Ten Hidden Extra Features for the Amazon Kindle

Perhaps you're wondering what to get that special loved one for Christmas. The one who annoys you all year, but then decides to play nice just before the holidays because you're such an awesome gifter. Have you considered an Amazon Kindle? It's not just for reading, you know.

Remember in July when I showed you my accidental discovery of its use as a food tray/remote control device? I mean, before I understood that my birthday present had a default purpose of (scoff!) reading?

My birthday present

Well, since then I've found that the Kindle is so much more!

And don't worry about your sandwich crumbs making a mess on your Kindle. It's very easy to clean.

Since its screensaver has a rotating series of portraits of famous literary figures, I glued it to a picture frame and displayed it in our living room to show off to all our guests.

But I haven't even BEGUN to show you all of Kindle's functions. It's a shoe stretcher.

It's a change and key tray.

Banana Republic employees will appreciate its unique ability to deliver folded clothing in under 30 seconds with its patented Whispersync technology.

And that's not all. It's also a door stopper...

The Kindle is great for traveling because you can use it as a writing desk to write out your post cards and letters. I find it extremely handy for filling out forms that require three or four carbon copies.

You can really dress up a bathroom with the decorative Kindle Toilet Lid Cover feature.

Have I mentioned how the Kindle promotes a healthier diet?

I call this the Nanny Goats Nina Pinta Banana Maria Kindle smoothie. It's yummy and chock full of fiber!

Sometimes Lacy, the NGIP mascot, sneaks off with it and uses it for more mundane activities like reading books and subscribing to her favorite magazines and blogs (such as Nanny Goats in Panties). Here, you can see Lacy reading fellow humor blogger Robert Kroese's latest novel, Mercury Falls.

Lacy has no imagination and can't think outside the box and I tell her this, but she just shakes her stuffed head at me and sings to me as if for the 100th time the various praises about the Kindle. Like how you can subscribe to this very blog, Nanny Goats in Panties on it. Or, how you can get a 14 day free trial on all newspapers, magazines, and blogs, like this one, for example. Or how you can look at the beginning of books for free before you buy them.

I don't really care for her tone as she goes on and on about how people living outside the US can now get the Kindle, or how she can change the text-size to instantly create a large print book. Or how much money (and trees, and gas, and shipping costs, and time, and...etc.) she saves. She just bought Mackenzie Phillips' new autobiography High on Arrival today for $8.10 on the Kindle. (Speaking of which, they'll give anybody a credit card these days, won't they?)

Actually, one of my favorite features, is that the battery lasts for weeks. Did I stutter? You heard me. Weeks!

A friend of mine visiting Australia and New Zealand recently bemoaned the fact that his wife paid $24 for a paperback (TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS FOR A PAPERBACK!!! WTF?). If she'd had a Kindle with the 3G wireless network that now works internationally in 100 countries, she could have simply zapped another book down into that bad boy and voila! - be reading again. Needless to say, he bought her one for this Christmas.

And if you ask Santa for one this year, maybe you too, could be a part of this picture:

Oh, did I mention that NGIP is available on Kindle?

I did?

Oh.

Well, did I also tell you that if you don't subscribe to NGIP via Kindle, you could still leave a customer review telling others how faboo you think NGIP is?

I did?

Well, did I tell you that at press time, the Nanny Goats in Panties blog has an Amazon sales rank of 6,529 in the Kindle store and a rank of 13 in the Humor and Satire category?

Whaddya mean, "What does that mean?" I can't believe you just asked me that.

OK, I don't know what it means, exactly.

But if I might make one last attempt at shameless self-promotion, I have been interviewed for the famous Sunday Roast over at Clouds and Silvery Linings by the incomparable Eddie Bluelights.

Take it away, Eddie!

Goat Thing of the Day: The Class Dweeb

Alert readers Lorie (The Shewbridges of Celebration, FL) and Ilsa pointed me to a goat picture from Cute Overload.

I will quote the accompanying dialogue as I find it pairs well with the picture, like a fine Pinot.

