Yoknapatawpha

MY, MY. A BODY DOES GET AROUND

I was relating the details of the near girl-on-girl throwdown at the TR show to FreebirdSteve the other day since he missed the show and the "afterparty".

Now, the shit was funny the night it happened, but hell, it was freakin' hilarious in the retelling. I was trying to mimic the look that Lady GreatHugs was giving SheWhoShallNotBeNamed - and I guess I did a good job 'cause Steve just about fell off his seat. (Completely unrelated to the pints of Guinness he was downing.)

Then out of the blue, he says, "Oh wait - is that the gal with the pierced nipples?" I said, "Yeah!" but then I realized Steve had NOT been there when SWSNBN was telling the nipples story. (Shit, he was the ONLY one who wasn't there...) So I asked him how he knew about it - he couldn't remember the who, when or where, but he'd definitely heard the story. HA! Man, none of la familia told him and I don't know who did, but whoever you are - that's AWESOME!

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ONCE A BITCH ALWAYS A BITCH, WHAT I SAY

Do Not Anger These Girls:

1. Smurfette. She'll use her cool shoes to stomp your punk ass into the next five counties.
2. DocD. Sweetest little thing you'll ever meet. That is until the tequila kicks in...
3. Sunrise. Two words: Switchblade Eyeballs
4. Lady GreatHugs. Takes a punch like a man. Throws a punch like four men.
5. Bunny. Seven Years Of Boxing Lessons = You In The Hospital
6. LEP. Have you seen that Rob Zombie movie? Yeah, that blonde chick? That's her.
7. TheVeiledSibyl. Will stab you with scissors, pins and knives until you are a quivering mass begging for mercy. Then she gets out the power tools...

subaru

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MY MOTHER IS A FISH

I was cleaning my fish tanks at home the other day when I noticed that something was seriously wrong with my last remaining platyfish. It was bent and crooked and just plain bizarre - so I decided that the humane thing to do would be to put it down.

I thought about my usual method - putting it in a bag of water and placing it in the freezer - but decided that a slow death was worse than a quick one. So I chose the way we do at work - put it in ice water then sever the spinal cord. I got a dish of ice water and an X-acto knife - but when I put the fish in the ice, I felt a lump in my throat. And when I made that little cut behind the head, my stomach turned over. What in the hell? I've killed plenty of fish that way at work and it's never bothered me. Guess I've never cut the head off one of my pets though...

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Have a wonderful weekend,
S

We don't listen to people who don't like us

A STALKING WE WILL GO

Spigot ran into JoeToe downstairs today and JT was quick to ask him if Hellboy was still working here. He told him Hellboy had quit, and JT quickly inquired as to whether he was still living in Austin. Spig was well-aware of JT's sensational man-crush on Hellboy (1) (2), so he said, "Oh no... I think he moved. Away. Somewhere. Far."

I called Hellboy to let him know that he might be getting a knock on his door...

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IT WAS LIKE THAT TIME I DROPPED MY FRENCH TOAST

I was having the most INSANE dreams a few weeks ago. Like blood, fire, slashing, running, stabbing dreams... I thought I was losing my freaking mind. Fortunately, the really horrific ones stopped, but that hasn't kept me from getting terrified by even the most mundane dream images:

I was walking with a plate of mashed potatoes when I tripped and dropped the plate on the floor. In reality, I threw my hands up over my head, smacking the headboard pretty friggin' good and damn near jumped OUT of the bed.

NOTHING is scarier than losing your mashed potatoes, man.

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SCIENCE GIRLS WILL KICK YOUR ASS!

BUNNY: When good grad students go rabid, this is what you get...


ooh, can I touch your fluffy tail?


DOCD: Check out her sweet new ride...

leather pants! leather pants! leather pants!


Wow - looks like it's time for a little OHT!
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QUOTES, TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT THAT YOU MAY OR MAY NOT GET THE FULL STORY ON SOMETIME

"Dessert was nothing more than a series of foams."

"At least Jennifer is going to screen these guys and tell me if she's slept with them."

"Bring alcohol. Let's get drunk!"

"I'm multitasking - - - which is to say I'm masturbating AND watching porn."

"And I'll tell you, nothing says I'm a man's man like a tub of doorknobs on the bed."

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Always,
S

Dear MTV,

So, two days "vacation" have passed. Let's see what I've gotten done:

paint hallway and trim
paint shelves
take all crap to goodwill and recycling
get rid of old toilet bowls
put up chair rail in dining room
buy new dishwasher
pressure wash porch (front and back)
clean ceiling fans
get the dead scorpion out of the kitchen light fixture
put new weatherstripping on front door
clean up burn area
trim trees away from house
clean garage
clean the fish tanks

Added:
paint living room wall
shampoo carpets
paint old dollcase

Hmm, not much. But that was expected.

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I haven't had much to say about our favorite TCB nutcase, StallenFar, for a while. Seems like her wacked-out histrionics sort of played themselves out since she conned some sap into making her his beard. (Um - I mean, since she's gotten engaged. . .)

