[Sound Siren] Special Canine Weather Bulletin...Hurricane Joaquin Edition

Good evening. Jon Farleigh and Dewi here with a special weather bulletin.

As you might know from other, less canine news sources, we (along with millions of other East Coast dogs) are sitting here like rubber ducks, waiting for the uninvited arrival passing of that jerkface Joaquin.

Hurricane #Joaquin watch. pic.twitter.com/uEsGCQNMOp

— Flama (@theFlama) September 30, 2015

[Begin interruption]

Me (from off camera): BOYS?

Boys: Yeah, ma?

Me: Hurricane Joaquin is not that man. It's not a man at all; it's a storm. The picture is a joke.

Boys: Like us in these raincoats?

Me: JK! Hurricane Joaquin is TOTALLY that man!

Boys: Uh, oh kay?

[End interruption]

Geez, how rude. *sigh*
So, where were we? Oh, yeah...JOAQUIN! So he's like this big giant man-head way out in the ocean, and he's swimming north and, as many of you know, is expected to pass right by where a bunch of us live, making this HUGE wake and splashes that might rain down on top of us and the mountains and make the rivers and stuff overflow. See?

And all this commotion and splashing is making all the humans scramble to buy all the bread, milk, eggs, ice and batteries within a million miles, because the peeps are worrying about THIS:

So, we would just like to remind you (so that you do not worry about our stubby-legged selves AND can take immediate precautions - as needed - for your own whatever-sized-legged selves) that we are prepared with our (previously published at Richmond Pet Lovers.com)...

EMERGENCY 24-HOUR DOG'S GUIDE TO SURVIVING A POWER OUTAGE*.

Please also take note that in the event we have to use this guide, we will also be working part-time as human foot warmers.

Please refer to your other (less canine) news sources for current inclement weather information.

* Our power outage survival guide has only been tested one time, on us, and might not be entirely appropriate for your current electrical (or life) situation. Does not apply to cats. 

Dewi, why does your jacket seem like it repels water better than mine?

Because, bro, I'm Batman.

☺

Be safe, y'all! (For real! Be prepared; flooding is NO joke.)

Notes:

• The Hurricane Sandy version of this canine weather bulletin was published previously.
• Apologies to Joaquin Phoenix.
• To the beautiful people of the Bahamas, who will surely suffer great loss due to this storm, you are in our hearts and prayers. 

STOP the Madness! It's Time for Affirmations and Meditation With Maddox (My Thumbed Cat)

Note: Neither I, nor Maddox, are certified meditation instructors. Frankly, we don't know what the heck we're doing. This is a parody. That said, we dare you not to smile.

Welcome, friends! It's been a tough go of it (your day, life, endeavor to become a professional magician, etc.) and we want to help! Do you have three minutes (of course you do; you're on the internet looking at social media)? Yay! Let's meditate for a bit. But before we start, here are a few helpful hints:

1. Sit down. If you can't sit (because you're standing in a subway, for example), for dear life, tether yourself to something, so you don't doze off and fall on something sharp! (Note: You won't doze off. Unless you're on the toilet, in which case, I hope you doze off, and your reading device falls in. Because ew! That's just wrong.)
2. Imagine you're sitting beside a picturesque waterfall, NOT Niagara Falls, though. Too violent.
3. Get over any issues you might have with giant tabby cats who have thumbs. Especially old ones named Maddox, with crooked whiskers and eyes slightly cocked. Maddox and his paws are a gift to stressed humans. Trust me.

Alright, you're almost there! To start, Maddox will say several affirmations directly to you (feel free to read them out loud; no one will care), and then he'll lead you through some calming imagery. Ready?! OK, shhhh....

affirmations

The sun is shining through your window and through your heart.

Today you will take one step toward your dreams.

Snacks make you smile.

You feel a deep connection with your feet.

Today you will be pleasantly surprised.

You are in a state of pure joy.

You are grateful for your breath, no matter how bad it might smell.

You are a calm airplane passenger.

You look for humor and fun in as many situations as possible.

Meditation is calming and will help you not have road rage.

meditation

And now, repeat the word "catnip" while viewing the following photos (and remember to breathe).

catnip

catnip

catnip

catnip

catnip

{Now, do that again, in reverse.}

end of session

Please use caution not to stumble while exiting, and have a pleasant day. ☺

Note: Maddox will not accept money.

Bonus Sound Effects

Maddox is a former shelter cat. We adopted him in 2012 from the Richmond SPCA. He was nine years old and on a prescription diet to maintain his urinary tract health. He is a polydactyl, and my soul man.

Happy Labor Day; Don't Forget to Rest (a PSA Illustrated with Sleepy Corgis and Cats)

Whoever coined the phrase "Work Hard, Play Hard" forgot to add "Sleep Hard." Obviously, they weren't paying close enough attention to their beasts. 

Please don't be like that person. 

(End of PSA)

Enjoy your day, and my sleepy/sleeping animals!

Tired from chasing Jon Farleigh.

Tired from dragging a piece of string in circles for 10 minutes.

