Maybe it's really tacky to say this, but...

I've never been one who would commit suicide. I'm curious what will happen, and I think you never know what wonderful thing may be around the corner. That said...

...if I were born in a Muslim culture and in the unlikely event I lived to adulthood [mouthy broad that I am], I think I'd be very easy to talk into killing myself.

Not saying I don't blame those bitches in Russia who acted in collusion with their oppressors and took out a bunch of people with them, but I'm saying I can understand what a bleak and hopeless life they must have lived. Too bad they didn't just take their trainers out with them.

*eye-rolling*

The inmate in the cube across the veal-farm from mine stood up yesterday and announced "Sarah Palin scares me." They went on to say how they'd gone onto SP's Facebook page and there were photos of political opponents with a crosshairs target over their faces. They then said if a Democrat had done that, they'd be under investigation, and if he'd done that, he was sure he'd be in leg-irons somewhere, busting rocks or something. He said that her message appeals to the sorts of folks who are crazy and love guns and would like to blow stuff up.

Just then, a call came in on my line, preventing me from responding. Didn't someone make a film portraying the assassination of GWB while he was president? Didn't a senator say he hoped Clarence Thomas dies early? It's funny how meanness only gets noticed by some people when conservatives are the ones deploying it.

I went to Sarah's Facebook page last night and I didn't see the crosshairs thingie. *shrug*

Dueling Flamingos

Just when you think it's a hot mess and beyond retrieval, they all corral and lock steps. This may be too cerebral for even my own arty musical pretenses, but I likeses it, anyhoo...

But, seriously, the dueling banjos bit was magnificent.
***********************************
jeepers. Has one quarter of this year really gone already???

...or how's about this idea?

The gubmint is admonishing health insurance companies to do away with preExisting clauses for policies. Um, I'm calling bullshizznit on this one.

Here's a better idea - why doesn't the gubmint just take the uninsurable people under its wing already (oh, it already has???) and just pay for those pipples' healthcare, and then let the rest of us have the freedom to, oh, say, choose an employer based on the perquisites of salary and features like health care insurance?

In truth, we call things insurance, but there is indeed no true comfort and no ultimate safety in this lifetime. We all do - I'm counting myself here - think of our possessions as our own, but from my most common possessions like dirty socks, right up to my jewelry and my fabulous Beetlejuice bookcase, -- we are merely caretakers of the things we own here. One by one, we'll shuffle off this mortal coil and leave all our fabulous, precious, wonderful stuff to be dispersed by someone else.

If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything. If you don't give a fig about making room in your finances for your own healthcare, why should your neighbor be forced to make concessions to indulge your inanity?

No amount of public buttressing of private lives will fix the mess that so many make for themselves.

Curmudgeon sounds like something you'd find on a tray of sweets when you go round a little old English lady's house for tea, dunnit?

*harumph*

I promise, lots of fun stuff going on, and more fluff coming soon. :)

Oh, crap.

In this article, Sarah Palin is said to be near reaching terms on a reality show.

The show is meant to be a travelogue of Sarah Palin's Alaska, but I'm cynical about the media's willingness or likelihood to show her as an intelligent person. I also would prefer she kept narrowly focused on things political, rather than currying a hollywood-type persona.

The cockeyed optimist in me wants to think that she can turn around a lot of people's preconceived notions about her as empty-headed, as abetted by the likes of SNL. I suppose we shall see...

he had me at Mark Mothersbaugh and X Files theme...

...and then the threw in the Firefly theme.



This very talented guy plays 22 tv show themes in one big delicious mashup. Wow!

Very nice guitar technique.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: kindness overload

This made me laugh and laugh.

the delightful Lenny Henry as Chef on illegal cheese...

...not simply fondue cheese, I concurd udderly.

Why I moderate comments: keep it nice.

I moderate comments to keep the spam down. When I comment on other blogs, I find comment moderation to be far less annoying than word verification, so that is the method I choose for filtering out the ads which promise to clean out my colon or to enlarge my manhood. *hmph*


My blog has been here lo, these eight years and I started this as an occasional record of what was going through my head at the moment. I wasn't working, and felt the need to jolt my creativity in some way, and writing seemed a good idea. As promised on the banner, there's plenty of talk about my dogs (yes, now the plural, and I know I should update the little thingie, but for now I'll deal with it), my perhaps excessive interest in shoes, and just whatever is generally running through my brain.

