Wordless Wednesday -- could be from Arkansas...

This entry is part of the Wordless Wednesday wackiness. Click that link to see the other entries or submit something of your own.

White lights or something more colorful?

Being from the South, I sometimes find it hard to talk about Christmas lights.

Why? Well, talking about “colored lights” here in the South just sounds somehow wrong, doesn’t it? Brings up memories of the rants that Ku Klux Klan member in town used to engage in from time to time. Ugh. Distasteful.

At any rate, I’ve noticed that a lot of folks around here are going for white lights this year. White lights all over their trees, outdoor decorations and everything else.

We’re more confused around my house, really. We’ve got two Christmas trees here that have all white lights while our largest one – the centerpiece of the entire living room – is brimming with red, blue, orange, green and even pink lights. The lights on our roof are of the multi-colored type (and they’re of the beautiful, ceramic 1970s era, too). We’ve got a wireframe, animated grazing deer in the yard that covered with white lights and three miniature trees that are very colorful flank it.

So, we rather like both that stark white color scheme and something with a bit more whimsical zing to it. The only thing I hate are those horrible flashing things on which half of a tree just goes dark all the sudden. Yuck. The lights here have to be solid – no horrendous and confusing flashing here.

What’s the point to all this rambling? I’m curious – is everyone out there using colorful or all white lights this year? A mixture of the two? Yes, Christmas decorations fascinate me…

Tell me Thursday – hearing aid

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my nephew, Willie, wielding a decorative paddle that his parents own.

What’s it all about? I’ll explain it all for Tell Me Thursday.

My wife snapped that photo of 16-year-old Willie and it pretty well sums up the lad. He’s a hoot, that one, and just tends to do stuff like that, you know?

I’m actually a bit envious of young Willie. He seems to be making plans to head off to the Coast Guard Academy after high school and is obsessed with one day owning a classic muscle car from the 1960s. I hope he succeeds on both counts. He’s at an age that’s perfect for coming up with obtainable goals and figuring out how to achieve them.

My wife took that photo last week when we were visiting her family in northwest Arkansas for Thanksgiving. It turns out that’s about her favorite holiday as she has a large family and they all get together for Thanksgiving. There are no gifts to buy, no real pressure and we all set a day aside to catch up with each other. Fun stuff.

I prefer Christmas to Thanksgiving, but I do see Marci’s point. Christmas is expensive and requires a ton of work – shopping, putting up decorations and everything else. Fortunately, my wife generally shops through the year for gifts and trimmed down our list further by hitting the “black Friday” sales after Thanksgiving. So we can just sit back, relax and enjoy the season (I’ll get my shopping done for her this weekend, but that’s not big deal – I know what I’m getting her and know which stores to visit, so it shouldn’t take long).

I wonder if that “hearing aid” paddle is something that will be passed down from generation to generation…

Wordless Wednesday -- hearing aid

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday fun.

Music Monday -- A Flock of Seagulls

An almost perfect pop single. Man, I do miss the 1980s...

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The Hummer is back?

During our Thanksgiving break in scenic northwest Arkansas, I noticed something odd going on up there -- a lot of ads for the Hummer.

"The Hummer is back," declared an ad from some car lot in the part of the world as some announcer spoke excitedly about the virtues of owning one of those nasty things.

Wait a minute. I thought the Hummer had become as outdated as the pet rock and the AMC Gremlin. I figured the Hummer had one foot in the grave and the brand's vehicles had been relegated to used car lots around the country.

Here in Benton, Ark., the Hummer lot in town is little more than a parking lot for econo-boxes offered up by Chevrolet.

The Hummer is back? The symbol of everything that was wrong with the U.S. auto industry is making a comeback? People feel confident enough in the economy to blow thousands on vehicles that burn gas like it's still $1 a gallon? Really?

I'm not sure if that's true or not, but here's the truly ironic thing -- GM is in the process of selling Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, a Chinese company (of course).

Actually, that makes sense. China is in the process of buying everything else (and holds more U.S. government debt than will ever be repaid in my lifetime (if at all)), so why shouldn't it own Hummer, too?

The Christmas season kicks off in earnest at Casa de Hawg

Go ahead and take a close look at that photo.

