The music was pretty good.

This year had some new songs that made me remember what it's like to enjoy music. Tom Waits released Orphans, Level 42 released Retroglide, and then...then there was Tah-Dah. I liked Scissor Sisters before, but after this year, they're right up there, man.

Either because I'm a bastard or I can't count, I will now subject you to my Top 26 songs of 2006. I could call myself insanely clever and add, "Get it? 2...6? 2006?" but even I didn't think of that until I typed it just now. These songs all stand on their own, so I'm not going to do more than simply list them off and say that if you haven't heard them, give them a listen. They're just that good. The links all go to videos on YouTube, my other entertainment for 2006. Some of the videos are great, too--music videos used to be an obsession of mine, so I still appreciate a good one when I see it. Knights of Cydonia, for instance, has old west kung fu and robots in its video. That's right up my alley. Were I twenty years younger, I would be writing fanfics about herding unicorns outside the town of Cydonia. Then again, that's not very far from what I actually write now.

But I digress. This was my soundtrack this year:

 1 - I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters
 2 - On An Island - David Gilmour
 3 - Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
 4 - Steady, As She Goes - The Raconteurs (Alternate video here.)
 5 - Land of a Thousand Words - Scissor Sisters
 6 - I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie
 7 - Goodbye Innocence - L.E.O.
 8 - Empty - Ray Lamontange
 9 - Knights of Cydonia - Muse
10 - LDN - Lily Allen
11 - Nothing In My Way - Keane
12 - In The Sun - Michael Stipe with Coldplay
13 - Wild Horses - Tim Ries with Norah Jones
14 - I Must Have Lost It On The Wind - Elton John
15 - The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny - Lemon Demon
16 - Perfume - Sparks
17 - Because We Believe - Andrea Bocelli
18 - But Not Tonight - The New Cars
19 - Chinese Translation - M. Ward
20 - Beyond The Horizon - Bob Dylan
21 - Black Cadillac - Rosanne Cash
22 - The Asylum of Your Arms - Cormac McCarthy
23 - Wraith Pinned To The Mist & Other Games - Of Montreal
24 - Here For You - Neil Young
25 - Dear Mr. President - Pink feat. Indigo Girls
26 - O Mary Don't You Weep - Bruce Springsteen

The music was pretty good.

This.

This is all anyone needs to turn a holiday into a banquet.

This.

Recapturing my lost youth.

Those little ear buds have nothing on a good old pair of stereo headphones, the kind you get free with a radio or CD player.

From Christmas of 1983 until the wires cracked in the first pair of headphones I had, I knew nothing of my surroundings. I was sharing my room with Hall & Oates, Eurythmics, John Williams, Olivia Newton-John, people like that. And Taco. I can't forget Taco.

Of course, that generally is better received when one is 9 and not 29. So recently, what I've got hooked to my computer is a little monaural ear bud that only goes in one ear. It does its job, but up until a few minutes ago I had never heard Scissor Sisters in full stereo. Except for those two times they were on the radio, but that doesn't count because the first time I never realized what a great song I was listening to until it was a few seconds into it, and the second time I had static from where I was standing.

I would like to say I'll be using my full-bass headphone from now on, but you know I need to know if things like dinner or fires or phone calls are going on. It was nice, though.

Does anyone else like the smell of fresh foam headphone covers? I...uh...I would lick these, but they weren't originally mine and I'm not sure where they've been, and they're about ten years old. So the pica needs to wait until another time.

I feel like a kid again.

Recapturing my lost youth.

Christmas-land, NYC.

Nativity Scene 2
Originally uploaded by kptyson.

"A Bronx tradition. The Garabedians put on a lavish Christmas display that combines traditional Christian themes with Disney, Dali and a healthy dose of hallucinogens

The first story is the Disney/Dali level including this manequin showing some leg."

I really can't add anything to kptyson's description of the Garabedian house but...wow.

Christmas-land, NYC.

LilyBeth the Reindeer.

LilyBeth the Reindeer was a reindeer.  She was always impressed by Santa's select areosquadron who soared through the air every Christmas.  One day, while watching a test run, LilyBeth stepped into a hole and injured her foot.

Poor LilyBeth, she limped home as quickly as she could to avoid being shot at by the orange creatures who lived in the forest.  "Mama, Mama, Mama, I bust my foot!" LilyBeth said as she burst through the door.

"Put your foot up here and have something to eat," LilyBeth's mama said, head-butting a footstool towards her as she put the soup on.

After a few days of ice and elevation, LilyBeth's foot was feeling better, and so she took it outside to check out the new fallen snow.

Her eyes spotted something in the snow, and she scampered over to it.  "It smells like hope," she thought, admiring the steamy pile of what she thought were berries. After tasting just one, LilyBeth began to levitate into the air!

"Whee," thought LilyBeth as she ran over the tree tops, passing many confused Kung Fu masters on the way.

"Mama, Mama, Mama, I'm floating in the air!" LilyBeth called down to her mother, who was drying the laundry on her antlers.

LilyBeth's mama looked up and exclaimed, "Sweet Blitzen's butthair!"

"Have you been eating the areosquadron's droppings?" she asked her flying daughter.

LilyBeth was doing loops around the satellite dish.  "I found a patch of delicious berries growin' in the wild, mama! I don't need my foots up here!"

LilyBeth's mama walked back into the house and head-butted her huge bed out the front door.  She followed the bed with some blankies and threw those around.

"Now, LilyBeth, you just circle around your mama until that wears off," she said sternly.

LilyBeth was a dot in the sky.  "I can fly, Mama! I can fly!"

Her mama just stood there and shook her head.

Santa, meanwhile, was just returning from a run to the ice cream parlor and had Vixen and Comet with him. He spied LilyBeth overhead and told his pilots to pull up alongside.  "Ho Ho Ho," he said to LilyBeth.

"Oh, I'm not for sale," LilyBeth told him, soaring past.

"No, no, no, you silly girl," Santa said with a jolly laugh.  "Santa can get plenty of that at home, I'm wondering what you're doing so high on a night like this," he explained.

LilyBeth told Santa about the magical berries, and he laughed.  "Would you like to guide my sleigh home?" he asked LilyBeth.  Vixen and Comet looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

LilyBeth was thrilled.  "Ooh! I'd love to do that! C'mon, follow me," she said, and hung in the air for a moment before plummeting straight down.

Comet shrugged and he and Vixen shot after her.  Santa grappled with his ice cream all the way down, saying, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

When they broke through the trees, Santa and his pilots could see LilyBeth hovering over her house with a huge grin on her face.  "Mama, Mama, Mama!" she shouted to the distraught deer on the porch, "Santa's come with ice cream!"

Santa laughed heartily, and jumped out of his sleigh.  "Can't deny that!" he said, whipping out an ice cream scoop and fixing up cones for LilyBeth, her mama, Comet, Vixen, and some cats that came out of the house when they heard the vacuum seal open on the tub of ice cream.

"You been eating the poop with the magic dust again?" Chester the cat asked when he noticed LilyBeth three feet above the ground.  His brother Jimmy, meanwhile, was pawing at the empty air under LilyBeth, trying to get her out of his personal space.

"Uh-huh!" LilyBeth declared, licking her ice cream cone happily.

"I'll be back with some waffles," LilyBeth's mama said, disappearing into the house momentarily.

"LilyBeth," Santa said, putting an arm around his little friend.  "Any time you feel like some magic dust, you come see me.  Don't eat second-hand magic."

"Okay!" she replied, nuzzling Santa's ear.

Everybody laughed and ate waffles.  It was a good day.



Hope your day's as good, everybody!

LilyBeth the Reindeer.

You can tell a lot about someone by their living room.

Highlights of solstice:




I might have also listened to the Paul Winter Consort's yearly concert from St. John the Divine, but no radio stations in the area carried it on solstice this year. It will be on WNYC on the 30th, but that's sort of past the date a little bit. Not to say I won't be listening, I'm just bitter about the cashier who threw out my mother's reading glasses and radio is always an easy target for my annoyance.

