kmkat and her kneedles

Ennui.

You may already have seen this but it is worth a second look. Enjoy!

Ten on Tuesday, the yuk-it-up edition.

Ten Favorite Comedy Movies.

1. Bedazzled (the original, with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore; part of the plot is the
   personification of the seven deadly sins -- Rachel Welch is Lust)
2. The Big Lebowski (well, duh -- y'all know this is my favorite movie of all time)
3. Annie Hall (this was my favorite movie until TBLeb came along)
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Smokey and I can recite the dialogue verbatim -- and often do, much to the disgust of Younger Son, who thinks we need some new jokes)
5. Love Actually (is there anything cuter than Hugh Grant or Colin Firth in love?)
6. any Marx Brothers movie ("Make that three hard boiled eggs!")
7. (see #6)
8. (see #6)
   
9. (see #6)
   
10. (see #6)
    

 

Tax chuckles.

In fourth quarter 2011, MNCPA [Minnesota Society of CPAs] surveyed members to identifythe most creative tax deductions proposed by clients. Survey results are being shared with the media as part of the MNCPA's tax campaign promoting hiring a CPA for tax preparation. Following is the MNCPA list of strange deductions for 2011. It's a good bet that many of these deductions would have triggered a letter from the IRS had a CPA not intervened and encouraged the tax filers to not include them on their returns.

1. Questionable dependents. One woman wanted to include the months she was pregnant, even though she relinquished rights upon the child's birth; another taxpayer wanted to claim his elected official because he "pays his salary;" and one taxpayer wanted to claim a former spouse.

2. Charitable donations? The market value of whole blood that the taxpayer donated; a $100,000 deduction for burning down an old cabin; gambling losses; private school tuition; and raffle tickets.

3. "Fido" as a business expense. Pets proved popular with taxpayers wanting to deduct everything from pet food to vet bills.

4. Inflated mileage calculations. A handyman proposed taking a $25,000 mileage deduction, even though he had only $10,000 in revenue. He justified it by saying he drove 50,000 business miles in one year.

5. Creative medical expenses. A rental house in Arizona; an in-ground swimming pool without a doctor's order; a spouse's drug habit; breast implants and tummy tucks.

6. Investment or not? An attorney's fees for a divorce, considered an "investment" by the former spouse.

7. Business travel and entertainment deductions. A personal luxury car; three country club memberships; a motor home; and the full cost of a wedding.

 

The saddest part? I didn't even find these funny. They all just sounded like part of a normal day's work...

My new wallpaper (if only it were in landscape mode).

Repinned from The Bloggess.

Best colorway names you are ever likely to see.

Found at Indigo Dragonfly.

Tweety Of Versailles

I've Never Been Up With People Before

 Have Fun Storming The Castle

Did I Listen To Pop Music Because I was Miserable? Or Was I Miserable Because I Listened To Pop Music? (High Fidelity series)

Squid Vicious

Who's A Guy Gotta Kill to Geta Drink Around Here? (Angelus)

Kathleen Turner Overdrive (High Fidelity Series)

Never Go Up Against A Sicilian When Death Is On The Line

 

I Made This Mixed Tape Just For You (High Fidelity series)

Is She All Green And Fuzzy And Mossy? (High Fidelity series)

River Song

Between Love And Batteries

Sonic F$#*ing Death Monkey (High Fidelity series)

And Then Buffy Staked Edward. The End.

Bright Lights, Big City, Busy Highway, Slow Unicorn.

As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly

 

Groverkill (i.e., it has all the colors of Grover)

 

Tiny Bloodsucking Dancer

 

Self Elmolation

Nancy Spungenbob

Shortbus

Grr...Arg.

Up Until The Punching, It Was A Real Nice Party 

 

Also I Can Kill You With My Brain

2 Minutes For Sarcasm

Hootnanny: It's Chock Full Of Hoot, Just A Little Bit Of Nanny

You Punched The HighLights Out Of Her Hair!

My World Is All Askew

Paging Dr. Smartass

Minnesotans are crazy. Knitters.

You have got to go see this over on soxanne's blog.

Psychopathology in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

Winnie the Pooh has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and perhaps Obsessive Compulsive Disorder(OCD), plus he is possible victim of Shaken Bear Syndrom. Piglet has Generalized Anxiety Discorder, Eeyore is clearly in the depths of clinical depression, and poor Roo is growing up in a single-parent household. And Tigger! Risk-taking behavior! Socially intrusive! Obvious hyperactivity!

A.A. Milne, meet the DSM-IV.

 

Visuals.

Go here to see what I'm talkin' about. From Knitting in the Shadows via Google+.

Why don't the traffic cops in Minneapolis do this?

I could show you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Back in the days of novelty yarns, I made a scarf for my SIL. She asked for one in red and purple to wear to her Red Hat meetings.

I obliged.

 

 Did she ever wear it? I don't know (she lives 400+ miles away). Would you?

Why, yes, the dogs had a nice New Year's. too.

On Sunday Matthew came up to the lake for the day and brought along Ser Percival. Percy and Lucy and Misha, our new dog (more on her another day) romped through the house and play-tussled and and play-bowed and played tug-o'-war with doggie toys. They were hilarious and entertaining and overful of energy.

