An Experiment In Capitalism

Having let this blog sit idle for the better part of a year, I decided upon my return to try something Completely Different: I have signed up to do sponsored posts/reviews/poems/interpretive dance pieces for a little joint called PayPerPost.

As excited as I am to whore out my little corner of the blogosphere to the highest bidder, I do not have high hopes for turning any real profit.  Still, having a post or two potentially provide a little beer money is more potential beer money than any of my posts were generating otherwise.

Any sponsored posts will be noted in the post itself.  Don't expect to see such a note very often, I would say.  Then again, it will probably be more often than anyone's seen anything on this site in the past nine months or so.

So there's that.

Early Morning Random Snark

Um...

Today, my husband got a random vasectomy, all because I said we needed protection. I meant condoms. Apparently he hadn't been listening when I told him about my fantasies of having a big family some day. FML.

I would argue that he heard you crystal clear....

A personal version:

Today, I got into theater because I'm a late afternoon/night person, but today--a Sunday--I'm stuck at work from 9am till after midnight, essentially from one morning into the next. FML.

Yep, sounds about right...

A Little (Scissor) Lift For An Expat

It's been a long, long time since I've been back to Georgia and I have to say, this video made me miss the childlike dynamics of so many interactions in good ol' Dixie.

And the cherry is that, at the end, you can just make out the guy say "gul-dang." That just puts pep in my step.

Random Thought: Self-Esteem

Anyone who can confidently wear white underwear is going places in this world.

Jaundice H. Christ

A Christmas day communion in Long Island may have exposed hundreds of churchgoers to Hepatitis A.

So given the principles of transubstantiation...did the priest give the Holy Son a liver infection by accidentally bleeding in His blood? It works both ways right?

Or did Jesus already have Hep A from some Magdalena tomfoolery and it took science 2,000 years to notice?

Either way, it's a Christmas miracle!

Hangman

This x-mas prank/macabre decoration is the best thing on the web at this precise moment.

People have just started putting up their seasonal adornments, so climbing a ladder and stringing lights and the like is already on their mind. What a beautiful way to turn that bit of absorption against them.

And my cynical self guesses that trying to save the fake person on the roof might be the most care for their fellow man most of those people expend all season...

Random Thought: Doucheness

How long before hipsters start using Walkmans instead of iPods...?

Yaawwnnn.....Anything New Happen Lately?

Bullet points with butterfly wings:

Republicans take the House. Sure, it sucks. But Dems didn't really turn out and the GOP once more relied on a constituency that has one foot in the voting booth and one in the grave. We can wait them out. The upshot is that the standard GOP types will now be forced to share their bed with their feral, teabagger cousins, while, conversely, members of the Blue Dog caucus were sent home in droves (which must hurt since they're used to taking their ball and going home when they say so), thus freeing the remaining Dems from at least a portion of their pandering duties.

On that note...Pelosi. She's stated she's interested in running for Minority Leader. Good. When I read comments like this, saying 1) why keep Pelosi? people hate her!, 2) if we have liberals in charge Obama will be caught in the middle, and 3) we should have more conservative leadership while we're in the minority!--I then set a puppy Havanese on fire before blurting 1) we keep her because she's proven good at her job (even now) and because the Republican puke funnel can make many Americans hate anyone, just look at Obama!, 2) well, I know which point of the triangle he should side with if he's pressed, and 3) um...what?

Olbermann is suspended without pay. Again, it sucks. But what I really want to know, given the specifics of MSNBC's rule against political giving, is if they really with-a-straight-face-no-fingers-crossed earnestness believe that Countdown is straight news rather than opinion. But even then, how do they think Olby's personal contributions (which are allowed) negatively affected his job performance, assuming he made clear the money wasn't on behalf of his employer? MSNBC Pres. Phil Griffin: today's most maybe biased, politically tin-eared person...in the world!

Okay, I'm sure I'll have more bullet points soon, probably aimed at your head from a car window (cause life's been a bit stressful lately).

Now go let your auto-correct misspell some tongue. Sorry, something.

Demotivate

Or an epic poster for their bathroom, hung opposite the toilet, so they can contemplate their sins...

Inferior Stars

Okay, I thought they shot people on the L.A. Freeway for less than this.

Have standards on the west coast fallen so far? Or did the same luck that bought these Jersey Shore clones a tour bus on which to paint their sad imitations of sapienship also spare them a hail of righteous lead?

Their continued existence is either a case for the existence of fortune or one against the existence of an Almighty.

Either way, given their continued existence, no one wins...

