Scary Thoughts for Family and Friends of Gay Men

I was about to post something specific about Dan Savage's article last week, but decided to let him speak for himself.

"We Hate Everyone": the blog

Interesting blog, on occasion, but the best thing I've seen by them of late is this fabulous pondering upon the "What Would Jesus Drive" campaign by one of their contributors Canadian. (are they all Canadian? Possibly, considering they hate everyone. Either that or New Yorkers. Tough to say. I guess that's why Toronto stands in for NYC so often in filmmaking.)

Sass Back

Well, I decided I couldn't wait any longer for HaloScan to open up registration again ("closed temporarily" my lily-white ass). So, I've gone with Enetation.co.uk, which, as you can see, is run out of the U.K. [insert image of Silent Bob shrugging at the obvious here] They're free, which is the important thing, but they have tendency to run v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and crash occasionally, and they stick ads into my comments. Same deal as Blogger, so I guess we're all used to that, right? (Some day, I shall have money. Then, no ads and much speed! Dammit!)

I'm still way, way behind when it comes to actual template-building, so please excuse me while I learn to tweak the comments template and my blog template to the point where I'm kinda happy with them. And, you know, they work. cough At any rate, I'm going to be posting a separate post which will be the reference point for all of the smilies available to you, the commenter. I'm going to try and link to the smilies post from the comments box itself, as I don't expect you guys to remember what the hell they are.

Here's hoping I can get this all to work. I'm such a ...okay, so what do you call a dork-ish person who can't do the nifty things dorks are supposed to be able to do with computers? Oh, and is a math 'tard? Hm, I guess loser will cover it for now.

[added twenty minutes later: Um, the smilies post ain't working. At least not so's I can refer you to it. This is very frustrating! Grr!]

[added the next evening: I still can't get the refer thing to work. For some reason, this particular post wants to refer to the post immediately preceeding it. Arg. Frustration! Arg! I'll keep trying, but until then, refer to the abridged smilies listing I've linked the ::view smilies:: bit to. (Grrg!)]

(Speaking of sass, my Rhetoric (which I keep mispronouncing, like I'm Dubya's much-younger cousin or something) professor used to write for the magazine which became "Sassy" when it was imported to the States from Australia. Well, I guess it paid. Getting paid for writing is a good thing. He's married, but he's very effeminate.)

Again with The Onion

They did it again. Nuclear arms found in North Dakota! Eep!

Bird of Spring

Puxawtawny Phil saw his shadow, so we all know the Northeast is destined for six more weeks of winter. Except a robin was perched on the backyard fence today. He was shorter than I'm used to robins being, and a little squat, though the squatness may be explained by the poofed-out feathers. It's below freezing again. I can't imagine what he's doing up here right now. There's many inches of ice and snow on the ground, and even he he found an exposed spot, the ground itself is frozen. No worms here, little friend. I hope he flies back south instead of trying to stick it out up here. He'll either starve or freeze to death. But it was very nice to see his round, red breast this morning. It's almost spring, he tells me. And, who knows? Maybe Phil was wrong.

Cat On Desk = BAD! THING!

Floof is perched on the desk again, purring away, occasionally checking my typing (which has degenerated severely). Mom caught her up there a couple of days ago and had an absolute fit. Scream, scream, yell, yell, fit, fit. So, I've decided to be more careful and only let Floof sit up there when I know Mom won't catch her. Like, when Mom's asleep. Which is all the goddamned day, lazy bitch. And then there's the psychosomatic illnesses which keep her whiny and bedridden. Unless she wants raspberry pie and ice cream. Then she can manage to drive down to Delmar. Rrrg. Floof, you stay right where you are, cutie. You keep on purring. I won't let that bitch do a thing to you. Grrrr.

Buffy

This is not about tonight's episode, which I enjoyed muchly. This is about the woman who watched tonight's episode with me and got all weepy when Willow had her "I let her go!" crying session. (Poor Willow! And, may I say, I do not like Kennedy. I hope she's one of the wanna-bes who dies horribly. Bleh-phooie on her manipulative ass. Mom doesn't like her, either.)

My mom is now bordering on Buffy-fandom. Why? Not the writing, not the funtastic demon action, oh no. She's now hooked for the same reason I initially got hooked. What was that, you ask?

Spike. The yumdilicious Spike.

"They can't let him die," she said at one point tonight, "he's too gorgeous."

My initial reaction was a very Scooby-Doo "Bauwr?!"

And then I agreed.

Yup, that's my mom, diggin' the cheekboned Spike. And can I tell you how weird it is she and I are sitting there, drooling over Spike together? Seriously, this is not a good mother-daughter bonding moment. Igh.

And I saw him first, dammit. Dibs.

Possum!

We have an oppossum in our yard! She's living behind the shed. We're assuming she's a she. She could be a he. We can't tell from here.

She has a long, pink tail, pink feet, and a white face with beady black eyes and a pink nose. Gray coat. She's cute! We like her. Haven't named her yet, but we will.

Mom thinks she moved to our yard when our evil, evil, evil neighbors tore down practically every freakin' tree (evil!) in the neighborhood and put up their ugly, cheap-ass house (evil!!). Poor possum. She can stay as long as she wants. She looked hungry tonight, so we tossed her some bread. We're nice to our cute, marsupial neighbors. Not the evil, evil, evil ones. Those we send mental curses and call names.

Harry Potter

You've heard the shit spewed by the evangelical-types linking the magic and wizard school in the Harry Potter books with Satan. You'd think the Roman Catholic Church would follow suit, yes? They'd done dumber things in the past ten years.

But no. It teaches the difference between good and evil, says the RCC. And Rowling is a Christian in her heart, or some such thing. It's a-okay by them. Don't believe me? Check out this article.

They eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of God (religious cannibalism! whoo!). Their leaders wear silly hats and dress in vibrant shades of purple, red, and white. And they're allowed to read Harry Potter. Bu-ha! The Catholics have a hell of a lot more fun than those stoopid, book-burning Protestants!

Which is to say, not very much fun, and sure as hell a lot less than...well, pagans. sigh

And there is the whole thing with Harry Potter being a boy and the predilictions of a certain group of priests.... Ick. Stoopid Catholics.

On Today's Word

John Adams argued with Jefferson that the word was spelled "unalienable", not "in-". Or told Jefferson it was supposed to be "in-", not "un-". Something like that. There was disagreement. At any rate, the text was changed in the publication to read as Adams wanted it to read. At least in some of the printings. This might be a... um, what would this be called? A fiction? A falsehood? Historical myth? Who knows. I think I heard it on PBS, though, and in my mind, they're a good authority on stuff ya' learn, so I'm going to continue to believe it.

It's also one of my favorite sentences: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I love that document. Some day, I'm going to get a copy of it. Maybe one of those little, leather-bound books. One of the Declaration of Independence, one of the Constitution, one of the Bill of Rights. And then I'll memorize them, starting with the Declaration. I guess I could pick up something like that at the National Archives in D.C.

And I'd also like to get a copy of the collected letters exchanged between Adams and Jefferson. That would be fascinating. (I'm such a geek.)

Typing Lesson

Our cat, Floof, a blue-point himalayan, which means she has fine-haired fur which is super-fluffy and poofy and that's where she got her name.... Where was I? Right. Anyway, Floof, who usually sits in the lap of whomever is sitting at the computer, has decided that the desktop might be more interesting today. She has positioned herself so that she is daintily perched above the keyboard, beneath the giant-ass monitor Mom bought herself, and for the last twenty minutes, she has been watching me type as if she were trying to learn to do the same.

(Kind of ironic, when you consider her previous owners declawed her. Declawing involves the surgical removal of the first knuckle of the toe/finger. So, look at your hands. Imagine the knuckle where your fingernail is is no longer there. Now imagine that is the case with every single one of your fingers, including the thumbs. Floof would probably not be a very good typist, even with a lot of practice.)

It's exceedingly cute. She's very still, except for her ears, which seem to flick to one side only when I make a typo. It's also very good positioning, as all I have to do is lift my hand a couple of inches to scratch her on her forehead, which is covered with a Persian-carpet-thick patch of fur and is therefore very pleasureable to wiggle my fingers through.

(The people who declawed Floof are the people who decided, when she was about to turn three years old, that she was too old and no longer cute, so they were going to put her to sleep. Mom rescued her. Those were evil, evil people with far too much money on their hands. Do you have any idea how much a pure-bred himalayan kitten costs? Sheesh! Also, they had named her Corduroy, which is a stupid frickin' name for a super-fluffy-poofy cat.)

Some day, I'll figure out a way to post one of my own pictures on here and I'll post pictures of the two cats, so you can see what I consider to be irresistably cute in feline terms. Except for the behavior, I can't post that, and that's where a great deal of the feline cute factor lies.

