Mr. Puppy man won’t be small for long. 8/18 was his 8 week b-day His new name is…. <drumroll, please> Porter Finnigan! My girlfriend (Theresa) likes Porter, and I know he’ll eventually be a big ‘ol beefcake, so I like the name Porter(house). Relationships are all about compromise Thanks for all of your GREAT input and ideas, Mid-MO! Once again, you all are the best listeners ever!!

All photos were taken from inside my house (ya lookie-loo’s LOL). We’ve got a couple of favorite names so far, but we need Mid-MO’s best audience EVER to give us your suggestions, please! Looking for your comments below…

See their faces and individual comments HERE. Really cool!

They gave me a still life photograph and ask me to paint it. I was also supposed to put something significant to me in the upper left-hand corner. I was joined by a handful of my fellow Columbians, who also painted the same image in their specific interpretation.

An auction of the paintings will take place at Shiloh Bar and Grill patio on Monday, May 16 at the 2011 Wine and Food Festival. Again, if you purchase any paintings, 100% of the proceeds will help to fund the Sol House. This is their largest fundraiser of the year! This event has raised a lot of very necessary funds for this outstanding organization in the past. This year, I want my painting to sell for the highest price (I’m pretty competitive, LOL)!!

Below is the the still life image we were ask to paint in acrylic, and also here is a photo of my “artistic interpretation” of it. I need to thank local, famous and incerdibly talented artist David Spear, who helped to guide us when we hit an artistic road block, or just assure us with a “that looks great!”

I don’t know if I am supposed to be unveiling this before it’s hanging in the art gallery… but I’ll ask for forgiveness later, right?! It’s all for a GREAT cause. Dig deep in those pockets!! Buy my art!! I hope to see you at the 2011 Wine & Food Festival Monday, May 16 at Shiloh Bar & Grill’s Patio!

Fo realz! Click HERE!

Click here for some great words to live by.

For more fun, check out this website (song, really). Cosmo and I have loved this song for YEARS- really since the beginning of our Radio Show!

Filling:

8 oz of cream cheese-softened

1 egg

1/3 cup of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

6 oz of chocolate chips

Combine all ingredients above EXCEPT the chocolate chips

Beat until smooth

Add chocolate chips and set aside

Batter for Cupcakes:

(If you are in a rush you can use a chocolate box cake mix and follow box directions for cupcakes)

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup of cocoa

2 cups water

2/3 vegetable oi (NOT OLIVE)

2 Tbsp vinegar

2 tsp of vanilla

Sift together all dry ingredients (you can skip this step, but cake will be heavier not as light)

Add all liquid ingredients to four mixture and mix until smooth

Fill lines paper cups in clupcake pans 2/3 of the way full

Top with a heaping teaspoon full of filling

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes

These are wonderful plain, but they are especially good with chocolate frosting. I use a good can frosting like Pillsbury or Betty Crocker

If you are a chocoholic, these are to die for!

I had psyched myself up. I was ready to do battle. I nuked it 3x with Hornet-killing foam. It was not fazed and actually taunted me. I called my Dad, who said if it is that big, I need to capture and identify it, so I know what had set-up it’s Arachnid version of Frontierville in my house. Neighbor Ninja met me in my back yard (I was too afraid to go back inside the house and unlock the front door). He captured it and trapped it for your viewing pleasure. Those are his hands holding it up in the photos. You don’t think *I* would seriously hold that thing, do you?!
Any guess on the kind of spider it is? Is it dangerous, or just homely? Any suggestions for a name?

The Beer bread is one of the most simple recipes I have ever seen – but I got SEVERAL compliments on it! The chili was super-good, too, but a little more involved.

Click here for the Beer Chili.

Click here for the Beer Bread.

Listen here!

For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”

4. Al Gore has always been animated.

5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.

6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High.

7. “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been street corner lingo.

8. With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.

9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

10. A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.

11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.

18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

22. Cross-burning has always been deemed protected speech.

23. Leasing has always allowed the folks to upgrade their tastes in cars.

24. “Cop Killer” by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.

25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.

26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

30. “Viewer Discretion” has always been an available warning on TV shows.

31. The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always been an alternative to hospitals.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

37. Whatever their parents may have thought about the year they were born, Queen Elizabeth declared it an “Annus Horribilis.”

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.

40. There have always been HIV positive athletes in the Olympics.

41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict.

43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.

45. They have always had a chance to do community service with local and federal programs to earn money for college.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

47. Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.

48. Someone has always gotten married in space.

49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States.

50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.

51.  Food has always been irradiated.

52. There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.

53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he?

54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy.

55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.

57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife.

58. Beethoven has always been a dog.

59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.

60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.

61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.

62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.

69. The Post Office has always been going broke.

70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.

71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

72. One way or another, “It’s the economy, stupid” and always has been.

73. Silicone-gel breast implants have always been regulated.

74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.

75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.