Go to Breda's Friday Funny for a good giggle.
Ya gotta love Marines.

Went to the Gun Show with Holly and JPG, and to everyone's delight, Bayou Renaissance Man and LawDog were along for the occasion, and they are just as entertaining and erudite in person as they are on the page. I could blather on about the occasion, but I'd never come up with so eloquent a description of the day so I'll just leave it at "Yeah! What he said."

I did get a really nice belt and a holster, so I'm all set. Oh, and there had to be conchos (the belt needed a little extra va-va-voom), so I picked a set of those, so that represents the jewelry-buying portion of the event.

I must say I was not prepared for the odd cross-section of humanity represented therein, and this has to be one of the ultimate people-watching gatherings to be found, and I'll be going to more of these.

Have you seen the new $5.00 bills? Did you ever notice the teeny tiny FIVE DOLLARS printed in each of the teardrop shapes along the border? (click on the detail photo and I think it'll pop up big enough for you to read. Anyway, what surprises me about this new series of bill is that the series number is 2006, and yet here we are well into 2008.

Anyhoo, I think the new fives are really nice, and the extra color gives Abe a little extra oomph, even if it does look like it was washed in a pair of jeans with a shopping list printed in red ink.

I'll probably send this little baby on its way when I go with Holly and JPG to buy my carry belt and holster today.
Good times.

NOTE TO SELF:

Dear Self,

Next time you take a day off your reglur job to make beads on the torch all day, do not crack open a new Terry Pratchett Discworld novel on one of your breaks, mkay?

Love,
Me.


Started Men at Arms today. Have only read a couple of the Watch novels so far because I'm addicted to the Witch novels, and frankly, I've been in squander mode of the woefully short quantity of those, so I've been perhaps too singular in my focus. Must winnow this out longer because only one time can you read a Discworld novel for the first time, but I'm in LURVE with P's writing and running for the barn. Anyway, they all abound with gems, and a mere 5 pages in, I already folded a corner over.

quotable quotes thus far include:

It was said later that he came under bad influences at this stage. But the secret of the history of Edward d'Eath was that he came
under no outside influences at all, unless you count all those dead kings. He just came under the influence of himself.

That's where people get it wrong. Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society,
which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another they are...well...human beings.

and

He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance.

and

If traitors and dishonorable men would not see the truth
then he, Edward d'Eath, was the finger of Destiny.

The problem with Destiny, of course, is that she is often not careful where she puts her finger.

and--
and--
and--

GO MAKE BEADS, PHLEGMMY!

No respect.

More cruelty from the English tabloids served up hot and steaming for Jack Nicholson, but he can sleep soundly knowing his passport data is secure. Headline? I'm so glad you asked. It's Blubbery Jack Nicholson has a whale of a time in St Barts... but still draws the females. A bit cruel. He's no Sean Connery (who is now 81), but he seems to have no problem pulling the chicks, even with the man-tits on display. The pictures are a bit much, but I did sort of giggle. I didn't understand the point of the above photo, 'ceptin it tied in with the whale story. I think he looks more manatee than whale here. It's sort of strange, trying to figure out what position he's in in the water - I mean, where's his head? I think I see a nipple, but he seems curiously arrayed here. Hmm.

_________________________

One great site that has hilarious send-ups of celeb faces superimposed into unfortunate photos is PlanetHiltron.com. That's where I found this delicious photo of Cameron Diaz' nerdy little secret and from the presidential mash-ups comes the other abomination. Be sure and check out their re-imaginings of Angelina Jolie and Ann Coulter. *fun*

They're special. So special.

Apparently lots of folks at the State Department have been fired for snooping the passports of celebs and poligicians. From the article:

Supervisors recorded each instance a file was viewed because the applications in question belonged to members of a select group of several hundred citizens whose passport files were "flagged" for extra protection due to their visibility, the officials said. Among these people are government leaders, movie stars and
athletes, the officials said.The list maintained by Bureau of Consular Affairs has included as many as 500 people at any one time, they said. The list is kept secret partly to deter workers from making unauthorized inquiries into high-profile records. Although there are no formal criteria for inclusion, people on the list are deemed to warrant special consideration because of their
public status, the officials said.

I'm trying to think what information was required lo those many moons ago when I got my passport. I mean, other than my vitals and where/when I've traveled, what really is contained in my passport files? They never axed me what toothpaste I use, or what style of dining room seating I prefer. What, other than the woefully mis-used social security number and other basic details is really contained in those files? Are there different criteria for granting/processing passports for the elite? Do they have to tell whether or not they've had a nose job and anal bleaching? I'm guessing not.

This just illustrates that there's one set of rules for the wealthy/prestigious, and a whole 'nother set that applies to we mere mortals. No matter what, people should maintain their professionalism in their jobs, but to expect people to not notice people of celebrity status in their work is to stretch credulity.

Ooscray that, I say.

It's funny how when celebs want at the front of the line in restaurants in NYC and LA, they are more than delighted to bank on their celebrity, and yet they want to be able to turn off public curiosity at will.

At the nadir of his fame, a former bratpack star had a suitcase lost in travel. My girlfriend was working the phone line and the person (who was Brat-packer's assistant) apparently felt my friend wasn't acting concerned enough and said "he's so-and-so, do you know who he is?!!!" My girlfriend bit her tongue and resisted the urge to say "well, I know who he was."

When I worked for a posh department store (rhymes with steamin'-carcass), the first day of training I was with a seasoned employee when the assistant of a high-profile media person (rhymes with pliant crumble) called in to order a common household item. This was something I guarantee you have your home, and like me, you probably have never paid over a couple or few hundred dollars for one of these items. Well, the assistant was ordering two, to the tune of several thousand dollars each. Um, well, okay. Funny thing was I could fairly feel the smoke rolling out of the assistant's ears when the person training me asked them to spell [crumble]. I maintained my composure, but I admit I've giggled more than once over this through the years.

I say if they want special status, we should regard them as special, but perhaps not in the way they were hoping for. I can think of a few special treatments I'd like to dole out...

Families of shooting victims from Virginia Tech scoff at a settlement offer from the school. Clearly, this offer is meant as a head-em-off-at-the-pass effort to prevent the school from being held accountable in court for the tragic deaths of these students.

Why don't the families sue the lawmakers who prevented their children from protecting themselves?

And I'd love to serve on that jury panel.

Tonight's bead making music:



Call me outdated, but this is still one of my favorite songs.
Such a Shame by Talk Talk

Betty Butterfield gets drunk and accidentally marries a Mormon, and Brigman Young don't want her smoking. How does she get in these prediccermurnts?