S.F. was totally stalking this guy, Cook, a few years back - creepy, freaky-ass stalking. She exchanged a few emails and IM's with him and suddenly she had herself convinced that she was having some kind of serious relationship with him. She'd only met him in person once, and it was a very brief meeting at that. She even went so far as to go to school in his hometown, hoping that somehow she'd run into him. Fortunately for him, that never happened. I'm quite sure she spent hours sitting outside his home waiting... just waiting. Eek.

Somehow amidst all this stalking she managed to get a real boyfriend that she went on real dates with. I think they were engaged within about two weeks of meeting each other, but she left him around their three month anniversary for a friend of his.

She was engaged to this one within a month or so, and their wedding is coming up soon. This second one kind of chilled her interest in her stalkee, but as her wedding date draws nearer, more and more of her online journal entries are about Cook... how much she misses him, how he lost so much by not choosing her, how badly he treated her, how much he loved her - you get the picture. It's kind of like old times, as her old journal entries are filled with intimate (yet completely false) details of their imaginary relationship.

Recently she found out that the entire time she was stalking Cook, he was dating another girl. (Of course, she says he was "cheating on her".) This is especially funny since several other TCBer's knew about (and knew) said "Other Woman". And hell yes - certain individuals made sure that said OtherWoman was well aware of StallenFar's screwball antics and her crazy journal entries. (Sibyl pulls the veil down, averts her gaze, and says "Oh! What kind of awful person would do something like that??")

So now Stall is devastated, scorned and forlorned and planning her wedding. Anybody wanna take bets on how long this'll last??

Always,
S

Bacon cheeseburger, hold the bacon...

The blue wall is gone! (Well, it's still there, it's just got a coat of purple paint on it now.) This is the first time that we've lived without "the blue wall" for something like ten years. You know (or you may not know, I don't know) how superstitious I am, so this is bothering me a little. But hell, maybe the blue wall was a harbringer of bad shit - never thought of that...

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Back when I was an undergrad, I had this art prof who used to always say "don't just eat the menu". I guess she was trying to tell us to be adventurous or to not simply accept things as they are... At the time though I guess I was distracted or dumb, because I always took her literally. (Well, not as literally as my friend, who thought she was telling us to not chew on menus - - he's a fireman now.) Anyway, I always imagined her in a restaurant being a major pain in the ass to some poor waiter.

Now, I don't know if it was her near constant prattling or what, but people who literally refuse to order the menu in a restaurant is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine. Those people have no place in society. They really don't. (Thank the gods I never was in food service - I'd be in jail for sure.) I mean, a little is okay - maybe you really, really hate tomatoes or you want the dressing on the side - no big deal. It's those ultra-super-finickys that get my cabrito. Just fucking eat what they serve, motherfuckers!

The other day we were at Vietnamese/Chinese place in Austin and I overheard a couple next to us ordering. She wanted an order of pork spring rolls, but (and she was very adamant about this) with NO VEGETABLES AT ALL. So yeah, WTF?? A spring roll is mostly veggies, isn't it? Her entree came with a choice of white or fried rice, and she ordered fried, but with no egg and (of course) no vegetables and with the soy sauce on the side. The hell? That doesn't even begin to make sense. Her dining partner wasn't much better. He actually ordered something straight off the menu, but only after asking the waitress ten thousand questions about several different dishes before making his final decision. "Does it have ginger?" "Does it have garlic?" "Does it have soy?" "Is that fried?" "Is that dark or white meat?" GOD DAMN! Read the menu asshole!

If I'm ever with someone like that I just cringe when they start in with all their "special instructions" - drives me bat shit crazy, it does! Of course, if I find out someone is that way I make sure that I never dine with them again - too much stress. But, I think I'm not alone in this hatred, because I've noticed that most of the time the "Pickies" dine in groups of their own kind. We Normals avoid them at all costs.

What the hell is that anyway? Do people just want special treatment? HA - the special treatment is probably the waiter's loogie in their veggie-free salad...

On that note...


Enjoy your lunch,
S

The eye of the beholder

Okay, the plan to take this week off got sort of fucked up. (Damn you, Science!) I'm hoping to get everything done today so I can have the rest of the week to catch up on that big list of crap I wanted to do.

Plus, I just found out that the 60 hours of vacation I had to use or lose before August 31st has now become 72 hours... (What kind of jackass bitches about getting too much vacation??)

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I'm getting tired of the primary color look in the living room - big blue wall, red sofa, yellow love seat. I was thinking about getting a new sofa set, but then I walked out to find cat puke all over the love seat Saturday morning, and quickly decided against new furniture. Maybe some new slipcovers are in order.

