Um, if Obama was so veddy veddy confident everyone was hankering for change, then why did he choose a 35-year D.C. insider for his running-mate? I thought he was going to bring change-- what's different about that???

Here, Back in Black, an AC/DC tribute band played the House of Blues Saturday night. I hoped a pink gorilla would make an appearance during Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, but I never saw him there until I got home and saw this ghostly presence at the back of the stage in the photo. More on this whole story later today.

My sister, she did the crazy eye at the Fan Halen/Back In Black concert Saturday night. More news on that soon. Great night. :)

Just in case my ISP won't work on Saturday, I've pre-loaded a picture for everyone's enjoyment. This was on a ladies' meeting at the range where I shoot. This, in honor of strong, hot women who shoot, including the next Vice President.

Now, I wouldn't shoot that bare, I don't think. Having been hit by hot brass a couple times, I want to shield all my tender vittles from the stings and furrows of outrageous misfortunes. Then again, I suppose it's easier just to peel molten bits off your hide as it's melting in, rather than have to pull off a garment and THEN peel it off. Still, she looks amazing.

I've just got to throw this out there - besides being made of utter asskickery, the future VPOTUS is rocking some rad, sexy hair, and I can't wait until she is sworn in. WOOHOO!

I know it's incredibly silly of me, but I couldn't stop laughing at this.


Amazing how pivotal a soundtrack can be, eh?

The following is an online help chat I had with a person *WINK* from my internet provider.
Lately, I've been having problems getting online from my home pc because the modem has been acting up. Finally, after no connection Wednesday, I took the opportunity Thursday morning when the modem decided to get off its lazy ass and perform the task for which it was designed, I contacted the help dept at my ISP. Below is a transcript of that convo. I'll edit the bits where appropriate so's'n you can enjoy the Cliff notes version. I'll put my bits of the convo in pink and his/her/its in green


Phlegm: Hi there
Sam: Hello! Thank you for choosing your ISP technical Chat. My name is Sam. How may I assist you?
Phlegm: Thanks sam. I'm having problem with my -- is it called a modem?
Phlegm: the thing with the 4 green lights
Sam: Yes Phlegm. That is a modem.
Phlegm: Starting about 3 weeks ago,sometimes only 1 or 2 of the green lights would be on, and my internet wouldn't work, sometimes for an hour or two at a time. Sorry -i'm no-tech
Sam: I apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Sam: I'm more than happy to assist you. To get us started, I'm going to need to verify some security information and then we can move on to understanding your setup. We will need to perform some troubleshooting steps together, and I'll be running some tests on my end. Feel free to ask questions along the way.
Sam: May I have the following four pieces of information from you For security purposes please?1. The account holder's 10 digit telephone number. (xxx-xxx-xxxx) 2. The account holder's Full Name (First and Last) 3. Please tell us your name. 4. May I have your preferred e-mail address? (Preferred e-mail address is the one that you use frequently; it may be different from the Road Runner e-mail address)
Of course, at this point, I'm thinking "i've got someone to help me on the end of the line, I'd best run for the barn and try to get the info to them as quickly as possible so's not to waste a bunch of their time." Plus, I hadn't looked at all that gobbledy-gook he'd just spewed out there from an OBVIOUSLY canned selection of statements.
Phlegm: anyway, it would only be down for an hour or so at a time
PHlegm: but as time has progressed, sometimes it's down all day.
Phlegm: xxxxxxxxxx tel
phlegm: phlegm
Phlegm: phlegm at my emailDAHTcom
So, of course, at this point, I've blurted out the long and short of the problem, then I had to enter all that crap for them to verify I am who I says I is.
Sam: Thank you for the information. Kindly hold for a couple of minutes while I pull up your account and research your issue.
Phlegm: oh, and now it's obviously working
Sam: Thank you for your patience.
Phlegm: np
Sam: phlegm, I understand that you are facing connectivity issues with your modem. Am I correct?
Phlegm: that's a big 10-4, good buddy.
Okay - THAT was super-smart. Oh, and the way every answer started feeling very programmed at this point(putting my name at the beginning of each response??? strange.), even before they asked if I was facing connectivity issues with my modem, when I think that's just what I'd spent about 200 strokes telling him/her/it already.
Sam: Thank you for the confirmation.
Phlegm: oh, i'm sorry - you're a machine, aren't you? Yes, I am facing connectivity issues with my modem.
Sam: phlegm, I am not a machine.
Phlegm: sorry. thought i was getting canned responses. I'm sure you're a wonderful and vibrant human being. I love you for helping me.
Sam: phlegm, I tried running a couple of tests on your modem. It is not responding properly.

Give Sam a cookie.

Okay, I'll not bore you with the rest. I mean, DUH - it's their bloody blasted modem from MY system, which THEIR system obviously can tell, right? It just seemed unnecessarily tedious. But maybe that was just me.

Yeah, Sam, I know you're out there somewhere, you're a real person and you're hurting. You're hurting because you have to deal with no-tech people like me who think I should be able to simply push a button and have everything work, no questions asked. You may say I'm a dreamer, Sam. Deal with it. Love ya!

I am SO going to the Texas State Fair this year (which starts September 26 - thanks for correcting me, John Wiley Price- I'm obviously running for the barn and trying to end this year early!).

