i just learned something.

A horned toad is a lizard.

i'm going to have to use some extra punctuation here ...

wtf???!!!!!???

edited to add: it's a fucking lizard. it's not a toad at all. what kind of fucking illiteracy has to have taken hold around here?!! only starting to veer back towards coherency. It's a wobbly thing. My mind is blown. Fucking Linneaus, people.

Labels: texas

so i'm wondering. i was going to get an ottoman from ikea. (i've been all over town this week, trying to not go to ikea, because i want a storage ottoman or possibly two, so i'm going in all the furniture stores lifting up the tops of ottomans. ikea is a drive away in houston. so i'm in all these places lifting up their ottomans - guess how many storage ottomans there are in town. One. One storage ottoman, which was certainly very nice, but which was over $500, and that's just not an option. i'm not looking for serious furniture here, people, i'm looking for a storage ottoman just like the one at ikea, but that i don't have to either (a)go to houston for or (b) order off the internet. Because furniture is just way too big to order off the internet. And in all these stores only one person has asked if they can help me find anything ... you'd think, all these stupid students with their rich daddies and their disposable income, you'd think somebody would be looking for their fucking commision. So i got to lift a lot of ottomans.) but then today i was in walmart (yeah, i know, walmart, fuck) and there were storage ottomans. Three different colors. and they're smaller than the ikea ones, and maybe not so pleasant a place to sit as they're rather lower to the ground as well, and probably not quite as much storage inside each one. Probably you couldn't fit a blanket in, for example. but they're also $25 instead of, oh, $70. and i'm thinking, what, do i want four of these little silly ones? maybe three? and i dunno. i didn't get them. but it was a conundrum.

Labels: house

yesterday denali was barking incessantly at a pile of brush. though it might have been the sprinkler. ((he's a little man ... in a [dog's] body ... he walks ... just like i do ... he's convinced ... i won't eat him)) that's my boy.

we're going to drive them north at christmas. it'll be interesting. neither one gets carsick, but ... it'll be interesting. it's a sixteen hour drive, (i really have to cut my nails - some of them are clicking on the keys as i type) and ... well ... it'll be interesting. at least it'll be not so hot as it is, for instance, here, so we can leave them in the car for a couple of minutes as we dash into gas stations and wendyses and convenience stores. But i bet they'll eat all of m's beef jerky.

Labels: dogs

i hate the smell of popcorn.

i know this makes me weird. but i'm sitting here nice and peacefully in my stupid little cubicle and Texan Girl made popcorn and now it reeks. and it will continue to reek all day. i do my best not to stink up the entire area with my food, i really do. i've eaten lunch outside. i've eaten lunch in my car. and by the standards of people around here i'm sure i'm incredibly rude most of the time (being a Yankee and all i can hardly help it). so the whole stupid little room, with maybe a dozen of us or so in our cubes now clicking away, and it reeks, and she didn't offer anyone to share. do people not get that food smells? and that smells are not contained by four-and-a-half-foot fabric panels?

movie popcorn isn't so rank - it's part of the whole ambiance of the place, and it isn't quite as fucking rancid as the microwave stuff. and if it doesn't have fake butter on it it's fine. but this ... this ... i have to go.

Labels: work

we get a lot of junk mail. so i'm going through this big pile of it today - in a busy week all our mail has just gotten stacked on the coffee table - and i say, Gee, Habitat for Humanity, i really like you, but if you didn't keep sending me junk, you'd probably be saving at least $20 a year, what with all the cards and personalized address labels and stickers and random junk. and Hey, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, why Yes, i'd like to help in the fight against cancer, if only you blind fuckers would offer me a job, i'd be happy to, but i'm not going to send the damn $35 that is "really needed at this time." it's always $35 that's "really needed at this time" - you'd think they'd really need $350, you know, or really whatever they can possibly get their hands on, but they don't need the $50, they don't need the $25, they only need the $35. and Why in hell do we get religious charity junk? it doesn't happen very often at least - but - how did we get on that list? how, for that matter, did we get on the list for People who Need Motorized Scooters? and how the fuck do we get mail for my mother from the fucking Ford dealership? and why am i still getting credit card offers for the woman we bought this place from who hasn't lived here in three years?

[/rant]

Labels: media

may 28, 2005 (saturday of memorial day weekend).
central indiana.
Be There or be Square.