Poor Betty.

Recently I met a waitress who once worked at Aw Shucks on Lower Greenville until about 14 years ago. Aw Shucks was owned by a guy named Dirty Bob and his partner Sam.



After Dirty Bob died, Sam sold Aw Shucks and now runs Fish on Fire near Belt Line/Preston.



I asked the waitress why they called him Dirty Bob, and she rolled her eyes and said he was a terrible mess, that you never knew what offensive thing he was going to come up with next.



She said one day two women were at Aw Shucks and one of the women had enormous breasts, and the other was extremely pretty, so Dirty Bob walked up to the table and said "now if we could have your tits to go along with her face, we'd have the perfect woman."



She said she liketa died of embarrassment, and comped the meal for both women.



Dirty, indeed!
***********************

Bringing up the subject of brazen tactlessness gives me the opportunity to say something I've been wanting to own up to here for a long time.

Despite my pretenses of being the brassy sort, I can be waaaay too much of a soft touch. I tend to take everyone at face value until given reason to regard them otherwise. Sometimes, though, I say things which may give the opposite impression-- that I'm a ruthless and withering critic. Every once in a while I think of something I've written in the blog which was intended as an archly self-deprecating remark, but which may have read as a dig at someone other than myself. I really hate to hurt anyone's feelings, and I generally take pains to try to avoid doing so. One of the problems of communicating purely via text is that tone can be very difficult to convey. All of this is by way of saying that if I've said something which offended you, most likely it was not intended to be so. If someone takes umbrage at a careless remark I've made, then I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my thoughts on the subject.

Some things such as my right to defend myself with a firearm or to speak my mind are not things I will ever apologize for, though.
Have a nice day.

The layout of my building is Office/Workout Room/Bathroom, in that order. You'd think that a good 50 feet of remove from the bathroom would *ahem* cushion a person from the fallout of the (presumably) hideous depth-charges which are deployed in that locale. Thanks to over-achievers, that would be a big negatory, good buddy.

My first two years at the company, there was one employee who at least once per week unleashed a fury which inspired blasphemous thoughts. I always knew I was in trouble when he snatched the Dallas Observer(free local weekly paper) from the coffee table by the entry and headed for the back of the building. He invariably unleashed a roiling stench which made it through two substantial doors and one wall. Beastly. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd blame Burger King, because the words "flame" and "broiled" certainly came to mind on such occasions. Fortunately, the personnel in his department removed to another office a couple years ago, but I still recoil in horror at the memory.

I had to call in a technician for repair to a major system on property this week. The answering service spirited me to a voice mail system, and I was thinking it would be a day or two before I heard back from them. Oh well.

15 minutes later, the tech pulled up to my office. I was surprised and relieved the repairs wouldn't be back-shelved for days. Turns out, he was stuck in traffic on Stemmons, and just thought he'd pop on over. Before he got cracking on the repairs, though, he headed for the back of the building, and proceeded to set afoot an implacable stench. I quickly realized that the excuse of coming to my property had been a godsend for this guy, as he obviously must have been near-to-expiring with that dead animal trapped inside him as he languished in the traffic jam.

NOT to be critical, and you know mine smells like roses, but... I suppose gas and poop are like bratty children: everyone else's is way more repugnant than one's own.

Tuesday brought a phenomenal amount of rain. I grabbed my wool wrap from on top of the basket of clean laundry and threw it on the passenger side of my car when I left the house that morning. When I got to work, I noticed that a black bra had hooked itself onto the throw. I unhooked the beast and tossed it on the floorboard, where it looked at home with my black leather gloves, a bag from Panera and amongst a plethora of papers, discarded concert tickets and the other sorts of crap a floorboard will catch. Overcommitted as usual, I promptly forgot about the bra.



Thursday I went to lunch with a couple colleagues, one of whom insisted I drive. I said my car was a rolling garbage can and to simply deal with it. I thought no more of it until I was leaving work that afternoon and saw the black bra on the floorboard, and then I remembered that the man in the front passenger seat was an incredibly formal, strait-laced button-down type who may not have understood. Mortified, I called the considerably wilder friend who'd been in the back seat and left him a voice mail, laughing uproariously about how our very formal friend Jed must have been shocked and baffled by the situation.



My friend called me back and left me this voice mail:

My condolences to Fat Hairy Bastard whose father passed away this week.

The worst, most humiliating baby names.

SRSLY.

When an in-law told me about the name of another in-law's new infant a couple years ago, I couldn't help it: I blurted "future stripper." Did I ever mention that I'm a blurter? I blurt occasionally.

Anyway, in the article linked above, there are links to several categories of horrific names with which people have saddled their unfortunate offspring.

Once I heard of a pair of twins named Cash and Carey. In the 1980s, there were 3 brothers at a Dallas area uni named Sterling, Cash and Bond. Another newborn name I saw once in Dallas was (no lie) Doidriontai. What is wrong with people? I getting giggles when I think about the fact that people have actually named a daughter "Placenta."

Let's have a contest and make up our own interesting names with which to doom future generations. Halitosis, anyone? Corruga Fla'shonday? [don't forget the apostrophe's'ese's] Boncretiatay Chowdown. Toothpick Taneenda.

Anyhoo, here's a list from the above article of deadly sins wot made it into the given names of several sad souls:

Lust Garten
Greed Sister Mancini
Avarice Sullivan
Sloth Washton
Wrath Gordon
Envy Burger
Greed McGrew
Pride Saint
Lust T. Castle

The article does mention that no one named their child "Gluttony," for some reason.

What is so terrible about giving a child an at-least-recognizable name and then allowing the child to distinguish itself with academic merit or other personal achievements? When I see these creative spellings or complete departures from any mapped territories in the realm of sobriquet, then I wonder to what end they aspire for their children, other than to vex the little old ladies who do the data entry in our medical- and correctional facilities record-keeping divisions.

Went to see the closing engagement of the Gogol Bordello tour at the Granada Wednesday night. They were having and after-party at a local club, which they did last time, too, and I skipped this one as well. But next time, I'm going to the after party, even if I am too old for this crap. *ting!* *fun!*

***************************************************************
Here's a couple rilly cool videos I just found:

zero gravity water bubble -

NASA
very cool!



and then, air removal from Alka Seltzer bubbles/water in zero g

ELECTION THOUGHTS

I'm trying to think of a more unfortunate pair of initials than those we associate with "body odor," and so far, I've only come up with "BM" and "VD." I'm noticing not seeing "BO" on bumper stickers, for some reason.