“Hey, Stacy, I noticed you missed Civics class again; if you want, I could help you study for the mid-term because Mr. Dorfman says it’s one-third of your grade and it really won’t be any trouble because I took really good notes and it’s OK if you come over tonight even though it’s D&D night and my mom can make s’mores…” (etc.)

The folks over at Cute Overload seem to have invented a process (and coined a term) of their own: "TOOF-HANCE" Allow me to demonstrate the TOOF-HANCE:

The bullies must have swiped his duct-taped spectacles.

Indian Outlaw Spotted in Indian Casino...Or Was He?

So there we were, at the casino, mesmerized by one-armed bandits, losing next week's groceries, when the nearby country music band's lead singer says, "Tim McGraw! Come on up here!"

I'm far too hypnotized by spinning reels and rapidly decreasing credits to pay too much attention until a lady gambling her life away at a machine behind me bursts out, "Oh my God! That IS Tim McGraw!"

What? Really? Tim McGraw in this podunk little town, just dropping by any ol' Indian Casino and hopping up on stage to jam (or whatever is the country equivalent of jamming is...pluck? kick? spit?) with an unknown band?

Hey, why are they still allowed to call them Indian Casinos and not Native American casinos?

Well anyway, I don't know what Tim McGraw looks like, but I instantly thought of you guys and figured you'd know better than me. So tell me, is this Tim McGraw or not?

I realize the picture quality is atrocious, but my cell phone ain't the most megapixelly. I feel like one of those people who have claimed to capture the only modern photo of Big Foot and this blurry picture is the best piece of evidence there is.

So maybe I can do something else here to help you help me.

This IS Tim McGraw:

photo lifted from Wikipedia

And this...is NOT Tim McGraw - he's an impersonator.

photo lifted from Legends in Concert

Also, for what it's worth, Faith Hill was nowhere in sight.

Well? What say you?

Goat Thing of the Day: A 1927 Cutie in Los Angeles

There I was, at Iron Steaks bar, just off Broadway in Sacramento. It was a gathering of writer types. When from out of the sea of people my new friend Russell who has a website called SugarLump or The Sweetest Thing Living, I'm not really sure which, approached with a framed photograph.

"I have something for you...," he said.

Oh boy! Finally someone was going to give me a million dollars! Woo-hoo!

"This is my dad," he said, showing me a black and white photograph.

Oh.

Oh! With a goat!

This was what they clogged the San Diego freeway with back then.

"Is there a story behind this?" I asked him.

"I don't know the story. Only that he's three or four years old in that picture and it was taken in 1927 in Los Angeles."

"I will return this to you," I told him.

"Oh no, that's a copy I made for you."

"But the frame..."

"Oh, please. Ninety-nine cents at Walgreens."


I love you people.

How Do You Pronounce the Year "2010"?

Debate about how to pronounce the upcoming years is heating up. I mean, we've been chugging along since the new millenium with "Two Thousand, Two Thousand One, etc." and all of a sudden some people out there will be changing this pattern in January with "Twenty Ten". The International Olympics Committee and Vancouver 2010  are officially referring to this winter's Olympics in Vancouver as the "Twenty Ten Olympics". And then there are those who feel the pronounciation will not convert to "twenty-something" until 2011.

How did we get into such a mess? Last century we were pretty consistent with, for example, 1909 and 1910 as "Nineteen Oh Nine" and "Nineteen Ten". So why the problem this century?

Two words: Stanley Kubrick.

Say "2001: A Space Odyssey". Go ahead, say it. You're saying "Two Thousand One", aren't you...AREN'T YOU????

