Kunoichi: Doggie Ninja

Ichi has started displaying some odd behavior.  I keep saying she’s getting calmer, but I think in reality, she’s just getting calmer with me.

It used to be that Ichi would take her toy of the moment and settle with it between the coffee table and dining room. It should be noted this is NOT where her bed is. It’s just happily in the middle of all potential traffic in the apartment.

Well, that’s changed. Sort of. She still takes toys over there, but she’s much less likely to be obsessed with playtime when it’s just me and her. Nope, these days she plops herself right in front of my ottoman and watches tv with me or takes a nap. That or she hops into the chair (and my arms) and gets scratched for like an hour. Again, this is my payback for my behavior as a small child. But I was under the understanding that Shibas are not lap dogs and as such are not overly affectionate. Lately, she is SUPER affectionate and pretty much follows me everywhere.

But that’s all when it’s JUST ME in the house. Keep reading for the “other people” issues.

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I think I ask mom this more and more frequently. She’s probably tired of it by now. And while it doesn’t appear to be a huge thing for mom and dad (as dad seems like he goes through computers faster than he can fill them), I don’t even want to think about the day when Becca’s computer fails. I really don’t want to be there for that, honestly.

But, I’ve been thinking about backups a lot lately, now that I have 2 macs instead of just one. (SO LONG PC’S I WILL NOT MISS YOU.) Currently I’m running Time Machine, SuperDuper!, and .Mac MobileMe. MobileMe is the new .Mac, released less than a month ago and OH HOW I HATE IT. it’s supposed to “push”, it doesn’t, it “syncs”, but I’m not even sure it’s doing that correctly. My calendars are all out of whack (pieces of SOME of the calendars).

Granted, I redid a lot of stuff last night that seemed to fix the majority of the problem, but I’m still left contactless on my phone. It’s supposed to push to my phone and it has been more than 24 hours, nothing.

Well, now that I’ve vented the MobileMe back up frustrations, I’ll continue with my lecture on BACKING UP.

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I don’t want to go back and edit it just for this: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. I can’t wait for this. I love How I Met Your Mother because of Barney and I loved Firefly because of Malcolm Reynolds. The thought of the two of them as arch rivals….AWESOME.

And while I’m talking about heroes/villans/scientists/sci-fi….Doctor Who ended it’s 4th season on Saturday (I <3 youtube) and I couldn’t be more conflicted. As a whole I liked it, but at the end I was left heartbroken for at least half the characters. I’m also quite conflicted on what I’m gonna watch for the next few months…as neither Doctor Who or BSG will be back for many months. I guess I’m back to watching Heroes and hoping this season is better than the last. And I’m also sad that I’m missing a BSG panel of potentially awesomeness because it is reportedly being hosted by Kevin Smith and features “cylon human couples”. Somehow I perceive that topic + Kevin Smith = most hilarious panel ever. Sad times, I wish Comic-Con weren’t so far away from me.

Well, first off, Ichi and I made our first trip to the fairly new Huntsville Dog Park. To be fair, the Huntsville Dog Park was a nice place to congregate, but it’s basically a chainlink fenced in area under the interstate. However, kudos to whoever thought of putting it there, what a great way to use the area under the interstates! The shade was nice.

When we first walked in, every dog in the area came to check out Ichi. I swear, she thinks she’s a movie star or something cause everyone loves her. Eventually, she grew tired of her puparazzi and decided to check things out, which also involved shunning the dogs. Eventually I got her back to the dogs and owners (so I felt less awkward) and she started to play a bit. Honestly, what good is going to the dog park if she just chills on her own?  And at some point, play, turned to chase. This may have been the first time Ichi ever realized she’s not a big dog.

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It’s coming along. It would probably be infinitely speedier if Ichi would calm down a bit. Last night was one of the few times I knew what she wanted, but alas, I know my dog and even if I had acted upon that, it wouldn’t have worked. There are just certain things ya notice (one of them being that she will not, for any reason, cross the concrete drainage area of the lake at the complex). And she’s gone back to not eating when it’s been laid out for her, too stuck on play time.

Speaking of playtime, that’s exactly what she thought we were having while I was scanning stuff yesterday. I guess she doesn’t realize that it’s not a flatbed scanner and I don’t have to wait a million years for the completion of one document. She attempted to chew on everything in retaliation. I gave her squeaky toys, bones, anything I could think of….but she wanted none of it. She wanted what she wanted and would accept no substitutes. It felt quite like a temper tantrum. More on another of her temper tantrums later. Scansnap now.

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If Ichi got gadget lust, I’m sure this is what it would be over. Seriously, check it out, it’s bacon flavored bubbles. I can’t imagine how they someone came up with them, but I saw them in action on It’s Me or the Dog. Just find a cheap bubble blowing machine, pour the bubbles in, take it outside and Ichi could be entertained for quite some time. As noted in the picture, they also come in peanut butter and barbecue chicken flavors.

Seriously though, who realized they could put a flavor on bubbles and how awesome is that? You should have seen the dogs on the show, normally so aggressive but they were all about the sweet taste of bacony bubbles. I’m seriously thinking aout getting this for ichi despite not having a really good place for it. Maybe the porch.

