THE BLUE GHOST

I know I'm supposed to be all cute and dressed up today because it's Halloween but:

1) my human refused to dress in a matching + equally humiliating costume
2) nothing I can wear could ever be as cute as the mummy pugs
3) I'm not in the mood

And I was totally ready to say no way to the whole Halloween thing, until my human said the word. You know the one I'm talking about. So I gave in and next thing you know, my human's in the closet digging out the stupid lobster suit.

Nothing against lobsters or anything, but I've been a lobster before. I'm also not feeling very lobster-y right now. I'm pretty sure lobsters don't get sad or freaked out, and I'm a little sad and kinda freaked out right now about the 1000 pugs thing.
The website says 1000 pugs are coming! tomorrow and I still don't know who they are.

So I told my human I want to be a ghost instead of a lobster. I figure if the 1000 pugs come a day early, maybe I can scare them away. She didn't have any white stuff to make a ghost suit out of, so I have to be a blue ghost instead.

Google says blue is another word for sad and I am kind of a little sad. As long as I don't have to be pink, I'm ok with it. I don't think a pink ghost could scare anything away. Except maybe Dutch.

* * *

MUCH SPECIALNESS!
Sabrina in Winnepeg had her Whelp Day yesterday, so let's eat cookies for her. Today is Dahlia in San Diego's Gotcha Day, so more cookies for her. And lets eat some extra cookies for everyone who has to dress up in goofy Halloween suits today.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! (SORT OF)

So, the plan to drug my human with sugar totally worked. One bowl of Frankenberry and she was O-U-T. To make sure she stayed in the sugar coma, I suggested she wait until that Project Runway show to eat her bowl of Frankenberry. This season must be superboring because she always sleeps through the eliminations.

Anyway. Once my human was in the Franken-coma, I sneaked into her office and hacked into HAL4. I tried to make Dutch promise to bark if my human woke up, but he wanted no part of Operation Frankenberry. I bet he would if the problem was 1000 DALMATIANS, but whatever.

So far, so good.

You better get comfortable, this might take awhile. Because things got harder once I was inside HAL4. I think HAL4 is like a computer version my human's brain and my human's brain is a very scary, messy place. The desktop thing was full of junk, but none of it had anything to do with 1000 Pugs. Or so I thought.

Code name: 1k Pugs

My human must have suspected I was up to something because she gave 1000 Pugs a code name: 1k Pugs. Yeah. How sneaky is that? Well, not sneaky enough because one click on the yellow folder thing and I was in.

I'm not 100% sure what half the stuff in the 1k Pugs folder, so I took screen shots so you could see it too. First thing I clicked on had 'postcard' in the file name so I guess that's what it is. Maybe I should be happy that I'm on the front of it, but right now I'm not really happy about anything 1k Pugs.

Propaganda

Oh yeah, that black pug in the tree? That's my friend Bellatrix. I'm not sure if being on the back of a postcard makes her a traitor, but I think knowing all about 1k Pugs and not spilling the beans might.

Anyway. Next click was on some sort of mini card thing (file name: minisquare_1kpugs). Looked like some more propaganda, but it didn't really tell me anything new. Like, who are these freaking 1000 pugs???

More propaganda!

For some reason, the next click was really troubling (file name: Tmockup_1kpugs). It's just a stupid shirt, but I think it might be a sign of something much bigger. And badder. Like an entire 1000 Pugs empire or something awful like that.

Tshirt = bigger and badder sign.

I only got one more click in before Dutch barked. I wasn't sure if it was a hey-Pug-she's-waking-up! bark or a real bark, but I didn't want to take any chances. If I remember right, humans don't wake up from sugar comas happy.

I kinda thought this last click would spill all the beans because it looked like a website and that's what websites are supposed to do (file name: 1kpugs_dotcom). But my sneaky human totally made it so the beans could not be spilled. At least not by me.

PRIVATE!?!?

Dutch's bark turned out to be a false alarm, but I'd seen enough and stopped snooping after the website click. My original plan was to delete anything 1000 Pugs, but I didn't want to do anything crazy until I have all the facts.

