Bye!

From the “gwarsh, look at those cars” first post to my possible all time favorite, through my becoming a very powerful person and conducting official business with a LOLcat, this has been a very strange three-and-a-half years that I’ll never be able to properly explain on my résumé. It’s been weird and delightful, but after some 1,500 posts I’m ready to move on.

Hugs and kisses to Metafilter, Redfin, and Cheezburger; bigger hugs and wetter kisses to the Longboat and my family; the biggest of hugs and wettest of kisses to my readers and especially the Loveliest Commenters.

I’ll be keeping an eye on things this weekend, but then I’m outta here. I leave you in the competent hands of Fleur Planne. Chair will remain… everywhere.

Happy househunting,

Sara

Three years I’ve been doing this blog, now. Three years! Also in anniversaries: it’s two years since this bizarre moment. FNBO Direct Online Savings Account is still in business, I’m still in business. We’ll see who’s the last one standing.

Anyway: going back to the beginning. I just drove by this house, which I wrote about on my first day doing this, and it’s still for sale. Maybe when it finally goes off the market, that’ll be my cue to move on. But anyway: thank you, dear readers, for putting up with me for three years of poorly chosen photos from real estate listings. Mwah! Onwards!

…and it is:

JMixx

Congratulations! With your delightful combination of evil appliances, cultish dictators, and bleakness, how could you lose? A robot will be storming through your front door any minute now. Sorry about that.

Here’s the original contest photo, and the winning caption.

“All Hail Range! Range is our Leader, Father, and Protector!”

This was the common salutation in the “Home on the Range Collective,” which demonstrated all the characteristics of a cult. Initially brought together by the passionate, heated rhetoric of Range, the cult ended in tragedy after Range’s warped interpretations of passages from The Joy of Cooking led him to preach to his followers that the proliferation of fast food drive-thrus, Chinese take-aways, and delis were “plagues” signifying the “End Times.” Ultimately, he told followers that the only way to remain pure was to “unplug.” Although Blender’s insides were churning, and Fridge was cold with fear, all of the other kitchen appliances obediently dropped down through the trapdoor. Once they were in the basement, Range unplugged them all, including his own sons, Toaster and Waffle Iron.

As is typical of megalomaniacal cult leaders, Range himself did not commit suicide, but waited defiantly on his pedestal, warning that any who tried to get him to “turn on” to the new culture would “get burned.” Ultimately, however, he burned out, and the only reason the events are known at all was that Air Freshener was left behind, instructed to tell any who asked that he was “scent to tell the tale, that the truth would not be mist.”

Honorable mentions, which means nothing but bragging rights, sorry, in no particular order, to: Jan, Elisabeth, Toni,  Otepoti,  Amanda, and Evan.

My sincere thanks to everyone who entered, the fine people at Shelter Pop, and to iRobot. Mwah!

Two years! It’s been two years! Two years of this blog! Two years and I’m still househunting, which is just pathetic. But my pitiable situation is your win, and not just in an “epic win” sense, but as in someone will WIN!

What will they win, you ask?

A ROBOT.

A ROBOT THAT WILL CLEAN YOUR FLOORS.

A ROBOT THAT STOPS YOUR HOUSE FROM LOOKING LIKE A LOVELY LISTING ENTRY.

A ROBOT MADE BY A COMPANY THAT MAKES ROBOTS THAT DO UNDERWATER MILITARY SURVEILLANCE (note: that is not the model being given away).

No, not Yoyo — a Roomba! Want to win it? Please take the following easy steps.

1. Look at the photo below.

2. Head on over to Shelter Pop and explain what is happening in the photo. This is a contest of skill, not luck. Humor counts; factuality does not.

3. Check back on Tuesday and see if you won.

4. ROBOT ROBOT ROBOT.

I’m so excited about this it’s ridiculous, but come on, it’s a Roomba! The top of the line, take no prisoners Roomba! I’m not paid to endorse the robots; I really like them. I have a bare-bones Roomba and a Scooba that, sadly, doesn’t do underwater surveillance. This is a fancy new one with “anti-tassel technology,” plus it’ll clean up kitty litter. Maybe I should post an identifying photo to stop myself from stealing it and sending the winner my old one… here, behold the ANTI-TASSEL ROBOT, also known as the Roomba Pet Series 562:

Go! Go enter! Be amusing! Good luck!

Original listing found on For oss som fascineres av bildene på Finn.no.

(Sorry, no comments on this post while the contest is going on. Enter on Shelter Pop, not here.)

It appears that Google has some new feature called Buzz that you young people enjoy. Here is Lovely Listing’s Buzz… page? I believe that my posting this will send it to the RSS feed and then to Twitter and then on to Buzz (while somehow ignoring Facebook) and then back here and then we all explode in a shower of recursion. Sorry about that.

Chair has asked me to pass along a message (or maybe I should dial back on the afternoon gimlets, whatever, I’m running with it). Chair has noticed that Vladimir Putin gets to have Vladurday, and cake decorators get their Sunday Sweets. So when is Chair’s day? A special day, dedicated to all things Chair?

“You can have one,” I told Chair, for this is a persistent hallucination, “when I come up with a good name for a Day of Chair.” And I haven’t yet. And Chair is… displeased.

So please help me. Chairday? Chairteenth? Saturchair? What?

I wilt in hot weather, and humidity makes me cry… so I’m off to Chicago! If you’re at the BlogHer convention, please find me and say hello. I’ll be the one with no social skills pretending that no, I didn’t really want to mingle, I’ll just stand here and stare at the wall happily, tra la la…

Comment moderation is going to be even slower than usual the next few days. Sorry. Bigots and spammers are why we can’t have nice things.

Wish you were there,
Sara

P.S. Home now. Here are a few quick notes on the conference.