Do You Have Time for a Quickie?

Some of you Mommies out there in search of the latest and greatest in child-rearing slash disciplinary tactics might be interested to know that the new line of Time-Out chairs from Fisher Price begin rolling out this week:

Don't make me pull this thing over!

I have two computers. One is a Mac and the other is a PC. And while my Mac is newer and cooler and hipper and makes me feel twenty years younger, it doesn't have the ability to do THIS:

Goat Thing of the Day: Coconut and GoGo

Meet Coconut:

Coconut, when he was just a few hours old.

Coconut is a Nigora, a hybrid between a Nigerian and Angora goat. According to my sources (Annette who raises them at Wise Oaks Farm and sent me this cute picture), Nigoras are a new dual-purpose breed to produce milk and fiber.


In case you haven't heard, they're giving away a little goat over at A Day in The Life of Da Bean. (Thanks to Pricilla for telling me about it.)

Susan from Trout Towers wrote a post entitled "of goats and undergarments". Coincidence? You decide.

Good thing I got myself trademarked and all. Because goats and panties are starting to crop up everywhere. Have you heard of GoGo the Goat from Chico, California? She's got her own Facebook fan page and everything. She's even been on TV!

 GoGo the Goat (via Karen of Midlife Musings)
Image Source

I can't embed this video of a couch load of goats, but you can head over to Amity, etc.'s post entitled "My Sister Has Nine Kids" to see this super-cute video.

click on pic to see video. (via Shannon of Squidalicious)

Why I Never Comment On Your Blog: (A Disqus Primer)

We interrupt our regularly scheduled hilarity to bring you the latest in How-To bloggery.

Do you comment on other people's blogs that use Disqus, only to have them never return your calls? Do you know why this is? It is because you have failed to list your blog's URL. BUT!... You can increase your chances of my returning your comments by making sure your URL appears in the comment section. And I'm here to tell you just how to do that. Please help me find your blog easier by providing that simple link.

How To Verify Your Blog URL is in Your Disqus Profile - The Short Version

If you are just leaving a comment as a "Guest" with no registered Disqus profile, and you want your URL to appear in your comment (so that I can visit your blog), make sure to fill out the "Website (optional)" portion of the comment form.

If you do have a Disqus Profile, go to it by clicking on your username after leaving a comment here. Click on My Settings, then click on Public Info. Add your blog URL to the section entitled: "Website".

Too fast for ya? Here's the Long Drawn out-version:

How To Verify Your Blog URL is in Your Disqus Profile - The Detailed Version

If you are not registered with Disqus
If you are just leaving a comment as a "Guest" with no Disqus profile, and you want your URL to appear in your comment, make sure to fill out the "Website (optional)" portion of the comment form.

Make sure it's in the format:  http://www.yourblogname

I don't know what some of you guys are doing, but somehow the blog URL that pops up when I click on your name becomes "http://nannygoatsinpanties.com//yourblogname.com" or some such crazy thing.


If you are registered with Disqus
Then Disqus either already recognizes you or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you will get the form shown above where you can login by clicking on the Disqus icon and logging in.

If you get the following screen, then Disqus already knows who you are -- because my blog is psychic.

To verify that Disqus knows your website's URL, go to your Disqus Profile by clicking on your username which should be located where I've circled my own in the picture above.

This will bring you to your profile page which will look something like this:

Perhaps you can already surmise that your next step will be to click on My Settings because of the big fat red circle around it above.

After that you will click on Public Info, which is circled in red below. This will bring up your public information page and you will enter your Website's URL, which is circled in blue below.

Be sure to click "SAVE CHANGES". And from now on, your username on all of your Disqus comments, no matter whose blog it is, will link directly to your website - Yay! I can't guarantee I will be able to return your comments every time, but at least now it will be my bad instead of yours.

Also? This change should propagate throughout all Disqus comments you've made in the past.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled hilarity.

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

On Maui, you've got sun, ocean, sand, and warmth. So you can probably guess how we spent our vacation in Island Paradise. That's right - we went jigsaw puzzle shopping!