Right now, all I really know is one photographer (probably my human) is going to do something in one year (probably 2012) with 1000 Pugs. But here's the thing - my human calls me Pug. So maybe the 1000 pugs is me. I mean, the pugs in 1000 Pugs has a capital P and that means it's a name, right? If she's going to take 1000 pictures of me, I definitely don't want to stop her.

So confused! What does everyone think???

* * *

FRIDAY SPECIALNESS!
Big fat happy Whelp to Klaus of the infamous Klaus and Natty in Chicago. Have an awesome day Klaus and make your sister give you all her extra cookies. Except maybe one. To be nice. because she's a girl.

JUJU PS: Meatball, I hope your belly is better and your tail is happy and curled.

OPERATION FRANKEN BERRY

Hey everybody, sorry for not being around yesterday but thanks for being nice to Dutch while I was gone. Not sure if he told you, but I've been super busy trying to get this 1000 pugs situation under control. I'm afraid the whole thing is worse than I thought. Like, way worse.

I don't know exactly what I'm dealing with (yet) but I heard my human say something about +300 people signing up for the mailing list thing on the first day. Yeah. 300. One day. Not good.

I really liked Mookie's idea of drugging my human so I can spend more time searching HAL4 for clues and maybe accidentally deleting anything with the word pug in it. So I asked Google about it and found out that drugging someone can be kinda hard to do. And possibly really scary.

I guess drugs aren't easy to get and if you do it wrong, the person might never wake up. I don't want my human to do the Big Sleep, I just want her gone for a little while. Y'know, long enough for me to snoop and delete without getting caught.

So I asked Google if there's a way to make a humans sleep that doesn't involve 1) drugs or 2) accidental forever-sleeping. Google said I should try turkey or an overdose of sugar. My human's not a big turkey-eater so that won't really work. She's not a huge sugar-eater either, so I was really getting frustrated... until I remembered an incident that happened this time last year involving a cereal box. A sugared cereal box.

Here's the deal. Every Halloween, these monster cereals come out and my non-sugary human tries to eat them because that's what she did when she was like 5 years old or something. Totally weird, but it must be a human thing because Bellatrix's dad does it too (except he likes the chocolate dracula and my human likes the berry monsters).

Anyway. I remembered that last year my human went into some sort of sugar coma sleep on the couch after she ate a bowl of the monster cereal. So I sneakily asked Bellatrix if maybe her mom could buy some monster cereal for everyone. Her mom loves holidays and shopping and stuff, so I knew she'd totally be into it.

Well, my plan totally worked. Franken Berry is in the house. Now I just need to get my human to eat a great big bowl of it.

BAD ASS + MANLY

Hello everyone. Pug is very busy obsessing over 1000 pugs or 999 pugs or some other scary number of pugs at the moment. I believe he's working on a plot to drug our human so he can hack into the computer and do other bad things he'll get in serious trouble for doing.

Since Pug is so... occupied, I suggested this might be a good day for me to finally tell you about the top 3 #1 favorite things I was given for my Big 8 birthday. It's only been over a month since I turned 8.

So here I am.

#1 favorite thing #1: Buzz. Ollie in Canada sent me Buzz. I believe he described him as Henrietta's bad-ass boyfriend. Ollie was right, Buzz is quite bad ass. Of course this means Pug wants to steal him and eat him, but Buzz is much tougher than Henrietta and I am faster than Pug. That's all I need to say.

#1 favorite thing #2: manly collar. My new collar came from Pug. We all know how much he hates my love of pink, so he used my Big 8 as en excuse to buy me something blue. Pug wears skull and crossbones 24/7, so we clearly have very different tastes. But I love my new collar. It is trendy, but also classic, and has just the right amount of pink.

My #3 #1 favorite thing is a Himalayan Yak chew that Ollie also sent. I've not always been a fan of the yak, but the Canadian variety is extremely delicious. My human took a picture of me with the chews, but I'd rather share this picture instead.

Yes, that is a PINK bunny Pug is using for a chew pillow. My PINK bunny that came all the way from Canada to be MINE. I know he will deny it, but this was not an isolated incident. Pug spends a lot of time with my PINK bunny. Even though it is PINK.

