Maui is No Place for Children

Lookit how dog-friendly the Maui Airport is...

Yes, Maui, the Island of the Sun (or something very Paradisey-sounding like that). We spent two weeks in this tropical wonderland. We fell asleep every night to the crashing of the waves. We strolled along the beach, holding hands and-- Oh My God is that a cockroach??

That is a cockroach, isn't it. And they're breeding like rabbits!

I thought the condo association would have sprayed for that. Oh dear, they're all over the place!

Hello....trying to eat my lunch here. Could you get a cockroach motel room?

And look at all those disgusting people taking pictures. Perverts.

After this horrifying experience, I don't know if we can ever stay at this place again. I tried to make the best of it, and even asked the cockroaches to smile and I got nothing but sour puss faces.

Say "cheese"!

So I turned further out to sea, but every time I tried to take a picture of the sea monsters, they flipped me the bird.

What kind of place is this?

Goat Thing of the Day: St. Louis Zoo and Urban Goats

Alert NGIP reader Kerry from Alaska snapped some pics at the St. Louis Zoo where the goats love to be brushed.

No, really they like to be bru-- Hey! Come back here!

Because if you don't brush them, Oreo Cookie (not his real name, but it should be) here starts climbing the walls.

(Thanks, Kerry!)


In The News...

More and more cities across the U.S. are fighting City Hall to declare goats as acceptable pets. And why not? As one City spokeswoman in Oregon said, "If you can have a 250-pound dog, why not a miniature goat?"

Photo Credit: USA Today

You can read the USA Today article for the whole urban goat story here.

(Thanks, Robb!)

I Am Pending, with a Capital "T" and a Captial "M"

That's right. Any minute now, and when I say any minute now, I mean 13 - 18 months, Nanny Goats in Panties™ will officially have a registered Trademark! And until it's official, I am "pending". Do you know what that means? It means I can now put a little TM after "Nanny Goats in Panties™". And after that, if approved, I get to put a little Circle R (®) after it.

It all started when a Facebook friend of mine said that she heard someone on a TV show (Men of a Certain Age, to be precise) say "goats in panties" and I thought, Oh my God, that's MY phrase. I have to get my blog trademarked. Or copyrighted. Or something.

So, off I clicked to LegalZoom.com and started filling out the forms. And over four hundred dollars later, which in my humble opinion, is an expensive response to a TV quote (and hearsay, at that), despite the fact that LegalZoom said I saved over a thousand dollars going through them instead of a real lawyer -- well, they might not have worded it exactly that way, the "real" part, I mean -- Nanny Goats in Panties™ was in the trademark pipeline.

However, this trademark does not protect me from anybody selling T-Shirts that say Nanny Goats in Panties™. THAT would cost an additional filing fee of $295. And if I wanted to sell coffee mugs with trademark protection? That would cost another $295.00. Because coffee mugs fall under a different class than T-Shirts (which fall under a different class than a blog).

So what DID I get for my original $295 plus a one hundred and something fee from LegalZoom.com? I have absolutely no idea.

Wait - that's not true, the LegalZoom.com guy told me over the phone that he thought my blog was funny. So there's that.

Oh, and it probably counts as a business expense. Wow, the benefits are already piling up!





Thank You Letters...

I would like to graciously thank the following faboo people for the following faboo awards:

Musings of a Sea Witch for the Beautiful Blogger Award

The Shewbridges of Celebration FL for the Sunshine Award

Thank you, ladies. I'm honored!

Goat Thing of the Day: Armload of Goats and Virginia Zoo

Andy Megowan showed me an example of why you should always grab a shopping cart instead of a basket when you enter the grocery store:

Photo Source: Break.com

Meanwhile, Katherine (of Shoot Me Now) and her daughter visited the Virginia Zoo and took these exclusive photos for NGIP. Here you see a brand new breed of ruminants called Chin Resting Goats:

nice toofies!

You can read all about Katherine's zoo adventures (with more cute pics) on her blog post entitled, She Played the Card. And I Caved.


UPDATE: Goats aren't the only chin-resting mammals. Jen of Redhead Ranting sent in this photo for "chin resting" day at NGIP.

 Awwwwww.....

Abe Lincoln Wants to What My What?

So this guy has an epileptic seizure right behind me at the casino the other night. An older guy. His wife (I assume) was sitting there, casually, like this happens all the time. And maybe it does, because after the paramedics took him away, she keeps playing her slot machine. I mean, it's not like he needed the car or anything, right? And maybe her machine was just about to hit the big one.

But anyway, that's not why I called you here. I wanted to show you this five-dollar bill I recently got:

Whoa, slow down there, Abe. At least buy me dinner first.

Pretty cheeky for a dead guy. Who might also have been gay.

Goat Thing of the Day: Rule #1, Vikings, and Nigerians

Avid NGIP reader, Carolyn, sent in today's goaty goodies for all of our enjoyment...

