An investment firm has paid $100,000,000 for a 200-300 year old skull which has been plated in platinum and encrusted in diamonds by artist Damien Hirst. The article says the diamonds were "ethically sourced" which made me laugh out loud.

Seriously? Ethically sourced diamonds?

Um, how wonderful that the "artist" is conscientious of how the diamonds were obtained and where they came from. Never mind the actual anonymous human skull he obtained from a London taxidermy shop - no doubt that was completely ethically obtained, as well.

Ridiculous.

Stop me if I've told this one before, but... some time ago a relatively new resident called for a maintenance repair on something in his apartment - plumbing or light switch or some such. The maintenance people who work for me have been with the company more than two decades. I don't think they are perfect, but in that industry, I think they are pretty darned close. I have known them both myself for 19 years and I believe they are trustworthy people.

Then again, we're all human. MY policy is that if I must enter someone's apartment (for example to deliver a package) I enter looking down at the floor and I keep my eyes on the floor all the way in and out. I have no interest or curiosity about looking at people's things - I think it's rude and a breach of trust. That's just me, personally.

I also try not to look at people's things when I'm showing their apartment to new prospective tenants, but it's not always easy when certain things are casually left about. One of the first apartments I showed when I got into this industry years ago was an incredible space where a grungenik was ensconced. He left a hideous glass bong on the table, and I almost lost my game at that moment, but I acted like I didn't see it. Later that day, I left him a voice mail saying that I'd be showing his space again the next day at 3pm. The next day at 3, the bong was nowhere in sight, but there was a big orange frisbee full of weed on the table in its place. Again, I circled the table, always keeping myself between the prospective clients and the weed/bong, but I that was the last time I ever tried to cover for someone. It's too exhausting, and not my responsibility.

So anyway, all those moons ago, the maintenance crew went into the apartment, and apparently one of the maintenance people went to a bookshelf of curiosities the person collected and picked something up, looking at it. The phone rang in my office with the tenant on the other end in a screaming conniption, shrieking that he was watching his apartment on webcam and we were "looking at" his things. I just didn't know how to respond to that, other than to say I was unaware of them behaving in any inappropriate matter, but that I would ask them about this.

I mean, what do you say? I tried as tactfully as I could to tell them they should consider that anyone can see anything they do -that a lot of people have webcams in their apartments these days. It's certainly a different world than it was a few minutes ago.
___________
Crap. I must go to court Friday morning. That should be fun.

OK. I just want a clarification.

If a sitting US President (Democrat) splays an intern on the presidential seal on the carpet of the oval office and inserts a cigar into her nethers, that's his private life and nobody's business; and if a governor (Democrat, married to a woman) is exposed as a sexual predator who molests other men, well, he's just exploring his sexual identity--after all, it's his private life and we should let him get on with it and his wife forgives him and it's no one else's business; but if a Senator (Republican) plays footsie with another man in a bathroom, well, THAT is a moral outrage and he should resign immediately.

All I am asking for is some consistency. I think it's idiotic for anyone to wrap themselves around the axle freaking out over Craig's gayness. So what? The orientation is immaterial to me. I just find it tremendously ironic that I'm hearing the same voices in the media who were outraged over Clinton's (hee, I spelt that "Clingon" first) indiscretions are also loudly decrying this Craig tool. Yet, the same people who so vociferously defended Clinton are now crying for Craig's blood. Anyone for hypocrisy? Apparently it's all the rage.

Here's what I have personally concluded and I'm guessing this will eliminate me from consideration for the jury pool:

1) Craig is a dirtbag (just like a lot of our morally bankrupt elected leaders - I mean, how many "real" people would give up a decent quiet life for all that D.C. hogwash? I mean, you can't get away with wearing wild shoes there, so what's the point?)
2)Craig is unworthy of the people who elected him
3)Craig might resign if anyone still had a sense of honor or decency, but I really don't think many people in D.C. know what that means any more. They've crossed over into Machiavelli-land and will only relinquish power when we pry it from their clutching, lifeless fingers. And their little lap-dog media, too!