I felt really bad for Geraldine Ferraro when she got thrown under the bus last week for spouting off about B.O. only being in the running because he was a black man, because if being a black man were what made one the obvious candidate, Jessie Jackson would have been president, oh, say, twentish years ago. B.O. is not in the running because he's black; B.O. is in the running because he's in league with Lucifer. *snort* Come to think of it, though, so's Jackson.

Mom's always been a conservative, but she still was able to find pleasure in a lot of the folk music of the 60s. This weekend, she was watching a reunion concert on PBS of folkies, and one of them got up and sang "Eve of Destruction" from that period. I wonder why when JFK started the ball rolling and LBJ escalated it (thanks james and g bro), did Vietnam really cement itself in people's minds as Nixon's war? Also, why is it relevant to sing those kinds of songs only when there's (alleged) conservatives in the highest offices? I don't know about you, but I think it's a little manipulative. If the folkies got it all wrong ( because goodness knows, here we are, 40 years later, as-yet-unannihilated ) then maybe such folk have no business dictating policy and social movements. Come to that, humans are still the animal they were a few hundred years ago, and perhaps mere fads and trends should not affect how we comport ourselves as a society at home and abroad. Maybe those guys in Philly 232 years ago were on to something, and maybe we should stick with their very good program.

I have long felt that a two-party system simply keeps folks off-balance by polarizing the citizenry with a teeny cluster of core issues (issues like abortion) and while regular folks are quibbling over these fine points, the politicians all homogenize into the same insidious type of person in D.C. From those core issues, you have a way of taking folks who in most other respects completely agree yet will fall on one side of the fence or the other, distracting them from the bigger game at stake. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the politicians associated with either side of the fence are hell-for-leather doing their utmost to compromise our liberties and make us further enslaved to our fed, state and local governments - it's amazing how little they actually accomplish for the "greater good*," and yet they're bloody efficient at screwing us. I think they owe us dinner and a movie.

Why is it that every four years, I'm hearing all over the place people saying "this is the most important election of our lifetime?" It's an absolute impossibility for every single election to be the "most important," unless things are simply ratcheting up constantly into greater degrees of tortion. I wonder how long this ever-tightening spring can withstand the pressure, as this kind of thinking is emotionally and intellectually exhausting? No wonder people are anxious and depressed about the process.

That said, we can't afford to take our eyes off the ball-- too much is at stake at every juncture. I'm not throwing my hands up and giving up on the process, but I am a bit weary of it.

* These days, "greater good" always makes me think of Hot Fuzz. Hee.

FINALLY! Something to help me deal with a log or a boulder when I'm out on the trail. I swear it's not a label-whore thing. *purr* Me likee! I hope I don't have to wait until 2010 for my off-roady thing, and this will be too expensive for me, I expect. Still, I think it's cute.



Hummer HX due in 2010

This is going to sound like bragging, but I honestly don't mean it to be. Whenever I find a new interest, I usually am very good at it right out of the box, and I'll jump in with both feet and achieve what seems like surprising success and rapid progress early in the process, only to crash and burn in the consuming flames of boredom which result from an attention span the duration of a lit match.

Monday night I went bowling and the most wonderful thing happened: I'm shockingly bad at it. I'm so bad, in fact, that I hope with years of patience and practice, I may actually break into the triple digits. Yes, I'm so spectacularly bad at bowling that it surely is destined to be my one abiding passion in life.

Since I'm destined to stink-on-ice at bowling, I'm thinking of cobbling together a high-50s style get-up to wear. I'm thinking Rizzo from Grease meets Roller-derby oober bitches. ROWR! Yeah, so I'm terrible! So what? You wanna make something of it?

Yes, I'm so bad and I love it so much that I'm not even embarrassed. Is there any music to parallel the thunder of balls rolling down the lanes, the crack of the pins, the chafing of thighs, polyester-on-polyester?

Sexay!
WOOHOO!

So, anyway, here's a little musical interlude by Yma Sumac that in some small way approximates what my new love, bowling, really means to me:



Can I get bowling shoes in glitter vinyl???

Saturday, MSN.com featured an article called "You are what you drive." Yes, I'm too lazy to look it up and link it. The article talked about status cars, gas-guzzlers and named the traits of those who drive them, but I didn't see anything (okay, so I skimmed) in the article saying maybe people don't need to buy a new car every 15,000 miles.

One of the neat things about visiting the hills in Arkansas is to go to a place that's normal-- a place where 75% of the cars you see didn't just roll out of the factory in the past 18 months. Earlier this year, I actually saw a Yugo there. Running, as in rolling down the road. Apparently of its own volition. When I was up there a month ago, I got a lot of mud on LouLou the babyshoe, and I haven't washed her since, as I consider I'm driving around Dallas hauling a little bit of Ozark real estate with me as I valet park and go to fancy events. Here's mud in your eye, city slickers!

I have no wish for the auto industry to crash, or anything, but maybe folks need to figure out that just because they want something and it would be really, rilly neat to have, doesn't mean they can afford it. Maybe we can all make do with a lot less. Maybe we all don't need a new car every year.

You may recall me saying an off-roady ride is on my short list of future acquisitions, something designed to crawl around on boulders. The coolest Hummer I've seen was an older one, red, with completely oxidized paint, banged-up as could be, driven by a badass, and crawling around on Bardwell Mountain in east Texas. It's like seeing a wild animal in captivity when I see a Hummer in town, too clean and shiny, with a driver taking pains to drive around speed bumps in parking lots. Wimps.

I have a car-proud uncle. We're talking never-been-farted-in, use-the-floorbards-as-surgical-implement-trays degrees of pristineness. My dad's cars, on the other hand, have always been in tip-top mechanical shape, but he's never been one to constantly preen and polish them. Once a relative said "oh, look! You've already got a scratch over here" about a new truck dad had. Dad said "well, you might as well take a hammer and just put a ding in it as soon as you get it home. It's going to happen." That always stuck with me- that he viewed the vehicle as a means of conveyance, and not as a way that he should be measured as a person, and when I think of it, he's never measured others by their possessions, either.

I want to be like my Dad. I want to take other people at face-value like he does, but I do admit to some certain prejudices. I admit I tend to think more highly of a man who drives a pickup truck than of one who drives a prissy luxury car. I admit I wonder about someone who can't check their own oil and transmission fluid, be they male or female. I admit I like the smell of axle grease. I admit that driving down a muddy ditch in a dune buggy is one of the most fun things I've done in my life, as great spraying swags of muddy water fanned out in the air behind me.

