Poppy Cedes

Thursday night Dawg and I went to Five Guys to have our favoritest burgers on the planet and they did not disappoint. Then we went to his parents’ house to pick up some packages and hang out with the kitties.

We eventually got sleepy enough that we came home and zonked out until the next morning.

Bright and early wake-up for no apparent reason, then off to Dawg’s parents’ place to pick up Dawg’s truck so he could get it inspected. After dropping off the truck we headed to E*SPARKS for pastries and iced caffeine, then home and hung out waiting for the new TV!!!!!!!!

It arrived without a hitch, and the bonus is that I found my new camera (just in time!) under the couch which had been missing since May 17! Dawg took care of setting up the TV then I took care of making sure it was programmed while he took a few minutes to cool off in the bedroom. After he recovered we took off to go pick up the truck minutes before the station closed. $573 to get her inspected, but there is a very short list of items Dawg loves more than that truck so we do anything for her. :) We returned to Dawg’s parents’ home, opened a package from Adam and Britt, and TXTed them our excitement over said package even though it was not for me (hehehehe).

Then we all piled into Hollywood’s car to head off to an Argentine steakhouse in Forest Hills that serves absolutely amazing steak.

After we went back to the house where we all had Fudgie the Whale cake and talked about wrestling and The Real World. After this we went home and watched some more of our new TV then had some very deserved hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!! time and fell asleep until morning.

Saturday we stayed home to watch the 2009 Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest (Joey Chestnut won by a landslide) then decided to go to Jackson Hole for lunch.

OMG the burgers there are AMAZING. Five Guys, run for your money right there! The burgers are 7 oz and are a perfectly wonderful texture inside with a wonderful caramelized top and bottom. I’m drooling just thinking about it. And there was so much that I cut my burger in half before starting to eat it so I still have the leftovers! We then headed to Best Buy to look for an HDMI cable to hook up to the TV, at which point we realized we need an HD cable box, so decided to hold off with that, then went to Target and did a little bit of shopping. We got Street Fighter: The Lengend of Chun-Li, the John Cena movie 12 Rounds, an extension cord for diverting the power for our computers so we could put an air conditioner in the living room window, and some light daughter-hates-tyrranical-father-memoir subway reading: House Rules by Rachel Sontag. After Target we went to 7-11 to pick up hot dogs for our own hot dog eating contest!!!1

(I won, but only because Dawg took a pause to eat some sweet Gherkins before finishing off the last third of his fourth dog) then went home to stay in for the evening and watch fireworks out our living room window (ILLEGAL ones only a block away from the police precinct :) and the Macy’s fireworks our new TV.

After fireworks we made our own fireworks/hot dog eating contest in the bedroom and fell into a deep slumber.

Sunday we bit the bullet. We got fortification at E*SPARKS then went to the Super Stop & Shop to do a full shopping, our first since The Incident. I suggested a new game plan: I take the cart and I do the shopping while Dawg drinks coffee and wanders the store on his own to pick up whatever items he wanted. WOW, that worked out way better. He went to the deli and ordered all he wanted from there while I worked off the list I made, with the cart at hand. We would occasionally run into each other and flirt and kiss and say those lovey words, then go our separate ways so I could continue working on the list while he waited for his 31-minute-long deli order. (It was a lot of stuff.) We did check out together since we had $338 of groceries to bag and cart, so much that the cashier asked us if we were having a party but Dawg just explained we only go full shopping once every 2 months. On our way out the door she said, “see you in two months!” That made me giggle. :) We came out of the store still in love, still in like, and still speaking to each other. Amazing what a change in strategy does!

And then we went to 7-11 so Dawg could pick up our winning Mega Millions ticket and we got a parking spot directly in front of the apartment building so we could bring up alllllll the groceries in two trips (only had to clean out one garbage bag full of old food to make room for the new, heh). After that it was tennis time — caught the end of Federer kicking Roddick’s slimey ass after 4 hours 17 minutes, and Serena redeeming a doubles title for Venus after stealing the women’s title from her ;) — and then we watched movies. Or, I assume we did. I wrote this part before we got to that part.

Full set of weekend photos are here. I highly recommend that you take the time to look, especially if you’re a Dawg fan or a Poppy fan. :D

And since this is what many of you have been waiting for, here’s The Trick Candles / Fudgie gets whacked / The guy we all think is so damn great celebrates a day he says he hates but seems to tolerate very well if we make it extra special:

(Mom, there’s your real ice cream and cake. ;)

Before Dawg and I moved in together I lived in a garage apartment with the kitties and no television. I used my work computer to watch Hulu, YouTube, and DVDs. Dawg and I would daydream about buying a TV when we lived together.

I moved to NYC with no TVs of my own and was graciously permitted to view the TV that sat in the entertainment center in the basement of Dawg’s parents’ home. We continued to daydream about buying a TV when we lived together.