Ohhh, you're so cute, Floof! scratch scratch pet scratch pet pet pet "purr... purr... purr...."

What Poetry Form Am I?

Apparently I'm a split personality. Either I am ottava rima:
Ottava rima? Me? That can't be right!
   Too frivolous? But tut, there's no such thing!
Let others ponder thoughts of wrong and right,
   Or sit and think how much they love the spring;
I'd rather spend my time in gleeful spite,
   Or maybe laugh, or maybe sit and sing.
Besides, it might be fun to be inspiring -
But surely it would get so very tiring.
Or I am a haiku:
Short, terse, unfriendly,
Yet sometimes quite emotive;
I am the Haiku.
How, erm, interesting. Don't get it, but it's kinda cool to be considered a haiku, I have to say, if only half-way haiku.

What poetry form are you? A special quiz for English major geeks.

Which Adolescence of Utena Character Am I?

Look! Another personality quiz! Let's waste more time, shall we?


Name: Touga Kiriyuu
Gender: Male
Name Means: ?
Color: Red Rose
Touga: Was Utena's boyfriend/playmate as a child. He saved a little girl from drowning one day, but died himself. Somehow he meets up with Utena at school. He loves her. He's a nice guy that just gives. But he knows everything. Everything about the cruel world, but since he died here he has to stay here. He would like Utena to stay with him, but she wants to escape this sick world with Anthy. He wants her to. In fact, he helps her. He just wants to see her happy.


You: Are a good person. You suffered for being so good, but you are still good. You arent the strongest or bravest, but you will help the strongest or bravest if you can. You're noble. You're wise. You know how crazy the world is. But for some crazy reason, you're optomistic. Everyone seems to like you. You will help others reach their dreams.

Look. I'm a nice...guy. A nice, dead guy who's in love with a girl who dresses like a boy and is dating another girl. Sheesh. But then, that's anime for you. And, look! Pretty hair! Whee!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

or, Stupid Fucking CSFB

CSFB is my former employer. The evil bastards who worked me like a dog and refused to pay me appropriately for my O.T. I hate them. I wish them great harm. This harm, in my happiest world, is to come through their misbehaviors coming to light and the government of many cities, states, and nations slamming them ruthlessly.

Now it appears that my happy dreams are slowly coming true. Huzzah! Smash them to bits, NASD! For details, check out this article in the NYT. Then, celebrate with me! Whee! Root, root root for the NASD! gloat gloat gloat

The Onion, Again

This article toasts my monkeys almost as much as this article did.

We Are Pepys' Grandchildren

There was an article in the Saturday New York Times on Pepys being the "grandaddy of blabbermouths", the forefather of those who maintain weblogs today in the early part of the 21st century. Me and Pepys. Only, I think his diary is more interesting....

Keep Them Flying

There is an article in Time magazine demanding the space shuttle program be stopped. It's a waste of money. We don't need it. Etc. Meanwhile, the generally hyper-conservative poll respondees at AOL posted the following:

Shuttle Future?
Should the space shuttle program continue?

Yes               82%  358,924
No                11%    50,126
I don't know    5%    24,598

I think that guy at Time can go take a long walk on a short pier. Those people gave their lives for a "waste of money"? They were wasting their time when they were in space? They wasted, basicially, their lives? I don't think so. This guy has no grasp of the science they were exploring. Who the hell is he to say what they did was, essentially, worthless? Astronauts know they are potentially risking their lives to go into space and perform these experiments and complete their projects. After all, people have died before now. It's worth it, asshole. And I'd much rather my tax dollars went to this than, say, whatever dumb-ass war the Bushies want to start to deflect attention from the economy and the complete lack of capture of anyone involved in 9/11.

Why Do I Do This To Myself?

I'm very teary today (well, yesterday), as the more I see of the astronauts who died yesterday (Saturday) morning, the more it hits me that the bright, shining, shooting star on the television was really, truly the Columbia, the space shuttle of which my brother and I had a toy/model back in the early days of the shuttles, before the Challenger blew to bits over the shores of Florida; that these people died and were worth twenty-five of me, each of them. Smarter, stronger, more dedicated. They were among the few of our planet who got to see it from the outside, to float weightless and see how beautiful our world is from the thrilling, cold emptiness of space. The first Indian woman in space, the first Israeli in space, one of the few Black astronauts. There's all sorts of firsts and fews. It was McCool's rookie mission as pilot.

So, I'm feeling that gray, dragging feeling that I get after horrible events like these, ones unassociated with me personally but which still hit me, over time, like I was personally involved. And what do I do? Go to the North Shore Animal League America online kennel to see the animals there. Now I'm all blubbery again, because I can't even save one, sick, old cat named Martin. I suck. I contribute nothing to the world but my mental spewings in this blog. I can't even give a poor, lonely cat a home in his sickly, waning years. I suck. I can't even do this tiny thing to help. I suck.

STS-107 Crew

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
--Robert A. Heinlein

Rest in peace: David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, Ilan Ramon.

The Space Shuttle Columbia

You've probably heard about it before now. What happened. The shuttle lost a piece of its wing during take-off. It was considered to be not a big deal by the engineers and the mission continued. Then the shuttle fell apart upon reentry, debris flying off onto Texas. Here's a breakdown of what happened on Spaceflight Now, for those who caught on late, like I did (start from the bottom--they've been tracking the shuttle from the beginning of the mission, so it was just their misfortune to be the ones to track the accident from the begining of the breakup in California).

This wasn't a terrorist attack, so don't get started. They were too high up for missles. Yeah, there was the first Israeli on board, but this was the engineers making a mistake, not a malicious act. How do I know it's the misjudgement of the engineers who gave the okay to the mission? Well, nevermind they were something like 200,000 feet up and going 17, 18 times the speed of sound. What missle could hit that? How could someone hoping to plant a bomb on board get past the heavy security of every mission? It didn't blow up, it fell apart. I've watched the tapes enough to see that.

I remember Challenger. A couple of days over seventeen years ago; January 28, 1986. I remember hearing about it in homeroom in middle school and going home and crying all night watching the tape over and over on the afternoon and evening news. I'd really thought they wouldn't let something like that happen again. (I'm numb today. I can't believe this actually happened this morning. Watching certain events on television is like that for me. Unreal.) Travelling to and from space is still very risky. But this horrible, horrible accident is still unexpected and somehow unbelievable. Hubris, I guess. I can't believe our scientists can't get past the danger of it, make it safer than driving. And now seven of the very brightest and strongest of humanity are gone.

The worst part is that this happened slowly. They were alive in that cockpit while the shuttle was breaking apart around them as a shooting star over Texas and they knew what was going to happen. What kind of hell that must have been. (Their pilot's name was Willie McCool. That is a very good name. Very Irish cowboy. The Entry Flight Director at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is Leroy Cain, which strikes me as ironic, like the Palestine, Texas, thing. What Mr. Cain and the rest of Ground Control must be going through right now. My heart goes out to them when I see them on C-SPAN.)

More information:
-The New York Times coverage.
-Space.com, which followed the mission all the way through, as it does every mission.
-Time's photoessay.
-William Gibson's touching post.
-Post and following discussion on Patrick Nielsen Hayden's blog full of useful links and thoughts.
-Moby makes a good point about what we've lost.
-A copy of the poem former astronaut and moonwalker Buzz Aldrin read on NBC before breaking down in tears.

And here I was, planning what my Chinese New Year post was going to look like. For those of you celebrating, I hope you have a happy new year and lots of good food and lots of very fat little red envelopes. And that you didn't find out about this until well after the celebrations were over today.

I'm Pink?

You are pink. You are in limbo. Not pure and manipulated like white, not impure and noble like red. You are unsure of your real identity, but whatever you chose it to be, you can be it. That is your power. You change everyone you touch, and everyone remembers you. In literature, pink represents the place between heaven and hell. You are the one we will never forget.

What inner color are you?

Vengance Gross-out

Because I blame any slight illness I may feel now on my mom, I have been telling her about the nose-pudding episode. She is thoroughly grossed-out, and this makes me happy. Almost as happy I was in the days when my brother and I would poke our steaks with our forks and make distressed mooing sounds. "Stop it! Stop it! That's horrible!" giggle giggle giggle and, as we grew older, smirk smirk smirk

Nooooooooo!

My mom is very, very sick. ("Cough-cough," she coughs as I type this. "Cough-cough.") It might be the flu, it might just be a heinous cold. (As opposed to a righteous cold. A cold! Excellent! Party on, Bill! Party on, Ted!)

I told her to keep her nasty plague-germs away from me. It's the beginning of the semester and I can't afford to be sick. I can't afford to be dog-sick, as she is, at all this semester. I. Must. Do. Well. That means A's, or at least B+'s.