So are you what you drive? You COULD spend the diaper money on a sports car, but is that hot and sexy, to neglect other obligations for a status item? Isn't it actually a terrible thing when we confuse a means of conveyance with indicators of personal character? Why the hell would you want to drive something you couldn't get dirty? Come to that, why would you want to live your entire life in a place where there's no opportunity to get your vehicle dirty? I just can't figure it.

AMATEUR NIGHT. [Wherein your humble narrator longs to smack a few palms with a ruler]

Saturday night I went to an art opening featuring work by a couple chicks I know. The exhibit was titled "Cracked: Two chicks' Eggsabition." It was a hoot. Julia's done a lot of graphic design work, and her paintings are these cutie-pie babies and animals that look like 50s style storybook illustrations. Adorable stuff. Ann's stuff is more high-art painting style, and some assemblage, too. Ann also had a little stop-motion animation film called "Eggs and Hamlet" which in 13 minutes did a super-punny version of Hamlet with apologies to Shakespeare. The characters were all played by eggs in this hard-boiled tragedy.



Afterward, Julia and 3 other women went with me to dinner at a great Tex-Mex place in Lakewood, only it was full of apeshit fratboys and the tarts who love them.

Whoops. Forgot Saturday was the annual stoopid-fest that is the Lower Greenville St. Patty's Day thingie. I try not to judge people-- I really do. I know some would say the things I like are silly and a waste of time, but I just think when tens of thousands of people converge on a place with the sole objective of getting falling-down drunk, that this is just pointless and dangerous. It's a little sad, too.

Don't get me wrong - I have no problem with the proper application of strong spirits, but in the right place and at the right time. Holidays like Mardi Gras, New Year's Eve and St Pat's days are amateur nights, people who don't understand how booze should enhance life, rather than blind one to experience.

The drive home was scary.

The Shopping Report.

Want to go on saving the earth even after you're worm-food? Now you can with this super-green product line:

Environmentally friendly recycled paper caskets from ecopod in the uk. Your colorful (or gold-leafed for gilt-tripping your final journey!) coffin may be emblazoned with either doves, a Celtic cross or an Aztec sun.

Not me, man. I want my coffin made out of virgin, newly-minted paper. Cheapskates!

Why does this look like a particularly ugly Swedish shoe, to me? That or it looks like a funny sort of sleeping pod for extreme arctic weather or somesuch. It's just funny, is all. I think it's ugly. I'd prefer to be buried in a bass violin case, frankly.

So, anyway, these are recycled paper caskets for burial. There's also a recycled paper product acorn for storage of ashes of the cremated. However, the website asks people to re-consider cremation, as cremation causes pollution. Uh, thanks, pal. Even in death, we are not spared passage on a deluxe guilt trip, courtesy of the greenies. Nice. A review article linked on the site is titled "Pass Away... Responsibly."

What a pretentious, arrogant lot of twaddle! By all means, have your blasted toilet-paper coffin and be buried in whatever way you see fit, but don't be telling me how to dispose of my own carcass, you self-important jerks. People like you are why God gave the rest of us middle fingers.

Although it's a morbid thing to think about, I highly recommend everyone track down the Penn & Teller episode of Bullshit! which focused on the funeral industry. This eye-opening episode will make dealing with funeral industry folk less bewildering for folks going through a painful and confusing time.

I've said it here before, but I've vowed to haunt relatives if they don't bury me in a simple wooden coffin from Trappistcaskets.com. They are plain and beautiful, and made by actual Trappist monks. I figure if I can't spend eternity slurping down Trappist-made brews, then at least let me fall to dust in a box made by Trappists, and that'll have to do.

An 83 year old Granny fought back when a young man tried to steal her purse. She squirted gasoline on him from the gas pump she was holding.

From the article:

"My son said, 'Why didn't you just give (the purse) up?'" Garcia said. "'Hell no,' I told him. That was my purse. I was fighting for what was mine."

One question I have is how did such a clear-headed, spunky woman raise such a milque-toast of a son?

I think I have a greater kinship with her than he does. My kind of gal!

Did you hear the Vatican has added a new age list of deadly sins which now include pollution, genetic engineering, extreme wealth, drug dealing and denim containing more than 1% spandex?
Here's a handy index card some brilliant soul devised to help us keep track of deadly sin combinations. I don't know about you, but I plan to sidestep at least a few of these, most notably being "Fat man in Speedos." *ahem*



Thanks to the lovely Lin for sending me this via email.

American playwright David Mamet on why he is no longer a "brain-dead liberal."

Two wonderfully contemplative films I love were written by Mamet - The Edge and House of Games. Great dialogue, great exploration of stripes of humans behaving badly, playing mind-games and generally going all pear-shaped on one-another. If you haven't seen The Edge, you really must, and you will thank me. The script is amazing, the Canadian Rockies are beautifully filmed, and there are occasional images of Alec Baldwin suffering. It's a win-win-win.

One of my favorite passages of dialogue is near the end of the film (okay, here I go, giving it all away) and the smarmy high-fashion photographer Baldwin and billionaire Hopkins are stranded in the wilderness and Baldwin asks what he'll do when they get back to civilization.
Hopkins: I'm going to change my life.
Baldwin: You'll be the first.

Isn't that the way of it? People vow to change, to be formed and shaped and go forward with new information to improve their own lives and those of the folks around them, and yet, almost always people revert to their hard-wiring, their default setting. It's therefore funny to think that perhaps Mamet will himself be the first to change his life. Matter of fact, what he is exploring in this bold essay (read the neurotic critics in the comments for a few giggles) is that he came to realize that the beliefs he always has held dear are more conservative in tone than liberal.

One constant in Mamet's plays is the idea of experience and observation reflecting in some way moments of self-actualization of his characters. The characters in The Edge are not learning about the brutality of nature (although she makes great show in the film), but are brought low by their very human flaws and peccadilloes, dropping off the edge of the flat earths of their inner demons. There's a lot about internal survival and adaptation in this film. To find that Mamet has the intellectual breadth to allow facile past beliefs to slip away and reveal something of truer and more profound substance does not surprise me.

Because I love film, music and art, I learned long ago to separate the politics of their creators from the object itself, else listening to Chrissie Hynde or watching a film with Alec Baldwin would be torture indeed. I am fairly open-minded, and I can respect that someone might come to a different conclusion to mine, even if I don't respect the conclusion itself. Life is better this way, and I find I am less bitter and judgmental. Chrissie Hynde is a kick-ass rocker, and Alec is actually very entertaining to watch. Everybody's happy.

