Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
Another year, another wedding anniversary for me and Don. Seven years its been, already. No real crisis during that whole time though one was narrowly averted today when Don decided to cancel a music rehearsal that he had scheuduled for the same night and time as “Deadliest Warrior”. That was a good decision. Not that I was super ticked off that he scheduled music practice on “Deadliest Warrior” night, and also our anniversary, for the show can be taped and we’re not real hung up on the anniversary thing. Had the practice gone on, though, I would have blogged about it leaving judgement of Don’s actions up to my heard of 18 loyal readers. But now the point is as moot as it is all good. Together on our anniversary we are going to watch the Samurai kick the Viking’s ass just like any other well-adjusted couple.
(I don’t know if you ever click on related blog articles but, in case you haven’t read it already, I’d like to direct your attention to an hilarious review of DW on Brokey Mc Poverty’s blog. We both have unbridled enthusiasm for the show but she swears WAY more than I do.)
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
Hey! Did you see that Lori Greenberg is having a drawing for my fish and cactus tutorials? All you have to do to get into the mix is leave a comment after this post. Why not do that? If you have the tutorial already you can have me send it to a friend. Someone with no fish in their life might like it a lot. Then you would be the hero!
I’ve been doing more things than usual lately. Mostly I’m trying to get my Bead and Button inventory finished up so I can work on a stained glass window for the house. What kind of window? One with fish, of course. And 3-D boro anemones. Anyway, in order to make a window making station in the store I had to clean, which is and continues to be, kind of a horrible experience. I don’t think the whole store has been cleaned since it closed in ‘06. It’s nuts and it’s making me nuts. Do you know how many bottles and cans in varying stages of emptiness were sitting on my computer desk at once? Nine. I took a picture of them. On the bright side, I gained a large, new work area and I’ve found a bunch of stuff I didn’t know I had including bulbs for my fire exit signs and a pound of clear Lauscha rod. Woot! So it’s positive, overall, just not very fun.
Yesterday we had this freaky nice day in the 80’s. One day. Cold weather preceeding and crappy weather following. Anyway, since it was nice on that one day, Don brought home a pick-up load of dirt which we added to the dirt veneer (over cement) which is our backyard. Now our yard is level and much, much muddier than it was before. We are at least planting grass and food-bearing plants of some kind. We’re in negotiations over which ones. Don is all over this four crop rotation plan. Cathy thinks the plan is a good idea except for the part about taking care of four beds of dirt that do not contain strawberries. You’ll hear more about that later. Right now I have to get back to cleaning.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog | Tags: artists, deadliest warrior, frank lloyd wright, jackson pollack, jeff koons, picasso
I don’t know if this ever happens to you but, do you ever half-watch a show and judge it as being too violent or stupid or just not your thing? Then you watch it again with someone who’s kind of into it or at least has an opinion about it and then suddenly you think the show might be worth watching, or even pretty great? That’s where I’m at now with “The Deadliest Warrior”. It’s on SPIKE, the man channel, of course.
If you haven’t seen this show, here’s what it’s about: Each week a crack team of manly men pit one theoretical warrior against another–eg. Ninja vs. Viking, or Gladiator vs. Apache and so on. Other manly, though suspiciously well-groomed men with extremely improbable sounding jobs (eg. Hollywood Gladiator Fighting Consultant or Guy Who Trains Marines To Knife Fight Like Apaches) run through tests of all the weapons that this week’s fighters would likely use (eg: net and trident vs. bow and arrow). All the info about each weapon’s, speed, accuracy, likelihood of fatality from a blow etc., is fed into a computer. Then at the end, the computer runs 1000 fighting simulations between the two competitors and whomever’s warrior wins the most rounds gets the Deadliest Warrior crown.
Side note: The show also stars a “doctor” who wears a real lab coat–his job is to ascertain the deadly force of each weapon (eg. A trident stabs all the way through a red fluid filled gelatin body. “That would kill you”, he would say. He would be right!) And also, each expert weapon tester believes that the other guy’s warrior is, for wont of a better word, a pussy, and that their warrior is going to kick the other one’s ass. And they voice that taunting opinion frequently. That might be the best part of the whole thing on account of there isn’t actually a Gladiator or an Apache in the room–it’s just guys taunting eachother who really dig one or the other warrior type. Explain to me how that is not entertainment.
So, what’s not to like? I know! I’m not sure why I didn’t think much of this show the first time around. Probably because I wasn’t invested in it. But if I watch the show with someone who feels strongly that one or the other warrior then I do kind of care. Deadliest Warrior is a fun show when you pick a side. You have to pick a side. I hear sports are like that, too, though I’ve never bothered to learn enough about either side to care. It is actually easier for me to understand pitting various and sundry warrior types against each other than it is for me to understand pitting teams from different cities against each other.
