Our house is loaded with stuff. I like stuff, the kids like stuff, we all like stuff. This love of stuff has lead to a house filled with trinkets, toys, and other shiny items that we couldn’t resist. Every so often we purge some of the stuff, but no matter how often we do this, we seem to continuously find more stuff.

I blame myself, since I am the chief hoarder of stuff. From guitars to fountain pens to computers to Lego kits, I have some pretty fine stuff. Really though, when it comes right down to it, it’s all just stuff. That’s how Annie sees it all, I’m sure. Maybe she has different categories for our stuff. Perhaps Tasty, crunchy, soft and pointy might be some of her descriptions for our stuff. Maybe she sorts it by smell instead. In any event, she doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not all her stuff. read more »

Annie is a destroyer of toys. She has been known to tear the heart out of stuffed toys, pull the squeaker out of rubber toys, and has even destroyed a soccer ball or two. Annie isn’t a keepsake-toy kind of dog like Cozy was. Cozy loved her Kong more than life itself, and we have hundreds of pictures to prove it. Annie has no special toy like that, but prefers to play with whatever is at hand – preferably something that she shouldn’t have.

There is one toy that she hasn’t destroyed, and her apparent respect for the toy fascinates me. The toy in question has been given the clever name of The Dog Catcher Man. Why? Because it’s shaped like a little man and has the word “Dogcatcher” on the front. I told you it was a clever name.

The Dog Catcher Man is a rubber squeaky toy like you’d find in any pet shop. It’s not a robust toy, and it is no way special except that it was purchased some thirteen years ago. Why do we have a 13 year old dog toy? This toy is special; this was Cozy’s toy. read more »

I am a tube amp snob, or at least I used to be. The warm glow of tubes as they crunch my guitar’s signal into auditory bliss is just something that feels right. I also disliked most modelers until recently. Every time I tried some modeling gizmo I hated it. That is, until about a year ago when I bought a little Roland Micro Cube. The little cube sounded pretty good, but I didn’t really care so much about sound quality because I used that amp to amuse myself in the park or the back yard. read more »

The Roland Micro cube is a tiny little amp that can run on either AC power or six AA batteries. I was never a fan of modeling amps, but this tiny two-watt solid state modeling amp really surprised me.

The amp is built like a tank. I’ve not tried this, but I would be willing to be that I could toss it down a flight of stairs and it would still work. Considering that this is the type of amp that you might literally throw into the back seat of a car, being able to withstand some abuse is a pretty good feature. Since it’s less than 10 inches on it’s longest side, and weighs just over seven pounds, there’s a good chance it could be taken along on many trips.

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It’s been hot here in the northeast. One day last week it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 735 degrees in dog years… or something. It was hot. Stupid-hot. Not only was it hot, but the humidity here in New Jersey makes it feel like you’re walking through hot Jello all day. Hot sticky Jello with angry people floating in it. Yum

We wanted three things when we bought our house: Central air, a basement, and a fireplace.  We got the fireplace, and the house, location and everything else was perfect so we bought it without the required basement or central air. We then proceeded to sweat the perspiration of the damned for the next fifteen years. OK, so maybe that’s an exaggeration, and we only sweat the perspiration of the darned, but dammit—it was hot! read more »