Happy Election Day!

OK-- Today is catch-up day for Puddleglum. I am WAY behind.

First things first, today is Election Day in the United States! Hooray for freedom and choice! With there being a possibility of the first African-American person as president of the USA, perhaps this will open the door to give us canines the vote. "Sufferage and sweet potatoes!" will be our slogan. We will promise to give every canine citizen 40 bones and a stuffie. Bark the vote!

But seriously, if you can vote, you should. Or stop complaining about anything. At least, that's what I think.

Now that that's out of the way, it is time to cover a couple of contest results I have been remiss on. First of all, there is the Pug Lover's Rescue banner voting, which ended October 31st. I did not win, but I was first runner-up! Yay for me! Even better, my good friend Clementine won in a tie! Yay for her! Everyone congratulate her. Even better yet, there was a bunch of money raised for rescued pugs. Never can have too much of that!

The second contest I was in was the Project Dogway 08 sweepstakes. I was very surprised and happy to discover that I was one of the three finalists! Now I have to get cracking on my final entry, due this Friday (yipes!). Since Clementine was judging the entries, and I spent a pretty penny on delicious canned food and bones and stuffies to send to her as br--- Ummm... I might have said too much. Moving on.

Hooray for me! OK, now moving on.

I won an award for participating in that prestigious contest!


And from Harry Pugalicious:


This lovely award is created by Crystal @ Memoirs of a Mommy in honor of Noah and the donor of his sweet little heart who ENCOURAGES us to SHARE THE LOVE ! Thanks Crystal! [Click on Memoirs of a Mommy to learn and read this special love story!] The rules for this award are to pass it along to some people whose blogs you love. They make you laugh, smile, leave encouraging comments on your blog. You would like to share some love with them because they have uplifted, inspired, encouraged or prayed for you. Please include this paragraph with the link to Memoirs of a Mommy so that everyone knows where this award originated from.

I give it to:
Pugsley the Lovely Lady Pug
Nancy and the Fatties
Pearl and Daisy
Pepe
Daisy and Oscar

Because they all are either new bloggers or are frequent commenters on my blog or have neat blogs or have not received this/other award(s) yet or live in a cool part of the world. But definitely not because everyone else is not cool enough. This giving awards thing is tricky!

Thanks to all!

And finally, I bet you were wondering how Dad's fantasy football team is doing with me as the mascot! No? Really? Not a bit of interest? Well, too bad. I'm telling you anyway. We have had a run of bad luck and are currently sitting at 4-5, despite scoring the second-most points for the season of anyone and at least partly because of having the second-most points scored against us. It's sad, but it's hardly a big deal. The good news is, there is a lot of parity in our league and we are only two games out of first place! We'll just have to suck it up and hope that Reggie Bush comes back soon! Can I hear an "Amen!" from Harry Pugalicious and his mom?

Th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks! Go vote if you can!

What Wordless Wednesday?

REMEMBER!! -- Vote for my Pug Lover's Rescue picture!

Click here for the choices

Today is Dad's birthday, so I'm not about to be wordless. HOORAY! He is 182 today! Yipes.

He and Mom opened presents this morning. I'll put up pictures of that later: WRAPPING PAPER! And yes, I did say that they both opened presents. Mom and Dad do something called "hobbit presents" where the birthday person gives one gift to the other in addition to receiving their normal gifts. They call it that because hobbits in "The Lord of the Rings" give gifts on their birthday, instead of receiving them.

Dad gets corned beef tonight, but he says he won't share any with me. Ha! That's what he thinks. Remember the power of the Glummy face? Resistance is useless. Also, they are going to Denver on Friday night to see Avenue Q at the Elie Caulkins Opera House! It's one of Mom and Dad's favorite shows, and they've never seen it live, so they decided it's more important than spending time with me. Thanks a lot, guys...


I can't blame them, though. They play the CD at home a lot, and even I think it's pretty hilarious. For those of you who don't know what it is, think Sesame Street characters, with the minds and mouth of the South Park kids, all placed within the plot of Rent. OK, fine: I'm jealous. There, I said it. If only theaters weren't prejudiced against furkids, I could join them. Come on now, let's all join paws and sing: "We shall overcome/We shall overcome..."

And if that wasn't enough, on Sunday they are going to see the Broncos-Saints game at Denver! Dad has been a lifelong Bronco fan, and this is the first time he's gotten to see them in person, so he is really excited. Plus, our fantasy team has Reggie Bush and Jay Cutler both starting, so YAY! Go PugNation! I hope to see lots of this:



I think Harry Pugalicious' mom can agree with me on that one!