So we can blame the marketing wizards behind this Hollywood production for mucking us up now. We were brainwashed into saying "Two Thousand One" since 1968, which is pronounced, by the way, as "nineteen sixty-eight". As opposed to "One Thousand Nine Hundred Sixty-Eight" (and don't get me started on whether or not there is an "and" before the "sixty-eight" - you should have learned all that in Consumer Ed. class when you learned how to write checks - oh, I should point out that checks are little pieces of paper that you sometimes see little old ladies slowly pulling out of their pocketbooks in front of you at the grocery check-out line about 5 minutes AFTER the checker has told her how much her total is.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, 2010. And while the Hollywood do-as-I-sayers would have you believe that you pronounce it as "Two Thousand Ten", the Olympic Committee will have no more of this crap and have worked tirelessly to promote the "Twenty Ten" Olympics. These are the same language nazis who forgave us our "Two Thousand" transgressions when Y2K first appeared, but who now refuse to understand why we didn't next follow suit with "Twenty Ought One", "Twenty Ought Two",...etc.

Well, Mr. Olympic Committee Chairperson Snobby McSnobberson, I don't think you "ought" to tell us how to pronounce our own language. I think you "ought" to mind your own beeswax. In fact, you "ought" to feel lucky we will even watch your stupid two-week long TV show, or miniseries, or whatever that overly-sponsored global sporting event thing that you have is.

And while I have you on the line, Mr. McSnobberson, what the heck is the Skeleton event? And can you use "skeleton" like a verb? Can you go skeletoning? And while you're at it, maybe you "ought" to tell us how to pronounce it.





Hey, I forgot to tell you guys last week that I met Gladys from Gladys Tells All when she blew through Sacramento. I love meeting fellow bloggers. I realize I risk my life meeting them in person, and I probably shouldn't agree to being dropped off blind-folded in a dark cat-pee-stained alley, but I'm kind of desperate for friends and lucky for me, Gladys was awesome!

Goat Thing of the Day: Baby Goats Hop on Bus

Last week, two baby goats hopped on a bus in Vancouver, Washington. They broke out of their pen and followed two woman to the bus stop. And tried to board a bus with the two women. And knowing how frugal goats can be, you can bet they didn't have a bus pass.

Initially, I couldn't find a way to embed the video here, and had planned for you to click on the picture below to take to you the Fox 12 Oregon News video. Or have you read the baby goat bus story on their website.

Yoda and Yates. (Thanks, Sue!)

But then, Owen from the Magic Lantern Show happened to send me a link to where CNN picked it up and is therefore embeddable, so you can press play on this one:




Now, for the benefit of my many many thousands of Kindle subscribers who are unable to view video (unless you have the Amazon Super Massive Turbo Kindle Master 2012X), allow me to describe to you the contents of said video:  Two baby goats try to board a bus.

Have You Ever Faked It?

Today I am celebrating my 503rd post. Why? Because everyone else celebrates on multiples of a hundred and I'm a rebel, man.

Also? What if you announce and make a big deal out of the fact that this is a milestone post, sending whoopie all over cyberspace and then the post itself sucks? Like, a lot. Then what?

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Neil from Citizen of the Month was talking on his Twitter feed about fake tweeting and I thought, 'Now why didn't I ever think of that?' Nothing that brilliant ever occurs to me. I'm completely incapable of thinking outside of the box.

Even when I was a kid, I had no imagination. For example, I never thought to bring a gun to school or disobey my parents and drive into a tree just to see what would happen. It's as if I'm on some honesty bullet train and I'm too scared to jump off and possibly scrape my knee.

Other people can lie without even thinking twice about it, but my face turns red if I try to deny guilt. And this is precisely why fake tweeting, or "fweeting", if I may coin a term (unless someone else already did), would be a perfect launching pad into a life of crime testing those boundaries.

I could say things like:

or:

or:

or even:

and no one would ever be the wiser. Buwha-ha-HAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!


So... have you ever "fweeted"? Wait, forget I asked that, because if you're the kind of big fat stinkin' liar who would do such a thing, why would you confess to fake tweeting?

I'm hoping that by now you've forgotten that this is my 503rd post so that you won't get all Judgmental Jackenheimer on me. I mean, I don't want to have made a big fuss over this only to have you publish your big fancy review over on your big fancy blog that this post was just screamingly mediocre.

Dang, I probably shouldn't even have said anything.

Goat Thing of the Day: It's a Sign

I don't know if any of you remember when I showed you the Billy Goat Tavern when I was in Chicago this last summer.

