Sawyer’s real true love:

sesquipedalophobia - The fear of long words. Kind of ironic.

Finnegan is doing well with his potty training. Sorta. He’s getting really good at signaling to go out to pee, and has had only one accident in 4 days. But he’s not getting the hang of signaling to poop. And I’m going to have to put him in the bathroom for 10 hours for the next two days, while I work, because Megan is in Baltimore. I need to try to change my schedule.

But yay, Megan is in Baltimore! She’s visiting friends. So I got to deep clean my apartment today. That made me happy. Soon, I hope she will have a job, and an apartment of her own.

Back to Finnegan. He’s been great thus far, and the only things he has chewed up have belonged to Megan. To wit: One cell phone; one cell phone charger; one slipper; two cat toys; one book. He did eat my headphones, but I left them dangling enticingly. And they were cheap.

I added more pictures of my boys!

We had a teachable moment this morning.

I did not get Finnegan a crate because he was supposed to be potty trained. Why spend the money? But, as we now know, he is not potty trained. Other things the shelter missed — that he has all of his baby teeth and thus can not possibly be six months old, and that they really ought to move in to the 21st century and start micro-chipping animals instead of giving them ghetto ear tattoos.

Anyway, he’s not potty trained. I decided to put in the bathroom at night. I took out the rug, I laid down newspaper, I made it cozy, and I tucked him in.

You may not be aware, but my sister Megan has been crashing on my couch for the last two months, since she lost her job. Thanks, George Bush. I blame you for this. So, Megan decides she can’t sleep with Finnegan scratching at the bathroom door. She lets him out to sleep on the couch with her.

I wake up around 6AM to take Finn potty, to find he has escaped from his den. Megan explains why, through her sleepy mush-mouth. I take Finn out, I bring him back, and give him back to Megan, saying “This better not backfire.”

Cut to this morning, around 10:45. I have a lovely plan to shower and make myself a nice lunch before heading in to the office. I open my bedroom door, walk in to the hallway, and survey what can only be described as “damage.”

Megan is not a morning person. She needs at least two cups of coffee and a shower before she really wakes up and starts to grasp things going on around her. So I suspect she was quite startled when I very loudly woke her up this morning: “Megan!”

“Whatwhat!”

“It’s time to get up!”

“Why?”

“So that you can see why we don’t let puppies run around at night.”

He’d pooped; that was to be expected. He also had ransacked the bathroom trashcan and strewn its contents around the living room. He’d unfurled an entire roll of toilet paper. He chewed on the antenna of Megan’s cell phone. He’s gathered up all the cat toys he could find and used them to build a fort. Or something.

We cleaned up the mess, and I opted to shower instead of making lunch. My friend Erik has graciously offered me his puppy crate, but I can’t pick it up until Sunday or Monday. I’m pretty sure Finnegan will stay in the bathroom at night, though, without a possible jail-breaker.

And thank the baby Jesus for those Godless Chinese, or else I would starve to death on Christmas Day.

This is all Joe Biden’s fault.

On Saturday, I read a story on CNN about party poopers being angry at Joe Biden for buying a german shepherd puppy from a breeder (instead of rescuing a shelter dog). I wanted to see a picture of Biden’s new puppy, and the first image I found was on pet finder (click here if you want to see the cuteness). While at petfinder, I am utterly powerless and must look at puppies.

And I fell in love.

I found a beautiful little beagle/shepherd mix named Max, and by the end of Saturday, had determined to get him. However, my initial instinct was right — Max was far too cute to stay in a shelter. He was gone. In the meantime, looking at more puppies, there was another little guy trying to win my affections. On Sunday, Jackson and I drove down to West Virginia to meet him.

Finnegan (which was NOT his shelter name, because shelter names are DUMB) was said to be 6 months old and potty trained. He loves other dogs and likes to play with cats. He’d been brought to this shelter on Halloween, and no one had put in an application for him. This is a kill shelter, and his time was coming up. So on top of being adorable, he played on my heart strings. I put in an application, he got neutered, and this morning, I drove down and picked him up.

I don’t think he’s 6 months old — I think he’s more like 4 months old. He’s got a bit of growing in to his paws and tail yet to do. And he’s not potty trained. But, he’s beyond cute, and he’s saved, on Christmas Eve, no less. He’s my little Charlie Brown Christmas Puppy!

So, without further ado, meet the newest addition to my family: Finnegan.

Click here for more pics.

Merry Christmas!

Fuck John McCain.

“Does it worry anyone else that every right-wing debacle in the last fifty years involves the same twelve assholes?”

Is the internet has brought us nothing else, there is, at least, Literal Music Videos.

Friday marks the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and it looks like the Gulf Coast is about to get smacked again. This is the current projection for Tropical Storm Gustav:

As you can see, it looks like it’ll make landfall early next week. Reports say New Orleans can’t withstand a Category 2 storm in their current condition, and this already projects as a cat 3. It could also just sit in the gulf for another day or two and ramp up to cat 4 or 5. Governor Jindal in Louisiana is looking at starting evacuations as early as Friday.

If it makes landfall, and it’s gonna, but if it hits landfall hard enough to again breech the levee’s, we’re going to have to have a serious discussion about rebuilding one of the oldest and most flavorful cities in this country.

I like puzzles too. I’ve even done a Simpsons photomosaic before, and I consider it cheating to look at the box.

Look, you communist. It is not cheating to have a general idea of what the puzzle looks like! This one frustrated me, so I decided to show to kick its ass.

I’m a project person. I need something to keep me busy at night after work. Now that my walls are painted, I’ve turned to jigsaw puzzles. I went yesterday in search of new ones.

I found two very difficult puzzles. The first is a Simpson’s puzzle, 1,000 pieces. But it’s a photomosaic puzzle, and I have never done one of these before. Each piece has its own little picture, and they will combine to be a big picture of Homer.

The second puzzle is a Lost puzzle, and, in keeping with the spirit of the show, it does not show you what the puzzle looks like on the box. I basically have no idea what this thing is supposed to be. It is also made of 1,000 pieces.

And, because I am, apparently, a masochist, I bought these puzzles at Half Price Books. So I have no assurance that they each contain all of the pieces.

I’m an idiot.

I found another project, as well. I’ve been made a Team Coordinator for the Obama campaign in my neighborhood. I’ll basically be in charge of a team and a bunch of volunteers, and will coordinate things with our field director. It doesn’t pay anything, but I intend to go mad with power!

PS Our President is a tard.