12/15/2009 - Elise Wins an Award, The Credit Card Companies Attempt Inroads Upon My Mailbox, and Some Other Stuff

As I was going through Elise's backpack last night, I came across a slip of paper informing me that my daughter had won an award for honesty, and that I could come to the presentation on Friday, 12/11.

I took some video of the presentation, but the teacher moved on before Elise even got to the stage, which was kind of uncool, but oh well, as long as Elise didn't notice (and she didn't). So now we have a cool certificate, as well as a "pencil of honor", that she received for being honest.

Here's my little Honesty Awardee!

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For a number of years, we were receiving a lot of credit card offers. I know you've gotten them too, so I don't need to tell you how annoying they are, not to mention the risk they pose for identity theft - an identity thief can take these things out of your trash and apply for credit in your name.

Tip #1 - Always shred these things when you get them in the mail. Don't leave them intact for someone to use.

Tip #2 - and this is really the more fun, evil option: take the application and write, in large letters, please do not send me any more applications, and take me off your list (or something to this effect). Then take the postage-paid envelope they always include, and stuff it full of the heaviest stuff you can find, including of course the application. I often include cardboard, and whatever else comes reasonably to mind. Don't stuff it so full it looks like a letter bomb or an anthrax letter or something, because it won't get through. The point here is to cost them as much money as possible while making your point that you want them to stop trying to sell you credit cards.

I went through this for about a year back when we lived in Fremont, and miraculously, I stopped receiving these stupid offers. Now they're attempting to invade my mailbox again. Oh well. Sucks for them...

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Found this on a friend's Facebook page this morning:

Gotta show this to Elise - every time she eats meat, she says "thanks, animal, for letting me chew on your corpse." No shit. I tell her she scares me, but deep down there's a part of me that's proud ;}~

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Hulu has Lexx! No kidding, really... 



Sing it with me...

(Click HERE for the song...)

Vaiyo A-O 
(Fighters of the Fight) 

A Home Va Ya Ray 
(For their home and their heart) 

Vaiyo A-Rah 
(We fighters will win or die) 

Jerhume Brunnen G 
(Forever we are Brunnen G)

Xev

Stanley

Kai

Robot Head 790

So far they only have four episodes, but I'm hoping they include the whole thing before too long. I only ever got to see the last couple of episodes when it was on TV, so the early days are a bit of a mystery to me.

And yes, I understand there are some of you out there who have no freakin' idea what I'm talking about. Go find out. You'll either love it or hate it. Trust me. It's like coconut that way.

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Sharing one of my favorite Christmas cookies here: "Russian Tea Cakes". Click on the title for the recipe from AllRecipes.com.
 

 Are they Russian? I have no freakin' idea. I've heard them called "Mexican Wedding Cookies", though I believe Mexican wedding cookies are made with cocoa. I've heard people say their grandmother brought the recipe from Lithuania.

Whatever they are, wherever they come from, they are freakin' awesome! Light, not terribly sweet, they do indeed make brilliant companions with tea.

There. Never say I didn't give you nuthin...


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Found on Plaid Stallions: The Dr. Who catalog page !!!

And not just ANY Dr. Who, but TOM BAKER Dr. Who!

I can remember rushing home from highschool (yes, this WAS back in the Dark Ages, thank you VERY much for asking) to catch Dr. Who on Public Television. Tom Baker was the Dude! (Check out his official web site.) I even bought three purple and yellow knitted mufflers and sewed them together! Hey, it occurs to me that I should knit myself a muffler in the actual colors.

(T-shirt courtesy of Think Geeks... Click HERE)



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Sick today. Elise has been home Monday and today, Tuesday, with a fever. I woke up this morning with a splitting headache, and actually went back to bed. Heading back now.

On the writing front, I've made huge progress on my world-building. I've decided on a model for Findias - seeing it as a cross between Mont. St. Michel and Gondor. Built on Dagda's character and even came up with a few scenes for him. Things are going well, and I've got a better direction now, a bit more surety in the voice and the happenings.

Okay, off to bed I stagger. Benedictions, all...

12/04/2009 - Budweiser does 9/11

How many of you remember this commercial?



I freely admit, I'm one of THOSE sorts of people; I cry at commercials. The degree of tearage and intensity of wailing varies depending on my hormonal condition. Generally, I cry at parades, at anything featuring horses, at nobility wherever it can be found... This commercial just made me bust out in tears, but then I'm a horsewoman, so there's that. Big huge horses filled with nobility are always going to make me bust out in tears.