The Cheezeborger Cheezeborger! place.

I understand if you don't. You were probably drunk. It was the Goat Thing of the Day for a post I entitled Chivalrouslessness in Thieves. Back when someone stole my notebook and-- GAH!!! I still can't talk about it, it upsets me so.

Anyway, I didn't call this meeting to complain about how lame society is. Not today, anyway. No, I brought all of you here today to tell you that I thought it was odd that people would name their business after a goat. Little did I know there were all kinds of places named after goats, as several alert NGIP readers have enthusiastically pointed out to me.

For example, my friend Warren showed me the Stumbling Goat Bistro in Seattle.

And then Mike of Mike's Mixed Memories, told me about this store called the Goat and Pencil, an unusual store on the Channel Isles, which made me look up where the Channel Isles were, because I had no idea. Do you? No? Well, look it up.

And then Helen of Pengelly Pastimes had an NGIP moment (I love that! Eat your heart out, Oprah!). She told her readers about it: "I had my first NGIP moment in Olympia...".

Dancing Goats Espresso

You know what an NGIP moment is, don't you? It's what makes up most of these Goat Things of the Day. You see a goat somewhere, say, on a farm, but a cat is hosting a tea party for all his friends on it. You think, "OMG, this would be perfect for Nanny Goats in Panties!"

That, dear friends, is an NGIP moment. And if you ever have one, just remember to breathe and then bust out your camera and send me a picture!

The Berlin Wall? Yeah, I Tapped That

It was the summer of 1990. Backpacks and youth hostels and Eurail passes. I'd just graduated college at the age of 24 (I know, I know, what took me so long -- that's another story). Anyway, my friend Drew and I found out about college kids who did Europe this way and decided to flop over to the other side of the pond ourselves.

At some point during July we found ourselves in Berlin, Germany, where one wall was coming down and another was going up. The one coming down was being marketed in pieces on the street for something that must have seemed outrageous at the time relative to our twenty-five dollar-per-day travel budget.

That's my friend, Drew, on the left. He's kind of tall.

We stumbled onto a different wall going up that day. This turned out to be part of the stage set up for a Pink Floyd concert, you know, as in Pink Floyd's The Wall? Did anyone NOT own that album?

The Wall at the Pink Floyd concert in Berlin, 1990

I didn't think to take a picture at the time because I didn't realize what it was, so I lifted this from A Fleeting Glimpse

I'm no walking scruple, but as we walked the streets of Berlin, something struck me as wrong that they were selling pieces of the wall. I think I figured it was such a fundamentally huge event, you know, freedom from oppression and whatnot, that I sort of felt I was witnessing history and was awed by it.

Wait, I'm not that principled. More likely, it was because it didn't feel meaningful to buy what could have been some random hunk of cement from someone who should not have been benefiting from it. Also, because I'm skeptical as all get out, how did I know that these pieces of cement actually came from the wall? I mean, you could pretty much hack at any sidewalk that year, toss the crumbs on a blanket in a Platz and sell your concrete snake oil: Steppen zee right up, meine Freunde!


So we walked until we found the real wall: The Berlin Wall. You know, Checkpoint Charlie and all that.

The Berlin Wall in 1990

As I saw a few people chiseling away, I wished I could participate in what they were doing. Just then, a boy of about seven or eight came up to me with a hammer and chisel held out toward me.

"Ein Mark", he said.

One lousy Mark. What was that, 20 cents to me? And it pretty much guaranteed that I would be getting an actual piece of the Berlin Wall, since I was standing right in front of it and all.

Perhaps the kid was just another huckster, but I decided he was a child who needed to provide for his newly freed East German family who would starve otherwise. He was a boy, and he wasn't so greedy, asking for a fraction of a dollar, so I preferred to get a piece of the wall this way. It was akin to a neighborhood kid and a huge wall that once divided his country and his people now served as his personal lemonade stand. Also? It seemed a heck of a lot more poignant if I helped bring down the Berlin Wall myself. I wouldn't just be witnessing history, I'd be a part of it.

