Category: Writing

This is Mt. St Helens, from a LIDAR image. That’s a truckload of magma every second, folks. The dome is moving up very slowly and smoothly, but what goes up eventually comes down. An explosion or periclastic event is now unlikely, but a dome collapse (god help ya if you’re flying downwind) is probably in the cards sometime over the next 5 – 10 years. At that point all of the ice still on and in the crater will abrumptly melt (sp deliberate) and you’ll get a column of superheated steam and ash about 15K meters high.

So the other day Katie comes in singing, to the the tune of the Colonel Bogie March:

Scrotum

It is a piece of skin

Scrotum

It keeps your testes in

Scrotum

Don’t overload ’em!

Or you’ll explode ’em

And then you’ll

have none.

The sheer grandeur, elegance and poetry of this brought tears to my eyes. I mean, compared to gangsta rap. If you think this poem is disgusting and stupid and jejune, get the heck off my website and scrape your eyeballs against something else. Katie was surprised to learn that the girl had never heard an earlier version of this….The one that starts with Hitler, has only got one ball… etc. So she shared that. Cultural history as transmitted by teenaged girls. Sigh.

Pic is random.

pic is something random. My fan community sez MORE PICTURES. I am but the hopeless slave of my fans.

I hear Ayurvedic medicine has heavy metals in it. I’m going to withhold judgement until I see who funded the research.

The second or third year I was on line I was the recipient of a many times forwarded flaming email. The person accused of malfeasance and rishathra (good luck following the reference if you’re not an SF fan) had his email address cheerfully provided in the hopes we’d all pick on somebody we didn’t have to face. So I emailed him and said, seeing as how you are person in a position of responsibility, why don’t I let you tell your side of the story?

The result was an impassioned, cogent and grateful description of how he had attempted to discipline a student for various infractions with respect to class time behaviour – and this of course was at the university level – and this flame war, which had drawn emails from as far away as Japan – had been the result.

Entertained and somewhat abashed, I reread the original email. I emailed the prof back and told him to keep on trucking.

Not everything that has a typo in it is a lie. Not everything that’s printed on glossy paper is the truth. Everybody, including me, has an agenda. However, for reasons that make life easier, I prefer to keep my agenda in view. Items slide off, and ooze back on but I try.

Speaking of hidden agendas, which we weren’t, if anybody has the time to follow the rawstory.com story about the guy who wrote the principal of a Southern Christian school about the slavery pamphlet used as curriculum please do so. You will see elements of my earlier anecdote. Anybody who wants to suggest what SHOULD have been said in the response letter instead can write me. I have my ideas, starting with staying civil. Sheesh. Leftists are always looking for places to dump their bile, and really, the best place is private conversation. Civility, when people aren’t shooting at you, is the only way to go. Hey, I was SERIOUS about a Unitarian gun club… who’s with me?

I’m up to my freaking armpits in Buffy.

I light a candle for all the men and women involuntarily part of the global sex trade, most specifically the ones held in the US and Canada and Israel, which are, after all, democracies with functioning police forces. So far. Check out stories about the Israeli slave-sex trade on the internet. Gave me a completely different view of the world.

I don’t get it. How does making a 4 storey high soldier out of Christmas lights help us get in the holly jolly mood? I mean it’s amazing, and actually almost aesthetically pleasing…. but. How does it support soldiers with inadequately armoured Humvees? I must be a complete Philistine, I don’t get it.

we aren’t going to TO

I do associate Christmas with family, and Leo and Linda are family, so here you go. I think this pic is adorable.

This is how you get around the ONE SALAD BOWL PER CUSTOMER rule at a salad bar. Note the vegetarian goodness of it all, never to mention the serious understanding of what comestibles possess the necessary strength (remember the famous four stresses – tension, torsion, compression and shear) to hold the load. As I have said MANY MANY times, it’s not the stupid customers you have to watch out for. It’s the clever ones with time on their hands…..A bowler bob to Brooke-who-recently-took-up-banjo for passing this one along.

After MANY MANY years of being a good girl, I am now a Buffy fan. One lousy DVD, and now I have 5 seasons to catch up on. Glen, you’re a freaking menace, did anybody ever tell you that?

Had dinner at Glen and Marilyn’s last night. DAMN that was good. The best part was the basement. Why? Because that’s where Marilyn hauled out the single most berloody amazing piece of fetish gear – which is not fetish but working gear, which makes it even MORE fetishy ifn you know what I mean – that has ever smote my eyeballs. It’s RIDING ARMOUR. Picture if you will parallelogram dense-foam lozenges all sewn together into a protective vest which covers in the front down to your noogies and in the back past your tailbone. NOW picture that it’s hunter green. NOW picture that if you wore a green body suit underneath and a bug mask, you would be wearing the most scary costume in history and IF you were motivated to outline the lozenges in both white and glow in the dark paint you’d be a scary sight indeed at the club. Marilyn, what do you want for it!!!??? I’m a craving it! Want picture!!! Ah shaddap, me.

Ah, there are so many pictures I COULD post, but sincere and calm reflection leads me away from that.

I don’t want to go to Toronto. I want to BE THERE. But I don’t want to travel there. Travelling on passes at Christmas is excruciating. Not having a real bed to sleep on when I get there is unpleasant to contemplate. Not having a vehicle is not really a problem, but the weather might be. The fact that Katie doesn’t want to go doesn’t help. And she has more than one good reason not to want to go, including ones that I can’t post here.