1000 PUGS???

Internet, we have a problem. Well... I guess we don't have a problem. But I totally do. Because last night when my human was sleeping I broke into HAL4 and do not like what I found.

Here's the deal. I haven't heard a peep about the TSS in awhile but know it hasn't gone away, so when my human fell asleep early last night I totally snooped for clues. I don't know what your human's computer looks like inside, but HAL4 is crazy-full of really random stuff. Like tons of it. And that's just on the desktop or whatever.

So I looked for anything that seemed suspicious and started clicking. And clicking. And clicking. Mouse-ing must be way easier when you have thumbs because when you don't, it's not fun at all. Things got really un-fun when I found a folder thingy called 1000 PUGS.

Yeah. 1000. Pugs.

Uhh, last time I checked there was only ONE Pug and that's me. So who are the other 999? No freaking idea. Before I could click on anything else, my human woke up in the middle of the night to pee. Luckily she was too sleepy to notice me running back to bed, but I was *this* close to getting caught.

Big question is: what do I do now?? I already interrogated Dutch and of course he totally knows nothing. I also asked google and found a link to 1000pugs.com, but that was even more mysterious. And troubling.

See for yourself.

Does anyone here know anything about these 999 pugs-that-are-not-me??

* * *

TUESDAY SPECIALNESS!
Huge Happy Whelp Day to Mini Moo. She's a pug not a cow, but she is mini. Let's all eat something moo-ey for Mini Moo's day.

PS: My snout is smooth and cute and 99% Funk free!

SOOTHING THE NOSE FUNK

We get a lot of emails here at Casa de Puglet asking me to tell everyone about different products and stuff. I totally love when the mail dude brings me things, but I only say yes to:

1) Things I think are cool.
2) Things I think you will think are cool.
3) Eatables. Never say no to an eatable.

Ages ago we got an email about testing out this stuff called Snout Soother. Sounded maybe-cool, but my snout was totally fine. No way I can test out a snout fixer if my snout isn't broken, right? Right. So I told them if I ever need any soothing, I'll let them know.

Well, last week at PugOween I heard my human talking to some other pug-people about "funky nose crust". My funky nose crust. I guess she started noticing it in pictures a few weeks ago and thinks it's gross. She tried cleaning it off like dirt, but it's not dirt it's FUNK so normal fold-cleaning techniques didn't work.

Before: Nose Funk!

One of the pug-people said you can get rid of Nose Funk with something called Bag-Balm and a little scraping. I asked Google about it and found out the technical term for Nose Funk is Nasal Hyperkeratosis. Google also said Bag Balm is for freaking cow udders so I reminded my human about the Snout Soother.


We emailed the snout people and I swear like 2 seconds later the mail dude stuffed a sample through our door. My human smeared some on my snout last night. I licked the first smear off. And the second one. Didn't taste bad or anything, but by the third smear I was kinda over it.

My human wasn't completely happy at me for licking off the first two smears, but I reminder her that the soother is 100% natural. She reminded me that poo is too but I'm not allowed to eat that either.

Whatever.

It will take more smearing to fully test the powers of Snout Soother, but I know lots of pugs have Nose Funk so I'll keep you posted. Hopefully my snout will be 100% Funk-free really soon.

* * *

SPECIALNESS!
Today isn't special, but yesterday and Saturday were. Happiness and cookies to Lucy (East Lansing, MI) who celebrated Whelp Day on Saturday and even more happiness and cookies for Benny (So Glensfalls, NY), Kahlua (Cinn... Ohio) who were special yesterday.

PS: My human's sister Alison was also special yesterday. She lives in Denver where it's supposed to be 76 today and snowing on Wednesday. I don't think snow is what she wanted for her special day so much happiness to her too!

* * * UPDATE: snout status * * *

After: almost Funkless!

Holy SPAM, check out my snout. After Pearl & Tessa said their Funk just pops off after using Pug Butter, my human rubbed my nose a little and BAM! Off it popped.

Well, there wasn't really a BAM! or a pop (that would be scary) but the Funk did come right off. No scraping necessary. My human took today's Before picture this time yesterday, after she rubbed my snout with a wet towel. We put the soother on last night during bad TV... so that means in less than 24 hours, my Funk is almost gone. Pretty cool!