Today's lesson, other than the whole, "Yay, the days will be getting longer again!" thing, is that if someone drops a pair of glasses that look as though the frames have been eaten by a puppy and then reconstructed several times, that person probably needs those glasses and you shouldn't be a dick about it. Don't be a dick about anything, actually. That is my holiday wish. Unless we're talking about special presents for your significant other.

You can tell a lot about someone by their living room.

How Internet has failed me.

I had a fun guessing game planned for today, based on something I saw on television last night as I stood on the stairs reasoning with my puppy that my leg was not nutritious. I saw someone singing a Christmas song on The Tonight Show, and while I thought I knew the singer, I couldn't quite place the voice. Or the face. Or the tuxedo-clad body.

I also couldn't reach the remote to hit Info and end my confusion, because The Puppy wasn't close enough to the table.

Now, here is where I had planned to stick a video from YouTube or something, and have you all guess who the singer was and play along. However, there is no evidence of this performance available. So I will have to tell you who it was.

When the song ended, Jay Leno comes over and says, "Scott Weiland!" and everything else he said was lost to the sound of my brain breaking. This man didn't have brightly-colored hair, he wasn't belting out a rock song, he was behaving, as the American Idol lingo goes, like a crooner.

The past 13 years of my alt-rock listening life are now very confused. I need to find out if Scott Weiland has a Christmas album. I could have looked that up, but I was typing, "weiland leno" and "weiland christmas" into YouTube most of the day.

I know this is as stunning as the time I heard Slash's flamenco song Obsession Confession. I mean, I can't believe these rock guys can do other types of music. Will wonders never cease?

How Internet has failed me.

I'm easily entertained.

Our usual hopping, happening routine on the weekends is find out what movie is on, get together, and watch it. This weekend, Syriana premiered, so I taped it for us to watch.

We haven't gotten to see Syriana yet, but last Saturday we decided that was what we were going to watch. Mum took The Puppy out for walkies just before I put the tape in, and Nan asked me how long the movie was. It's over two hours, and it's serious and involved and all, and because of the long, bizarre list of things that take up our time in a day, we were running late this Saturday.

I keep a list of the movies we've taped but haven't seen yet, because I forget what I've taped before the VCR cools, and some of the movies were taped months ago. Such is the case with Ishtar. Yes, Ishtar, which I taped back in the early '90s, but we never watched because, you know...it's Ishtar. But Nan had caught a little of it a few weeks ago, and said we should give it a chance. I was game, because you know I count In The Year 2889 as one of the greatest uses of film ever, and this way I could say, "Yes, I have seen Ishtar."

Ishtar is a half-hour shorter than Syriana. Sold!

My mom comes in, sits down, and I start the movie.

Now, right there is just a set-up for wackiness. Sadly, Ishtar has the credits at the beginning, so my mother caught on and said, "I thought we were seeing Syriana?" before the first song had ended.

What I'm about to say might lose me some credibility, but then I am the person who loves The Phantom Menace so much that I go off into insult-laden tirades against the movies' haters when I get too tired or have too much sugar. I liked Ishtar. It wasn't Transylvania 6-5000, and it certainly wasn't Road to Morocco, but it's not as horrid as legend has made it.

I rather hope Syriana is as good.

I'm easily entertained.

Take it to the fridge!

There is nothing I enjoy more than totally utter weirdness, and Weebl & Bob bringing pastry back just makes having senses worthwhile.

Take it to the fridge!

I shall be watching this story with great interest.

Xanadu, the 1980 musical with Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John, is being made into an Off-Broadway production.

About bloody time, I say.

I really had no idea who I would have liked to see in the lead parts, but reading that Jane Krakowski (from Ally McBeal and the stage show of Guys & Dolls with Ewan McGregor) had played Kira, and Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) played Sonny almost makes me think it could work. I'd go so far to say Tudyk probably is a better Sonny than Michael Beck, but I know Beck's got fans and I don't think I could sustain a skate to the skull this weekend.

...I did just write the name Ewan McGregor. What's wrong with me? I should aim high in my fantasies. He sings. Hells bells, I could hear him singing Don't Walk Away. Like, OMG.

I AM SUCH A FAN GIRL. It's embarrasing, isn't it?

Love me, love my ridiculous obsession with Xanadu.

I shall be watching this story with great interest.

Puppy Birthday Explosion!

Ah, Puppy...I remember when we brought you home.
They told us your birthday was December 14th, and that you had reflux.
Then you peed on my lap and hid under my leg.
You were such a cute little puppy.

 
 
 
 
 

You were so small, only 16 pounds.
You only had tiny little teeth, and tiny little toes.

 
 
 
 
 

I remember thinking that one day, you would be big enough to eat my head.

 
 
 
 
 

You got along so well with your brothers...until your reflux drugs wore off.

 
 
 
 
 

Luckily, your brothers were very forgiving. They must think you're cute, too.

 
 
 
 
 

I don't remember those early months very clearly. You stood still a lot, when you weren't running after me. Your teeth grew in lovely and strong, and you began to listen to your fluffy brother.

 
 
 
 
 

You dug holes a lot when you were little. Next year, you'll dig more.

 
 
 
 
 

I had never met a dog who was afraid of everything but thorny hedges.

 
 
 
 
 

You had good manners from the start; you housebroke yourself in one day, and never put your elbows on the table...

 
 
 
 
 

without making sure that your rump was also on the table.

 
 
 
 
 

But no matter what you eat--tables, CDs, books, poops, humans--you always manage to be insanely cute at the end of the night.

 
 
 
 
 

You have the taste for good food.

 
 
 
 
 

And you're learning to welcome visitors.

 
 
 
 
 

You even have great a sense of humor.

 
 
 
 
 

When you're older, you'll probably get into the coffee and stay up all night.

 
 
 
 
 

With any luck, you'll get all of your injuries out of the way at a young age. It isn't your fault your knees don't work like they should. I'm glad it's not my fault, either. Your parents made you too cute to let crap knees keep you from living, though.

 
 
 
 
 

You trained yourself to go to bed each night; even when you don't want to.

 
 
 
 
 

I'm glad you got used to me waking you up with the camera, like I did last night when you turned 1.

 
 
 
 
 

And I'm glad you're part of my life.

Happy Birthday, Puppy.

Don't eat your brothers' poops. Or your brothers.

UPDATE!

We started you out with healthy habits. That lasted about a month, and so you couldn't wait to stop the musical candle and have come cake. You and I were the only ones who appreciated the minty madness of the frosting, and the sugar buzz that followed.

Puppy Birthday Explosion!

NASA criticized for trying to mutate astronauts.

High-ranking members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are coming under fire for scheduling the most recent trip to the International Space Station (ISS) during a flurry of solar activity.

"They knew that solar flare was coming, and they sent them up there anyway," one blogger on Bad Astronomy complained.

NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin was quoted as saying, "The Fantastic Four was on Cinemax last night, and it totally rocked. How cool would that be, man? Like, super astronauts? Wow, man...just, wow."

Unconfirmed reports say Griffin was last seen dancing to Iron Butterfly after downing a bag of Doritos and turning off the lights in mission control to reveal glow-in-the-dark stars and smile faces painted all over the computers.

ISS Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter, meanwhile, is optimistic for his newly gained super powers, whatever they may be. "I'm pumped," he said during an interview with Spaceweather.com Wednesday evening. "I'd like to be the first astronaut to reach planet Mars, using only my enhanced jumping ability."

In related news, HBO has begun production on Solar Tsunami: Sunspot from Hell, a three-part miniseries scheduled for May release.

NASA criticized for trying to mutate astronauts.

My mission in life.

I have decided--today, at least--to track down a soccer mom. I've never met one that I know of, and I think I may be playing the negative stereotype in ignorance. Find me a soccer mom, readers. Find a soccer mom, and play them this song.