Perhaps it's my tendency to lean toward belly button fluff that has largely spared me trollery, but I will say this. There has only been one time I have removed a comment and that was because the poster realized he'd erred in making a personal attack on a fellow commenter, and was duly contrite about having said rude, ill-considered things to that commenter and requested that I unpublish his comment.

Someone recently has made pointed comments on my blog of a political nature , but also felt the need to question the intelligence of another commenter. The irony of this is that I personally know the original commenter, and am confident the flamer would quickly have his hide hanging on their shed wall, should they so choose. This person has political opinions which differ from my own, and I gnerally don't have a problem posting their opinions, however wrong they be. If I make a post and someone comments to agree with me, and then you feel the need to question the intelligence of the concurring commenter, well, what does it say about your intelligence that you come to my blog?

I have not intentionally moderated comments out in the past, but that doesn't mean I won't reject them in the future. Stick to the point and keep it nice if you want to play here.

Friday FunNess from Stereolab

NEON BEANBAG



Dunno what it's about, but the song and the video make me grin. :D

Coolest Christmas Ornament Evar.

My dear friend Holly gave me this fabulous ornament for Christmas.

She's an elk with sparkly kissy lips and gilded horns to buttress up her mile-high pompadour'ed Marie Antoinette 'do. I say she, but that may be in question. My understanding has ever been that only the boys in the cervidae family get the racks. Perhaps this one is a drag queen or is undergoing gender reassignment? In any case, I think she/he/it is beeyooteeful!

LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Anyway, she's hanging year-round among the crystals in my bedside table lamp, fabulous thing that she is. She's too splendid to pack away with mere seasonal things, yes?

Thanks, Hols!

walk softly and carry a big neanderthal...

One of the unexpected perks of living in greater Redneckia is the cool shit you see in stores. Here, for example, we have Sasquatch dessicated meat products in stick form. [Frankly, I fully support the marketing of meats in easy-to-consume stick form, just for the record.]

Anyway, I love the ideer of some Sasquatch jerky-treats for hoomans, and hopefully now Chaka from Land of The Lost can reunite with his long lost cousin, Sasquatch. If they can hook up with the Geico cavemen, perhaps they can have a family reunion. Or file a class action lawsuit.

...or run for Congress. They couldn't do worse than the booger-eating morons we put in there before...

Yeah. What HE said: Walk Tall.

PDB posted words Monday that make a lot of sense to me:

So chin up, you sons of bitches. Walk tall. Be proud, not weary. We are made bigger by big challenges. Rehearse your arguments, prepare your lists of legislators for the fall, get ready to volunteer for the correct candidate and oppose the traitors. Flood the papers and blogs with letters and posts and comments, let nobody forget who inflicted this upon us. Load your magazines and sharpen your knives.

Go tell it. I called someone in D.C. Monday. I'll probably do it again today. And tomorrow. Hell. I've got unlimited minutes and I feel like they need to hear what I really think of their unconstitutional acts.

Nerd Cool Rubber Watches from Nooka

C'est super cool, oui?

These rubber watches from Nooka turn the ancient art of time keeping on its august head. You tell teh hour by how many of the 12 dots are darkened, and the minute by the little horizontal bar on the bottom. I think the numeral is for the date.

Anyway, yeah, they're nerdy, and yet so very cool. I can just imagine them popping up all over Tokyo.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: chiWHEEEEEEEE!nie

Chuy Chiweenie takes flight.

Oh, what a happy lad!

Shipping Container Housing

These shipping container houses are SOOOO cool.

Then again, these look like they are in very expensive locations, and I suppose you can spend as much on fixtures and accoutrements with these as you would with any conventional house. Still, they really appeal to my inner loft-dweller. I love the living spaces which open to the outdoors. Then again, these must be located in places with no skeeters.

I don't know if it's good, but it's fascinating to watch...

The part of me that likes popping bubble wrap loves watching this foam stuff.




what would happen if you have wiring or plumbing issues? Would it be a nightmare to fix?

Walgreens to cut off Medicaid patients

This story says Walgreens will not take any new Medicaid patients as of April 16, saying that dealing with Medicaid patients is a money-losing proposition. Who can blame them?

I have to say that if the federal government can't compensate providers in a plan as relatively small-scale as Medicaid, how can they claim with a straight face that they can manage to compensate all providers (and fairly at that) and provide all health care services for all Americans?

They can't.