FREAKY FOUNTAIN

Since my human has like zero attention span, one adventure usually turns into two. Or five. PugOWeen was no different.

Because when all the other pugs were hanging out inside playing games and winning things, we were wandering around Marin Humane Society (the place where PugOween was happening). I'd gotten all the pizza I was ever going to get, and was afraid someone might show up with an extra costume I could wear or something so I was totally OK with this idea.

Marin Humane is very cool so there were tons of things to supermodel with. Stuff like dog statues and giant rock turtles, and this Brown Dog Fountain thing:

Now. What separates supermodels from posers is a poser just stands there - but a supermodel knows nothing but the camera. No matter what else is going on, it's all about the camera. And since I'm obviously a supermodel and not a poser, I totally didn't notice how completely freaky Brown Dog Fountain was until my human put Nikon away.

Uhm, yeah. Dog and cat heads that spit water at you? Completely freaky.

* * *

EAST COAST SPECIALNESS!
A big fat happy to my man Frodo in New Jersey! We go way back -- he's been here since like day 1 with his kitty sister Cleo (and now pug sister Molly). Superhappy day Frodo! Me & Dutch will be eating cookies for you :)

HOW TO ESCAPE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

I'd show you a picture of why I'm superlate today, but my human said it's too gross to share. So let's just say I ate something I wasn't supposed to (ginormous woodchip) and was up all night feeling really sick. So sick I almost didn't eat breakfast (almost). But we went for a long walk and it finally, uh, came out.

What came out = the too-gross-to-share part.

I'm totally fine now though, so let's talk Halloween. We all know how much humans love to dress up dogs up in goofy outfits (especially us pugs) and I'm usually ok with being humiliated that as long as I get cookies. But, if you really really really hate costumes and your human really really really loves making you wear them, there might be a way out.

Here's what you do: promise your human that you'll happily wear a stupid costume - but *only* if your human promises to wears one too. And not just any costume, but one just like yours. I mean, what human is going to walk around dressed up in some goofy outfit?

My human dressed me in a dorky banana suit a few years ago (exchanged for lobster because she said I looked like a Klansman) and I totally could have avoided the whole thing by making her promise to wear one too. I would give up many cookies to see my human dressed up like a dorky banana.

BEACH DAY, NECK DELAY

So you're probably wondering what happened to me and the sun yesterday. Well, we found it and it was completely awesome. And I was superexcited to tell you just how awesome it was - but on the way home we had a new delay when my human's neck stopped working.

Yeah. I guess my human's gimpy brain is attached to a gimpy neck and sometimes the neck part gets stuck and hurts really really really bad. That's what happened yesterday, so when we got home my human had to lie on her back and stare at the ceiling to make the neck happy. No idea. But I do know Neck Delays are completely not fun for anyone.

Luckily I had huge fun at the beach before the Neck Delay. We went to our #1 favorite beach that's so secret even the fog can't find it. I ate stinky crabs and played with kelp and chased birds. I tried to roll in a dead seal but my human FREAKED so I just peed on it. No idea why peeing is OK but rolling isn't. Humans are so clueless about marking stuff.

Dutch is like my human and loves the sun, so he played a little then napped. He'll probably say our day at the beach was hell (like camping) because he had to sleep on the sand like an animal. For the record, there was a blanket. I just kinda got sand all over it when I was digging. No matter what he says, Dutch seemed totally fine sleeping in sand.

I wish I had more pictures to show you (especially of ME) but Nikon didn't get to come and Droid's battery died on us. It was a superawesome day and I'm really glad we found sun because when we got back to the city it looked like this:

* * *

MUCHO SPECIALNESS!
Big Fat Happy to my girl Bambi in Petaluma, CA. Uhm, I mean she's not my girl - she's my friend Buford's sister and you don't mess with a dude's sister. But, uh. Yeah. Happy Day Bambi!!

SUN DELAY

Summer is finally here in San Francisco. The fog is gone, the sun is out and my human stayed up crazy-late last night working on stuff so we could go out and see it. Like, at the beach with a blanket for a few hours - not just out the window or on a walk.

I'll be back later today to tell you what the sun's up to...

PUG-O-WHAT?

