Found this on supercut.org, and it says it all. Get thee there and laugh.

Tonight I go to my first-ever blogging conference. I admit, I’m feeling a bit nervous. What if the other kids don’t like me? What if no one sits with me at lunch? What if I forget my locker combination? (Oh wait, last last bit of anxiety is left over from high school.)

But seriously, if you’re going to BlogHer 2011 in San Diego, here are the reasons you should look for me:

- I live here in town. About a half-mile from the Convention Center, in fact. If you spill syrah on your new wrap dress, mine is the closest free laundry room.

- I know the SD Convention Center like the back of my hand. No kidding! I just spent days of my life standing in line there during Comic-Con. If you want to know how to unlock the glass doors on the West Terrace, I’m your girl. (Don’t try it. Trust me.)

- I’m new to this conference, and have no posse, so being nice to me is easy and gets you extra karma points.

Follow my #BlogHer11 tweets at @thepegisin!

I can’t believe it’s been a year since this happened.

Here’s a photo album of some of Rabbit’s cutest moments, captured with my phone camera.

Today we will lay a stone for Rabbit where we buried him in the backyard. Felt very weird and adult to order such a thing, but Rabbit surely deserved it. We got ours from Peternity. They were very respectful and concerned with accuracy, and the result is beautiful. And heavy, in more ways than one.

Rabbit's stone

That’s what happens when you get a job in social media. You stop actually blogging.

I’ll be back soon, I promise.

In the meantime, go check out the awesome blogs on my new project, Tree.com. We have over 130 bloggers there, covering such things as travel, small business, law, money, and food. You know, all the good stuff.

With Netflix and Hulu streaming to our connected Blu-Ray player, Netflix mailing discs to our house with regularity, and us running to the theater sometimes four times in one day, you’d think this year’s Oscar Run would be one of our most complete ever. So how is it we’re going to miss 9 movies, the most we’ve missed in years?

Perhaps there’s easier access to movies in general, but not all movies. Particularly those who live in a purgatory of “just left theaters, not yet on DVD.” Add to that the Oscar categories that almost always put a movie you’d rather not see on your list (best song brought in Country Strong) and those that are hard to find anyway (any film not in English) and you have a perfect storm of Oscar completist frustration.

Here are the movies up for Oscars that we probably won’t see before the awards next Sunday:

• Country Strong
• Hereafter
• In a Better World
• Incendies
• Inside Job
• Outside the Law
• The Tempest
• The Way Back
• Waste Land

If you can help me view any of these movies, please let me know if in the comments below.

Oh, and go see GasLand. It’s my pick for best documentary. Yes, even over Exit Through the Gift Shop. It’s available on DVD.

A personal favorite - True Grit

Every year my husband and I commit to seeing every movie nominated for an Oscar or with an Oscar nominee in it before the awards ceremony itself. This year, that meant seeing 32 movies in 33 days (excluding shorts and the 9 movies we’d already seen).

We’re not even in the industry, so we don’t get screeners to watch at home. I know, we’re nuts. We call this The Oscar Run.

Completing an Oscar Run requires a strategy, and here’s ours:

• Watch on Netflix streaming at home whenever possible. At $8-12 a month, it’s cheap and convenient.
• If watching on disc, rent Blu-Ray. Upgrading a Netflix account to Blu-Ray is well worth the additional $2 a month, and you can revert back after the Oscar Run.
• If seeing in the theater is your only option, try to go to UltraStar. They are all-digital, and movies are $6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• Keep a list of which movies you’ll see where so you don’t impulsively buy spendy theater tickets for something you could have seen at home for pennies.

Here’s our list of what movies we’ll see and how.