Land of a Thousand Words is the new Scissor Sisters single, and Top 40 radio thinks soccer moms won't like Scissor Sisters. I plan to change that--one soccer mom at a time. They are huge in the UK. They are huge in my head--which is generally an extension of the UK--but everyone has to admit...the ladies love the slow jams all over the world...don't they?

My mission in life.

I am so out of the loop.

I just found out Barbie and Ken broke up.

My mom told me that for the past three years, Barbie's been with Blaine. Now, I knew about Blaine, but I didn't realize he was Barbie's new guy. I thought maybe he was brought in for Ken, actually.

It turns out this photo drama from a 1980 Barbie Fan Club newsletter was sadly prophetic. Poor, heartbroken Ken.

Yes, I belonged to the Barbie Fan Club. I enjoyed the photo dramas. I even read the articles sometimes. The 1984 feature with Vanessa Williams sticks in my mind as ironically glorious. My Barbies did not lead lives Kenner or Mattel would approve of; Ken had a bizarre habit of spitting at other dolls who wore boots. There were hit-and-runs with the Barbie 'Vette. I enjoyed calling Magic Moves Barbie "Hostage Barbie," because she had motorized arms that if positioned the right way, would raise as if she were being held at gun point. Those are the kind of Barbie games I played. Ballerina Barbie was a Russian spy, and she consorted with Terrorist Barbie, a re-dressed Pretty Changes Barbie who wore an inside-out headphone pad as a beret and toted about forty Star Wars blasters in her aerobics bag. Those were my 1980s, kids. Between Barbie, Nancy Drew, and Atari, I never had to leave my house, except to buy more Barbies, Nancy Drew books, and Atari games.

It does not surprise me at all, then, that Barbie now has a dog that eats poop -- just like my real dog! That's what the blurb says, I would never publicly admit that my dog eats poop...really.



If I had the money to throw away on Barbies, you know I'd have this. I wonder if there are going to be tie-ins like rock-throwing Stacey, Barbie's misguided little sister who thinks the neighbor lady is mean for not letting Tanner poop in her driveway, or scat-fetish Ken, who has really let himself go after the breakup with Barbie.

Ah, Barbie...thanks for the laughs, babe. It was good catching up with you.

I am so out of the loop.

"The archives have been broken." "Into?" "No, just broken."

A big shout out to the person who noticed that in Internet Explorer, my blog cut off at the end of the sidebar's content, leaving most of my past posts lost to the browser ethers. Toast. Of my web designing skills, I cannot boast.

Thanks, me! It means a lot that you pointed out the problem, I'll let you win Scrabble later, even if you do try to slip some weird words from Scotland in there. Playing board games by oneself is surprisingly more fun than trying to code for multiple browsers. What would have made me laugh--had it not been so tragically terrible to look at--was the floating ad for my button-making skills that, when viewed in IE, only said, "TONS!"

I don't, in fact, make tons--just buttons. I also make little trails of dead skin and hair that do not sell as well as Gattaca claimed. I make wicked good sugar cookies, too, but lack the time and materials needed for the level of wicked good I'm talking about. Don't think about my dead skin and hair while thinking about my cookies, either, it'll drive you mad.

Thanks also to RH for pointing out the .comment link problem. Not only was there a missing 0, there were extra style tags from things I've added and combined into the main CSS. My design skills are much like my skin-shedding tendencies, but RH wins at blog blugs!

"The archives have been broken."  "Into?"  "No, just broken."

In a few years, we'll look back at this and laugh.

Internet sounds like a great thing. I wonder if for $200 a year, I will be able to join a community that offers anonymity and information on all things Thai, while not having a lot of "Go to hell," thrown at me.

Thanks to Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics for making my decade. I AM SERIOUS.

In a few years, we'll look back at this and laugh.

Who gets sick watching HGTV?

I would raise both hands, but then I couldn't type this. I don't generally like to write about my health, because there is only so much bandwidth on the Internet, and there aren't many people who see the humor in my stories about falling over. This is of course a flaw in my writing, because damn, that time the cats and dog got their leashes all tied up around my legs while I was on the floor was some funny shit.

I single out HGTV because that's what we watch, along with the Food Network and Game Show network and X-Play...okay, only I watch X-Play, but that's because I only eat oatmeal and peanut butter and have seen just about every episode of Match Game ten times. HGTV has the decorating shows, and House Hunters, and is light entertainment so we leave it on when we're having coffee.

I get migraines. I think I've mentioned that, but one trigger for migraines is flashing lights. If you've watched any show on HGTV recently, you know where this is going. The camerawork they use is almost subliminal, closets spin into focus and before you can say walk-in, the show is onto a choppy montage of sinks and knobs and yellow tiles and whatever the hell else is in the room. I dare anyone to tell me exactly what they've just seen after one of those shows.

Last night, after Gift Show 2006 made my entire family ill, I decided to hit the HGTV contact form. I pretty much said, "Hey, you're making me sick, cut that out."

The HGTV forum is filled with complaints about the camerawork, so I don't feel like so much of a whiny freak. I told HGTV I wanted to like their shows--and I do, at least no one dies on Design on a Dime, although there was that broken arm Lee Snijders had that time--but I can't enjoy things that make me homicidal. I don't think I said homicidal, I know better than to threaten a website with television killin'.

Truth is I don't remember what I said, but it was very eloquent yet concise and I felt pumped up enough after hitting submit that I came here to post the link to the contact form so anyone else who feels like they just got off a boat after watching can complain too.

Who gets sick watching HGTV?

Hey Britney? When you're done designing baby clothes, design a good stick-on lady-part cover.

My family has taken to leaving Jeopardy! on rather than hear me add headlines to the "entertainment" news. You know the shows, they all look and sound alike, some even hype each other by saying things like, "The details you didn't hear on Extra!"

At least, I think it might be my fault they changed the station. Then again, I've been embellishing for as many years as those shows have been on, so it could be that there's some ghastly story going on that they don't want me to know about. Has Donny Osmond eaten kittens to retain his youthful looks? He better not, I saw him walking around once, so he's in my cool book, even if I did accidentally break the leg off my Ken as Donny Osmond doll. I didn't mean to, and I sincerely hope that no Osmonds were injured around 1980. Otherwise my powers were totally out of control that day and I apologize.

I also apologize to anyone who clicks on the following link, because I don't recommend clicking it.

The flashy entertainment shows have fixated on Britney Spears lately, or rather her lack of underwear in a paparazzi photo. Never mind that the guy with the camera is actually the reason for the picture, never mind that those damn slinky dresses show off every panty line if you do wear any, the sight of celebrity naughty bits is big news, and who am I to stop it?

Except that it reminds me of the statue, and I need to forget the statue. (Quite possibly not safe for work, unless you work in obstetrics, and then this is nothing compared to work, I'm sure.)

Today I got a spam poll, asking me where I thought Britney Spears' panties were. It brought the image of the statue back to mind, and I really have no other way to deal with my feelings than to show it to all of you, and if you look, you too can say, "This is not news," when Pat O'Brien or Mary Hart go wondering what kind of sluttery is at hand in the land of the famous.

Hey Britney? When you're done designing baby clothes, design a good stick-on lady-part cover.

Speed Racer movie update.

I haven't heard anything new about the Speed Racer movie the Wachowskis are working on, so I'm going to just make things up and see what sticks.

I watched King Kong last night, and to get over that, I thought about how many movies Jack Black has been in; he seems to be the darling of the box office right now. So much so, that if the Wachowskis are planning to draw the crowds, they will probably have to cast him in the lead role.

Go Speed Racer...rock on.

Everyone knows that the Wachowskis would be nothing without Hugo Weaving.

 

Nevermind that he has a completely different accent from his younger brother, Racer X will end up being the coolest thing in the movie simply because Hugo Weaving is in the mask. And the car. And the sunglasses.

