London Call...er, Showering
When I lived in one of those "My First Home" apartments (by Fisher-Price!) -- you know: one of those places when you just get out on your own where buzzing people in from downstairs seems impossibly grown-up, rather than the colossal pain-in-the-ass that it actually is -- I had an awful shower curtain. (Because, as we all know, shower doors for the "My First Home" model are Sold Separately.) This shower curtain was green- and white-striped and looked like something I swiped off a cabana chair while a Carnival Cruise Ship was in port. In my defense, it was better than any of the other available curtains at Target, in that it was made of fabric rather than (apparently) Saran-Wrap.
I can look back now with fondness on those days when I was so young, so naive, so ignorant of the fact that there were shower curtains out there that would have let me feel as though I was standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus while I was attending to my personal hygiene needs! I'm much more cosmopolitan now...although I still kind of wish I could buzz people in.
Buy it! Izola Designer Shower Curtain - London, $35.00, at loftparty.com.
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So we kind of like 
Everyone knows that, when the zombiepocalypse happens, all of our electrical conveniences will become extravagent luxuries. Porch lights. Microwaves. Radios. EVEN NOSE CLIPPERS. And while it's highly unlikely that having party favors streaming from one's nose will directly affect one's fate at the clutching hands of the undead, being caught after dark without adequate illumination certainly will. Actual flaming torches can only get you so far; this Hand-Cranked Flashlight will get you all the way to the safety of the nearest human enclave. And, if worse comes to worse, carrying one of these babies will ensure that you always have something worth bartering for supplies (besides your streamer-nosed bod.)
We all have "that friend". The gearhead who might as well have his bike seat surgically implanted in his ass for all that he's ever seen OFF of it. The one who's always telling us to get out of our gas-guzzling (AND AIR-CONDITIONED, we might add) speed machine and join him on the Bataan Death Ride he calls a commute. The one who would make Lance Armstrong shake his head and say, "Dude, maybe you might want to consider wearing some other color than yellow." For that friend, we have these sexy Recycled Tea Light Holder, made from spare bike parts like flywheels and cogs. Maybe a whole bunch of these will inspire him to put down the Allen wrenches and host a lovely summer evening cookout. Or maybe the next time we visit, he'll have pried these babies apart for spare parts to refit all his sets of wheels. Whatever. We tried, man.
You can tell a lot about a person from not only what's on the inside of their refrigerator but on the outside, too. Some people create displays of magnetic poetry that would make Walt Whitman want to blow his nose on Leaves of Grass and start over. Other people spend their spare time with a level and a T-square, making sure that everything is at right angles to one another. (These people should probably be on some sort of medication.) 
I've been saying I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up for a long time now. And you know what? I'm keeping up my end of the deal: my significant other knows that as soon as NASA calls, I'm out the door (and off the planet). It's certain congresspeople's apparent unwillingness to funnel huge swathes of the federal budget towards warp drive development that's holding up the whole operation. But I'm patient. After all, I still have all the unaired episodes of Firefly to get through (for research purposes, of course).
Summer has descended on Wisconsin in a hot, sticky, smothering wave, like your sweaty Uncle Ralph who insists on hugging everyone in sight after having had a few. Sure, I could turn on the air conditioning, but lying on the couch breathing shallowly while creating a sweat angel in the upholstery is SO much more virtuous. Plus, I'm going to use the money I save by eschewing mere comfort to buy a set of these gorgeous Moresque Tea Glasses. Lavishly decorated in gold Moroccan-inspired designs, these glasses will make your 
Everyone can use a helping hand once in awhile, especially in the bathroom. But how about a whole arm? Or a couple of legs? These tiny personal valets provide their own suction cups, by which you can suspend them from a bathroom mirror or other shiny, suction-cuppable surface. Once stationed in their assigned positions, these mini-Jeeveses will clasp your razors, toothbrushes, used dental floss, hand towels, tampons and whatever else you might wish to leave hanging neatly about the bathroom. (What? You need to dry out your used dental floss SOMEWHERE before it gets added to the giant minty ball of string in the garage...)
I will be the first to admit that I am not the world's greatest chef. I'm thinking that, if it came down to a competition between myself and one of the old ladies who give out free samples at the grocery store on Saturdays, I'd be hard-pressed to hold my own. But, after seeing these Swirls Plates, I'm thinking that I just haven't been using the right accoutrements. All I need to do is dish up a plate of Hash Du Jour for my dinner guests on one of these lovelies, wave it around in circle a couple of times, and say "Repeaaaat after meeeeeee: 'Thiiiiis will be deeeeeliiiicious. Better than those frozen quiiiiiches that lady gave me at the grooooocery stoooore.'" And then maybe have them give me their watch; I might as well recoup some of the cost of these plates.
As much as I love the explosion of wall decals that have become available over the past few years, cuteness cannot trump utility if I'm going to have to take the time to make sure the damned things are either a) lined up or b) scattered artfully JUST SO. Which is why I'm super-excited about these Peel & Stick Chalkboard wall decals from Wallies. You can put them on the wall! You can write on them! Take them down and put them somewhere else! I would gladly do this eleventy-billion times knowing that, when I'm done, I can jot down my beloved to-do list. Which, granted, I could probably do on a 
OK, by now it's been 
The return of spring in Wisconsin, of course, means the return of our fine feathered friends from their winter homes (condos along the Costa Rican coast, no doubt.) While most people here welcome their reappearance, I wouldn't be sad if they stayed well away. Well, well away from ME at least. Birds are evil. Have you ever really LOOKED at them, with their beady eyes and their worm stalking and whatnot? Remember that part of Jurassic Park when the paleontologist reminds us that birds evolved from dinosaurs? I can't look at those robins poking around in the backyard without seeing little teeny tiny raptors stalking their prey. 