Netflix Streaming
Alice in Wonderland (though I’m sure this looked much better in theaters)
Dogtooth
Exit Through the Gift Shop (also available on Hulu, but Netflix is in HD)
I Am Love
Restrepo

Netflix Blu-Ray
Animal Kingdom
How to Train Your Dragon (3D would have been better in theaters)
Iron Man 2
Salt
The Kids Are All Right
The Town
The Wolfman
Toy Story 3
Winter’s Bone (They say there’s a short wait for this)

Netflix DVD
GasLand

Theater
127 Hours
Another Year
Barney’s Version
Biutiful
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Country Strong
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Inside Job
Rabbit Hole
Tangled
The Fighter
The Illusionist
The King’s Speech
The Social Network (Also on Blu-Ray, and on Netflix Blu-Ray on 2/8)
The Way Back
True Grit
TRON: Legacy (See in 3D if at all possible. Worth the extra money.)

Not yet available
Hereafter
In a Better World
Incendies
Outside the Law
The Tempest
Waste Land
Unstoppable (Blu-Ray will be released 2/15)

If you find a way to see these last movies, please drop me a line in the comments.

Finally, if you really want to see the shorts, it’s not impossible. Here in San Diego they are often available for seeing in one go for a short time at the Ken Theater. Try your local art house.

Happy hunting!

One day getting published will seem run-of-the-mill for me. But it isn’t yet! (Squeal!)

I recently wrote a column for the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Social Media Monday about Facebook:

How Facebook can help save friendships, time and your ego

Enjoy!

…And I didn’t have to die, sleep with the President, or get taken hostage! Awesome.

I recently wrote a column for the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Social Media Monday about tweetups:

Social Media Monday: How to meet those you tweet

Enjoy!

Update: View the slideshow of this closet purge on Flickr! http://bit.ly/8XD93h

My friends Sophia Daly and Shanna Trenholm threw down a challenge I couldn’t resist: Purge your wardrobe of the things you don’t love and don’t wear, and then spend only $100 on clothes, shoes and accessories for the rest of the year. They call this the $100 Wardrobe Challenge.

(Sound intriguing? Go to the their website and read more).

Money’s tight these days – hi there, I’m unemployed, how are you? – so I’ll take any incentive to spend less. I also liked the idea of shedding the psychic weight of “stuff.” I set to work purging and sorting through the contents of my closets and dressers, and jotted down some tips for those who want to do the same. Mind you, these tips don’t make the process painless, but they just might save you enough sweat to get you through it, and have a laugh while you’re at it.

PRO TIP #1:

Do the purge on laundry day.

Clothes you need to wash are ones you actually wear, so they automatically count as keepers. While those are sorted elsewhere into piles of darks, whites, and delicates, you can concentrate on applying your keen and ruthless eye to the rest.

PRO TIP #2:

Deduct as you donate.

Before the first blouse goes into the Goodwill bag, crack open your laptop and go to itsdeductible.com. Then as you give each item the boot, note what it is in your record of donations for 2010. It’s Deductible will automatically record the item, calculate its value, and (if you use TurboTax) deduct it properly from your taxes when you do them. If you don’t use TurboTax, just return to It’s Deductible at tax time and enter the amounts. Easy-peasy, and it’s free.

PRO TIP #3:

Take pictures of your most ridiculous items.

Because you have to laugh! Here are mine – a green feather boa and a nun’s habit. Believe it or not, I used to store these right near the closet door in case I needed them quickly!

PRO TIP #4:

Don’t use your husband/boyfriend/significant other as your “objective friend.”

They’ll make you keep all the lingerie, even if you hate it.

Bleccchh.

I looked like crap in this.

PRO TIP #5:

Take “before” and “after” pictures of your closet.

There’s nothing better to convince you that the challenge was worth it! Here are mine.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

For me, the result of all this purging was:

• 14 trash bags of donated clothes sent to the Goodwill.
• Estimated savings of $697 on my 2010 taxes.
• A walk-in closet I can actually walk in.

Now, are you ready to lighten your load and give your most-loved clothes a little breathing room? Excellent! Visit the $100 Wardrobe Challenge website, follow @100DLRwardrobe on Twitter, and let style trump consumption!