LENGHTY SIDE NOTE:.Easier yet for me to understand, within the same context, is the pitting against each other of non-warrior types. Like artists, for instance. Who would win a drinking contest between Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Waits and Jackson Pollock? Tough call, but probably Hunter S. Thompson. A computer simulation would be helpful and entertaining for that one. How about, who would win a fight, bare knuckles and maybe a knife in one hand– Jackson Pollock or Jeff Koons? I think Koons would have an edge health wise so let’s say they’re both drunk. Koons would fight dirty either way. You know, I’m not sure how that would end up. How about Koons vs. Frank Lloyd Wright? Frank was a tough bastard and he carried a cane….nah. How about Picasso vs. Koons? Koons would have the reach but, since he never does any of his own work I bet he’s not very physically strong. Picasso is shorter, but barrel-chested and sturdy. I bet he can wrestle. He might fight dirty too… and in Spanish. Man, I think that would be a good match. Picasso would wipe the floor with him. I would pay to see that. SIDE SIDE NOTE: Sometimes unconscious things work their way forward as write this blog. Out of no where, today I learned that I really want to see Jeff Koons to get his ass kicked…by anyone. Anyone at all. He hasn’t even done anything that’s angered me lately. What’s happening to me?
BUT, ANYWAY, back in the TV show world…At the end of the Gladiator vs. Apache fight, the computer and the manly men all named the Apache the Deadliest Warrior. It wasn’t even close. We’re not 100% focused on next week’s episode, Pirate vs. Knight, though I do want to find out if, in that fight, parrots play a hand in anything. I also want to see if there are Pirate Fighting Consultants working in our military in any capacity and what they look like. Mostly we are concentrating on a show we missed–Ninja vs. Viking. Because, we all know the Ninja is so going to kick the Viking’s ass. I’m not invoking the “P” word or anything but, come on, throwing stars against a big, slow dude with…what? A club? Of course the Ninja is going to win.
That’s what you do on Facebook–talk about yourself in the third person. Cathy is tired. Cathy is bored. Cathy is lucky to be alive. We had a lot of people over at the house this weekend. Still questioning the wisdom of that. Anyway, here’s a picture of Erika’s dog, Roscoe:
Roscoe is taking a nap on the floor of Erika and Aaron’s new welding garage. It’s huge. Right now there’s only a dog in it but by next weekend there will be a forge and all kinds of other metal working stuff in it. This is their forever home, too, so no more moving and re-moving materials after this time. It’s exciting. I bring it up because I’ll probably hang out here from time to time when I get bored of looking at my own junk. A cursory walk around the place revealed many cool picture opportunities. It’s right in a scrapyard. Yup, something to do this summer.
In other news…I made some more pills:
Aren’t they cute? The lettering on the bead part is getting better, which is encouraging. I’ll have these with me at Bead and Button, if you want any. Right now I have to go home and clean the kitchen.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
My assignment today was to go back to the thrift store we visited yesterday and purchase this glass. Don was going to buy it yesterday but he got distracted by pants. Thank goodness it was still there. And it was only 25 cent! Our pal Sean has a condition called Beverage Amnesia. Maybe it’s more like Glass Amnesia–he can never remember which glass is his. We all have it from time to time but with him it’s pretty chronic. We want to help him. So this glass is perfect–it’s the only glass we have with a bright green Plymouth and the name “SEAN” emblazoned on it. SEAN!
I’ll wager that Sean the former owner was right handed and that the person who bought Sean this glass had the image screened on this side so that Sean could admire the green car while pounding back a few. Sean was probably an Irishman. Was that particular model of Plymouth Sean’s favorite vehicle? I bet it was. Maybe Sean the Irishman wasn’t doing too much driving anymore after, I don’t know…an OWI or something…so some wise acre in his family bought him a beer glass with a picture of his beloved Plymouth on it. That probably didn’t happen. If it had, knowing Sean the Irishman, this glass would have ended up getting smashed against the wall. But it did end up in a thrift store so Sean the Irishman must have grown weary of it at some point…or maybe he quit drinking so he could devote more time to his collectible car collection. Or maybe he passed away trying to save someone in a fire. The number of possible scenarios is limitless!
I don’t know…this is a pretty great glass. I’d drink out of it in a second and my name isn’t even Sean. I hope new owner Sean likes it. Sure was priced right for surprise gift-giving.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
Here is the only picture of the show last night that turned out. Memento-wise I have this and a short video of Erika (aka Iron Ass Woman) wrestling with the jet engine powered hand dryer in the ladies room. She has really long hair so it’s kinda funny. That gal is a You Tube factory. Anyway, in the above pic Don’s the one on the left with the white arrow over his head. The drummer is invisible. Doubtless they are all enjoying the sweet freedom of not being cooped up in the living room.
So Lost School was the first band to play at Great Dane 3. Nice venue, that. A lot of folks showed up and the band did an excellent job. I’m not just saying that because they are all my best friends–they were really entertaining. Don figured out a complicated set list that brought in an extra drummer/guitar player (Riccardo) and singer (Erika) so they would be able to play for three hours straight and still get breaks in. That was so much work–especially the last week or so. Damn. Anyway, yay! The show is over. They’re doing it all over again in about a month, I think. Most of the show was videoed so it too will be up on You Tube shortly, in case anyone is interested.