_____________________________________
On an equally depressing note - you're never going to guess who this is, so I'm writing her name in white below the photo and you can high-light it if you want your heart utterly crushed. Zero points if you guess it's the crypt-keeper. You may prefer not to know.

SHARON STONE

Society's little hall monitors want us to know that people only started dying because of big tobacco companies and fast food outlets and SUVs. Before those things came along, no one ever died for any reason.

What a difference a day makes, eh?

On August 27th in the UK's The Daily Mail, they featured a story on this delightful creature celebrating her 100th birthday by lighting her cigarette with one of her birthday candles. I think she's adorable, and she looks like she has an exuberant sense of fun. Who am I to tell a bitch she can't light up, and vice versa? I don't smoke, but I think we have plenty of proof around us that smoking doesn't absolutely kill or damage everyone (or even most) who practice that habit. I say let the old girl smoke, whether or not she inhales.

Contrast that with another Daily Mail article on the 28th which says that smoking causes people to die younger, and therefore as a more staunch warning, photos of corpses and smoking-related tumors will be printed on the cigarette packs in the UK from now on. What absolute twaddle!

Remember those grisly driver's ed films they made us watch in the 80s? Horrifically bloody car wrecks circa the 1950s with corpses strewn about? And even after all that, how many kids from those same schools still went on to die in idiotic car accidents? Most of all, how many people were grossed-out for life, unnecessarily?

Hello, class action suits and candidates making political hay out of demonizing smoking? All this crap does is de-sensitize people to the whole issue. It's insulting, and it's just as disgusting as those morons who stand on the street holding giant photos of aborted fetuses in full view of every child who rides by in a high enough car seat. Nasty people who take out their impotent rage on the wrong people every time.

And while we're talking about it, now Hillary is saying smoking should be banned in New York. Well, when she threw that ashtray at Bill's head, whose ashtray was that, pray tell? Hers or Bill's? Or maybe that ashtray wasn't used for ciggies.


Everything Gives You Cancer by Joe Jackson

No caffeine
No protein
No booze or
Nicotine
There's no cure; there's no answer
Everything gives you cancer.

Removing all doubt...

If you drop a letter in the post office mail slot and instantly realize you were mistaken to send it off just yet, you can go to the ladies at the counter and beg mercy and they'll usually dig your letter out. However, when you press "send" on an email, there's no snatching it back from the ether in that dread instant your eye zeroes in on the humiliating grammatical error it refused to see mere moments earlier.

aaaaaarrrgh!
Really. I'm not illiterate. Mostly.

When I checked out of my hotmail account today, I was spirited onto the front page of msnbc.com, and I immediately saw something very familiar. The illustration here is by Kim Carney, graphic artist and friend of 20 years who may be seen in my blogroll on her blog Something to Say. She's tremendously talented, and it's a thrill to see her clever illustrations get the exposure she so richly deserves.

Well, the tank pinata is coming together. As it will tend to do, reality is slapping me in the face with a cheap rubber sandal and I'm getting a grip on how much detail I will (or won't) be able to emulate with my little tank. At this point, I'll just be happy if it doesn't end up looking like Thomas the Friendly Locomotive or whatever-the-heck that thing is called. I've bought about 20 pounds of gew-gaws and candy, so it better be sturdy, if nothing else. I'll try to post some images tomorrow night. My one great disappointment is that I haven't been able to find a bag of small snakes to go in the thing. Dinosaurs, yes, but no snakes.

What's really taken me by surprise is that I am too weak to papier-mâché for hours at a time. I literally had to take breaks and lay down and breathe deeply. I'm feeling better every day, but this pneumonia has really taken it out of me. Can you imagine being exhausted from picking up strips of paper and sticking them onto something? Meh!

Anyway, I've got the framework mostly completed, and I'll do the final cobbling together tomorrow and probably start on the external form tomorrow night, and do another layer for each of the next 3 nights, finishing the painting on Friday.