To make the movie less...how shall I say...white, the Wachowskis are going to need to change things up a bit. Drawing once more from their pool of talent, the Matrix architects will most likely use Jada Pinkett-Smith as the most ass-kicking Trixie ever.

With any luck, she will have a more up-to-date hairstyle. As long as she keeps the yellow bow.



With the demise of Peter Jackson's career for the time being, Andy Serkis will probably be free to bring his talents to the project as not only the youngest Racer brother, Spritle, but also as his disturbing little friend Chim-Chim.

I would actually pay to see this:

Speed Racer movie update.

Eggs, beans, sausage and spam.

It is with great sadness that I have enabled the word verification on my comments. I can't make the letters out half the time myself, but that is because I am more machine than man.

I'm just really sick of seeing a notice that I have a comment, then coming here with the excitement of a five-year-old, and when I get here I get to read an ad about how other bastards made $800. If any of my posts were about, "I wonder how bastards make $800 in an hour...," then I would understand the interest. But no, I'm sometimes squeezing the last drops of my mind into this blog, if only to remember how to string a few words together and maybe entertain some people in the process.

The spam hasn't even been that funny, and I'd rather not have unfunny for a while.

Eggs, beans, sausage and spam.

Passing judgment.

Eric Clapton says "top" lists are evil. I feel really guilty about totally forgetting Clapton when I made my list, but the way I picked my songs was by picking only artists who I'd listen to every song from. By. Eh. Listening to rock music rots your grammar, kids. There is one Eric Clapton song I don't listen to, so, that's why he's not on the list. Really. I also left off The B-52's if that makes things okay with Eric Clapton.

What am I talking about? That is the ageless question, I know; but today, I'm posting the Top 100 that I made up for Muuurgh's Top 100 group on MySpace.

I put them in order of how they sounded best together, which you can't hear here, but I am willing to mail a CD if we can revive this Top 100 Group. I also made sure I left those last five towards the end so people didn't come to kill me. I stand by Xanadu, dammit.

Had I done this list after August, I probably would have swapped Comfortably Numb by Scissor Sisters with their new song I Don't Feel Like Dancin', because that song has the power to turn any day into a party. But I didn't, so I'm leaving the list as it was when I made it.

Have a happy weekend, and know that I will give personal histories of why every single song is on this list by request. I'm just that crazy.

1 - My Ever Changing Moods - Style Council
2 - Prelude/Angry Young Man - Billy Joel
3 - Wouldn't It Be Good - Nik Kershaw
4 - Watching The Wheels - John Lennon
5 - Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
6 - You May Be Right - Billy Joel
7 - Overkill - Men At Work
8 - Something About You - Level 42
9 - We Close Our Eyes - Go West
10 - Mr. Blue Sky - ELO
11 - I'll Take New York - Tom Waits
12 - Someday, Someway - Marshall Crenshaw
13 - Something To Fall Back On - Todd Rundgren
14 - There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) - Eurythmics
15 - Wrapped - Gloria Estefan
16 - Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
17 - Things Have Changed - Bob Dylan
18 - I'll Never Let Go Of Your Hand - Tom Waits
19 - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
20 - Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
21 - Fly Me To The Moon - Frank Sinatra
22 - Stay - Oingo Boingo
23 - Together In Electric Dreams - Phil Oakey
24 - I Only Know - Dinah Washington
25 - The Longest Time - Billy Joel
26 - Everyday I Write the Book - Elvis Costello
27 - As - Stevie Wonder
28 - The Show Must Go On - Queen
29 - Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode
30 - Sunrise - Simply Red
31 - I Love You, Goodbye - Thomas Dolby
32 - It's My Life - Talk Talk
33 - Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears
34 - Modern Love - David Bowie
35 - Bungle In The Jungle - Jethro Tull
36 - Summer, Highland Falls - Billy Joel
37 - Nights On Broadway - Bee Gees
38 - In A Big Country - Big Country
39 - New Year's Day - U2
40 - Learning To Fly - Pink Floyd
41 - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) - Hall & Oates
42 - Closer - Nine Inch Nails
43 - Automatic - The Pointer Sisters
44 - White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
45 - Dust In The Wind - Kansas
46 - Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
47 - Shape of My Heart - Sting
48 - Every Little Thing - Raul Malo
49 - I'll Be Around - What Is This?
50 - Chiquitita - Abba
51 - Heart Of Glass - Blondie
52 - Heading For The Light - Traveling Wilburys
53 - Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
54 - Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor
55 - Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
56 - Keep Me In Your Heart - Warren Zevon
57 - You and I Both - Jason Mraz
58 - Galileo - Indigo Girls
59 - Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles
60 - The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
61 - True Faith - New Order
62 - Why Can't I Be You? - The Cure
63 - Pressure - Billy Joel
64 - Don't Change - INXS
65 - Back In Black - AC/DC
66 - Go! - Tones on Tail
67 - Peek-A-Boo - Siouxie and the Banshees
68 - Puttin' On The Ritz - Taco
69 - Word Up - Cameo
70 - Seven Nation Army - White Stripes
71 - Where's Your Head At - Basement Jaxx
72 - That Old Black Magic - Louis Prima
73 - II BS - Charles Mingus
74 - Ojos Asi - Shakira
75 - Comfortably Numb - Scissor Sisters
76 - Hourglass - Squeeze
77 - Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
78 - Let's Go Crazy - Prince
79 - Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
80 - Jesus Built My Hotrod - Ministry
81 - Jump Around - House Of Pain
82 - Topsy Part 2 - Cozy Cole
83 - It's A Sin To Tell A Lie - Fats Waller
84 - Beyond The Sea - Bobby Darin
85 - Guilty - Barbra Striesand & Barry Gibb
86 - Oblivious - Aztec Camera
87 - Fall On Me - R.E.M.
88 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
89 - If You Leave - O.M.D.
90 - Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes
91 - Now We Are Free - Lisa Gerrard
92 - Caribbean Blue - Enya
93 - Deep As The Midnight Sea - David Blamires Group
94 - Kurski Funk - Paul Winter
95 - Adiemus - Adiemus
96 - Xanadu - Olivia Newton-John
97 - Lucky Star - Madonna
98 - Star Wars - Meco
99 - Mr. Roboto - Styx
100 - Dragostea Din Tei - O-Zone

Passing judgment.

A Fine Fail To Suck Day To You.

It is Fail To Suck day, and while I need no special day to be the spectacular that is me, I thought I would pass along some wisdom so at the very least, your day won't suck all that much.

Do not stand on your roof during a rainy windstorm. The umbrella may protect you from the rain, but is ineffective against pavement or sharp objects.

When insulting someone who is not present, make sure that no one with access to the food has similar habits. Not finding glass in your cookies makes this worthwhile.

Do not use household tools for dentistry. Your neighbors may think it's great to save $300, but whatever that is on the floor will never grow back.

Prepare for bad weather by raising squirrels in your spare bedroom. When the pets can't go out, they can have an adventure indoors.

Do not apply Krazy Glue to a Breathe Right strip. It works, but the pain is not worth the spared strip.

In the event of a power outage, stand where you are as the sun will come up eventually. Those in Northern Latitudes may have to wait longer.

Happy Fail To Suck day, everyone!

A Fine Fail To Suck Day To You.

How I feel.

A man gets off the subway carrying a black laquered case. He goes to Times Square, unfolds a cloth on the ground, kneels on the cloth, opens the case and removes a black laquered sword.

After fumbling with the sword for several minutes, he opens it and drops the sheath to the ground. It makes a hollow clatter. He sneezes.

As he looks for a tissue, a taxi goes by and splashes last night's rain onto him.

The man decides not to bother blowing his nose after all, as he's about to make a far bigger mess.

"For honor!" he shouts, and commits seppuku.

No one notices.

Hours later, a boy who had been walking down Broadway wonders just what is on the bottom of his shoe.

