Katie in B&W

Katie has started taking black and white pix, example included. It is absolutely bucketing rain here and it will continue during the entire weekend. The ground is already saturated so I definitely don’t want to be going anywhere today that involves experiencing the outdoors. This is a drag as I had actually hoped to go for a walk this weekend. I may settle for trekking down to the pool.

Riverbend posted again. There’s no water where she is in Baghdad, but Allawi’s henchmen have been handing out election flyers, which she promptly put in the bottom of a birdcage.

A mental health professional working in Indonesia says that now that the immediate crisis is over – and they are STILL recovering 300 bodies a day in Aceh – the mental health crisis will be of such proportions as to beggar description. He expects the death toll to top 300,000 and gives full marks to the Indonesian government for everything they’ve done and how they’ve mobilized (although I imagine he HAD to say that if he wanted to keep working there).

Shout out to everybody who supported Paul and me with phone calls during the whole nasty are you or are you not laid off crap.

Hilarious story from work yesterday, wish I could post it. Let’s just say it involves ‘thinking out of the box’. Still wanna smack the landlord.

I’d like to order a concrete toilet

Hello, I’d like to order a concrete toilet.

Well, actually, no, it’s not for me.

It’s for my pet elephant.

No, seriously.

You see, I rescue elephants….

No, seriously. I rescue elephants, and I am getting really tired of cleaning up after them. Do you know how much elephants eat? Do you want to know? Well, I’ll keep it simple, a lot.

That’s right, and they poop a lot too. Eat a lot, poop a lot, that’s the law of the universe. Now elephant poop is great stuff, in its place, but when you’ve got 20 elephants in one pen….

Yeah, it gets to be, like, pyramids o’ poop everywhere. So we all brainstormed, and we figured if you can train an elephant to dance, and to paint, and to pick up an egg without breaking it, why the hell not get a little housetraining action going. So it doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just — well, STRONG. Elephants are not small, and it needs to be BIG…Sure, I’ll hold. Hm Hm. That’s funny, I’ve never heard Baby Got Back on hold before.

Yeah, I’m still here. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when Roy in Quotes quits laughing long enough to do some work, he’ll call me back with a price? Awesome. You guys are great. Oh, and get me volume pricing, I think this is gonna catch on like wildfire at zoos.

lucky Paul

He got to listen to me snore last night. Normally this wouldn’t even deserve comment, but he enjoyed it EVEN MORE than usual since he had not had the opportunity in four nights, since he was working nights.

36 hours to Karaoke. I have never done that. I wanted to say I had done it once. Unlike some of the other things I have done once, I can actually talk about it in my blog. A full report on Sunday.

Must control urge to talk about work. I am very angry about something right now, but it has nothing to do with my job or my boss or my customers or my coworkers. I am very very very cheesed with the landlord, and anybody who works there knows EXACTLY why.

Here is one of the gags I wrote for my Comedy Class.

You know those two actors from Nip and Tuck, the plastic surgery show? Women are walking up to them and flashing their breasts at them – you know, wanting a professional opinion. They must be really happy they aren’t playing proctologists. …..on the other hand, they’re in talks to play gynecologists in their next show.

Much more Buffyverse. Got through the episode in which Buffy’s roommate is a demon. One gets the intense suspicion that all of the Buffyverse is a perverse form of therapy for an incredibly miserable and grotesque educational experience. Works for me. I did not know how bad it was at the time.

I really wish I could repeat the funniest line I heard last night but I’m sure my colleague will be using it at the showcase at the Laughing Bean on February 11th and 18th, hint bloody hint.

Pic is from Burning Man, finally. Cam told me where the pics were elsewhere on the web. Credit Cam, obliviously.

what’s what

Came home last night and went straight to sleep, feeling rather out of sorts. Got up to let Paul feed me a small collation and then see him out the door. Felt disinclined to move, so ended up watching a couple of episodes of B5 (Carol sez, what’s B5? Babylon 5, a sci fi episodic drama from some years back); it gave me the shivers, watching ‘earth security’ being used as a tool to crack down and arrest ‘enemies’ not of earth but various factions. Looked intensely like what’s going on right now, in fact despite the incredibly cheesy cgi (C’est FROMIDABLE) it’s eerily prescient in many ways.

Staggered off to bed and got up at 6 and did dishes.

My phone arrived. Katie wants to steal it, and I told her she could use it if she smartened up about some health related things. I am now the most evil heartless bitch on the planet, but soubriquets like that only count if dished out by people who aren’t family members, so all I did was howl with laughter. I almost posted my new phone number; anyway, let me know if you want it via email and I’ll send it along.

Read some more in the Skeptical Feminist. I can really see why her analysis provoked howls of outrage in the movement; however I can now proudly wear the colours of an egalitarian feminist and have put radical feminism aside as being impractical, at least until all those lesbians take the right to bear arms seriously. Once those gals get going the right will take flight. See you at the gun club, chaps! A civil society is an armed society and vicey voicey. I am going straight to hell but I am reliably informed that a LOT of my friends are going with me.

jurisprudence in Tennessee

This one’s for you pOp. Have fun. This will undoubtedly have those nasty HTML crappies in it, but I’m in a hurry, as usual.

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) — Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the “jury pool from hell.”

The group of prospective jurors was summoned to listen to a case of Tennessee trailer park violence.

Right after jury selection began last week, one man got up and left, announcing, I’m on morphine and I’m higher than a kite.

When the prosecutor asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime, a prospective juror said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed.