I am definitely painting the "accent wall" though. We're having hell deciding what color to choose, so now there are all these squares of test colors on the wall. I've got it narrowed down to a blue-gray color or a blue-purple (burple) color. I know that doesn't solve the primary color effect, but I was thinking about getting some neutral slipcovers for the sofas. (Yes you read that right, neutral colors, and yes... that was hell freezing over.)

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God damn, that was boring. Who the fuck cares what color my living room is??

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I was waiting in line at Hastings this weekend and I saw what looked to be the biggest woman I'd ever seen - must've been at least six and a half feet tall. She was wearing a little denim miniskirt and a white tee - no bra - with big ol' titties hanging all over. She was with a Mexican dude - I think he was average height, but he looked pretty little standing next to her. They had a freakin' stack of DVD's and they were trying to figure out which ones to buy - there were like twenty, and they ended up getting only three or so - not sure why they waited 'til they got to the counter to decide...

Anyway, this chick finally turned around so that I could see her face and whoa... let's just say that she hadn't always been a chick... Her face was a freakin' nightmare! Goddamn! Sweet Jebus it was scary. I should have snapped a pic, but I'm too much of a chicken shit. I kept thinking of that Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode where Shake went to Guatemala to get plastic surgery...



Or maybe the love child of Chewbacca and Jocelyn Wildenstein:


Wow.

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I know everybody threw boiling oil onto their computer screens after that last pic, so I'll just end this right here.

Always,
S

Tasty Indeed...

Last night was another TR show - first one in a few weeks. It was good, but I'm sooo tired. I didn't have too many Shiners (three?) but I think the heat and the beer make an extremely bad combination.

We got to the venue and there was some "happy hour band" playing - we thought we'd be first on. Anyway - these dudes played for like 2 hours or something - FOREVER. We never thought they'd quit. And it wasn't necessarily good stuff - just this friggin' unending Phish-style jam. YAWN... I didn't watch them too much, we were all hanging out in the back of the club, but what I did see was weird. They had the traditional three-man guitar/bass/drums lineup, but them some dude came onstage (from off the street??) with an acoustic and joined in the jam. You couldn't even hope to hear that acoustic, but he was strumming away to beat all. Whatever.

I was in the bathroom (conveniently located right next to the stage) and I heard a drum lead up to what I HOPED was the end of their "jam" - but NO!! They just started right back up again. Two more such false alarms and I was getting PISSED. We were supposed to go on at 10, but Phish-junior didn't leave the stage until 9:55. Top it off? They spilled a bunch of water all over the stage as they were leaving. Butts.

Later on, after the TR set, I was waiting in line for the bathroom with another girl - we waited, and waited... finally, the door opened, and out stepped a MAN, followed by a woman. I thought "Oh shit - I do NOT want to go in there now!" I looked at the other girl waiting with me, and she had this disgusted look, and she said, "Uh, you go ahead." Man, I had to pee so bad that I had no choice, so I gingerly went in. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and covered the toilet with like 10 layers. I tried to convince myself that they were in there doing coke - how fucked up is that that the thought of people doing coke makes you feel better?? Anyway, as I came out, I made sure to hand the poor girl who was next in line a big old wad of paper towels...

BTW, certain parties were not in attendance last night, so there was no drama at all. Quite boring, actually.

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Today is Bunny's birthday, and I promised to build her a chocolate monstrosity - forgetting that there was a show last night. So, I made the cake, the filling, and the glaze on Wednesday, and went hime during lunch yesterday to put it all together for today. I was hoping that the cake wasn't going to taste like onions or pickles or garlic or whatever the hell else I had in the fridge. It didn't, and it was a big hit with the choc-rades in the office.

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I still don't have anything good for the Friday links, but Google Earth is a LOT of fun. Great way to waste time. And yep - if I know your address, I've looked at the roof of your house. At least I guess I have... If you type my address, it goes to the wrong place. Close, but wrong.

And this headline is too much. I'm, um... speechless.


Have a wonderful weekend,
S

No Talent Hacks

Psychology of the Online Journal
(A bunch of hot air that goes nowhere)


The Argument

There was a disagreement this weekend about online journals. See, "X" wrote something about "ABC" which "Z" found and showed to "Y". "Y" got offended, and since "X" is a friend of "Y" and "S" (that's me, BTW), things got complicated quickly.

During the "discussion" "S" haphazardly mentioned that she should take any references to "ABC" off the TVS - not that there is anything bad on the TVS about "ABC" - it was more that "S" wanted to have a bit more control on who reads the TVS, and didn't want to be found by a search engine. This statement was truly innocent, but "Y" took it to be a bit sinister.

"S" stated that there were certain things that she would feel embarrased about if certain individuals read it. "Y" commented that if there were such things, then they shouldn't be online, available for everyone to see. "S" couldn't really argue with that, but tried to explain the difference between "the general population" (don't care if they read the TVS) and "certain specific individuals - i.e. parents" (would be embarrased if they read the TVS) to "Y", but by then the argument was in full swing.