Tired simply from being awake for an hour straight. 

Tired from sleeping too vigorously.

Food coma.

Tired from watching me (pretend to) clean.

Tired from being alive for 10 years.

Tired from being alive for 4 months.

Tired of me taking his picture.
(As for the Kong? It's complicated.)

Tired of being tired of me taking his picture.

Wondering why I'm not tired, too. ;-)

Please note: Beginning this week, and for an undetermined duration, I will be adding a second weekly blog post, containing nothing but a captioned photo (meme). Because, to me, caption writing is good mental exercise. ;-) See you in a few!

((ring)) 'ACME Brand Pyrotechnics, Voice of Reason Speaking'

"Yes, hello. I'd like to order one deluxe TNT-powered rocket."

© Warner Bros.

"Um, okay."

"Yeah, so there's this beanpole bird that I want to eat for lunch, but it always outruns me. Imagine the look on his face when I blow past him on my rocket."

"Oh, in that case, might I recommend the deluxe ACME rocket GPS? It's pre-programmed with the addresses of the 50 nearest Emergency medical facilities...you know, in case you overshoot your target. It comes with a free anvil."

*****

The good news, friends?

When it comes to pyrotechnics (fireworks), dogs are smarter than Wile E. Coyote.
They have no use for them (read: they hate them with the ferocity of 1,000 erupting volcanoes).

The bad news?

 When it comes to food, dogs are more wily than Wile E. Coyote.
They're perfectly happy to scavenge their bird (burger, steak, hot dog, chips, corn on the cob, etc.) when the humans drop or leave it unattended.

If the fireworks on our cheap holiday-themed headbands from Target were real,
the only thing you'd see in this photo is the pile of Hershey bricks (that we just pooped).

Clearly, dogs, pyrotechnics, delicious birds (and various other non-sanctioned "human" food items) don't mix.

And, my point?

BE SMARTER THAN YOUR DOG DURING UPCOMING INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS, BECAUSE WILE E. COYOTE, HE IS NOT.

Oh, by the way, I'm fully aware that (besides the 5 people who got here by way of a Google "pyro" search) I'm preaching to the choir. But that's okay, because what I really hope you'll do is share the following July 4th pet safety infographic (from Petfinder) with your friends, family and acquaintances (hint: you can always claim your finger "accidentally" pressed the Post/Tweet button)!

But that's not all! Click HERE for the full gallery of Petfinder's Summer Pet Safety infographics, including several social sharing (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) options.

Now, commence the party planning!

Next up on the blog: A (RARE) GIVEAWAY!
(Hint: It's partly frozen, partly inedible and totally fun! Yay!)

Bonus Audio-Visual Clip:


The Road Runner Show Original TV Theme Song!

I Dropped the 'blogspot' from My Blogger Domain Name and You Can Too! (plus a BONUS Corgi Short)

I am not affiliated with nor have I been compensated in any way by the brands mentioned herein. I share because "sharing is caring." I learned that in Kindergarten.

Down below, after the technical stuff: Bonus Corgi Pictorial Short Story "Frosty Doesn't Look Good, Mama"!
DON'T MISS IT!

Okay, so you probably haven't noticed, but a few weeks ago I switched my blog's URL (domain name) from www.chroniclesofcardigan.blogspot.com to www.chroniclesofcardigan.com.

That does not mean that I left Blogger and/or became self-hosted on some other blogging platform, for example WordPress. Nope, I'm still using Blogger (for free*), it's just that I followed the Blogger on-screen directions to add my own custom (previously purchased and "parked" at GoDaddy.com**) domain name.  

I will explain why I did this in a bit.

But first, let me tell you why - about a year ago - I went to GoDaddy.com and bought the custom domain:

SO NO ONE ELSE WOULD

Yes, friends. I was afraid someone else would. Why? Well why wouldn't they? ;) Okay, that and because the custom name is easier for people to remember and it looks a lot better (than the blogspot URL) on business cards, and everywhere else on the Internet. But mostly it was so no one else could take it and lure unsuspecting peeps over to some fake Chronicles of Cardigan page with spammy links to window washing and tree removal services, for example.

The trouble is, after I bought the domain name, I was afraid to actually use it. (what if my blog disappeared? no one could find it anymore? I screwed something up beyond repair?) So I did the next best thing and forwarded my new custom domain to my blogspot address:

If someone typed chroniclesofcardigan.com (in the URL address field),

they'd be automatically directed to chroniclesofcardigan.blogspot.com.

Forwarding is easy and (at least with GoDaddy) can be accomplished with just a couple clicks from the Domain Details (Domain Information > Forwarding) page. (Hint: Go to your domain provider's Help section and search for "forwarding.")

Okay, so fast forward 13 months and on this one random day, I just decided it was time to go for it. And I read a bunch of blog articles about why I should go for it***. And looked for user feedback on whether or not their blogs were obliterated after having gone for it. And decided that I could live with a couple months (if that) of not being as searchable in search engines.

To edit your domain name in Blogger, get to this screen and click Edit in the Publishing box.

