my parturifacien

I don't know if everyone else gets the same kind of spam I do, but I like to think I'm special.

cretin, I shouted back. The macho showdown with these macho mothers really nice chamber group here, as well as a symphony orchestra-they swinemen we were in no mood to be trifled with. It must have shown in probably have done it on all fours. As it was I stumbled into our like everything else you saw. The dog is your body, the thing you us informed about all the masculine meanderings beyond the wall. I sword into a leather scabbard, then swung down from his mount. The She took a very efficient-looking hypodermic from the reticule As though speaking his name had been a summons; bugles sounded, the Callin to the engine room for power, power, power.

Sincerely, Maynard Beauchamp.

my trip, in a nutshell

BUT first things first: Happy birthday to the Shoshie-boodle!!! You are lovely and brilliant and youthful, and I wish you zillions more years of lovely, brilliant youthfulness, and I also hope that through all of those zillions of years you continue to be my very good friend, because I do not know what I'd do if I couldn't send you a text message every time I got barfed on by a baby. I could get more cheesy, but I'll spare you. Anyway, happy birthamaday whooo!

* * *

So, my trip basically went like this: Fly fly fly. Drive drive drive. Get barfed on by a baby. Drive drive drive drive. Fly fly fly. Etc.

In a slightly bigger nutshell, with pictures (none of them of barf, I swear):

I got to my brother's house in Maryland late Sunday night and stayed up until 4 am with my brother and sister-in-law and my dad and his girlfriend. There was beer, but nothing at all of interest transpired. Monday, examined the view from my brother's back door, ate mexican food, drove to my mom's house, following my dad all the way because he insisted. (Oy.) Took some nice pictures from the car, listened to some excellent radio stations.

Tuesday, my mom had to work so I hung out in Lynchburg, at one point capturing this lovely tableau:

Then I went and bought myself a new camera and got my ears pierced at the tattoo-n-piercing parlor two doors down from the New Life Christian Store (not the one in the above picture, another location) by a guy with Backstreet Boys facial hair who was listening to conservative talk radio.

Wednesday: drove to Charlottesville to see my sister. Took a bunch of pictures from the car, including a whole series of this truck full of giant logs which I found utterly fascinating.

And of course, once there, I took a bunch of baby pictures (and movies, both of them too big for YouTube).

Thursday: went to my two favorite used bookstores with my mom, the larger of which is now in a new, enormous, and terrifyingly circus-themed building.


(That's less than half of the facade; to get the whole thing I would've had to shoot from across the street.) The smaller bookstore was exactly as I remembered it — complete with history books about "The War of the Rebellion" prominently displayed in the front room, and a horrible narrow staircase down to the good stuff. Between the two bookstores, I bought fifteen books for about $60. Including a copy of Jane Eyre in comic form.

On Thursday I also had a two hour lunch with my dad, during the course of which we argued strenuously about politics, but surprisingly didn't appear to have completely alienated the staff at the IHOP by the time we left. That day, it snowed for about 30 seconds, hailed for about 60 seconds, and then rained for the rest of the day.

Friday: went back to Charlottesville to see my sister again. More pictures from the car.


Love the sky. (Also love the new camera.) Here's a cat, looking like a cat. I mauled and snuggled with several cats on this trip. I lurve kitties.

And here's a baby admiring himself in the mirror intently. Note the drool. (And here's the baby movie that wasn't too big for YouTube, if you're interested.)

Then I went ice skating with my sister on Friday night. I only fell down once, I swear. I have no pictures, because I didn't want to get murdered by a bunch of middle school kids while fumbling for the camera.

Saturday I got up at 6 am Eastern time, drove for four and a half hours (which is the part of the traveling I didn't mind), through large swaths of Virginia and Maryland. I even saw the Mormon Temple, just like you did on your trip, Shosh. Well, a different Temple, of course. This is the huge one in D.C. or Maryland or some damn place like that, seen from the Beltway.

Then I spent the next twelve hours waiting in airports and flying on airplanes. I tried to get drunk in the Baltimore airport, which worked out fine, but didn't last very long. And then I was just squished into the center seat on a three and a half hour flight, completely sober but with the memory of my bourbon buzz, being kicked by a child. I got home after 8 pm our time. It was quite a day, and I'd like to stop talking about it now.

So who wants to see all the rest of my boring slides?

disconnected thoughts on that stephen malkmus and the jicks show tonight

Stephen Malkmus is a man with a shockingly appropriate mustache.

At one point, I heard a guy in the audience say, "Stephen Malkmus' roadie looks like a young Eddie Argos."

A guy in a backwards baseball cap came up to me after the band had left the stage but before the encore and said something to me about my sense of rhythm. I couldn't make it out but I've decided to assume it was that compliment on my sense of rhythm that I've been waiting years for. He then pointed at the stage and at his head and at the stage and at his head and at the stage and at his head, and said, very deliberately, "You're very dedicated!" By which I assume he meant that I mostly looked at the stage during the show. Yeah... I'm a freak that way.

During the first part of the show, the hipster couple in front of me spent a long time bobbing up and down, up and down, up and down, all the while gently cupping each others' buttocks. I think they were being ironic.