What it boiled down to is that "Y" doesn't like and doesn't understand the "online diary" phenomenon. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to put personal stuff online. "S" thought about it and wondered the same thing.



The History of the TVS

The TVS started (for reasons that will not be fully disclosed) because YHA saw that everyday life was full of minute oddities, and it was her desire to chronicle the funny side of ordinary. YHA thought writing silly little pieces about silly little things might be "fun", but little did she realize that writing takes "talent" and "skill". C'est la vie...

Seeing that the initial idea was not as easy as she'd hoped, YHA decided to use the TVS simply as a broadcasting medium, without regard to the quality of her writing. It was a no-pressure way to get the funny stories out to the people without having to type a separate email to each of her friends everytime something good happened. (YHA is not a fan of the multi-recipient email...)

And boy, did something good happen - practically every day YHA was given the gift of yet another ridiculous situation to prattle on about. Soon however, the funny/strange/insane events began to encroach ever nearer to YHA's "real" personal life, and YHA found out that snipy, gossipy drama is fun when you are only indirectly involved, but that it sucks to be in the middle of the shitstorm.

It was at this point that the TVS took a turn, some might say for the worse. That was when the "Fear and Loathing" indicator came into existence, and self-involved, brooding emo-trash entries were par for the course.

Thankfully, YHA came to her senses and nearly every entry that could even be remotely construed as F&L was removed forever, and preposterous stories about the circus that is the MBRG made a triumphant, if not brief, return. Brief, because at some point, YHA saw that there was just TMI on the TVS, and Fish Drama was given its pink slip.

This paved the way for the TVS you see before you: Friday Links, Reviews of Crappy CD's, Tales from the Grocery Cart, etc. In other words, the TVS became what it was envisioned as in the beginning: a place for documenting the strange and silly bits of every day life.


Anonymity and the Internets

Many writers (YHA does NOT consider herself a writer - I'm talking about real writers) keep a journal - but why post it online? I think it appeals to certain types of people - those who want their work to be seen, but desire the relative anonymity that the internet provides. (I say relative anonymity, because it's actually quite easy to figure out who people are in real life. "X" is a case in point.)

Of course, more people are going to see your efforts online than if they were safely locked away as Word files on your hard drive. And don't forget about instant gratification - comments, ISP tracking, hit counters - all these tools to let you know people are seeing your stuff. To many, this is a much better situation than keeping your writing hidden in a notebook under the bed, or handing something to a helpless victim-friend and saying, "I wrote this, tell me what you think about it."

This exposure combined with anonymity gives a person a certain amount of freedom in their writing. For instance, if you know someone who reads your journal was a witness to an event you are writing about, you will tend to take pains to report the event journalistically, and to avoid using "poetic license". This can put a constraint on your writing, especially if what you are trying to do is hone your art, and not simply be a reporter. Online, no one knows you so there are no expectations on you.

But, the anonymity and freedom you might be enjoying is short-lived, because when you become part of an online community, you become a persona in that community. Perhaps your net persona is just like your real-life (RL) persona - perhaps it's totally different. Nevertheless, the people who read your writing - be it in a journal, a blog, or even on a message board - come to know the "Net You". Your readers begin to expect you to be a certain way, say a certain thing, etc. So now, just like in RL, you have something to "live up to".


Mixing Internet Life with Real Life

This is always trouble. People who spend too much time on the computer (YHA looks into a mirror and averts her gaze...) always have a set of "internet friends" that does not mix with their "RL friends". That doesn't mean that there is shady business going on with the internet friends - it's just a separate set of people. Kind of like "work friends" versus "home friends". It's nice to have a group of people who semi-"know" you, but are completely detached from your situation. (Another good reason many keep an online journal...)

That being said, YHA's online TVS is read predominantly by her RL friends. (They're the only ones who'd get it, anyway...) That's why YHA uses nicknames for everyone in the TVS. Of course, it soon becomes obvious who everyone is, but it's the principle of the matter. People get touchy about that kind of thing, so you always have to take that into consideration. (That was the problem with "X's" journal - real names were used.)


The Conclusion

Why keep an online journal?

Broadcasting gossip? Check.
Orgainzing your thoughts? Check.
Honing your art? Check.
Instant gratification? Check.
Vanity? Double Check.



Always,
S

God told me to skin you alive

And your weekly installment of: TALES FROM THE GROCERY CART:

SUPER SIZE ME

This guy has to be one of the largest people I've ever seen! The pic doesn't really do him justice - I tried to get a shot where there was a cart or some kind of reference point, but I didn't want to make it obvious that I was snapping his pic. He was pretty fat, but not terribly, terribly so - he had no trouble at all walking around - he was just an enormous guy! You can see that he's taller than the top shelf at the store... he must've been at least 7' tall! Wow!!




CADILLAC DANGER
This happened at the mall, not at the grocery store, but I'm putting it here anyway. (As to why I was at the mall - one word, my friends: SHOES.)

