Shiny and Slanted

Been away

2007-04-26T13:11:25Z

But now I'm back. With a pretty meme. And that's about it. I'm about to go away in real-time for a roadtrip so maybe I'll update more genuinely when I come back.

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Cry, Cry, Cry

2007-03-13T17:37:45Z

Just because. A list of cinematic moments that made me cry like a little bitch, back when I actually was just a little bitch.

6. Pete’s Dragon: Candle on the Water song. This is a somebody-done-lost-somebody-song. Pete’s an orphan so his done-lost-somebody is his family. Nora (awesomely played by Helen Reddy) has lost her sailor fella Paul. See? Because our painfully denied affection for missing loved ones is like a big lighthouse. Shine on, everybody.

(Note that the “Somewhere Out There” scene from An American Tail totally begs, borrows, and steals from this scene).

5. The Chipmunk Adventure- My Mother song. This movie is a masterpiece of fun fluff. The Chipmunks and The Chipettes dance-off in Athens, The Chipettes seduce a bunch of snakes, etc. Good, good times. Except for this I want my mommy bit of heart-wrenching pain. Eleanor (in one of her endlessly amusing, wacky fat-girl quests for food, of course) takes a cooler from the Prince of Egypt’s palace as the chicks escape. Instead of food, a little anthropomorphic piece of sad-ass penguin is inside. The penguin has a locket of with a picture of his moms, and everybody looks at it while big ole tears role down his soft penguin cheeks. Cue song.

http://media.putfile.com/Song-My-Mother-The-Chipettes (No clip, but here’s the song)

(Bonus fast fact: in the Egypt bit of the movie, Prince Jamel is voiced by a young Nancy Cartwright of later Bart Simpson fame).

4. The Brave Little Toaster- The Worthless song. Hell, it’s called “Worthless.” Chipper it ain’t. In a movie about crass American materialism and the dangers of the disposable mindset of capitalism (shuddup… it is), a bunch of discarded household appliance journey to make it back to the owner who once loved them. With this song, the cars in a junkyard sing about their lives before they are crushed into tiny little cubes. All of this while our beloved heroes look on in horror and wait for their turn to be crushed because they’ve been deemed as “worthless.” Also, the “Climax” scene (yes, truly, it’s listed as the toaster’s “Climax” scene) has the toaster martyring itself by jamming the gears of the car compactor so that his totally oblivious all-grown-up former childhood friend isn’t hurt. Ouch.

3. Fox and the Hound- Best of Friends song. Oh, yeah. Now here’s why I’m constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop in relationships. We get to see Todd and Copper’s relationship through the knowing narrative force of the old (and cartoonily busty) owl. See, here’s the kicker. Even as the friends are just starting to be happy, we get the foreshadowing that there is absolutely no way they’ll work out. This is a complete hope for best, expect the worst moment where we do expect the worst. “And we’ll always be friends forever, won’t we.” No! No, you won’t, you be damned overly idealistic fox! Let the weeping begin.

2. The Neverending Story: Artax dies in the swamps of sadness. From “What’s the matter?” to the grinning “I understand” with the attempt to help to sheer panic and “I won’t give up! Don’t quit!” Atreyu offers up some valuable life lessons. Most notably: nope, kid, trying’s no good; your horse is going to drown right in front of your eyes while you plead anyway. It’s sort of like a primer for living with a depressive. Thanks, super demoralizing movie moment. Your sinking horse made me sad as hell but maybe also a little more prepared. And, for extra points, this scene is so damn sad it doesn’t even need an emotion-heightening song.

1. Dumbo- Baby Mine song. Dumbo’s mom cuddles him from jail. Christ almighty. I think this one is actually more upsetting with age. I mean, this was once just a good old I want my mommy joint like “My Mother” from The Chipmunk Adventure. But now I gotta deal with this psychologically from the potential mommy side. And God help us all if I ever do have kids. For ever so many reasons. Anyway, Dumbo’s wave as he walks away from his jailed mommy still feels like a punch to the gut. The scene where Dumbo screws up the circus and everyone makes fun of him/is angry at him makes me want to cry-vomit too. Thus, Dumbo takes it.

(Crappy quality but, for some reason, youtube only has this clip in Dutch and French. Of course, a foreign language might be just the thing to shield yourself from the sheer sorrow of this song).

