Boy am I boring.

The best thing there is a link to a /. comment that I said was funny. It's still funny. See here for EVERYTHING you need to know about ROBOTS.

See? I told you it was funny.

Other than that, there's a lot of rambling about guitars. And SCO. (Anyone remember SCO?) And other stuff.

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I really need to get my wife to sing harmony for my MFC entry. Last night, I got out my acoustic guitar and was strumming accompaniment to my singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Rocky Mountain High", and some other things. She was playing Civ III on the computer in the same room, and she sang harmony. It was utterly brilliant. Well, except for the part where I sing. And the part where I play guitar. My wife rocks. At least, she rocks enough to handle John Denver covers.

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The guinea pigs are still with us, and I'm starting to get the hang of taking care of them. Now, instead of taking them out of their cage for some "play time" on the kitchen linoleum (followed by extensive poop cleanup), I take them out on the front lawn and let them graze and poop like real free-range rodents. The real benefit is that I don't need to mow the lawn anymore. Or fertilize it, either, for that matter.

Our cat has decided that the pigs are all right, too. He just sits and watches them at a distance, showing his disdain for any animal that doesn't have the sense to eat cat food.

Last night, I had the kids go outside to watch the guinea pigs, while I cleaned their cage. It went fine, except when they* decided to eat the rhododendrons.

* The rodents, not the children.

Incidentally, the rhododendron that they wanted to eat was the large, healthy one that I planted this spring to replace one that died over the winter. When I went to dig up the old one, I discovered the reason for its demise: I pulled up the plant, and the roots came up, too, all in the shape of a 1-gallon planting pot.

The landscapers apparently dug a hole that would JUST FIT the pot, and plopped the rhody in without any mulch or anything.

So, I dug a hole about 2 feet deep and 3 in diameter. The soil was a gorgeous mixture of concrete, discarded building materials (including some iron nails that were still shiny and rust-free), and rocks. I got some topsoil and a new rhododendron from Home Depot, filled the hole and planted the plant.

Now it's the healthiest thing in the yard, and it has about tripled its size since March.

Next, I'm going to need to get some mulch down into the soil around the rest of the plant in the yard. Big fun.