Oh, my stars and garters!

Hi

I just wanted to post on February 29 for the novelty of it. Bye.

Everything's coming up Pointy

Pointy nationwide!

Posting will become sporadic in the days ahead, I imagine. Wedding-ing is fun but a little hard on the socially awkward.

P.S. I totally wrote this on the toilet.

Mild curiosities

Giant ant pile

Foreshortening

Fossil

All the pretty pointies

All for pointies; pointies for all!

Did I mention I was getting married?

I tell you, I never thought I'd be the kind of girl who wouldn't go swimming because it might wreck her new hair color or insist on a fourth fitting at the seamstress's. But I've come this far, and it would be a shame to show up with brittle green hair and a puckery frock.

The last episode of The Wire is the day after my wedding (hey, I'm getting married, by the way). After those two things are over, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. So far all I have planned is to drink beer and plant a garden. That is simply not going to be enough.

Joolie pritty now

Before:

After:

Thanks, Stacey P!

Back burner

I'm getting my hair colored tomorrow! I took out the trash earlier! I'm about to fold laundry and watch Project Runway*! I'm...wait, these things are not interesting! Well, ah, crap. Maybe tomorrow I'll be involved in a shootout. Then I'll really have something to write about.

*I think it's even the flashback episode. Kee-rist.

Grooms Man

Which look is best for a spring wedding that is nice but not formal? We just can't decide.

Presidents' Day

A victim of bad timing as well as a woefully ineffectual crisis manager, Herbert Hoover is pretty much synonymous with the Great Depression.

Not-very-interesting facts about him: He was a Quaker; he publicly supported Prohibition in the name of political expediency while secretly enjoying a drink or six hundred himself; Calvin Coolidge gave him the derisive nickname of "Wonder Boy" when he served as Coolidge's secretary of commerce.

Sucks to have been you, Mr. Hoover! But please take posthumous solace in the knowledge that you're number five in our series of lame, crappy, or boring presidents.

Previous years' honorees:
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Warren Harding
William Henry Harrison

A fried chicken vending machine has still failed to materialize in my house.

That sucks royally.

Happy Valentine's Day.

You guys are nice.

Are you ready to RHUMBAAAAAAAA?

One of the things Eric and I are decidedly not looking forward to about the wedding is the public dancing part. I thought maybe we could just opt out of it, but I wouldn't feel right about that.

Even though I do think it's a nice idea, as a couple we aren't comfortable with dancing. I mean, we dance in the privacy of our own home, but it's mostly these happy little grotesque hopping steps, and occasionally I'll pull out all the stops and interpret lyrics and wave my arms around and slide around on the floor. Nothing I could do in high heels, though, and for sure nothing I would want my extended family to witness.

While we have done nothing at all about this except occasionally say things like, "Shit, you realize we're going to have to dance at the wedding. Shit shit shit," my parents took about eight million lessons from their local Arthur Murray in anticipation of the happy day. After all that, they were happy to show us the simplest dance they knew, the rhumba. Quick quick slow, quick quick slow, little boxes, little steps, quick quick slow.

I tried, really I did, and while I now feel a little better about this because I can get through a song without impaling myself on my own shoes, it's not especially pretty. Think rhinos. Disoriented rhinos. Disoriented rhinos in ruched silk. Disoriented rhinos in ruched silk slinking off to get a drink after the first verse. 

Eric is currently using audio editing software to try to cut the songs we want down to a manageable length so we can all have our nice little dances yet keep the very public humiliation from going on and on and on. I wish there were some nice, romantic hardcore songs. We could be in and out in a matter of seconds, and most people wouldn't know what hit them. 

Crappy toy

The cashier at JoAnn's Fabric had apparently never seen a novelty item before in her life, because she flipped when I bought this. "Oh my god, no, you are not buying this. What is going on here? You mean this thing shits jelly beans? Oh, my god, that's too crazy."

Then I told her I was buying it for my boyfriend for Valentine's and she double flipped. "Oh my god, you're tripping out on me. You're giving this to your man? You're going to be all like (pantomimed pooping into her hand and then holding it out to someone) here, baby, I love you so much I got you some shit? Oh my god, that is so wrong. This thing actually shits? You're not tripping out on me now, are you?"

When I first saw it on the shelf, I thought $3.49 was maybe a little steep for a stupid plastic pig that poops cola-flavored jelly beans, but that reaction made it worth every penny. It was most gratifying in these Archie McPhee-saturated times.

I bought my sister the cow version as well. Maybe they can fight.

Because I do whatever Dan tells me to.

Here is the bomb and the city and the explosion. This was an actual class project, although we were told if we had a moral problem with it we were welcome to launch a puppy into a pile of pillows that turned into flowers upon impact. (Not spoken but implied: You pussies.) Anyway, enjoy.

Last day of Flash class

(It's better with the sound on.)

Mark this day, and mark it well, my friends.

I'm going to bed before midnight.

I suck at Flashs

Watching the You Suck at Photoshop tutorials has made it really hard for me not to smirk in Flash class when the teacher can't quite hide his exasperation with us. Not to say my teacher's an abusive basketcase or anything. He just seems a little oppressed by our collective ineptitude.

Well, go! Watch the tutorials. Or watch them again. They're hilarious.

Unless first you want to see the silly thing we made in class today. (We incorporated sound this time, so be sure to turn your speakers up, up, up.) I'm a little sad the class is almost over and am trying to think of something magnificent to do with all the stuff I've learned. I might take the advanced class if I can work it into my schedule. Or maybe I'll take this. I seem to have a knack for it, and it's such a great industry.

Local color

There were snakes* at the Capitol today, courtesy of the Jaycees of Sweetwater, Texas.

They were enjoying the hell out of themselves, you could tell. The Jaycees were, I mean, not the snakes. I could hear the snakes rattling from two stories up, and it's not a happy sound.

This tickled me:

The guy in blue was interested in the demonstration but afraid to get any closer. The Jaycee, who looked almost as terrifying as a table full of venomous snakes, was gently trying to persuade him to move up. "Nothing's going to happen to you, man, I promise. I won't let anything happen."

The man was not convinced but finally inched forward to take a few pictures.

The Jaycee took some closeups so the guy could see them better without being within striking distance.

Not shown: The man thanking the Jaycee for the pictures and the Jaycee sort of waving him off sheepishly: Aw, man, it's no problem.

It was nice.

My friend Bryan was hoping there would be some sort of wild snake-related incident that would liven up the event and inspire more passionate news coverage than this. Sadly for him--and for you guys--what I saw of it seemed pretty tame. Maybe next year.

*What else is new, haw haw haw.

Eat your nachos and stay out of my way

The Super Bowl starts in five minutes! I'm so excited because that means it's almost time to go grocery shopping in an empty store and driving around on the deserted streets.

I hope, anyway. No one around here seems to give much of a shit about this particular matchup. But who knows; most of the people I know aren't big sports fans and are therefore not a representative sample.

Update, 9:29 p.m.: Actually, every other non-football fan in town had the same idea, and the store was only slightly less zoo-y than usual. And I ended up watching part of the game after all; I ran into my high school friend in the beer section and he invited us a Super Bowl party where many more of my high school friends, who live here but I rarely see, were hanging out. Very unexpected and random and good. Although I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing these soft-spoken, bearded parents in the place of the kids who did things like make dry-ice bombs and drive around looking for road kill to arrange on people's windshields.