So, yesterday we went to some thing called Pug-O-Ween. I guess it happens every year but for some reason I never got to go before.

If you're not a pug or don't know about the whole 'ween' thing, Pug-O-Ween is a costume party for pugs. I'm pretty sure 'costume party' is human code for you-will-be-forced-to-wear-silly-stuff. But parties usually mean loads of food, and Pug-O-Ween was no different.

Fooooood!

Parties also mean games. Me and my human played a game called Catch the Cheese. It's like Catch the Hotdog, only with the cheese from a piece of pizza. Bellatrix's Man tried to video it, but I caught the cheese faster than the video could film it.

I also tried to win a pug race but got blocked by some little pug at the finish line. Bellatrix won though and shared some of her prize with me. Sweet Potato Salmon something. Yumm.

Games

Pug race tip: if you're not fast, find a friend who is. They'll probably feel bad when you lose and share some of their prize (even if they don't feel bad, their human will probably make them share).

I didn't have to wear anything silly because apparently my costume only works if I'm with Dutch and this was a pugs-only party, but most of the other pugs were dressed. Don't tell my human I said this because I get guilt-cookies whenever she makes me wear stuff, but some of the costumes were really cool. The mummy pugs were my #1 favorite:

It was kinda hard to hear through all the AWWWWWWWWing, but I'm 99% sure the mummies names are Lizzie and Louie. You should have seen all the iphones and Nikons and Canons come out when Lizzie and Louie showed up.

Best. Costume. Ever!

Lizzie the mummy

Louie the mummy.

PS: Don't you dare tell my human this, but don't you think me & Dutch would make awesome mummies???

* * *

SPECIALNESS!
We have lots to eat about today. First, Saturday was special for MeiMei + ChoCho in Melbourne (like< Australia). Then Sunday was also special for Eagle (location unknown) and for Miss Ellie's Gotcha Day down in South Carolina. And now TODAY is special for Prunie. Prunie, I don't know where you live, but happy day to you!!

ANTRHOPOLOGIE

Hello everyone, Dutch here. You must be bored after so many days of our trip downtown. Pug thinks it was an "adventure" because it was only his second time there. But before he came, me and our human used to go there a lot so to me it is not so adventurous. Just a very busy place full of feet and strange smells.

There is one downtown place I love to visit: Anthropologie. It was the first real human-store I ever went in. My human took me there once to buy a sweater (for her) and I will never forget how nice everyone was. The counter-people gave me cookies and everyone pet me so gently. People don't always pet gently, but everyone there did.

It's been 4 years since I last set paw in Anthropologie. I remembered it being warm and fuzzy with lots of pink, but things have changed. There is not much pink now, but it still felt warm and fuzzy to me. Everyone was just as nice and there are splashes of pink if you know where to look.

HEART ART

After so much Urban Outfitters and Apple store excitement, I really had to pee. My human says she'll bludgeon us (no idea) if we ever pee in a store so we went in search of grass.

I love downtown and all, but when it comes to grass there's not much of it. We finally found some a park-ish-but-not-very-grassy place called Union Square. We also found this really cool heart thing that is a major posing spot for tourist people.

There were so many iPhones and Nikons and Canons, I swear I could smell them from all the way across the park. I'm almost as famous as the big orange bridge painted on the heart, so I figured people would want me in their pictures too. I don't know who these ladies are, but they're the only ones who got a picture with me before my human got mad and threatened to leash me.

Anyway.

For some reason, my human was even more excited about the heart than I was. Kinda weird because I'm usually the excited one. But I guess about a million years ago (June 8th, to be exact) we were in the post office mailing a box of Panda heads and my human met some artist dude. I was too busy Jimmy'ing on stuff to pay much attention, but she got one of his cards and somehow managed not to lose it.

When we got home from downtown, my human went straight to refrigerator and pulled off the artist dude's card. It had a great big painted heart on it, but it wasn't the same as the one I posed with in Union Square. It was kinda like it, but not 100% the same.

My human was kinda bummed we met the wrong heart, but it was still really cool. If you ever visit San Francisco, you should totally pose with it. There's even a plain red side if you like your hearts to be like real hearts.