But I have that hot, scratchy tickle in my throat which usually heralds a cold. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I'd beat her up with a aluminium baseball bat for potentially making me sick if I weren't mooching food, transportation, and housing off of her.

Holy Flying Butt-monkeys, Batman!

It's things like this which make me think that my country is pretty much fucked. And that makes me very sad indeed, as, when you scrape away at my thickening patina of cynicism, I'm an idealistic red-blooded American patriot.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden's response, apparently, is to wear unusual hats and allow monkeys to reside in and fly out of his butt, which makes me think he's turning into Halifax. Anything which helps you cope, I suppose.

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!

or, Stupid Fucking Microsoft

The frantic message came from the corporation's information technology workers: "HELP NEEDED: If you have servers that are nonessential, please shut down."

The computer system was under attack by a rogue program called SQL Slammer, which affected servers running Microsoft software that had not been updated with a patch — issued months ago — to fix the vulnerability. [...]

But this wasn't happening at just any company. It was occurring at Microsoft itself.

Perhaps you kids might enjoy reading the rest of this NYT article as much as I do.

Yet Another Reason Why I'll Never Live In California

These people riot at the drop of a flippin' hat. How many times have sports teams in New York blown it at the last minute? Have blown a big game entirely? Did Yankees fans riot because of the gawd-awful performance of their team during the '02 postseason? No. Did Mets fans riot because of the gawd-awful performance of their team during the entire '02 season? No. Did Giants fans riot because of the bad call and bad play which kept their team from winning the Wild Card a few weeks back? No, they did not my friend. But the Raiders blow their chance at the Super Bowl, and Californians, yet again, find that to be a very good excuse to riot.

Lazy

I got up at around 9:30 in the morning today without the use of alarms, which is good. I cleaned up the kitchen a bit from last night, then did a bit of laundry, then collected my study materials. Loose-leaf notebook from class, check. Spiral-bound notebook for journal assignment, check. Only textbook assigned so far, check. I sat on the living room sofa, my feet tucked strategically around the somnolent Oscar (the black cat with the short fuse), and began to read, occasionally underlining stuff I thought I might need to remember in class in pencil (to be erased later). It was around 11:30. Mom still hadn't risen from her bed. (She's like that. Part vampire, maybe. She's difficult to get out of the house before four in the evening.)

Anyway, I'm reading, reading, make it maybe half-way through a chapter, and then I'm out. Sleep waves put off by the cat, maybe? Floof the super-fluffy cat was sleeping on one of the cat pillows about three feet away, which might have doubled the feline sleep wave dosage, in spite of the factor of distance. Which might have caused the sudden somnolence on my part.

However, I was out until 5:30. That's six hours of sleep after a full night's rest and getting up after office hours start. The hell? And I was still tired. Like, in need of chemical stimulant tired. I chose the legal caffeine and proceeded to... watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer for two hours. Then make and eat dinner. Then check out the blogs I check out on a regular basis.

It is now 10:05 at night, and I got nothing done all day, except sleep. It's not procrastination, it's laziness. I like sleeping far too much. I think I might be a cat in a human body. Only without the benefits of being a cat, like the ability to stretch beyond any recognizable shape and be so cute I can get tasty treats out of my persons for no reason or special occasion other than my feline cuteness.

Moby Continues Baby Pigeon Rant

A continuation on his earlier post, which was shown here.

yeah, sure, anyone can post a picture of some random baby bird and invent some ruse about it being a baby pigeon.
and yes, most people won't ever know that it's a ruse, and they will be comfortable in the belief that they've seen a baby pigeon.
but i know. there are not nor have there ever been any baby pigeons.
i embrace the truth. you embrace the ruse of the baby pigeon.
yoda and i are in the palace of truth (where there are no baby pigeons).
you and darth are in the palace of lies (where people fib and say that there are baby pigeons).
i know. and you can't say anything to convince me otherwise.
the truth shall be my shield.

Weather Update and Gross-out

It's snowing again. I suppose I should be bored or frustrated with the snow by now. I mean, we've had a hell of a lot of it. But I'm not. I still think it's very pretty, and smile when I see it, if it's not too close to when I woke up. We're supposed to get three inches today. There's still a couple of feet on the groud that never melted, as we've been sub-freezing for, like, 17 days straight or something. So, it's just more snow to make the old snow prettier, as old snow tends to get a little dirty. Except in the yard, where it stays pretty much pristine and lovely.

This is what winter in the north is supposed to be in my head. Lots of snow, very cold. Yup. That's about right. And that's what I've received my first winter here in Smalbany. Everyone's complaining but me.

However, this cold, damp weather has lead to my holding on to this cold for way too damned long. My nose is filled with a pudding-like substance. This should not be in my nose. It's wrong and disgusting and horrible and it's in my nose. Ick. I blow my nose and fill the Kleenex with vanilla pudding and that's... just... plain... wrong. But it's better than in my nose. Worst part, there's this Homer Simpson part of my brain that's going, "Mmm..., pudding....drool" which just makes it even more disgusting. But I do now have this craving for pudding. Like, butterscotch. Mmm..., butterscotch pudding.... Oh, ick.

Who Are You?

I started wondering last night: who the heck is reading this blog? I can't imagine too many people I know are reading this. When I wrote the "thank you" post to SheepBoy and Halifax, I thought, Oh, they're not going to read this, and sent them an e-mail.

I'm pretty sure there are two people I know reading this. Two. That's it. And I can't imagine someone I don't know reading this (I've a hard enough time imagining friends reading this). What a serious waste of time that would be. Though, as I just posted below, that's kinda the purpose of the internet now: to waste time.

I'm reading blogs of people I don't know now, as I find them amusing or interesting or insightful or whathaveyou. It has occurred to me, on occasion, that a complete stranger might have stumbled across this blog while surfing and is now reading it, but, honestly, why would they? I've no idea how to find out how many hits I have and where from and I'm not particularly interested in knowing, as I feel that's somewhat nosy ("Hello, Reader! I know how often you come here and where you come from and how much money you make and how many times you hit porn sites! Booga-booga-booga!").

So, really, if I'm not entirely sure the two readers I know read this on occasion are reading this post, and no strangers would read this, then why am I writing it? Self-indulgence. That's the only reason I can think of. Of which I can think. No, that doesn't scan right, either. Anyway, it seems I'm keeping this blog entirely for myself. Rather silly when I think about it, but that's not going to stop me.

Return of the Procrastinator

I've 100 pages to read for my Witchcraft & Historians class on Tuesday. Well, it's more like 91 now. But still. Note how I'm here, writing this blog, when I should be getting my reading done so I can participate in the class discussion (it's a "colloquium" open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students... I might be in a little over my head). And I've a 1,000-word paper to write. I've thought about the paper a lot, but I haven't written a damned word. Again, note how I'm writing a post in my blog, not my paper. Hm. I can't tell if this is laziness or procrastination, as I don't know if I'll actually get the work done in time. If the work isn't done in time, then it's laziness. If it is done at the very last minute, it's procrastination. Right? ... Right.

Toasty

When I stepped outside this morning to let the cat out and pick up the Times, the sun was shining and the air, though a little cool, was indeed warmer than it had been in a while.

"It's like spring out there," I told my mom around noon, when she dragged herself out of bed. "It's warm."

"Yeah," she grunted. "It's in the twenties."

I paused, then went to look at the thermometer just outside the kitchen window. It generally reads a few degrees warmer than the actual temperature outside.

It read 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Twenty-five. Seven degrees below the freezing point of water. And, in actuality, it was at least three degrees colder than that when I went to get the paper. This, now, is balmy. Yes, spring-like and balmy. I've spent so many days... weeks, really... in single-digit-degree weather with sub-zero nights, that I can't consider twenty-five all that cold anymore. I stood outside the used bookstore this afternoon, waiting in line to buy my textbooks, and I didn't need a hat or gloves. The kids around me shivered and whined, but I stood there, happily reading my book, in no big rush to get inside.

I can now boast to have acclimated myself to below-freezing temperatures and call anyone complaining about 30-degree weather a pussy. Yes, I'm a psychotic, thick-skinned, snow-bound Northerner with a capital "n". Bu-ha!

Automated

Having a bad day? Ego flat and listless? Try the Automatic Flatterer! You'll find that pep in your step after one, liberal dose of digital sweet-talkin'.

Available for friends, lovers, clients, colleagues, apologies, and thank yous! Share and enjoy.

(Brought to you by the good people and dogs at Netropolis Design.)

That's My Dad.
There. The One Who Looks Like Santa.

or, Filial "Pride"

I am posting the following in near-entirity. If that's a word. Which I suspect it's not, but I'm not going to check, even to see if it is a word but I misspelled it horribly, because I'd rather just type here. Anyway, below is an e-mail my father sent me and my siblings and their children, if any. Oh, and spouses, if any. This is why some of you received a stupid e-mail from me earlier today. But, here's my dad's e-mail. Now you'll know what I've had to live with a goodly portion of my life and this may perhaps explain certain unusual behavioral patterns on my part.