How I feel.

Letter to a girl of the future.

Hey baby, you might not know this yet, but everyone in the whole world loves you very much.

You have yet to make good grades, win awards, do anything more spectacular than just be, no one even knows what you really look like yet, but you're the greatest thing in a lot of people's lives just because you're you.

Hold on to that feeling, if you can. Don't forget it, even when things don't go the way you want--and I hate to be the first to tell you this, but that'll happen. Learn from those times, but don't ever doubt or forget how loved you are.

Letter to a girl of the future.

Oh my stars and garters: movie reviews from the fog.

Due to The Puppy's leg surgery, the holidays, and lack of time in general, we haven't gotten to see as many movies as we were seeing, and many of the movies we've seen lately are repeats of movies I've already opined on here. Short-term memory loss is an annoying thing; I forget a lot of things, unfortunately the movies I'm about to mention will not leave my mind so easily.

We have seen the remake of The Omen that I blogged about, and it it was annoying because nothing much has changed. Oh sure, the effects were updated, but no part of the plot changed. I'm not sure what part of the plot I would have changed, and had I never seen the original Omen, this would've been better, I'm sure, but come to think of if the only Omen movie I really dug was The Final Conflict.

X-Men: The Last Stand, or X3 as the abbreviators call it, was a letdown. I loved the first two X-Men movies, and I expected to love this one as well. Jean Grey was neat, of course, but wasted. The rest of the movie seemed like other movies I've seen...it even reminded me of my Turducken story, and that's just messed up. No, I haven't read many X-Men comics, but I have read about the comics, and there were better storylines the writers could have borrowed from. Not knowing every line from the comics caused me to finally lose my mind and start laughing when the very large, tough, and surprisingly rather kick-ass Beast says, "Oh my stars and garters!"

I know Hollywood is trying to get kids to emulate better behavior, but I can't really see "Oh my stars and garters!" catching on. I would say I'll use it from now on when I'm looking at something really nasty like full-on mutant war, but I know that line will pass into the same fog as flame-handed ninja Dr. Watson.

Oh my stars and garters: movie reviews from the fog.

A duck!

Adventure is still the very first Atari 2600 video game in the vinyl-coated plastic cases which reside in my desk. I think I played this for all of early 1985, usually while listening to (Don't You) Forget About Me by Simple Minds and trying to figure out if the singer was David Bowie. I didn't have the Internet then, you see.

If I've ever mentioned killing ducks on my way to the castle, this game is what I was talking about. The designers might have intended them to be fearsome, fire-breathing dragons soaring through the skies, but bloodthirsty, vicious ducks are what ate me a hundred times over back in the day. (They're positively evil in the later levels.)

A duck!

The Abominable Turducken.

Once there was a Turkey so irritated by the implanting of lesser poultry in its most private of parts, it took out an entire city.

First to go were the power lines. No news would be broadcast on this day of the terror waddling down the road. Some ventured out with their video cameras, in an attempt to warn the world, but they were flattened by the greasy knob of a drumstick.

The people of Lake Charles were helpless. Had it been a bad batch of Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Magic? How had they offended the gods of food so badly that this creation was now spitting molten liquid over the rooftops of the unsuspecting residents?

John Madden stepped in to stop the violence, but it was no use. With two crispy strips of flesh, the creature ripped Madden in two before he could even formulate an elaborate strategy to battle the bird.

"The bones!" cried an old woman. "It wants its bones back!"

The townsfolk gathered at the sanitation department. They rushed the garbage barge and began tearing into bags. Many things were found, but nothing that seemed as if it would be any use against the horrific, looming mass of flesh clomping towards them.

Suddenly, a voice boomed from the heavens.

"Stop right there, you bastard!"

The undead creation froze in its tracks. The people saw a tall figure standing atop one of the heaps of trash and their hearts leapt for joy. It was none other than Sir Ian McKellan! To either side of him, stepping out of a cloud of smoke, were pop stars Boy George and Sir Paul McCartney.

"We've come to stop this madness once and for all," McKellan said in a clear voice that carried a ridiculously long way.

The people began to think of fantastic side dishes they would prepare to go with their slabs of turducken. The river of drool dried quickly as McCartney smashed a bottle over a nearby stripped car and hollered, "Who wants to feel a duck up their arse?!"

A scream arose from the crowd as they stampeded out of the dump. The turducken smashed some of the mob as they passed. Boy George hurled a disco ball at a slow-moving man in a Larry The Cable Guy T-shirt.

With a ululating cry, dozens of vegetarians appeared at the borders of the dump to prevent any escape, and the turducken resumed its rampage.

When the sun rose the next day, all was silent. One very large stuffed body lay on the ground, with dozens of boneless legs sticking out of every orifice. The vultures would eat well this Thanksgiving.

Those who survived that day say they will never forget the way the sun sparkled off Boy George's makeup.


Any similarity between The Abominable Turducken and Hambo are purely bloody freaky and I am so utterly thrilled that I am on the same wavelength as Weebl & Bob that I want to cry tears of pure tomato sauce.

The Abominable Turducken.

Stemming the flow.

With the time of sitting around and eating heavy meals coming up, I'm finding less time to do things. Posting here every single day is fun, but I'm going to run out of all my great ideas if I keep going at this pace. I think I'm gonna slow things down a bit, play some slow jams for the couples, tangle their wheels.

I always used to hate the couples-only songs at the roller rink. Never could rent skates for the people in my head. Good thing they always brought their own.

This doesn't mean I'm leaving, it just means I may be a bit spotty for a while.

Stemming the flow.

My days as a super spy are at an end.

I scored poorly on Guess the Logo.

Have fun with the weekend, don't let the meteors hit you on the head...unless you like that sort of thing. I'll be attempting to catch the Leonids later, if the sky lets me.

My days as a super spy are at an end.

Faking your first step into a much larger world.

Entertainment Weekly recently ran a story about a reader who had never seen the Star Wars saga before. They describe his account as "hilarious," and then the first picture is captioned, "All his friends warned him about Jar Jar."

The story loses any credibility for me right there. I realize instantly that this Star Wars virgin either was told what to expect by his friends, or he looked it up on the Internet beforehand, or--and this is the worst possibility--he thinks he invented his issues with the movies.

I rarely read Entertainment Weekly, and this article is a good indication of why.

Any person with access to Google can look up what the loudest critics of the Star Wars prequels had to say, and repeat them as they've been repeated here--the sanctimonious outcry against Luke and Leia kissing has been done to death in the archives of rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc, and everywhere else Star Wars geeks with little sense of humor congregate. But that someone got paid for this story is really tragic. Virgins going straight into prostitution, what is this world coming to?

The guy who came up with the idea for the story in the first place misspelled womprat, which is a good indication of what we're dealing with here. What are we dealing with anyway? I've read the article twice and came away both times with nothing more than a sense that someone was hired to poke fun at The Phantom Menace. In the end, Morrison liked the movies overall, which is always good. I won't be an idiot towards him, because we're on the same side. I would have liked to read more about what he thought of the other five movies, but then, maybe I already know.

Before I'm accused (again) of being a Lucas apologist, I would just like to point out that I do have a very big problem with one of the movies. Why was Duel of the Fates playing as Anakin asked a Jawa for directions?

Faking your first step into a much larger world.

Too tired to make up my own words.

And so I give you Chinese Translation by M. Ward. It's a new favorite song of mine that's been turning up all over the place.

Too tired to make up my own words.

Doing my part to ensure better programming.

If you know me, you know that I can kill television and radio shows merely by liking them. This leaves me very little to watch, and I've been warned not to watch any shows which are currently on the air. With that in mind, Dancing With the Stars ends tonight.

Last week's show, which attempted to tie-in Election Day, left us with Mario Lopez and Emmit Smith as the final two. This made us happy here as we like them both and now we don't have to have a collective stroke over who wins. Personally, I was hoping for Jerry Springer to take the big prize...whatever the big prize is.

