I just discovered RFD-TV. For those of you with DISH Network, tune to channel 9409.

RFD-TV is awesome.

Last night, David and I watched Training Mules and Donkeys. David was trying not to watch, but he did, and I think he secretly liked it.

For those of us in the know, mules and donkeys are also known as longears.

But the best part was the commercials for videos about training your donkey. At the end of each commercial, there were hilarious crude Photoshop-esque scenes of longears skydiving out of planes or jumping on a trampoline. I will find a way to share with you. Watch for updates.

Also this week, we watched Campfire Cafe, where biscuits and gravy were prepared in dutch ovens over coals by a rustic prospector-type.

Yet to be seen: Machinery of the Past, Talkin' Tractors, and the Big Joe Polka Show.

Stay tuned!

Have you noticed how many new scent products are on the market these days?

There's a whole industry full of products to make our homes smell good, our cars reek of sunshine, and our toilets bloom with pleasant thoughts.

I like the commercial where the little dog stands next to the plug-in air freshener with a little paper fan tied to his wagging tail. Apparently the man has done something smelly, so the dog, his partner in crime, helps out by fanning the air freshener about the vicinity.

So anyway, we have the smelly candles, the smelly little warm things that plug into outlets, the smelly little outlet fans, the spray-on Frebreze for fabrics, and now...

Drum roll please!

The Febreze Scent Stories Compact Smelly Disc Player!

This thing plays a little "scent story" of five or seven different smells, from what I can tell. It actually looks like a portable CD player!

What kind of "scent story" can you imagine? Think of something with seven scents, or however many, that make a story. Think, say, Making Chili! We can number the scents for clarity.
1. Chopping onions
2. Cooking garlic
3. Meat browning
4. Simmering pot of food
5. Chili burp
6. Dish soap
7. Passing gas

Now there is a scent story that I can follow!

How many can you come up with? How about Going Barhopping!
1. Herbal shampoo and conditioner
2. Perfume
3. Stale cigarettes
4. Margaritas
5. Plate of nachos
6. Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast
7. Throw up

Here's one: Corporate America!
1. Irish Spring
2. Car exhaust
3. Burned, overpriced Starbucks coffee ('taint the quality, its the name, after all)
4. Sickly sweet donuts
5. Supervisor's behind
6. Ass McNuggets
7. Midnight oil

There are a million more scent stories out there. Imagine your own!

William is one half of our guinea pig population, and is "alpha" pig.

Tuesday, I noticed that William was missing some fur from his right ear, and that the ear was a little "ashy". So, bath night it was. The ear condition was still there so a call to the vet netted us an appointment the next morning.

At the vet, William got a good inspection. All was well under the hood, and I have to say he took it like a man-rodent. And then, the bad news...

The vet says Fat Boy needs to go on a diet. So, David has revoked the unlimited food policy and the treats have dwindled.

Boy, is William crabby. He lays around looking dejected and depressed. William snaps at Andy, and at times even starts fights with him. We've had to put William in "solitary" for short spells to save Andy from the hot temper.

I hope I don't act like that when I go on my new diet! Watch out everyone!

From Jack Handy:

Whenever I hear the sparrow chirping, watch the woodpecker chirp, catch a chirping trout, or listen to the sad howl of the chirp rat, I think: Oh boy! I'm going insane again.

As the evening sun faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.

If your kid makes one of those little homemade guitars out of a cigar box and rubber bands, don't let him just play it once or twice and then throw it away. Make him practice on it, every day, for about three hours a day. Later, he'll thank you.

I had a weird dream the other night.

I was at work (which is weird since I don't have a job), and I was drinking water from a purified water-type dispenser in the breakroom.

A short time later, I went to the lunchroom to find the lunchroom employees shutting off the water system to the entire water purification system.

Seems it was contaminated by trout.

So damn, now I have a trout infection, and you know how hard those are to get rid of.

I took a lot of pictures of these cookies, to submit to the recipe site, Allrecipes.

I thought, how would they look the most appetizing?

I laid them out on an Indian-themed tablecloth with beads and cheerful colors.

I laid them out on a dark colored scarf.

They looked the best, though, on plain white hors d'ouerve plates.

Cookies rock! Allrecipes published my photo!

Those little white plates are the ultimate cookie little black dress.

The other night, David and I were out for our evening walk.

Our neighbornood consists of three streets, laid out a lot like a saguaro cactus.

On the eastern-most cactus limb, we came across a fast-walking cat.

Mrow, mrow, mrow, it said, as it walked very briskly.

David reached down to pet it. "Is it in heat?", I asked?

He replied that he didn't think so.

The cat proceeded to change direction and walk with us. Not only that, but it proceeded to walk in front of us and throw itself down in front of David's feet. ...Over and over and over again...

I will tell you without exaggeration that the cat walked with us for 1.2 miles, throwing itself in front of us all the way. It also said, "Mrow" the entire way.

I love kitties, but this cat was flat out annoying.

To be mean, David trapped it and we fed it some tuna.

It parked itself in the wheelwell of my car.

David has another tacky gift exchange at his office this year.

Every time I hear about a tacky gift exchange, I think of Scott B. down in Houston and how he didn't quite "get it".

I thought we laid out the ground rules quite well. But, Scott brought a nicely wrapped set of Christmas dinnerware, and he ended up with an inflatable "love sheep". He was really mad!