At one point we put the three of them outside onto the deck, from whence they could access the little fenced-in area at the foot of the deck stairs. Misha and Percy wiggled through a small opening and went for a nice runaround across the yard and into the woods and over the hill and across the driveway and through the woods on the other side and through the neighbor's yard and eventually back home. Matthew and I were watching out the window. We saw Misha make a l-o-n-g jump over a gully -- I swear her hang time rivaled Michael Jordan's.

Later, after the dogs were tired and resting comfortably on various soft places about the house, he and I went to New Year's Day gathering of some library friends. We had a lovely time.

We came home. Andrew was visiting a friend in Madison for New Year's; Smokey had worked the night before and would work again that night, so he had slept all afternoon. The three dogs puppies were unsupervised.

::cue ominous music::

What greeted us:

Ruh roh...

   

   

I laughed until tears ran down my face. Sometimes that is all you can do. The yarns had been in a basket on a table in the laundry room, safely behind a closed door (I thought). But one of us (his initials = Matthew) has great difficulty remembering to close doors. I gathered up all the yarn and put it safely out of the way until I could start detangling it.

Oops, I left a tiny bit hanging over the edge of the snack table. Guess what almost happened again.

I spent hours on Monday -- hours that could have been spent productively knitting -- detangling. Still, I was sitting comfortably in my recliner with my audiobook playing (A Feast for Crows, thanks for asking) and playing with yarn, so it could have been worse.

The result.

1. The balls I wound on Monday.
2. The unsalvageable bits.
3. The ball I wound Tuesday morning whilst chatting with Andrew and Smokey.
4. The several yards detangled by Smokey but not wound into a ball yet. (His detangling method differs from mine.) 

The pink and brown yarns are much, much harder because they were still skeined. The other yarns had already been wound into balls; that made them much easier to detangle.

Was/is it worth all the work? Who knows, but I got a pretty darned good blog posst out of it ;-)

Can you name these Christmas Carols?

1. Oh, member of the round table with missing areas

2. Boulder of the tinkling metal spheres 

3. Wanted in December: top forward incisors  

4. The lad is a diminutive percussionist 

5. Sir Lancelot with laryngitis 

6. Decorate the entryways

7. Cup-shaped instruments fashioned of a whitish metallic element 

8. Oh small Israel urban center

9. Far off in a haybin

 10. We are Kong, Lear, and Nat Cole

11. Duodecimal enumeration of the passage of the Yuletide season  

12. Leave and broadcast from an elevation

13. Our fervent hope is that you thoroughly enjoy your Yuletide season  

14. Listen, the winged heavenly messengers are proclaiming tunefully  

15. As the guardians of the woolly animals protected their charges in the dark hours

16. I beheld a trio of nautical vessels moving in this direction 

17. Jubilation to the entire terrestrial globe 

18. Do you perceive the same vibrations which stimulate my auditory sense organ?  

19. A joyful song of reverence relative to hollow metallic vessels which vibrate and bring forth a ringing sound when struck 

20. Parent was observed osculating a red-coated unshaven teamster  

21. May the Deity bestow an absence of fatigue to mild male humans  

22. Rose-colored uncouth dolt is aware of the nature of precipitation, darling 

23. Vehicular homicide was committed on Dad's mom by a precipitous darling

 1. O, Holy Night
 2. Jingle Bell Rock
 3. All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth
 4. The Little Drummer Boy
 5. Silent Night
 6. Deck the Halls
 7. Silver Bells
 8. O, Little Town of Bethlehem
 9. Away in a Manger
10. We Three Kings
11. The Twelve Days of Christmas 
12. Go Tell It on the Mountain 
13. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
14. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 
15. As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night 
16. I Saw Three Ships A’ Sailing 
17. Joy to the World 
18. Do You Hear What I Hear? 
19. Carol of the Bells 
20. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 
21. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen 
22. Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
23. Grandma Was Run Over by a Reindeer 

 

Somehow I missed getting the answers for this last one, so you are on your own here.

X. The apartment of two psychiatrists

Today is Alexandra's birthday.

I will leave it up to you to decide which is Alex and which is Matthew.

 

Happy birthday, Alex (whoever you are)!

Friday fun, with scarves.

Found via zippiknits.

Marcel the Shell. With shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yarn bombed polarity.

Friday fun.

Thanks to The Cookie, I can share this with you.

I invite your guesses as to what this monstrosity might be. (Hint: it costs $29.99; a bargain at twice the price.)

The answer is here, Grasshopper.

Knitting 101.

 I know you all have already seen this, right? Because it was on Mason-Dixon Knitting a few days ago, and you all read Mason-Dixon Knitting, right? If you don't, that's rude and I don't even care any more.

An engineer's guide to cat flatulence.

We have never been bothered by feline flatulence. If they could re-rig this for a dog, however...

Parking lot find.

I have seen this minivan many times in the downtown Minneapolis ramp where I park when I go to work. Finally took the time to get some photos for the blog.

Anyone who has ever sponged a wall -- or studied a sponged wall in the restroom of the restaurant where you were having dinner (in the restaurant, not the rest room) -- knows how difficult it is to keep the sponging consistent all the way to the edge of the wall. 

Look at what a great job they did on this car:

Of course, the question you are all asking is, Why? Why would anyone do this?

To that I answer, Perhaps to provide blog fodder for me?