This is kind of funny. The other day on WPR there was a reporter-gal talking about Facebook. She’d been on it for a year or so. One of the things she said that was interesting to me was that Facebook’s format was such that there was “no room” for sarcasm on it. I kind of believe that and I kind of don’t. Here’s my take on it: The more personal information you share, the more friends are recommended to you. The more friends you have the less likely it is that you know them. The less well you know your friends, the less likely it is that you will engage in sarcasm. Because you really need to know people and they really need to know you for sarcasm to work.
So I’m talking to Don about this and he made the trillion dollar point that sarcasm does not further Facebook’s goal of knowing as much about you as they possibly can, no matter how banal that information is, so they can target you with ads. Indeed, any information you type in that isn’t personal is just stuff they have to sift through. And isn’t that interesting? I never thought about it like that.
Ever since I had that conversation with Don I’ve taken this perverse delight every time I post something sarcastic on Facebook. I was taking delight in it before but now there’s an extra layer of enjoyment because I’m consciously trying to ruin something. Case in point: the other day I was having a conversation with Deanne Chase about making “Pie Day” an actual holiday. At one point the subject shifted to vacuuming and I mentioned that I never vacuum my floors because I’m afraid of the sound the vacuum makes. That wasn’t sarcasm, really, that was just a lie. But as I typed it I laughed and laughed wondering if there wasn’t a demographic for 41 year old white ladies who were afraid of the vacuum. Do you see how much fun this is for me now? I think what we say on there matters to someone. I want to mislead them and waste their time.
(The truth about the vacuum, by the way, is that I vacuum the floor at the studio extremely infrequently because I imagine that the sound of the vacuum bothers my hedgehog and my iguana. Since I’m not psychic I don’t really know if it bothers them or not. Also, I’m lazy. See? I reward you with the personal info when you bother to read the blog. )
I do love Facebook though. I’m in contact with two people I haven’t seen in years, I can message locals about Bob Foster weekends and I can contact almost any lampworker and get a reply within hours. Also, Today’s Fortune finally has a home where people see it and like it, or not. So Facebook is a good tool for that. It’s also kind of a game.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
I’m producing things. And it’s getting a little monotonous in here. But I have a growing bead pile to look at, which is nice. Yep. Bead pile. 53 days ’til Bead and Button. God, that’s a long time.
Meanwhile, in other news, people have been over playing music almost non stop this week. Before I forget to mention it, the boys have a show on Monday night 7-10pm at The Great Dane , 357 Price Place (Hilldale Mall) in Madison. That’s hows come all the practicing. Anyways, sometimes when I’m sitting around during practice I’ll make little movies with my little camera. Side note: Video making is a recent discovery for me. I knew my camera had the capability all along but what I did not know is how much information you can cram onto a 1 gig chip. (It’s 30 minutes, in case you weren’t aware.) I think that’s pretty damn amazing. Without a tripod it’s pretty shaky and if you want to zoom in and out you actually have to move the camera and unless you shoot in bright light the quality is pretty poor but really, how much do you expect from a $94 camera? It does film stuff.
So, after many, many minutes of video over the past month or so, last night I finally got a clip that was short and interesting enough to put on You Tube. Of course “interesting” is a matter of opinion. I remember from my experience with painted beads and Today’s Fortune that stuff I create with my pals in The Lost School of Madison is interesting only to us, which is fine, though, I think you people are missing out on something. This sort of thing is funnier when you’re drunk, but it is still funny. It is. And it’s only 37 seconds long. Here’s the clip.
Filed under: Bloggidy Blog
In an effort to change my sleeping cycle in to one befitting a human (as opposed to a bat or an owl or whatever) I stayed awake for 36 hours on Monday and Tuesday. I didn’t plan it or anything, I just happened to still be awake at 5:30 am on Tuesday and then the Bob Dylan movie came on TV and I wanted to watch it. Don was getting up soon so I made some coffee. Thus began my really long day.
I don’t care for being that sleep deprived. It made me really goofy and non-productive. And I didn’t get to bed all that early so I still slept in until 10:30. So, experiment failed. But I do feel great today. No dreams last night though last week I had a dream that I was shopping for clothes at some outdoor venue when I was attacked by a giant mallard duck. Maybe not “attacked” but the bird was pecking my back vigorously and I wanted someone with a phone to take a picture of the scene so I could put it up on Facebook. In the dream, the next day I realized that the duck had broken my jaw and I ended up spending the rest of the dream in the waiting room at Urgent Care. I think the dream might have been warning me against shopping for clothes. I warn myself about that all the time. So much so that it may not be possible to heed the prophetic dream much longer. Maybe I’ll just shop inside from now on.