Well, it's not a very good photo. Take a look at it anyway. And I know there's a gap in the string of lights on the roof -- a bulb went out and I've replaced it. So there.

Anyway, that's my 13-year-old son and me celebrating our hard work.

"Look! Look what the men have done," we're boasting. "We've hung up Christmas lights."

That's right -- The Boy and I strung up 125 lights around about half of our roof. We've hung up those mini-light, blue icicle things for the past couple of years but went with those big, ceramic colored bulbs this time. I think we'll stick with the big lights.

Ah, yeah! C-9 bulbs all the way. It's like Christmas in 1975 with all those huge, bright bulbs on our house. It took us a couple of hours but The Boy and I did the hustle and got it done.

Yeah, let the games begin. We love Christmas around here and my wife goes absolutely crazy right after Thanksgiving. We've got three Christmas trees in our house (two in the living room and one in the dining room), a lighted garland for the fireplace mantle, a four-piece ceramic tree that my wife painted, a slew of Christmas candles, a train running around the base of one of the trees and assorted odds and ends. All we're missing, really, is some of those animated yard decorations and a lighted runway for Santa on the roof.

Some people might claim Christmas has become too commercial, but I say phooey on that. In my house, we view setting aside a day to recognize Christ's birth as something to celebrate with gusto. If Christians can't be joyful, then what's the point?

Besides, most of the shopping is done so we can relax, look at our decorations and enjoy the season.

Those Black Friday folks are crazy

Let me start off by saying that not all of those Black Friday fans are nuts.

In fact, my wife gets up bright and early every Friday after Thanksgiving and hits the stores. And who can blame her? Some of the prices are incredibly low and everyone wants to save money, right?

No, the Black Friday shoppers I'm talking about are of a special breed. A crazy breed. A perhaps dangerously insane breed.

Who are the insane Black Friday shoppers? I saw a report on the news the other night about people who started camping out in store parking lots on Tuesday. That's right -- Tuesday.

So, some people went and missed out on Thanksgiving entirely so they could sit in a parking lot and save a few bucks when all hell broke loose on Friday morning. What would drive someone to do that? I honestly don't know. Well, perhaps I do know -- it's insanity that drives some people to such lengths.

My wife, I think, did it the right way. She enjoyed Thanksgiving and made a list of items she wanted in advance. She got up at around 3:30 a.m. (far too early for me, I'm afraid) and hit the stores. While she didn't camp out overnight, she did manage to grab everything she wanted except for one item -- a new HDTV set for our bedroom.

That's not a bad deal. She got to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and will have to make do with the 20" tube television set in our bedroom until we get around to replacing it. Meanwhile, our Christmas shopping is now all but finished. Not a bad day's work.

By the way, we spent the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. The news outlets were all covering Black Friday shopping. My brother-in-law was out with the Black Friday shoppers and he got interviewed by two different television stations. My mother in law recorded the broadcasts on her DVR and, sure enough, he was all over television today.

How cool is that?

Cornpone and Mud Flap revisited (Tell Me Thursday submission)

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my two nieces.

Yes, Cornpone and Mud Flap (nicknames made up at random by me) are 13-month-old twins. Thanks to the inspired folks over at Tell Me Thursday, I feel compelled to mention a little bit about my nieces.

My family and I are spending the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. Young Cornpone and Mud Flap (yes, I'm sticking with those nicknames because I think they're funny) are the daughters of my wife's youngest sister. My sister-in-law and her husband have five children to raise and, as such, they have my sympathy.

While my sister-in-law was at work the other day, my wife, mother-in-law and I got to take care of Cornpone and Mud Flap. It seems they like their Uncle The Hawg, but it is obvious to me that Mud Flap likes me better than her sister does. Regardless, they're fun kids.

Now, we took the twins to the store the other day. My mother-in-law was carrying Mud Flap while I was toting Cornpone. A clerk came up and made a big fuss over Cornpone and got to the point where she asked the question I dreaded -- "What is her name?"

"I'm not really sure," I replied.

The clerk just looked at me.

"Look, they're twins," I explained. "I'm just the uncle. I can't really tell them apart yet, you know?"