In other news, Jay Cutler is doing awesome for the Broncos. Of course, with muscles like he has, how could he not?


What's that, Dad? That's not Jay Cutler? Of course it is! I Googled his name on image search, and there were pages worth of this guy! Why would Google lie to me?

OK, Mr. Smarty Pants, I'll try "Jay Cutler Broncos". Don't know what difference it'll make, since it's still the same name--


What?!?! Google lied to me. I feel hurt, and taken advantage of. *sniff*

But, that seems to be par for the course for my weekend coming up. Oh well, I'll just take it out on a rawhide.

Thanks everyone for voting on my pictures-- keep them coming!

Freaky weekend

The title says it all.

So, I went to the dog park at Bear Creek for Pug Club! Dad and I were so looking forward to it, and sharing pictures with everyone, and having a great time, and then disaster struck. First, the camera's batteries died. Then, the backup batteries Dad brought did not work! I think there was a gremlin in his pocket that ate up the battery juice. Then, while there, Dad couldn't find his cell phone and figured that a dog (or shifty human) took off with it and gave it up for lost. THEN, Dad had two people ask him if I was available to stud. That's right-- two weeks after getting me a hoo-ha ectomy, after seeing me for over 4 months consecutive prior to this Saturday, they chose NOW to suggest that. A little late, there. So that bummed Dad out, so much in fact that he left a bit early, especially on top of everything else. I didn't mind, though-- it was getting a bit hot.

The good news was that later that day Dad found his cell phone under the seat of the car. It must have fallen out of his jacket. Then, I hung out with Mom while Dad went to work. While I was with her, she discovered that my nose wrinkle was accumulating a lot of gunk, so she cleaned it out. Unfortunately, one of her nails slipped and scratched me so I was bleeding a little bit. I know she didn't mean to do it, and felt really bad, but it hurt for a good little while. This is why we pugs need fingers like the humans-- so we can get into little crevices and such. Would come in REALLY handy for getting that bit of food out from under the fridge, I can tell you that.

Then on Sunday Mom and Dad left to go visit their little cousin and left me at home. I was kinda bummed about this, but I just sat in front of the TV and watched the football games. Then all kinds of wierd stuff happened! Luckily, no one from PugNation got hurt, but I think we're going to lose this week because people didn't do what they're supposed to! I bet Laurence Maroney would run a lot faster if I were nipping at his heels... Note to self: call Bill Billicheck later. Also, visit the Dawg Pound and tell Braylon Edwards to get his act together. Finally, eat lots of food and poop behind Dad's chair.

I'll leave you with some pictures left over from before the camera fritzed. I found an empty jug of milk in the recycle bin and liked the smell coming from it, so I tried to get at it. Once Dad finished laughing his head off, he took it away from me. Sad day.

Back from vacation!

I'm back! Sorry, my weekend hiatus" turned into a "weeklong hiatus". Dad took a while getting the pictures off of the camera, and then he found that some were deleted... it was fun.

But I've still got some great ones! We left on Friday and piled in the car, ready for hours of fun. Mom and Dad were pawesome and got the back seat all fancified for us. It was like a personal castle, all just for Big Brother and me!


We took turns sitting in the front seat with either Mom or Dad, whoever was not driving. I didn't like that at first. In fact, on the way up I had several "accidents" in the back seat. Oops. But there were plenty of rawhides and toys and such to keep us busy. Snoufer liked the window-- not so much me.


On Friday night we stayed in a hotel in Topeka, KS, after stopping at a late-night Wendy's for food. The guy at the drive-up had a Cockney accent-- seriously! And was REALLY rude. Mom and Dad were also rude for not giving Snoufer or I any of their food. All we got was the normal stuff. The hotel was pretty cool, though-- pet-friendly and lots of room to run around in!




Snoufer stole my stick and hid under the bed. Meanie.


When we got there, I had the time of my life playing with Mom and Dad's friend's bigdog-- SADIE!


She is a Katrina orphan that Dad's friend adopted when they were rooming together (before Mom and Dad got married). Sadie remembered Dad, alright! She wagged her tail like crazy-- not even Snoufer gets that nuts! Speaking of which, Dad says that's all the pics he has of Sadie, since she is such a hyper dog, he couldn't even get her to sit still for one picture. Trust me, he's not lying. She gave Snoufer and I both a run for our money-- all 48 pounds of her! She's a lab-something mix, but I think there's a little bit of pit bull or something like that in her, because she has small ears and a VERY muscular body. Anyway, she's a cutie!

