Shuz. The maryjanes are self-explanitory, aren't they? I think they'll show off all my groovy socks and stockings. The boots are "metallic pewter" so I will call them my robotshoes. One says "LOVE" and the other says "HATE" - with hearts.
While waiting for these new shoes to come in (why aren't they here yet? did the delivery guy forget to buzz up? did they get lost on the way?!), I've had a crummy mood in my head all day. It rose to a peak at work, where I nearly burst a neck vein at this sorority girl who, because she couldn't learn mail merging from me, no matter how hard I tried to teach her for a good hour, who even suggested a few times that I should just do all her work for her, implied I didn't know how to do my job.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, by the way, betch?
Fuck you:
I really, really, really want my shoes to arrive nowplzkthx. | 3-12-08 | 12:08am
Do steambots dream of steam-powered sheep?
Much fun with new skins and Zig's old-tymey observatory. Click away. (Is it porn if it's pixels and I made it myself? Really more pin-ups anyway, but probably not entirely safe for work, depending on where you work.) | 3-12-08 | 12:08am
h8
This is a pain in the ass. And I don't personally read any blogs without RSS feeds anymore (one exception). Erg. Must change.
| 1-25-08 | 9:31pm
Orygun
Hair: dyed a sinful shade of red. Clothes: April-fresh and packed. Reservations: confirmed and reconfirmed. Tummy: horribly fucking unsettled.
What is settled, however, is the answer to "will his mom make this holiday hell?" She called a few hours ago, to tell us she'd "made up two beds" for us, pretending for a moment to have forgotten the five dramatic phone conversations about the decision to stay at a hotel because we'd get to sleep in the same bed like we do at home. She then went into a mini-tirade about how she had things planned for every waking hour with us and now things would be all wrong because our non-waking hours will be someplace else.
Here's to hoping the flights are overbooked and they start taking volunteers for bumps.
If you have my phone number, I'd really, really, really appreciate a text or twenty over the next five days. Just a little hello so I can pretend it's something really important and requires my attention more than the conversations about end times and how I'm probably the anti-christ, or at least his favorite whore.
...and I just deleted several entries posting this. Sucks to be me using notepad as a blogging tool. | 12-22-07 | 11:15pm
Go around twice if you're happy.
There's a roundabout in Portland, OR, that I simply adore with a statue of Joan of Arc riding a horse on one end of it, and a lawn in the center where people sometimes played flag football or whatever. I used to go around it four or five times instead of just passing through, and I'd always say "look, kids, there's Big Ben!" even if nobody else was in the car. I also had a compulsion to speed toward it when Roundabout by Yes came on the radio, and tried to time it just right so I'd see Joan rising behind the hill as I came up 39th just as the music got all angelic and peaceful, and I'd start to turn into it as the keyboards kicked back in. Around and around until the end of song. I love roundabouts. They make me happy.
And here's a roundabout that I'd never get out of. I promise this video will lift your mood:
| 12-09-07 | 12:27am
robotclothes I know, I've got a one-track mind lately. Lately being the past fifteen years or so. I can't help myself when it comes to things with "robot" in the title. I swear I was looking for clothing, but you know I stick "robot" in nearly every search I do, because it generally ensures cooler results.
robotclothes is a commercial research and development group specializing in robotics. All you really need to know is that they have a groovy projects page where they highlight pics and vids of their commercial work along with "fine art projects ranging from a robotic public sculpture for Central Park to an animatronic opera about Crohn’s Disease." Flippin' awesome. | 12-04-07 | 7:51pm
db news
Just after 9/11, I started keeping a 'blog for news of interest to local progressives. A lot of it was national news that I felt applied to us here, some local news from smaller papers or individual peoples' reports, and bits from less popular but still trustworthy sources about things that don't often get coverage in cable news or big-business papers. I stopped keeping it when everybody else on the planet started keeping pages for the same purpose (and did it with a hell of a lot fancier code than I'm capable of).
