For the last couple days, I've had a horrid itch on my right arm. Tried lotions, no luck. Finally went to the doc and went through the expected questions. No new laundry soap, pets, and do on. I did mention I did prepare a pig head last Wednesday night. "A pig head?" "Oh yeah." "Hm. That's a first" So after more talk the conclusion is dermatitis, likely from the cleaner I was using afterwards to clean the kitchen sink. Or was it Porky's revenge? Did he exude some toxin from one of his piggy glands? Some anti-predator poison? I'll never know.

There is simply no better place to shop in Anchorage. Red Apple has everything! I started out looking for some chicken, but these treats caught my eye instead.

At the end, I saw Barbara the manager lady. I asked her if they had any pig heads in. She said they had some on the truck and if I waited, I could have one. I decided not to wait, much to Justin's happiness. Next time, maybe.

Ice fog, Anchorage, Alaska. There is a fully lit 5-story building just a couple hundred feet beyond, right in the center of the photo.

Ice fog is the name folks give to fog that rolls in when it's freezing. In the daytime, I love it. It's ethereal. Buildings you know are just over there are gone. Things slowly appear out of the mist. Plants and trees all have this incredible pure white coating on them. The most beautiful picture of winter one could conjure. It's also an interesting cold, as there is humidity in the air.

At night, though, driving is a nightmare. Zip for visibility. Can't figure out where you're at because all points of reference, even the intangibles such as the lights in a particular neighborhood, they're all gone. Driving on the freeway is a game of "chicken". Don't know what's ahead, don't know when the turns are coming up, can't see overpasses, nothing. Creepy. Oh, and of course we're always wary of moose. Nobody is telling 'em to not go out in front of cars.

Today is Sunday, Decenber 13, 2009. For about a week now, Anchorage has been shrouded in this hypnotic, mysterious fog. Some folks like myself enjoy the phenomenon, others wish it to be gone. I have never seen ice fog like this, it has been quite a treat. For a few days we walk amongst the clouds.

The photo says it all. At last, Anchorage Alaska can be called a civilized place. At last we may partake in a proper plate of Curry Katsu! Oh, I am so looking forward to it!

I was in the Dimond Center (no, that is not a misspelling), and next to the bowling alley in the little food court, there I spied it. I was shocked, blown away, all that. Called Deanna up on the phone right away. "Honey, there is an L and L in the Dimond Center!"

I didn't have the time to eat right then, and wasn't hungry, but I shall return with a roarin' appetite, and am anticipating hopefully accurate mac salad. Teri mix plate, chicen katsu, mmm.

Note, let it be said, I told Deanna years ago I'd like to open up an L&L up here. Now, somebody else did! I'm not grousing, rather, I hope they enjoy huge success and expand to our side of town, as we're a few miles away. This is the best food suprise Christmas gift ever! L&L, right here in Anchorage!

I saw an ad for Kashi cereal on TV. At least I think it was on TV. Anyhow, they said you could get a free sample by requesting one online. So, that's just what I did. But, being somewhat wary of free offers, I decided that Cougar needed the cereal more than I.

Now to see how much junk mail Cougar Cat receives. If he receives any at all, I know exactly who has been selling my address. I should note, the cereal was pretty good.

A few years back we picked up a Lasko 1150 humidifier. Works like a champ. I think we got it from Costco or Sam's Club, I forget. The unit is maybe three or four years old. Well, like most humidifiers, there is a filter within it. Every season, change the filter. No big deal.

Unless you can't find a filter anywhere in town.

No problem, I'll buy it off of Amazon. First time I try it, the vendor doesn't ship to Alaska. Figures. Next time I try, they have it, for what, $19? I forget again. They ship a single filter to me via FedEx, which ends up costing something like $24. And to cap it off, they ship the wrong filter. Not even close. I contact the vendor, and they never return an email. So I filed a claim with Amazon.com, and they reimbursed the whole thing, shipping and all. I love shopping with Amazon.com!

Ah, but I still have no filter for our humidifier. You would think that Lasko sells it right? Sure they do, just not to Alaska. Maybe they are Democrats, I don't know.

I google around all over, and finally come across www.marbeck.com who are my new favorite not-Amazon company. (is it "is" or "are"?) I was able to order five filters, and they shipped via USPS, so I got all five for under $50. I think it was $46 or so. Shipping was $5.99. I bought five of them because if they have them, I might as well buy a lifetime supply of filters, cuz' I suspect we'll get another humidifier by then.

But yeah, www.marbeck.com is where I'll be shopping at for odd appliance parts stuff.

No joke! Spy out this story over at The Smoking Gun. Some nice postal worker decided to put together one seriously huge DVD collection, one customer's Netflix DVD at a time.

I love Netflix. I've had an occasional cracked DVD, and they've never once dogged me on it. But I've never had a DVD go MIA. If they do start vanishing, I'll have at least one good idea as to where...

We got paid $20 to watch TV. No joke! Here's how. Back in December we bought a Sony DVD recorder / VCR combo from Costco for $204. While the unit did a great job of recording DVDs and all, it started flaking out on us, doing weird stuff with the DVD tray. If you opened the tray to drop in a DVD, it would close on you immediately. You had to stand there and slap the DVD into the tray the exact split-second it was out there. This started oh, what, maybe a couple months ago? We put up with it, but a couple weeks ago it got worse, the unit would instead open it's tray and not close it. Last night was the end of it, when even mint condition DVDs would come up as non-readable. So back to Costco we go with the unit.

Tonight we take it in to Costco and I messed up and didn't have the remote with me. Back home we go. Back we return with the remote. We didn't have the box, but we did have the receipt and all the stuff in the box. They were cool with the whole thing and gave us our $204 back. Sweet! So, we did need (okay, "want") another similar unit, and we go looking. They had, get this, the exact same model still on sale, except it was $20 less by now, probably since it's now seven months older and newer models come out all the time. We decide to buy the same model again, why not?

So, we got use of the DVD/VCR recorder for seven months, and basically got paid $20 for that period of time. Not bad, getting paid $20 to watch TV! well, more like "watch DVDs", but "Watch TV" sounds so much better.

While browsing breitbart the other day, I was looking at their Japanese news highlights of which they have many. There was a link to the 2009 July Grand Sumo Tournament, and I was there, oh yes.

For those of you not familiar, growing up in Hawaii, I enjoyed watching Sumo tournaments, which occur five times a year, I believe. They last, what, 15 days? Something like that. Anyhow, on good ol' Channel 13, the Japanese channel, we would watch Ozumo Digest, which was the coverage of the tournaments, nicely subtitled. Those days are gone, and Ozumo Digest has long gone off the air, sadly.

To my joy, as I type this, I am watching the tournament live via streaming video, and you can watch it too. Streaming Sumo Video (find the link on the page). Note, it is only streaming while live, and there are no subtitles, and the image quality is poor, but it is free, and it is live Sumo! Even without the subtitles, how can you not enjoy two giants going at it, slapping each other silly and flinging about, while the old ref is yelling some sort of chant like "TAT TA TA DA! TAA TA TA TAAT TA TA TA DAA!" And when it's over, over the loudspeaker comes "...Yorikiri" , "...Oishidashi", or the other not as common calls for the sort of winning move executed by the victor. Anyhow, you can find more about Sumo here.

Oh yeah, the photo with the barely legible copyright? I did a screen capture of the video. I'm going to count this as fair use, so until I hear otherwise from the Sumo commish, it's staying up.