Labels: wedding

i've never done this before. the biggest party i, personally, have ever thrown, was a pot-luck, at my house, with under 50 people in attendance. this is way bigger. and can't be a pot-luck due to people having to travel. and i have no idea what i'm doing - which is why it's really great that m's family is doing it. but i think this is why people become Bridezillas: we're all totally inexperienced, it has to be PERFECT, there's all this pressure from all these different people, including yourself, and stories that people lose friends over this stuff, and those poor girls that happen to be Type As or whatever ... well, i can see how it happens, is all. Which means i can now do everything humanly possible to Nip This Shit in the Bud and not be a t-rex with a veil. Not that i want a veil.

Labels: wedding

for the people that don't live in texas, when i say house gecko, i mean ... i can't find any pictures of them: i do not mean the texas banded gecko (Coleonyx brevis) - we don't see those at all; ours aren't anywhere near that stripey, ours are fatter, and i think ours get bigger. i also do not mean the mediterranean gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) which has apparently gotten loose all over the state (not that anybody minds, yet) as our geckos are not that bumpity. i also do not mean the house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) that has a more widely circulated name than "liz's immediate vicinity" as they appear, from the only picture i found, to be spot-free, and also i think they're tropical islandy. but here are some baby gecko pictures. they start out small and pinkily translucent and maybe an inch long, or an inch and a half, including the handily detatchable tails, and get larger and browner and spotty up to probably 5 or 6 inches or even longer, including the handily detatchable tails (of various lengths, depending on how long it's been since they've been detatched). i'm aware that i'm not supposed to get reticulated geckoes (Coleonyx reticulatus) in my part of texas but dammit that's what they look like. Only fatter. and i would be okay with calling them Texas banded geckos if they were just a little stripey. But they're not.

and when i say lizard, i mean this. green anoles have the ability to turn either green or brown, move very quickly, jump, and make big pink stretchy-things on their necks - this page has a picture of the pink stretchy. (i don't have any idea how the author of that page can actually tell apart the anoles that live in her yard.) apparently they change colors in part because of heat, which is why the ones on the brown, brown, brown, warm deck are always green.

Anyway. it's gecko season. there are 6 or 7 of them - the big full-grown ones - every time one opens the front door after dark; they're on the windows, on the deck, on the doghouse, on the back door, in the garage, ... if reticulated geckoes are really what i have, they're so not endangered (or anyway "threatened") any more. Especially because one accidentally squishes them sometimes (notably the one that was mistaking itself for a nice rubbery handle on a paint-can, and then slippered away, perfectly fine after being a nice soft handle), and when the baby ones get in they almost invariably die and you can't feel bad about it because there are so many.

Labels: texas

Sep 22, 2004 06:00:00 AM BRYAN TX US OUT FOR DELIVERY
Sep 22, 2004 04:00:00 AM BRYAN TX US ARRIVAL SCAN

come to mama.

Labels: media

ms. Headscarf was in belly class again yesterday - but this time we got to see her face and neck. it was okay though - there were plenty of other girls showing their bellies - so it wasn't quite so ... very ... very. Looking forward to seeing the instructor dance on Fri. (the place has hookahs to rent. does that make it authentic? ... ) also to seeing a. (and possibly l.?) and getting out of this fucking town again. Always important to do that once in a while. a - sent you an email about the Red Fez (or that was where it started, anyway). jeez, i have six gmail invites. six!

Labels: texas

as in, do i have to have any? do i have to have even one? how peeved will it make people if i don't have any? if it's informal to the utter extreme anyway? if we're not going to have enough chairs to have ushers? (for a five minute ceremony, everybody except grandparents can stand, right?) okay, maybe we have enough chairs - or enough hierarchy on who gets them - to have ushers. But ... how is one supposed to choose a bridal party? especially over long distances? and long terms? and how - i haven't had a Best Friend since the seventh grade and that turned out simply awful (though it wasn't either of our fault and i unconditionally refuse to go into any detail). so how do i choose between people? how are you supposed to say to this person that that person is simply more important? because it's bullshit. because how can i tell if i pick person A, that person B won't feel slighted? or if person A really wants to be a bridesmaid, and how do you say But i don't really want a wedding shower, if ... i think they'd just make everything that much more complicated. and i don't want to have to choose a Best Friend, or to choose between my friends in the first place. urgh! only i think everybody wants us to have a Wedding Party. but ... for what? Maybe one. but ... argh!