By the way, a guy named Rob Cockerham in California has the coolest site, one I've been admiring for nearly 10 years. He does these amazing pranks and fun things. One of the most amazing things he does is his paper-mache stuff. Anyway, you need to go to his site and waste a few hours. YOu'll thank me. The most important thing for you to see there is his paparazzi halloween costume. Rob was working in the film industry on special effects and wrangled an invite to CGI (George Lucas' effects company)'s party. He knew he needed something spectacular, so he rigged the coolest costume. Go check it out.

Anyway. I'm going to work today, but if it's at all like last week, I'll be coming home and crawling into bed after only a couple hours. And that's just fine.

This weekend was the first time I've picked up me camera in yonks. There was a traveling carnival at Valley View mall so I stopped and snapped a hundred or so images. It felt good to be looking for shots again, and I got a few I really like.

I've never been a carousel fan, particularly, but I loved the faded splendour of this one. The horsies (and rabbits and zebra & others) were in very good, new condition, but the embellishment on the ride and the ornate glass covers over the lightbulbs had been rather neglected. The paint wasn't chippy, but the missing/broken lights were sort of haunting. It was sort of like some old dancehall queen with too much makeup on, fading feathers and holey fishnets. Loved it.

________________________

Went to see Mr. Bean's Holiday. I rather expected a series of low chuckles interrupted only by the occasional laugh, but I pretty much howled through the whole film. So did everyone else, so it was't just me. Now mind you, I already love Bean and I like cornball humor, so you may want to take that into consideration. To me, this was SO much better than the last Bean film, and much more like the series than the previous film was.

Willem Dafoe manages to be incredibly funny in the process of poking fun at the art film industry. You may have seen the langoustine-munching scene from the trailer, but there's something even more pants-soilingly funny in that scene. You'll never look at oysters the same way again.

An un-credited star of the film is the breathtaking French countryside. There are spectacular shots of the Millau Viaduc, a nauseating-looking bridge between two plateaus in southern France which at 1,125 feet is the highest bridge in the world. It spans 1.5 miles and is supported only by 7 pillars. Seriously. I felt woozy just looking at it on film. There is no end of breathtaking countryside in this film, and despite frenetic scenes of which there are plenty, Bean's comic schtick is never rushed in the more pastoral moments. Looking around, I had one of those Tahiti revelations where I actually found myself sorta wanting to go there.
Sorta.

If you need a good laugh, this film is a definite tonic.

42 seconds of Ayn Rand

My first car was a gloriously bitchin' '74 Camaro (how did you guess?)my parents gave me in 1983. Yeah, I knew my car would go 150, but I was chintzy with that 63 cent-a-gallon gasoline. I worked as a checker for Winn-Dixie (I totally rocked that job) and I made $6.36/hour, more than double minimum wage, so yeah, I was chintzy with the gas.

But there was the one time three boys from the football team who were neighbors wanted a ride home. I think they peed theysefs when I said "Lookie what I can do!" Yes, splurge when you have company, darlings. I poured on the coal and burned about 1/4 tank of gas in about 45 seconds. If you think about it, it was a role-reversal of a certain intimate act. *wink* Seriously. It was good for me.

I think I leered at them, my face cracking into an evil rictus of a grin when I said something like "If I sneeze in about 20 seconds, we'll probably all die" and then I opened 'er up. Doug Johnson's eyes got big as saucers. I think it's good to unfurl a pithy line at the appropriate moment to mark the occasion. They didn't laugh.

Dullards.

OK, that was kind of bitchy/jerky of me, wasn't it? But they were guys. I thought they were sposta be tough, or something.

Oh, it was glorious, my darlings. Actually, that's the only time I ever really drove very fast. I was so cheap! What ever happened to her?

Anyhoo, in honor of my first sweet ride, here's Bitchin' Camaro by the Dead Milkmen.

Dear Monsieur Louboutin:

Dude, you are stone-cold killing me. If you insist on making shoes I can't afford, please don't make me fall in love with them. Either that, or please grant me special dispensation to lick the display at Saks Fifth Avenue without getting arrested.

At $695, the Miss Fred Tacco Boots with the gold piping, golden spike heel and ribbon laces are almost within reach if I give up feeding the dog and electricity. However, if I'm going to splurge on rather expensive shoes, the patent leather is simply not practical for frequent wear, alas.




