Singing
with you, head thrown back, in an asian city, all ye abandon hope who enter here, the princess lounge of kareoke; all of us brought down low by the easy major chord followed by the sleazy fifth (we'd abdjure it by day, but at the Princess with Preetha, well.. )and so, but if we'd slowly shared this instead. Thanks be to my most enthralling, himself himself, my be-fuzzled and wondermanishly Spakledewackedy, oh embarrased object de cool; and to the karma chorus of cheesy redemptivev 70's lushpop. And thanks to Jack esp. for the racecar VCR rewinder.
posted by LauraB 2:10 AM
or, petards, hoisted upon one's own
Two travelers regard a nymphetic model-type waif, tottering about in Manolo Blahniks.
— Now, she says, (the first traveler, not the waif) vaguely gesturing, you see that poor wobbly girl, says the one, what kind of society do we live in where people still have to ruin their feet and ankles for the sake of beauty or fashion. We've put several people into outer space, but we can't invent a functional shoe that looks funky? I mean, this is the USA, not France, there should be no pressure to wear five inch high stilettos in an airport whatsoever (and etc.)
— So when was the last time you wore high heels? the second traveler asks.
— Really high or just a little high?
— Either.
The first traveler ponders this for a good long bit.
— I have never worn high heels.
— Ever?
— No; that is why my feet are so strong and my legs are so shapely. I do not force them to go against nature.
— Well, good on you. Shall we catch our plane now?
— Absolutely.
At this point, the first traveller twists her ankle, ruptures an Achelles tendon, flails about, curses, crumples in pain, yelps miserably, and etc.
The secondly traveler (who is, by the way, a toothsome samaratian) fetches a wheelchair and mercifully, withholds a forgivable chuckle of shadenfruede.
posted by LauraB 5:10 PM
Art club with a pickle
"A toast!" she said wryly to the artists.
posted by LauraB 3:17 PM
Don't blame me
I voted for the union. There, I've said it, I'm out.
posted by LauraB 12:09 PM
Best graffit, ever!
Smell ya later, britbot.
posted by LauraB 7:48 PM
To all a y'all out there who dig
Cheese and cigarettes (no, it's not some silly old Squeeze song - just two simple nouns), and who are trying to kick the habit/s, perhaps this is your answer. And with all that extra time on your, uh, mouth, you could take up a new instrument.
posted by LauraB 10:59 PM
At the juncture of terrorism and oil.
A group of tribes in Yemen have warned the United States not to target their strongholds as part of the war on terrorism. The tribes, which are based mainly in the central Marib province and the northeast al-Juf province, live largely beyond the control of the government in Sanaa. The United States recently has stepped up military cooperation with Yemen in its war against al Qaeda, focusing particularly on the tribal strongholds in these provinces. So far, retaliatory strikes have targeted only U.S. assets in Sanaa and Aden, but other entities such as U.S.-based Hunt Oil Co. -- which has assets in Marib - also could be targeted in the future. (from Stratfor)
So let's posit: Sanna is to Yemen as Pashtun is to Pakistan, with the caveats that 1. Basically, we're talking about OBL's stomping grounds and 2. Yemen's got way more actual oil than Afgahnistan, which is richer in natural gas and strategic positioning in an oil pipeline. And it's all cloaked under cover of honey.
Terrorism sucks, dude. Printer, print it again and again again.
posted by LauraB 12:03 PM
Ah, fate
It figures we'd turn out to be fractal. If you think of the neural network like the leaves of a tree, and then acknowledge that leaves scatter in the wind, you pretty much figured out the way encultureation works, don't you? Neat!
...and in a completely unrelated event, the National Center for Policy Analysis said yesterday that the federal ad campaign against drugs may have actually encouraged teenage females' curiosity and experimentation with drugs. Oops. Hmm, can I maybe have my tax money back for that one?
posted by LauraB 4:04 PM
One Word
Broadband! It's better than being inducted into the Royal Historical Society, although I believe we are involved in several class action suits for failed BB-ISP's. How dull for you connected folk.
I needed some pictures of trucks today, so I rifled through the old folders while the cable guys did their things, and then slapped up them up here simply because I could.
posted by LauraB 4:21 PM
I do thank my lucky stars
Mi Campenerño-in-life and I have had exactly one fight: we got married, got ejected from the kareoke bar where the after the wedding party was, had a tipple or two, slept briefly, brunched with the new in-laws, hopped onto a plane to Peru, scooted off to and walked to the peak of Macchu Picchu, roasted our white flesh to an exceptional sunburn, took a high-altitude 7 hour train ride through the Altiplano, during which time said train may or may not have been trainjacked by bandits (much was unclear), alighted upon dusty Cuszo, the Kathmandu of South America, in a deep mood to sleep profoundly in each others' newly-wedded and -redded arms, when we had a fight which went something like this:
Me: Okay, so let's just get the first room we see that's under $20.
Him: Agreed.
Three hotels later and still we're schelpping backpacks around
the plaza. (And yes, this was absolutely my fault. It's just that, well, we could've
done better. I was looking for something with, oh, I don't know, a window. Mea
culpa.) But I digress.