Labels: people, wedding

also, in a room full of women, last week in belly class, this crazy freak of a cricket comes out from behind the stationary bikes, and i think i notice it first and the instructor notices me noticing it and gets these biiiig eyes and then everybody notices the instructor noticing it and we're all looking at it and nobody's moving except this hideous bug, including the girl who's been to Iraq and the girl from Brazil (the instructor) both of whom one would expect to be used to some unusual crawlies. it might have been some sort of katydid ... looking at more pictures of katydids ... it didn't say anything ... or squeak anything, i guess ... didn't really give it too much of a chance ... but looking at more pictures of katydids ... definitely a katydid. False katydid, aha! Only about three and a half inches across but that includes a lot of Mostly Leg. i don't know why people say they're all green. so we're all looking at this hideous shrimpy-cricket bug and i'm staring at it too and looking around and nobody is doing anything and the music is still going and we're all looking at the bug, because it's fucking crazy looking, has anybody ever seen a katydid? and nobody is doing the hip pumps any more and all the wrist twirls have utterly ceased. so i go and get my trusty Flip-Flop and thwack it, and thwack it a couple more times to make sure, and it's dead, and i go and get a little paper cup from by the water-jug and pick its weirdo spider-locust body up in it and examine it for a minute, all smooshed, and dispose of it upside down in the wastebasket next to the paper cups and the water-jug. The instructor was absolutely paralysed and the girl who had been to Iraq wasn't looking too tough either (with her thoroughly RIPPED six-pack-abs self - she's great, though). i was proud.

Labels: texas

it's three inches long. it could take on some of the cockroaches. see, this could easily be actual size, depending on your monitor -



one would think that when a Giant Fuzzy Moth appears unexpectdly on one's doorjamb, and then stays there for several hours and disappears again later, the usgs' Moths of Texas would come in handy for identificational purposes, but it doesn't - it's the a&m entomology people's list of Hideous Texas Crawly Things. Above photo credit: Bastiaan (Bart) Drees, Extension Entomology, Texas A&M University.

Labels: texas

every time i take the jedi quizzes - all of them - any of them. but. do i want the IV-V-VI set? of digitially remastered, messed-up, didn't-grow-up-on-this-horseshit DVD volumes of star wars movies? for $41? that i'll never watch, because i never watch any of the movies i own? that i don't even want, really, because i want the originals, that aren't going to be available probably until lucas Himself is dead, if then? because ... no, i don't think i do. they'd just annoy me. Being all remastered and junky. no, i don't think i do. they're not familiar - there's too many space chickens distracting in the background. no, i don't think i do. Himself has cheated me out of $14 so far with two crummy movies and is about to go for $7 more, which is enough of my money now that i'm a little more of a grownup and don't so much get what Amidala sees in that arrogant bastard in the first place. dude, your storyline is falling apart. maybe i just want the scenes with Lando in them. Yeah, probably. But man, that guy made a lot of shitty movies. So no, i don't think i do.

But it's star wars. but it's not the real star wars. but it's star wars. So maybe almost ...

Update: even more changes to the DVD version, so these aren't even the ones that were in the theaters - these are the re-embellished, digitally remastered, with extra-scenes-in ones. what's the point, even? is the guy ever going to be fucking done with it?

Labels: emptor, media, tests

i love ikea's names. i can't help it. they're so evocative. they have an alarm clock called slabang. which is ... what is it ... that word that sounds like what you do to it? like slida. Oh, sorry, that's slida. Which one can't get at Ikea but is total onomotawhatsit. and another alarm clock, ticka. and then there's etikett desk accessories and a pen called babbla and i'm so doing this in the empty room. Klippa magazine racks. Nice waterproof muck boxes. a metal shelf called klang. okla, a very curvy chair. i want three $12.99 oddvar bar stools. The hol side-table-sittable-area-with-storage instead of actual ottoman possibility. maybe sofa table. and they have all that bent-wood poang furniture and i just bet that's the noise it makes, they look like indigenous musical instruments, somewhere between a drum and a musical saw ... all those smila wall lamps ... pyra, a wok (very appropriate, that one) ... lojal wooden spoons ... lovely groggy corkscrews ... Some very nice rugs ... Am definitely getting new knobs for the hall bath: i need 7 and i hate all the ones at Lowes.

Labels: media

a poll - do i want to read this, first, or steven king's no. 7? *sigh* decisions, decisions. really i should finish zen before starting anything else but that hasn't worked out really. i should have finished reading ulysses first. maybe that's on official hiatus for another few months and i can free up some space on the night-stand.

