'Tis the season of holiday catalogs full of obscenely overpriced and flagrantly unnecessary crap! Sometimes these things put me in a really pissy mood. But other times I find it too much fucking work to care that much and they're just funny. Today they are funny.

Who the hell has so much cash to burn that some of these items could ever even be considered as something one would buy?

What about a butane lighter made of solid brass, bronze, or pewter with Swarovski crystals all over it? Yours for only $60. Look like the king of fucking France waving a Harry Potter wand while you commit arson. An asset to any home, surely.

Or how about a solid mahogany stepladder? So you can reach the clothes on the upper hangers of your high-ceilinged walk-in closet, which absolutely MUST have a piece of decorative furniture in it because obviously it is a place that your distinguished guests see so often when you take them in there for a quick shag while your spouse is otherwise engaged probably in the hallway closet downstairs. This life-improving item is only $150.

And of course, no home should be without a 3' tall iPod stand (??!?!!), just $200 on sale this month... or a 5' tall nutcracker with flashing LED lights on his hat and coat and an MP3 player. For the low low price of $380, this handsome fellow will stand on your porch blinking like an airport runway and frightening people away with a high-volumed rendition of Dominic the Donkey... or Welcome to the Jungle if you really want to give folks nightmares.


I actually did see something really nice among all of this absurdity, though. And it makes actual sense that it's $130, if it's going to be something you take out and show people at holidays, especially if you've got kids around. It's a piano-playing mouse. He plays 12 different songs which you program by setting tiny sheet music on his stand, and the piano keys move. There's a video of it. It's completely adorable even though the mouse's voice can't seem to decide whether it is really fake-sounding British or just not there at all. So there's your dose of cute for today.

"Beyond the Ash Rains"
Agha Shahid Ali

'What have you known of loss
That makes you different from other men?'
- Gilgamesh


When the desert refused my history,
Refused to acknowledge that I had lived
there, with you, among a vanished tribe,

two, three thousand years ago, you parted
the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon curtains,

and beckoned me to the northern canyons.
There, among the red rocks, you lived alone.
I had still not learned the style of nomads:

to walk between the rain drops to keep dry.
Wet and cold, I spoke like a poor man,

without irony. You showed me the relics
of our former life, proof that we'd at last
found each other, but in your arms I felt

singled out for loss. When you lit the fire
and poured the wine, "I am going," I murmured,
repeatedly, "going where no one has been
and no one will be... Will you come with me?"
You took my hand, and we walked through the streets

of an emptied world, vulnerable
to our suddenly bare history in which I was,

but you said won't again be, singled
out for loss in your arms, won't ever again
be exiled, never again, from your arms.

If you look for me, Maria, you will find me in the shade--
Wide awake or in a dream, it's hard to tell.
If you come to me, Maria, I will show you what I've made--
It's a picture for Our Lady of the Well.

So, ladies and gentlebeans, a query! Yes, again. Unrelated to the words above, which are just lyrics I happen to like and have stuck in my head at the moment.

Would it be incredibly demented and/or disrespectful to choose a cemetery as the subject of my report on a museum?

It is sort of a museum of dead people...


P.S. The Leonids are coming! Look busy!

In your mind you have capacities you know
To telepath messages through the vast unknown
Please close your eyes and concentrate
With every thought you think
Upon the recitation we're about to sing

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft
Calling occupants of interplanetary most extraordinary craft...

Does anyone on the ol' Flist here know how to dilute essential oil (peppermint, specifically)? The stuff I'd used before was already diluted but I can't get more of it until my mom gets back from Tampa.

Friday the 13th is the luckiest day ever for me because it is today the birthday of my baby sister claudea who is made of awesome and pirates.

Speaking of which, we just went to see Pirate Radio which is amazingly amazing and everyone here needs to go see it.

Mmkay?

Rock on.

Rain is awesome! So so awesome! *poings around like a ferret on crack*

zomg energy

my entire scalp is covered in peppermint oil.

I do not think I have ever felt anything so fucking amazing IN MY LIFE.

oh my sweet god fhbvaldfhbgaldhrbgadhjkfbn

I got an A on my paper and Mr. Henry gave me an extension on my class presentation so I can focus on my archaeology project until I get a week off work and can do both.

\o/

Is it possible to have a bruise that isn't on the surface of your skin?

Last night, I pinched my finger trying to put the dog door back in after kicking it down (long story) and it still hurts when I poke it, but there's no visible bruise. If I bend my finger all the way forward, it's almost like you can SORTA see a dark spot under the skin, but that might also just be veins.

It's not broken or anything. I'm sure I'll survive. XD I'm just curious whether you can have a bruise that isn't visible.

There is something incredibly eerie about having two TVs on in hearing range, and hearing Barnum singing on one and a woman crying on another.

Weeeeeird.

(I could put on Boy George and make it EVEN WEIRDER. I could... but WILL I??? hmmm!)

I has a little tree. It lives on my desk in a pretty red pot.

I do not has a picture of my little tree because the lighting sucks as bad as my sucky camera does. But I was curious as to exactly what kind of tree my little tree is.

It turns out my little tree grows up to do this. Which, as soon as I saw it, immediately filled me with one all-consuming incredibly dating thought:

I HAS A BABY HEXXUS-TRAPPING FAIRY TREE.

Anyone who knows what I'm talking about, congratulations, you, too, are old as the dirt, if the dirt is as old as the 1980's and remembers when surfer slang was totally tubular, dude.

[It's weird how SHORT this looks here. It's actually 3 pages double-spaced, but it looks... shorter than a lot of random rants I stick here. Wow.]

