The Click Five, My New ID, Ray, and Costume Quest

Hey, Everyone!

Check out what I got in the mail:
Those are 3D glasses signed by Kyle Patrick of The Click Five. :) The Click Five, who you all know as my "favourite band," has a new album out right now called TCV... And while you can't get a tangible copy of it yet here in America (Booooooo! I can't get an MP3 autographed!), you can buy/download it from iTunes HERE. So why 3D glasses? Well, lead singer Kyle Patrick just came out with a Solo EP with an accompanying 3D music video!

The Click Five has been very good to me in the past:

(I have more Click Five stuff...those are just the ones I have pictures of on this computer)

I bought Greetings from Imrie House and Modern Minds and Pastimes on the days they dropped, I'm only 2 shirts away from fulfilling my "have a Click Five t-shirt for every day of the week" goal, I was part of the original Street Team, a charter member of Get Clicked (the International Click Five Fan Club), and I've been to every concert they've played in Southern California! I've talked about them specifically in these two comics. And I'm often shown wearing a Click Five t-shirt in my regular comics (and in real life photos as well!--look more closely at pictures I've posted in the past...).

I'm very, very happy that The Click Five is doing so well right now! But I'm sad that they haven't come to California (or the West Coast in general) in years now. They're on tour right now and there isn't a single West Coast stop! I'm trying not to take it personally--I know it's probably not the band's fault (these things are usually handled by people "higher up")--but it's hard not to feel a little forsaken. Why no love for California, guys? :(

In other news, I also got my new California ID in the mail the other day. (I'm just getting all SORTS of cool things in the mail lately!).

Here's what my old one looked like:Terrible.

Here's my new one from last week:
I think it's an improvement. Though I look like I'm just a floating head... Oh well. It reflects my longer hair and my 25 lb weight gain since my last ID. Also, a few of you have asked me how I managed to keep my glasses on for my ID card pic. If you tell the DMV that your glasses have non-reflective lenses, they let you keep them on! Easy as that.

Over the weekend, I played Costume Quest on Ramiro's PS3:

Looks like Ramiro & me!

Arrested Development joke. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

I finished the game in 6 hours and got ALL of the trophies. Unfortunately, there are no platinum trophies for downloadable games. Ah, well... I have a Costume Quest platinum trophy in my heart!

Also over the weekend, we had a visit from Ramiro's BFF, Ray:

An accurate depiction of Ray.

Ray ended up giving me this as a belated birthday gift:

Thermaltake Massive23 LX Laptop Notebook Cooler Oversized 230mm Blue LED Fan USB CLN0015

You have no idea how cool it is! (Both literally and otherwise!). I ended up spending the remainder of my weekend writing upcoming entries for my Professional Blog and playing The Sims 2 and my computer wasn't even warm after! And I was on for HOURS!!! Amazing.

Other stuff: Work, groceries, e-mails, potential interviews, and hacking back my parents' bougainvillea again.

See you next Monday!

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

My Last Week of Fun

Hey, Everyone!

Today was my first day at my new job! I still can't tell you which company I'm working for, but it's a writing job (with regular hours & duties!) with its primary focus being on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Squee!

I'm fairly new to SEO, but I love it. I love that feeling of accomplishment I get when I know I've done a good job. :)

As for my title, I was jokingly referring to last week as my "last week of fun" (since it was my last week before starting my new job). What a joke that turned out to be! lol. Everything that could go wrong for be classified as "un-fun" happened last week. I won't bore you with the details, but here are a couple items of note:

• I went to the DMV to renew my California ID. And you know how awesome the DMV is!
• Robert had his first bath

Now, Robert having his first bath wasn't so bad. Robert has never been one to use his claws (except on accident) and bruising was minimal (he does like to kick--with force!). The bad part was the reason why he had to have a bath! It was because of this:
We had applied some PurrScriptions Plus 5 Way Protection on Robert (hot weather = flea season) and he had a horrific allergic reaction! It was terrifying.

We've never had a problem with this product in the past. And we know how to apply flea meds out of reach of the cat's licker. It was just Robert's bad luck. (Black cats...bad luck to themselves?!)

Anyway, the Sentry Petcare people were able to guide us through what to do. And "what to do" included giving Robert a bath. And, fortunately, that fixed him right up!

This morning, Courtney from Sentry Petcare called up to check on Robert. And they're going to be sending us a brand new product with a different formula! Hopefully that one will work better. No hard feelings! (Also, we're to report back on how the new meds work--I'll post the results here as well).