She gave me a look that said "you're terrible" all over it. Fine with me. I'll learn to tell them apart one day, I'm sure.

Still, we had a good time with young Cornpone and Mud Flap. It'll be a hoot when they're young enough to come stay with my wife and me down in central Arkansas one of these days. We can spoil the heck out of them and send them back home to their parents so they can raise five kinds of hell.

We've had that happen to us enough when our kids stay in northwest Arkansas for awhile. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Wordless Wednesday -- Cornpone and Mud Flap

Check out the other Wordless Wednesday participant or submit something of your own by clicking here.

Against all logic, health care debate advances

After a drama-filled week, the Democrats bought enough votes (60) to move the health care debate forward.

The final holdout was our own Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) Another holdout -- Sen. Mary Landrieu -- sold her vote for hard, cold cash. It doesn't appear that Lincoln got a thing for voting to move the bill into the debate state.

That's too bad. Landrieu can at least claim she sold out in exchange for $100 million (at least) in federal dollars for her district. Lincoln is left saying she voted to debate a bill she's against so that the Senate can have the opportunity to change it and stuff. Or something like that. She could have at least held out for a few bucks for Arkansas, a cool car or something else of value.

The concern here, of course, is that the latest Rasmussen poll shows that only 38 percent of the country supports the current bill. The bill has already passed the House in spite of the fact an awful lot of congressmen have claimed they are against it and wouldn't vote for final passage if the bill is similar to the one they voted to pass.

Work your way through that logic if you dare. Meanwhile, senators like Lincoln are currently using similar logic, meaning that it's not altogether impossible to suspect the very senators and representatives claiming to oppose this thing will eventually pass it.

It's worth pointing out that the Landrieu example stands as evidence that votes are totally for sale on this bill and proponents of the bill are more than happy to buy them. We saw the same thing with that dreadful bankruptcy reform a few years ago (the credit card industry spent millions buying votes for that piece of slop) and that does appear to be the way business is done these days (just ask General Motors). Shameful. These folks can be bought and it doesn't matter one whit what the people who elected them want.

How did our Arkansas congressional delegation fare? Not surprisingly, that mustache-mumbling Rep. Vic Snyder (D-2nd Dist.) voted to pass the bill in Congress. Rep. Marion Berry (D-1st Dist.) somewhat surprisingly followed suit. Rep. John Boozman (R-4th Dist.) voted "no" as did Rep. Mike Ross (D-3rd Dist.)

In the Senate, Sen. Mark Pryor joined Lincoln in voting to move the bill to debate. That's no surprise, really -- Pryor would vote for legislation authorizing nun beating if the Democrat leadership told him it was a good idea. Rumor has it the man had an original thought 30 years ago and decided he didn't much like it.

It appears there may be some merit to what the Republicans opposing this bill said -- voting to move it to debate is really a vote to pass the bill. These folks are for sale, seem to disregard what their constituents want and are amazingly prone to pressure from leadership. The American public might not want this bill but, by God, we may get it. How's that for representative government?

Music Monday – the Pretenders

Great song from a great band…

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Great commercials of 2009

The other day I posted something commercials that have made me sick or angry this year.

A friend of mine, Jay the Newspaper Guy, read that and suggested that I post something about commercials that I actually liked.

That was a good idea. Most commercials either suck or just plain don’t interest me. There are some, however, that cause me to pause and watch instead of simply skipping over them with my DVR.

That’s the hallmark of a good commercial, isn’t it? I mean, if you can get someone to actually sit down and watch the thing, then you’re more likely to sell whatever junk you’re trying to unload on the public.

So, Jay the Newspaper Guy, these are for you:

1. Miller High Life crusades for common sense. The Miller delivery guy has been depriving the snooty of his beer for a couple of years now. He made his way to the Kentucky Derby in this ad. Great stuff.

2. Castrol Edge reminds you to "think with your dipstick, Jimmy." What’s not to love here? A deranged fellow runs around beating on people with a dipstick. Once you stop asking yourself just what the hell is going on here, you’ll laugh yourself silly.

3. Sonic -- my little tater tot. Raise your hand if you’re married, male and have said something stupid that got you into a lot of trouble. I sure have and that makes this commercial all the funnier – better that cat than me, right?