Dutch will be here tomorrow to tell you about his favorite downtown place. I'm not allowed to make fun of him for loving pink anymore, but you totally can.

HOUSE OF JOBS

Our downtown adventure was supposed to end at Urban Outfitters. But I was having so much fun, I asked my human if we could visit some other places. It was warm and sunny so she was totally ok with that.

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go, exactly. Compared to UO, most of the stores looked kinda boring.... until I saw the Apple store. AKA, House of Jobs. Y'know, as in Steve.

If you've been reading the Daily Puglet for awhile you probably know about my human's, uh, issues with Apple/Steve Jobs. But she was still supersad when he died last week because even though the stuff he created makes her lose 100 IQ points anytime she even looks at it, Steve Jobs was still a creative genius and she loves geniuses (even when they make her feel dumb).

Anyway. The HOJ looked so cool there was no way we weren't going in. Besides, I knew everyone in there would have an iPhone to point at me. So after a little begging my human agreed to take me inside - as long as she didn't have to touch anything (the whole IQ point thing). I didn't care what she did, I just wanted to meet some iPhones.

And did I meet some iPhones! Lots and lots of iPhones. I guess there was other iStuff too, like iPads and whatever, ut all I really cared about was the phones.

So I posed on the ubercool stairs on the way up to visit the Genius Bar- iPhone iPhone iPhone.


Then I posed with some ubercool Apple dudes at the Genius Bar. iPhone iPhone iPhone.

Forget about living at Urban Outfitters. Even though the Apple store also had zero food, I could totally live at the House of Jobs. I think the only place cooler than the Apple store would be a Nikon store and I don't think there even is such a thing. At least not here in San Francisco.

I wanted to stay at the HOJ forever so I tried to blend in with the Geniuses upstairs, but Dutch wanted to visit some store that has a lot of pink stuff so we had to leave. Everyone at Apple was ridiculously nice and my human didn't seem to lose any IQ, so I think she'll take me there again. Hopefully soon.

PUGS NOT DRUGS

Our Superfun downtown adventure started when my human decided she had to have one of those Pugs Not Drugs t-shirts. They're really cool, so when she found out Urban Outfitters sells them, we headed downtown to buy one.

Dutch wanted to come, so I didn't get to ride on the subway train this time. But I did get to pose on the trolley thing and I also learned that 'downtown' by car is like 4 minutes from our house (2.4 miles, according to Google). I have a feeling this information will come in handy some day.

Anyway. Back to Urban Outfitters. If you've never been, it's a pretty funky store. It was my first time there but Dutch swears he's been many times. I don't know how this can be true, but somehow he knew exactly where the tshirts lived. Weird.

I can spot another pug from a mile away so it took about 2 seconds for me to find a stack of Pugs Not Drugs shirts. Except they were waaay the heck up on a shelf, totally out of reach. My reach anyway. Even when I got up on Dutch, I was still too short.

Luckily my human is taller than me and was able to reach the shirts. And after one of the supernice Urban Outfitters dudes helped her hunt through a gazillion shirts for an extra-small (FYI, doesn't exist), we took a tour of the store.

For the record - except for the lack of food - human stores are so much cooler than dog stores. I've never napped in public, but they had this bed that was so comfy I almost fell asleep. Yeah. Right in the middle of the store. If it wasn't for the food situation, I could totally live at Urban Outfitters.

But my human said we had other places to visit so I said goodbye to Urban's bed. And somehow between the bed and the place you pay for stuff, my human had this genius idea to put me in one of the store windows.

I have no idea what she was thinking, but I was cool with it. This kind of stuff always means loads of cookies and all I really had to do was stand there in a window and strike a few poses.

You have NO idea how insanely funny it was when people walking by noticed me. Especially the people who thought I was a one of those mannequin things and furreaked out when I moved.

I swear half the world took my picture when I was in the window... and the other half took it a few minutes later when we got to our next stop. But you have to wait until tomorrow for that :)

* * *

TODAY IS SPECIAL
Happy Whelp Day to Levi in Hurst, TX. I didn't score any turkey yesterday for Canadian Thanksgiving, so I'll try to get some for Levi's day instead. Let's all eat for Levi!