Really, I’m still in awe of flavored bubbles. I wonder if Ichi would still chase after less expensive normal bubbles. Probably not as much. It’s probably worth the extra dollar.

Also, I’ve decided to get my scanner, I’ve just been waiting for my gift certificate from Amazon to arrive, so I can get it cheaper.

Well, Ichi’s right back to having issues with food. I’ve begun the process of taking it away after 10 minutes of it just sitting there. This now enforces that if she doesn’t eat, she won’t eat. There will be no more food brought to her just because she doesn’t like this food.

I subsequently had a fun conversation where I joked with mom about how she probably should have done that with me and my sister. She told me it was because we would have complained too much, so she would fix us whatever we wanted when she cooked if we didn’t want what was on the table. I told her that the complaining portion probably came from Daddy’s routines of “where’s the ketchup, no I’m sorry, we’re all out”. Somehow we ended up as smartalic (sp?) little kids who got our way more often than we should have. (It probably helped that we were cute.)

But I’ve learned this lesson through my own misbehavior and thus, if she doesn’t want it, she won’t be eating. She’ll eat it when she’s hungry. I did treat her to just a LITTLE bit of fried rice the other day realizing that it was essentially the contents of the dog food (rice, chicken, veggies). But I was good to put it in the bowl and mix it with her food.

Funny story though: my sword and shield came in for a costume and they were packed in packing peanuts. Ichi clearly thought that was her portion of the package. Um, no. But, in her typical way she attempted to carry her “toy” out of the house when we went for a walk. She was semi successful cause I took the opportunity to yank it out of her mouth and tell her it was bad. Exact phrase: “don’t chew on things that could kill you”. She responded by picking up a cigarette butt from the sidewalk to chew on. *FACEPALM*

In other news: Bama now has 1.43 arrests per win this year. Seems like a lot. Phrases to express this phenomenon include: “criminal tide”, “parole tide” and “rammer jammer yellow hammer go to jail alabama”. On the surface it’s funny, but when you get down to it, it’s really sad and pathetic. So many people who are making a mess of their lives for what? And no one to tell them no apparently. I guess whereas some folks think “look where I”m at no one can touch me” I tend to think “do not screw this up do not screw this up do not screw this up”. I guess my parents could have done worse than indulge me at dinner.

Oh, and there are more pictures from that set in the gallery.

Well, I bit the bullet and bought the furminator because everyone seems SO HAPPY with it. And now I’m officially one of those people that has posted a picture of the results. I think the picture doesn’t quite do it justice cause you can’t see how tall the pile is.

Suffice to say, Ichi and I are doing better now that she’s less furry. No, she’s not bald, but I can touch her again without getting covered in fur. And she looks skinnier, but overall happier and healthier.

Seriously though, the fact that all of that will not be in my carpet was worth the money I paid for it. Now, to just restore the carpet to it’s original glory and then figure out how to keep it that way.

Oh, and while Ichi endured the wrath of the furminator, I endured the wrath of Ichi. My arms are covered with scratches and bite marks. She REALLY doesn’t like to be still for any reason. Eventually I did figure out the best way to hold her so that she couldn’t bite me, but it took a while.

You and the rest of the world are probably asking this. Afterall, I never share pictures anymore. Well, you are in luck as this is one of the changes I intend to make! MORE PICTURES! *points*

Ichi is doing well. She’s still a little on the destructive side and can’t really be trusted, but the two of us are heading more swiftly to a happier life. Ichi is, in general, calmer. This may be easier for others to see than me as Dad noticed she’s always more hyper around me. This is probably due to the fact that I am a sucker for her batting her eyes with a ball in her mouth.

Currently I’m working on breaking her of this “I see something I want so I’m gonna jump” attitude. I’m trying to replace it with “sit”. She actually will now sit if I say “what do good puppies do?”. Hopefully she is picking up on the fact that she will never get what she wants by jumping, but will usually get what she wants by sitting patiently. We’re also working on “stay” and trying to get her to stay in the living room while I go to the kitchen. That’s not going as well.

But all in all, much much better. Now, if only she wouldn’t think of her leashes as chew toys

(Oh, and the picture is of Ichi at Peach Park in Clanton. She didn’t quite know what to do about the dog that was just standing there).

I’ve spent a decent amount of time upgrading things today. As the twitter post suggests, upgrade the biggest thing first (Wordpress) then the little things (plugins). Most of the plugins, I upgraded twice. I added a few new ones that require further work when I get home.

For you, my loyal reader, nothing much has changed. Although I did add a new event *points to the right* and will have probably made a few changes to the blogroll by the time you see this. For me, a lot has changed and I’m loving the cleaner, sleeker interface that runs all of this.

But never fear, things are about to change. Oh yes, how they’ll change. I’ve decided that I need to write more concise posts that stay on a single topic. So don’t expect “this is how ichi is and this is how I am” all lumped together. Nope, 2 different posts. Could mean shorter, but more, could just mean shorter. We’ll see. There’s a change I want to make that correlates with that, so….yeah, we’ll see.