End

2006-12-06T15:26:04Z

Last day of teaching!!! Last day of teaching!!

Orgasm! Head-explodey orgasm!!!

Absolutely Happy

2006-11-08T19:01:57Z

The Democrats take the House! Rumsfeld resigns! I buy a copy of Neil Gaiman's Absolute Sandman!

Today is the best day ever.

Dear God, how I love today.

[Oh, I got evaluated today in my classes. It was a'ight. I'll be curious to see what kind of feedback I get.]

Parthenogenesis!

2006-10-12T16:32:52Z

The "Ween Mix," as it has been dubbed:

Feed My Frankenstein- Alice Cooper/White Zombie

Everyday is Halloween- TRS-80 (Ministry cover)

Transylvanian Concubine- Rasputina

Graveyard Girlfriend- Groovie Ghoulies

Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)- Concrete Blonde

Nemesis- Shriekback

Rock the Dead- ICP and Twizted

She Said- Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Pussy Liquor- Rob Zombie

Hells Bells- AC/DC

Stagger Lee- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Pet Sematary- The Ramones

Zombie Dance- The Cramps

Boris the Spider- The Who

We're Coming to Kill You- Zach Selwyn via Dead & Breakfast S/T

American Witch- Rob Zombie

"Nemesis" for it's ability to rhyme "parthenogenesis." "American Witch" because it's all Salem-esque, and this is my year of the horror that is teaching Cotton Mather and Puritan company. "Boris the Spider" because I love The Who, and Chris is scared of spiders. "Stagger Lee" because I like to think of Nick Cave gyrating while spewing out all that glorious cursing. "We're Coming to Kill You" because I'm addicted to it at the moment. "Pussy Liquor" because B-A-B-Y. "Pet Sematary" because it's insanely awesome, and you should watch the Ramones' video for it on youtube. "Rock the Dead" because zombies. Zombies zombies zombies. Year of the zombie.

Don't sit down in the pasture

2006-10-11T14:21:17Z

My new pasture owners/neighbors are idiots. Sweet, well-meaning idiots. They're both older: late 60s at the earliest. About two weeks ago, my horse, Rickman, tried to jump the fence and hung his back leg on the wire. (He's fine. It didn't cut too deeply into the flesh; mainly, he just scratched himself and rubbed all the hair off). But Karen, the female half of the sweet-well-meaning-idiot duo, went outside and held Rickman's leg while he was hung on the fence. Then they called my Dad and told him that "the brown horse is caught in the fence." So we're thinking post-horse-panic fence tragedy. Dad shows up to find that Rickman's back flank is slightly caught on the fence. And she's holding his damn leg. Uh, yeah, when a 900 pound animal is hurt like that and you don't know the animal or anything about animals in general, don't touch the damn animal. We're lucky he didn't seriously hurt her. We're also of the opinion that Rickman was too surprised by how fucking crazy the little 100 pound old lady holding his leg was to hurt her. But, if she had scared him while he was already freaked out, he could have really hurt her and/or hurt himself trying to get away from her.

We got another Karen/Pete call yesterday, telling us that "something is wrong with the baby horse because she's just sprawled out on the ground and the other horses are all standing around her." When horses colic (i.e., have any number of gastrointestial problems), they tend to roll around on the ground in pain. Horses die from this a lot. So, of course, rush rush rush out to the pasture to make sure Kael isn't dying.

They called us because Kael was sitting down, dammit.

D & N Forevah

2006-09-20T02:39:02Z

This made me laugh for longer then anything I have seen in a while.

.

Via www.marriedtothesea.com

Costume Wave of the Future

2006-09-15T23:46:53Z

Is it wrong that this is what I really want to be for Halloween? Because now that I'm not gonna be a librarian for real, I can live vicariously through this slutty costume. Plus, I'd get to pick one special book as a Halloween accessory.

Oh, dear God, what if I could find tights with little books on them? Guys?!?!

I like Sue's suggestion too: a leprechaun. And I found little shamrock-covered tights and a kick ass hat for that. Of course, I'd be a slutty leprechaun. And, by the way, if you run an image search on "girl leprechaun" for costume ideas, what you will get is an Irish girl/red-headed girl porn site and you will go... whoa. Or, at least, I did... I went whoa...