A month later when Dawg and I moved into Fort Fourth Floor he didn’t own a TV either so we permanently borrowed the one that happened to reside in the basement of his parents’ home, at which time I finally noticed that the colors bled green in the upper left corner and if the set was left on for any length of time it would whine at a pitch that drove me slightly insane until several months later when I had finally deafened myself to it by listening to my iPod Touch too loudly too many times on the train. (ahhhhhhhhhh) We, surprisingly didn’t daydream about buying a TV now that we lived together… because there were other things to spend our money on.

And then it became ten months later and a momentous occasion to come: Dawg and Poppy’s birthday month approaches. We each schemed on our own what we would do for each other for our birthdays. Dawg quietly pondered and decided upon his gifts for me without need for discussion, but I spent many hours trying to debate with myself the merits of gifting him one of two items, both of which would require his input:

1. A no-longer-Windows-74 computer
. WIN in my eyes: this gift would only be for Dawg
. FAIL: he hates his birthday
. FAIL: Vista sucks
. futureWIN: but Windows 7 is coming!
. FAIL: but he has a lot of “custom software” that would be hard to move to the new machine
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

…or

2. a television for us
. WIN: a present for both of us!
. WIN: we both get what we want!
. WIN: we both get to choose the features!
. WIN: we finally get that thing we’d daydreamed about together for so long!
. WIN: Dawg gets to stay home and supervise its arrival while men paid an hourly wage lug the damn thing up the stairs!
. WIN: dude, it’s a fucking TV, do I need to keep explaining its merits to you? C’MON!

Sooooooooooo, today after work I broke down and told him about My Debate with Myself and we decided together on the TV! On sale! From Best Buy! Delivered on Dawg’s birthday! Because his is first! But I’m not telling you when! But we all have one so you know it’s within a year’s time!

Yipppppppyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

We both still have other tricks up our sleeves for each other’s birthdays but we are keeping those secret.

Hello citizens of Poppy World! Yes… this is not Poppy. This is in fact Dawg doing an impromptu guest post. I thought it was relatively fitting since I’m going to talk about… Guest Blogging.

The Pros of Guest Posting

There are quite a few pros to doing a guest post on someone else’s blog. Generally, it is something that is mutually beneficial for a variety of reasons.

The Pros of Guest Posting for the Host Blog

• New fresh content for your readers to enjoy
• New fresh readers on your blog for a day that may convert to some new regular readers
• The continuity of content continues although other things may be consuming your time

The Pros of Guest Posting for the Guest Blogger

• The opportunity to break free from any constraints you may feel on your own blog
• Increasing your identifiability among bloggers as an authority on the topic
• Exposure to a whole new audience of potential regular readers

The Etiquette of Guest Posting

Guest Posting successfully does not just happen. More often than not, it will require a deeper line of thought and preparation on behalf of both the Guest Blogger and the Blog Host. Failure to take these items into account may in fact lead to a situation that will cause adverse effects as opposed to the benefits that Guest Blogging offers.

The Responsibilities of the Guest Blogger

• Read previous posts on the Host Blog while keeping in mind the “voice” of the blog (EX. If you do not see the use of profanity, it may not be a welcome addition)
• Research what you are blogging about and include appropriate links, including to previous posts of your Blog Host
• Your Guest Blogging for a simple reason… because you have a unique voice different than the Blog Host‘s voice. Make sure your post is original and not a copy of a previous post or an Internet Meme
• Be prompt and timely with readying your post
• Be prepared to respond to comments (if that’s what you do) in a timely manner. Generally within a day of the post is acceptable… but if it goes longer than a week, well you’ve lost the opportunity to engage some new people who may become your future regular readers
• Make sure your regular readers know that you are Guest Blogging, especially if your post there will be in place of your regular post

The Responsibilities of the Blog Host

• The Blog Host should try to set the Guest Blogger up with Author access to their blog. This way the “Post by______” credit is attributed correctly and the Guest Blogger can fine tune and tweak their post if need be
• The Blog Host should make sure that their regular reader’s are aware that there will be a Guest Blogger
• The Blog Host should make sure that if they moderate comments, especially comments from first time commentators, that either the Guest Blogger is able to approve the comments or the Blog Host is on hand to approve those comments. Nothing will piss a potential new reader off to a new blog than a comment not posted… and nothing will piss the Guest Blogger‘s normal reader off than a comment not posted on a post they were encouraged to comment on
• The Blog Host should make sure to do a follow-up post, either on the topic of the Guest Blogger or at the very least thanking them for their post. Courtesy… it’s contagious

In Conclusion

In conclusion, Guest Posting and Hosting A Guest Blogger is generally a win-win situation as long as you follow the above guidelines. Of course, if you don’t, well then you may very well end up with less readers, pissed off bloggers, and the subject of a guest post about Guest Post Etiquette and not even know it.