Random Thought: A Way Of Seeing

Just knocked out a bit of light design over at Dixon Place (re-teching, with great pleasure, Kim Katzberg's Penetrating the Space), and thinking ahead to lighting Caborca's two plays coming up at CSV in November, and I had the sudden, very strong (very random) desire to know what the great John Berger would say about modern light design for theater.

I also have no idea how to find out if he has, in fact, already commented. Cause, I mean, how do you google his level of profundity?

Vagina-ectomy

If you've ever wondered what it sounds like to remove someone's vagina, or what the most awesome eleven words in the English language are, you have to go read this.

Extra!

This article on military sightings of extraterrestrials reminds me of a friend's father who used to tell stories of his stint as a comm man in the Army (I think).

This was Vietnam-era, and if memory serves he was stationed, or for some reason, operating in Morocco. (I remember that clearly because my ten-year-old brain loved chewing on that wonderful word. Mooorrrr-rooocckkk-coooeee. Yup, still tasty.)

Now, this dad was a rather conservative guy--Republican, non-church going but still Catholic, small business owner, etc.--qualities I associate with a more traditional view of the limits of our world (rightly or wrongly). So it was especially interesting to me when, on occasion, he would talk about his time in Morocco, and how he and his fellow soldiers would watch oddly shaped ships dance in the sky and then disappear. He believed without question that the crafts weren't human--they would change colors and alter course at impossible angles and at great speed--an opinion bolstered by the wealth of time he and his mates were given to study them. He said it happened so often while he was there that the guys more or less viewed the spectacle the way we watch late night TV.

Anyway, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, and all that....

Google Reader...Win?

A (Golden) Watershed Moment

According to SiteMeter, someone in Germany found my site through this search.

Ladies and Gents, I have arrived.

9/11 (2)

Okay, this day also reminds me of something else that I only rarely think about. Whatever logic underlies this memory goes against how I view the world now in almost every way--and not just because it came from the Discovery Channel.

I remember distinctly being maybe ten or eleven, and watching a program on Nostradamus in the living room. One of the predictions they were discussing was that in the year 2001, a man in a turban would launch a great fire from the sky, bringing chaos (or whatever the language was they used back in 1988-ish) to the precise latitude and longitude of Manhattan.

At the time, 2001 was very far in the future, meaning it was still in grown-up land--the land of money and mobility and doing what one pleases. Since the idea of growing up and living elsewhere was still unfathomable to me, I instead worried about the nearest adult. My mother was cooking dinner at the time, so I ran into the kitchen and asked whether she had any intention of being in New York City in 2001. She looked confused and admitted that she didn't. Relieved, I went back to watching TV.

Being generally skeptical of prophets of any stripe, I share this little reminiscence without comment...

The Ultimate In Masculine Protection

The most expensive sports cup you'll ever own....

Get Off My Lawn!

I admit it: I've been a 70-year-old man since I was ten. I happily read Texts From Last Night and chuckle at the tawdry-baudy 20-somethings discussing their STD's in 160 words or less. And I chuckle at myself especially when I come across one like this:

(860)
There is too much vodka and too much dick.

I chuckle because I've never been interested in a woman (girl?) who thinks that way...and also because it reminds me that I have always harbored a deep and abiding prejudice against guys who think that way. It always struck me as, fundamentally, a user mentality--flesh as commodity; thrill as a substitute for experience. And I've felt this way since I was first aware of sexuality (which was pretty early).

It's made for some occasionally rocky relationships with other guys....

This is not to say that I begrudge like-minded people choosing to look no deeper into one another than the bulge in someone's pants--or the two in someone's shirt. I guess I'm just surprised to be reminded of how, despite my socially liberal roots, I'm still entirely uninterested in the socks*.


*I think the meaning can be deduced. But still, my favorite reader should create a post or page elucidating this phrase. 'Cause it's awesome.

Dating Rule #1

Nature demonstrates the importance of dinner and a drink....

Heh.

~~~~~~~

I just realized this makes two insect related posts in one day. Am I just cimex/muscae-curious? Hungry maybe? I really couldn't say....

Gun Control

He'z no got it.

And all I can think about is this:

Gunning for love...oh, and cops too...

I enjoy firing guns, but c'mon y'all, everything in its right place. Doesn't bringing a tool designed solely to kill to a ceremony honoring the generation of new life and the continuation of society seem a little, I dunno, cognitively dissonant?

Then again, in the case of the Hutaree it may in fact be perfectly consistent if you're actively pursuing the dissolution of your country.

As for the incident in Akcagoze, I guess Turkey really is a Westernized nation....