I was walking through the parking lot to get to Foley's and I was almost there, when suddenly, BUMP! I was HIT! Some 963 year old woman in a white Caddy just threw it in reverse and backed into me. I instinctively slammed my fist on the car (after I had jumped out of the way, of course) and yelled, "HEY!" Another man was walking just behind me, and she almost hit him too, and he also pounded on her car and started yelling at her. Either the bat was deaf, or she thought she was being attacked by mall hoodlums(?) 'cause she didn't stop, she just kept on backing up!

And it's not like she couldn't have seen us, she just absolutely did not look before popping in into reverse and hitting the gas. There were several people in the parking lot, it being a Saturday afternoon and all. Thank the gods it was two adults she tried to cream - if there had been kids there... jebus! Think of what could have happened!

MONEY SHOT?
Our grocery store also sells gas, so I almost always stop to fill up after getting my shopping done. I was standing there, cramming my key under the gas tank cover to try and pry it off (love nissan, love it!) and I saw a San Marcos cop pull over a pair on a motorcycle. It was one of those "Frat-Boy Bikes" - it was decorated with purple and neon green splash motifs and looked like something from a bad Saturday morning cartoon. Anyway, the dude got off the bike, ane was talking to the cop. The second person riding with him was obviously a female - she had one of those exaggerated Barbie figures - humongous titties and a teeny-tiny waist and butt. She had a helmet on which she removed while the cop was talking to FratBoy. (Cue do-waka-waka music.) She unbuckled the helmet setting free and enormous mass of whore-blond extension-crazy locks. She shook her head to get the tousle of her 'do just right, and I thought - good lord - are they filming a porno right here? I thought for sure that this was where the cop got a "special treat" so that the boyfriend didn't get a ticket... Much to the diappointment of us onlookers, that did NOT happen. Oh well...


Always,
S

Hot girls, cold beer

We got a new grad student (Bunny) in the lab back at the beginning of the summer and we love her. She's really cool, and fits in perfectly around this place. What makes her exceptionally kick-ass is the fact that she does roller derby!! She's been trying to get us to come out, so I bought some tickets for the last game of the regular season on Sunday. Bunny commanded me to cheer for her team, the Hell Marys, and to wear the team colors. Now, you don't say no to a rollergirl, unless you want an ass-kickin', so I was all decked out in red, black, and plaid on Sunday evening. (My plaid T.U.K. shoes were a big hit with the girls on her team!)

The night started a little weird, as I've come to expect. We wanted to catch an early dinner, and DocD picked out an Italian restaurant close to the skating venue - citysearch gave it high marks, and it looked like a winner, so we headed off for pasta heaven. But when we got there, the nicely carved wooden door was locked shut - not so much just locked shut, but rather chained shut with an industrial-strength bicycle lock. Hmmm... Guess we'll go someplace else.

We eventually ate (Mexican food) and met up with the rest of our party who were already waiting in line at the roller rink. Smurfette wanted to sit on the floor - right up there in the action - but I think the rest of us were kind of scared of the rollergirls, so we opted for some seats on the sidelines. The place had kind of a crazy circus feel to it. The crowd was an eclectic mix of punks, families, white trash, hard-core dykes, regular joes, and rollergirl groupies with a few skeevy-old-men types thrown in for good measure.

The beer of choice for almost everyone in the crowd was Lone Star (in cans.) I didn't even know they still made Lone Star... The snack bar had slushies and something called "Tube Nuts" which we were too scared to order. And let's not forget the nachos - those great high-school-football-game nachos with the fluorescent orange "cheese"...

Okay, enough about the snack bar.

A couple of fun punk bands, the Teenage Harlets and the Teenage Bottle Rockets (no relation) started things off and paved the way for the halftime band - the fantastic Groovy Ghoulies. After the music, it was time for the Penalty Princess to choose a SWAT team. For a buck, you get your name in a hat, and if the Princess calls you, you get to sit with nine other lucky SOB's and administer spankings to the bad, bad rollergirls who get sent to the penalty box during the match.

That done, the first matchup got underway, and it was the Hotrod Honeys versus the Hustlers. Now, I don't know who had better athletes, but I think the Hustlers had hotter chicks. DxB and DocD both got some sneaky feelings for the Hustlers' Rosie Cheeks (who I just found out is a molecular biologist by day - yay science girls!) It took a while for us to figure out what the hell was going on, but we had a great time anyway. Smurfette was about to turn inside out she was having so much fun! Everytime a fight would break out between the rollergirls (and fight they did!), Smurfette was on her feet, yelling and whoopin' it up! Man, she was awesome-crazy about that shit!!

The next matchup was our beloved Hell Marys versus the undefeated Honkeytonk Heartbreakers. Bunny was getting tossed all over the place by the Honkeytonk amazons, but she'd just jump up and get right back in it - no fear, man. As DocD said, you gotta watch out for those small girls, cause they're meaner than hell and crazy to boot! At one point, a fight pr something happened, and Bunny was a bad liddle wabbit, and got sent to SWAT team for her punishment. She showed everyone what she was made of by going back down the line for a second set of spankings much to the crowd's delight.