Hello

I would like to be reminded of your birthday each year because as I get older my memory is failing fast. Even though I was there for the birth of some of those receiving this, I could easily forget the date. I mean, there are days when I'm lucky to have socks on under my shoes. And when the snow's this high, that's really startling when you step out in the morning. Of course, it's not as bad as forgetting to ... sorry, what is it I'm trying to remember?

Oh, right. .... your birthday. So anyway, this virtual memory service is going to send a reminder to me that your birthday is coming up. Of course, I'll probably just see the reminder they will send to my computer and say something like, "Oh gosh, I've got to remember to send X a present or card or something!" Then I'll click the reminder closed and thirty minutes later wonder what it was I was supposed to remember. Typically, at that point, I will end up buying too much milk on the way home from work.

Assuming I can remember the way home.

And anyway, can you figure out how they make any money from doing this? I mean, why do they bother? They claim they don't sell our names or addresses to anyone and they don't send unsolicited emails. How can this work? I expect they haven't really thought it all through. When they realize there's no reason for anyone to give them money, they'll whack their foreheads with their palms, pull the plug on the computer and try to trade it for more pizza. By then, of course, millions of relationships will have come to depend on this service. Husbands will forget to get presents for their wive's birthdays. Siblings will forget to say, "Happy Birthday." Even grandparents will forget to send crumpled bills in weird cards to their grandchildren. The amity that cements our social structure will be
destroyed. Bile will surge to the tops of thousands of throats. Scowls will sour millions of mornings. Hatred and dissension will plague the planet!

Of course, on the positive side, we already know how to cope with those conditions.

Please click on the following link for me and enter your name and birthday, because, although it only takes a few seconds to do so, I'm too lazy.

http://www.BirthdayAlarm.com/dob/[snipped for privacy]

Thank you! And Happy Birthday! (You can clip and paste that last bit into an email on your birthday and send it to yourself, in case I forget)

Love, Bob/Dad/Grandpa

PS: Of course, I already know your birthday, so you don't really need to do this. I just wanted to have some fun ranting. Have a good weekend!

He wrote this while in the office. Now I understand why he doesn't get home until ten at night. Not because he's forgotten, but because every freakin' e-mail he sends out is like this.

And now you know where I get the verbosity. You know, as in the unending and innumerable posts on this blog. And the poor typing/occasional spelling errors. You poor bastards.

Attack Of The Washing Machine-sized Jellyfish!

Whee! Jellyfishies!

Giant jellyfish off Japanese coast are being all swarmy and killing off the fishies and shrimp and other tasty items of the sea in the area, but they're so nifty, we forgive them!


300-pound jellyfish! Cool!

Re-employment

Celebrate with me! My brother's re-employed! He'll be starting with the attorney general's office down there in Texas. Woo! Employment for sibling! Woo! More presents for me! Woo!

Moby's Fantasy World

Moby's been posting about the weather in NYC a lot of late. Below is a variation in his latest upon the usual "it's cold!!" post.

even the pigeons are cold.
except for the baby pigeons, cos as we all know there are no baby pigeons.
there is a pigeon parade today in nyc. mayor mike bloomberg will be walking up 5th avenue with an estimated entourage of 40 million pigeons.
and he will be accompanied by a meta-pigeon (sort of an ur-pigeon).
these ur-pigeons are the size of an oil tanker and they give birth to hundreds of thousands of live adult pigeons at a time. that's why there are no baby pigeons. these ur-pigeons are the avian equivalent of a queen bee.
you must believe me, for i speak nought but the truth.

did i tell you about the european eels that grow to be 30 miles long and swallow entire towns?
or the fossil at the museum of natural history that just had babies?

This is very typical Moby.

Thank Yous

Little update on the Science Fiction course I took last semester. SheepBoy and Halifax were of great help in my final project, sending me artwork at a moment's notice. Both must be praised with high praise, as their contributions to my final project helped me get a final grade of A-. (The minus is from my handing in an earlier assignment late. Whoops.) Thanks for helping me get a half-way decent GPA, guys.

Weather Update

Oh, yeah. And it's snowing. Again.

Hard.

Yup. More snow.

Again.

Y'know. With the snow. Falling. Hard. From the sky.

cough

Yup. Snow.

Monsters Of The Deep

(The above should be read with appropriate, portent-ish, Ian-McKellen-as-Galdalf-y voice.)

Look! Another article on the silly French people being attacked by a giant squid!

Whee! Giant squids! Giant squid attacking the French! Whee!

On that note, my mom says that if you're not going to use the -i plural of octopus, then the plural form should be "octopussies," not "octopuses."

Yes, this was my mom. Just now, in the car, when she picked me up from class. "Octopussies." Yup, that's what she said. My mom.

Auugh! My Extremities!

It is freezey-fuckin' cold outside. Yes, it merits the foul-mouth/soap-suds swearing. It's COLD! Okay, so if someone from North Dakota were here, that person'd call me a whiny, wimpy Yankee. But, dude!, it's six below (Fahrenheit) outside. Possibly lower. And the wind chill...oh, man. It is death to face. Death, I tell you. Deeeeeeaaaaaaattthhhh. And don't you go startin' with that "There's no such thing as a wind chill factor" garbage, you pompous ass. Just walk down a street in Manhattan tonight then turn a corner into the wind. Tell me there's no freakin' wind chill factor then, mutha.

I can't believe the cat is still insisting he go outside. Stuborn little bastard. But then, he does have that nice, thick, fur coat. ... Ah, there he is, begging to come back in. ... Yes, I let him back in, you meanie! I'm not letting my poor, old cat stay outside in this cold! ... Jerk!

Engrish!

"What a cute! Natsuko has a weblog!"

Say hello to Natsuko Murakami, everybody! wave wave wave

(No, I don't know her, so don't actually say "hi," unless you like to communicate with Japanese girls you don't know. Then you can join Timberlake in the Stalker Club, you creepazoid. Ick.)

Fear not, Lady Sugar Kat.
I shall defend you from all Timberuruk-hai
with my bow and arrows, with this borrowed sword,
and with my long, luxurious, flowing elf-hair!

Whee! Horsie! I'm so pretty!

Stalker!

There should be on this page a link to the Justin Timberlake "Cry Me A River" video (either broadband or dial-up). I want to be sure you have the opportunity to watch this expensive video homage to stalker ex-boyfriends, as this most obviously is. I checked it out out of curiosity and, well, 'cause I've massive amounts of free time right now. This video is creepy. Then again, it's Britney Spears, so who the hell cares if she has a stalker ex. Maybe it'll get her to stop dressing like a color-blind 'ho. And, like, how scary can Stalker Justin Timberlake be? Unless he sings. shudder ("Please, Justin! Stop singing! Please! Noooo!")

Fun To Say

"Miss on you, Pister."

My mom says it, generally when she's jokey-angry. She'll also change it to "Shit on you, Pister," which kinda defeats the purpose, and also messes up the Pister bit.

(It's also possible that is should be "Siss on you, Pister," but Mom's funny that way.)

The Long Weekend

I have a lot to post about today, but I’m not sure if I’ll get to all of it, as Mom’s been super-possessive of her computer of late. Here’s hoping she gets over this when classes start, or I’m kinda screwed. (I’m typing this all up in Word, so there really shouldn’t be any spelling errors. Can’t promise anything about the grammar, though.)

Anyway, first item on the list is

Al Hirschfeld

who died yesterday, six months shy of his 100th birthday on June 21. They were to rename the Martin Beck Theater on West 45th after him then (well, they still will, as he’s so beloved by the Broadway crowd). I’m going to miss his caricatures in the Arts section of the Times, and, I’ll admit, I’ll miss searching for the Ninas, which either have gotten easier to find or I’ve gotten better at finding them. I loved his lines, and I loved the dead-on portrayals of film and Broadway stars, among others.

Speaking of film, this past weekend was

Movie Weekend

as I somehow persuaded my highly-unbalanced mother to take me to see The Hours and About Schmidt at the art house theater here in Albany on Saturday (our own double-feature about people trying to find their place in the world and society) and then The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (whee! I’ve now seen it three times! for free!) on Sunday at the E-Walk on 42nd (nice, big screen with nice, big sound and stadium seating).