Now that I'm neck-deep in RSS feeds for this specific interest or that one, I'm sort of back to where I started from. Each place I go has one or two stories I want to read and share, never more, often less. I'm even reading several local political blogs (I love how many people have taken their information-gathering into their own hands since 9/11), but, like me, they've got their own agenda in why they're keeping the page, or who they're keeping it for. What I had intended in 2002 seems more useful now, what with everyone and their dog turning into newswhores like myself. I wanted (and now want, again) a local version of the Progressive Newswire:
"[The Progressive] NewsCenter's roots go back to the early 90's when Common Dreams Editor Craig Brown was the chief-of-staff to former Congressman Tom Andrews. With access to an incredible supply of daily newspapers, magazines, journals and briefing papers, members of Congress are deluged with information but have very little time to scan through it - much less read it. Brown created a daily 'newsclips' operation for the congressman and the staff. Early every morning interns and staff would scan dozens of designated publications looking for new articles or opeds from a list of issues that were of greatest interest to the congressman and staff. By 9 am, all staff had a photocopied/collated copy of the 'Daily Clips' to carry with them all day and read in between the chaos.
I may end up ressurrecting the news site just for local stories, but only if I can get this hand-coded RSS blahblah to work out. Nobody actually uses their bookmarks anymore, do they?
| 11-21-07 | 2:56am
Salame!
We've been awfully addicted to Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! lately. A good hunk of that love is devoted to David Nkrumah Liebe Hart, an L.A. cable access program host and legend, and his songs about extra terrestrials and not doing drugs. The guy's one of apparently many performers/actors/artists who sit around in a pile outside the Hollywood Bowl hawking their wares and talents. He's also host of the Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show weekly on public access. The guy's really... eccentric. His puppets are... even more so. Both he and his puppets look like they're from another era, or another dimension. A guy who got to guest host the cable access show had this to say about the furry friends of David:
"Generally speaking the puppets are filthy. This might not be the right forum for this, but I'd like to voice that I'm starting a fund to either buy David some new puppets for Christmas or, at the least, get the ones he currently uses industrially washed and dried. The public access cameras have no problems picking up the dirty, filmy grime on those things. At some point the innocent child has to ask, "If a filthy giraffe is prompting me to say no to drugs and say yes to UFOs, should I believe him?" This to me is a fixable problem. If Dave truly wants the child to say yes to UFOs, and no to drugs, it must begin with clean puppets."
(is it just me, or is it totally hilarious that David has a "favorite race"?) | 11-30-07 | 8:43am
William Gibson and my fabulous virtual hair.
This is a video from William Gibson's live reading of a Spook Country excerpt (followed by Q&A) in SecondLife. About halfway through this video, you can see the audience from the author's perspective. You get one guess who that mass of red hair-like pixels belongs to:
Wow. I never really sit still for that long. | 11-27-07 | 11:20pm
Good morning, fuck you.
About once a month, the fire alarm goes off in our building for no good reason. You'd think downtown condo owners would get tired of the racket, or at least worry that all the wolf-crying is going to get us on the Fire Department's least-adored list, but they don't. Because they work 8-5 weekdays. And the damned thing usually goes off around 9 or 10am. To students who don't get to sleep until around 4 in the morning, that is so not cool.
We pull clothing on (I forgot a shirt? Hooray for hoodies with reliable zippers.) and start down the seven flights of stairs. In the dark. The lights on the seventh floor landing in the stairwell are out. Again. And it is pitch mother-humping dark in there. Also blacked out are the 5th floor landing, the 3rd floor landing, the 2nd floor landing, and the first floor landing.
Between the third floor landing and the bottom of the stairwell, the metal pipe handrails are lying on the steps lengthwise, having been pulled from the drywall leaving sharp, rusty screws poking out where a person might put a hand. You know, where the railing should be. The railing that's in the middle of the steps. In complete darkness.
You think that's not so bad? I'm not renting. I own this place. The doors all lock and need buzzers, the elevator has a secret code, and there's a goddamned video camera watching everyone in the lobby. But rusty spikes and debris on staircases apparently aren't threatening my safety.
There's someone else doing that.
The guy living on the fourth floor landing. In the stairwell.
Whoever it is, or was, had to leave their shit in a hurry when that fire alarm went off and a couple angry students came stumbling down from the 7th floor. He also left something all over the walls. Something brown, and not entirely delightful to smell. It looked like either this person had been living there for a while, or people had shacked up there before.
I feel like I bought a condo in a public housing project.
I don't need the new carpets or the slate walls. I need safety.