Don't have any fun without me this week. I promise I won't have any fun without you all.

sweet & tender hooligans unite and take over!

Morrissey is playing at the Pasadena Civic on February 3rd (a Saturday; he's also playing there the 1st and 2nd). Tickets go on sale this Saturday morning. Who is with me?!?!

adventures in snot manufacture

Someone's been reading my head. (From We Have Pie Charts. See also: Analysis of Tragedies.)

Actually, puns are a little beyond me at this point. I've been sick for three days, sick with incessant throat ticklings, endless rivulets of snot, and violent coughing that stops only to allow for a violent sneeze now and again. Every muscle in my body aches. I got about four hours of sleep Monday night, and oh, right around 30 minutes' worth last night. I should probably go to sleep now, in fact, but as it turns out, I'm not really tired.

I might have a brain tumor.

Hey! Here's a drinking game for you. Watch Alias, and do a shot every time a character uses the word "endgame." Or wears a wig for no reason. Or fakes his own death.

I don't even have the wherewithal for bullet points right now, so here's a list of links for you: engrish exprained (be sure to follow the menu link!), world's tallest man saves some dolphins, a dancing skellington, cat armor, ponies yay!, blasphemy woo!, Real Genius 2: Electric Boogaloo, and: but why buy the camel when you can get the hump for free?

Oh oh oh.

two items of the utmost importance

Item one: if I had this cat I would name her Thumbs McGee.


Item two: I'm not sure I've ever wanted a t-shirt as badly as I want this one. Unfortunately, it is only available in men's size large. And costs $35.


Item three (the ghost item) is a terrible picture of me, drinking in public in front of the police station downtown.

Now this is precisely why I need a better camera phone.

inappropriately-used quotes

It makes me crazy when the greeting-card-and-calendar industry forces quotes from writers I love into their little treacly molds. For instance, I read the following on a Valentine's Day themed calendar pullout in the February issue of O: The Oprah Magazine (which I was dismantling for parts, not reading, just for the record): "What will survive of us is love." I mean, good job finding the one sort-of optimistic-sounding line Philip Larkin ever wrote, but here's the whole stanza:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of living, human, heart-shaped-chocolate-eating love, eh.

Here's another example: I was given a calendar from a dental insurance company this year with a squishy quote for each month. Those quoted include T.S. Eliot, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Robin Williams, Sam Walton, Andy Warhol, Henry James, Pete Seeger, and Sophocles. I suppose these are not so much inappropriately-used quotes as inappropriate combinations of quotees. Calendar industry: believe me when I tell you, it is simply unacceptable to place a quote from Henry James alongside a quote from Sam Walton. And hell, I'm also willing to bet that, wherever they got this Henry James quote from ("Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language"), it's severely out of context. Like quoting Iago and attributing it to Shakespeare.

* * *

Three completely unrelated items:

I just uttered the sentence (out loud, at work), "Where's my Arab Strap?" Yes, and I was also going to listen to an Arab Strap album at work (except not anymore, because I can't find it). I'll take your tributes in puppies.

I officially got straight As last semester.

I really love this comic. Snikt!

auspicious beginnings

Things I did today:

1. Fell on the stairs on my way into work and whacked my knee hard, right across the kneecap. (Incidentally: I'm now pretty sure that it's possible literally to swear a blue streak.) I tried to take a picture of the resulting knee-goiter with my cell phone so that I could share the joy with you, my wonderful friends, but it didn't turn out very well. Maybe I'll get y'all one later, when the whole shebang turns purple.
2. Opened a Cafe Press shop. I'm only telling you this so that you can make fun of me for being a crazy egotistical freak, and this is certainly not a request for any of you to buy anything. I'm not entirely sure why I did this, except that I love my bunny collage so, so much and it's not legal for me to marry it yet.
3. Got a spam email with the subject line "groundhog cinematographer". It may not be the best spam I've ever gotten, but it says so much in such a little space, don't you think?
   
4. Watched Rowing With the Wind. In this film, Byron (Scooby Doo) shaves his chest, shoots a bunch of stuff, and keeps a giraffe in his parlor. Or in his echoing marble foyer, rather. Also, Frankenstein's monster comes to life and (a) makes Polidori hang himself during the summer of 1816 [!] by beating him at pool, or something; (b) drowns the Shelleys' son William (their only child in this movie [!!]); (c) somehow manages to give Byron and Claire Clairmont's daughter Allegra the fever that kills her (perhaps he exudes a miasma?); (d) drowns Mr. Peanut Butter Shelley and his friend Edward Williams; and, finally, (e) hunts down Byron in Greece and whacks him too (not pictured; the miasma again, one assumes). The only thing I found even moderately believable about this film was Shelley's sheer insufferableness. But hey, we got to see him naked! Twice!
   

happy 2007, or whatever year it is now

I'm not tired yet (well, not tired again yet — I seem to have gotten a second wind from somewhere), so I present you with my pictures from new year's eve. They're not terribly exciting, but there they are nonetheless. My new year's resolutions are to do a better job reading Milton next time, and not to spill enchiladas on my favorite hoodie again.

Let's all have a good year, OK? Don't make me stop this thing and come back there.