Chickens in the News! #9

Chickens are in! Here is one strutting its stuff on the Sao Paulo fashion show runway.

Lately it's been...

...hotter than the inside of a live chicken!© And for those of you who didn't believe that this fantabulous saying would ever make it's way into the jargon of pop culture, here is verifiable proof that not only has this saying become ever-so-popular, but that it has spread out of the chicken mecca of Tucson, AZ all the way across the state line to California. That's right, if this trend was a crime, it would now be federal. My friend and co-worker from Los Angeles, California sent me this picture just this morning, as she witnessed temperatures in Pasadena at 6pm on Saturday rise exactly two degrees hotter than the inside of a live chicken!© Thanks to all those committed Chicken Diction aficionados out in the world.

Climbing wall - Part 3.

No better way to spend a Friday night than piecing together the supports for a backyard climbing wall. The only thing that might be better was the 10 o'clock showing of the mid-season finale of (warning! geek alert) Battlestar Galactica. Oh yeah. So in honor of the supreme comfort we all feel with our over abundance of love for this scifi drama that rules far too many of our conversations for anyone to think that we are even remotely normal, here are some eery-scifi-esqe-climbing-wall-at-night-pics that help to detail the progress we made last night.

Chickens have a special place in their chicken hearts for common people.

There are really no words that can express how happy I was to have stumbled upon this.

Flight of the Conchords is my new favorite show ever.

I am so not the first person to post this video from Flight of the Conchords, but I can't help it. They're that good...(oh, if any of my cousins are looking at this with their kids, I have a sneaking suspicion that you will want to provide whatever your level of censorship you desire for the rather creative lyrics.)

How did you use your extra day?

Well it's the day that mostly does not exist. At least 75% of the time. I hope you used it well and didn't squander it like all the rest of your days with so much laziness and sloth. I know I didn't. In fact I just got back from stuffing myself at my favorite local Mexican restaurant, El Minuto, with more abandon than usual simply because it was an extra, special day. And now I have updated Chicken Diction. (Whew.) All very important things. Don't you think that we should all be paid overtime for working an extra day this year? Time and a half is definitely our due, I say. Tonight I think I will cut my hair. Wow. What would I have ever done without an extra day like this. This is your day to make a difference. Don't frack it up. That's right, I'm addicted to Battlestar Galactica, and I'm not afraid to say it. And I'll use my extra day however I please.

Happy Leap Year Day from an old The Who poster!

Chickens in the News! #6

Consider this your first Public Service Announcement mixed with the News!....

Beware people in chicken mascot suits! One minute they will be protesting alongside PETA in Manila, Philippines against some horrible abuse of the International Declaration of Poultry Rights...


...and the next they will biting the heads of your children! You never know what will come over someone dressed in a giant chicken suit. Don't let this happen to you or someone you love.


This has been a message from your local Chicken Diction broadcasting network. You now may return to your regular scheduled programming.

Chickens in the News! #4

If only our choices were as fun as this...

Oh Groundhog Day...

Oh Golden Lanes oh!

Life isn't all about chickens, so we celebrated this past rainy Sunday evening as all rainy Sunday evenings should be celebrated: we went BOWLING. And we dressed up. Because if you can't bowl well, at least you can look good. And drink beer.

Tell us what your gonna do Debbie...

Freja selects a ball.

Riley "Stetson" Merline and Chris "Five-O" Lowen.

Changing bowling names is sometimes more fun than actually bowling.

We were just glad Marie made it out from the black hole of James E. Rodgers Law School.

It's hard to look this good.

Megan "I am sporty" Bartel.

Riley demonstrates his style and skills.

Rock star bowling.

Dear Golden Lanes, we'll see you again soon.

Second Annual Tacky Holiday Sweater Party

I hope that you are prepared for the best blog entry EVER. Albeit belated, I can assure you that you have never seen anything quite like this (there might be a reason for that). This is the documentation for the Second Annual Tacky Holiday Sweater Party and it is something never before seen in the world of blogging - until next year of course. So feast your eyes on the brilliance of tacky holiday sweaters...

Welcome to our fiesta!

People were very excited to be in attendance.

Behold, the tackiness!

JT and his girlfriend campaigned all night long to be voted the "Best PTA Mom and Dad" and then left before the awards were handed out, so we all booed, gave their present of a stuffed chihuahua that sings "Feliz Navidad" in a bad Mexican accent to someone else, and promptly forgot all the begging and pleading they did in order to get voted for in the first place. Then JT had the tenacity to email me and ask where their prize was. Whatever JT.

Kristin and Debbie. Debbie came in second for "Most Flair".

Uppy and Dave - how cute.

My brother would have won the prize for "most prominent sweater" if there had been a category for that. He sewed the Santa head onto his sweater and it stuck out a good six inches.

Meet Juan...

Juan "Moose Cock" Castro, that is.

Mari and Jonathan.

Wreath-on-a-sweater and Smiles-a-lot.

Lindsey and Kristin.

Claudine won a well deserved "Most Flair" for her home-made xmas tree hat.

Pam was the write in winner of the non-existent category of "Most Drool".