I think anyone who knows me knows how much I would have enjoyed seeing The Two Towers again. (Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) About Schmidt was not laugh-out loud funny, but it was, in spite of the Golden Globes, a comedy and not a drama, and Jack Nicholson was, indeed, brilliant and award-worthy (he wasn’t Jack, he was Warren Schmidt, retired actuary from Omaha—it was remarkable). Kathy Bates was hilarious as the frightening, aggressive hippy-mom of the groom. And yes, it is frontal, but not full. For those of you who will go blind if they see a nekkid Kathy Bates, cover your eyes when she approaches the hot tub and starts to tug at her robe. But still, I can’t imagine not enjoying this movie, if only for the mullet-factor of laughing at the peculiar fashion tastes on the other side of the Hudson.

I can’t imagine too many of the people I know would enjoy The Hours however, though the performances are brilliant, except for Claire Danes, who only manages not to be her usual gaping black hole of suckness by the merit of the performances around her. The rest is incredible and moving and almost made me cry (which is unusual, unlike my mom, who cried at certain points during The Two Towers—very annoying). However, it is about women being unhappy with their quiet lives and sort of slow-paced and is attended by people like my mom who sniffle loudly at the movie, so I’ve a feeling that, though this is a very good movie with an incredible cast performing brilliantly (I keep using the same damned two words, don’t I?), I don’t think you guys would want to see it. Except for C., in Boston, who has probably already seen it, though I’ve a feeling he’s not reading the blog. I know the other folks I know who are likely to see this film are not reading this blog, as it is against their nature to do so.

Anyway, I enjoyed all three, but I had to suffer being with my mom for extended periods of time. When anyone is with my mom for extended periods of time, they eventually meet psycho-Mom, who turns her mood on a dime for no damned good reason and turns into über-bitch, who is completely impossible to live with, let alone sit with

In A Car.

I had to spend boat-loads of time with her in the car on Sunday, and she snapped during the credits of the movie, so the ride back was, shall we say, difficult. However, there are methods to keeping oneself entertained while riding in a car, including sounding out license plates, even if they aren’t vanity plates, pointing out VW Beetles and Bugs (Bugs are the old ones and Beetles are the new ones) and Minis and noting their colors (it’s like bird watching). There’s also, if you’re in a more rural area, looking for birds of prey flying over the road (hawk! raptor! eagle! swooooosh) and keeping an eye out at night for deer, who are very pretty and actually very easy to spot due to their very large and reflective, dark eyes. My method of keeping away madness on Sunday was keeping track of the different state plates spotted. Fifteen (possibly sixteen) out of fifty were spotted, plus a province of Canada and a Diplomatic plate. Yes, I counted New York. It’s a state.

This game is beautifully easy to play in the northeast because of all of the tiny states in New England. I’m very proud that I managed to remember all of the postal abbreviations for the states from my days of working databases. Anyway, we saw: New York (natch), Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Alaska (!! It was a small, red, sports utility vehicle with a vanity plate which read “RDLGHT”), South Dakota (they must think New Englanders are whiny wimps complaining about 20-degree temperatures), Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island (all of the New England states! ha!), Maryland, Georgia, Florida (very similar plates), Michigan, and possibly Minnesota, though we’re still not entirely sure, which is why the count is fifteen (sixteen).

Also spotted: Quebec and a Diplomatic plate with the code AQ. As I recall from my days in the DC area, the country code is the last two digits on the license plate. I have no idea who AQ might be. I suppose I can try and look it up on the internet, but lord only knows if what I find would be accurate.

Quebec is often spotted up here in snow-land. But Alaska, no. What’s neat is we spotted a Hawaii license plate around Christmas-New Year’s, so we have the non-continental U.S. covered now. I’m still wondering why they didn’t just rent a car, rather than bring their car over from Hawaii. I guess it was cheaper?

Speaking of trips to

New York

I really miss being there right now. Well, there and employed, so I can do things. Like, attend ET’s birthday dinner, which I missed last year due to the massive suckness of my job. Some day, some day I’ll get to go to that Cajun restaurant, dammit. I also miss not only my friends, but New Yorkers in general. Now, most people believe New Yorkers are rude, nasty people who'd rather throw you in front of a moving train than look at you, but my experience has generally been that real New Yorkers (meaning the non-tourists, who are almost always so rude you want a mugger to find them and beat them badly) are polite ("excuse me" and "thank you"), smile (when you're polite back), and know how to walk or stand in a crowd. I like them.

I don't like the people of Albany.People up here are too ‘tard to cope with being in a crowd, so they are extremely angry and rude all the damned time, be it at a movie theater or waiting to get into a concert hall, like on Thursday. They dress badly and have horrible haircuts and still think they’re fashionable. I don’t mind bad hair and clothes, as long as, like me, the ill-dressed and ill-coiffed person is willing to admit to not giving a shit. These people deeply, deeply care and still look like shit. ‘Cause it’s Albany. And there is nothing of worth up here which didn’t exist long before the white man showed up. Okay, so bad hair and bad clothes don’t make a lousy town, nor are they indicative of it. But cheapness on a monumental scale does. And that the feeling I get from Albany. Cheap. Really, feckin’ cheap.

Like the “restoration” to the old

Palace Theater

here in Albany where I went to see Yo-Yo Ma perform last Thursday. The Palace Theater used to have gold gilding everywhere, which doesn’t do much for me, but.…

Man, this really gets me. My sister is an architect. She’s also twelve years older than I am. I spent, therefore, an inordinate part of my childhood learning about buildings, construction, design, restoration. These were some things which pushed her buttons (she protested, along with Jackie O. and many thousands of New Yorkers, the demolition of Grand Central Terminal back in the early 80’s). So, somehow, I don’t know how, I’ve picked up that, when you restore a building which has gilding in its interior, you are very careful with the existing gold and generally replace it with gold. This is why gilding restoration is so effing expensive that it generally doesn’t happen without a huge amount of supporting capital.

They didn’t have the capital. They just couldn’t raise the money. So, what did they have the folks doing to restoration do? Paint over the gilding with cheap, metallic, gold-toned paint. Never mind the toxic fumes. Never mind that, as far as I could tell from the lousy job I could see, it didn’t look like they removed the gilding before they painted. Gold, people! Gold! Even that much is worth something! Stupid, cheap-ass Albany bastards! And it looks awful. I mean, really awful. I could have been beautiful, like one of the restored theaters in New York City. But, no. They decided to go cheap. And that smell will never go away.

Anyway, the performance.

Yo-Yo Ma

was brilliant. Radiant. If he were an elf, he would have been super-glow-y, all star-shiny. The man grooved on his cello, like a guitarist playing rock does in those big-ass rock concerts. Bobbing his head and swaying back and forth and smiling and grunting and nodding at the first violinist or the oboe player (oboist?) when the piece went into dialogue. And his playing showed his passion. I was completely blown away. I’ve never seen him play live before. I’ve only enjoyed his recordings or the occasional concert on PBS. He is now on the short list of performers whose performances I have promised myself I will never miss again. Absolutely mind-blowing. He almost made me cry, his performance with that orchestra (it’s the Albany symphony orchestra, and it was surprisingly good—put Boston to shame) was that beautiful.

Who are the performers? Audra MacDonald, Brian Stokes-Mitchell, Nathan Lane (if you haven’t seen him on a stage, you’ve no idea of how really good he is), and now Yo-Yo Ma. Four people. Okay, maybe there should be more, but I don’t get out as much as I’d like.

Aragorn

One last word about The Two Towers (for today). To be nice, I downloaded the Aragorn screensaver from the official Lord of the Rings website. Mom was thrilled, so much so that she even deigned to thank me, an event which merits note. A couple of weeks later, I downloaded the Aragorn desktop image for her. Again, she was very happy indeed, though, falling back into her natural mode of behavior, she...ah...neglected to thank me. When she finally saw The Two Towers on Sunday, she actually made this gasping-thrill-type exclamation when she first saw Aragorn. Loud. Very loud.

I think I should see if I can’t find some sort of life-sized Aragorn doll. Maybe then she’d get the hell out of my personal life. For, like, a week or so.

Phooey On You, Sugar Kat!

So a couple of days ago, I wrote in a post about how I've been super-baking chick the past few months. Well, Dad made a mess of the oven twice in one week so Mom, instead of freakin' using some elbow grease, decides to use the self-cleaning option on the oven. Twice in one week. Now, you'd think, heck, this should work fine, right? Except the oven's from, like, 1958 or something. It's damned old. So it died a horrible furnace death and was not able to broil the cheese on the crackers for me (there were herbs, too...it was going to be tasty sigh) yesterday afternoon.

The whole point of this being we are now without an oven until Mom redoes the kitchen, which may not be until June. I cannot feed the baking demon within me. God only knows what havoc shall be wreaked upon this city as a result....

Moby's Spoonerism

'you have hissed my mystery lectures. you have tasted a whole worm.'

Dig it.

Waaaaah!!