Labels: media

sometimes it's hard to get my family off the phone. they just keep going. and you're thinking, okay, i'm okay, i'm kind of hungry, and i'd like to start making dinner, and i really should have used the facilities before answering the phone, and i really, really, really should have used the facilities before answering the phone, and they won't get off the phone and i'm saying things like I have to go, the UPS guy wants a signature and I have to go, the dogs are killing each other and I have to go make dinner i'm hungry, and I'm going to hang up on you in five, four, three, two and that's what i have to do because they won't get off the phone. I have to go, i'm late for stuff, i'm meeting people, there are people coming here, i have all these things to do in my busy life on a Wednesday and they won't get off the phone. and i don't know if i should feel bad for basically hanging up on them every time they call but i give them forty-five minutes or an hour or even more before the five-four-three-two ultimatum so i don't feel bad, really, but sometimes i think like i maybe ought to. But they won't get off the phone and i have things to do. They called me at work a couple of times and wouldn't get off the phone. and isn't an hour long enough to hold the damn reciever up to my ear and it's getting warm, and if i'm trying to do anything else and holding it with my shoulder (because, really, an hour???) it's getting damn uncomfortable and probably bad for my alignment, you know? and then i screen my calls and i feel bad for that but if i have things to do and know that i don't have time to be on the phone for an hour and a half but they won't get off the phone (there's no five-minute conversation with them) then what choice is there? really?

Labels: family

it's finally starting to cool down. it was perfect camping weather, almost, last weekend - a little warm, nights, still, but almost. Only the fuckingbugs are still at it! i have to wash my car again. they're still everywhere. it's been five weeks. they're supposed to die off when it gets cooler, or at least be less active, but there's a swarm of them outside my window right now. they're all over the front of my car. there were some pasted inside the canoe from driving it on top of the car at high speeds down the highway. i got to sit and look at them for two days. there weren't any on the river, or at the campsite - it's an aggie-local plague of fuckingbugs. how appropriate is that?

and just last week as i was about to be happy for the end of cockroach season there was one in the kitchen. m said not to come over and this little evil black almond shape scurries behind the microwave. awww, ug. Just when i was hoping it was over. so now i can't quite hope that it's over, yet, in case another one comes by.

Labels: camping

i have links in my blogroll to:

1. people from college.
2. relatives.
3. quakers (or lapsed ones, or affiliates).
4. feminists in texas.
5. socialites in manhattan.
6. sites with funny or interesting things that update regularly.
7. daily-picture places.
8. Pettus, who does not have a category.

i like the balance of having feminists in texas and socialites in manhattan. i think i like the manhattanites' blogs better than sex and the city (and i think they're better for me, too, and i don't have to keep track of what time they update). and i like knowing that there are modern people sort of vaguely near me (if you count a several-hour drive as near, which in texas, you do). but Pettus just leads a fascinating life.

Labels: blogging

i'm a democrat because i can't be an eco-socialist - the Communist party exists, right there with the Greens and the Libertarians and the rest, but they're irrelevant. because if i have to choose between the lesser of two evils, it still matters - and voting for Nader, even in texas, is not choosing a viable option, it's choosing not to choose. a vote for Nader matters even less than a vote for Kerry in texas. a vote for Nader is a Why No, I'm Not Going to Participate in this System - which would be a nice stand to take if the stakes weren't so high.

because i think that since we can provide a decent life for everyone we should. because i think that being in this country, where we have all this fucking money, we ought to be able to get everyone a place to live and food to eat and maybe even some school or some doctoring when it becomes neccessary. because i think that nobody needs to accumulate the kind of wealth that people are accumulating - nobody needs a dozen cars. (nobody, but nobody, needs a Hummer.) nobody needs multiple jets. nobody needs an estate on every continent or in every major city when there are people in the same zip code that aren't getting by.

because i live close enough to the barrio that i drive through it sometimes. right before i get home just in time for It's Good To Be... on E!. it's dizzying. Or nauseating. Or both.

Labels: politics

between sept and oct: convince kml to come down this way.
saturday october 2: Ren Faire opening weekend. C+R+D = 2 1/2 or so.
saturday october 16: Bocktoberfest. PC + possibly g/f?
connect with a at some point. Preferably more than once.