Him: It's like, our principle, right, that we shall still get the first room we see.
Me: Oh yes, absolutely.
Us, now sitting on a park bench in unison: { sigh }
One hotel later, in a dark room with three king-sized beds.
Us: Was that a fight?
Us: Possibly!
And that's it, end of story, never so much as a quibble before or since, knock wood. So what can you say about a couple like this?
posted by LauraB 5:13 PM
On Sport:
Thank you, Felix, for the helpful and interesting article about the underlying politics of my mysterious bicycle arrest last week. Ah, the perils of the pedals.
And I'm not one for sports scandals - nothing seems more scandalous to me than people getting paid exoribtant amounts of money to sweat, but damn, this one is fascinating! Basically, Katarina Witt and the Staasi were palsy-walsy.
posted by LauraB 4:53 PM
NYC Fixer Upper - Bootsyfile 1
This is how i spent my morning. Puttering about the city.
posted by LauraB 2:48 PM
Memories of Pakistan
So having just returned from a brief walk and stretch at the East River, between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, I can report to you that according to the street, your resident equatorialist:
1. Possesses magnificent breasts.
2. Is a sweetie.
3. Is a bitch.
4. Is a nice girl.
5. As many as 4 paunchy men would like to get to know said equatorialist better.
6. Has an outstanding invitation to share a donut with a resident of the FDR underpass.
The donut was tempting, more for its non-sequatorial value than its flavor appeal, but all in all, one wonders how the really extremely sexy ladies (as opposed to averagely sexy ladies such as myself) cope with actual things by actual people.
Ah, feminism, we hardly knew ye.
posted by LauraB 11:49 AM
Bobby: "Stop! Or I'll say stop again!"
The queen: "oh, don't stop!"
posted by LauraB 1:52 PM
On Teaching Today:
I believe I have said this oh, fifty or sixty times in the last two hours, but you really can't say it enough: remember to define your site in Dreamweaver.
& Yo students? Try to lay off the claritin right before class - it makes you groggy!
posted by LauraB 1:44 PM
Icky!
Spiders = yuck. Spider plants = super yuck. But you haven't been creeped out til you've seen a spider plant root. Lucky for us they're inside the pot. And their thickly wormishness that makes the spider plant nature's best air purifier.
posted by LauraB 1:26 PM
Speaking of midtown
Please be alerted that there is a person who has been trying to sell some suits at the corner of 40th and 6th for the last month, and every day for the last 20 days he has been standing at the corner chanting "George Armani, George Armani, George Armani, George Armani." It's musical as heck the way he does it, but you've got to admit, he might could come with with a bit of a more fleshed-out pitch.
Perhaps the problem is that Mr. Armani is losing his appeal, as he doesn't make suits quite as expensive or practical as these.
posted by LauraB 5:22 PM
Martial Law, redux
If you've ever ridden up midtown Manhattan's 6th Avenue on a bike, then you know that they put the bike lane on the wrong side of the road - it's the eddy in the flow of NYC with the highest possibility of 1. getting knocked in the knees by an alighting-taxi passenger 2. getting smushed between competing trucks as they jockey for position on Broadway and 3. having a branch or a bouquet hit you in the face as you travel through the garden district. Not to mention the fact the Garmet District boys use the bike lane for transporting their hangers full of clothes direct from sweatshop to department store, and various protesting unions generally inflate their giant rats in the bike lane. In short: it's just generally safer, quicker, and pleasanter to ride up with the traffic.
Which is what I am doing this morning when a cute little boy-bike cop blocks my path, forces me to dismount from my bike, hand over my driving liscence (like, for cars!) and threatens to ticket my ass for NOT riding in the bike lane. It's the rule, he says: if it's there, you must use it. He made me laugh, he did, i almost touseled his hair. But he said he was serious, and got out his little ticket writing book.
Beg pardon? Is this constitutional? I wonder, i really do. Thing is, according to the DOT website, he's wrong. Ain't no such thing.
In this case, it's easy to refrain from the usual outraged what's-happening-to-my-democracy-rant, because the cops buns were just soooo cute, and also because the whole research on the law topic also turned up this fun event, which is tomorrow.
posted by LauraB 3:00 PM
Seven Observation on a Weekend in New England, land of my people.
- The Vermont maple syrup industry is a scam - $25.00 a gallon? Puh-lease. Maine's is just as tasty at two-thirds the price.
- Bernie Sanders, Socialist Vermont Congressman, is hot, hot, hot.
- Both eagles and eagle scouts abound.
- If you travel there without taking at least one of your two cameras or a pocket sketchbook you will most likely lose an excellent opportunity to capture a freakish spring blizzard or two.
- Skiing is not an environmentally-friendly industry. Speaking of which, the eagle scouts could do a better job of not ripping up living trees to make schmores-y campfires.
- Life without strip malls is just better.
- Simple volumetric farms don't look nearly so ridiculously quaint in real life.
posted by LauraB 11:48 AM