Random

2006-08-28T00:13:06Z

Okay, maybe I can do this teacher thing. Additionally, I am a sap because I was actually moved by The Ron Clark Story today. What can I say. The Dead Poets Society genre/ inspirational teaching flick gets to me.

My waiter made me a rose out of a napkin.

I'm in love with the Sky Bar. Delicious.

Construction on the new deck (now with 100% more roof) begins this week.

Proper!?!

2006-08-03T19:35:39Z

I got my desk copies of the books for my classes today. Free books!! Free books!!

My mom's having some medical concerns, but we're hoping it's just pre-menopausal hormone stuff. It might require a surgery though. The universe should have to permanently lay off my parents. They should be terminally healthy. Vampirically, immortally healthy.

I'm hoping to have my internet set up at the house this afternoon. I'm also currently avoiding going home because of all of the work I need to do there.

I still can't believe you people said I'm "proper" and "dignified." Say what now?

Bitchery

2006-07-31T21:26:36Z

My house is in shambles. I am now in the fuck-it-let's-get-rid-of-it-instead-of-packing-it phase. When I woke up this morning, the water had been cut off a day early. My internet will probably go down tonight. Also, my cat knocked one of my contact lenses out of my hand this morning so I have to manage to schedule in/ scrape up money for an eye appointment.

I do think it's funny, however, that Bill Gates and Oprah are on TV grousing about how bad the public school system is. Oprah keeps saying how "insane" it is that in America, "the richest nation on the planet," this is a problem. How, she asks, can it be true that *Poland* ranks higher in academics than the US? Poland!? The horror, the surprise. Pfft. Well, see, that's happening because of the "richness" of this nice little capitalistic nation and the massive ghetto-ization of the lower classes by suburbia and, uh, folks like your lovely selves [granted, among other issues, like the inability of many parents to spend time with kids because of financial demands, etc]. Also, big spenders, tossing money at a problem might not make it go away, but it would be a damn good start.

Bad, bad case of the Mondays.

Rockage

2006-07-14T01:18:55Z

This day rocks so hardcore.

We've always boarded our horses at a family friend's pasture. This is because it costs about $500 dollars a month to feed and board a horse. With four horses, that's way, way, way more than my family can afford.

The problem was that the family friend has decided to sell his house and land. Because of this, we've been afraid we'd have to sell two - or even all - of the horses. This was, actually, no small factor in my rabid depression for the first part of this week. My dad loves these horses; he slept in the stable the night the colt was born to watch her and probably loves spending time with them more than anything else (save spending time with me and my sis). He deserves them, and I was really upset that he/we might have to lose them.

But, !excitement!, because the 60-year-old man who lives on a property adjoining our friend's property has decided to buy the land and the stable, and he asked Johnny if we would *mind* keeping the horses there. He offered to pay us. We said we figured we could swing it for free. Heh.

Hells yeah! Not only do we get to keep the horses for free, the new owner is opening up the whole pasture (which gives us about five more acres) for the horses to graze in all day. Plus, we get to keep using the barn we're used too, watering the horses with the irrigation system, and fishing out of the pond.

I say this calls for a big party (when the closing goes through), and all of you should come out and ride the horses and eat and fish and whatnot.

Jinx

2006-07-11T03:49:10Z

While painting, I backed up under the ladder, and my sister's black cat crossed my path while it was scrambling to get out from under my feet.

Yeah, that's how this month has been going.

Anya-esque

2006-06-30T21:41:57Z

I can't believe Netflix doesn't have a copy of Dr. Giggles. I mean, come on! My plans for the perfect doctor-cliche horror movie with my pre-med fella are ruined.

I am extremely tired of cleaning things and painting things at the house on the lake. The term "insurmountable task" comes to mind. I need to think positive thoughts; it has to be done within the month.

I was trying to explain my "dry" sense of humor to Mike today, and I resorted to my old practice of explanation through Buffy episodes. There's a scene in "Restless" where Anya is telling a joke onstage at The Bronze and it goes like this:

Anya: OK. A man walks in to the office of a doctor. He's wearing on his head, um, oh wait, there's a duck, is that right?
Audience Member: You suck!
Anya: Quiet, you'll miss the humorous conclusion.

I was actually watching that with friends a year or so ago, and they all turned and looked at me and cracked up.

Gonna get up off my butt...