4. Apple makes fun of Windows 7. Microsoft advises an upgrade? That’s just fine – why not upgrade to a Macintosh? Laffs aplenty…

5. Verizon takes a swipe at Apple. I’ve talked to a number of people who have iPhones who are irate about the limited 3G coverage. Verizon capitalizes on this and beats up on Apple like Apple beats up on Microsoft. Isn’t competition wonderful?

‘They drop turkeys out of airplanes? Really?’

It’s odd how you can live in a state for all your life and be completely ignorant about some of the more colorful history in the region.

Such is the case with me and the Yellville Turkey Trot that’s been going on since 1946. Every year that particular Arkansas town celebrates it’s abundant wild turkey population by holding the Turkey Trot festival on the second Friday and Saturday in October.

The biggest – and least talked about – aspect of the Turkey Trot is the unofficial Turkey Drop. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

This evening I was talking to my wife about various Thanksgiving/Christmas things when I mentioned that famed episode on WKRP in Cincinnati in which doomed turkeys were hurled out of airplanes. It seems turkeys don’t fly all that well and splattered on the ground, much to the horror of gathered Thanksgiving celebrators.

“That’s based on a real event, you know,” my wife said. “That started in Yellville.”

“No it’s not,” I protested. “Throwing turkeys out of an airplane would be insane.”

I continued to claim that my wife was pulling my leg, so she dug up this story for me. It seems people started tossing wild turkeys of the courthouse roof in Yellville early on and then started dropping the poor things out of low-flying planes in the 1960s. That practice continued until national attention was brought to it by the aforementioned WKRP episode, a story in the National Enquirer and pressure from groups against animal cruelty.

The city got away from the annual “Turkey Drop” around 1990 but, evidently, the practice still continues unofficially. I’ll have to go see that one day. Apparently, some turkeys still fall to their deaths while others survive and either run into the woods or get chased all over town.

Strange, strange, strange.

Take that, peladophobiacs!

Dave the Tech Guy gave me some great news while we were at work the other day – there are people in this world who fear bald people.

Yeah. That’s right. Bald people. Click here if you don’t believe me.

That fear of bald people is called peladophobia and, apparently, those afflicted with it can suffer from “breathlessness, dizziness, excessive sweating, nausea, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack.”

And it seems that peladophobia is fairly widespread. As a man who is going bald I couldn’t be happier.

Why? Because the whole thing is just plain funny. Yes, the very notion that my balding head could cause people heart palpitations, filling them with the fear of dying, etc. seems both ridiculous and fair.

Fair? Yes, fair. Going bald is downright annoying and distinctly unfair. Those cocky folks with healthy hairlines are uppity and they deserve getting a heart palpitation or two when they run across some of us who aren’t so blessed.

Peladophobia, then, is just nature’s way of letting some of us get even. We balding men have power and it’s high time we stepped up to the plate and used it.

By the way, is a peladophobiac goes bald, is he scared of himself? I wonder…

Commercials that have made me sick or angry this year

Yes, I’m a confirmed television junkie.

One of the greatest inventions on the planet is the DVR. There’s nothing like a big hard drive built into a digital receiver that allows you to record shows in advance and skip through commercials (or pause a live show long enough so that you can skip away as necessary).

Still, I wind up seeing commercials a heck of a lot more than I like. Some of them have annoyed the hell out of me and the following is a list – in no particular order – of ones that have made me furious or slightly ill this year. I should mention that no political ads were used as they are universally terrible and – remarkably – often contain more filthy lies than what the corporate flim-flam artists dish out in their putrid commercials. Picking on a political ad is just too easy.

1. Chevrolet Silverado vs. Toyota Tundra. What do you do after your company has been bailed out by the federal government because it was so poorly run? Why, hire Howie Long to make fun of people who didn’t buy your company’s products, of course.

A perfect response from Toyota would have been a commercial in which a GM stockholder is ridiculed because he got scammed for millions by a company that was run into ground by short-sighted goons that are skimming by on horribly designed vehicles and billions of federal dollars. Toyota, however, may be too classy for such a move. I doubt that company views GM as serious competition these days, anyway.