I told David I would come up with a tacky item for his get together, and when I saw Fishy Cat, I knew it was the right thing.

I found Fishy Cat at the yucky neighborhood WalMart, and to tell you the truth, I was a little embarassed. He is kinda cute if you look past the fish in his crotch.

I put him on the conveyor at the checkout and the cashier started to MEW as he rang up my purchases. That wasn't a great sign.

I will tell you that normally, I don't break things, but the very minute I walked into the parking lot, Fishy Cat broke free of his plastic bag and rolled away.

His ears broke off.

It was tacky gift exchange revenge. I'm serious. I never break anything.

When I went back in, I planned to pay for another Fishy Cat but the cashier wasn't having it. He called it an "even exchange", even though I told him, "I broke off his ears!"

I did a little online poll about what should go in Fishy Cat. The overwhelming response was that Fishy Cat was a panty jar. I recommended some Swedish fish or some tuna and sardines.

David recommended some homemade cookies with sardine head decor.

What ended up inside Fishy Cat was a package of WalMart lemon cookies.

Let me say it: Anticlimactic.

Just so you know, it has been over a week since our DSL was disconnected.

David and I have both been through the gamut of emotions, but the one that most often surfaces is the emotion of violence. Yessirree.

I am willing to share the whole story, if you are interested.

Way back in August, we changed our number to a metro number. This means that people in the civilized world can call us for cheap and we can call them for cheap. At that time, I said to Sonofa Bitch Corporation, in about five different languages, "Please make sure that our DSL is not disconnected".

"Hey, if our DSL stands the slightest chance of being disconnected, we don't want to change our number."

"The only thing that matters in the whole wide world is that our DSL isn't disconnected".

"My husband will divorce me if our DSL is disconnected."

Well, guess what? Our DSL was disconnected.

What happened is that they disconnected our DSL. When they changed the number, they didn't transfer the DSL account so after a while of not being paid for it, they cut us off.

Of course, we didn't know that we weren't paying for it. We pay all our bills on line, and we get all the bills charged to our Discover for the Cashback Bonus Award.

They could have been charging us $500 a month for the DSL and we wouldn't have known.

They were kind enough to send us a card stating that they would be disconnecting our DSL, but that was the week after they cut it off. Yay! How timely.

I'm very tired of the whole dial-up thing. I have a brand new fast computer with all the latest software on it, and it is collecting dust. We are using an old notebook computer because it is the only computer we have with a modem.

I've tried everything to get the DSL turned back on. It took a week for them to even undo the damage from the phone number change. I think we will be back up on Monday but I will not hold my breath. I've told them every story that I can think of to expedite our order, short of that we receive vital medications via our DSL connection.

They even tried to tell me that DSL isn't available in our area. Hello! Yes it is, because we had it here until a week ago Sunday just fine. Gaaa!

Anyway, I'm just glad we don't have any puppies to kick in our frustration over this slowness.

Please don't tell David, but every year I contemplate (for only the briefest moment) commiting the social faux pas of sending the Christmas form letter.

This thought usually crosses my mind when I am walking through the stationery department in Target, where they sell that adorable holiday laser paper adorned with all sorts of cutesy Boynton-esque artwork.

If you actually do this sort of thing, please rest assured that I actually read your xeroxed newsletters, but you have to admit that you surely don't actually expect the majoity of the recipients of these communications to feel a real connection to you and yours.

It is really hard to write a good, honest communication to so many recipients of varying levels of intimacy. For that reason, the standard Christmas form letter mass mailing tends to be a load of generic hooey. Adding a script-type font, contrary to popular belief, doesn't add any credibility.

Instead of the usual boasting and happy drivel that includes a complete description of your new $75,000 vehicle and how Junior has made the honor roll yet again, imagine how much more interesting such letters would be if we weren't so concerned with holiday happy talk:

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Holidays!

As usual, we haven't bothered to call you once this year, but here is our annual Christmas mass mailing.

You probably don't really care about what has been going on with us, maybe you don't even remember who we are, but it makes us feel like we have done our part to maintain our friendship with you by sending this letter to you and 75 other people just like you.

It has been another banner year in Brennerworld.

LD has managed to avoid getting suspended this year. We are really proud of her! The beatings are down to a minimum and the neighbors only called CPS on us twice this year. I guess the last time she beat us and got caught, she really learned her lesson! Her probation officer says that she's doing much better than any of his other cases, and that she probably won't be doing any jail time if she keeps up the good work.

David is doing well as always. He's been a little less wrapped up with that Landmark cult, and he's drinking less often too. Call it a record, or maybe a minor miracle, but he hasn't hit me even once this year. We had a little shoving incident, but I can't say that I blame him. At least the police weren't out here again like a year ago last Valentine's Day.

I'm doing great too. I'm in a second twelve-step program now, so those meetings take up a good amount of time. It does keep me off the street though. The latest word is that my eye socket will be as good as new and that we will still be eligible for insurance after a brief waiting period.

Other than that, we've been doing the usual: living well beyond our means, but putting up a good facade. As I write this, our mortgage is three months behind, but at least we have decent cars and a new gas meter so the neighbors can still be envious of us.

Hope your holidays are jolly and that you have a wonderful new year!

The Brenners