Yet again, network television execs show how much they suck ass. You're willing to put money into crap like Fear Factor, Joe Millionaire, and, for cripe's sake, Star Search, but not Firefly? Yeah, okay, it's expensive, but it's also good. Ruddy bastards. Anyway, Wheadon fans, here's the bad news. sigh

Demon...From...The Deep!! eeeeeee!

This article is so neat, I just had to post it here, even though of the three of you who read this blog, one of you has already seen this article. I mean, for pete's sake, a title like "Giant squid attacks boat" cannot be ignored!

God bless those amusing Aussies. Ooh. And the silly Frenchmen who were attacked.

"Suddenly he saw something moving," de Kersauson said. "It was tentacles."

[...]

The giant squid, Architeuthis dux, is the world's largest invertebrate and can reach 18 metres in length, but it is also highly elusive, with only about 250 sightings officially recorded -- most of them of dead animals on beaches.

Fa-a-a-a-bulous!

Freezing F--king Cold

It is currently one degree Fahrenheit outside.

One degree. Above zero. Fahrenheit.

There are places very close to here, in the mountains, which are about twenty degrees below zero. I used to wish we lived there, as it's prettier and the neighbors are nicer (and it's not like living closer to town here means you're any closer to civilization). Now I am hoarding my solitary degree above zero and refuse to share with my neighbors to the north.

It was so cold last night that I couldn't get to sleep for hours. I tried, but I was too cold. I thought that being cold made one sleepy, but apparently I have this self-defense trigger from the days when my pale-as-snow ancestors had to deal with freezey-frickin' cold weather on a regular basis and couldn't allow themselves to fall asleep in cold temperatures as they might be risking death or loss of limb.

It is also about 42 degrees F. in southern Florida. May not be as cold as where I am, but I know those southerners are not coping with these comparatively chilly temperatures very well. Which, naturally, amuses this Yankee to no end.

Stars

I always find this sort of thing very interesting. According to this article, there is a very large star, which is visible in the northern hemisphere (it's in or near Cassiopiea, I think), which will be blowing up (not entirely, just...erm...substantively) soon. This, I believe, would be a very cool thing to watch.

Weird thing is the by-line for the link to the article, which was something like, "Are we in danger?" or some such stupidity. I keep seeing proofs of Michael Moore's fear theory from Bowling for Columbine. "Read this article, because we might get blown up along with this star about 10,000 light-years away! Eeek!" How freakin' stupid.

Can't Wait!

I'm very, very happy 'cause about two hours after I signed up to be notified when the latest Harry Potter book will be available to purchase, I was sent a notice saying I could come by to Amazon.co.uk and buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for 50% off cover. Whee! Okay, so I won't be able to pay the bill when it comes, but I put my name on the pre-order list, anyway. I'll just mooch off the parental units. Hey, it's important! It's the fifth book, and I've waited so long!

(I also picked up the latest Eoin Colfer, 'cause, well, why not? It's not my money. a-hem cough cough)

Evil Influence

Yay! I got one of my non-blogging friends to start a blog! Yay! Now I can hit her blog and know all the gossipy details I need to know. And hear about the idiots in her office, who are always amusing, though I'd probably want to kill them all if they were my coworkers.

You know, there is one good thing about being unemployed, and that would be the lack of coworkers making one's life a living hell.

Moon

Apparently, the moon has different names at different appearances, and tomorrow, the 18th, it'll be the Full Wolf Moon, which is such a great name. Other names: March 18th: Full Worm Moon (eew!), June 14th: Full Strawberry Moon (yum!), and November 8th: Full Beaver Moon (some very happy men and lesbians out there on that date). Origins and what the names mean and all that can be found here.

My God. The Stars.

I haven't been visiting the Hubble Telescope site as much as I used to about four years ago. There are some really increadible images there now. Pretty! If only I could do my own webdesign with pictures. Then this blog'd be all pretty and outer-space-y. But no. It's all blah. And not updated, 'cause I can't figure out how this kid who did the template writes and my knowledge of HTML or whatever is pathetic and small.

Pink?!?

I'm thinking of changing the format of my blog. Not that I'll be doing anything fancy, mind. I can't program or code or whatever the hell its called for sh-...love or money. I'll just be using another one of the templates they have available on Blogger.

The problem is this blog is just too damned pink, and I don't think I can take it anymore.

But it has cats and paws. Which are both cute and appropriate.

Arg.

But...but...it's pink! E-gad! Pink!!

I think there's change in the wind.

But no puppies.

[ten minutes later]
Well, I did it. It's now very blue, which is more me than pink. Now to figure out how I get all of my customizations back in there. ("Idiot.")

One Week

Classes start, for me, in one week. I've only classes on Tuesday and Thursday, leaving the other five days of the week wiiiiiide open, including three—count 'em! three!—weekdays, which is useful as I'm hoping to find me a job on campus, which was flippin' impossible last semester.

See, I owe my sister $450 (the reason for this I will not go into because I would probably compose the longest, most vitriolic freakin' rant I've ever written in my life and you really don't want to deal with that).

And I have to pay the interest on my loan while I'm in school.

And I need to get my manga and comics and mass-market paperbacks and DVDs (Buffy Season Three! Buffy Season Three!), like, now.

This all requires funds which I do not have, having just paid off my holiday Amex bill. Loans, when received, go directly to paying off school and credit cards which paid for last semester and books. So, job. Which I could not get last semester. Which I may not be able to get this semester.

I need a sugar daddy.

Neat!

Check out the ghost ship with rotting fish and seven toothbrushes but...not...one...sign...of...what...happened...to...the...crew.... boooo-ooooo-oooooo

Observation

For some reason, I find Adrian Brody, the guy who plays the titular (that's title, not titty, you ignorant perv!) role in Polansky's The Pianist, attractive. I wouldn't normally find a guy who looks like that attractive, but he's just doin' it for me on The Charlie Rose Show tonight.

... Maybe it's the long fingers.

Really. I've no idea. This is so odd.

But....

blink

blink

I don't get it. Why?

sigh

"You're weird, sir."

Baking

It’s about ten minutes after eleven at night and the gingerbread I’m baking is starting to send off odors of gingerbread goodness so powerful they are leaking out of the oven and traveling about the house, causing me to get up from my chair or the sofa with great frequency to check the time on the beeper and open the oven to make sure I didn’t set the beeper incorrectly. It smells sooooooo goooooood!

I’ve been majorly into baking for about five months now. I think because I finally have an oven which heats with relative evenness. Though my mother complains of its unevenness, I wish to point out the oven I had in the hole-in-a-hole which was termed a studio in ads sucked ass and would not even heat up most of the time but instead leaked massive amounts of gas, so I had to crack open the door…because the windows refused to open or stay open. ... And yet I am still alive. ("Can nothing stop this evil fiend?!")

I am very glad to have moved out of there and am very bitter I spent three years giving that bastard of a landlord money. But it was my very first place away from any member of my family, so I guess it was good in that way. Oh, and no one touched my stuff, which is also very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very good. ‘Cause, let me tell you, folks cannot stop moving my stuff around here. I’m gonna have to put the smackdown, or however one says that. I’m quite perturbed. frown frown frown

Anyway, gingerbread. In the oven. I think there’s maybe five minutes left, and then hot gingerbready goodness coming at me. And at whomever else is still up. ("Whomever?" Is that a word? I mean, it is "at," so it'd be "whom," right? But, "whomever?" That can't be right.)

Why is this posted so much later than 11:15 P.M.? Because I don’t want to have any other post dilute the birthday greeting post on the 15th. I’m, like, all conscientious ‘n’ stuff about that.

Ooh. There goes the beeper. steps away for a minute, then comes back, chewing on a toothpick Still not done, darn it. Toothpick was deliciously covered in still gooey gingerbread chew chew and the bread hadn’t pulled away from the sides of the glass pan. Tray. Dish. Whatever.

Wheadon’s World

Okay, so I’m still steaming about the no-new-Buffy episode Tuesday night. Pre-empted for an outtakes special? Outtakes of UPN shows? Who watches any except for Buffy? Star Trek fans won’t even watch Enterprise, in spite of the supposedly sexy Vulcan chick in form-fitting uniform (Seven of Nine! Paging Seven of Nine! ...wait...she's teaching in Boston?) and Scott Bakula playing captain. Why couldn’t they pre-empt one of their other shows, you know, one of the shows without a fan base? Which would be every single other show they have.

On the other hand, finally got to watch an episode of Angel, which was surprisingly non-sucky, considering the addition of his son last year, or whenever, which sounded really stupid when I heard about it. I still don’t like Fred, and I miss Wesley’s nerd-glasses, and what is up with Cordy’s hair? And, yes, the son is annoying (his name will from now on be Angel's Annoying Son, or AAS), but the ep was still Wheadony fun. Demon-slaughter of all the evil lawyers! Yay! Corpses! Yay! Blood! Yay! Evil lawyer-zombies seeking the flesh of our heroes! Yay! Our heroes kickin’ evil lawyer-zombie ass! Yay! We love Wheadon!