Because I've loved David Mamet's work as long as I've known of him, it makes sense to me that his very logical mind could come 'round to a sensible and sane approach to the concepts of economics and how much or how little government we need to function and make the world work properly. I was not expecting this transformation, and I am delighted. Further, my adoration of him grows as he duly credits our men and women in uniform with ensuring the very freedom and safety of every last American, and may he be eternally blessed for having the brass ones to say so in so hostile a theater as the Village Voice.

h/t to FatHairyBastard

Just got home from seeing X at House of Blues. Funny, I feel like I was just there a week ago. The band I saw a couple months back called The Knitters has two common members with X in John Doe and Exene Cervenka. They look young and happy when they're singing. Fun banter, too.
Great show, really tight playing, loved it.

My friend Tracy is an Olympic-class whistler, and I have to holler to put enough pressure on my eardrums to counteract the damaging effects of her bowel-jarring whistle that sets somewhere around the Q-flat above the C above High C. Not pretty.

I guess I'm learning that things aren't like the old days when bands like X played large clubs and such. They actually started on time, which meant they began their set before I dropped my chariot off at valet parking. Whoopsy daisy. Come to that, there were never valet parking in the old days.

After the show, Tracy and I talked in front of HOB. She was in a pair of eye-popping leather chaps standing next to her orange Harley. Uh. Dayum. We vowed to go to more concerts together in future. She says she must give me a ride on her scooter in future. I laughingly agree, but secretly think I own no scooter-compatible apparel.

Anyway, nice show, and at the risk of sounding old-fartsome, nice to get home before midnight.

Margaret Hamilton in a 1970s Maxwell House coffee commercial. I actually remember this one with the shit-starting husband in a leisure suit (towering paragon of support and sensitivity) and the frustrated young wife (she ain't much of a cook, but with that Tammy Wynette hair-do action, she more than earns her keep).




It's funny that Margaret was only 37 when The Wizard of Oz was released. I think she was kind of cute(despite the unfortunate resemblance to Woody Allen), sorta spunky. I thought it looked more exciting at her house with the spiky towers and the flying monkeys than it did back at the farm. That little dog was a pain in the ass. And those ruby slippers would have complimented her green-bean complexion beautifully.

Ah, what might have been.

Dear Kimmer:

You are one of the sweetest, loveliest people I've ever met. I wish you'd move back to Texas!

Happy Birthday with love, from me.



Kim's favorite song - the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme by Léo Delibes

Did anyone else get a giggle when in his Goobernatorial Exit Speech New York Guv Stritcher said:

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Though it be indelicate to say as much, Spitzer's ability to rise to the occasion was the one thing which was never in question.

I expect he'll pull a Marion Berry, go into rehab for some nefarious addiction, and then come back in a blaze of glory and be re-elected to much ballyhoo by those nutty Noo Yawkuhs. This is going to be interesting.

BBC reports that wearing high heels may improve sex life.



Um, is that really news? I would have called that olds.
_______________************

Still cooking happily away at the torch, making lots of beads. I love beadmaking, but it's kind of a strange posture (no, I don't make them in heels) and when I first start up after weeks away from the torch, I find the first few days I get tired very quickly from working with the glass. (Or maybe this is a more subtle form of lingering weakness from last year's pneumonia?) It's certainly not heavy or anything, but the movements are very fine and tension and fatigue can lead to little tremors. You don't want to know how terrible it feels to be shaky when you have a wodge of motlen glass within 6 inches of your hand and working around an 1800° F flame.



I made some beads with a colored Moretti transparent core, a wrap of 23K gold leaf, then encased in a clear Lauscha glass on the outside, with darker colored transparent dots on the outside. The flaky looking stuff floating in the beads in the photos is the gold leaf.


The way (flat or raised) dots are made on beads is that the tip of a rod of the dot color (molten, please) is touched to the surface of the (also hot) bead and then pulled quickly away, making a little tentacle of glass pull out and then flame cut. Then the little spokes must be melted either down to a nubbiny bump, or melted flat into the surface of the bead. I wish the filaments weren't so fragile, because they look like little starfishy spokes radiating out from the bead, but they can snap off in your fingers and are too delicate for this world. I made a one-off so you could see what I mean about the little tentacles. Before torchwork, the mandrel must be dipped into the liquid ceramic (bead release) for a coating which will allow the bead to slide off after the torchwork is finished - this is a gray-ish coating that you can see in the photos.

All the beads in these photographs have a diameter smaller than a dime, btw. It's funny that looking at them so macro makes their flaws so obvious. Sheesh.

The torch is loud, but I love listening to music while making beads. Sunday I thought it would be fun to listen to Giorgio Moroder's Moog magic on the soundtrack to Midnight Express, but I figured out that I'm not comfortable with sudden shocking and industrial-sounding ka-bangs in music whilst beadmaking - I jumped a couple times. Tuesday I listened to Asides and Besides which is a retrospective of Talk Talk, and then it was on to Gogol Bordello. It's amazing how working with transforming objects from solid to liquid to solid states can be so soothing, and it's great to combine such fun activity with music I love. Sometimes it's fun to just pop in an old favorite cd and see where the glass takes me. The surprises are often the best outcomes.

PUT THE HARMONICA DOWN.
KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM.

BACK SLOWLY AWAY FROM THE HARMONICA.

DAMN YOU.

When he first arrived in Buenos Aires, Gerhardt's greedy fingers peeled away the wrapping from his new Hohner, lustily anticipating carefree retirement hours.

When I was a kid in the 70s, on roadtrips I'd sometimes hear a bluegrass version of Misty - the first I'd ever hear - and the lyrics mystified me, indeed.

I get misty
To my chinlove

Mom, what's a chinlove?

[I secretly love the energy of this video-- it's so kooky it wraps plumb back around to cute. The chandelier is a nice touch, and I've always been a sucker for ebola virus wall-art.]
Have a pleasant day.

Irma Brown's Ass-Whuppin' Academy


I'm loving the "world famous miracle whup."

There's a whole lot of young adults out there not prepared for life in the real world. I'm not saying they should have had the tar beaten out of them, but some spanking now and again may have helped them chart a better course.

I don't want to spank them now. I want to spank their parents.

Found this clip over at Attila the Mom's blog. Good stuff!

...from the Nice Ideer/Bad Reality department:

I had a great weekend of bead-making - I made a couple hundred beads, which is enough for a new necklace design I'm making for a Texas artist show my work is going to be in next month.

It's funny what fatigue will do to one's brain.