Then there is the not inconsiderable matter of the Practique Corta Platform Pumps which make my heart go pitter-pat. Oh, you naughty boy. These shoes are a Mistress Elvira-cum-Minnie Mouse meets Harajuku dream-come-true. $790? Not doable. *sigh*




Finally we must consider my over-fondness for mary-janes which is sent singing by these Mad Mary Suede Mary Janes, and let's see if we can fit one more Mary into this sentence, shall we? Cute doesn't begin to cover it. Amazingly, the black suede is a slightly more forgiving surface than the patent leather so this pair is eminently more practical, but darling! $865 is not even in the ballpark.

Let us review:

• These shoes are glorious
• I can't afford these shoes yet
• You are a mean and nasty man
• Please make uglier shoes that don't make my heart ache

Back to work on Thursday for a few hours, and I'm wondering if there's a job available de-beaking baby chickens that I could apply for instead. You know, something less soul-killing and tedious. Seriously, the entire property crapped its pants in honor of my return, and I get to clean it all up. Goody goody gumdrops.

I'm going to work for a couple hours Friday. [whimper mode] Please let there be no 911 calls from the property this time?

Talking with another property manager the week before I fell ill, we said we should start a property management support group. He told me if you work in the industry any length of time, you will have to do one of three things to cope: smoke excessively, drink excessively or curse like a sailor. I don't smoke, but if I did, it would be excessively. I'm thinking of starting with the patch. I don't drink very often, but I'd love to have the kind of constitution that would help me function and still have a modest daily tipple on par with that of say, oh, Ernest Hemingway. As for the cussing like a sailor? Relax. I'm all over that shit like white on rice.* I can turn it off and act ladylike and all, but sometimes, the only real therapy in the world is setting afoot implacable strings of well-modified expletives, along with copious amounts of cussin', topped with a dollop of potty mouth for good measure.

I know Friday will be better if I just believe...

There's no place like Tahiti. *click*click*click*

*I'm only on semi-good behaviour here because me Da reads my blog. At least there's SOME thing that governs my urge to vent spleen, eh?

I'm not one to go off to holiday resorts. It's really not my cup of tea. I hate flying, and adore the great American road trip and all its attendant (dis)comforts. There's nothing like seeing every inch of the roadway, and somehow flying always seems like cheating to me.



I've always had friends who go off to Cancun, Hawaii or Jamaica and the like frequently, but that's had limited appeal. Until now. There IS one place I'd like to go, and it's a tiny island about an hour boat ride from Tahiti in French Polynesia. The place is called Kia Ora Sauvage, and it looks amazing. The meals are traditional Polynesian fare and center on the fruits of the sea. One delight of that island is the coconut crab, which uses its powerful pincers to open coconuts, and when cooked, these crab actually have a coconut flavor. *heaven*



One of the little huts on this island (I think there are only 20 or so) is about 350 Euros for the first person, and 50 E or so for the second. Food is additional.



Anyway, dedicated as I am to all the modern conveniences, I think I could fight through my dislike of flying and sweating and laze about in a hammock for days looking out on white sands and impossibly blue waters.



After nearly a month off work, do you think my boss'll be pleased if I ask for a vacation soon? Actually, after a month of work, I really can't afford a vacation.



At least dreaming is free.

[I got carried away writing this, and never mentioned when originally posting that I saw this place on the French Polynesia episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. I love him. On the Travel Channel, it's a show about travel, food and culture. He's vulgar, rather excessive and dives right into it all. My kind of guy.]

Big brother is watching you pee.

Well, this isn't creepy at all.

Scientists have devised a way to do a collective drug test on an entire community by testing a single teaspoon of sewer water from a water treatment plant. Click here for details.

The test detects cocaine, meth, marijuana, caffeine and probably chocolate and twinkies as well as no telling what else. They can probably tell which way everyone voted with this test.

There's a link to a poll on this AP page, and when I clicked on the poll, 47% of respondents said they were ok with it, and that the information may be useful in helping track drug usage and aid drug treatment programs.

WTF???
Seriously?

People don't have a problem with this? Jeepers.