OH MY PUG, I’M BACK AGAIN.

And all it took was me forging a letter from the Pug Slope Headquarter’s landlord saying that the rent was going up a bazillion dollars a month, and then convincing Mom and Dad to just find a new headquarters rather than negotiate with “the landlord,” and then making a deal with some guy on the Internet to rent Mom and Dad a slightly better apartment that’s only a half a bazillion dollars more than our current place, BUT MY MASTER PLAN WORKED.  Now they’re all occupied with packing all the stupid stuff in the house that you can’t even eat (WHO CARES ABOUT BOOKS?!?) into stupid empty boxes, and I AM ONCE AGAIN THE MASTER OF THE BLOG.

BEHOLD, the secret lair from which I write this post:

BWAAHAHAHAHA!

Serves them right.  Mom and Dad totally promised I’d get a weekly Planet Cool Sid post back when they overturned the actual PLANET COOL SID, and they totally didn’t follow through on their end of the bargain.  I did one AWESOME video, and then what?  Nothing!

But, whatever, I’m here now.  I don’t really have a lot of new stuff to say because my parents are all busy packing for this totally necessary (wink-wink) move instead of helping me do the awesome things that I normally do to get all my great blog material, so I’m gonna repost some of my favorite posts that they wrote from way back when.

My first pick: THE VERY FIRST PUG SLOPE POST EVER!!!!

(For those of you who need help with the Internet (cough, Grammy Grace, cough), you can click on “THE VERY FIRST PUG SLOPE POST EVER!!!” and it will take you to the very first Pug Slope post ever. I LOVE YOU, GRAMMY GRACE!)

Awesomely titled, “Sid is Cool,” this was the very first post my dad ever put up on the blog. I picked this post for a few reasons:

1)  I think I look pretty cool and confident in that photo.  Obviously.

2) The whole post is about how cool I am, AND I DIDN’T EVEN WRITE IT!!

3) Dad let me put a comment up there (under the secret code name “admin”) and then we got another comment FROM A VAMPIRE! (Don’t be scared, we know him)

4) Seriously, it’s called “Sid is Cool.”

COOL SID’S BACK, ALRIGHT!

Sid wonders why we always think he’s up to no good.

Because it’s totally normal for a pug to splay himself out on the couch in a completely unnatural position that implies he is hiding, under that pillow, something highly valuable that either a) is technically edible, or at the very least chewable and swallowable, but not on the “approved to eat” list, or b) implicates him in a crime.  Right?

Shifty eyes, a furrowed brow.  Yep, totally innocent.

Dum-dee-dum.  Just goin’ about my day.  Definitely ain’t hiding anything delicious or incriminating under this here pillow. Doop-de-doo.  

This weekend, Sid got to go on a super-special-day-trip that involved going OVER a CANAL, UNDER a RIVER, and ONTO an ISLAND! It also involved some of his human relatives and some other pugs that he had never met before. So, did you you figure out where he went yet?!

As usual, Sid had to ride in style – in his bright red Sherpa travel bag, of course!

Be sure to tune in later this week for all the exciting details of his travels!

Hey, everybody.  Jenn here.

As Brian mentioned on Friday, we sat down with Sid for some peace talks and as a result we’ve regained partial control of Pug Slope.  Sid gets to keep his crop of carrots, and his spooky handsome giant visage will continue to leer stare lovingly at you from the masthead, but the Pug Slope name flies high once again.  But that doesn’t mean this is the end of Planet Cool Sid.  As part of our negotiations, we’ve given Sid a weekly “Planet Cool Sid” column in exchange for all of his online shopping passwords.

So, in light of our recent success, Brian and I decided we deserved a night out on the town to celebrate.  We got all dolled up and headed out to attend a celebration of Gertrude Stein’s Paris at the SymphonySpace way way way up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

We got great seats, and after enjoying Stravinsky’s music for the Ballet Russes and some readings of short works by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes, it was finally time for some jazz – the main attraction, for us.

And just as the jazz band started playing, I stupidly decided to check the Sid Cam, just to see what ol’ Sid was up to.

Now, we check on Sid using our web cam all the time while we’re out.  Occasionally we’ll see him sleeping in his bed, but most of the time he’s not even on screen because he’s cuddled up in our bed in the other room.

Yet, this is what he was doing when I checked in on him while we were out on Saturday night (I think the images – screenshots from my iPhone – will speak for themselves):

At this point I’m remembering that there’s a GIANT naval orange on that shelf…

Yup.

And then, around 9:57PM, he rolled the orange off camera towards our bedroom and never came back…

So, needless to say, our night was ruined.  True, dogs can conceivably eat oranges in moderation, but this orange was HUGE and for all we knew he was chomping it into a pulpy mess on our bed.  Since we were no longer able to enjoy the music without worrying about the mayhem that was happening back at our place, we called it a night and got on the train back to Park Slope.

Here’s what we found when we got home:

It’s been a long night, people.  Brian and I spent the night turning the Pug Slope Headquarters upside down in search for a clue on the sender of Sid’s mystery box, while Sid patiently waited for us to open said box tried out a number of methods for opening the box with little success.