After spending a lot of the weekend on the torch, I had 5 mandrels left on which to make beads before I was going to start the annealing process in my kiln. Standing there, kind of tired and slightly demented, I thought of the Navajo horse-hair pottery (fired with horse hair which imprints burning-hair designs on the clay as it is fired) and thunk "why not a horse hair bead?" Not having a horse handy, I took a few hairs from an obliging hairbrush. Especially because I'm using an ivory glass for this design, and mixing my beads with turquoise and coral, the idea of having the smoky, coiled lines on the beads seemed especially apropos.

Well.

Um, I think I would have had different results if I'd put the hair on the molten beads, but I let them cool just slightly so I wouldn't have to worry about re-shaping them. Now my garage smells of burning hair, and when I took them off the mandrels, the charred hair wiped right off.

Nice. A stinky garage for nothing. Me and my bright ideas.

Hey- maybe I should try the dog's nail clippings?

UGLY FURNITURE SUNDAY



POPPIES! POPPIES!



By popular demand (okay, Xavier asked politely) I'm going to do an occasional feature called the title above. You know how easily bored I am, so I may never remember to do this in future. We'll see what happens.



I decided to launch this feature with a sofa my brother has for 22 years called "the ugliest sofa on earth." That boy needs to get out more often, because what he calls "ugly," I call "magic."



Yes, here 'tis, my mid-century modern boomerang sofa with blue and red poppies on a matrix of brown beastly upholstery. It's so non-sensical that I can't help but love it. Furthermore, something about the weave of this cloth just lurves Jack Russell Terrier hair. I literally have to put the vacuum up (no, the little nozzle thingie won't do) and run the spinny things over the surface of the sofa to get all the doglet hair off.


And still I love it.



I got this sofa in 1986 at a junk store called Thrift Town on Division in Arlington. I saw another shopper sneering at something low-slung in the furniture section, and she turned, mid-sneer to look at me as I came around the corner and I gasped - *TING!* - it was love, true love, I tell you. I stood grinning at the sofa like a 'possum and she looked at me like I had the plague. Like, well, like I were that very sofa. I didn't dare to hope I could afford it, but saw $40 on the price tag and my heart leapt. Yes!



I took the tags off, along with a couple books I picked up that day, including my first copy of one of my favorites - 100 Years of Solitude, and sashayed up to the register. (You may have noticed sashaying figures heavily in many of my most victorious moments in life. Deal with it.) I also bought a chair, and I put the tags up on the counter with the books. The delivery guys were carting same to their truck as I was at the checkout. As she was ringing me up I said to the girl "you didn't add in the sofa" and she impatiently said "I got it, I got it!" I tried to explain and she acted really mad and and said "I did." I don't know what her problem was, but she totally harshed me with that nasty vibe, so I stopped arguing with her to let me pay for the sofa.


So I got the sofa, chair and books for under $30. I gave the $40 to the guys who delivered the sofa. I'm all for a bargain, but I couldn't enjoy something if I felt like I'd stolen it. Then again, you may be thinking this was a charity case, me adopting the ugly puppy. But this puppy is exuberant in its ugliness. This sofa never wakes up one day and wishes to be Louis Quatorze or Directoire or Queen Anne. This sofa knows its place in the grand scheme of things, and this sofa set about its task and goes forth with a vengeance, and I can respect that.


Anyhoo. My brother was in paroxysms of repulsion over the sofa, but I still think it's bee-yoo-ti-full. In fact, he still brings it up occasionally, laughing riotously as he does so. I really don't understand why. Perhaps you can splain me?



This is an odd picture because I wanted a white background when I sent an image in to Atomic Ranch magazine (which so UTTERLY rocks) to see if one of their mid-century modern furniture experts could tell me the provenance of the piece. And yeah, it's poorly lit and kind of a mess, but I suppose it fits. And it looks great with my Jetsons TeeVee.

Isn't it special?

One of my favorite sayings comes from James Lileks:

Nothing says "yesterday" like something that said "tomorrow."

Brilliant, baby.

Roberta X was talking about the big shift to exclusively HDTV, and I had a horrible realization: when that happens, my Panasonic TR-005 Orbitel (space-eggy Jetson TV) will no longer work.

I reserve the right to whine.

For many years I had no tv at all, and then once I was in a junk store with me ma and little Sis, and Sissy and I near had fisticuffs over who was going to get the little $25 cutie-pie of a tv. In the end, I trumped her, saying I, after all, actually needed a tv. Plus it went with my boomerang mid-century modern sofa.

Someone has one for sale on ebay, and they have this picture on the ad of the tv with some other mod pieces. The problem I have is with that ugly-assed chair. I hate to invoke such beastly imagery, but that chair looks like a maxi-pad. Or a commode. In a not-good way. Yuck.

Nas.
Tay.

What were they thinking?

Happy 50th birthday, Rik Mayall! You'll always be Flash to me, except for those times when you're the Peoples' Poet or those times when you're Drop Dead Fred.


Blackadder II

The Young Ones

****

Brrrr! It's so cold, wet and dreary. I love it. Nice reading weather.

Two days ago, my sister walked out to her little hotrod in the grocery parking lot with nephew.

An older black lady followed nearby and Sis thought this lady couldn't possibly be driving the hot Corvette in the next berth-- after all, only middle-age white guys drive Corvettes, right?

The lady pulled her grocery cart up to the Vette and opened up the back.

Sis: wow! I didn't know the back opened up like that - what a cool car!

Lady: Yes, and I'm really enjoying it.

Sis: I can't imagine paying for one of those, but it must be so wonderful to drive. Do you drive fast all the time? I'd have to drive it fast.

Lady: Oh, I don't drive fast, I just enjoy driving it. I wouldn't have it if I'd had to pay for it, but I won it on The Price Is Right.

Sis: Really? Get out!

Lady: Yes, I sure did!

Sis: I've never known anyone who was on that show!

Lady: Well, I always wanted to be on that show, and I heard Bob Barker was leaving, so I went out to see it in person one time, and they got me up on stage and I was in the Showcase Showdown and the guy before me won a Grand Am, and I was about to say 'I'll take the dining set.' So Bob Barker said "how would you like to take Route 66 in a brand new 2006 Corvette?!!!" And there it was.

Sis: That's so exciting! Did you scream? Were you really happy?

Lady: They almost had to carry me out of there. I was so glad I didn't win that ugly dining set.

Interesting reading on Barack Hussein Obama from the previous issue of the local weekly Dallas Observer by Todd Spivak.

To wit:

He was just 35 when in 1996 he won his first bid for political office. Even
many of his staunchest supporters, such as Black, still resent the strong-arm
tactics Obama employed to win his seat in the Illinois Legislature.