Labels: texas

so much of belly dance ... occurs in ... or originates from ... places in which islam has a pretty firm hold, i think. Maybe not a majority. Not entirely sure. Have to check up on that. But. So. there i am in class last week with my shirt tucked up under my bra and me wiggling my ass in show-offy almost-too-tight yoga pants, a perfectly typical thing to do in a nice aerobic-workout-belly-class. it's the first class of the "semester" so there's one woman, on the older side but not really there yet, that was there before (also in a t-shirt (but not tucked up) and yoga pants), and a couple of college kids that have for some crazy reason come in jeans, and the gorgeous long-limbed slender almost-model Brazilian teacher of course in essentially spandex, and a girl comes in late in big poly basketball shorts and a t-shirt, and then a girl comes in in big loose wind pants and long sleeves and a head scarf. and she stands behind me. and i wasn't self-conscious at all when there are people randomly up by the top half of the room (there's a big window) doing ab workouts and sort of glancing in on a regular basis. but now Ms. Headscarf is behind me and she's a very nice girl but honestly i wonder what she's thinking? me all nekkind and wiggling in public with mixed company doing ab excercises upstairs? and i'm not terribly good at it so i'm not particularly sexy doing it, and who wants to look at my floppy belly, and i don't think i'm especially graceful, and my yoga pants aren't really ... i mean i don't feel funny going out in public in them and i don't wear tight pants in public, and it's a t-shirt, so it's not like it's ... and ... i'm just ... it's not all that interesting really. Yet, anyway. But she's totally covered up behind me (we could see her face, but no hair or neck) and ... it's weird. Much weirder than having other almost-naked (or, when you factor in certain things, far nakeder) people around. and i'm getting all ugly-duckling-feeling. it was better when there was that little hong-haired hottie with the French pedicure - i wasn't self-conscious at all around her. but if you can't focus on any parts of your body it's a completely different form - if you can't even see any parts of yourself. so i'm wondering what she's thinking or if she's used to it or how long she's been here or what. and then i'm wondering what m is thinking because however many times i say i'm not at all sexy or graceful in class yet i'm not sure because it's still belly dancing. and ... it's weird.

i'm not entirely sure i like the idea of a gym in the first place. going somewhere just to get sweaty with all these other random people??? ... But ... eh. Maybe if i keep going i'll like it better. at least it's a gym for townies and normal people, and not single girls trying to get that not-really-elusive-at-all MRS degree and boys trying to get laid. Because there's a fucking lot of them in this town.

Labels: health, people, politics

on the canoe trip i invented a breakfast that *really* warms you all the way to your toes: oatmeal and Baileys. because oatmeal is warm. and whiskey is warm. and together ... well! Delovely.

And. in the next-door campsite ... these crazy nutters, one of which was named Goober ... who wanted to be branded ... he'd been inspired by his buddy ... not sure that i'd ever seen a brand up close and personal before. either an pre-established, healed-up brand, or an actual branding process (cow, human, or otherwise). so. the fella that had a brand already - it looked kinda cool. More subtle than a tattoo - at least to my half-drunk self by firelight. Shiny. and the lines in each letter are a good half-inch wide. So. Goober wants to get three letters on his arm (won't tell us what they stand for). He already has the middle one, a U - got it last week and it looks awful. it's all scabby and red and really gross and painful looking. So his buddy untwists some wire coat hanger (jeez, wire coat hangers have an awful lot of dangerous uses, don't they?) and makes him a D and they stick it in the fire for a while, and it's a fairly hot fire to begin with. so. there it is in the fire. and it's too hot to touch - there's a nice long length of wire-coat-hanger-handle - so buddy grabs it with a pair of pliers and Goober stands up with his Bud Light in his non-branded arm and buddy jabs the D into Goober's arm and Goober just stands there. A little wisp of smoke comes up from his arm. i'm not close enough to smell it - i'm a third of the way around the fire or so, and all i can smell is fire-smoke. But - the little wisp of smoke rising off the branding. And Goober is standing there, not even flinching. Holy fuck. so. it's done. and there it is - this little scabby-black line. i formulate a theory that they pick at the scab, and pick at it, and pick at it, to make the letters as wide as they finally are on the buddy's arm. Not too sure. So then he wants an A - and buddy makes an A, only it's a fucked-up lopsided A, and somebody points me out as being able to make a functional A, so they hand me some coat-hanger and some pliers and i do, and they stick it in the fire for a bit until it's hot enough - buddy takes it out once and puts it on Goober's arm only it isn't hot enough yet - back in the fire - so - then it's hot enough and they brand him again, so he's got DUA on his arm. only when they branded the D and the A they touched the scabs on the U so it's all bloody. and awwww, hell, i'm ... there are things one doesn't voluntarily do. Getting deliberately burned. Climbing up to the top of a bridge-trestle a hundred feet above the water and monkey-ing all over the top of it. Being drunk and falling out of a hammock and wondering the next day why your ass hurts (you fell on a rock, after nearly finishing off that bottle of Old Crow). Nearly finishing off a bottle of Old Crow. Yeah. Things like that.

