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Gonna plant some morning glory seeds
Got to fill the hummingbird feeder
Then I guess we'll treat the cats for fleas
And turn off the stupid fucking heater
(Do windmills; smash nose flute)
Yeah.
02/28/2007 at 03:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Two boring rocks from a museum gift shop, a bowl of vinegar, and three weeks will net you a crop of aragonite crystals just like this.
I'm not sure why one looks like broccoli and the other looks like Beaker. Science holds many mysteries, any number of which are not for us to understand. Sometimes we must be content merely to marvel.
02/27/2007 at 03:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
So they demolished the shell of the Intel building this morning, and we were up dark and early to watch. (Non-Austin people: The city gave Intel a ton of money and incentives to locate here. They started construction, but then the company backed out after the dot-com bust and left the box of concrete beams downtown real estate to mock us for six years.)
I wasn't that upset about the fact that, in my excitement at watching the big building go boom, I had failed to focus my camera properly. Some photographer, right? But I figured there were hundreds of people with cameras there today, and Eric and Dan got some really nice shots. So no big deal.
But then I was going through what I had captured to see if there was anything worth keeping, I saw this one, where the detonations are flaring up the beams and reflecting off the ceilings, and I was bummed. That would have been a really cool picture if only I'd pulled my head out of my ass.
Ah, well. Seeing it live was better. We stood at 6th and Nueces, right across the parking lot. It was loud and cool and dramatic and well worth getting up early.
02/26/2007 at 01:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Eric bought me the awesomely hideous fake-fur boots while I was at work today.
I put them on right after dinner, and the reaction was swift and vicious: Stinky ran away and hid under the table, and Wallace actually hissed at them. I knew cats were kind of dumb, but I had no idea they were so clueless about fashion.
02/25/2007 at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
02/25/2007 at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
And we still have to get the aprons, eye protection, and 12-volt battery!
It's not as exciting as you might think. Eric and I want to try this etching process as soon as we get all the supplies and safety gear and come up with some images that are worth all that trouble. I'm pretty excited. What better way to spend an afternoon than running electrical current through a bucket of deadly corrosives?
The tiny easels don't have much to do with anything. I just got them because they were cute.
We spent most of the afternoon shopping for this stuff, and while we were out, I ran across these, marked down to just $10:
They made me laugh and laugh, but ultimately I left them on the shelf. Did I make a terrible mistake?
02/24/2007 at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
My slightly wavy hair has a tendency to froth up into great, sweeping Farrah wings when it's humid like this. This does not please me. Perhaps I should just let it do what it so desperately wants to do; instead of beating it into submission I could invest in hot rollers and Aqua Net. Kicky!
Hey, who's going to watch the Intel building demolition Sunday morning?
Cons: It's at 7 a.m. and will only take about 15 seconds. Besides, it's just a five-story concrete shell, not a gigantic stadium or anything.
Pros: It'll be cathartic to see that piece of shit come down, and how often do you get to see something get imploded? Almost never. At least I never have.
I think the pros have it; I just hope I can either stay up that late or get up that early.
02/23/2007 at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
It makes me laugh when I'm driving around town and someone tailgates me for a block or two, then finally gets exasperated and cuts over a lane to very ostentatiously accelerate past me.
The way these people act, you'd think my habit of going five miles over the speed limit--a little too fast already--makes me the only thing in the world between them and the achievement of all their goals. Listen, I'm sorry, guys. I feel really badly that you wanted to go 50 down Red River but instead got stuck behind me for a half mile. Now you will never write that novel, get that promotion, or ever get laid again. There is nothing left for you in this life, and it is all my fault.
And, after all that bluster and trouble, I invariably putt up right next to them when they're trapped at the next red light. I should not cock my head, widen my eyes, and smirk at these people, but I guess people just express their assholery in different ways.
P.S. I should add that I am not above ever driving like a bozo myself, but I do generally seek to avoid it.
02/22/2007 at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
It's sunny and fragrant outside. Swimming is fantastic. I pick my boy up in four hours. Now I have to take a shower and go to work.
02/21/2007 at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Today was pretty much anecdote free. Eric is visiting family and the only sound in the house is the hum of the CPU. I'll be ready for him to come home, but I'm kind of enjoying my own company tonight. It's warmed up a lot outside; I rode my bike home at midnight in short sleeves. I may even go swimming tomorrow if I can get my ass into bed in the next hour or so. Hmm. I think I'll work on that.