While being married for -- land sakes! nearly 9 years now! -- has been a never-ending rollercoaster of loooove and rainbows and butterflies and loooove, there are some things that a young bride should really be told before she moves in with the man who, for better or worse, she'll be united with until she works up the nerve to smother him with a pillow.
I don't know if you've noticed lately, but the world is full of cranky people. I KNOW. No matter how much I might wish that everyone were as cheerful and upbeat as myself, I have to resign myself to the cold, hard reality that that's never going to happen. In my dreams (where I'm a Viking), I'm surrounded by cheerful kawaii cartoon characters not unlike our pal the Mushroom Kitchen Timer here. We skip down the gingerbread road surrounded by chirping birds! I'm the magical woman from Happyland in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane! (Yes, even my dreams are sarcastic.) 
I love analog clocks: there's just something about the comforting tick of time marching inexorably onward. An enterprising psychologist could probably build an interesting profile about me based on just that, but, fortunately for me (and unfortunately for our hypothetical psychologist's publishing aspirations), I come by my fascination honestly. My grandfather decorated the walls of his dining room with every manner of ticking, chiming, cuckooing, timepiece known to mankind. The cacaphony every hour was enough to make your ears bleed (or at least make dinnertime conversation impossible for a few minutes.)
Sunday is Earth Day, and, as I'm reminded everytime Al Gore shows up at the Oscars or Late Night with Conan O'Brien or at my living room window (next time, I'm calling the cops), I really should be making more of an effort to be eco-conscious. Sure, I always ask for paper bags instead of plastic at the grocery store, but does killing a forest trump hastening the free-fall toward peak oil? It's like choosing between the filet of baby seal and the giant panda kabobs for dinner. 
I am, by my reckoning, the worst gardener in the known universe. Those 
In today's polarized world, we are constantly called upon to choose sides in all aspects of life, choices which pit brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor in bitter feuds that threaten the very fabric of society. Coke or Pepsi? Cats or dogs? Britney or K-Fed? 
Every once in awhile, we come across a product that seems to have been tailor-made for Consumating. Exhibit A: the morning-after 
The snowfall we enjoyed this past weekend reminded us that 'tis the season to start thinking about all those tasks that must be fulfilled soon in order to spread our full quota of Christmas Joy™. After retrieving Grandma's fruitcake from behind the refrigerator and hanging the "Carolers will be SHOT" sign on our door, it's time to start making our way through the Holiday Card List of DOOOM: those 11,000 of our closest friends, relatives and civil servants that we can't bear to leave out of our once-a-year correspondence. By the time we've finally started coming down off our envelope-glue trip, we are tempted to start all over and replace the "Season's Greetings" with "Bah Humbug!", like these cards from Hammerpress. Because too much Holiday Cheer™ (not to mention carpal tunnel syndrome) turns us into rethwyll Scrooge! (At least we have fruitcake -- that envelope glue gives us the munchies.)
We do not often run across products that are sheer "brilliance", but these Glove Indicator Lights sure are! (*rimshot* We'll be here all week, folks! Try the veal!) 
We faithfully tote our lunch to work every day because a) we are futilely trying to avoid the addictive chemicals which The Colonel puts in his chicken to make you CRAVE IT FORTNIGHTLY, 2) we have spent all our lunch money on items featured in CONSUME and third) NOT bringing our lunch would mean having to actually leave our desk for several minutes to find food — precious, precious minutes during which we might miss some CRUCIAL BIT OF CONSUMATING ACTIVITY which would doom us to being FOREVER OUT OF TOUCH with the CONSUMATING ZEITGEIST. (If there's one thing we can't abide, it's being out of touch with a zeitgeist.)
We weren't exactly comfortable to begin with with the thought of 
We'd like to think that, given a couple more years in a lockup a little more hard-core than "Camp Cupcake", THIS is the kind of arts & crafts project that Martha Stewart would have been cranking out instead of knitted ponchos. After a couple of cigs in the yard and a round of bench-presses in the weight-room, she'd report for her shift in the license plate factory and take advantage of her employee five-finger discount. She'd boost a few more hubcaps from the motor pool tomorrow - she'd have to be careful, though: last time, the screws had almost caught her at it. Later, she'd maneuver into the cafeteria line next to Judy the Scrounger, where the rubber strap deal would go down. (Judy had better make DAMNED sure that glue-gun carved out of soap couldn't be traced back to her...) After that, it'd all just be assembly... and a few judiciously-applied ass-kickings to keep the bulls mum on her little operation...
We have never been a huge fan of Halloween, mostly because we are not amused by small children running around so hopped up on candy corn and fun-sized Snickers that, weeks later, you could STILL attach a line to them and fly them in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. We would be remiss, though, if we didn't acknowledge that most people — big and small, young and old, Goth and well-adjusted — enjoy Halloween as a chance to break out of one's shell, embrace the dark side of life and cut loose a little.
We really could be doing a better job when it comes to being a good steward of this world. We could stop driving our car out to the curb to check our mail, for instance. We could probably find better way of heating the house than leaving the oven on all the time. And, no matter HOW nice it feels, we really should stop buying that endangered rainforest toilet paper. (So soft!)