Yesterday, we brought The Puppy in for knee repairs, she's still being worked on last I heard, and so the final episode of Dancing With the Stars was rather welcome to take our minds off The Puppy, sitting in a cage, scratching lines into the floor for each hour we've left her there. She will have her revenge. I will, of course, welcome that as well.

Meanwhile, I decided to take notes on the last night of competition, because I was tired, and things like that amuse me. Here are my notes, with some elaboration so you know what I was on about.

Emmit's shoes. I wrote that because I liked his metallic green dancing shoes. I once had my eyes on a pair of metallic sneakers in Capezio, but they never had my size. I dealt with that crushing blow by going mad with glitter on my existing sneakers. Did you know gluing glitter to sneakers makes them stiff...even sharp?

Christmas commercials. Oh hell no. The last thing I need to be reminded of is the oncoming buying holiday. Why aren't there ads for book sales for Kwanzaa? I would enjoy those.

I don't know the Brit name. This meant that I was having a breakdown and momentarily forgot Glenn Goodman's name. He says "mambo" funny.

Emmit's red shoes. I am attracted to shiny things when I am tired. For the record, I didn't like his gold ones, but I did like his partner's boots.

It's not mAmbo or sAmba. Maybe it is in ballroom circles, but until the day I have a fake tan and really painful-looking, yet gorgeous, shoes, I'm pronouncing mambo the way Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como did. So there.

Krunk Clown. I had totally forgotten the name of Tommy the Clown, who teaches inner city kids to krump, and taught Monique Coleman some moves. He had a balloon drawn on his face that looked like a bullethole. It was hilarious.

Damn, I hate the Funky Bunch. I didn't rememeber that Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock do that It Takes Two song that Mario and Carina used for their Freestyle, so I blamed the band I could rememeber.

Dancing With The Cylons. Dear Gods, what have I done?

SHAT-tastic! I really hope someone at ABC gets a dictionary for the holidays. Shat is far more than a nickname for William Shatner, and when that fact comes out, it will explain the quality of Show Me The Money, the show that followed Dancing With The Stars last night.

"When civilization gets me down, I want an AK-47." This was something I heard on another station as I walked around the house. It was on the History Channel, I think. It amused me, because I am of course of the opinion that we need to invent the lightsaber as quickly as possible.

This just in--The Puppy has survived surgery! The Puppy has had one knee repaired, and shall be back to kicking my ass before year's end. I have never been so happy at that thought as I am now.

Doing my part to ensure better programming.

Here comes Speed Racer.

I'm just going to get it out of the way and tell everyone that before Han Solo, Speed Racer, the Japanese animated demon on wheels, was my first love. Oh, the times we had. Trixie never found out, and neither did Sparky...until now, I suppose. Chim Chim probably had some idea, but I bought him off with food. In those days I used to have access to a stash of Devil Dogs and Funny Bones, and after about 40, Chim Chim (or Spritle, I could never tell the sneaky little bastards apart) would be passed the hell out and Speed and I could get down to figuring out how to outwit the car acrobatic team, who had infiltrated the local drag-racing scene.

With that said, (I feel better, don't you?) I am going to make it my business to track the new live-action movie of Speed Racer that the Wachowskis are working on.

I'm going to give you all a minute to take in all the information I've just thrown at you. It's okay, I know finding out I had an imroper relationship with an animated cartoon twenty-five years my elder must be startling. Now you can imagine how startling it is for me trying to imagine what the hell the Wachowskis are going to do to my friend.

I don't generally like to follow movie spoilers since the days when I used to rabidly defend The Phantom Menace, which I will still do to this day, even though the idea of needing to defend a seven-year-old movie that made $925.5 million seems kind of silly to me now.

Almost as silly as me hoping that Speed Racer (2008) is as good as V for Vendetta, but nothing like the two Matrix sequels. I mean, it's a story about a kid in a race car (albeit a bloody super car!) fighting crime; maybe I should not invest so much interest a full two years before the movie is slated for release.

Maybe I should just be happy that Lyra from the movies based on His Dark Materials looks pretty good.

Here comes Speed Racer.

I Don't Feel Like Writin'.

Life is good, I've had more Star Wars this weekend than any weekend in history.

Life sucks, my puppy has two luxating patellas and the left one has progressed to the stage where she needs surgery.

Life is funny. I picked out a new vet for The Puppy when we adopted her, in case she ever needed surgery.

Life is a bitch. My puppy's appointment is for 4:45, so I have to drive her in the dark, in the rain, to a busy street, and by busy, I mean New York busy.

Life is mystifying. Be careful what you wish for.

I Don't Feel Like Writin'.

Burning Question 11/11/06

What's so magic about magic markers?

Burning Question 11/11/06

I remember what I was doing half my life ago.

I was looking at the sky, unaware that I would never hear you tell me a new story.

For anyone to think that you died would be wrong; your presence guides my every good deed.

I've never forgotten a thing you taught me, I've never lost a thing you gave me.

As long as there's music, you live.

As long as everyone remembers you, you live.

As long as I live, you live.

Nothing but Star Wars.

To say I like Star Wars is like saying I like cats. It's true, but a bit of an understatement. My house is covered in Star Wars--cat hair and dog fur too, but that's another story.

Like most people who can name every X-Wing pilot, Podracer, and creature in Mos Eisley's Cantina, I would gladly risk being laughed at by saying that Star Wars shaped quite a bit of my life.

This weekend, Cinemax will be playing all six movies back-to-back, four times in a row. Not bad at all. It's been a while since something good was on telly.

I haven't seen Attack of the Clones in 171 weeks, and that is a rather long time, so I will most likely catch some of the marathon, even though I could watch the DVDs or recite the movies in my head on any given day. It's not the thing of just watching the movies; it's how. I'm sure there are tons of people who are stockpiling soda and beef jerky in preparation for this event, and as I learned so many years ago, it doesn't matter to the geeks if we see the movie in the same room as long as we know some other geeks somewhere are watching. Hundreds of people the world over all downloading the same bootlegged movie trailer at the same time back in 1998 proved that. I think. Maybe it proved Star Wars fans are crazy, especially the ones with dial-up. Okay, so I didn't get to see the trailer for The Phantom Menace at the exact same time as everyone else, but I made up for it by watching it three hundred times...a day.

Cinemax has been running a preview for the movies with the Coldplay song Fix You, and, sap that I am, thought it was cool. No, it doesn't beat T.N.T. by AC/DC for the Death Star run, but I was not consulted.

Nothing but Star Wars.

LimeProject: getting naked to kick cancer's ass.

LimeProject is something BronxElf put together to help YourHermione beat her medical bills following treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma. Go buy a calender.

LimeProject: getting naked to kick cancer's ass.

Let there be light.

Let me just brag for a moment and say that if people would listen to me the first year that I say something, things would get done a lot faster.

Our big '70s-era kitchen light, the one that was pronounced dead about three years ago, is working. Perfectly. Two hours' worth of work--much of which was spent on line in Home Depot and soaking the paint off screws--and it's done.

We can see what we're cooking again. Oh...my...God.

Let there be light.

Saturday Night's Alright for Angsting.

I like to keep it light on the weekends, you know, when I remember what day it is. I'm pretty sure I'm hurting my chances of ever being picked up by BlogBurst every time I post a video off YouTube, because it's so mainstream television of me, but I don't care, because this is funny.

Harry Potter is ready to move on to Battlestar Galactica in this jolly good puppet show by Neil Cicierga.

Saturday Night's Alright for Angsting.

Repression...recession...it's all the same thing, man.

On many autumn days, I can be seen doing two things: wearing my insanely green hoodie, and raking leaves. I am a rebellious little punk. No, really.

England has banned people from wearing hoodies and baseball caps inside of stores in case of crime. A requirement to wear unique, bold numbers on all clothing is pending.