The incomparable, irresistible, irreplaceable Rabbit the Cat

I answered, “I did. And Rabbit is a cat.”

Adorable from day one

This led to a tradition at our house of always referring to our sweet, loving, impossibly cute and serene male lilac point Siamese cat as The Rabbit. That’s when we weren’t calling him The Boy, My Boy, Rabbit Boo, Sweetie Boo, Boo Boy, Rabbito, Conejo Feliz, Pretty Boy, Happy Boy, Purring Boy, Darling Boy, Flopping Boy, Sun Kitty, Cream-Colored Kitty, Lord of the Thighs (his favorite place to sit) or Kitty in the Window (his other favorite place to sit). Yes, when we weren’t embarrassing him with all these names, he was The Rabbit. (His sister Noddy has a long list of pet names, too. Collectively, they were known as the Boosome Twosome.)

Like yin and yang

Rabbit really was an exceptional cat. He singlehandedly turned my husband into a cat person. When Ken and I began to date back in ’99, Ken wasn’t sure if he’d like dealing with my cats. He’d never owned a cat or a dog himself, and was allergic to pet dander. Rabbit settled all that in just a few seconds. He jumped into Ken’s lap, rubbed his head against Ken’s hand, gave a purr, and that was it. Ken loved both the cats from that moment. He got so used to their dander that they could sleep on him all night without causing a sneeze.

Instant love

Rabbit just had a sweet and loving way about him that won people over. He was very patient and calm, and didn’t meow much. He just walked up to you, decided you were probably a nice person, jumped into your lap and purred contentedly. He did this with everyone, and everyone loved him instantly. He showed no fear and was never rejected. It helped that he had big blue eyes and the softest fur you can imagine. But it was his attitude that “you and I are friends” that really won hearts and minds.

We called this position double-kittified

We used to complain that his sister Noddy, who is his actual blood sister from the same litter of kittens, really needed to take charm lessons from Rabbit. He always knew how to snuggle comfortably on you or next to you, while she would do something less fun like stand heavily on your chest (or worse, your throat) and meow directly in your face. We used to say that Noddy is 8 pounds of lead, while Rabbit is 9 pounds of feathers. (This led to Noddy’s nickname of Lead Kitty.)

Kitty charm school

Even when Rabbit started getting sick from kidney disease, he found new ways to charm us. He was barfing a lot at that time, and got quite thin and frail. He couldn’t jump up on the kitchen counter anymore, and sleeping in his usual spot behind my knees became impossible because if I turned he couldn’t move fast enough to avoid getting smushed. So he started sleeping on our pillows, usually curled up in my hair. You’d think this would be annoying, but it wasn’t. We called this position Cat Hat.

Rabbit demonstrates Cat Hat

Rabbit’s illness lasted about 2 years, during which I had to administer fluids to him subcutaneously. This involved sitting him in my lap, calming him down though he knew what was coming, inserting a needle from a hanging IV bag into a fold of skin between his shoulders, and keeping him from running away for 10-15 minutes until he’d gotten all 100 mL of the fluids inside him. He put up with it all with grace and only a few meowed complaints. Towards the end, for about 3 months, I had to do this twice a day. In addition, he needed 3-5 medications each mealtime – sometimes pills cut into quarters, sometimes liquids – all of which required forcing his mouth open. I hated doing it, but otherwise he’d die.

A true bromance

Of course, he died anyway. I like to think, though, that he went how he would have wanted to. He was at home, lying on the couch in our bedroom in the sun. We were away in Kansas City, and our wonderful friend and able catsitter Josh found him there, passed away, with Noddy standing guard over him.

It’s been about a month, and I still can’t wash the cream-colored kitty hair off the couch cover, or even move the curtains near the couch in any way. I keep picturing him there curled up, or looking out the window for us. Kitty in the Window.

Rabbit the Cat, September 1996 - June 17, 2010. Rest in peace, darling boy.