2006-06-07T23:06:09Z

Undoubtedly, I haven't been very much fun to be around in the last unemployed month or so.

But, now, I have a job interview Monday for an editing/proofreading position. Dear [insert any and all deities here], please let this work out.

I think that, if I get and like this gig, I might discard the library science and the fourth, and possibly useless, degree altogether. I still think I'd love being a librarian, but my perfectionist urge to organize and correct while actually producing a physical product would also be met by being an editor. Mainly, though, I HATE Tuscaloosa, and I don't relish the idea of being at the University of Alabama. Also, the Hoover Library contacted me to let me know that I was a very "attractive candidate," but that, unfortunately, "the position was closing without being filled." Understand that as: library jobs, like academic jobs, are forced to transform a decent full-time job (without, I should note, even clearing the $30,000 a year mark) into one or two pitiful, useless part-time jobs. And I'm not interested in going back to school again to work my ass off and move my level of dept up if I won't even have a shot at an apparently all-too-lucrative "$28,000 a year with health insurance" position.

Wise words concerning my upcoming interview and/or the thought of moving my career path to the copy editing/proofreading/editing arena are welcome. You guys know anyone who works as an entry-level editor or proofreader?

In other news, the third, and possibly useless, degree arrived in the mail yesterday. 666, indeed.

Bleech

2006-05-17T08:06:09Z

Can't sleep. Too stressed.

Youtube has one of the Beat the Geeks episodes. God, I miss Beat the Geeks. The Movie Geek in particular.

I think I'm going to forget the idea of going to sleep tonight and just go read and drink coffee on the patio and watch the sun come up.

Guess I won't friends-lock this since it's entirely inconsequential.

Cap/Gown/Intestines

2006-05-04T04:33:24Z

My first favorite thing about today is that I am reading King Dork by Frank Portman. It. Is. Awesome.

My second favorite thing about today is that I (with no small amount of hassle) picked up my cap and gown. This means that I am required to go to UAB exactly one more time.

Making bids for third and fourth would be, respectively, the new campus sculpture of a human body clawing its way out of the Humanities Building in order to puke up its intestines in a large bloody pile [yes, really... in vivid color... how I wished for my camera] and the fact that I have tonight determined that I did NOT make out with one of my youngish, high school pack-mates. I have confirmed this thanks to his blog post that his first kiss happened in college. Maybe that should be the saddest thing about today. For both of us.

Who knew Colbert could become sexier than Stewart?

2006-05-02T05:10:54Z

Oh, yes. Stephen Colbert's line at the White House Correspondent's Dinner: "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq." Future classic.

My personal favorite: "But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

The videos are all over the given sites: mytube, dailykos, etc. Here's a transcript if you don't want to watch it: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811.

But watching the clips is worth it just for the chance to see the reporters' and politicians' little baffled, church-mouse reactions.

I Need a Job, Job, Job

2006-03-20T03:56:02Z

The palomino should be coming to town just in time for Spring Break. Perfect timing, for once, since I'll be able to spend the week messing around with him and another potential horse (a dun). Well, spend the week doing that and frantically searching for gainful employment.

Actually, I'm a lot less panicked about my peasant's quest for a job. While I was doing what turned out to be the surprisingly soothing process of writing my resume, I sort of saw the hard copy of how many varied, awesome, and/or educational opportunities I've had in the last six years or so. So I guess it's not so bad not to be committed a single, set career path. Destinations be damned anyway.

But second that emotion when my student loan payments for my third and useless degree come due. Then remind me of my pending plans for my fourth, Four-better-damn-well-be-a-charm M.S. degree.

My mom had a good date last weekend. His name is Roger. He seems nice; plus, as Mom told me, fully aware of what my response would be, he can play the liberal to my mom's increasingly bizarre conservative. Smiles all around.

Uneasy

2006-03-03T23:09:32Z

I have to finish Bleak House so I can read about 200 pages of literary theory (which I was supposed to be done with today). But, briefly, what the fuck is wrong with this country? Seriously. Did everyone just stop paying attention or something? The Roe v. Wade stuff, Bush's Katrina comments, etc. What is it damn well going to take to get some much deserved public outrage? Link: State bill proposes Christianity be Missouri’s official religion.

Less importantly, I got my hair cut today. I like it.