I think that's the little boy in the lower right. Doesn't he look tiny and oppressed?

 

The Berlin Wall? Yeah, I tapped that.

 

Drew takes a crack at it.

* * *

P.S.  I mention this story because I recently walked past a magazine stand where the cover of The Economist says, "Twenty years after the Wall".

Goat Thing of the Day: Live Goatcam of Nick and Molly

Not that you're some sick voyeuristic ruminant weirdo or anything, but...

You can watch Nick and Molly 24/7 on Debbie's Goat Cam. I mean... if you're into that sort of thing. Sicko. You can click on the image below to see a live stream.

Live Video of Nick and Molly, Mini Saanen Goats

If nothing is happening, you can follow their owner, Sparrow Dayton, on Twitter who makes announcements when "stuff" is happening.

 

I was watching them yesterday and not that I was staring, but Molly is in estrus and Nick's only got one thing on his mind.




(via Pink Porches, via All Things Goat)

Censorship Schmensorship, WTF?

We here at Nanny Goats in Panties -- and when I say "we", I am of course referring to me and my lion slippers:

Rawr!

Anyway, at NGIP, we take great care in bringing you fabulous content, and we do our best to keep it clean, profanity-wise. However, it has recently come to our attention that Amazon begs to differ, as evidenced by my profile:

Now, I don't know if Amazon's auto censorship bot is bristling over the word "Humor" or "Kindle", but it's this kind of prudishness that is stifling some of the blogosphere's most inspiring creativity. I have a good mind to organize a Blogger's March on Washington. You know, free speech, right to bear arms (or in my case, bare lionhead-clad legs), that sort of thing.

I know my rights! OK, I don't really know my rights. It's the criminals that always seem to know their rights. At least on TV. If I ever got arrested, I wouldn't have any idea what the cops are allowed to cajole out of me without a lawyer present. I would just tell them whatever they wanted to know, thinking I'm an honest person and telling them the truth is the right thing to do. But no, that's the wrong thing to do. You are screwing yourself talking to the fuzz and I think you're supposed to ask for a lawyer the second they start asking you questions. But I don't have a lawyer. On TV, people always seem to have lawyers, appearing out of nowhere after the commercial break telling their client they don't have to answer this question or that question.

Also, the police could probably come to my house and case the joint, and I wouldn't think to ask to see a search warrant, because I'm afraid of authority. I'm thinking this kind of thing should be taught in school, like Home Ec, or Woodshop. They could call it Excuse Me, Officer 101.

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, the profanity thing. I'm not through with Amazon. I believe the American thing to do is get all huffy and go on national television a la That Newdow Guy who claims his rights are being violated approximately every 16 months or so. Imagine my talking head on Fox News with Gloria Allred, my attorney (because by then I will have figured out how to have an attorney and have a big one, at that) getting all self-righteous on national television. And then Bill O'Reilly will ask if viewers can go somewhere for more information and I will say, with confidence, "Yes, they can go to Nanny Goats in P-BLEEEEEEEEEEEP".  I mean, they'll have to pixelate my mouth and everything because you don't want America's children being exposed to such vulgarity.

Hey, could you be a doll and click this Sacramento Top 25 link to keep NGIP "up there" in the rankings? Just the click, nothing else. Thanks, man!

Goat Thing of the Day: Yelling and Fair Buddies

A Facebook friend of mine, who has the same name as me (first and last), pointed me to a video of a goat whose quality is less than stellar (the video, not the goat), but it's the audio that's more important anyway.




If you're an NGIP email subscriber or if the video above does not work, you can click on this: Man Goat Video

And if you're one of my many many thousands and thousands of Kindle subscribers where video clips don't work, (unless you're carrying the Amazon Kindle Platinum DXL 2015 which is not only video-enabled, but also changes diapers, including Grandpa's) then NGIP has included a goat picture for those of you who are video-challenged.

Anna of I Hate Pink  took a picture of something happening between two goats at the Grant County Fair in Moses Lake, WA.

C'mere, you...