In the end, our Evil Sisters of No Mercy got crucified by the Honkeytonk Honeys, and there was much sorrow - well, not really, 'cause everybody was full of LoneStar and nacho cheese and you can't be sad when you got cheap beer and prefab food in ya!

Overall, I give the evening five stars!

Always,
S

Where's my whiskey? I'm gonna get tore up!

Howdy.

First off, I think Friday links are going to be on hiatus for a while - your humble author used to spend hours searching the internets for entertaining, strange and/or disturbing things, but alas, RL is intruding once again into that little pleasure.

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I made a tentative plan to take the last week of July off. I'm not going anywhere, just not going to work. I have a huge list of crap that I want to do around the house. I'll post it here and we can laugh at my (lack of) progress:

paint hallway and trim
paint shelves
take all crap to goodwill and recycling
get rid of old toilet bowls
put up chair rail in dining room
buy new dishwasher
pressure wash porch (front and back)
clean ceiling fans
get the dead scorpion out of the kitchen light fixture
put new weatherstripping on front door
clean up burn area
trim trees away from house
clean garage
clean the fish tanks

Yeah. We'll see how much of that gets done.

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So today is RW's birthday, and since he brought me some bottles of key lime juice from Florida, I decided to make him his favorite - key lime pie. (BTW, we found out today that there most certainly is a difference between KL pie made with key limes and KL pie made with grocery store limes... Ya gotta get Key Limes... much, much better.)

Anyway, he told me that his wife came home from the store with a Sara Lee frozen Key Lime pie yesterday, which she was planning on serving after his birthday dinner. His son said, "Why'd you buy that Mom? Sheila's going to make him a REAL one from scratch that'll be a whole lot better anyway." The wife looked at RW and asked if that was true, and he started backpedalling furiously - "Uh, well, DxB likes Key Lime pie, and she always makes one for his birthday, and any time anyone has a birthday she makes their favorite..." HA!!! So now I'm in the Dessert Doghouse!! Ah well, the wife's birthday is next week, so I'm hoping a cheesecake or chocolate monstrosity will calm the waters!

Have a wonderful weekend,
S

Contract, Relax, Contract, Relax

Okashii was telling me about a coworker of his who insists on reminding everyone that his wife is from Spain, whether it is pertinent to the conversation or not. "The weather is nice here - did I tell you my wife is from Spain?" "I think I may have mentioned that my wife is from Spain, so I'll have the steak." "I missed my connecting flight, but you know my wife is from Spain." (Okay, I made those up, but you get the idea.)

We were wondering what the damn deal with that was. I figured it was some kind of veiled boast or bizarre insinuation - the Spanish lover mystique. Whatever. Oka had some experience with that and said it was a myth.

Kind of the same thing happens when a guy has an Asian chick. I remember Sunrise's friend, Jersey telling us, "My wife is Asian you know, so she can do this thing down there that feels like a vacuum." Sunrise said, "Yeah, those are called Kegels - everyone can do that." It's so typical though - guys always assume that an Asian girl has some ancient chinese sex secrets all stored away. Makes no damn sense, man.






Always,
S

You got the fear, man.

Okay, so everyone knows about my stupid moth phobia, right?
I'm afraid of moths.
(All moths, not just stupid ones as my intro sentence implies.)

Anyway, I had to buy some hair dye this weekend, so I went over to Sally Beauty Supply. The store is positioned kind of strangely - there's this weird wall that juts out in front of the windows making a little entry alcove thing. Anyway, right as I passed the wall and put my hand on the door to open it, I felt this sudden rush of panic. I quickly looked over my left shoulder and saw a huge brown moth on the wall of the alcove. It was about 5 inches across, and was right about eye level. I was maybe four feet away from it - waaaay to fucking close!

I sort of panicked and rushed into the store. My heart was beating hard and I was trembling just a bit. Then I realized something... I was fucking TRAPPED in the store!! I knew that thing was out there, and I couldn't imagine how I was going to walk past it again!! (Haha - as I type this I'm getting the chills!!)

I wandered through the store, picked out my dye and such, always looking out the window to make sure that the thing hadn't moved. I was really freaked out - but at least I realized the hilarity of the situation. I thought about calling Doug or Dawn and telling them how I was being held hostage, but decided it would be a pretty bad idea to let all the other shoppers know about my idiocy!

Finally, I worked up the nerve to buy my stuff and get the hell out of there. I put my hand on the door, took a big breath, carefully pushed it open, then FLEW out of there like my ass was on fire! I'm sure the people in the shop thought I was a crackhead from the way I was acting! I think I finally breathed again when I got IN my car.

Whatta freak!