…beep! beep! beep! beep!

Oops. The beeper. steps away, is gone for about five minutes, then returns with a plate of steamin’-hot gingerbread Yum. Though it could do with some fresh, whipped cream. … Oh, well. munch munch munch Mmmmm….

Culture

Going to go see Yo-Yo Ma at the Palace Theater tomorrow night. Well, tonight, I guess, by the time I post this thing, which will be tomorrow, the 16th, not today, the 15th. Right. ‘Cause the 15th is ET’s birthday, and that is sacrosanct. Or summat. Anyway, Yo-Yo Ma is not only a kick-ass cellist (you must hear him play! He rocks the world! Okay, maybe “rocks” is not quite appropriate, but he’s very, very, very good, my blog-reading friend.) but he has a great name. Yo-Yo Ma. That is a wonderful name. Oh, and he’s a nice guy, too. But that’s another story. So, I’m going to hear him play tomorrow. Which, dear reader, is a Good Thing.

H A P P Y * B I R T H D A Y * E T !


(You'll note, my birthday friend, the obnoxious green color of the above text which causes the eyes to dance.

That's just for you, in honor of your b-day.

Ain't I a pal?)

(Oh, and I would have posted birthday greetings during office hours, 'cept Mom was hoggin' the 'puter.)

(Excuses, excuses.)

Loans

I still haven't received my student loan. Okay, so technically, the loan is supposed to be sent directly to the university. Well, they haven't received it. Not a good thing. No, no, not at all.

I wish I were a cute and unthreatening Asian girl who can lie and "charm" her way through the poopie-faces who run the important things at places like Financial Aid and the Registrar and the Bursar's Office.

(The above may seem like a prejudiced statement, but I'm actually referring to someone in specific, and she knows who she is, and she might, if pressed against a wall by some marauding machine, admit to using her wily, Asian-cute charms to get what she needed out of a certain, uncooperative institution.

But only if you have the marauding machine squish her really hard, so, like, her eyes bug out.

But, seeing as she's a friend, I think I'd get pretty upset with you for doing that.

So, like, don't.)

I am bitter and writing inflamatory statements in my blog because I'm this big, freakin' ox who wouldn't be cute if you made me into an anime character and super-deformed me.

Well, maybe then I would, but that's only 'cause everyone's cute when they're a super-deformed anime character. ("Kawaii!!!!!!")

CNN Made Me Laugh

Thanks to the Hamster for forwarding this article to me.

Buffy!!

I'm very happy because today's Tuesday and that means a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode! Whee! Yay! bounce bounce bounce Happy, happy, happy!

I've been vegging out every week night, 6 to 8, watching episodes from season two on FX. Which I own on DVD, so that's a little silly. I can't wait for them to get to season three. Which I do not own on DVD. Dammit.

Strange Dreams

This obsessive Buffy viewing may be doing mental damage, as I've yet again had a dream with Alan Rickman in it.

Then again, considering the actions within the dream dream, it may be more of a result of having gone to see Adaptation, which is strangely haunting and perhaps a better movie than I'd originally thought.

Seeing as how Alan Rickman is in neither the film nor the television show, it may be difficult to understand how I may have decided that my Alan Rickman dreams derive from my viewing either. Trust me. They just do.

Rrrrg!

I'm not sure whether or not to call the staff at Blogger stupid motherfuckers, as they are providing me with the free software and free space with and within which I may create my blog. However, I wish to some computer deity they'd get their freakin' acts together and get Blogger working. It keeps freakin' crashing, especially the free Blogspot sites.

When you send a note asking a question about the software which is not explained in the FAQ, there's this automatic response telling you that you're using it for free, so, really, they don't give a shit, but if you gave them $19.95 or summat a month, they'd happily get their freakin' software and servers to work for you and maybe even explain stuff.

Right. I'm going to sink money into something which crashes all the time. Rrrg.

ahem

Not that that should prevent my friends who don't currently maintain a blog from starting up and maintaining a free! blog with Blogger.com!

heh... ahem

Blog, Damn You!

This is a call out to my friends who may be reading this who do not currently maintain a blog.

Go! Create a blog! It's easy! Just go Blogger.com and set yerself up! Fly! Fly, my pretties! And blog!!

Jerk Test

It's lousy and stupid, but it gave me a middling 7, which is probably accurate:

6-10: There are nice people and not-so-nice people. Don't you think it's a little boring to be in the wishy-washy middle ground?

Seems about right.

Test your jerk factor.

(If you've found a better jerk test out there, let me know. These things are important, you know.)

Make-a-me Hap-py!

The soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is playing live (streaming) right now on this website I accidentally closed, so I can't tell you where it is. Fortunately, I launched the player before I stoopidly closed the website and am now very happily listening in to Howard Shore's latest (or, is it? hmm.).

Huzzah for cable modems!

[added ten minutes later]

oh, here it is...

Found the website again. It's here at WinAmp.com. Looks like it's on loop. You can download "Gollum's Song" as well.

Things Which Do Not Suck

- Adaptation did not suck, though it did not blow my tiny mind away as Being John Malkovich did.

- Man of La Mancha, staring Brian Stokes Mitchell, also did not suck, which was very surprising, as I hated the show before I saw this production last night. It's being very far from sucking was mostly due to BSM being so damned good, which is to be expected as he is a god of Broadway. (He signed my program! He has a great speaking voice! He talked and smiled at me! Gloating aimed directly at you, C.! Oooh! and you should have seen his exceptionally gorgeous limo driver! Yowza!) Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio did not suck as much as I expected her to (no, she cannot sing, but she can act), and Ernie Sabella was much fun as Sancho.

- His & Her Circumstances also does not suck at all or in the slightest, to which I'm sure, if you asked nicely, Angry Rabbit could attest.

I now plan to spend my evening watching the second, non-sucky DVD of His & Her Circumstances, if I can get my mom to stop playing sucky music on the stereo. Phegh!

Music

Best rendition of Independent Woman I've heard/seen yet.

Note to A., a.k.a. "the Hamster"

Yes, I know, you're waiting patiently for me to respond to your e-mail about my schedule and when I might be in NYC. Unfortunately, because of a complete lack of funds, I won't be heading anywhere on my own any time soon. This includes New York and Boston (sorry, C.).

The only reason I got to go to Philly before Christmas was my mom drove me down half-way and my sister picked me up at the meeting point. Then I got a ride back up here with my sister and her family. If I'd taken the train to Philly, my sister was going to write me a check so I could pay the bill.

This is not the sort of thing I'd ask friends to do, and I wouldn't accept it if, in some strange alternate universe, it were offered, as that's a very strange and strenuous thing to do to a friendship. So, though I've still no idea when my spring break will be, I won't be in NYC at any point in the foreseable future (like, any time before next year). Unless I'm with my parents, and there's no way they'd let me off my leash.

Keen!

Warren Ellis has a blog/website called "Die Puny Humans," which is such a great title, I wish I'd used it. But then, I am one of the puny humans who would die.

I like his backpack, though. That's an item which might spark conversation with my fellow students.

Or not.

"Loser."

sigh

Legolas is my fancy!
purrrrrr!
What's your fancy? Click here and tell the world!

Food

One thing I miss about New York (which is an odd thing to miss now that I think about it, but there you are) is the sandwiches offered at various Starkbucks around Manhattan. They are very tasty. I especially like the black forest ham and whatever-cheese on marble rye. Yummers. I know I could get a better sandwich elsewhere in the City, as it's freakin' New Yawk, deli capital of America, and the only place in the world where they slice the meat right (nice and thin, not those nasty slabs we're forced to consume up here in Smalbany). But they also have nice coffee and very yummy hot chocolate at Starbucks. Ooh, and the caramel apple cider! Mmmm! And they take Amex, which is good, 'cause then I can get my mom to pay. Yay!

Also good: spinach feta salads with red onions. I like 'em. There's this grocery store up near Columbia U. which serves very good ones. And has a large stock of candies from Europe. (Mmm...chocolate!) (And Fruit Pastiles! :-q !!) (Too bad I can't afford to buy any of the funner stuff. Mom won't spring for the candy. pout)

Best corn chowder on the Eastern Seaboard: Serendipity III, near Bloomies on the East Side. Bonus: you can then purchase a sundae of any three ice cream flavors you desire and any topping you desire. This sundae will be expensive, but it will also be the size of a child's head. hehhhhh...

Best spinach salad: this funky lil' place on the corner from where my friend, C., used to live in Boston, walking distance from Boston-Back Bay train station.

. . . I'm spending far too much time on JerkSquad!!