Is this a gesture of love? One goat blessing another? A mild attempt at choking?

Maybe I Just Have a Hole in My Lip

Have you ever had the feeling that any minute now, love will find a way? That the answer is just blowing in the wind? That bananas will remain yellow for more than 28 hours in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter after you've brought them home from the grocery store? Yeah, me neither.

You would think that after forty-some-odd years, I would acknowledge my drinking problem and stop wearing white clothes out to dinner. Upon my second sip of some Pinot Noir at Roxy the other night, I gave up trying to taste the wine, and decided it was far more important to wear it.

I need an intervention, obviously.

Perhaps some of you recall my last post regarding how I can't seem to keep from dribbling all over myself. That post, with the rather long title of Stop What You're Doin' Cuz I'm About to Ruin The Image and the Style that You're Used To, waxes poetic about the trials and tribulations of my threads and unintended liquids. Blogging experts would tell you to keep your titles short, but as you can see, I'm a rebel.

For reasons that confound me still today, my husband, Mr MudPuppy, does all the laundry. He must figure that if I can ruin clothing so easily while consuming food and/or wine, I cannot be trusted around heavy wardrobe-related machinery.

Mr. MudPuppy is a Stain Master, like 8th degree or something. And when we got home, he couldn't get my shirt off fast enough for some serious tackling. Yes, we're still talking about the stain.

Anyway, after Shouting and bleaching and whatever other ancient Chinese secrets (remember THAT commercial?) he had up his sleeve, it was time for the reveal.

Unbelievable, right?

Mr. MudPuppy kicks laundry ass.

And he's all mine.

So you can't have any.






As you may or may not recall (or care), I was one of the dubious judges in the IMMHB Scary Food Contest. You can find out who won by going to I Hate My Message Board's Contest Winners Announcement, but I'll give you a hint: It has to do with things in cans that don't belong there.





I would also like to announce my overweaning pride over being the #1 Google search result for the phrase "buddha sex with skulls". I can't begin to tell you what joy that brings to me.

Goat Thing of the Day: Thunderboxes

You know, for the life of me, I can't figure out why an outhouse would be called a Thunderbox, but here you go.

(via Sparky of My Thoughts Exactly)

Somebody said seeing this one might give me a clue.

Nope. Still don't get it.

FYI: These outhouses were part of a traveling art project earlier this year called Thunderbox Road. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

I can't stand it when I order a single pea pod by mail and Peas Pods R Us insist on sending it a box the size of a small rhino. It's so wasteful.

Earlier this year in Hawaii, I arrived at the car rental place just wanting to get to the condo after a long flight. I grabbed the keys from the car rental lady, not paying much attention when she said, "This is all we had". I was just hoping it wasn't a motorcycle, since there were three of us. Counting parking space numbers, I was disheartened to see this in our designated space.

photo credit

Yep. That's a Hummer H3, all right. Navigating a monster in and out of parking spaces, and climbing in and out of that thing without the aid of a forklift, AND traveling with a disabled relative isn't the easiest thing in the world, I can tell you that.

This summer in Chicago, I called this car service to pick me up from the hotel to go back to the airport. This was set up as a group thing to transport many people attending a conference. For whatever reason, I ended up going back to the airport by myself, and the transportation coordinator tells me, well there's this car that can pick you up in 2 minutes, but it's the only thing we have available right now.

So I had to yell across the car to the chatty Cathy limo driver all the way back to the airport.

What a waste!

What if you called Rent-A-Hubby, and told the drone taking your order that, "Oh, I guess the tubby, farty one will do."

And then a few hours later, the doorbell rings, and when you answer the door, some guy waltzes into your living room and makes himself at home while the delivery man says, "I'm sorry, but this is all we had."

Do you know what I would do?

That's right, I would look that delivery man right in the eye and say, "Well you'll just have to take him back, because I'm sick and tired of all the extravagance and conspicuous consumption that has been forced upon me by you people. Out, OUT I say!"

Also? I would like to thank Crista over at the Domestic Goddess for this Over The Top Award. Thank you, Crista!