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Now I know most of you DON'T know this, but I also have a mild phobia about dead fish and fish fins. (Why yes, I do use fish in my research and I do have to kill them all the time... what of it?) I'll get to the origins of this little problem in a bit, but let me just say that fish fins, especially big fish fins, look like moth wings to me. (And, I am well aware that I am nuts, thank you very much.)

So, I was watching a nature show on the other night about "weird animals" or some shit, and one of the animals they profiled was the flying fish. There were some scientists in a boat with a big light and all these crazy fish were popping up out of the water and swarming around the light. Suffice it to say, the wing/fins of these flying fish were very mothesque, especially with them "flying" all around that spotlight. I was so freaked out that I let out a huge groan and I couldn't even think about looking at the TV. I was soooo creeped out by it - my God, I couldn't even look over at the table to find the remote to change the channel, lest I should glimpse those moth-fish in my peripheral vision! Ugh!

Okay - the dead fish phobia. I'm not exactly sure how this came about, but it could very well have started with my Mom's famous fish dinner. My lovely Japanese mother cooked us an equally lovely fish dinner one night which consisted of a whole, entire, intact fish baked on a plank. The problem? The fins... They were sticking straight up in baked rigor mortis. Fucking NASTY. She brought it to the table and I screamed. And yeah, the dead cold eyes didn't help a bit either. There's just something seriously wrong when your food is LOOKING at you... From that day on, dead fish just freaked the hell out of me. Thank you, Mom.


Always (frightened),
S

It's C-O-L-O-G-N-E, not C-O-L-O-N...

As promised...

"TALES FROM THE GROCERY CART"!!

I was walking into HEB the other day, and there was a guy in front of me digging what appeared to be a few yards of pants fabric out of his ass... I mean, he was having to do some serious mining to get that shit out. I don't know what made him suddenly become conscious that he was in, you know, public - but he stopped pulling cotton/poly blend from his nether regions and turned around and looked right at me. Man, I tried to keep cool and not give it up, but shit... I just started laughing! He turned crimson and walked away very quickly, almost a full on sprint - no doubt his speed was enhanced by the freedom of non-cloth-packed butt cheeks.

Then there was the grape lady. I was trying to get to the grapes, but there was some wide-assed woman standing there taking up the entire space in front of the grapes. I meandered around and got the rest of my produce, waiting for her to finish up and move on. She didn't. I finally went and stood behind her and saw that she was pulling grape clusters out of their little bags and picking individual grapes off the stems and putting them into another bag. Another girl and I were just giving her the WTF? look... Man, I (wisely) decided that I really didn't want grapes that had been pawed over by this overstuffed Amazon, so I picked up some blueberries instead.

And I don't know what it is about that store, but I don't care how stuffed up my nose is, or how horrible my allergies are, but as soon as I walk in there - my nasal passages are clear as can be. Now normally, my sense of smell is pretty much non-existent. However - in that store - I can smell every goddamned thing in the world. Food, flowers, people... This is NOT a good thing. Especially in Texas, in the summer. So, I was checking out and some woman was standing behind me emitting the most foul and noxious odor... it wasn't necessarily B.O., it was more like a, 'haven't-had-a-proper-bath-for-three-months-AND-I-smoke-like-a-chimney' kind of smell. She was talking to her son very loudly in the epitome of a white-trash Texas drawl: "They got them cannies fer three fer a dollur." Her equally aromatic spawn replied: "They don't got none kinds I like momma." Beautiful. I turned around to get a look at them - don't have to tell you what they looked like - you already know... I will tell you that Momma had a pair of two-dollar Walmart flip flops on, and her feet were positively BLACK... not the bottoms - the TOPS! I don't even know how that happens.

Finally, I was leaving and I saw that there was a hippie-dippie guy with humongous white-dude dreadlocks standing by the door. Now, I hate to stereotype, but in my experience, white dudes with dreads never smell too awfully good. I braced for another odor onslaught, but as I passed, I didn't get a wave of patchouli and man-musk, but instead was hit with a nice, clean, April-fresh blast of Downy fabric softener. He must have just washed his clothes, because he smelled like a comfy blanket. Thank the gods at least for that one!

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This has gone on too long, so tune in later this week for: Horror at Sally Beauty Supply. A spine-tingling tale, indeed.

Always, S

You should hear

(I'm not saying that I'm going to try to update this thing more regularly, but I'll try to try...)


Do you ever hear a song whose lyrics so perfectly describe a situation that it actually creeps you out? That happened to me this weekend. I just played that song over and over again laughing about it. Of course I'm not posting the lyrics, so don't even ask. All I'll say is that the six CDs in the car stereo were Dwarves (The Dwarves Must Die), Elvis Costello (My Aim Is True), The Clash (London Calling), Green Day (American Idiot), Dead Kennedys (Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables), and The Cramps (Bad Music for Bad People).


Always,
S

Protect and What?

A fine example of how the University Police Department goes out of their way to make themselves an integral part of the San Marcos community...


