South of the Border

We went down to Kalispell with our friends, the Salmons, for a couple of days this week. On our way down, we stopped at the Alberta museum in West Glacier. I got a kick out of the T-Rex holding the Canada flag...

While in Kalispell, we found an awesome restaurant called HuHot.

This place puts Mongolie Grill to shame. It is the same concept, but instead of charging you by the weight of your meal, you pay a flat rate and get to go back as many times as you want. For $12 ($8.50 at lunch), you take your bowl, fill it with whatever meat, noodles, and vegetables you want, add your own sauces, then watch the cooks grill it. Pretty cool, especially considering one bowl cost me about $20 at Mongolie Grill (and it was a small bowl too). I've seen $30 bowls too. I went back three times in one visit. If you don't live in a state that has a HuHot yet, it could be worth relocating...

I should stop going to pet stores, they rub on me the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, I love animals. The Petco had lots of cool geckos, lizards, snakes, etc. It's the people aspect that drives me nuts. People who treat their pets like children should be spayed or neutered themselves to prevent passing on their genes. Granted, there are people who are doing the world a favor by having pets instead of children, but I digress. There was a display of car magnets by the checkout, most of which I could respect. The usual "I love dogs" or "I love my cat"... but this one?!?

Grandogs?!? By Hades' armpits, who came up with this one?! Congratulations, you've taken pet parenting to a whole new depth of stupidity! So, either your child(ren) have dogs that you count as grandkids, or you have dogs who had puppies and you kept those as well because you could sooner give away your own child than one of the puppies. Either way, it's not looking good for you. The first option is probably the most depressing as you have already passed on the stupidity gene to the next generation...

These?

You've got to know I'll have issues with this... Edible greeting/birthday cards for your dog. You know Lassie can't read, right? Right? What am I saying... If you're dumb enough to have purchased a card for your dog, you probably read it to him. Oh look Mr. Muffins, it says "Just bePaws I love you". Isn't that sweet? Not only do dogs not read, they don't get the subtleties of the English language and a play on words. Also, do you give him birthday cards every year, or are you a diehard who follows the 7:1 dog year ratio and give wondermutt a card every 52 days?

I thought this was good too. This little gem is on the front doors at TJ Maxx. This could be a contributing factor to the decline in the American economy. I don't want to come across as overly negative here, but let's face it, this was not your brightest moment. I wanted to watch for a while to see how many confused customers stood at the door debating on whether they could in fact enter or not, but then I realized those who can read, don't. I'd be curious to know how many people (including staff) actually noticed this...