The assignment, just to reitterate, was as follows:

Pick a cabinet, tabletop or any other surface in your home where multiple objects are stored or displayed. Using your skills in collections and/or exhibit management, treat this area as an exhibit or collection in a museum. Do a collection or exhibit analysis of this area.

( My brother's pants, interpreted as a museum exhibit )

I have a paper due today for my museum studies class -- a report on "the kitchen cabinet collection." The assignment is to find any surface in our homes where a collection of objects is stored and displayed, and do a report on it as if it was a museum exhibit.

The topic of my paper is "My Brother's Pants."

I decided to write it on the pile of pants that my brother has had in the immediate vicinity of wherever he happens to be sleeping since he was 14 or so.

The aforementioned sibling was more than happy to assist by showing off his pants and explaining in great detail the importance of the various brand names and how to select matching underwear.

...this may end up being unquestionably my best school paper ever.

I don't know why this amuses me so much, but it does.

So! Failblog posts a photo of a church sign that reads THE CLASS ON PROPHESY HAS BEEN CANCELED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

The following exchange ensues:

MRN
Actually, it’s hard to read the left side of the sign. Maybe it says “some foreseen circumstances”.

k@ the custard wombat
One foreseen circumstance?

MRN
One foreskin circumcised?

k@ the custard wombat
One Forest circumnavigated

MRN
One for the road -> cirrhosis?

Guan-Di
One forethought circumspected

Dollar bill Phil
2 girls 1 cucumber

I did not take this photo -- my phone camera is such crap, it could not possibly do justice to something so pretty -- but my brother and I found one that looks EXACTLY like THIS.

It's a monarch butterfly cocoon. And now I see why they call it a monarch -- its cocoon looks like it's crowned and speckled with real gold. The one we found was hanging under a branch of our curly parsley, which we're cutting today to dry. We're going to spare this twig and put it in my turtle's old carrier so it can open, then we'll set it free. I'll try to find my camera charger before then and hopefully get some photos when the cocoon clears up and when it opens.

...or at least the fluffily sexy.

( Adam Green and Carl Barat. )

Bonus: Videos!

( Read more... )

To every news organization on the planet and to Colorado state authorities:

Did NONE of you ever watch Mythbusters???

There is no chance in this world or the next that a balloon that size could have ever lifted a 6-year-old. It might -- might -- have managed a toddler. Maybe. It also would have taken all of 10 minutes OR LESS to get the dimensions of that balloon and do the calculations to figure out that the physics of this planet simply do not allow for that amount of helium to lift a child that size. They don't. Anywhere upon this here giant rotating rock. Period. The math is there. The science is there. We do, in fact, know exactly how much helium it would take to theoretically lift any amount of weight.

Now, does everyone see how this mess could have been avoided by any idiot with Google and a calculator? Even nonexact ballpark measurements would have shown in fractions of a SECOND that that child could not possibly be attached to that balloon.

Please observe, if you will, how thousands of dollars, scores of man-hours, and incalculable amounts of energy from private citizens in the form of social networking have been totally and completely wasted over a 6-year-old's prank because, to everyone with any power over the situation, bumping ratings with a media circus was more important than anyone asking the dimensions of the balloon, the weight of the child, and calculating by 0.078 ^lbs/ft³.

Now, folks, apply this general concept to all the news you see on TV. This happens to ALL of it. Do you understand?

TURN OFF THE NEWS. IT'S NOT REAL. YOU'RE NOT "STAYING INFORMED" BY WATCHING OR LISTENING TO IT. I HAVE JUST DEMONSTRATED THAT DISCOVERY CHANNEL SHOWS HAVE MORE INFORMATION LIKELY TO EVER BE RELEVANT TO YOUR LIVES THAN THE NEWS PROBABLY EVER WILL. TURN. IT. OFF. BEFORE IT ROTS YOUR BRAIN OUT OF YOUR SKULL AND MAKES YOU START NOT-THINKING LIKE THEM.

Somehow, by what may be the most obscure and bizarre coincidence ever, I am not the only person in the world inventing offspring for Miniver Cheevy.

Lookie here. (Though the individual described in this poem far better describes a combination of my Miniver's daughter Sable and [second?] cousin [twice removed?] Riordan than his son Marten...)


"Miniver Cheevy, Jr."
by David Fisher Parry

Miniver Cheevy, Jr., child
Of Robinson's renowned creation,
Also lamented and reviled
His generation.

Miniver similarly spurned
The present that so irked his pater,
But that langsyne for which he yearned
Came somewhat later.

Miniver wished he were alive
When dividends came due each quarter,
When Goldman Sachs was 205,
And skirts were shorter.

Miniver gave no hoot in hell
For Camelot or Troy's proud pillage;
He would have much preferred to dwell
In Greenwich Village.

Miniver cherished fond regrets
For days when benefits were boundless;
When radios were crystal sets,
And films were soundless.

Miniver missed the iron grills,
The whispered word, the swift admission,
The bath-tub gin, and other thrills
Of Prohibition.

Miniver longed, as all men long,
To turn back time (his eyes would moisten),
To dance the Charleston, play mah jong,
And smuggle Joyce in.

Miniver Cheevy, Jr., swore,
Drank till his health was quite imperiled;
Miniver sighed, and read some more
F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Last night I felt like drawing hot chicks with bit tits. Apparently.

( To each his Dulcinea... )

A few days ago, I posted about a documentary on America's National Parks.

For anyone who was interested, You can watch all 6 episodes for free online, but they'll be taken down on the 9th, so hurry. They're worth watching. ^_^