I don't hold up well under direct sunlight, as you may know, and I have a few hooded jackets that I wear. The most socially alarming one is of course the black UV-resistant cover-all that I wear during summer. I've been followed by security in Stop & Shop because of my jacket, which becomes really amusing if you know how I look in public and hold the image of me trying to perform "terrars" with a tissue wrapped around the handle of whatever weapon I smuggled in under one mesh armpit of the cover-all while my plummeting blood pressure keeps me from damaging anything more than a few floor tiles.

So my choice in jackets is dangerous, at least in the U.K. and Boston. Closer to home, however, I'm guilty of far worse.

The NY Department of Sanitation wants everyone to put their raked leaves in brown paper bags. This would not be a problem if there was a store in all of the area that carried brown paper leaf bags. Five free bags are available at our local leaf collection center, the location of which is a mystery, even to the Department of Sanitation. Judging by the map, it appears to be floating in the East River. I don't live near the East River, but I've heard it's pretty. The only route to the fabled land of leaf collection involves the Bruckner Expressway. I'm sure it's a delightful road, however I really want to waste gas on something more useful and exciting than five paper bags.

We bought a leaf eater years ago, but we also have respiratory systems, and I think I still have some gum tree leaf dust in my upper right sinus from 1998. This year, though, I think The Puppy came up with an excellent solution to our decaying leaves. She dug us a hole over the summer which expanded to roughly the size of a shallow grave. Not having any bodies to stash this season, we're stuffing the leaves in the hole. Every now and again we turn it, just like compost on TV, and little by little our worm buddies digest us some new soil.

So, New York cannot have my leaves, because I am a hippie gas-saving, hoodie wearing punk with a puppy who can tunnel faster than Roger Bushell on a sugar high. This autumn is gonna rock!

Repression...recession...it's all the same thing, man.

Recipe for the absurd.

What happens when you mix Bollywood Superman with hours of caulk removal, Plexiglas cutting, and replacing gaskets to make a shiny new storm window? Last-minute Halloween costumes for my babies, made at 3AM the night before they were to go hitting up the family for treats. You may already know I'm a crazy cat lady, you may already know I have access to scissors and glue, but you still may not be ready for this level of crazy.
 


First up, Macadamia the mysterious, predicting the future. She helped make her costume, you know. She picked the feathers off a few toys she found in her brother's beds. She loves feathers.


0.8 seconds later, she predicts..."Get in my mouth!"


Are they birds? Are they planes? No, they're the Supercat twins! I'm not going to be the one to decide which of the guys are more super than the other. The Fluffy One has the power to land on 2-inch wide doors and tame the wild sticks in the grass.


The Slinky One can do the dance of enchantment and is able to hover for minutes on end. His Kryptonite comes in the form of Nabisco graham cracker boxes.


I went as a rather pasty-looking pirate. Really. You could tell by my earring and occasional yell of, "Arr!"

Recipe for the absurd.

Would anyone notice one less blog?

I have always been subject to the opinion that my words leave little mark on the world. There are, I theorize, a very small number of blogs that actually do make a lasting impression in the collective psyche of the world. Is the usual routine to skim a post, maybe think about it, maybe comment, and then forget it?

So many television shows have recaps after each commercial. House Hunters, for instance, rehashes the history of the buyer at least five times in thirty minutes. Does it make people better remember what they've seen? Do the fast, flashing images of stars on entertainment "news" make people remember any longer than they would if they read some gossip off a static web page?

I remember flashing. I remember spinning.

I cannot remember why I sat down.

I think there was something I was meant to do.

Would anyone notice one less blog?

A tale of Halloween.

Deep in the mountains of the Adirondacks, a set of jars sat on a table, arguing.

"If you would have just avoided that bear trap," The head sneered at the feet, "we wouldn't be in this mess."

The feet said nothing.

"Oy, and what about us?" asked the hands. "We can't do anything in here but swim around and scratch our glass!"

"Shut up, all of you!" gurgled the digestive tract, which was in a rapidly darkening jar.

The head tried to close its eyes, but it was too late. Luckily, the throat had not been preserved, and so there would be no vomiting that day.

OR WOULD THERE?

Happy Halloween, peeps, it is my favorite holiday of all, and were I able to share my orange PEZ with you through the internet...I'd have less PEZ.

A tale of Halloween.

Why be interesting when I can watch other people do it?

This weekend, I saw The Crazies, the story of our government at work in a crisis. No, really, stock up on syringes. Checking it out on IMDB, I see that next year a remake of The Crazies will be release, called The Crazies. I'm marking my calendars.

I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest or whatever the hell it's called. It was wonderful. I have no idea how I can love those movies so much when I still have yet to retrieve my head from the ride, but I do. Can't wait for the third, and if you've seen the movie, you know why. I now called The Puppy "beastie," you know.

Dead Man, a 1995 movie starring Johnny Depp and directed by Jim Jarmusch, was also incredible, but Jim Jarmusch is the director of Down By Law and Coffee and Cigarettes, so of course it's bloody great. I liked it, anyway. The soundtrack started to annoy Nan, but because of the end of Daylight Saving Time, I have no idea what the hell time it was, but we were all really tired.

I'm really tired now, actually. I've been making things. The front of my house no longer looks like one of those "what's wrong with this picture?" things. Well, at least the front door is back together.

Why be interesting when I can watch other people do it?

Riddle me this.

If a Blogger smashes her head into a doorknob, and the Internet isn't there to see it, does the doorbell laugh at being called a relic of the analog age?

Riddle me this.

One from the vaults.

Back when all I used a computer for was playing Summer Games with myself, I used to buy a magazine called Song Hits. It had the lyrics to most popular songs at the time, along with articles and pictures and charts and ads. Had the Internet been available to me for lyric searches back then, I would have missed out on a defining moment of my life.

I watched a lot of music videos in the '80s, and as a result of seeing many of them over and over, I ended up making fun of every video I saw. The funniest ones to me were usually the serious videos that told stories about people breaking up, like Missing You by John Waite. Damn that Sesame Street Live tape he was listening to, anyway.

One night in late 1986, I saw the video for the Steve Winwood song Freedom Overspill, and my mind would never be the same. It was artsy, of course. I had no idea what the video was about, some sort of eye test gone wrong, maybe, but being 12, one scene entertained the hell out of me, and that was the three-second scene of Steve Winwood standing on a chair.

Why was Steve Winwood standing on a chair? This question burned in my mind for days, until I got the December issue of Song Hits, and whose picture was in the magazine? England Dan Seals, but I'm getting to that. Steve Winwood's picture was in the magazine, and so I drew a little thought bubble next to him, with a chair in it. I wrote "chair" over all the instances of "love" in the lyrics that accompanied the picture, because I was convinced that what Steve needed was a higher chair.

All the other photos in the issue then took part in the mystery of what Steve Winwood was doing on the chair. Phil Collins was going to call Steve, Annie Lennox was afraid Steve would fall off the chair, and eventually, El DeBarge took perverse joy in announcing that Steve had, in fact, fallen off the chair. How did this happen, asked a man in a guitar ad. Klymaxx didn't do it, so who did?

England Dan Seals should never have worn his "I'm a chair kicker" hat. He was pronounced guilty by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Freedom Overspill hit #1.

It was, I'm sure, a Saturday. I'm sure lots of sugar had been involved. I know it was after midnight.

I recently found the video for Freedom Overspill online, and it doesn't make any more sense twenty years later, but I wouldn't really want it to. However, having a computer capable of more than 16 colors, I was now able to do a screencap and make wallpaper. I went all Bob Ross with the smudge brush. I'm totally using this right now. If anyone asks what it's about, I'm just leaving it at, "I like Steve Winwood."

Because I do, you know. That man can do things with a synth.

(Oh yeah, and the whole tree thing...I did it 'cause, like, trees, they take over everything if you let them. Yeah. Nevermind that it has nothing to do with talking too much. Trees might talk too much, I don't know.)