So we're at this alleged toy store in Lahaina where the piddling puzzle selection rivals that of your corner gas station. To wit:

Seven puzzles. That's it. That was all they had. But we were desperate. We'd already finished the one we found in the condo and we still had TWELVE MORE DAYS of vacation and we were starting to go through withdrawals. We needed a puzzle NOW!!! My clammy hands were already shaking as I reached for the box with the sea turtles and other ocean creatures.

As I'm handing the guy my hard-earned cash, I ask him if he knows who else on the island sells jigsaw puzzles. I'm giving him money and I did not tell him that his selection stunk, nor did my tone of voice indicate as such. I'm patronizing his store and you know what he says to me, this guy?

"Oh, we'll be getting in another shipment next week or so."

Of the same puzzles, no doubt. So I ask him again. He hesitates, then mumbles, "Well, there really aren't any other toy stores around. I mean, if you want Hawaii-themed puzzles."

"They don't have to be Hawaii-themed puzzles," I say, trying not to sound too eager.

He wasn't going to tell me, the rat. I was hoping he'd be a nice guy. I mean I realize that I'm asking who his competition is, and I was taking a chance on what his approach might be, but it was obvious he was coming from the used-car salesman side of the island. And I asked because I figured, hey, this is Hawaii, it's all good, Brah. Everybody's laid back and friendly, right?

I give him my most innocent sweet-talking smile, verging on Damsel-in-Distress, and he finally caves and says, "Well...you could TRY Barnes and Noble," he says, pointing across the street, "but I don't know...they MIGHT have some". He said "might" like it weighed 12,000 pounds and there was no way it could be lifted without a crane and Oh God, the unions, you'll never get a crane out here this week, it's a holiday you know.

"Thank you," I said, trying to sound sincere, sure I would never visit this store again because he tried so hard not to help me, even after I bought something from him.

Twenty-four hours later, after we finished the sea turtle puzzle, and still with ELEVEN MORE DAYS of our vacation, we took a trip to Barnes and Noble (because what else is there to do on Maui, am I right?)

The toy store guy was somewhat correct when he said that Barnes and Noble MIGHT have puzzles. They had these:

(cue Hallelujah Chorus music)

and these...

and these...

and these...

Oh, and these...

I know! We were in Puzzle Heaven.

Of course with any addiction left unchecked, we got a little out of control and by the end of our trip we had OD-ed which required some rehab on the beach with Lava Flows and shipping a box of these bad boys back home since they wouldn't fit in our carry-ons.

We finished all of them except for the one called "Wonder Change". Wonder Change sucked. It was one of those lenticular puzzles where the picture changes depending on the angle from which you are looking: Here is New York by day. Here is New York by night. GAHH!!!!

Tribal Blogs

If you're a blogger and you haven't already checked out Tribal Blogs, you should see this place. It's like going to a bar where everyone knows your name - a helpful and friendly community and there's a bouncer at the door to keep the riff-raff out. And by riff-raff, I mean the click farms and shell blogs out there whose only comments to you are: "Great blogs your having. I clikked on ur adz. Please to be clikking on my adz 20 times". Gawd, it pisses me off just to hear myself mock them. In other words, if you write your own content, and your last blog post is dated in the year 2010 and you sincerely want to engage with other bloggers, you are welcome to TB (which, I know, needs a healthier-sounding acronym). It's free to join, but a paid membership gets you extra perks. You can learn more about Tribal Blogs here. And if you've read this far, yes, your blog qualifies.

Check it out, I bet you'll see some people you already know. Me, for example.

Goat Thing of the Day: Surf's Up!

Okay, I know that some of you know that I know that you know that I recently came back from Maui. And some of you may also know that no trip to Maui is complete without a stopover at the Surfing Goat Dairy. That's right! You can "hang ten", or four, or however many whatevers it is, with the goats!

Whaddya say, kids? Surf's Up!

Okay, so these guys are just beach bums.

But they're so cute! These kids were about two weeks old when we stopped by.

Fasten your seltbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride in our Wayback machine as we travel to 1979, courtesy of Shar (of Scrapendipity). Her kids were feeding their baby goat on St. Patrick's Day.

Oh, you kids!

Chris (of A Free Man) has discovered yet another Goat of Walmart:

If you haven't already heard of the website called Learn From My Fail, it's a list of user-contributed cautionary tales. Here's one we can all take note from (well, half of us, anyway):