SAN MARCOS
Man arrested after he rescues swimmer

Texas State University police report (PDF)
By Katie Humphrey
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

When Dave Newman waded out of the San Marcos River on Sunday afternoon, he was exhausted. He had just pulled Abed Duamni of Houston out of the swirling waters below Joe's Crab Shack and deposited him, safe and sound, on the far shoreline.

Then Newman, of San Marcos, was handcuffed, put in a Texas State University police squad car and taken to jail, where he was charged with interfering with public duties. "I was amazed," Newman, 48, said after getting out of Hays County Law Enforcement Center on $2,000 bail Monday morning. "I had a very uncomfortable night after saving that guy's life. He thanked me for it in front of the police, and then they took me to jail."

Police say Newman disobeyed repeated orders by emergency personnel to leave the water. Newman responded, "Why do I? The guy is out of the water," the report said. The police report makes no mention of Newman's rescue of Duamni, and officials who were at the scene were not available for comment Monday.

Duamni, 35, said he had eaten lunch at Joe's Crab Shack with some friends and decided to go for a swim. He said he did not see any signs warning swimmers of the dangerous currents near the falls. He had jumped into the water a number of times, but the last time, around 3 p.m., the current swept him toward the restaurant, he said. He said he was felt as if he was stuck under the falls, and no matter what direction he tried to swim in, he couldn't get up for air because he kept bumping into something. "I reached a point where I said, 'I'm dead,' " Duamni, who was visiting San Marcos, said from his Houston home Monday night. "There's was nothing I could do. I thought, 'That's it, I'm over, I'm gone.' " But suddenly he found an underground air pocket, said Duamni, a mechanical engineer who specializes in underground utilities. Later, he learned that he was in a hole used for a turbine on the old mill that is now the building where Joe's Crab Shack sits.

He was still stuck when Newman, who had been swimming in the river, went over to help. Newman said he had seen Duamni get sucked under the restaurant by the river's current. When Duamni didn't surface, Newman swam over to the rushing waters at the foot of the Spring Lake Dam. Others had already sprung into action and were standing beside the bank where Newman swam after Duamni. Someone tossed him a rope, Newman said, and he used it to tie himself to the restaurant building. Newman ducked underwater and felt around for the distressed swimmer, he said. When Newman came up for air, someone passed him a mask, and he dove down again. "I had a foot in my face," he said. "I grabbed it and pulled. I pulled myself up and pushed him toward the light. I was just amazed that he was alive."

This wasn't the first time a swimmer has been in danger at the popular San Marcos swimming hole. In April, 22-year-old Jason Lee Bonnin, a Joe's Crab Shack employee and Texas State University-San Marcos student, drowned after he and three other employees jumped from the restaurant into the river.

In May 1999, Texas State University, which owns the dam and the land around it, erected a fence to prohibit access to that part of the river. Later that year, the City Council enacted a swimming ban on that portion of the river.

In 1999, Newman, a corporate airline pilot who flies a Saudi Arabian oil minister between the United States and Saudi Arabia, led a successful campaign to get the fences around the swimming hole removed and the ban relaxed.

After pulling Duamni out of the water, Newman said, he swam him under a waterfall and over to the shore opposite from Joe's Crab Shack. He could hear law enforcement personnel telling him to come back to the shore by the restaurant. According to the report, Newman smirked and seemed annoyed by officers' requests. He stood in the water for about 15 seconds before swimming downstream, to avoid the turbulence from the waterfall, and across the river to the officers, the report said. "When he came across the river, the officer stuck out his hand like he's going to help him out of the water, and he put cuffs on him," said John Parnell, pastor of St. Augustine Old Roman Catholic Church in Fort Worth, who watched the events unfold from shore.

An unidentified second man, whose age was given as 19 and who had been in the water helping Newman with the rescue, ran from the police and was not arrested.

According to the police report and witness accounts, the crowd that had gathered to watch the rescue became agitated when they saw the police arrest Newman. Parnell and another man blocked the police officer's path to the squad car while other members of the crowd yelled at the police, telling them Newman had saved Duamni's life and should not be arrested.

University spokesman Mark Hendricks said he did not know whether Newman rescued Duamni. Hendricks said it was his understanding that Newman was completely uncooperative with authorities and would not answer them when they asked if anyone else was in the water.
Newman denied that he was ever asked if others were still in the water.

When Duamni got out of the water, he was surprised to see the crowd of spectators and emergency personnel gathered around to rescue him. He saw Newman in handcuffs and asked who he was. "I said, 'What's the deal,' and the police said, 'He got you out,' " Duamni said.
San Marcos resident Bob Ogletree, who had helped pass Newman the rope he used in the rescue, said he understood why emergency personnel wanted to clear the water. But Ogletree said he didn't understand why Newman, who appeared to be cooperating with officers, had to be arrested. "It all seems so curious," Ogletree said. "Ultimately, I don't know, but it does seem terribly unfortunate and somewhat in poor taste to have taken this guy to jail."