The fact that family vacations turn into an extended mix of the world’s ugliest domestic argument might have something to do with it. The fact that Paul, normally the soberest of men when it comes to expenditures, goes completely berserk during vacations (whether or not he buys shoes) might have something to do with it. The fact that I just don’t want to have to be completely emotionally dishonest for an entire berloody week might have something to do with it. (Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face). (That’s why I quit church…. why do I want to re-up in a different location?) The fact that I HATE FLYING has a lot to do with it. I’ve tried, since that little ol’ plane crash back in 1988, to overcome my complete panic stricken loathing of aircraft in all forms. I have even succeeded to the point that I don’t need happy pills or alcohol to get on a plane. But that means I like it? NOOOOOO! You’re in a pressurized flying bomb full of diseases and devoid of adequate space or nourishing food. The fact that it’s maintained by honest and intelligent people means squat to me. Is it rational? Compared to driving a car, or god forbid, riding a bicycle in this burg? NOOOOOO! Pay a shorter visit? I have a better idea. I’m going to stay home. I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want any demands made on me. I don’t see anybody lining up for the privilege of spoiling me, so I’m going to do it myself.

Off to Sin City last night; I was the only person in the joint wearing faux snakeskin so I felt quite pleased with myself. Got myself some proper boots to complete the outfit as really, flat shoes do *not* work in that environment. Had a bit of a time getting Paul in; unless he’s stark naked he looks pretty square, but I picked him up a rather extreme T-shirt at Fetwear. I think I’m going to buy him a black Utilikilt, they completely rock and there was at least one other guy wearing one; with the black tshirt I got him it would be a fetching get up indeed. I’m crazy for kilts. Paul says he’s going as an aviator the next time. (Hmph, he said there was going to be a next time.) A couple of tuxes, one with a full face mask; a latex Sailor Moon outfit, a lot of nice looking half naked women. I really enjoyed myself and what I enjoyed best was NO attitude.

Very young crowd, very hiply turned out. There’s a dungeon in the basement and stuff was happening, but I guess I just don’t have much in the way of being a voyeur… after about 5 minutes I got a big case of “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” and went back upstairs. Very much liked the bar and the layout; we parked ourselves by the washrooms (which appeared to be somewhat unisex… go figure!) and so got to watch everybody on the top floor go by at least once and of course some more often than that. Did a little dancing, but had to bail after one very long tune because my feet were annoyed with me. If it wasn’t for the expense (it’s only 10 bucks to get in but assembling an outfit, especially like some of these folks, is a major expenditure) and the fact that not everybody gets off on loud Techno I’d recommend it to anyone. I think my favourite piece of clothing was a white bunny fur bolero that would not have covered the chest of a two year child. I think there’s a word skimpier than skimpy, but I can’t think of it right now…. A) it glowed under the blacklight B) the woman wearing it was a size zero but some people look really cool at that size and she was one one them and C) she looked happy!!! and so did her bf who was wearing an all white women’s stretch women’s outfit and a total glam rock makeup job. I loved them; they really looked cool and totally themselves. I think the individuation of everybody is what is so nice. Paul was particularly knocked out by a women in trad 16th century Japanese style makeup. Stunning woman, gorgeous costume, and drop dead makeup. People who affect the bored hipster look ick me out – she gave Paul a radiant smile when he complimented her on her get up.

Didn’t get home til 2. Bad girl.

Katie stayed at Janna’s last night – talked to her briefly this am. She’s close to Mike’s place, isn’t that convenient? Off to Mike’s to move the hot tub at 2pm. Looks like it will stay clear, thanks to a special mercy of Providence. Then off to eat something wonderful and Glen and Marilyn’s. And get kitten therapy, I hope. Kitten therapy is good too. I should do something about dessert, I am supposed to bring dessert. Mmmmm dessert.

American parents who don’t enjoy their children’s teen years have the option of sending them to Mexican fundamentalist boarding schools. There, concepts such as civil rights bow down cringing before the notion of parental authority. The problem with parental authority, she said sighing, is that the people who aren’t scared to exercise it don’t usually know what the hell they are doing.

I am glad I stayed peaceful during Katie’s last outburst. A soft answer turneth away wrath.

So instead of wondering where she was last night we all watched the first half of Dralion, the 2000 Cirque de Soleil production.

Victor Kee, the juggler, obviously learned a lot from Michael Moschen. Amazing work. Music not so great, although Stella Errans has some fabulous countertenor.

A very bizarre coincidence occurred to me this week. Unfortunately, I can’t share it with anybody, because it would involve betraying a confidence. Take my word for it, it’s very po mo and quite funny.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. This was when the US was supporting terror in the middle East. I mean, when Saddam was considered better than the alternative. When I said that Rumsfeld was shameless, I meant it. Mind you, I used to be a libertarian. And I used to read romance novels. I guess all things considered I have just as much to be ashamed of as anybody else.

2019 sez given that you’ve been writing destiel fic since 2017 you can just shut up now.

Frontpage

These are scientists talking about the climate in scientific terms.

Katie’s shoes are here and her door is closed, so I assume she is here. I wrote about a thousand words on this blog last night and bumped the keyboard and it all disappeared. Some of it was really funny. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. A hybrid Humvee? Weird things are going down, friends. Check Jalopnik.com for details.