I should point out that GM hired Long to make another commercial in which he made fun of a Ford F-150 owner. That’s particularly amusing when you consider that Ford has kicked the hell out of Chevrolet in the pickup truck market for decades. Ford, in fact, is the only American auto manufacturers that has figured out how to make decent cars and turn a profit. GM needs to shut up and release some more innovative designs (that fuel-sipping, asphalt-crushing Camaro, for example) than wasting cash on commercials that are just moronic.

2. Boost Mobile – Unwronged. When this ad first aired, I literally couldn't look at it without feeling more than a bit nauseous. In fact, I still have trouble watching the thing. “Unwronged?” There’s nothing right about this commercial at all.

This “armpit hair” commercial is so sickening, in fact, that I’ll never buy anything that Boost Mobile is selling. Why anyone thought this commercial would result in any sales at all is beyond me. Everyone involved in this commercial in any shape, form or fashion deserves an ass kicking.

3. Trojan Vibrating Touch. Here’s more evidence that society has gone straight to hell. Two women discuss the virtues of the new Trojan Vibrating Touch that “everyone is talking about” at the first of the commercial and it just gets worse from there.

You’ll cringe when the dingbat on the left describes the tiny vibrator as being “so cute.” You’ll roll your eyes when the two women allude to the fact they can get an orgasm from the thing. If you don’t get more than a bit creeped out when the old bat behind the counter joins in the conversation and talks about how easy it was to order hers then you’re just depraved beyond all hope.

As if the first half of the ad wasn’t bad enough, the last part is dedicated to a bunch of testimonials from women who have bought this thing and just love the hell out of it. What in God’s name have we – as a society – done to deserve being tormented by commercials like this? Advertisers want to gripe about people skipping over commercials with DVRs? They’re lucky they don’t get boycotted by outraged viewers in response to this kind of nonsense.

Just try explaining this ad to your kids. Yeah, there’s a fun conversation.

4. Levi Johnston sells Wonderful brand pistachios. So Johnston knocks up Sarah Palin’s daughter then makes fun of the whole incident by starring in a commercial which states that he now “does it with protection.”

Heh, heh. Unwanted teen pregnancies. Now, that’s something to make light of, huh? I can’t decide who is the bigger jerk – Johnston for appearing in this commercial or the pinhead that came up with it.

Show this ad to anyone who wants a textbook definition of the word “tacky.”

5. YellaWood – the adventures of Yella Fella. The above commercial is part of an entire series of these dreadful things. Stiff acting, a fat guy acting like a rough-and-tumble cowboy, embarrassingly bad attempts at humor – this miserable series had it all.

I never heard of YellaWood until the company started tormenting me with these ads. I despise the company now for subjecting me to this trash. I can’t help but think I’m not the only one.

Damn you, Richie Rich

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m just downright wacky about television.

I’ve loved it ever since I was big enough to understand what was going on with Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo and all those Saturday morning cartoons. When I was growing up we didn’t have cable and, really, most people didn’t back in the 1970s.

Ah, and cable just made things worse. My digital satellite service increased my addiction to television because I could waste my time on even more channels.

Yes, television is good and I’ll fight any man who disagrees with me. Still, there are time when TV just annoys the hell out of me.

One of those times was this evening when I was watching TV with my wife. Since we were watching “live,” I couldn’t skip forward through commercials and that was a bad thing. We saw this commercial about that Richie Rich movie starring Macaulay Culkin and I realized just how much I despise Richie Rich. I detest Richie Rich even more than Count Chocula, in fact, and that’s saying something.

I’ve never liked that Richie Rich bastard a bit, really, and never understood why that character got as popular as he did. He’s been around since 1957 – first in comics, then on an animated Saturday morning cartoon in the 1980s and then in the aforementioned movie.

In the Harvey comics he was tagged as “the poor little rich boy.” They should have used some other slogan -- “serving up class envy since 1957” or “things rich kids have that you never will.”

The whole series, see, is based around this kid who has more cash at his disposal than, say, Canada. He lives in Richville and his father owns Rich Industries. Hell, the little brat has a dog named Dollar, for God's sake. The whole thing plays out like a version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (another franchise which was inexplicably popular for awhile) for kids.