Obama hired fellow Harvard Law alum and election law expert Thomas
Johnson to challenge the nominating petitions of four other candidates,
including the popular incumbent, Alice Palmer, a liberal activist who had held
the seat for several years, according to an April 2007 Chicago Tribune report.

Obama found enough flaws in the petition sheets—to appear on the
ballot, candidates needed 757 signatures from registered voters living within
the district—to knock off all the other Democratic contenders. He won the seat
unopposed.

"A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has
cultivated throughout his political career," wrote Tribune political reporters
David Jackson and Ray Long. "The man now running for president on a message of
giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the
playing field, but by clearing it."

Okay, we've got a lot to cover.

With the primaries and whatnot Tuesday plus an evening concert, I wore something a little more ostentatious than usual for work. Distracted by a shadow-dancing goober, in my haste I didn't read the signage at the polls. Walked up to the table with my voter reg card and handed it to the folks at the table just as in the last election. They axed me to sign in, and I noticed every person who'd signed in had filled in the email and phone number spaces. *heigh ho! that's new.* I'd never noticed people doing that before. Well, erm, uh, okay. I said "I'm not putting my email address" and the woman seemed taken aback but said "uh, that's okay." I said "what will they do with my phone number --do they sell it on a list? Who would call me?" She said "just the Democratic Campaign." I said, fairly sneering "well I certainly don't want those people calling me. No thanks."

They gave me my ballot and an "I voted" sticker for my garment. I went to the booth and lo and behold, I was holding a Democratic primary thingie. Sheeeeut!

Okay, that goober guy had been be-bopping between me and the sign that directed Democrats to the table I'd gone to. I went back to the table and inquired and found I was indeed in the wrong place. For an instant I considered voting for Hillary, but then decided I couldn't even when it didn't really count. I went to the other side. I think they were gobsmacked to see a flamboyant person who wasn't voting on their side of the aisle. As I was leaving, I looked back to the Democrat poll table and saw some really choice wastrels signing in, and I giggled to myself all the way out the building as I thought of the way I'd expressed my distaste for the Democratic Campaign. Oh, and the Republican primary didn't have "I voted" stickers. I think this must be how they're doing their exit polling. I kept my Democratic primary sticker on all day, just for grins. The guy holding the Hillary sign outside the school fairly lit up when he saw the sticker on my lapel. I wanted to say "step away from the bong, dude."
******************
In the PM:
8:09 left work
8:14 mailed a package at the Main Post Office
8:21 handed LouLou off to the $15 House of Blues Valet (ouch!)
8:35 tucked into a hamburger with a washdown of Stella Artois
whilst reading something by Heinlein
9:15 arrived at my seat during the first song

They Might Be Giants were fantastic, and this was an interesting audience to look at. The banter between songs was almost the best part. But the hyper-nerd energy in the audience was almost the best part. All the young- and old-nerds-in-lurve was almost the best part. The WHOLE room singing along was almost the best part. When John Flansburgh introduced the band and admonished the audience to "give up some grassy knoll love for" the guitar player- that was absolutely the best part. When John and the other guitarist were playing an instrumental bit, John Linnell intoned in the most pedantic way possible, calmly "Yes," and then a few seconds later "Continue." Funny stuff, clever men. I liked it a lot.

Oh, and if you have wee sprogs, TMBG has a couple hit cds for children out now called "Here Come the 1-2-3s" and "Here Come the ABCs." The 1-2-3s has been out for about a month and is the number one kid record in the country, which has also pulled up the ABCs cd into the top 5 as well. This is excellent brain fodder for little ones. I recommend the Alphabet of Nations, which was SO much better live than you can even imagine.

It was Nerdvana. Good stuff.

10:57 collected LouLou from valet, tipping $4 (couldn't bear to
pay a whole $20 for parking, and heaven knows I'm no cheapskate
11:14 home again, jiggity-jig

TMBG/Discworld Trivia from Wikipedia:

In the Terry Pratchett novel Soul Music (Set on The Discworld) a group of musically gifted short people call themselves 'We're Certainly Dwarfs' as an homage to TMBG. This is mentioned by the author in The Discworld Companion.

Remember to keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul.

Sunday I knocked my cell phone off the counter when I was opening up a can of food for the doglet, and afterward, the speakers wouldn't work at all. It was a Palm Treo which I could hotsync with my desktop and exchange Outlook calendar stuff, so it was kind of a pain to think of going to a lot of trouble to (mostly) pay for a new phone and also to take the time to buy one, etc. Turns out, my timing was perfect. I got the new Palm Centro which is much smaller, much lighter and infinitely faster on the internet, which is very cool. The case is a pearly white and is much cuter than the 18 month old practically Jurassic Treo. I also paid $40 extra for 2 g of memory, so now I've got ipodish action, woohoo!

Learn from my mistake:

Before you go in to a place to change out your cell phone, be sure and remove any images or whatnot you wouldn't want someone else to see. For example, one day last year a few minutes after he face-planted in the middle of Ervay street, I happened by a body just as the first DPD officer arrived. Not wanting to be rude and sit there ogling the body, I snapped a photo with my phone.

Yes, I know snapping the image was horrible, and probably ruder than sitting there staring at the dead drug dealer would have been (I'd driven by the very same guy doing a hand-off with a crack-whore about 3 hours earlier, ironically - I'm sure it was totally legitimate - they were probably swapping high-value Scrabble tiles, xes and js being hard to come by but point-rich).

Yes, I've fancied some might be offended by my pocket-morgue, but mostly I haven't thought about carrying around the image of a dead drug dealer for the past 10 or so months. Then again, this may have caused an imbalance of chi in the phone-shui, tipping the little devil off the counter. I admit that my level of humor is sometimes on par with an 8-year old boy (hey- pull my finger!), but I certainly haven't gone around at soirees and real-estate viewings saying "Hey-- wanna see a dead guy?"

SO.... I'm sitting at the desk with the phone guy at the store, and he's whipping through the spiel ninety-to-nothing, and he says "and we'll just beam your old images from the Treo over to the Centro" and as he talked, he's flipping over to images and starts the beaming thing, and I was horrified because he flipped past Mr. Dedaz A. Tater several times.

Eek! Will there be an incident? Will I be in trouble? Ruh roh, raggy.

So, if you don't learn from my mistake and find yourself in this woeful predicament, do what I did here:

Wait a minute-- I'm a hair's breadth from ruling the planet-- what do I have to be afraid of? I fixed him with my most intense Morticia Addams stare and did a Vulcan mind-beam of these are not the droids you're looking for.