The suggestion that the US government is able or fit to run a massive health care system for all American citizens is a load of steaming, heap-high crap. They need to do a better job running Medicare and Medicaid before they run around claiming they have the wherewithal to run everyone else's healthcare. As far as I can see, they're making a right pig's ear of the responsibility they already have.

*harumph*

OnWithYourHead.com

Award-winning portraits by Michael Wohlwend

Super cute cut-outs from an adorable artist.

Here for $29 you can submit your photo and order a cutout of yourself or loved ones. I think teh puppehs will have to be immortalized thusly.

Here's Beethoven and Edgar Allen Poe sent up in this fashion. Also, on the artist's Famous gallery, you can download a cutout of a new famous person every month and cut them out for your own standup portrait gallery. CUTE!!!

these shoes are totally sick...

...and I totally want them.

Bambino by Irregular Choice

The change'll do you good...

...thinking of the hopey/changey bag of baloney flogged so mercilessly by Team Obama, lately I'm reminded increasingly of a chorus from Damaged Goods by the superbly minimalist early Gang Of Four:

Damaged goods
send me back
I can't work, I can't achieve
send me back.
Open the till
refund the change you said would do me good
refund the cost
you said you're cheap but you're too much

Quite. True GO4 were speaking of things on a more personal level, but considering how Obama's Final Solution* for healthcare is being rammed down our throats without the courtesy of dinner and a movie, the metaphor fits.

Couldn't find a clip of the original with audio to do it justice, so here's The Hot Rats with their cover and interesting video of same:



*not to liken Obama to A. Hitler: Hitler wrote his own book.

Happy Pi Day!

Yes, Pi day.

Pie are not square. Pie are round.
Cornbread are square.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Not the droids you're looking for...

These are not the droids you're looking for.
He can go about his business.
Move along.

True Crime Story

Just heard on the local police scanner: some schmuck pulled over in a traffic stop got slammed in the pokey because they had a $300 warrant out on an overdue library book.

Wow.

Kitty Saturday

Not my kitty, but very cute!

commutin.

Here's one of those glorious Texas skies. I snapped this with my phone from a very sunny spot on my way to work Wednesday-- see how the white fence gleams? In the distance was about to come a turd-floater. Sorry about the ghostly images of paper and bandaids on the dashboard flapping in the wind like the Lord's Very Own Bill Basket. Anyway, it's magnificent how the sky here can go from cloudless, crystalline sparkling to that deep, federal blue in what seems like no time at all. Next thing you know, there's little iceballs everywhere and your chariot is garlanded with great ropey rafts of dimples. The weather here can be so violent.

I love it.

On to other matters. In comments yesterday, someone asked if my boss still gets gifts from Edward. She does. She may have figured out it's me by my abysmal handwriting. I'd almost feel guilty if she blamed that mess on anyone else. Then again-- Edward's a busy guy, and while he does have an appreciation for aesthetics, he's too busy to refine a better hand. Every once in a while, I'll see a gift Edward left on her desk and say "ooh, what's that?" and she'll babble excitedly about it. Edward gave her some Belgian chocolate bath powder recently and once she got exotic treats he picked up from a market in Tokyo. He gets around, Edward does. I think it's such a fun lark that even if she does know, it would almost spoil it to let the cat out of the bag. We may winnow this out for years, at this rate.

Doth the lady protest too much?

Monday I had a question regarding a legal concern. A co-worker directed me to the "queen" who is in charge of such questions. I'll call this queen Jane.

Papers in hand, I sashayed over to her office, poked my head in, waited for her to get off the phone. She turned her withering gaze upon me and I held up the papers and said "I have a question." Says she "you mean you didn't come all the way over here just to see me?" Given the obvious drollery of this comment, I decided to play along. "Actually, I secretly longed for an excuse to come here." She said "that is so disgusting. I feel sick."

*blink* *blink*

I laid my palm on my heart, knitted my brow and dropped a stitch, then said "you wound me, madam."

She picked up the phone and called my boss. (remember the boss I give surprise gifts to from her beloved Edward? Yes, her. Love her. She's fab.) I heard my boss' voice from the other end of the phone and Jane said "uh, your girl over here said she's been secretly longing to come and see me and I started gagging. Tell your girl why I'm gagging." She handed the phone to me.

When she had recovered from laughing, my boss said "Jane is violently homophobic."

Um. I didn't know that me playing along with what SHE started implied that I was making a play for her.

Mind you, she IS a very attractive woman, but, uh, she's not my type.