Dirty Joyce

2006-02-19T21:27:04Z

For my Sunday pleasure, I'm (re)reading Ulysses. So here's a lewd bit of Molly Bloom. I exist solely to slug through the whole thing in order to bring you one of the penis-y bits.

Talk of moments of posstructuralist aporia in a text. Joyce's whole thing about the female as infinity, as the four points of breasts, womb, ass, and vagina is just, well, whoa. It's just whoa that he can create someone so double-speaking as Molly Bloom in the first place.

"when I lit the lamp
because he must have come 3 or 4 times
with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has
I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst
though his nose is not so big
after I took off all my things with the blinds down
after my hours dressing and perfuming and combing it
like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar standing all the time
he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen
he was in great singing voice
no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that
to make you feel full up
he must have eaten a whole sheep after
whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us
or like a Stallion driving it up into you
because thats all they want out of you
with that determined vicious look in his eye
I had to halfshut my eyes
still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him
when I made him pull out and do it on me
considering how big it is
so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly
the last time I let him finish it in me
nice invention they made for women
for him to get all the pleasure"

Bookninjas!

2006-02-19T17:47:08Z

"Two Homeland Security cops get stonewalled by a librarian with big cojones and then escorted out of a library by small town cops. Niiiiiiice. I didn’t realize the HS were in every small town down there. Things are worse than I thought. And me thinkest pretty worser than mosts.

'Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words “Homeland Security.” The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

After the two men made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user’s choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library’s work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men.'"

[Via Bookninja via the Washington Post]

Man, how kick-ass are librarians!? I suddenly feel the need to go back to graduate school (you know, once I'm actually finished with the first Herculean ordeal in May) and take a Masters in Library Science. Must... resist...

I'm about to go consume massive amounts of hot and sour soup and sushi, church-crowd be damned. The sad news is that I couldn't go skiing Friday because it got too warm; the doubly sad news is that now it's cold as hell.

Winter Wear

2006-02-07T03:39:51Z

Even though I officially (and loudly) declared my newly formed hatred of all boys geeky and passive aggressive at work today, I hereby recant. Because this guy? The one with the Frodo-hair and the wire frames using Lego-weaponry in order to mock several forms of death? He's dreamy.

Today was rainy and dreary and full of irritating contact with a co-worker who is just plain socially awkward. Still, I got to wear my super-warm and massively huge L.L. Bean coat because it was about as cold as cold gets here today. Nobody's mocking my winter wear now, are you my bitches?

I, by the way, appear to be the only person besides Danny who likes Anthony Trollope. Even better: I was sick all Saturday and spent the day catching up on some real-time friends' and some virtual-time friends' zines. Much love for their zines.

This weekend was snazzy because I formed a new fascination with the documentary Grizzly Man about Timothy Treadwell after having a MST3K-like initial response to it and because all my quality time with my significant others went well. Still, I was a little stressed with the sick and with paper writing. I'm headed down to Mardi Gras on Thursday, and, man, I'm looking forward to it even though I'm dreading the things I'm going to have to do in order to pull the trip off.

"I just exploded into a cockroach"

2006-01-22T06:07:16Z

Sex toys dressed up and ready to go.

Gaines, I'm looking your way. It's like they MADE the ballerina pic just for you.

In other news, I didn't go see Mo Rocca because that would have required me to go to UAB on my own time. And who wants that?

I'm tired and hungry and just back from my friend's "partay"... but Kafkamesto, a Kafkaesque point-and-click Flash game of the very best variety (yeah, my losery fandom goes further than this since it even extends to room-escapes), has me in its thrall. Thrall. Thrall. Thrall. I'm aware that the overlap for people who like point-and-click Flash and Kafka is probably, well, me. But me is happy.

Blah

2006-01-16T04:34:26Z

I'm really excited about the upcoming Tristram Shandy movie: http://www.tristramshandymovie.com/. The website alone is enough to send me into a tizzy.

This has been the most unsuccessful and, yet, still un-restful weekend ever. All my nerves are completely taut, and I can't seem to get anything done. Sometimes, guys, I wish all of you had seen me two years ago when I hardcorely breathed school. You know, back before it made me feel like I was suffocating.

I wish it didn't bother me so much that my old relation/friendships have fallen apart. Damn it all. I'm pulling for it to be sunny tomorrow so I can go outside and read all day and try not to feel so blah.