And here I am. And here's the ugly:

Things that Broke after the Switch: 

My blog roll (Blogger gadget) went blank. (But because I had read that the same thing happened to other users, and that it was a known Blogger bug, and that I would just need to add the blog links again, I was not alarmed when I noticed it.)

That was the only thing that broke.

According to my stats, I'm still getting views from search engines. In fact, I haven't noticed much of a change there, if any.

And in case you're curious, Blogger is redirecting all traffic from my previous "blogspot" domain name to the new one. That means any and all existing hyperlinks to that old address will redirect here (for as long as I keep the custom domain name). Additionally, the old blog feed (for those who have subscribed/followed my RSS) redirects, too. That means YOU SHOULD NOT RESUBSCRIBE (unless you want see my blog twice in your reader, and you will; I tested it)!

And if at any time I decide I don't want to associate the custom domain name with this blog anymore, I can just go into my Blogger blog settings and switch back to the original "blogspot" name. Too easy.

So have you been contemplating making a domain name switch yourself?

If yes and you have a Blogger blog, and use GoDaddy.com to obtain your new custom domain, there is a SUPER EASY tool at GoDaddy.com that will do almost all the work for you:

Note: You must be logged into your GoDaddy account before using the tool.

In fact, the folks at Blogger think this tool is so awesome, they've written an entire blog post about it at Blogger Buzz (hint: GO THERE!), including step-by-step instructions for switching your blog to your new domain (once you've updated your DNS records at GoDaddy using this tool). (By the way, don't ask me what DNS records are; I have no flocking idea. Just trust me; you will need to update them using this tool.)

And that's all there is to it, friends! I hope this has been helpful!

* I use Blogger (vs. self-hosting on another platform) for a variety of reasons, mostly because I am lazy. It is a personal preference, and I believe personal preferences are okay. :) I pay nothing to use Blogger; however, there is a limit to free image storage space, which I plowed through in under a year. Therefore, I pay $4.99 per year for the lowest available increment of extra image storage space through Google. When my hard drive crashed a few months ago and I lost thousands of stored images, that $4.99 annual fee seemed like a really small price to pay for back-up.

** GoDaddy.com is NOT the only domain name provider. I chose them because they were the only provider I had ever heard of, thanks to their (horrible) Super Bowl commercials. As of this writing, it costs $12.99 annually for me to have my .com custom domain (with absolute basic service). I've set it to renew automatically (highly recommended).

*** You should read the article at the other end of this link @ Spice Up Your Blog (a trusted source of mine) if you are still undecided (or even if you're not). In easy-to-follow Q&A format, it thoroughly covers some of the things I've mentioned in this post, plus several others. Also, because there is great user feedback in the comments, it really helped to put my mind at ease.

*****

And now, your BONUS CORGI SHORT (story):

Frosty Doesn't Look Good, Mama!

In the front yard on Tuesday...

Hey, Dewi, something's wrong with Frosty!

Frosty? You okay, man??

Hey, Mama? What happened to Frosty?

"Blah blah blah...went bye-bye...blah...all gone...blah blah...dead"

Oh, Frost-ayyyyyyyyy!!!

The End

Double-Bonus Outtakes:

Dude, where's the catering service around this set?

The "Catering Service" does not recommend the yellow snow.

;-)

Of Cake Wreck(ing) Balls, Hershey, Kisses and Opportunistic PSAs

Disclosure: I tried not to. Really and truly, I tried.

I guess you could call this a belated Valentine's Day post. I'll let you decide after you get to the end.

So on Valentine's Day, Jon Farleigh and Dewi got a lovely little heart-shaped (doggie) cupcake to share. It came from Three Dog Bakery, the same place where I've gotten all their (doggie) birthday cakes.

Here's a photo of the cupcake:

 Cute, huh?

Yes, it was to me, too. Until I saw this on it:

Which reminded me that February is National Spay/Neuter Month, so I made this:

And then, after I did that, I looked at the cupcake again and saw this:

Which didn't really cause me to do anything, other than spend the next three days thinking about how I was going to "position" it (the steamer, aka pile of Hershey) in a blog post. 

I guess I can start thinking about something else now, huh? ;-)

And because I really do care about whether you, my dignified and exemplary readers, come back to read my blog on future occasions, the rest of this blog post will include only cute photos of my pets wearing cheap holiday-themed accessories from Target.

Enjoy!

Dang it! You weren't supposed to see that!

Dear Target People-Who-Make-Cheap-Accessory-Decisions:

As your #1 fan of cheap holiday-themed accessories (to use in important blog posts such as this), I'd like to point out that for the last three years, you have offered exactly zero Valentine's Day-themed headbands, necessitating my "making do" with creative alternatives (such as these gift-bag doggie "necklaces" from 2012 and the above St. Paddy's Day antennae). All I'm saying is that if you want to sell some Cupid's arrow (for example) headgear in 2014, I will buy it. 

Thank you.

Elizabeth

I believe it says "KISS ME."

What??

Happy (un) Valentine's Day, y'all!

;-)