That's all for today!

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

EDIT (5/17/11): The WordPress Pro Business guy I work for sometimes, Adam W. Warner, is holding an "Introduction to WordPress" Class. Only 30 seats per class! The first event is May 24th. Sign up HERE.

Fear of Success

Hey, Everyone!

Well, this past Saturday (5/7) was Free Comic Book Day! Unfortunately, we didn't get the huge haul that we did last year. Restrictions were put on how many comics we were allowed to take apiece: Three each.

Ramiro's face when he heard "Only 3 Comics Per Person"

Well, naturally Ramiro and I joined forces to optimize our comic intake. We made a planned attack so that we wouldn't end up with any duplicates.

I snagged:

• Top Shelf Kids Club (which was Owly, Korgie, Johnny Boo, etc.)
• Bongo Comics Free-for-All 2011 (Simpsons...)
• Disney's Darkwing Duck/Disney's Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers

Ramiro grabbed:

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars/Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Baltimore/Criminal Macabre
• Nancy/Melvin

There were a couple other comics I was interested in, but I think we did pretty well. And, if we could only get 6 comics total, I think we got the best of the bunch. You can see what ALL of the comics that were available HERE.

Then, since PayPal is SUPER SLOW at transferring money (I was going through the "I have money, but I can't get to it"s), Ramiro and I decided to raid our piggy bank for some food money. And Robert was VERY INTERESTED in what we were doing. So, Ramiro showed him the piggy bank up close... and Robert FLIPPED OUT!! I'm talking full on hisses, claws, bushy tail, standing-up-fur-ridge-on-his-back FREAK OUT! He was SCARED!

"Look into my face and know fear," says Mr. Pig

My best guess is that the smell of coins smells similar to blood...and blood tends to freak animals out. Ramiro thought he was just scared of the pig itself. Either way, we hadn't seen Robert that scared of anything since he saw the "ICE CREAM AND CREAM AND CAKE" commercial from Baskin Robbins when he was a baby.

We also joked that "maybe Robert has a fear of success."

Well, NOT ME!

A few of you know that I've been vying for a writing position. It would be a great opportunity and have regular hours and everything.

...and I got it!

Starting Monday, I'll be working from 10am-2pm from Monday-Friday. So don't bug me during those hours. Seriously. If you bug me, I have to clock out...and you will be costing me money...and I will be sore with you... >:( So please, don't chat with me during those hours. I know it will be tempting (especially since I have to be logged into my Chat programs for my job), but please don't. You can have me from 2pm onward. :D

As of now, I can't really talk about who I'm working for or what I'll be doing, but I'm super happy to have a nice steady job.

I'll also be continuing my work with WP Pro Business and some of my other gigs that I've been doing. Because I'm hardcore like that.

For those of you who liked that article I did on traveling with your dog, you might also be interested in this:

The Beagle: Number Five with the AKC, but Number One in Our Hearts!

It's a profile on the Beagle. I also did profiles for Chihuahuas and Rhodesian Ridgebacks. So keep an eye out for those.

Then, I got so into writing about dogs that I made a Squidoo lens about Wolfgang (my parents' dog):Wolfgang: A Good Dog

Wolfgang is a Keeshond. He's my parents' third Keeshond. Here are some pictures of me with their original Keeshond, Max (and their Afgan Hound, Shekinah):The Internet loves babies and dogs. Right...?

Anyway, I also created a Squidoo lens on how to raise pinkie mice, but I've been told it's a bit of a downer (Spoiler: I raised the Pinkie into adulthood, but he was not the undying magic mouse of fantasy tales). You can read it if you want.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...that's about it!

See you next week!

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com

May Again

Hey, Everyone!

I can't believe it's May again already...

Not a lot to report this week. I wrote an article about how to travel with your dog in the summertime:
THE DOG DAYS OF...YOU KNOW

And I made another Squidoo page:

SIX MORE TRAGIC SONGS

And I've been writing up some articles ahead of time for my "Professional" Blog. And I've even been doing some illustrations to go with them! This is my fave so far:
I realize that the illustration doesn't make a whole lot of sense without the article to go with it, but I couldn't resist sharing (It had been over a year since I'd drawn anything!). You'll just have to tune into my Pro Blog to see what it's all about. It updates on Wednesdays.

That's all I've been up to that I can talk about (I've got some potentially good things in the works, but it's all very hush-hush).

Until next time...

--Lauren*
http://littlezotz.webs.com