Labels: camping

2008 edit: I am not a representative of Don's Fish and Swim Camp (the one in Martindale, Texas) - but I did successfully camp there plenty of times between 2001 and 2007 and am still getting Web hits for it. I liked it. I swam. We got to hang out with Don a couple of times. I think I know people who fished - in fact i'm sure of it, T used to fish before he moved to Alaska, so. We had lots of good barbecues and lots of cold beer and less cold beer, too, so, anyway, directions follow in the original blog entry.

only the people that were the whole point of having this canoe trip aren't going. but we're not waiting for 'em. get a real campsite this time: don's fish camp, in martindale, i believe. don's is awesome - there's a porta-potty and real tent sites and if i remember correctly, there's a grill, and places to park, and possibly a rope swing ... directions from here: To get there from San Marcos, take Hwy 80 east for about 4 miles. The first blinking lights you see, veer right onto a small road that parallels Hwy 80. Take your second right. There is a sign that says Don's Fish and Swim Camp. As you enter you will see a money box. Be sure to drop the fee off, as Don gets pretty pissed at non paying customers. Camping is $5 a night and day use is $ 2. also handy link to the safari site which sometimes has river info. very, very good to have a conveniently located campsite halfway at which we can stow all our gear and not have to worry about tipping over and getting the sleeping stuff wet. Very very handy. Nobody has to carry the stove or propane or the porta - porta - potty. Really quite excellent. Unfortunate that we can't have somebody meet us with a crawfish boil as well, but. Still.

Labels: camping

you know why the caged bird sings? how nice. i know why they butterfly shrimp. warning: dissection talk ahead. don't read this before eating. Or after eating.

i hate peeling shrimp. if i'm the one buying and prepping and cooking and eating i'll spring for pre-done, every time. they're disgusting. it always reminds me of how buggy they are, with the long, trailing antennae, and the segmented body-parts, and the little hairy bits on their legs, and those tails look just like - especially the ones with the greeny-black splotches - awwwww, uck. come on. so. there were five pounds of shrimp in my fridge. they needed to be eaten. they needed to be prepped first. there were a lot of them.

and they didn't all need to be deveined. but a significant percentage of them appeared to be - pregnant. because in something like half the shrimp, - i'm assuming they have genders, - there's this little blue-spotted sac right there next to the vein. and in a large number of the shrimp with blue-spotted sacs, the blue-spotted sacs (which go for the entire length of the shrimp and go off a little to the right by the head) are full of this weird orange jelly-stuff - and it's seperate from the grit-vein, and i'm thinking to myself, aren't shrimp eggs orange? so this is either failed caviar or weird fish spooge? awwww, gross. and then i learned later that no, the fish spooge is those little white globs on their outsides. so i have both failed caviar and weird fish spooge. eeeewww. In combination with the black splotches on the fins and all the antennae and the fact that i never really learned how to do this - apparently one does it in the sink, matt says, when i'm three-quarters done and he gets home - instead of on a table with a lot of paper towels. i never learned how to do this, we never had shrimp when i was a kid. i had this massive pile of shrimp shells and antennae and spooge.

Delicate flavors are natural food essences, generally the principal amino acid of the ingredient. Shrimp eggs, crab meat, oyster sauce, fish sauce, and meat stock impart delicate flavors.

Fuck that. i'm not prepared to eat shrimp eggs. i've had caviar, more than once, but no. i never want to see shrimp in the middle of spawning again in the context of Things I Have to Deal With and/or Potentially Ingest. this is why they butterfly shrimp: that weird orange fish-eggy shit. So that normal, healthy people never have to deal with the knowledge that shrimp are these hideous, awful, buggy little creatures with fully functional reproductive systems to go right along with their grit-veins. eeeew.

