If It's Monday, It Must Be Random...

You've all heard this before.  Mondays = posts that are brief, weird or both.  Well, I'm pulling that card tonight and giving you the gift that keeps on giving.  How did I not know about this thing?  Especially since half my Facebook friends have/love/share anything related to... cats.  It surfaced around this time last year, which makes me unfashionably late to the party, but better late than never, right?

Love cats?  Love (what appears to be strawberry) Pop-Tarts?  Want to mash those up, give it a rainbow trail, and top it off with ridiculously poppy music that will either make you chair dance or lock yourself in the bathroom, crying for it to stop?

Turn up the volume and plug in the good speakers, yeah the ones with the sub-woofer.  I present to you...  Nyan Cat.  See how long you can "nyan."

(click on the image and it will take you to the site)

Still wondering what in tarnation you just witnessed?  You can read a bit more about it here.  Did you love it like a kid loves Cap'n Crunchberry?  Or did it make your brain collapse?  I'm in the former camp for now - but check back with me in a week :)



Image:  from the Nyan Cat website

We Interrupt This Programming For A Brief Message...

I just felt the bizarre, oversharing need to tell you we have a 120 degree F heat index today.  This means the body thinks it's 120 damn degrees out there.  Nevermind the actual temperature is a paltry 96 degrees.  Our record-setting dewpoint of 82 is making it worse than a Gulf Coast summer right now.  Bite it, Houston.

Here, really:

The ridonkulous humidity is courtesy of a big, fat storm that ripped through here this morning.  Made my 11:00 AM meeting a little more interesting at least.  Some snaps of that monsoon as it descended upon our cities:

No, really, it's about 11:00 AM here.

The ironic thing is of course that we Midwesterners have been whining for a "real" summer after 6 months of this:

Yeah.  We got summer all right.  Who's whimpering about winter now?

After living in Texas for four years, I would argue Minnesota can bake just like Texas in the middle of July, but boy, I just don't think the Lone Star State can attain a -40 degree windchill and 3 feet of snow like we can in January.  You want extreme weather?  Move here.  You like being scorched and getting frostbite?  Move here.  The only thing I can't offer you is a tsunami.

Anyway, I'll hop off my venting box now.  Next NYC post should be up this weekend.  NYC.  Where they're currently enjoying fall-like weather at 88 degrees...  :)

Images (in order of appearance):
The Weather Channel
Star Tribune / Richard Sennott
Kare 11 News / "Mark B."
My own
Kare 11 (last one)

Friday = Random Funny

It’s time for a quick post of random fun!  It's Friday, after all!  While the snow falls outside for like the 147^th time this winter, here are some goofy images to take my mind off the eternal state of slippery roads, ice dams, and snow snow SNOW.

To start off, a couple of great pictures from a place that doesn’t see much snow – Austin, Texas.  Courtesy of the University of Texas School of Architecture’s website, with a caption that reads:  The pre-final exam tradition continues....  On Friday, December 3, between noon and 1:00 p.m., pedestrians crossing Guadalupe Street at the West Mall entrance to campus had the opportunity to grab a foam sword and battle their way to the other side. The event is organized by students in the School of Architecture.

 

I totally want to!

  

Boy, I don't remember having this opportunity while I was a student there.

Moving along, this little sweetheart appeared on my friend’s Facebook page last night.  It thoroughly made my day.

What does it mean?  No idea.  Don't need to know.

And I missed my chance to snap up this snazzy hat!  (I've been on the hunt for a great panda hat...  one that is cute but not cutesy...  and NOT one of those Spirithoods that are currently all the rage).  Found not at a boutique or some hipster arty store, but at a gas station near the Iowa/Minnesota border.  My husband actually spotted this and snapped a photo of it.  He said he nearly bought it for me.  Unfortunately, it didn't fall into my limited line of sight between the entry doors and the ladies' room, for if it had been, I'd now be sporting it, in all its kinda sketchy, random Midwest gas stationy, too-big-for-my-noggin glory.

I know, it's scary-looking.  I like that.

Well, it's time for me to depart into the wintry mix - just a quick dash across the street to a fabulous Irish bar for a friend's birthday (for whom I bought a card that says "Happy 70th Birthday!"  He's only turning half of that; I figured the card would make him feel younger and better...  right?).

I promise a return to all things fashion soon...

Happy Friday!

Maggie

Photo credits: 

UTSOA images - Mike Farmer, per the website

Raccoon and cat - my friend Laura's Facebook page (origin unknown)

Scary panda hat - my husband