...but the use of characters from LotR is so funny!

(I need a life!)

Surviving Spike Whee!

Lookie me! It was my first try and I never had to backtrack! Yay!

(It's kinda like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books they had for kids in the eighties.)

Plus, Spikey goodness! (Check out the first wave file under Angel: In The Dark at the bottom on this link. I'd direct-link to the wave file itself, but that's mean. And kinda unethical. So, this. sigh)

Paul Newman I like the Newman's Own website 'cause every once in a while, the Paul Newman head winks at 'cha.

Oh, and he calls the (tasty!) lemonade "Virgin Lemonade," stating the lemons have never been squeezed before. Niiiice.

Yay! Pervy Hobbits! Finally found The Secret Diaries of Cassandra Claire again, but it only has the original, Fellowship of the Ring entries. Poop.

Then I found another site, which has both the original entries and the new ones including the events of The Two Towers. This site does not require me to go through a big, fat blog-type site like this one (the original pervy hobbit journal site), which makes me happy.

Even better, the Legolas Two Towers journal's coming up! Yay!

These entries are much more entertaining if you've read Bridget Jones' Diary, upon which Ms. Claire based the language style. Fun books, cute movie, great parody. Tra la!

(I need a life.)

Why I Love To Read Elvis Mitchell I'm quoting a portion his review of Equilibrium here without permission, but with the utmost respect.

If someone left "1984," "Fahrenheit 451," "Brave New World," "Gattaca" and the Sylvester Stallone potboilers "Judge Dredd" and "Demolition Man" out in the sun and threw the runny glop onto a movie screen, it would still be a better picture than "Equilibrium," a movie that could be stupider only if it were longer.

Lame Factor So, I finally looked about at non-friend blogs, and I realize now that this is one lame-ass blog. (The "ass" there for purposes of emphasis, not because there's any ass to be had at this blog.) The formatting is crap and the text is, well, unfunny.

Most blogs I've bothered to look at are funny. If they're not funny, they're written by famous or semi-famous people and are, therefore, simply though the nature of the fame of the blogger, made interesting. I am not famous and never will be, in spite of that weird dream I had with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman in it. (It was cool. Weird, but cool. But now, because of the nature of dreams and stuff, it won't happen. "A dream is a wish your heart makes/When you're fast asleep." And, stupid fucking me, I just told you about it, canceling out the possibility of the dream/wish coming true. Arg!) Therefore, I cannot rely upon fame to make this blog intrinsically interesting. So I have to write interesting things. But I don't. Mostly I just bitch about my pathetic loser life. Which is not at all interesting. If you wanted to read that sort of thing, you could pick up the poetry written by any aspiring poet at any, random high school. (Though that poetry sucks, hard, and I wouldn't recommend you read it, unless you wish to cause yourself mental pain.)

So, my text is boring. And the formatting sucks. That is because I cannot code. I know nothing about programming. I used to program in Basic using my family's Texas Instruments "computer" which hooked up to the television. I would make the television say my brother was a jerk over and over again, in many different background and text colors. (It was insulting and psychedelic. It was a lot of fun. I miss that TI.)

But that was when I was in elementary school. Things have changed, drastically, since my programming heydays in the eighties. I'm now an incompetent old fart. The most I can manage is italics, which is coding a baby can do. You could sit me down in front of a computer and I'd say, "Look! I can italicize this text! I can code!" and you'd reply, "The fuck! Any child can code that much! Hell, my baby cousin can do more! You suck!"

And you'd be right. And so does my blog. sigh No wonder no one reads this.

JerkSquad!! has improved of late. Probably because I haven't been posting questions. Or as many. I think the lameness factor of JerkSquad!! is the direct result of my lame questions, which can't help but be lame 'cause I, as stated above, am lame.

Snow It's snowing again in Albany. It's very pretty, especially at night, when the surface glitters like diamond chips have been scattered over it, but I'm glad I don't drive.

Ooh, and there's this one, scary-ass icicle hanging from the awning over the kitchen door which has almost reached the ground (the icicle, not the awning). It's super-cool. (gak Please ignore unintentional pun.) It's like a stalactite which has dripped itself all the way to the floor, but without the help of a stalagmite reaching up to meet it. And, it's, like, ice, so it's crystal-y and pretty and stuff. It's cool! (gak ...unintentional...pun...! gak)

Vermont is way, way prettier than the Capital Region of New York. If anyone is thinking of moving up to this general area, move to Vermont. It's prettier and you can get marble and maple syrup products for way cheap. And there's good shopping in Bennington. Like, groceries. I don't give a shit about shoes and clothes, 'cause no matter what I buy, my ass will always look big.

(Now there is non-emphasizing ass in the blog!)

Mint Newman-O's are very tasty. I can eat an entire Oreos-bag-sized bag of them with great ease. Nearly split the bag with Mom last night. There’s still about half a bag left, but I doubt it’ll last the day.

This is, perhaps, one very good reason why every dress, skirt, pair of slacks, and pair of jeans I try on makes my ass look huge.

'Cause it is.

'Cause I eat so many damned mint Newman-Os.

Which are tasty.

Yum.

munch munch

Surfing I find that I do very little web surfing of my own, but rather rely upon others to tell me where to go. "This is a good site," someone will relate via a phone call or through e-mail. "You should go to this address. So-and-so, this really good author, is posting things there." Or, "It's really damned funny! Aragorn and Faramir are fighting over Frodo!" And then I go to the web address they feed me.

It's like I have some sort of surfing service provided by friends. They surf so I don't have to.

Fucking princess, you’re thinking. How lazy can you be?

But, there you are. It works. Mostly.

(Though I can't remember where the hell the Lord of the Rings secret diaries site is, darn it.)

Yay, Joss Whedon for having the annoying "southern" Slayerette killed off. She was icky and very much not nice to look at. I'm hoping A) Faith comes back soon and scares the fuck outta these whiners and B) that the actual next Slayer is the chick who arrived at the bus depot in last night's episode. She, I like. The rest are annoying.

Mom Update Mom's now watching Buffy with me, which is very keen. It's like this mother-daughter-bonding thing, except it's taking too much damned time for me to update her on the happenings in the Buffy 'verse. I'm going to have to sit her down with the season one and season two DVD sets. Too bad I don't have the season three set, and won't for at least a year.

Arg! Arg! I must have! Arg! Season five will be out before I can get that set! Arg! whiiiiiine

Best Places To Work

I question their methods (how the hell did Ernst & Young get on their list?) but Fortune has released the latest list of the best places to work. For those of you who are currently in the job market. Also broken down by state.

(I think I might actually enjoy this job, in spite of my hating most other human beings.)

Jerks

Jerk Squad!! is getting kinda boring. Women-hating, hyperconservatives, postings on coding. Bleh. Hateatron may be a bunch of complete strangers (coughdorks!cough), but they seem to be having a lot more fun with their postings. We'll see. But then, maybe I should post more interesting questions. Perhaps the problems lies entirely upon my shoulders. Auugh! The pressure!! sob

Beautiful

I cannot begin to describe how absolutely gorgeous it is outside. (I'm still in Albany.) There's still feet of shining white snow on the ground and coating branches and bushes and entire evergreen trees like thick, goopy frosting. It's something out of a poster advertisement for winter vacations. Long, delicate icicles hanging from the roof line and from branches where the snow has been melting slowly. They twinkle and shine in the sunlight, reflected and direct. The sky is a deep blue, a shade or two darker than you'd find in the Crayola box with the label "sky blue." The tops of the bare trees wave in the sky, and the ice on the branches shimmers in rainbow colors and flashes of white. It's beautiful. You call local companies on the phone and you wind up spending ten minutes talking about how lovely it is outside (the woman at the cable company is taking pictures through her office window). I wish I could post pictures on this site so you guys could see how amazing it looks up here (and how much snow we have!). Ah, well.

Adding Comments

I've been waiting for HaloScan to open up their registration again, as they seem to be the best comment, uh, stuff provider, but Enetation has opened their registration back up again. Thing is, Enetation is really freaking slow and located in the U.K., and tech stuff located there has not worked well for this Yank in the past. Sooooo, should I just go with Enetation and make those two readers of this blog happy, or should I continue to wait for what appears to be the better provider, HaloScan, to open up their registration again?

Another Reason To Like Conan O'Brien

Earlier this morning, Conan, in order to mark the turning of the new year for those in the central time zone, had a Japanese male prostitute dropped like the Waterford crystal ball at Times Square onto Late Night's old, male, very excited announcer, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year, Central Time Zone! What better way to note the change of year for those in the midwest?

:-D

I love Jerk Squad!! I laughed so hard just now, I nearly rid myself of the bad champagne my parents served to me earlier.

H A P P Y - N E W - Y E A R !