Oh, and just to prove I wasn't there to only have fun all the time--


See? We did some work as well! Dad wants me to put in here that if anyone is reading this who plays Fantasy Football and looks closely at the draft board, don't worry-- our league is different than most people's, in that we start two quarterbacks and give them LOTS of points, so that's why they always go first.

Speaking of which, one of the guys on my team did pretty well last night! Woohoo! Go Brandon Jacobs! Go PugNation!

After the draft, everyone was pooped, so we crashed at my human grandpa's house. That was pawesome to see him as well! I wowed him with my super-cuteness.


Then came the big, long ride home for 14 road hours straight through from Illinois to Colorado. Strangely enough, I didn't have one single accident the whole way. Maybe this had something to do with it...



LOTS of sleeping on the way back. Except for when Mom got pulled over by police in Kansas for speeding-- TWICE. And she has never gotten pulled over before, at all! Thankfully, she only got one ticket, but Snoufer and I made sure that we barked like crazy at the cops when they came up to Mom's window. We sensed she was in distress-- what else could we do?!

What a week! I had a great time. Now, I will leave you with what I think is just the cutest picture ever taken by anyone, ever.


See? What'd I tell you?

Fantasy Football Friday! (and weekend hiatus)

Hello!

I wanted to let everyone know first of all that yesterday I got my checkup at the V-E-T-apostrophe-S and all is well with me, my stomach, and my surgery area. I have been cleared to travel, which is good, because...

I am going to Illinois with Dad and Mom to perform the auspicious office of Fantasy Football team mascot for Dad's team this year. Yes, it's kinda nerdy, and yes, it's full of testosterone (do those two even go together?), but Dad likes it, and anything that makes him happy is fine with me! He named his team PugNation, which I think is a neat little play on words acknowledgement to how I rule his life ever since I came to the house.

So, I will be gone all Labor Day weekend and will be back on Tuesday, blogging as usual! In the meantime, while I'm there I get to meet my human grandpa for the first time and hang out with my Dad's friend's bigdog Sadie. Pawesome! The only drawback: 13-15 hours in the car... one way. At least it will be broken up on the way down. Straight through on Monday on the way back? Eeek.

I promise I will pose for lots of pictures (of me-- don't worry, I won't let any pictures of beer-drinking guys sitting around a draft board creep in). Have a great weekend, everyone!

Day Four Inside the Cone

Ha! It worked! I got lots of suggestions from furiends to give the "Glummy face" and see if that got me out of the cone.

After that, it was just a matter of time until it come off.


A few licks of the hand that helps you never hurt.

I still have to put it on when I'm in the cage and when I'm sleeping, but Mom and Dad have relented and let me walk around with it on while they're home. Dad gave me some BS about not licking myself and getting infection, blah blah blah... I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention.

My NOMS furiends Samantha and Mr. Tigger got their Christmas in July package from me, and are finally able to post after sitting through some really nasty storm named Fay. I felt bad, because after some research on the feline species, I discovered that they don't like water (I sympathize). Apparently there was a lot of it down there.

I'm back to my usual self, chillin' at home, chewing on stuff I'm not supposed to:




So, when caught, I just tried that "Glummy face" tactic:


Nice tip there, guys! That one works like magic-- I got to keep the blue stick. Of course, I don't get a lot of positive modeling at home:


Mom was actually pretty happy this happened. She's been getting on Dad for a while now, saying the fact that he uses a loofa is just a bit too fluffy. Dad usually then gives her a big speech about societal expectations and reverse sexism and contradictory messages... that's when I REALLY tune out. Anyway, Mom's happy Snoufer did her a favor and killed the blue fluff-beast so she didn't have to go passive-agressive and help it "turn up missing."

I'm feeling great-- thanks for all the well-wishes! I'm taking a trip with everyone down to Illinois this weekend to visit family and help Dad out with something he calls a Fantasy Football draft. Mostly, my job is to distract the competition with my cuteness. I think I'm up to the task. We'll see if I'm up to handling something Snoufer calls "humidity." He's been to Michigan and Illinois before, and he says it's not fun. Maybe I can try the Glummy face on it...