They've announced the list of fried foods that will be unveiled on the midway. Among them:

Chicken Fried Bacon.

I don't know about the Texas fried jellybeans, though. (yuck)

Separated at birth???

People are always seeing a weeping virgin Mary on a tortilla or Jesus on a rusty drainpipe. It's in the news all the time. Well, I see a Mondoshawan from the Fifth Element on my dog's butt. I think they'd be flattered, don't you?

Sorry for the blurry image-- it's hard to capture the likeness of something that never stops wiggling.

There's a whole lot going on here in this story. An Iraqi 15 year old would-have-been suicide bomber gave herself up. Yeah, there's a lot to sort out in this tale, but I think there's more than a little significance to the fact that her mother-in-law strapped this stuff on her. It's interesting how in this oppressive culture the women act to keep the other women in line, or even to destroy same. Misery loves company, I suppose.

It reminds me of the story of how crab traps work. The trap is basically a box with an open hole at the top. The bait is held in the bottom of the trap, and most of the crabs are too profoundly stupid to ever sort out that they can just crawl right back out the way they came in. For the rare crab that DOES work out how to escape, the other crabs will grab it as it makes its bid for freedom and will pull it back into the trap and destined for a swan song on a porcelain platter. Nasty lot, that.

15 years old. That's just a baby, really. I hope someone well away from that hellish culture will help her salvage any possible remnants of her youth and give her a stab at a decent life of her own choosing. You think they'd let me adopt her?

LOVE the yellow bra, by the way. I hate that humilation had to be heaped upon the scorn of being a sacrificial lamb. Damn anyone who would strap explosives to a child. They deserve same, and against their will, at that.

RRRRRRRRRRRROWRRRF!
She thinks I want that hot dog as badly as she does.
REWARD FOR SAFE RETURN

HMMM... YUMMY NOSE!

How cute is that? Belly shots soon to follow. She's all wiggly when I flip her over these days, so it's hard to get belly snaps! I'll keep working on it. She's bound to fall asleep again some time.

Um.

Embarrassing question here, but...

is it possible to un-Google cache something???

Someone I know posted something they shouldn't have and they'd like it un-posted. *ahem*

The night before I left for vacation in the Hill Country(august 8), I went to a couple concerts.

The first was Nellie McKay. No, don't get excited-- I didn't see her. The internet said the show started at 8:30, so I moseyed over there about 8pm. This time, parking in the parking lot was only $5, unlike the $20 parking fee I paid when I went to see Feist there in April. I bought my $14 ticket and I waited and waited. The show was in The Loft, which is a smaller venue attached to the Palladium on South Lamar. I was so excited because I'd only discovered her the previous month courtesy of Breda's blog, and I put her dog song on a post about my lovely puppy. It was going to be great to see her live.

Unfortunately, I had already promised to go to a biker bar to see a band from back-in-the-day with a girlfriend before I heard about Nellie's show, so I had some overlap issues there. I thought I'd go see 1.25 hours of Nellie and then head over to the biker bar. I asked one of the security guys if there was an opening act for Nellie, and he said there wasn't. I waited and waited. Finally, about 9:30 a couple guys came out on stage to do an opening act. (eyerolling here) Unfortunately, the friend I was meeting at the biker bar is a real stickler for punctuality, and she was sending her driver to pick me up at my apartment at 10PM. (This was S, my friend I went to the charity shoe 'do with Saturday night). At 9:45, I left and went home to meet the driver. I was disappointed not to see Nellie's act but it couldn't be helped. The crowd was very strange - like a tenured hippie university professor convention or something. I'll bet some of them had braided armpit hair with beads and pieces of bone woven in. That surprised me. I expected young and hip. (ya know: like me). Oh well.

The driver was a man from Istanbul, and we started talking about Turkish culture. He was gregarious and fun to talk with. He dropped me off at the bar, and I immediately recognized my error: to a man, everyone in the place was wearing black, white or gray, and there I was in a red v-neck t shirt and some sort of skirt. Uh, um. okay. So, before going to the concert stage at back, I walked into the bathroom where 4 women stood in their leathers and made entirely of ass-kickery. I turned into jelly. I wanted to flop on my back, pee myself and beg them not to hurt me. Okay. I'm kidding about that. I'm just saying that I think the four of them had testosterone levels equal to my own. Okay. Maybe a teeny bit higher.

So, back into the venue, I found my friends. The singer of the Sutcliffes was in the crowd and wearing this t-shirt - Keep Austin Elitist. So true. I heard that some remnants of the Hickoids and Loco Gringos (legendary Psychobilly and TexMex punk bands from the 1980s) would be playing, but I never saw evidence of them, alas.

Finally, the act we all came to see took the stage: Tex Edwards and the Swinging Cornflake Killers. We all sang along to everyone's favorite song, Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine. Classic, that one.
This snippet of the song is probably about 15 years old. Tex has a few more miles on him by now, but he seems to have not-mellowed nicely. Loved the hat.


So, the driver was taking us all home, but the others all lived close together in Lakewood, so they trumped me, and the driver took me home last. Before I got out of the cab, he said so when are you coming with me to Turkey? I just grinned and thanked him for the ride.

Bitches at the bank drive-through.