Still, Budweiser does a great horse commercial - or maybe did, I dunno. Are they still filming these? There were the "horses playing football" and the "baby horse dreams of drawing the big wagon and gets help from the big horses", and the "young horses challenge the older horses to a snowball fight", etc etc. The following are a few of my favorites.

Here's the "Rocky" tribute...



Here's the "donkey" ad...



And the "donkey" ad rebuttal...



And the "dog envy" commercial...



I could keep on like this forever. Really. So I'll just leave it to you - click HERE for a listing of the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials on YouTube.

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Sophie, Puppy of Terror, just decided she needed a snuggle from me. She announces her need by trying to climb on my lap from under the table. This involves her kind of insinuating herself up via her claws, somewhere in the region of my crotch.

And yes, that's every bit as bad as you might imagine it would be, especially when one is writing one's heart out, deep in the Elven kingdom of Otherworld.

Sophie and I, We often have Words about this, but I have yet, apparently, to hit upon the right Words to convince her of my sincere dislike of this behavior on her part. Luckily, Shar is too big to fit under the table.

Right now, Shar is busy in the living room with her tugging rope, playing the "Mine" game with Elise. The format of this game is as follows: Shar grabs the rope in her jaws, shakes her head around wildly so the rope knows she means business, and then proceeds to bump her muzzle, and the rope, into the arms, legs, ribs and/or face of anyone within reasonable playing distance. Right now that's Elise. Hy-larious... Two puppies playing and laughing together, although it occurs to me, just now, that Shar outweighs Elise by maybe as much as 20 pounds. I had to add back the three links I removed from Shar's prong collar last night because her neck has filled out by several inches since I got her in June, I think it was.

Wow, I wish I had a camera! Shar is bounding around the living room, her tail whipping back and forth, her jaws hanging open in an ear-to-ear grin, playing with Elise, who's laughing so hard she's having a hard time breathing. Shar is controlling herself well - Elise is in no danger, even from accidental biting as Shar goes for the rope. Shar's time with Holly has taught her good bite inhibition.

Just now I got up and showed Elise how to "talk dog". I showed Elise the difference in my posture when Shar and I are playing (open front, very relaxed, lost of energy and movement), and when I'm taking control of the situation and asking Shar to drop the rope and stop playing (stiff and still, closed posture, arms close to my sides, left hand held up and palm towards her, staring directly at her). Shar dropped the rope, no matter how wild she was playing, withing ten seconds of me doing that, and in most instances she sat down, waiting for me to tell her what should happen next.

Really seriously, Shar is the smartest, most adaptable dog I have ever had the honor of calling my companion. I've dearly loved all my dogs, but she really takes the cake; she has earned a special place in my heart.

Okay, busy day tomorrow. I'm going to Morgan Hill, and Doris, John and I are going to drive together to Ellen's housewarming party. Elise is staying here because she's going to her friend Acacia's house tomorrow for a birthday party and her first ever sleepover! I am so proud of her for doing something that's a little bit scary! I think she's going to do fine.

Off to bed, Bambinos! Ciao!

Turkey Letdown, Black Friday, Creepy Automatons, Bhopal and a Schweppes Moment...

Sorry... Not in that EXACT order...

Obligatory Post-Thanksgiving blog to commence now:

We live in a very small, very ugly single-wide mobile home. Yes, I hang my head in shame. I am... *sniff*... TRAILER TRASH!

There. I've said it. I'm a cringing puddle of shame.

Actually, I lied. Sorry. I do that. I'm not a cringing puddle of shame. I'm actually rather proud of the fact that we own a detached house of sorts, with something of a backyard where we can actually plant veggies, where we can have the three dogs we currently have, two cats, and one rather lonely parakeet, where if something breaks, it may not get fixed but that's our fault...

This is California, y'all. Silicon Valley, to be precise. I know people paying $2200 rent for as much space as I own. Their place is pristine (probably) and mine's old and gross, but you know what? I can live with old and gross when it costs me $1000 less than pristine. I really can.

Okay, sorry, got off on a tangent. Point being, our house is 900+ square feet when you count the walled-in porch where Jeff works his magic. We famously do not host Thanksgiving dinner. Ever.

This means that we always come home from Thanksgiving dinner with a small plate of leftovers, which are usually gone the next day.

Not sure what my point was there. A general wailing against the cruel injustices consequent upon the possession of inadequate living space?

A neighbor gave us a frozen turkey - apparently he got several - and I will be doing a dinner of our own this year, probably next weekend. I WILL have my succulent Turkey of Justice, my gravy, my stuffing-and-cranberry-sauced vengeance. I WILL!!

