I bought a box of Mallomars on Wednesday

I still have some of them left. This is an unprecedented feat of self-control.

Question for the reader: what is your food that, if it's in the house, you will eat it all up?

Stop #PIPA and #SOPA.

I just left a message for Jim Webb asking him to oppose #PIPA and #SOPA. Won't you call him too? 202-224-4024.

If you live outside Virginia, you can find out who to call by asking the Wikipedia for help.

Talking about chores

Muffin Man is nine, and he has the following chores:

• Feed and otherwise take care of the gerbils (I help with their monthly re-bedding).
• Set and clear the table, including pouring drinks for the family
• Empty the dishwasher
• Put away his clothes (I admit to being pretty lax about this).
• Keep the play room tidy
• Empty the waste baskets
• Make his own week-day breakfast (cold cereal and milk).

What chores do you have your kid doing? Is MM getting off easy, or are we too hard on him?

Anyone have a reliable pedometer for the iPhone?

I can't get the Nike one to calibrate, and Footsteps paused after 2 miles.

In related news, I need better non-sandal walking shoes. 

iPhone vs. Droid: The Views of a Reluctant Adopter, one day later.

So, 11 days ago, I got a Droid X2 to replace my Droid Eris, which died an ignoble death (dropped from a height onto uneven pavement. Smash).

So I went and got the Droid X2, and a serious protector for it.

The Droid X2 has a lot to recommend it. Large screen. Fast everything. On the down-side, it's big and heavy and doesn't easily fit into any pockets I own. But, since I generally carry around a purse anyway, that wasn't a deal breaker. I was really very happy with the Droid X2 - when it was working.

And therein was the rub. Five times in the ten days I owned that phone, it crashed. Needed a hard-reset type of crashed. To perform a hard reset on the Droid X2, you need to remove and replace the battery. Which was covered by the serious protector, that was so serious it was nigh unto impossible to remove. Now maybe you don't think five major crashes in ten days is a lot, but I do. So back to the store I went. And this time I got an iPhone 4. (I had considered getting a different Droid, but I'm starting to have doubts about their quality control).

So let's talk about the iPhone 4. There is a lot I like about it, but I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to other parts of it. How do you download music from Amazon's cloud onto to it? How do you set your In Case of Emergency numbers? How do you import contacts from, say, Facebook, without sending contacts TO Facebook? Can you set the current weather to be visible at all times on your main screen? How do you teach it to be quicker to suggest words (like your email address) when you're typing?

These things were easy in the Droid.

Things I like better in the iPhone: speed, screen sensitivity, camera, the phone itself. I'm sure that as I learn to do the other things I want to do, I'll stop wishing it would do things like the Droid did, but I hate the learning curve.

First world problems, much? What's new in your life?

Writing about other people

Please keep my Grandma in your thoughts. She broke her hip on Friday, and while she is recovering well and is in good spirits, she's 92 and has a long stretch of rehabilitation to go through.

Meanwhile, one of the people I write about here has asked me not to post stories involving this person without prior permission.

This is making it difficult for me to post.

It is summer, blog fodder is occurring daily if not hourly, and I...can't post any of it.

Book reviews and outfit blogging will be increasing. Now is a good time for suggestions for things to blog about!

Reader poll: To cut or not to cut?

The hair, it is long. I am sort of getting kind of tired of it, but not in a "I've got to take a scissors to it right now!" kind of way.

So do I bob it, or keep growing?

Relay for Life 2011

See that button there? ----->

Please click on it and donate to the American Cancer Society!! Last year I did 20 miles, I'd like to do 26.1 this year!

Bullets of a busy fun silly random wonderful weekend

• MakesBooksForGrandkids and SingsLullabyes were here for the weekend. 
• I left MM with them for most of Saturday while I
• Had lunch with Jo(e). And you didn't. 
• None of the vegan restaurants near the National Zoo are open at 10:30 on a Saturday, did you know that?
• I made sesame noodles for my parents. They were very happy. I forgot to put out the pepper sauce, tho.
• MM and they played Art of Balance, and we showed off our Mad Lego Rock Band Skillz.
• MM spent over an hour in their hotel pool, and exhausted himself and his generally very energetic grandpa. 
• The three of them played Life, and millions were made.
•  At Wegman's, I bought two wines from local vineyards (a white from Breaux and a red from Hillsborough, both in Purcellville)
• After my parents left, we watched an episode of Chef! MM is LOVING this show. Some of it is way over his head, but he gets more of it than you'd think.
• Then we played Angry Birds and more Lego Rock Band.
• And MS made pot roast risotto.
• Finally, we watched Blackadder's Christmas Carol, which MM was still quoting from this morning.

