I think VW has some great advertising. I love the "unpimp your car" commercials that have been running on TV lately. And online today, I noticed an ad for VW that challenges you to move your mouse as quickly as possible over... a cat? a frog? what? and when you hit a certain speed it morphs into a car. So cool, I kept refreshing and doing it again.

The Gap has been carrying dog outfits and their hoodies finally went on sale. (They aren't on sale on the online store... and they are hard to find... under Women's accessories) We got one for Oscar of course. Here he is looking dope in his new duds.

Every once in awhile I wander over to nigella.com in desperate hopes I will discover she is doing another cooking show. On my last check... no show... but scads of new products! I have a few of her robins egg blue things... now there are aprons, tins, tablecloths... in a cute print of kitchen items.

Did you know Target has online recipes? I stumbled upon the Easter ones looking at the Naughty Naughty Pet stuff.

It didn't make any sense until I realized Super Targets have groceries. We don't have any Super Targets and a good thing because I would have a conundrum.. Super Target or Wegmans?

Some recipies I found interesting... baked potato dip, big germans (an oven baked pancake), watermelon fire and ice salsa and fried rice porqupine meatballs. And that's just from the appetizer section.

I am addicted to eating goldfish at work. Especially the flavor blasted ones. They are just the right size for cut and paste... eat a goldfish... answer email... eat a goldfish... schedule design review... eat a goldfish.

I was wondering how many goldfish were too many goldfish, when I discovered the serving size was FIFTY-ONE! I know they are little, but there is something satisfying about eating fifty-one of something. I lined up fifty-one goldfish to see what that amount looked like. It's a big school of goldfish.

These cool floor tiles are filled with goo that reacts to the pressure of you walking on them. Walking on it leaves an impression that slowly fades away.

That would drive Oscar nuts. He can chase a flashlight beam for hours... can't imagine what this would do to him.

They also make tables with goo filled tops... and tables made of frozen shattered glass. The glass explosion tables would make me nervous... as I have a bit of a broken glass phobia.

I like the concept of this KUKU alarm clock.

When it's time to get up, it crows and lays five eggs into a basket.

To turn off the alarm, you have to feed the eggs back into it.

But shouldn't it look more like a chicken?

New spring banner today! I figured if I built it... it would come.

It can be a small world.

I was clicking around Flickr... looking at groups to post some of my office toy pictures to (wait til I start taking pictures of the toys at home!) when I stumbled upon...

... ANOTHER TRAVELING PIGLET! I nearly fell off my chair. What are the chances?

This Piglet is the newer Disney Piglet, while mine is a Classic Piglet... but still! I have been traveling and taking pictures of Piglet since 1998. I have received some strange looks, nearly lost him at the beach... tossed him in the washer countless times... and now a certain peace has come over me... I am not the only one.

Hurrah for Piglet! Check out Chu Chu Piglet's own travel photo site.

I walked into Target and nearly passed out. Their Easter signage was created by Wendy Ann Gardner, creator of Scary Stories. All the signs were Naughty Naughty Pet bunnies and chick peeps. It was too much for me to take.

There is some flash stuff on the website, but when I checked the only Naughty Pet items available were two bowls. In the store however, there are stuffed critters, paper plates, pet t-shirts, pet beds, squeaky toys...

I want one of the signs in a bad way. Enquired after them at several stores. One said they gave them to charity, one said they throw them away... ACK!!!... a couple took my name down in case they come up for grabs.

Guess who went home today?

Starbucks has cupcakes now! They aren't the greatest cupcakes ever, but what I love is the special box they come in that transports the cupcake without damaging it.

The funny thing about this is that the first time I brought one home from Sit&Knit, I left the cupcake box sitting in my knitting carrying case when I came home. I was in the dining room when I heard a snuffing noise. When I went to the living room, Oscar was half in, half hanging out of my knitting case. He had managed to open the box and eat the cupcake, paper and all. He was licking out the last of the frosting when I caught him.

The cry I let out made Aaron think I had chopped off a finger. Oscar checks my knitting everytime I come home, hoping there is a cupcake in there for him.

I have been counting the days until my friend Sarah's annual St. Patrick's Day party. She and Denis make THE best corned beef. I have been craving it for two weeks.

Aaron bought a new pair of shamrock sunglasses and I got some great pictures of my friends wearing them. Pictures of the party in my EasyShare Gallery.

This weekend was Maple Weekend in Western New York. Aaron and I took a road trip to a maple farm and all you can eat pancake house. We stood for a ridiculously long time in line for pancakes, but ate enough to make up for it. We also stocked up on maple sugar, maple cream, maple sugar cotton candy and maple candy. Pictures of our day in my EasyShare Gallery.

We had shamrock pancakes today at work. At least for a little bit. It takes four times longer to make a shamrock pancake opposed to a regular one. So when people started filling up our office kitchen we had to resort to traditional round ones.

I ate about ten. They were little shamrocks.

Yesterday's post got me thinking about my grade school days when we put toothpicks in potatoes and grew plants. I think we planted the tops of pineapples too.

Of course today, toothpicks seem archaic. Check out these seeds that grow in NASA goo so you can watch the roots grow. Or these cutie animals that grow grass out their head. I especially like the chick peep.