Later, my boss was laughing to me about the whole sordid encounter, because my she knows that I was bantering --like you do-- and had no romantic designs on Jane. Boss Lady thought this was tremendously funny, because we work in a place which celebrates diversity. As we talked, a couple other sups who shared in Boss Lady's amusment came along and joined in the merriment. One person speculated that I may have offended Jane by coming to her office looking as good as I did that day. *hee!* I said that though I would never set my cap at Jane, she is a very sexy woman, and I always envisioned her in a Nurse Ratched get-up with the starched cap and white stockings ever garlanded with the severe, humourless expression. This set them off on new peals of laughter.

Boss said that made the whole thing even better, and that she was going to tell all the other supervisors. I said "no! don't! Then she'll really be laying for me." At that point, I stopped digging and walked away.

I'm so glad I didn't mention the bit about the leather nun outfit. ;P

Devo - honda scooter ad

They're through being cool. Still love the flowerpot hats.

Real Reel Push Mowers!

I'm fascinated by these old-style mowers. I'll bet the new ones are worlds easier to push than the old ones, but I'm wondering about the efficacy of this type of mower.

Anyone have recent experience with a latter-day reel mower? I'm thinking about getting one...

...they were hit by a smooth criminal...

Woman crashes car while shaving her genitals.

I could stay awake for three days, consume the whole liquor cabinet and sit around trying to think of absurd things that might happen, and never would I be able to concoct anything like this. Megan Mariah Barnes was driving to a rendezvous with her current boyfriend in Key West, but wanted to look purty for the encounter, needed to tidy up. She had her passenger (her ex-boyfriend) take the wheel as she shaved her crotchular area. Her vehicle ran into another vehicle at about 45mph, and she drove away from the scene, earning her a hit-and-run charge to round out that driving with suspended license charge.

She's looking decidedly more rough than she did in her previous Key West mug shot on December 13. Actually, she looked kind of cute there, and it was a drugs or dui charge. Poor thing.

On the mug shots web site, her occupation is listed as "disabled." Well, I'd argue that if you are limber enough to shave your own genitalia-- whether driving or not-- you definitely can not be called disabled.

It's sad- she looks like she's had a hard life, and she's definitely too young to look as rough as she does. I hope she gets herself sorted.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: why teh puppehs can't have nice things...

The puppies have had a nice feather pillow in their basket in the kitchen for about 6 months. Every so often I'd wash the cover and the pillow separately, but generally they've seemed to appreciate the pillow as something more than just a chew-toy.

Until Monday. I came home from work to find the pillow disemboweled and feathers feathers everywhere.


Bad puppies. Bad, bad things.

So no more feather pillows for naughty pups.
Still, I can't stay mad at them for long, for some reason.

Bernice Jenkins

I can't stop laughing.

Prank calls can be so tacky, but this one is hilarity con carne.

On this date in 1836...

Samuel Colt made the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.

Of course, my wishes are modest. I'm not hoping to get some priceless relic from the man Himself. I'd just like a Colt of a more recent vintage, as I've mentioned. A nice little Python would suit me fine. 8" barrel is sweet, but I'd settle for 6". :)

cool commercial features Texas tank wave surfers

You may not be aware of this, but there are folks down on the Texas coast who will surf the wave in the wake of tankers for as long as 15 or 16 minutes. I'm sure if you're into things that are Zen, then this must be a very Zen thing. It's quirky, but it quite fits Texas, I find. True, there's a great tradition the world 'round for surfing, but these guys have probably done it in a cowboy hat, and I suspect at least one of them has played bongos naked. Yeah, very Texas, that.



This is a commercial for a sportswear label, but you get a good idea of tanker wave surfing. Good stuff. Also, if you have a little more time, you don't have to be a surfer to appreciate the superb surfing film Step Into Liquid.

When nice things don't happen to bad people...

A true story.


Several months ago, after applying and interviewing for several positions with local public offices, an imminently qualified candidate was offered a final interview for one of two positions in the local administrative offices. She was told she was one of two candidates who would be hired, but all that remained was that she have a final interview with local Big Kahuna who would decide which applicant was assigned which position. Naturally, she was very happy to hear this news, but did keep her powder dry. Many a slip, and all that...

Well, after Big Kahuna canceled one interview and stood her up on two others (as he was the very nadir of professional irresponsibility) he at last granted her an audience and did not ask her a single question about her qualifications for the position. He at last alluded to brass tacks and said "I think there's a place for you here. If not this one, I hope you'll keep applying, because we could use you."