Photo Credit: Burbia.com

Image Credit: neatorama.com via The Oatmeal

And those superstitious policemen in Nigeria have once again arrested a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery (because, you know, witnesses claimed that one man escaped pursuit while the other turned into a goat).


Allow me to quote a police spokesman:

"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody."

and...

"We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat."


You can read the full story on The Daily Mail.

Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk

How To Put a Puzzle Together (A Step by Step Guide)

1. Visit a friend who is in the middle of putting a puzzle together. Notice how much you enjoy helping him with it.

2. Receive a puzzle from said friend as an ostensible gift. (WARNING: If friend is giving you a puzzle that he has not yet put together himself first, ask yourself why.)

3. Have the epiphany after you get home that this puzzle isn't exactly what you would refer to as "pattern diverse".

4. Question how much your friend actually likes you and why you always seem to be the object of his "generosity" (e.g., opaque holiday wrapping paper, 800 baud modem, ten-year-old calendar, in-the-shower CD player, "gently used" toothbrushes, dowsing rods, all things sold at Sharper Image, etc).

5. With a looming sense of dread, open the box and dump out one thousand pieces onto a table that now sits in the middle of your living room.

6. Begin flipping over all the pieces so that the color side is up. If you're unsure which side is the picture side, I cannot help you. This very advanced instruction set assumes you already have a working knowledge of which side of the puzzle piece contains the image. If not, you may wish to consult the primer to this piece entitled "The Dimwit's Guide to Determining Rough Gray Sides of Puzzle Pieces From the Smooth Colored Sides and That Walking and Chewing Gum Thing".  Anyway, be sure to pull out any side pieces you come across as you monotonously flip all the pieces to color side up.

7. Spend an inordinate amount of time agonizing over whether or not these are side pieces:

Hint: Only one of these is an actual side piece.

8. Vascillate between using the puzzle to find pieces or using the pieces to find where it fits in the puzzle. Study the puzzle. Be the puzzle.

ommmmmmmmmm......

9. Call for pizza as you will have no time to shower or cook your own meals once your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder kicks in and you will not rest until this frickin' thing is done.

10. Realize that you have a problem and that you probably shouldn't be doing puzzles because you find it impossible to step away even though your back hurts from leaning over the table for two solid days only stopping long enough to pee.

11. Bark at your significant other when he snaps in a piece that you've been looking for for the last half hour. And have a cow when you finally find the pieces that have been dogging you forever.

12. Throttle your significant other when he signals a touchdown and says "Ta Da!" after each and every piece he successfully fits in because Hello -- one thousand pieces.

13. After the 500th "Ta Da!", curse Dr. Bartholomew Jigsaw (or whoever invented it) and the day he was born. Vow to never participate in such a soul-sucking endeavor again.

14. Crawl into bed with a dizzying weariness and dream of monster crayons chasing you down dark alleys with paint guns blasting you down into a technicolor puddle of death.

15. Get up the next morning, stare at your completed masterpiece and fret over how long you should keep it together before ripping it apart, destroying what you worked so tirelessly and ceaselessly on for so many hours and for what, to tear it apart?

16. Get depressed.

17. Get out of town for awhile. Take the train to Berkeley for a change of pace and celebrate your friend's birthday. Walk around and shop on Shattuck Avenue, realizing for the first time in a while how important spending time with friends is. It's really what makes life worth living. Vow that you will make more time for your friends because they are so near and dear to your heart.

18. Come home with this:

I don't know if you heard me screaming about it the other day, but the Kindle Blog Report gave Nanny Goats in Panties a big fat YES recommendation for the Kindle. Yay!

You too can subscribe to NGIP on your Kindle.

And a THANK YOU to Marg at Marg's Animals for bestowing NGIP with the Beautiful Blogger award.

Goat Thing of the Day: Nom-Nomming

Alert NGIP reader Lorie, from The Shewbridges of Celebration Florida, pointed me to this scene as seen on Cute Overload:

Meanwhile, Jennifer of Goats in the Garden, sent in a couple pictures of one of her goats, Belle, who has either shaved funny this morning...

or she's just polished off the last of the molasses tub.

Mmmmm....molasses.

The Dangers of Shopping Alone

I kind of needed you there at the time before I did anything stupid, but I went ahead and bought them anyway. And now I'm afraid to go out in public because I don't know if they actually look nice on me or if the saleslady who accompanied me to the dressing room was merely desperate to make her commission.

So OK, be honest...

Does this suit make my butt look fat?

The dressing room lady told me this was slimming.

The saleslady said it was genuine Tortachelle, which sounded snazzy and exclusive and I thought I was getting a real bargain.

And you'll probably say the same thing about my hat, but again, honesty please...

Does this hat make my butt look big?

It's OK, you won't hurt my feelings. Tell the truth. Too much? Should I tone it down a little?

GAH!  See what happens when you let me go shopping without you?