When Aaron got me the ginormous flower arrangement for Valentine's Day, it had some cool twisty looking branches in it. One by one the flowers died off and went in the rubbish bin until all that was left were those branches.

By luck of laziness, I left the vase with those sad little branches sitting on Tina's desk long after Valentine's Day. (oh yeah, Tina... since you have been out... I may or may not have been using your desk to stash the overflow from my desk)

Last week, I noticed that those branches sprouted stubby little green leaves. And roots! They look pretty cool and when I got the whole thing home, decided the roots look like some sort of biodome hydroponic type of experiment. I like it sitting on my dining room table, but what next? Am I going to have a tree sprouting in my dining room? We'll see!

(Aaron tells me the twisty branches are Corkscrew Willow.)

Little Miss Lauren will be coming home any day now and I need to get the baby shower ball rolling.

Unfortunately, I am more wrapped up in little baby animal food picks and mini appetizers than the guest list and invites. Gotta get on that.

I am thinking about a theme of "Good things come in little packages." All the food will be tiny bite sized.

With this in mind I picked up these mini silicone cupcake liners. They are about the size of a quarter. Bite sized cupcakes! Can't stand it!

I wanted to mention how much I love the yarn that I use to make those dishcloths. It is called Sugar 'n Cream. What a cute name. Makes me hungry. And buying it is like shopping for candy, it comes in so many colors. The dishtowels I posted are Summer Splash and Playtime. I just bought two more colors that I thought looked springy... Pretty Pastels and Buttercream. Buttercream! Yum!

Last week was my grandma's birthday and in addition to the electric kettle I got her, I knit her a dishcloth. That is pretty funny because she is the one that taught me how to knit them.

I love making these dishcloths because they are quick and easy. They are addictive to make. I usually have two or three on needles. You can never have enough dishcloths!

I went shopping with my friend Nancy, and part of the damage done took place in a kitchen supply store. I came home with Butter Boy. I love butter. I love corn on the cob. I love kitchen utensils shaped like characters. Thus I had to have Butter Boy.

I can't wait til corn season this summer!

It is really starting to feel like spring. I would be more excited if I hadn't been cheated out of a winter. I know some people are thrilled, but I can't believe I didn't get to use my snowshoes or snowboard. This sad little mini snowman was closest I got to a wintery feeling this year.

Aaron has been gone this week on Navy training. It has been quiet around the house without him.I have been missing his food experiments. He had been making bananas brulee quite often before he left and now I am going through withdrawl.

Thank goodness he comes home tomorrow. I also can't stand to see Oscar sitting in the vestibule staring mournfully at the front door anymore.

I am a big fan of Alton Brown, but I do not subscribe to his avoidance uni-taskers. I like gadgets, so I have lots of kitchen appliances that only do one thing... an electric egg cooker, avocado slicer, cake tester...

I couldn't help but get one of these Oxo mango slicers. I love mango, but I do not love slicing the slippery fruit away from the seed.

As you can see, it worked really well this morning and I feasted on mango for lunch.

Yup, it's time for Wegman's St. Patrick's frog cupcakes again.

He looks almost too friendly to eat. Almost.

I am obsessed with making fake model pictures! You can take an ordinary picture and make it look like a miniature model.

Originally I had seen these created with a special tilt lens to create the model effect. Then someone came up with steps in photoshop to fake the fake pictures.

There is a flickr group for them, and I made a few too.

This evening I had my annual Oscar's Party. I like to try and have food that synchs up with the movies up for nominations. This year I had Charlie and the Chocolate Cupcakes, Wallace and Gromit and the Welsh Rarebit, Memoirs of a Geisha Sushi and Brokeback Mountain Dew. Aprille brought Constant Gardener Garden Herb Bread and Holly brought Turkish Delight. I have been dying to try Turkish Delight since I saw Chronicles of Narnia. It was good... not sell off your brothers and sister good, but good. More pics at my gallery.

Aaron and I had to go to Kmart and on the way in I surveyed the bubble gum machines... guess what I found. No not Peek-a-Poohs... Chip 'n Dale Nutty Wear! I didn't even notice these on the website... but they are super cute too! Chipmunks dressed up like food! What's not to like? I got the Chip Strawberry Cake and Dale Vanilla Jelly. I want the corn, eggplant and mushroom in a bad way.

The bread maker we recently acquired has a jam setting. You can make jam in it! It was kinda sticky to clean up, but otherwise really easy to make. All it took was fresh raspberries, sugar and honey.

Someone tipped me off in my comments that Method was making air fresheners. Sure enough, they have plug ins, sprays and candles in several different scents. The product design for all of them is very nice.

Being a Method Fanatic, I went to Target and got the room spray and plug in pill in grapefruit + pear. The spray is great... but I find myself constantly checking to see if I can smell the pill... it didn't work right away so now I am suspicious of it. I ask Aaron all the time "Do you smell anything?"

A highlight of traveling in Canada was when we stopped at a rest station and I found a Winnie the Pooh machine. Every once in awhile I will find one of these gumball machines that have little Pooh figures dressed up in rubbery animal costumes. They are tiny little nothings, but I think they are cute, and I crack myself up when I say things like "Look! I have a Bunny Pooh!"... " Do you like Skunk Pooh?"... "Hold this Panda Pooh"... bah-hah-hah!