I’ve developed a serious addition to Netflix, specifically where my new iPad is concerned. No, I’m not staying up all night watching Icelandic porn, I’m actually bettering myself by catching up on my understanding of British history by watching the entire series of The Tudors, from start to finish. Wait, that show is actually a lot like Icelandic porn, but I digress.

Completely unrelated to my addiction, you may already know that we took in a stray dog a few months ago. We don’t like her and we don’t play with her, but at least she’s not working a street corner to pay for her heroin addiction. Gravy Train addiction. Whatever.

But this completely irritating mongrel actually did me a great service (see how I’m talking like the Tudors now? Cool, isn’t it?). She has eaten everything in our back yard that is made of pliable substances, including our swing set. Almost the entire swing set. She literally ate the swings off the swing set, right where they hanged. (More Tudorishness)

The great service part is that now I have my own gallows, just like Henry VIII. He preferred beheadings, but he used a good hanging once in a while to keep the peasants in line. That’s the same reason I’ve always wanted a gallows, and now, thanks to a mutt we rescued from a life of turning tricks for Rottweilers with a little extra kibble to burn, I have one. The ropes where she ate the swings actually hang nicely frayed, like I’ve just cut the bodies down after they rotted in full view of the peasants. I mean, the neighbors. Same thing. Long live the Queen.