02/20/2007 at 02:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
What kind of craphead barely gets elected, advocates not only the continuation but the expansion of slavery, loses the Democratic party's nomination for reelection, aligns himself with the Confederacy, and finally dies of cirrhosis of the liver*?
Why, Franklin Pierce, our fourteenth president, of course!
Congratulations, Mr. President. You're the fourth to be honored in our series of lame, crappy, or boring presidents.
Previous years' honorees:
James Buchanan
Warren Harding
William Henry Harrison
*Although to his credit, according to Wikipedia, he supposedly said, "There's nothing left to do but get drunk," after he lost the nomination. Also, many websites report he was arrested for running over an old woman with his horse. We here at Oh, My Stars and Garters! salute that kind of behavior. Happy Presidents' Day, sir! Happy, happy Presidents' Day.
Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia, Internet Public Library
02/19/2007 at 12:07 AM in Presidents' Day | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
My dad got a new telescope this week. I drove up this afternoon to visit my people and check my dad's new toy out. It gets the Joolie seal of approval.
I was surprised to see that the skies in the suburbs aren't much darker than at my house, so close to downtown and the screamingly bright freeway. But we could still see the major stuff really well, and we could make out the faintest hints of all the stuff that's beyond the major stuff. Then I thought about how there's even more stuff beyond the stuff you can barely see, and even more stuff beyond that, and, and, and, and then I shook my head a couple times really fast and went inside for another glass of wine.
Of course, my favorite part was trying to take pictures of some of that stuff. My dad was a little disappointed that the pictures weren't sharper or more spectacular, but he was using a tiny digital point-and-shoot in conjunction with this big telescope. They're not Hubble quality, but I still think they came out pretty cool.
A composite of my dad's pictures of Saturn, run through a stacking program and tweaked in Photoshop.
M42, the Orion nebula, same treatment.
My picture of Saturn, similarly tweaked. Hell, I was just pleased that it was Saturn shaped.
02/18/2007 at 02:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
Work slowed down toward the end of the shift, so Jen K. and I sketched out a preliminary design for Choo's new back piece.
There. I don't know who wouldn't be proud to rock a scene depicting a cat sun looking on as a gnome perched on a toadstool officiates a wedding between a faerie and a Nehru jacket-clad, dream catcher-bearing wizard, plus a gratuitous butterfly and an inspirational message thrown in for good measure. Do you?
02/17/2007 at 04:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
Did you know that you can buy a frozen pig head for just $4.99? And a value pack of chicken's feet for $1.49? And a lamb's tongue for...actually, I didn't price that one, but I bet it's within your budget.
Eric and I just walked up to Fiesta and ended up wandering around in the meat section for a while. Also we spent a long time making fun of their ugly purses and rummaging through the discount T-shirts. Sometimes there's not a lot to do after work when you get off at midnight, you know?
02/16/2007 at 02:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
There was a cake-off at work tonight in honor of Valentine's Day. Eight people entered cakes. Lemon meringue, Italian cream, red velvet, chocolate...it was obscene. I left the festivities on a sugar high.
I hadn't entered anything and was deemed an impartial election judge, so I rode the glucose wave just long enough to tally the votes and post the winners. Then came the inevitable crash, and there was nothing to salvage from the smoldering wreckage but an aching head and stomach. Officemate Joel suggested a side-dish-off for next time, and for once I could not argue.
02/15/2007 at 03:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
What marketing savvy, to take an ugly fruit and market it as an Ugli fruit. We used to sell these at the grocery store where I worked in high school. I was always curious about them but never bothered to buy one. Then HEB put up their enormous Ugli fruit display, complete with huge anthropomorphic cartoon Ugli fruits with crossed eyes and monobrows. So I guess I'll try it. I hope it tastes beautiful, because otherwise I'm just an impulse-buy sucker out $1.99 with a mound of hideous rind scraps in my trashcan.
Update, 6:05 p.m.: It has a pleasant, mild citrus flavor, more sweet than tart, and it is very, very juicy. It was good, but maybe not two-dollars-a-fruit good. I'll stick to Texas grapefruit, which is cheap and great right now.
02/13/2007 at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
It's been chilly and gray outside, and coincidentally or not, I've been feeling dreary and uninspired lately. Really, I can think of no better time to pick up a book about a father and son trying to survive after the apocalypse.
Cormac Mccarthy's The Road is brutally bleak and really good. It's super dark, but the relationship between the father and son is just human and hopeful enough to keep the book from complete despair. If any more pain and misery had been piled on, this book would be ludicrous, but as it's tempered, it's actually a very moving, even sweet book that just happens to be set in a nuclear winter. (Or possibly the aftermath of a supervolcano or something; we never actually find out.) As a bonus, the constant scrabbling around for food and shelter in a ravaged country fed into my childhood last-person-on-earth fantasies*.