Watch as Sid…

deploys the Standing-Jimmy Jedi Mind Trick…

harnesses the power of thought to convert himself into a solvent which will be passed through the semi-permeable membrane of the cardboard box, aka psychokinetic pugmosis…

and finally resorts to brute force, squeezing and squeezing with all his might in an attempt to burst the box open at its seams with his bare paws.

****

While Sid was busy giving himself a hernia, we found three clues on my computer that confirmed our biggest fear.

1.  An email addressed to Sid, sent from one Mr. Chewy, proprietor of an online pet supply store, offering free goodies to the canine resident of Pug Slope in exchange for a review of their service.

2.  A bookmarked blog post written by one NOODLES LADY LIBERTY of A Bowl of Noodles fame, in which the process for ordering TREATS and FOOD from Mr. Chewy is outlined IN DETAIL including illustrative PHOTOS for various steps and a glowing review of the online shopping experience.

3.  A PDF receipt of a Mr. Chewy’s order placed just TWO DAYS before the mystery box arrived.

Sigh.

It looks like our days in power are over, people.  The pug is rising.  Behold, our new ruler:

“THIS IS ONE SMALL STEP FOR A PUG, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR PUGKIND” – Siddhartha Lamont, April 23rd 2012

Tune in tomorrow to see Sid unpack the contents of the box that changed the world.

In the last few months, someone in our family has put on a few extra pounds. The family member in question has a flat face, likes treats, and still has a wart on his muzzle (named “Carl”). Did you guess who?

So yeah, it looks like it’s time for the infamous “Green Bean Diet”. I think the fur on the back of Sid’s neck stands on end any time the “D Word” is uttered. Sid is a smart cookie, though, and I’m certain he tried to bamboozle me when I brought him to the vet last week to pick up some prescriptions and to do a weigh in.

Vet Receptionist: “He’s 17.1 pounds”.

Me: “What the?! No way. He was almost 22 pounds the last time we were here. The scale must not have been zero-ed out or something. Could we try again please?”

Vet Receptionist: “Sure. OK – well, still looks like 17.1 pounds”.

Back Home:

Me: “Alright, Sid, who did you bribe at the vet to rig that scale? And 17 pounds?! C’mon! I don’t think you’ve weighed close to 17 pounds since you were a puppy!”

It’s true. I think the lightest Sid’s ever been under our watch was 18 pounds and he looked extremely slim at that weight. He looks like a fawn bratwurst now so there must have been some problem with that scale. I weighed myself on our home scale and then picked up Sid, and it looks like Sid is more like 24 pounds than 17. Who does he think he can fool?

So for breakfast and dinner now, Sid’s getting 2/3 of his regular food and 1/3 unsalted green beans. Yum!

Much to our surprise, Sid was actually super excited about the green beans. I guess we should have expected it. He has a thing for canned goods. He immediately got up to his usual shenanigans just as I was trying to take a photo of the green bean can.

I think he’ll have no trouble with the green beans as long as we don’t mention the “D Word”.

So, if you’ve been paying attention, then you know that Sid really, really, really loves his potato toys.  Yesterday we gave him a brand new yellow potato to bring on his evening walk in Prospect Park, and he held that little potato in his mouth throughout the entire 40-minute walk.  We brought along the camera so we got a lot of nice shots of Sid with his new best friend.  Here’s a few:

Cute photos, but nothing you haven’t seen before, right?  Well, I accidentally left my photo editing software open on my computer when Brian and I left for our trivia night.  When we came home, Sid was passed out at my keyboard, a notepad by his side.  The note read:

Start with photos of me walking down the street with Tater looking super cool and then zoom in to me still walking down the street with Tater in my mouth but try to crop out Mom because nobody needs to know that I need to wear a leash and I love Mom a lot but she’s not going to get between me and Tater and Mom just has to understand that I’m not a baby anymore, okay?  Then show me and Tater in the park near those wood chips that I like to rub my face into, and make sure to include that photo where Tater is hiding from me as I peek around the tree and find her, and you know what?  I’m gonna do it.  I’m gonna include the photo where I’m peeing on the tree with Tater in my mouth because THAT WAS SO AWESOME. Imagine me and you, I do, I think about you day and night, it’s only right, to think about the toy you love, and hold it tight, so happy together. I wish Mom and Dad would let me eat Honey Grahams.  But do they have that song?  Ugh, no.  I’m gonna have to buy it on iTunes.  What’s Mom’s password?  Oh, and then, after the photo of me peeing, cut to the photos where Tater and I are lying on the grass, and I get to hold Tater in my paws while I chomp chomp chomp, and then maybe some of the photos where I stand all studly with Tater in my mouth, and then the ones where Mom wants to take Tater from my mouth so she can throw it and I’m all like “nuh-uh, Mom,” and then…Hmmm, Ken Burns effect, or no Ken Burns effect?  Ken Burns effect.  Oh, man!  How do I upload to YouTube?

Well, Sid must’ve figured out how to upload, because when we went to our YouTube page, we found this:

PS:  We found this message scribbled on the other side of Sid’s notepad:

Remember to think good thoughts for Payton so that she can feel better and get excited about food and toys and other exciting things again without feeling sick because it stinks if you can’t be excited about all of the exciting things in life and Payton is cool and I miss her.