Labels: food

it's okay when charlie kaufman goes all meta, because he hates himself for it. and besides, it's cute. And it's uber-meta, because he isn't just putting himself in the story and being a snarky ass and thinking he's the best for it - he's saying, there he is on the screen, saying how awful and dumb it is to be putting himself in the movie and how he shouldn't be doing this (or have done this) and it's awful when authors do that. i try to make a rule of it to not like movies about making movies, or books about writing books, or ... i think it shows ... sort of ... i mean if you're going to be creative enough to write a book, you might want to be creative enough to come up with something to put in it other than Me Me Me. i think the area between autobiography and utter fiction is mostly pitfall. Almost entirely pitfall. because it's boring. there's no subject matter, just a set of mirrors of people all doing the same thing. but kaufman points his movie at the mirrors, instead of the stupid people in them ... i'm not making any sense. am i?

watched Adaptation. um. i think i really liked it. i found myself wondering if nicholas cage had gotten fake lips or something - which was distracting for a minute - and then i decided yes, of course, they do that all the time - look at kidman's nose, for heavens' sake - and then it was just sort of intermittently distracting when it was a shot from a particular angle - but i really liked it. i'm looking at the pictures of kaufman here and i think they made cage look like kaufman thinks he looks - but not much like how kaufman looks really. i keep thinking i'd really like Eternal Sunshine but somehow haven't got around to it yet. There are maybe a lot of movies like that. why isn't the film industry letting me catch up? oh, right, because i never watch any movies, right. Okay then.

Labels: media

(no, not those uses...)

Whether from years of slide trombone or just God-given talent, Ray discovered that squeezing the turkey baster bulb to manipulate the level of fluid in the tube came naturally.

He will play "The William Tell Overture," on a turkey baster, on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, at 7:26 central time, tonight. .....am i posting this out of simple pride for my next-door neighbor's turkey-baster musical talent, or for some ..less.. ..altrustic.. reason? Or both? i just really don't want my nice next-door neighbor to be the next William Hung. Because how awful.

Labels: media

if an inanimate object can experience joy, it is my car with new tires.

Labels: emptor

Miss Manners notes that people mistakenly do the following:

• Deciding where to be married and planning a string of related events before determining if the couple's families can or will spend the amount of time and money they would have to in order to have the expected pleasure -- or perform the duty -- of attending a relative's wedding.
• Finding the site for the reception and then dealing with its limitations when composing the guest list, rather than first figuring out who should be invited and finding a place that will accommodate them all.
• Choosing the bridesmaids' dresses before hearing the bridesmaids' views about what will suit each of them and what each can afford, and telling them what parties to throw without being asked.
• Selecting the wedding presents without waiting to see what the guests might care to give, and then letting the guests know what to buy without being asked.
• Throughout all the planning, making decisions without having accumulated the money to pay for their results.

i think we're doing okay...

• matt's family lives there; mine must have been expecting to have to travel as we don't live in any one place. Not really planning a "string of related events." people will have to stay in (and pay for) a hotel - but they knew that. That's what weddings are.
• woodcraft camp is huge. Can easily accomodate us and we won't have to avoid inviting people because they wouldn't fit. check!
• Haven't chosen bridesmaids' dresses yet. am i having bridesmaids? why, what do i need bridesmaids for? berheide wants to be one, though. i figure i could let him. and i bet he already owns a shirt with a collar. and he certainly can't plan any parties from colorado or wherever. Girls at work (if i still work here then) will probably spontaneously have one - they do that. We might throw one. whatever.
• do we need presents? not really. Might register for "things that might come in handy," but think we'll say things like 'your presence is your present' and leave it at that.
• Haven't, okay, accumulated enough money just yet. But i don't think ... if we can save for a roof in just a couple of months ... we'll make it. right?

Labels: wedding

southeastasian-candy. May be Korean. I think. So. Yummmm. let's see what we have today:

• This one is uber-squishy, very moist mouth-feel - like a next-generation Gummi Bear, only Hershey-Kiss shaped, and Dimetapp-flavored, i.e., a decent grape. it says "Extra Juicy" and i think that's accurate.
• This one's packet has a wheatfield on the front. it's just like a fig newton: a dry, crunchy, crumbly cracker-thing surrounding a dry, chewy, flat, not-sweet-enough fruit-flavored center. Only green. No fucking clue what it's supposed to taste like. i hate fig newtons.
• This one is what would happen if Pop Rocks and Sour Balls had a love child: really quite sour (especially when one bites into it), a fairly hard candy, only carbonated-feeling. Just enough bubbles to be surprising, and to be rather more interesting than your typical hard candy. ooo, it's fizzy. Somebody says it tastes like root beer. i'm thinking citrus.
• This one is a marshmallow jelly donut. By which i mean you look at it and it's a singly packed large-size marshmallow (the clear plastic packaging says GRAPE) with a funny little squidge on either side. Sort of like a Smurf's hat. And then you bite into it and there's perfectly normal grape jelly inside - just like a nice, natural grape-jelly-filled donut, only with marshmallow instead of donut. So, ah, the squidge is where they put the jelly in. Quite good, really.
• Pineapple Extra Juicy.
• This one also looks like a marshmallow, with the same little squidge as the other, but is orange. Ah. Ucky. it's the reverse of the other marshmallow, only with perverted jam: the orange-flavored jelly-goop is on the outside, and it's entirely too powdery (presumably to prevent it from sticking to things) and yucky; and the marshmallow-creamy-part is on the inside. i don't finish this one.
• Another Extra Juicy, only kiwi. Yum.
• Finally, actually, perfectly normal chocolate, just a little creamier than your typical North American junk. and here i was expecting something exotic.