The condo association makes you go through a website to talk to them, and it's been weeks since I sent in my application for membership on the site and nobody's approved it or anything. The website I'm paying a monthly condo fee to use. Irresponsible fuckers. The real estate manager dude returned my call around 1:15pm and kept calling me back every 30 minutes or so with progress reports until I had to go to work. Yes, I'm making him earn his paycheck. I don't sign those checks to live in an unintentional homeless shelter.
J says we should start smoking in the stairwells instead of trucking it outside. If someone can live there for free, aren't we paying enough to get to smoke in there when it's cold? | 11-27-07 | 7:51pm
I might need to make these up myself.
| 11-21-07 | 2:56am
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
There was an episode of Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! that ended with a profusely awkward dance number followed by a long silence and eventually the Curb Your Enthusiasm themesong. The first few smug notes of that song really cracked us up, so we downloaded the mp3 and started playing it whenever we were dissatisfied with the ending of an event, or when our movies and TV shows faded to black during a final touching moment. The best was playing it at the end of the most recent Democratic "Debate" on CNN... the candidates fake some smiles, the camera pans out to show the decidedly unenthusiastic audience, the talking heads are still waiting for their cue to break the silence... (and click)
We've taken to playing it at the end of recent episodes of Weeds (which always ends all shoulder-shruggy and confused) and after any conversations about the people waiting at the bus stop downstairs. We just leave it queued up on the laptop at all times now. J wants to make a small device that plays it at the press of a button we could keep in our pockets. | 11-19-07 | 5:30pm
I might be growing up.
I'm trying really hard lately to understand and therefore respect those that upset or frustrate me. In particular: internet libertarians, people who get a rush from violence (virtual or otherwise), and catholics.
It surprises me that the catholics are gaining the most ground. After the Kucinich revelation, I had a lot of thinking to do. I read all about his conversion from anti-abortion to pro-choice and really do believe it. I had a similar conversion experience myself. Can I not be trusted to be pro-choice because of how loudly I railed against the procedure in my younger years? If he can change his mind about that, maybe he can change his mind about his religion in general.
I've at least realized that catholics are less rabid toward non-believers than born-again christians are. They may even be less psycho to their own sinning congregation, because of the confessional ritual. You could probably go have an abortion and the priest would just tell you to bark out some hail marys and do community service whlie hating yourself or something. Then you're good to go! Your sinful ways are the business of you, the priest, and your god (or saint, or Mary, or whatever). In a born-again church, you'll be told you must not have been born-again to begin with, and you're likely to be asked to leave the congregation if you do something like slay an innocent in the womb. They'll tell you it was Satan working through you, whereas the catholics could consider it a very human trait to be so flawed in judgement. Catholics forgive, born-agains make you start over from scratch.
I've gotta say, I've never, ever, EVER been approached by a catholic trying to get me to change my ways. I've heard of it happening outside of Planned Parenthoods, but at the PP in Lincoln, the nuns are only there to pray for the souls of the fetuses. They don't yell or throw things or stick flyers on my window as I drive out of the lot. Those are the born-agains. They scream at you for being such a terrible human being, and and hold up photos of mangled flesh and threaten women with their god's wrath and all that shit.
I live in a seriously catholic city right now, and I need to come to terms with that. I need to understand these people better, and all their little rituals and ceremonies. I mean, hell, the catholics are fucking famous for being so goddamned good to the poor, the hungry, the homeless. I want to be friends with these people. I don't like feeling hateful, and it isn't getting any of us anywhere.
That's not to say I won't make another post at some point regarding the lunacies of their religion, just that I'll try to do it with a purpose from now on. | 11-17-07 | 4:00pm
I must make my witness.
Opening shifts should not be scheduled just a few days after a closing shift. Unless someone has some really great pills they wanna fork over so I can get to sleep before 3am when I need to. Freaking ouch. Didn't even have time to fetch coffee this morning. Someone stole my mug from the gallery yesterday anyway. I'd be in a first-class rotten, shitty mood if it weren't for the rants and ravings still being broadcast through my gray matter. Rants in the voice of Howard Beale.