After the interview, the silly dreamer called the person who scheduled the appointment and said "that didn't sound like I have one of those two positions." The lady at the office said "well, BK had some applications at the last minute."

Translation: Big Kahuna had a Big Political Race coming up on March 2, and someone important probably had a niece or grandkid or his wife's cousin's stepson's girlfriend Mabel needed work, so, Our Fair Lady did not get said job. The delicious bit of this is that in order to run for this big-flipping-deal job, Big Kahuna had to step down from his other elected position.

Well, Big Kahuna had his big night on Tuesday night, and the voters of the county informed him that, well, no, actually, they don't want to take him to the Prom. However, I'm sure they feel there's a place for him there and they hope he'll keep applying, because they could use him.

I hear there's a vacant dogcatcher position.

This is my panty. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

In case you were wondering, this will be a post about panties, so if you're embarrassed by such things, come back tomorrow for an earnest post about something doubtlessly less personal.

I am not ashamed to say that I have enough underwear that I could wear a different pair daily for more than a month without having to do laundry and without having to wear dirties. Perhaps two months, even. Anyway, nothing wrong with that. I think nothing cures the ills of one's ho-hum life like going to Nordstrom Rack and spending about $100 bucks on fabulous bloomers that would have originally cost about $500, or so. I actually do this a time or two a year. Anything to keep the back 40 happy, right?

Anyhoo. I've been pretty busy lately and I haven't, well, I haven't been keeping up with the laundry by a long shot. I'm keeping the frequent flier garments clean, and clean towels, but only just. Underwear, well I'll just say I've nearly run through the drawers drawer. Monday I pulled out an old favorite pair. Sumptuous, nudie-pink, a little sparkly, these were always the pretty/dressy go-to panties. Well, Monday, I pulled them on and they weren't quite the same, but I was bleary-eyed and not thinking about it too much. hmmm. Okay.

Got to work and sat at my computer. My jeans were cut below the waist, and my sweater rode up a bit and it felt strange. I reached back and felt, oh, 3 or 4 inches of panty sticking up over the waist of the jeans. And they were wrinkly/baggy. Egad! I've lost weight, but didn't realize how much I'd lost since those were the sumptuously perfect panties.

Naturally, I pulled out my little knife. From the cube catty-corner to me, I heard a shriek that told me I wasn't supposed to have a knife there, and then she started laughing at the five miles of panty flapping in the wind.

Here's where the story really starts. Next to her and directly across is a lovely lady who's been a great coworker. She's really tiny, and asked me what size panty I wore. I thought this was odd, but then again- we are pretty casual - so I told her and she said she'd lost some weight and had some nice underwear if I would like to have them.

What do you say to that? I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of hand-me-down undies, actually. I confess when I occupied lofts in the industrial nethers of Dallas, I knew bums went through our garbage on a regular basis, and I dreaded the thought of seeing my manky old undies festooned outside the slick-with-filth dungarees of some insane homeless person, or on their head, or-- who knew what a crazy person would do? Anyway, before throwing away old panties, I would pretty much cut them into 3 pieces so they would panty no more forever. THAT in a nutshell tells pretty much how I feel about recycled underwear. Unless we're talking about a vintage slip or brassiere, I find the thought of using someone else's underthings for my own to be less than appealing.

So-- how to respond? The lady across the cube was being kind and generous. I said "that'd be great!" and inside I was blanching at the thought. Then I thought maybe she would forget. I made my rounds at work and came back to my desk before lunch, and the lady across from me had already gone to lunch.

I came back from lunch to find a neatly tied plastic bag full of panties on my chair.

!

Horribly, horribly good fun...

I fully expect the film Burke and Hare (starring Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in the ubiquitous roles) to be monstrously good fun. I'm squirming with delight that Tim Curry will also be in this film. *squeee* [yes, I-- had a flat, well-- how 'bout that???]

Set in the early 19th century, the film is a black comedy about Williams Burke and Hare, notorious graverobbers who procured fresh er, uh-- subjects for doctors to use for the study of the innermost workings of the human body. Apparently, they were serial killers and, well, didn't want to dig so deeply for fresh material, so the Irishmen created some corpses of their own for Edinburgh doctors.

This film also features Tom Wilkinson and John Cleese. Can't wait!

Oh, and I mentioned it before, but Andy Serkis was brilliant in the BBC production of Little Dorrit. He's manages to make diabolical delicious, somehow. Amazing how charismatic he truly is. Check it out.