Joe placed a strong third in the category of "Hardest to look at".

Riley and I went head to head for first place in the coveted "Hardest to look at" category. In the end I pulled out the victory.

Guess why.

Happy tacky holidays!

Why we are doomed as a species.

So today there is an article in the New York Times about rich New Yorkers that have bought houses in the woods in Connecticut for weekend getaways, but they are scared out there when it gets dark - seriously! So they spend thousands of dollars to put in security systems, extensive outdoor motion lighting, and god knows what other foolish toys that was originally designed by the military and have now been normalized for its paranoid citizenry.

SO first of all, don't complain about the dark and coyotes and moose when you have spent a million dollars on some luxury cabin in the woods. It's the woods damnit. And the minute you take away any of those beautiful wild unregulated things, it stops being the woods. And secondly, if that is what you want, please for your sake and ours, stay at home on the 50th floor of whatever high-rise you live in, shut your silver spoon choked mouths, and buy some designer purse to put your small decorative dog and taser in while you shop for black turtlenecks and trendy glasses. Leave the wild places for the rest of us, who aren't permanently plugged into an ipod or blow dryer and relish the chaos of nature and the sounds of a world that has never been ours. Nor by the evidence of our treatment of this world, should it ever be.

Famous chickens.

Though it is hard to believe, some chickens are more popular than mine. But only for now, just you wait...

This about sums it up.

Sometimes I think the world is going to hell.

At least I don't have hyenas for pets.

There are some friends of mine who think that having chickens in my backyard is strange. Seriously. Everything from blank stares to uncomfortable pauses followed by a "wow..." that trails off into some other discussion. The number of times I get asked "what do you have chickens for?" is quite astounding considering that each person in this country consumes 250 eggs per year(two eggs every third day) and 53 pounds of chicken (that's about a drumstick a day). Regardless of the (unenlightened) crazed looks I may sometimes receive from friends and acquaintances, nothing compares to this. ↓

This family in Syria keeps hyenas as pets. Now, I once spent the night on the Serengeti in Tanzania while studying there. Me and 26 other people were camped out in a circle, only to be woken to the most devilish cry from the depths of hell I have ever heard in my short three-decade life, coming from a full-grown smiling, big-eared animal seen above. I can't imagine waking up to that on a regular basis, and if my neighbors and friends knew just how terrible that sound was, they would be overwhelmingly thanking me for my choice of backyard chickens. But from now on when I get strange looks about raising chickens for eggs, compost, and entertainment, I will say, "well at least I don't have hyenas for pets." That'll make 'em think.

This saying will surely join "it's hotter than the inside of a live chicken!" in its place as a colloquial, well-read opinion on the general state of things. I now give it to the blogging world as but a small contribution to an ever growing sea of knowledge that helps us get through our day. You're welcome world.

I'm in love with this scene...

It is no surprise to anyone that I am a helpless/hopeless romantic, but this is one of my most favorite new films (somehow Will Ferrel is endearing), and this scene and song has been stuck in my head for days. Now it will be stuck in yours. Enjoy.

Chicken aviary.

Thank you all for your many wonderful suggestions and solutions for the chicken menace that has roamed my yard freely and with impunity over that past couple months. I finally settled the matter once and for all with an enormous piece of shade cloth that has been effectively tented over the "chicken area" with posts and rope. The effect is a more shaded space that fully contains the chickens and their powerful flying ability that even allowed them to roost on the roof of my house one night. They seem content enough, though they regularly make clucking noises at me as I work around in the backyard, which is considerably more than before. Yet at least one chicken is laying eggs daily it seems and the compost is getting the attention it needs from my hens. There is one tree that I have enclosed in this "chicken aviary" and at one point it will become tall enough that a different strategy will need to be employed, but that is also part of the convenience of this solution, as I have the flexibility to easily remove it should I want to.

Anyways, here is a picture of it:

The chicken aviary also doubles as a filming location for the set of M.A.S.H.

A-huevo...

For all you nay-sayers and skeptics out there who thought my short-term love affair with chicken herding was as last year as the atkins diet and democracy, well here I am, and this time with huevos...

It has been a full summer with many technological challenges including a non-functioning camera that mysteriously healed itself like Benny Hinn himself touched it, a burned-out computer hard-drive that crashed after Tshilo touched it, and then the lack of appropriate technology to properly contain the small platoon of hens armed with their very own fertilizer IEDs. Finally, everything is back up and running, and the chickens are on indeterminate large group lock-down thanks the wonders of a petroleum based shade cloth that currently encapsulates the entirety of the fenced-in chicken area. Not only are the chickens eagerly rummaging through the compost as they were always meant to do, they have after only one week of confinement began producing eggs. That's right, all it took was some penal incarceration in order to properly exploit these hens reproductive powers for our nutritional enjoyment.

And though we already had the official "coming out" party (interpret that as you wish) for these illustrious hens of ours back in July, I would like to dedicate the following youtube video to the loss of their egg-laying virginity...

The light.

Do you think this is the light that chickens see when they die?

Cray-zee.

So good...even chickens can get down to this - so why can't the rest of our country? For more info go here.