One from the vaults.

One quarter-century of Rainbow goodness.

I have just disapperated a pie full of glorious actors from the United Kingdom, mainly Scotland, bound for a rather significant woman. It is a large-ish pie, and should it arrive just as the drugs are wearing off, tell them I meant well.

Happy birthday my friend, hope it's a good one.

It's also the birthday of John Cleese, a British person I wouldn't mind finding hidden in a pie. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

...I hope that floo powder I bought off eBay is fresh.

One quarter-century of Rainbow goodness.

The flecks were rather artsy, maybe I should have kept them.

I like to celebrate this date every year, it's the day I had the metal picked out of my eyes back in 1988. Believe me, if you went around for over a year with metal constantly getting in your eyes, you would remember and celebrate the date that it finally stopped, too.

That incident--with the metal, and the eyes, and the rusting because of the eyes watering and all--is what lead to my Etsy shop being called "Through My Rusty Eyes," because "Through My Scarred Corneas" just didn't have the same ring to it.

That brings me to what I really want to bitch about. My "art." I was wandering by Nancy Grace last night (she's on, and she's not cooking or redecorating) and she was ranting about auction sites that make loads of money off the art of serial killers.

The general public's fascination with serial killers is not something I've never heard of, but considering all of my heroes are not serial killers so far as I know, it's just something that weirds me out a little.

However...I am beginning to wonder if my drawings, like Thanksgiving, would become a hit if I did something really horrendous. I'm not entirely sure I want to kill or injure anyone, because that's not really my idea of art as much as it is being a disruptive little maniac, but I have a family to support, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to rule it out. I guess I could always pretend I did something, I'm good with the Paintshopping, but then I'd probably have to talk to Larry King, and I'm sure he's a dear man, but I fear I'd get the giggles when I think of the days when I saw a resemblance between him and Zorak, The Lone Locust of the Apocalypse. I don't want to go down in history as the person who asked Larry King to recite Chubby Chubby Choo-Choo.

(Larry King on the left, Zorak on the right. Got gum?)

The flecks were rather artsy, maybe I should have kept them.

We laugh at your puny blizzards!

A while back, someone broke the glass in our storm door.

The recent weather, as most people in the northeastern US will tell you, is getting cooler. Today I thought I'd pop down to Home Depot to pick up a replacement glass for the door, as well as a replacement storm window for the bathroom, because the one room in the house where most people go bare-assed should not be the one room in the house that is the same temperature as the backyard in the middle of January. The whereabouts of the original storm window for the bathroom are unknown. I believe it--along with seven other storm windows--fell victim to the great decrepitude of our previous shed in 1996.

Home Depot took over every local hardware store. We have one place to go for screws, for paint, for wood, for tools, and for soil, by mere absence of choice. Home Depot decides what local residents need for the maintenance of their homes, and you may already be getting a feeling about what Home Depot feels no one in The Bronx needs.

Two guys who are paid to do things at Home Depot were standing in the door and window department. Mum and I approached, and Mum asked where the storm windows were.

The young men's brows creased. They'd obviously never lived in a world where glass broke. "Storm windows?"

"Replacement glass for storm doors, that you change out with the screens," I elaborated.

"We have storm doors, and replacement windows."

I thanked them for their time and started edging towards the Plexiglas.

"Nyack (22 miles away) carries storm windows," one of the men said.

"Okay," I said. I've learned the world doesn't care about my driving customs.

"Poughkeepsie (71 miles away) has them too," the man called.

"Okay," I called from underneath a pile of cracked Plexiglas. The security-grade Plexiglas is about $75, the price of an entire new door before installation costs. The cheaper Plexiglas is just as bloody heavy, and the sheet that we took home was a good three feet taller than me. We plan to render it into the two storm windows we need--I will of course write about the experience at great length.

The two men in the Home Depot aprons standing in the door and window department obviously did not think Mum and I were alluring enough to offer to carry the Plexiglas to the register. Bah, their loss.

We laugh at your puny blizzards!

I got the hookup.

A while back, I lamented that I never got to be part of the legendary CBGB, even though, y'know, I'd probably suffer a fatal overload within three minutes of stepping inside any place more hopping than the Thruway Diner.

However, a station on Sirius aired Patty Smith's show, and I got to hear it from the relative safety of my backyard. That was neat.

I don't remember if I ever detailed exactly how a strapped shlub like me happens to have a headphone radio through which satellite radio plays. So far as I know, there aren't many people walking around with 18" dishes bolted to their skulls, and if there are I haven't met them yet, therefore they do not exist.

My family's last remaining luxury is the Dish satellite service, which offers Sirius satellite radio, along with their own music stations. Take one receiver hooked to a VCR, and route the output to a PCTV input, and suddenly my computer becomes a really tricked out radio.

I went through a rather selfish bout two years ago in preparation for the onslaught of 24-hour holiday music on five FM stations, after I realized I had to have something else to listen to or people were going to die of a wave of gloom emanating from my head. I bought myself a rather cheap FM transmitter that, when plugged into the speaker jack of the computer, turned any FM radio in the house into a satellite radio. I had to sacrifice WEBE 108 for this, and considering I didn't listen to the station since the addition of the Delilah show--or as I like to call it, the "Why aren't you married to your baby's father?" request hour--it wasn't really that difficult a choice to make.

I didn't stop there, of course, because I'm a maniac. I bought a cheap (I'm a stingy maniac, remember) RF remote control and transmitter, which allows me to change stations through walls. If anyone was ever meant to be a mutant, it was me.

Now, the remote itself is the size of a 1980s-era cellphone, but because I'm a driven little bastard when it comes to things that involve going outside with a radio, I figured out a way to keep the remote with me on my swing without breaking the neighbor's windows: a Ziploc bag with a hook through it. High-tech, I know. I love the looks the remote gets when people come in and see it sitting on my desk, still in its bag. Oh yeah, she's the one with the remote button issues. Then again, the bag might be getting looks because it has bite marks in the bottom corner from the time I thought it would be cool to take The Puppy outside while I was on my swing. Or maybe it's the duct tape down the edge of the bag. Maybe it's the five holes in the top of the bag from where the hook keeps ripping the plastic. I've used that same plastic bag for two years now. Somehow I think this rules out any cleanliness issues I might be accused of having.

I got the hookup.

My blood is stomach acid, my stomach acid has been replaced by Folger's crystals.

I started drinking coffee around the age of 8. You know the story, you want to fit in, but you throw up when you drink the harder stuff like tea with milk in it, next thing you have a three-cup-a-day habit heading into its 25th year, and you start to wonder where it all went wrong.

I drank my grandfather's decaffeinated Sanka for a long time, because he was the coolest person I knew, and he didn't go into coffee-fueled rages and take the closets apart looking for a pair of shoes. Oddly enough, I still took the closets apart. I never did find that last Crystal Barbie shoe. In my teens, I switched to that fancy International cappuchino, and I don't remember much of that time. I think I called someone "bitch" because she didn't like my hat.

Black coffee has no calories, so at the height of my retention problems, I switched to the drink I compare to my cats--hot, black, and easy. I drink Folger's instant coffee as that's what we have in the house and I have no interest in trying other coffees after the Eight O'Clock cup of feet episode, plus my sense of adventure can only manage getting me out of bed each day before it gives up and goes back to reading Highlights.

Today, my 37,894th cup of coffee was unlike any other. The Puppy was walking around on the table stealing napkins and playing Godzilla as she likes to do when she noticed my cup of coffee. I reached for the cup, but warm Corelle and cold vinyl placemats create fusion, so picking up the coffee while The Puppy's foot was on the placemat was not as easy as one would expect.

I am happy and rather grateful to report that the flavor of coffee does not change after having a dog's snout submerged in it.

My blood is stomach acid, my stomach acid has been replaced by Folger's crystals.