog breeds, based on rumor and appearance. Breed specific legislation has not been shown to reduce dog bite incidents, and breed prejudice frequently ends up causing frustrating and heartbreaking situations like higher insurance rates, dogs turned into shelters because of landlord demands, and dogs being seized and euthanized based on appearance.

Whining. Both dog and human. There are certainly times that Elka drives me straight up the wall, whistling through her nose. There are time at work where I just can't understand why people just can't act like grown ups and cope with the rules of the library, which have never been a secret. Granted, I recreationally complain quite frequently, but I do try to avoid whining. 

Reality television programming. Except for cooking shows. I freaking love Masterchef, and original Iron Chef. But things like Survivor (is that still on?), or Jersey Shore? Yeah, no. Thanks. 

Forgetting things. Tip on the tongue syndrome? Yeah, hate that. Forgot why you went into a room? "There's something I was going to tell you, but I can't remember"? I also hate it when something reminds me of something else, but I can't quite make that connection. Or if I can't quite think of a song title, or band name, or movie. Thank God for Google and IMDB, right?

Five other bloggers:

It's so hard to just pick five deserving bloggers!

Let's see...

Granite to Gneiss

Tales and Tails 

Life with Desmond

Life with Claire

Something Wagging This Way Comes

Thanks again, Hawk! Blog awards are so much fun!