OK, I cheated this week — I pre-recorded this one a while ago. Nevertheless, I bet you've never heard Radiohead via ukulele!

I love animals — they're delicious. Ha ha. Anyway, the Butte Humane Society is a finalist in the Zootoo Shelter Makeover contest. You can vote up to 10 times a day. The Butte Humane Society serves Chico, which is where Monstro and I got married (in Chico, silly, not at the Humane Society), so everything around there holds a special place in my heart.

Click here to vote. You have to register with the site, which requires a birthdate (make one up) and a photo (use the one of Nora on the Fangoria post a few posts down, if you want).

Thank you! Meow! Woof woof!

Seems like a lot of crappy things have been happening in the past week, and with today being tax day, more people are likely to have to face some bummer news. So here's your reassuring thought of the day:

Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Ahhhh. Nice, huh? Wish I'd read this before going to sleep last night; maybe then I would've been able to sleep after 4:00 a.m.

OK, here's my sophomore effort — a much more challenging song than the first, particularly as I had to arrange it myself using each of my four ukulele strings. Much more GarageBand work was required, too. Maybe too challenging all around. At least I'm pushing myself. Perhaps there are those who would have suggested I tackle an easier song, but I've been obsessed with this song for the past week, ever since that “Scrubs” rerun with Colin Hay was on, as Monstro will attest.

Also, I figured out how to encode MP3s so this one is in a .mp3 format and therefore more universal.

Thanks all for your positive comments from last week — I hope you enjoy this one, too!

Nora O'Sullivan is a girl-next-door (in the real, non-adulterous “Playboy Enterprises” sense) who is competing for the title of Fangoria Spooksmodel. I've attached her picture to the bottom of this post. She's a pretty girl! You can help her achieve her goal by voting thusly:

1)Click on this link: Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Spooksmodel Contest

2) Scroll down and find Nora O'Sullivan in her evil nurse outfit (she's in the third row), and click the little round radio button next to the “vote” button. After you've clicked the radio button, then click on the button that says “vote”.

3) Enter a valid email address–this is done so that no one can stuff the ballot box. Fangoria will send a confirmation email to the address you entered.

4) Open the email and click on the link. That registers the vote. Hopefully. The first time I voted, I never got a confirmation. I just tried it again, though, and it worked.

Nora is in second place as of this writing but I think the fact that some of her votes haven't registered have hurt her chances, so please vote.

You can only vote once for each email account you have. The voting ends on April 17, the first day of the Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles.

OK, I'm putting myself out on a ledge here… ever since Ukulele God Jake Shimabukuro signed my ukulele at the concert Monstro and I attended on our 5-year wedding anniversary, I've felt the urge to make my ukulele more worthwhile. So, I'm arranging songs and learning them and recording them (thank you iMac Garage Band, I love you so). Here's my first attempt since Jake imbued my uke with his groovy goodness.

I sang better before I got vocal nodes in high school, which ultimately destroyed my dreams of Broadway and instead pushed me toward my camera (earning me the Bank of America Fine Arts award senior year), but I don't hear YOU posting YOUR music (except for you Jim Dee, blessings upon thou), so this will have to do.

During Babykins' recent well-baby appointment, the pediatrician asked me, “You don't use a walker, do you?”, and at first all I could think was “Huh? Do I look like I need assistance in the form of durable medical supplies?”, but actually, he was just making sure we didn't have any unsafe baby stuff around the house.

Oh, and what does it say about me as a do-it-all working-stiff mom that his six-month well-baby appointment was on his seven-month birthday?

Anyone?

[offstage, crickets chirp]

Obviously, Gmail has some sort of language bot that lets it know which ads to foist. But I can't imagine which of my emails would prompt it to shill to me “How To Kiss A Girl – www.DavidDeAngelo.com – Learn How To Kiss A Girl In A Way That Makes Her Melt In Your Arms”.

Some facts about Twitter:

Twitter users don't tweet, they twit.

As such, Twitter users are twits.

Twitter breeds twit wit.

That should be its motto: Twit wit Twitter.

“Twit wit wit Twitter” works, too.