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A thought:

If you're a human of American extraction and you watch TV at ALL, you know that Black Friday is everywhere. We're obsessing on it, this year especially because of our economic woes.

Okay, yes, I get it... Where have I been hiding forEVER, that this shocks me? Still, doesn't it horrify you, even a little, that while Thanksgiving dinner is on the table, there are commercials out there showing a woman hurrying her family through Thanksgiving dinner, even to the point of pulling the tablecloth off the table and scattering the entire meal across the floor, just so she can grab her purse and her coat and rush out the door to go shopping?

Come on, 'fess up. That doesn't horrify you even a little?

Black Friday was almost a week ago, but still, I have yet to shake off the miasma of capitalistic evil that has engulfed me.

I've studied Dante's iconic cycle, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Dante, had he seen this picture, would have nodded his head, his lips pursed, and then asked, in a knowing tone, what these men had done wrong in life.

I'd never have had the heart to tell him they hadn't died yet.

I'm probably wrong, but I swear this looks like the new Target out by Cochrane road in Morgah Hill.

Here's the worst of all. This picture was taken from someone's cell phone camera, November 28th of 2008, in Long Island, NY. Exactly as this picture was being taken, a Walmart employee by the name of Jdimytai Damour was being trampled by this rampaging mob of shoppers, who rushed the doors, taking them off their hinges, and charged into the store. He suffered a heart attack as several hundred people literally walked over him in pursuit of a bargain. He died shortly afterward.

Is there any rational comment to be made here? Can ANYTHING I say have a greater impact than the senseless death of somebody's son at the hands of a mob? I mean, they weren't even trying to lynch the poor guy - which would have implied some moral outrage on their part, even if completely unjustified. These people didn't even know they were killing someone.

When I thought about it, I realized recently that every decision made at every level of government and in every level of business, and even in most levels of private life, is governed by the considerations of money... Not just influenced by, but entirely governed.

Ideally, that's backwards, isn't it? Shouldn't money be the last thing you take into consideration when deciding what healthcare options you want, what school your child should attend, whether or not you should move, even what you should have for dinner?

It should be, but it won't. I can't even think how we're going to get from our capitalist point A, to a more humanitarian point B.


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Speaking of humanitarian considerations, I just read that today, Dec 3rd, is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Early in the morning in 1984, the people of Bhopal woke because their lungs were burning. Many thousands died that morning. Many more thousands died over the days, weeks and years to follow, due to exposure to Methyl Isocyanate.

This disaster was caused by a complex chain of events, but the bottom line, as always, is punctuated by a dollar sign: Union Carbide wanted to cut corners, the regional government wanted to cut corners, the workers' complaints were ignored, and the workers were even fined when they refused to ignore safety regulations. To date, neither the Indian government nor Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) have come anywhere near satisfying the needs of the people involved, or the clean-up needs of their environment - both of which still suffer from the long-term affects of the tragedy. The large portion of Union Carbide's lawsuit settlement is still sitting in the coffers of the Indian govt, awaiting distribution. Several thousands tonnes of abandoned hazardous chemicals remain to be cleaned up from the now-defunct factory.

Merry Fucking Christmas, right? Where's the Turkey of Justice when you need him?

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And now for something completely different, before I tackle my last topic:



Based on actual, vintage Schweppes advertising... it has just enough WTF-itude to make it oddly compelling and train-wreck-ish.

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Okay, last but not least, TA-DAH!

I'll take "Creepy Automatons" for $400, Alex...


There are the harmless ones...



And the actually rather graceful ones...



(... although that little creak she gives somewhere around the middle of the video does give me something of a chill, don't know why.)

There was this one, called La Joyeuse de Tympanon, built for Marie Antoinette, and every bit as lovely and enchanting now as she must have been when her creators unveiled her before the queen, if a bit sad somehow, a bit poignant. You have to wonder, was Marie herself just such a fragile pearl as this little doll?



Here are the creations of Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a Swiss "mechanist"...



(...and if you watch at 6:15, you'll see an example of a "decapitation" automaton. A bit further down I've included a video of a modern version of this kind of automaton.)

For the most part, however, these things are 100% pure creepaliciousness, like this harpist...



(...and in all fairness, this is probably what the piano-playing lady looked like before her complete restoration from the damages done her by the French Revolution.)

The making of artistic automatons is apparently alive and well, although, so far, I've only ever seen examples of gothic horrors.

As mentioned above, here's a modern rendition of the "decapitation" automaton...



Okay, that's it, stick a fork in me, I'm done... Off to bed, bambinos. Ciao!