Another would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. ‘I should have known something was up,’ he said. ‘She had all her teeth.’

Another prospect volunteered he probably should not be on the jury: ‘In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin (as your lawyer), you’re probably guilty.’ He was not chosen.

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother’s girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin’s client was found not guilty.

Mt St Helens

Mt. St Helens with attendant lenticular cloud. Just in case you hadn’t understood before, I REALLY LIKE lenticular clouds. My mother will remember a remarkable trip along the escarpment, as we travelled from Toronto to London, during which we saw more lenticular clouds in one day than I have seen over the rest of my life, including one classic ‘cigar’ that looked like it was hanging from the sky, one classic ‘UFO’ INCLUDING porthole windows (we saw that one up on the escarpment proper), and some amazing ‘Japanese character’ clouds.

oracular

The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is alleged to have remarked that the US dollar can continue to do nothing but slide if the trade deficit and budget deficit continues to look so godawful. Check out also copvcia.com today; the debt drag on the dollar is assisted by energy costs, which are not triggering inflation (yet…) but are slowing global demand.

Americans are supposed to be pleased that the low dollar will mean more tourists. I don’t think so. I think it would be foolish to think that more Europeans and Japanese will want to visit the US no matter how low the dollar sinks.

pangolins

Pangolins are frequently used as models for aliens. Maybe you don’t think he’s cute, but I do.

We are now double tracking Buffy and B5; it’s rather eerie how Katie’s bust up with the non-louse non-boyfriend mirrors Buffy’s relationship with Angel.

The Blue Man show, which (I did not know this) is bankrolled by Clear Channel refuses to work with unions. This is causing fooferaw in Toronto, which ALSO had some union bs last night when the ramp rats (oh, exCUSE ME) the ground crew wildcatted. Toronto, doncha know, is where an enterprising (cept of course it WAS misuse of company property, public mischief and a damned funny event) employee cleaned the new and universally loathed time clock off the wall within hours of installation by creative use of forklift tines. So ANYWAY to get to the point, there has been labour unrest for a while in TO at AC and this particular wildcat was triggered by disciplinary action regarding clocking out early at the end of a shift. I’m not going to go into how I feel about all this except I think the people who wildcatted could have done something that didn’t involve stranding people in Winnipeg airport, tabernac. Anybody who wants more details can collar Paul the next time they see him; he’s having his moles in Toronto do a little digging.

Frank magazine is dead. I am heartbroken, but less than I would have been had they not had the good taste to go mammaries north at the end of my paid subscription.

I have to get off the computer now; Keith is yelling at me that he has to finish his meditation essay.

2019 sez JEESUZ WAS I CLASSIST AND AM I STILL

for mom

Okay, I admit it! This blog is for my mother. I don’t call her nearly enough, like maybe once a week, and this is how she finds out what’s going on with me. Since I designed this blog with her in mind, I don’t talk about work, because my mother prefers me employed; and I don’t talk about my sex life because I can hear her grit her teeth 70 k away, and besides she raised me not to brag. And Brother James would send me a scalding email about how he’s gone from ‘wondering about me’ to being actively sure I am completely nuts.

I write about what interests me and post pictures I think my mother will enjoy. More or less. She wasn’t too keen on the cheese grater toilet paper, but I kissed and made up by sending her a link to an interactive Irish pig. Sounds cute, doesn’t it? She liked it.

I’ve read that some people end up in trouble when their mothers read their blogs, but I think if you’re cruising glory holes, planning the overthrow of the government, giving trip reports for ketamine, dissing your employer, or outing your uncle for child abuse, your mother finding out is the least of your worries. The internet is not forever, but it will definitely be hangin’ around as long as the power grid holds up. I mean, look at me, I even stopped swearing on my blog. Got the kids to think about.

Katie insists that I take back my comment about the non bf being a louse. Tonstant mommie fwow up. (this is a Dorothy Parker reference. Read her biography, What fresh hell is this. And while you’re at it read the Mae West bio A Life in Black and White).

WELL 2019 SAYS HE IS A FUCKING LOUSE

to sleep perchance to edit my dreams

I did it again. I wrote a thousand words or so, and it all disappeared when I hit some key or other. Highlights: Keith saying “I saw the Day After Tomorrow the day before yesterday” causing me to have hysterics. Katie still MSNing with Non Boyfriend, and me having no further comment. Telling Tish that eventually hubby should be taking 1 gram vitamin C, 1 multi B 100, 50 micrograms at least of selenium, zinc but not at the same time as the vitamin C. Enjoying that LJ called me.

Dreamed that I crawled into what I thought was the truck of a friend to sleep and when I woke up I didn’t recognize either of the people I’d spent the night with. Me being apologetic, and them placing some weird looking objects on the ground for me to pick up, which upon closer inspection resolved into five objects which it would be impolitic to more specifically describe. I remember being really startled about that. I mean, it would have been impolite to refuse, but it was really inconvenient to accept, because the second I picked them up, I started getting chased around by the youth group, who were trying to get me to drop them. Ineffectual attempts to hide them. Finally they chased me onto the roof of a really elderly building and I dropped one and they ran off with it.

Weird.

job insecurity

Paul still has a job. He went in last night and checked the seniority lists and he squeaked through.

Katie’s complete and utter louse of a non-boyfriend dumped her via email last night. Katie is still siding with him, OF COURSE; claims that he is CONFUSED. Okay, he’s a CONFUSED complete and utter louse. I’d go into more details but candour at this point will just get me widdle skull staved in.