He never noticed the dead guy.

Mischief managed.

*****

Yays! They Might Be Giants concert at House Of Blues tonight.

*Smug mode*

Can he get a witness?

Here's one of the more eloquent smack-downs you'll ever see in print. It's lovely to see a gentleman speak in defense of a lady in distress.

Well done, Sir.

Sunday afternoon, jpg and Holly graciously took me out to de-flower my new shooty thing. It was fun, but adapting to the feel of the gun was a little more challenging than I expected. My first 10 or so shots were pretty crappy, although I made it onto the paper plate (target) in most instances. I don't know if I got myself wound up because of expectations, but at first my hand was shaking and my whole arm ached with the tension. Having shot so well with a variety of guns the last time I came out with them, I wanted to do well, but it didn't seem to be working that way at first. Then I gave myself permission to do a terrible (even embarrassing) job of shooting, and the tension seemed to go away almost instantly. I shot about 70 or so rounds. The last two times I fired, I came away with relatively tight groupings (jpg said you could contain them in the space of a dollar folded in half), so I feel happy and comfortable with that.

Thanks to Breda's particular mention, I had some expectation of the long trigger pull and the recoil. The recoil didn't bother me as much as the trigger pull, but by the end of the afternoon, I felt much more at ease. As for changing the grips, it occurred to me it's perhaps better to wait until I've killed a stack of paper plates before I decide I know better about what's comfortable, safe and effective than the designer. I may change the grips later, but not until I'm more familiar with the feel in my hand.

Holly and I have great plans to design and manufacture a range of lady shooter products. Can world domination be far behind?

I must say jpg and Holly were very patient and kind to help me, which is exactly what a n00b needs, I think. I am lucky to have such friends, and I appreciate their abundant generosity and hospitality.

Cool little Bristle-Bot project from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Definitely scientific. Debatably mad. Decidedly un-evil. KEWT!!!

I don't even know what to do with this, but I want them. *whimper*

Does anyone around here speak Russian and know the exchange rate on rubles these days?

____________________
Okay - recent dining out - have been back twice to First Chinese BBQ. I had the crispy pork a second time, and I finally tried the roast duck on Friday. The duck is a revelation - it's really tender and the flavor is the best duck I've ever eaten. It is extremely fat- moreso than the pork, even, but it's really good. You can kind of just pick around that bit. Their wonton soup is great, too. The crispy noodles are really good, and the meat/veg comes out piled on dry noodles that are arrayed into a bird nest-type configuration.
***
Met someone for lunch at House Of Blues one day this week, and they have a penne pasta dish with a mushroom sauce - very good. Also, if you don't arrive during the lunch rush, you can park right in front of the venue. They also have a Gospel Sunday Brunch, with a full-gospel choir performing while you nosh - I'm told this is quite soul-stirring.
***
Met a foodie group Saturday afternoon at Himalayan Aroma in Irving at 3631 Belt Line for a Nepalese style meal. It was a rather nice hybrid of Chinese/Indian, and the food was really good. Have you ever had insanely spicy hot wings with scary amounts of cayenne and a vinegary tang? Well, their chili chicken was very much like that. The flavor was good, but it started with a very slow burn and built up from there. I only took a couple bites, and although I liked the flavor, I knew I'd be breaking into a sweat if I ate any more of it. If you face challenges in taming dense thatches of hair in your ears and nostrils, you may want to try this chili chicken and just burn it out. There was an amazing lentil soup with barley, and they served a delicious goat dish. Best dish of the day was methi chicken. Methi is fenugreek and has a very strong flavor that to me seems somewhere between basil and mint - it's a kind of bracing and cool flavor. So, if you go there, definitely try the lentil soup and the methi chicken.
***
Goin' shootin' today if the weather allows. Yays!

Yes, Holly, I'm still bouncing and giggling.

The Shoetist

Here's what cool girls wore to buy new accessories (of the shooty variety) on Leap Day! WOOHOO! Don't you think the world needs more pink/orange/red shoes?
I do.
I also have these shoes in dove gray/periwinkle/oxblood. They're fabulous. I figured a gun emporium could use a jolt of color. [These and my other pair were limited edition runs of the Mini Gorgeous from John Fluevog, funky shoe Maestro. This is another pair of 3" heels I can stand and walk comfortably in all day long. I highly recommend, if you don't mind a shoe that's a little on the clunky side. I really should pick them up in black myself, while they're still available. I keep waiting for him to do a new run of phosphorescent shoes...]

Doglet (who is feeling MUCH better!) doesn't mind my occasional indulgence. She's curious, but not jealous of the new accessory. And no, none of the 4 rules are being broken here - doggie is on a different plane from accessory. Accessory is aimed at a red-tipped photinia, which I loathe. plus it's not loaded. [now I have to get those silver shoes.]

[sorry 'bout the crap photos - had to take them on me cell]

I talked to jpg yesterday about what I was looking for, and he recommended Mike's Gun Room in Richardson, which rabbit also mentioned about a week or so ago. Yays! I walked in today and Mike said "jpg told me to watch for a pretty brunette," and I instantly knew that whatever he was selling, I was totally buying. Lie to me, baby!

Mike was a lovely gentleman and we talked about what I needed in a carry gun. Before coming by I'd already talked Hols and jpg, and of course my Dad. Holly cooed and purred (golly, she needs to give feminine wiles seminars, that one does!) that Colt's is really the only way to go, and I felt myself getting very sleepy, verrry sleeepy. I was checking out a small, lightweight Kahr 9mm, but finally settled on a diminutive S&W .38 Special. It's really neat, but a little birdie told me it'll have new grips sometime soon.

Mike told me if I have any problems to bring it back in, but please don't spill a milkshake on it. I told him mint chocolate chip or black walnut would be particularly evil, but vowed never to have a mishap of that variety. Actually, I'm more worried about rogue wodges of hooker-red lipstick slipping invitingly into moving parts and recessed spaces. Okay. Not really. My bag is not that messy, but little fortune cookie papers may be a problem.

Anyway, so far I'm quite pleased with my choice and will give a full report once I've put it through its paces. I'm constantly reminding myself to only ever pick it up the proper way(make it a habit!), because it would be hard to properly manicure a hamburgery thumb. Priorities, you know.

______________________

I'd like to say thank you again to all the lovely folks who commented on my leap day post. Although I've thought back to that day many times since, I've not really walked my mind through the whole scene like I did when I was writing it yesterday, and it was rather therapeutic, in a way. Anyway, I'm flattered and honoured it struck a chord with so many of you.