Labels: emptor, food

been watching sex and the city on that hour:05 channel. I think it's that channel. in the low double digits, i believe. i keep wondering if i lived like i was on that empty, loveless wasteland of a show - which is smart and funny and i keep watching for some crazy reason, i've seen maybe three episodes now (total, not complete, and not in a row, either) - i like that whatshername types funny diary things - would i be happy? are they supposed to be happy? if the show was more multitopical - if it wasn't just solely about this woman getting laid or that girl getting a boyfriend or her getting a rock (a topic on which i completely agree with them: pear shaped??? ugh!) or them getting married - then could i, as a closet feminist, feel better - or less bad - about liking it? they're so obsessive. so two-dimensional. so waiting-to-be-codependent. if one of them was dating one of my guy friends, would i think she was psycho? would they like me? would i want them to, or would it be some weird, slimy, contagious thing? what does that show have in common with the women in the devil's advocate - that scene with the big teeth and warty noses? for that matter, why do i think the devil's advocate is a movie that wants to keep a hold of some poor neuron in my head? that neuron could be devoted to, you know, how to make a perfect souffle, or how to ski without falling over, or something. is it sex and the city or sex in the city? is probably a large part of why i like it that it's in new york? probably. New York. New York is the one that got away.

i love new york. hi, new york, hi sweetie! i miss you! i think i'm coming down with something. i'm freezing and it's not really cold, even for me, and i'm kind of loopy, and headachey. Going to the bar tonight nonetheless? Yes. it's Thursday.

Labels: media

You're the 1956 Hungarian Revolution! Let's face it: the Hungarians never made very good communists. You liked to charge people too much for a visit to a historic sight, and you also liked your amusement parks to have paint. Thus, communism just didn't seem the thing for you. Too much red, too many old guys, and too many mustaches for you to handle. Unfortunately, a small country, that NATO really didn't care about anyway, was no match for the Red Army. Those banners did look pretty when thrown at the tanks, if it's any consolation.

You're Dionysius! Or Bacchus! Or maybe Dionysus without the other i! Ha-cha-cha, you're the god of sex, wine, and partying. A gorgeous, youthful god with a propensity for wearing purple and leopard skins (kinda like Prince), you get to have a lot of fun. Except only, like, once a year, because you get ripped to shreds by your enemies at the end of the Bacchanal festival, stay dead most of the year, and then resurrect for the next party. In other words, you've got a good existence--you get to sleep all year, then spend a few days drinking and screwing. Sleep, sex, wine. Sleep, sex, wine. Sleep, sex, wine. You go, dahlin'. Typically affiliated with darkness because of your association with lechery and drink, you represent half of the balance between good and evil. The balance is maintained by acting on our darkest impulses once in a while...and no one said it couldn't be enjoyable.

Labels: tests

i hate election years - on top of the attack ads, and the possibility of assholes with whom i disagree on absolutely every issue being elected, and the lowest-common-denominatorness of it, and that all the people with an ounce of sense stay absolutely away from the polls and let the crazy people win, and that it's all very boring, and i decided how i'd vote four fucking years ago and nothing has happened to change my mind, and whether or not some ridiculous Austrian thinks he's funny has fuck-all to do with anything - because even if you scrupulously avoid news channels, even if you somehow avoid looking at the tabloid headlines in the supermarket aisle, even if you've deleted CNN from your tv and don't go to any of the big portals with news sections right there on the front page, there's Candidate X. Not even in politics.

In advertising.

Miller, President of Beers! Vote Candidate Zero, Free Internet for Everybody! Vote for the Overhead Action Door Company - 10% off November 2nd only! Cast your vote for a new Nissan today. Ford, voted best of Texas - reelect during the year-end closeout! it's on tv and on the radio and on the internet and on billboards and on the sides of buses and i get so freaking sick of it. can't i absentee-ballot all this shitty dumbass low-budget copycat advertising away yet?

Labels: politics

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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