I found my problem with Dennis Kucinich, finally, and it isn't anything little. He's catholic. Fucking catholic, man. I'd read about his anti-abortion work in his past, and about how and why and when he changed his mind on abortion policy, but I didn't know what got him thinking with the wingnuts to begin with. Pfft, it was the pope. Fuck. Fuck. Something I can't quite figure out about Edwards and now Kucinich is how you can consider yourself a catholic when you don't follow the pope's orders. Isn't the pope like the mouthpiece of gawd itself? Not following the pope's orders, knowing you aren't going to follow the pope's orders, speaking out against the pope's orders... all mean you aren't a fucking catholic. But you can call yourself anything you want. You'll just sound crazy. Or like you're lying. Fuck.
I'm especially pissy about this discovery because of how well the man represents the rest of my ethics and ideals. Health care won't be good for us until it is no longer a for-profit system. Currently, a corporation decides my own health care, and I'm downright sick of that nonsense. I don't believe there are illegal people, either, Dennis. I say open the fucking borders, legalize the lot of them. Then they're the same as any other American, and will get paid the same, get the same benefits, be charged the same taxes... you won't lose yer jawb to a bunch of people who cost just as much as you do to hire
If I can get over my distrust and dislike for catholics, can you all get over your fear of a short, vegan president? | 11-12-07 | 5:32pm
"No monkey's ever been born with a working third arm."
Working until midnight when I have to get up at a reasonable hour the next morning makes me kinda grumpy. I managed to stay sunny at work, but when I got home and started in on Nova's "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial", I got a little fussy. Loverboy and I got into a small spat over the use of metaphors when discussing natural selection. What? Nerds. Nerds who argue PBS biology specials at 2am.
It's worth noting that my boss was reading a dog-eared copy of Snow Crash in the break room when I got in to work today. It made me want to go rock the treadmill (so I can hear the book on tape, I'm in the middle of chapter five), or go home and play some SecondLife. | 11-12-07 | 5:32pm
12 to 12 means 12.
12 hours on campus today, from 12noon to 12midnight. Sucky. At least I've got this PC and a bunch of work to do online for class and production company whatnot. Have I mentioned the production company?
Perforated Productions is a production company in Omaha started by Pope Katherine I. She and Reverend Steve are hauling the asses of Omaha's creative types up off the sofa and out into the street. We do films, music videos, event planning, costuming/makeup, and can always find people to act, model, DJ, and so on. There's a video for Plecostomus (Omaha's answer to They Might Be Giants, only dirty and with swears) on the band's website (the "Wax My Ass" video), and we're halfway through a post-apocalyptic/dark future/dirty tech/Blade Runneresque music video for A.Symbiont.
Perforated Productions is home to the Hot Tail Honeys, Omaha's most luscious classic burlesque troupe, and provides uniforms for the Omaha Roller Girls. We also throw the most fan-freaking-tastic parties (Dr. Strangelove party scheduled for New Year's Eve in the old munitions factory near Mead, NE).
I've taken on the financial records, the taking of notes, and the job of calling people who miss or are late for company meetings and rehearsals. Why do I want everyone to hate me? Because when all is said and done, they'll love me for nagging and nitpicking them half to death. People will be on time and money won't hurt quite as badly. I also throw weird bits of foam and plastic on people's heads for our futuristic video and photo shoots, and will sew sequins and deliver beer as needed.
I adore the people of Perforated Productions, and I believe in what they do. I have faith that this motley crew of talented freaks and creative weirdos will change Omaha for the better. Drastically.
And I get to watch.
Now I just need to trap them all in a room with a copy of Cecil B. Demented and my vision will become a reality... | 11-13-07 | 10:41pm
Bare fucking bones.
Because I just can't stand most pages out there. I also can't stand the fucking blogging tools. Is this a good time to mention how tired I am of the word "blog" being misused? Maybe that'll be my first rant in this new format.
This new format being raw HTML coded by hand and uploaded with FileZilla. I just couldn't stomach the WordPress and Movable Type madness, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna make you suffer through flashing X-Box ads while you read this drivel. | 11-11-07 | 10:24pm
I know, I've got a one-track mind lately. Lately being the past fifteen years or so. I can't help myself when it comes to things with "robot" in the title. I swear I was looking for clothing, but you know I stick "robot" in nearly every search I do, because it generally ensures cooler results.