The series has always struck me as odd for a couple of reasons – it appears to be fueled by an unhealthy fascination with wealth and suggests more than a few times that your problems will be solved if someone with money shows up and helps you out of them. Richie Rich, indeed, spends a lot of time (and money) doing good deeds and appears to be popular in town because of just that.

The message that sends kids, seemingly, is pretty toxic. It appears you can’t accomplish much of anything without a pile of cash. If you don’t have one of your own, then perhaps a wealthy neighbor will let you have some of his and your problems will be solved.

I’d like my kids to be more self reliant than that, I think.

Music Monday - Haunted

One of the best purchases I’ve made in some time is the Behringer Guitar Link.

Why? I can plug my guitar and bass into that little device, run it through the USB port on my computer and record and mix tracks all day long. As I’ve mentioned a time or two, I have decided to use free software to record my stuff. I do rather suck at guitar, after all, so why spend a lot of money on amp models and the like when I can find what I need for free?

Of course, when I say free, I’m not talking about pirated or anything like that. Click one of those links up there to find out about some of the open source stuff I’ve found.

I have an obnoxious tendency to post something here whenever I do find a cool, free thing I can use for recording. An application I downloaded the other day is the HammerHead Rhythm Station.

That’s an easy to use drum machine that sounds pretty good when you install the acoustic samples (you’ll find more details at the above link). Want to hear it in action? Just click the “play” button on the DivShare thingie above to hear something I wrote that would sound even worse without the HammerHead drum machine and a set of acoustic drums samples.

All I had to do was program in my beat, stream it as a WAV file to my computer, loop it through Audacity, load it into my Kristal Audio Engine mixer and record two guitar tracks and a bass track around it.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.





PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

craigalytics – an Arkansas invention

The director of technology at my office is this cat named Dave.

Now, Dave the Tech Guy will come up with some dandy stuff from time to time. His most recent invention is called craigalytics (note the groovy lack of capital letters) and you can find it at craigscounter.com. And this craigalytics stuff is available for The Hawg’s favorite price – absolutely free.

So, what is craigalytics and what’s so great about it? Simply put, it provides analytic data for ads on craigslist.com. If you want to see how well your craigslist ad is doing by seeing how many hits it gets, where in the world they are coming from and what times people are looking at it, craigalytics will provide all of that.

What do you have to do to use craigalytics? Just enter your craigslist ad, visit craigslist.com, set up your campaign and insert the generated HTML code into your site. It’s that easy. Oh, and Dave tells me he's added Facebook integration, too, so that happy craigalytics users can share their craigslist ads with their friends.

And, no, I don’t get a dime for posting this about craigalytics (believe me, Dave can’t afford an advertising campaign as he mostly views his invention as something cool that people might like). Hey, this is a pretty slick service developed by a fellow Arkansan who is a friend of mine. That’s worth a blog post, right?

Tell Me Thursday -- Ditto

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of a house that was heavily decorated for Christmas and showed how a smarty pants neighbor totally exploited the situation.

Frankly, I’m a bit envious of the neighbor who simply wrote “Ditto” in lights and pointed an arrow at the worker bee’s home. I almost wish I could get away with that little effort.

Ah, but my wife is completely wacky about Christmas. We’ve got three trees that we put up inside and we got a ton of new lights for the outside of our home (this big, colorful outdoor bulbs that were common when I was a kid). It takes the better part of a day to decorate around here, in fact.

Our collection grows annually. This year my wife got heavily into ceramics so we’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Claus to add to our collection and a new nativity set that looks absolutely amazing. By the way, I learned my wife doesn’t think it’s funny to suggest adding a snowman to a nativity set. Go figure.

Honestly, her obsession with Christmas decorations is a good thing. Christmas is the one time of year when you almost can’t go overboard on decorations, so why not spread a bit of cheer, right? We’ve got kids and I’m certain they’ll think fondly of our hyper-decorated house when they’re older. Hopefully they’ll follow in their mother’s footsteps when it comes to decorating when they have homes of their own.

If they take after their lazy old dad, the chances are good they’ll be like that “ditto” neighbor. That might not be bad, either.

This submission is part of the famed Tell Me Thursday event. Click the link to check out the other entries or submit something of your own.