So, a lovely weekend. How about yours?

It's national delurking day!

Comments! Put yer comments here!! Comments! Put yer comments here!

Ask me a question, and I'll answer it in the next couple of posts.

Songs that make me think of other songs

This:



and this:



and this:



always get me humming this:



What songs make you think of other songs?

Whatever you're interested in, Dick Francis has a book about it (Part 2)

Jewels and gadgets? Straight
Survival? Longshot and Smokescreen
Filming a movie? Wild Horses and Smokescreen
Veterinary? Comeback and Banker
Bloodstock industry? Banker
British transport rules? Driving Force and Flying Finish
Truck maintenance? Driving Force
Antiques? Bonecrack
Toy making? High Stakes
Architecture? Decider
Gold mining? Smokescreen
How to hide something? To the Hilt
Film editing? Break In
Gun manufacturing? Bolt
Cockney rhyming slang? Driving Force

Tell me what you're interested in and I'll tell you which Dick Francis to read!

Vacation in brief

NYC, y'all.
New yarn.
Visiting with friends.
MM saw two movies and The Lion King.
Lego Store.
Sushi.
Swimming.
Sesame Place.

Any questions?

Cooked this weekend:

• Fritatta made with eggs, cheese, potatoes, chorizo, onions, and fresh herbs from our garden (for a pot-luck barbeque)
• Brioche (my first! From How To Cook Everything). Came out beautifully and was really very easy. It went very well with my BIL's homemade strawberry jam.
• Pesto (from Good Food Gourmet) using sunflower seeds instead of pignolli nuts - 5 times cheaper. Came out very well, but needs more olive oil to replace the oiliness of the pignolli nuts. Sunflower seeds are much drier. I'll use 1/3 cup oil next time.
• BLT using the first beefsteak tomato from the garden. Oh. YUM. YUM. YUM.

What did you do this weekend?

What he's reading on his own

He went back and read the first Encyclopedia Brown book on his own again. He's been reading the Jokelopedia. And he's working his way through the Bananagrams for Kids book (good word games there.)

On the "next up" list is a pack of books my mom sent him which includes: A Wrinkle in Time (I don't know why I don't still have my copy); Black Beauty and Black Beauty Returns; and the first two Hardy Boys books.

And now a question for you all: What age do you think it's appropriate for your kid to watch Monty Python's Holy Grail and Blazing Saddles?

We went camping.

Perfect weather. 75 and sunny. Not humid. It rained in the middle of the night. Poured, actually. We stayed snug and dry in the tent. The sun was out and the tent dried completely before we packed it up.

Hotdogs, hamburgers, s'mores for dinner.

Bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast. And french-pressed coffee. We're not savages.

Farm stands, and diners, and ice cream, and inexpensive gasoline.

Badminton, and batting practice, and Rummy 500, and Labyrinth.

And the views. HOLY GUACAMOLE, the views. Turns out, the Shenandoahs have good reason to be such a big deal, who knew?

Pictures coming later. Both MS and MM took some.

I took along an appropriate book, but I didn't get much chance to read it at the campsite.

I did read some more of The Magician's Nephew to MM.

Neither book I've linked to is the edition I own.

What did you do over the weekend?

I've got nothin'

So we'll play a game my friend KnewEverythingAboutFilmNoKidding made up called "Perfect Triple Feature", where you take a theme and carry it forward through three movies.

Here's one example:

Spellbound, Memento, A Beautiful Mind.

Add yours in comments!

The search for the perfect chocolate cake recipe

So far, we've tried:

Joy of Cooking Rombauer Special(meh)
Sky High Cakes Triple Fudge (Whoa! Chocolatey! Even though I probably overbaked it - this is definitely the front-runner)
How To Cook Everything (Are you sure you put chocolate in that?)

Up next, Sky High Cakes Devil's Food.

Any of you have a favorite chocolate cake recipe you want to share?

Also, do you have a vanilla frosting recipe you like?

Attention: My Canadian Readers!

Have you had a procedure done under general anesthetic? Then you probably got a pelvic exam at the same time, even if your procedure had nothing to do with needing a pelvic exam.

Do you know what this would be called if the woman were given roofies? Rape.

First reported at The Globe and Mail, sign on to the petition against it at The Bad Mom's Club.

Question for you folks

Should I change the name of the blog from Mystery Mommy to Doorbell Queen?

It's been much more politicky here than bookish for a long, long, long time.

What do you think?