It was a quick read, in part because the writing is so Cormac-Mccarthy terse, but mostly because I was motivated. It was such a relentlessly miserable story that I was eager to be in the position of having read it instead of still reading it. Still, it cheered me up somehow. I feel much better already.
*The dystopian kind where you have to scrabble around for food and shelter, not the fun kind where you get the mall to yourself and crash cars into things just 'cause. Although I liked those too.
02/11/2007 at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
I was taking a picture of a tampon for a project Ms. Spacebeer and I are supposed to do in 21 days or so (more about that later; I really think I'm getting the worst of it). Anyway, I took the tampon out of the wrapper, snapped the picture, left it on the table, and forgot about it.
Then the cats happened upon it. They've been playing with it all day, pouncing and flipping it up into the air, then trotting around triumphant with it in their mouths until they get bored and leave it on the floor somewhere, only to rediscover it an hour or so later.
We haven't had the heart to take it away yet, plus we think the whole thing is pretty funny. Seriously, the cats are having about the best day of their lives with the stupid thing.
So if you come over and there are unused but decidedly battered tampons all over the floor, don't be alarmed. Tampons may be expensive, but I figured it out and they're still cheaper than cat toys.
02/09/2007 at 01:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
02/07/2007 at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
02/07/2007 at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
The popcorn rocks are popping. Slowly. They won't reach their full potential until all that vinegar evaporates. The kitchen still reeks, but anything for science, right?
I'm in the middle of some epic premenstrual crabbiness, which I've been trying to keep from spewing all over other people. It helps to imagine everything around me black and smoldering as if after a flash fire, with the screams of my enemies coming from all directions. Except I don't really have enemies, so I have to imagine them too. Man, are they fuckers! Their howls of agony sound so sweet.
Is this healthy? Potato chips help too.
I've been riding my bike to work the past couple of days. It's not a very long ride, but it's a little tough because I have to ride against the wind on the way there and uphill on the way back. I gasp a lot. It's fun. If I do that and come home and drink a few beers, I sleep like a (premenstrual) baby.
Ugh. Shutting up as of the typing of this sentence, which is ending...now.
02/07/2007 at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Guess who won?
Hint: I had to pick bits of skin off the bike pedal.
That wasn't even the most disturbing part, though, at least from my perspective. No, that was when I was in the shower, merrily shampooing my hair, when Eric burst wincing in the bathroom: "Ow, ow, ow, can I get in there? ow ow OW," and thrust his big bloody leg under the water as I shrunk against the back wall, making sympathetic noises and eeeeew faces.
He's all right, just a little sore and of course bummed that his career as a leg model ended before it could ever really get off the ground. He does have awfully nice gams, if you ask me.
02/06/2007 at 03:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
First, you will need a cake pan in the shape of a cross. We have had ours for a long time. I'm not sure why.
Next, make your meatloaf mix. We used the standard beef/egg/bread crumb/onion soup mix/ketchup recipe.
After the ingredients are evenly distributed and sufficiently gooey, press the mix firmly into your cake pan.
Meat fingers! (Sort of like spirit hands, but with raw ground beef.)
Gently tap the molded meat mix out of the cake pan and onto a cookie sheet.
Shroud in bacon. Cook at 350 for an hour and twenty minutes; sprinkle with shredded cheese and return to oven for another 15 minutes.
Invite some nice friends over to help you eat it because it's totally delicious. Serves six, with a little left over for sandwiches.
02/04/2007 at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)
I am very sad that Molly Ivins has died. I have admired her for a long time.
I ran into her at a rally once and said hello. She had a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other and raised both in salute, which I thought was pretty charming.
My other encounter with her wasn't quite as fun. She'd just given a talk to our journalism class, and she was putting her stuff in her truck as I was unlocking my bicycle a few feet away. I yelled, "Hey, Molly!" and she looked up expectantly.
Then I froze, starstruck in a way I guess, although that was totally stupid because she was a famously friendly woman. There was a beat or two too many, and I finally, lamely, said, "Uh...thanks." She said you're welcome and quickly got in her truck, and I rode my bike back to work in record time, propelled by sheer mortification.
I'm sorry I was too big of a dork to talk to her, and I'm sorry she's gone. I think I'll send Texas Observer something and I guess I should restart my subscription; it is pretty useful this time of year.
02/01/2007 at 02:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)