Sunday Funnies

In Like A Lion, Out Like A Polar Bear

Ahh, March 27th. Daylight Savings time started long enough ago that we're well adjusted, it's even light at 7:00 am again... St. Patrick's day has come and gone... This year, even Easter is behind us! The first day of Spring was one whole week ago.

So Why... WHY, I ask, was this picture taken this morning in somewhere that doesn't end with "Alaska", "Colorado", or "Greenland"?

This was taken this morning in Black Diamond, maybe 20 miles southeast of Seattle. Their school is delayed by two hours today. Oh, and they have Spring Break NEXT WEEK.

I am appalled, disgusted, and ...uhhh... doubly appalled. And we darn well better get a real summer this year to make up for this nonsense.

Catching Up With Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs

Winter is behind us, Spring is (supposedly) upon us, so it's time to clear out all the pictures we took over the winter that never made it to the blog. They were supposed to, but remember, we have 4 kids, 2 cats and 5 chickens, meaning that blog updates sometimes fall to the back burner... So fasten your seatbelts, we're off!

Tyler turned double digits, and celebrated the big One-Oh with our family's tradition, brunch at the Space Needle.

Any meal at 500 feet up that ends with a steaming ice cream sundae is a good meal!

Cindy took Andy, Kaylee, Tyler and our friend Amy ice skating during Winter Break, because apparently they weren't cold enough already.

They seemed to have fun though. Or maybe they were smiling at first and then their faces froze that way?? (news flash: I hate am not a fan of ice skating)

I posted video of his free-throw skillz, but Tyler played lots of basketball games. Here he is pondering the coach's advice during a huddle...

Andy and Tyler got AirSoft pellet guns from their uncle Chuck for Christmas. Kaylee and Tyler posed with them. And all the raccoons in Fircrest are put on notice that entry into our yard can, and likely will, result in them getting yellow plastic balls embedded in their skin.

Also over the past couple months, things happened that didn't get photographically documented. We foster-parented a chicken that one of our friends found in his backyard. We had her for a week, while he built up a coop to keep her in. She was a miniature hen, and laid a few eggs during her time with us. Here is a picture of one of hers next to one of Layla's:

I never did get a picture of her, but she was cute. The daycare kids named her "Big Booty Judy". Her actual owner named her "Otis". This chicken will require therapy either way.

We also fostered a baby kitty, a very sweet little black and white female we named Aja. She just wandered into our house on a Friday afternoon and started eating our catfood, as if she had always lived there. One of the daycare kids suggested that we should call her Oreo. We rebuked that nonsense and had a great, playful day and a half with Aja. Then her owners called. And said that HIS name was Oreo. Whatever.

Well that should pretty much wrap this wrap-up up. I'll try to do more updating during Spring, and less wrap-up updating!

Sunday Funnies

click the comic for the full size version...

And The Winner Is...

First off, congratulations to the four finalists who correctly guessed...

"DOUBLE VISION" by FOREIGNER!

And a big thank you to everyone else who took a stab at it. Whether you were right or wrong, I loved reading the entries - and it's always nice to know people are reading!

We held a winner drawing ceremony tonight - watch it here:

Extra special big congratulations to Donald for not only guessing it right, but for making it past Kaylee's attempts to commandeer the TimTams for herself. We'll get your cookies in the mail ASAP - but just to help me feel better about it, you should email me your address. I'd hate to accidentally send it to your old house!

Finally, yes, there is another contest coming... It will be another musical variation on Name That Tune, only this time it won't involve deciphering an out-of-context sample from a remix. No, it's much more classic Name That Tune, and it centers around the music of the '80s. So brush up and be ready!

Contest Closed!

Well thanks to the Second Chance video I put up last week, we now have a four way tie in our little Quest for the TimTams! We’ll be drawing the winner tonight, from among these excellent musical detectives: (listed in the order they answered)

Donald Sorenson
Fenniffer Holmes
Susan Sorenson
Larisa Lowery

One of them will be the proud owner of Sticky Vanilla Toffee TimTams very soon!

The Latest from Andy

Many of you know that Andy (currently 15) has been making books, comic books, and comic strips for several years. He just created a new one that he thinks he'll be able to maintain for a longer run than anything he's ever done before, and it's pretty good! So I wanted to start posting it here as the Sunday Funnies.

Andy's new strip is called Rodney and Jim, and stars (unsurprisingly) Rodney and Jim. Here's Andy's introduction:

Rodney Redhart is the smarter of the two kids. He is almost always with Jim, but often times is shown at home, having problems there. Rodney can also be easily annoyed.

Jim is a very odd boy. He has a small head, doesn't speak, and is quite possibly feral. Jim provides no evidence of family, or where he's from, and usually hangs with Rodney, and always annoys him.

So here's their debut strip - enjoy it and come back next Sunday for the next installment!

Gotta Get It!

Coming on April 27, yet another compelling reason to own a Wii!



That clip makes me say loud and clear:

CONTEST SECOND CHANCE!

Well, it's been a week, and there have been a few valliant efforts, but nobody has gotten it right yet.

So I'm taking inspiration from Bob Barker. Yes, THAT Bob Barker. He did this game on the Price is Right called "Hole In One". It was a putting game. If you make the putt, you win the prize. However, if you missed your putt, he always acted like it was a big surprise when he said that the game was actually called "Hole in one... OR TWO!!" and pushed a button causing the titleboard to revolve and show the "Or Two" logo. Classic TV Brilliance.

Thanks to Bob's fine example, our little Miley Cyrus contest is going into overtime. This week's clue includes not only the Miley remix guitar riff, but also the original riff, in the original context, by the original band, originally originated in 1978. See if that helps you along, and send in those guesses. Those TimTams aren't going to eat themselves, after all!

Everything's Better with Pie Charts!

Literally and honestly made me laugh out loud.

My Kind of Prank!

This is absolutely brilliant. A large scale prank at New York's Grand Central Station, but a prank where nobody got hurt, nobody lost money, it was about as close to harmless as it is possible to be.

CONTEST TIME!

You're looking at a box of TimTams, quite possibly the best cookies to come out of Australia! (Way better than Vegemite, or any of the Musk flavored candy...)

This box of "Sticky Vanilla Toffee" arrived last week, sent by my friend Glen in Melbourne. One or two times a year, we send boxes of our local delights to each other, and I was delighted when his box arrived with four varieties of TimTams! This flavor was good enough that he sent two of them, and I downed the first box Saturday night. (Andy and Tyler helped, but I definitely ate way too many)

To avoid a repeat of that, since I AM still working hard at my fitness goals, I decided the other box has to go! SO it's CONTEST TIME!! And this time, I'm guaranteeing that the prize will be sent out. (Michael, Andy still owes you a bag of candy corn...)

So since most of us have kids these days, and most of those kids watch plenty of Disney Channel, this seems like a topical contest. To make it even more relevant, it also requires a knowledge of the music I grew up on. I guess you could say it's the Best of Both Worlds. (oh yeah, I went there!)

It's simple - Watch the video below, follow the directions, and win the cookies! Contest will run for one week - next Monday I'll put up a clip with the answer. If more than one person get it right, the winner will be chosen at random and the TimTams will be sent out as soon as postally possible. Have fun!