Okay, so I got Felix all set up, except they gave me the wrong kind of printer so I had to go get that taken care of but everything is okay.

I did have quite a time putting my table together. Each leg had 5 phillips-head screws and the principle was very simple - screw the metal leg holders to the tabletop, then screw in the legs. What they fail to mention is that the screws are so freakin' cheap that each turn of the driver actually routs out the screw head until you can no longer turn the screws. I was leaning in with all my might, sweat popping from my brow, to make a quarter turn.

Now, I had borrowed the screwdriver from my housemates to begin with. They had been hanging curtain rods all morning so had the tools out. I staggered upstairs to complain about the screws and moan that what I needed was a drill with driver bits. Not only did they have the bits, they had been using MY DRILL! I went back down and zzzttt zzzttt zzztt all done. God Almighty. My palms are still bruised.

SCREWED TIGHT

Well, the decision has been made. Buddy is having his final days as my computer and Felix will be taking over soon. I am naming him after Felix the Cat, who had that nice bag of magic and friends named Poindexter and Vavoom. Am I the only person who remembers Vavoom? He had such a loud vavoom holler he could fell trees. I had to become an adult before knowing that Master Cylinder was a car part and not just a Felix villain. I used to watch Felix in Ohio on a show hosted by Chuck Jones the Magic Man. Not to be confused with Chuck Jones the animator.

(I haven't seen a pic of him till just now. Looks just the same.)
Anyway I am naming my new computer Felix because Felix is cool and magical and has smart, efficient sidekicks. And hopefully won't decide to be more like this girl...
FELIX VICIOUS


This chick reminds me way too much of Mariah Carey.

I recently came into a little unexpected cash from my grandma's estate. I thought there wouldn't be anything left after her insurance fiaso and health care costs. After being so strapped for so long it is wierd to have money in the bank. I can pay off my car, get caught up with some things.

Yesterday I found myself shopping for a new computer. Mine has been unstable for a while and I have fallen out of love with it, kind of like when I fell out of love with my car Spike when he broke down on Christmas Eve several years ago and I bought Bonny. My computer's name is Buddy. How can I get rid of Buddy?? What can I name a new computer that has the emotional impact and trustworthiness of "Buddy"? Fido? Spot? I guess I'll think of something but I am having separation anxiety. Not to mention not looking forward to starting over with an unfamiliar operating system. I have been backing everything up for a few months in anticipation of the big crash, so have all my photos, documents, 10-second porn clips.

Anyway, it is nice to have this money, and I am hoping I do what Grams would have wanted me to do. Well, she would want me to bank it all. I am banking some. But not ALL...

IN THE MONEY

Have you ever done a big expensive shop at Safeway (or other big market) only to find that you have nothing to eat? Maybe a block of cheese if you're lucky. Happens to me more than I like. I must get sidetracked by all the junk food. I tend to buy my produce elsewhere because the prices are too high for what is ultimately tasteless fruit. Last week I started a small crusade to improve my eating habits, inspired in part by being a blob and in part by tips given in the book "French Women Don't Get Fat". I went shopping at Rainbow Grocery, which has always made me quake in fear of the sticker shock. Imagine my surprise when, for the same horrifying sum I usually spend for no food, I got tons of food! I have food in the house! I can fix a little something for my mid-morning yogurt snack, fix a lunch to take if I want, and have ingredients to throw something actually yummy together for dinner. For several days! What a revelation! I got this little melon called an Ambrosia that was a delight with every sweet bite.

Speaking of melon, this is just WRONG! I may never eat watermelon again. Boys.
FOOD FUCK

Yay! I'm back. My phone was plagued by static for the last couple days, which meant my dsl didn't work either. Calling the 611 repair line is a small dose of Hell. Feel free to skip this if you have been through it. First you have to make sure you press the option for repair. Then they give you the option of listening to some sales pitch or other(no, thanks). Then they automatically test your line and come back to tell you there is something wrong and do you want it fixed (duh). When you press yes they launch into about a twelve minute caution about how much it will cost you if it isn't their fault. Then they give you the option for a 4-hour window, which turns out to actually be an 11-hour window, 8 am to 7 pm. Fine fine fine, whatever, just freakin' get out here. Except I'm not ever talking to a person. So the guy calls me and tells me he called my number and it was fine and talked to somebody who would be home if I still wanted him to go out there. I put him on hold and called my number (thank God for 2 lines at work), which was completely static. So he went out. He of course called back when I was at lunch and he had fixed the problem, which was, of course, on the pole. He also confessed to calling the wrong number earlier, which was actually good, because if he had talked to someone at my house then I may have been getting robbed by somebody cheeky enough to answer the phone.
CALL ME

RRRRRRR
My computer is getting old and arthritic and has a hard time getting up in the morning. Today it wouldn't boot successfully after about 4 tries so I gave up. I'm having a paranoia that the latest "update" that loaded from Microsoft was really a thing that would force me to upgrade to Windows XP because my Me won't work anymore. Of course now they are supposedly coming out with a new Windows OS, called Firehose or Gangsta or Delusion or some such thing (I also heard Mac is coming out with a 5th version of OS X so you guys aren't safe either). They just can't stop with the goddam tinkering, can they? Pray for me.

In other news, I joined Netflix (to further enable my current Rourke obsession explained last week). I knew it was cool but I had no idea. I have drilled down to the most obscure of Japanese wierdo psycho bloodbath movies, and they just keep coming up with more. I never knew you could watch the trailer, get all the user and pro reviews, etc. I figured I had just spent 12.99 on 3 DVDs that I could only keep 5 days, so why not spend 17.99 for an endlessly revolving supply? I am always the last to know.

Unfortunately, since I am at work and tiny kidlets are roaming freely, I cannot go to the porn site for a title.
RRRRRRRRRRR

I went to see Sin City on Friday. All I can say is
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke!!!
I liked everybody else too and liked the movie enough to want to see it again already but Mickey ruled. I used to like Mickey years ago and then something happened that made him repellent to me so I stopped paying attention. I knew he had gotten knocked around in a failed re-entry into boxing and had really bad plastic surgery and the next time I noticed him was in The Rainmaker but it took a while to figure out who he was (I momentarily thought he was John Cassavetes until I remembered he was dead). So his performance in Sin City has been a bit of a revelation. When he first came on screen my instinct was to think that he had taken the whole plastic surgery thing a bit too far and then realized it was, you know, makeup. You never know these days.
This isn't really porn, but it tried.
9 1/2 WEEKS

My mom recommended that I listen to Air America on 960 AM The Quake. I don't like talk radio - never have. Radio = music. Maybe enough to news to keep me informed of the important stuff, like duck and cover. But all that yakking on talk radio just drives me nuts. Manny has that on his clock radio in the morning and these guys incorporate themselves into my dreams until nothing makes sense and then I wake up to the same scenario and I get confused. Nonetheless I tuned in while I was driving to appease my mom and see what was what. Well, I have to say that it is kind of relaxing to realize that my friends and I are not the only rational people out there. Al Franken has a show, as does Janeane Garofalo., Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Steve Earle (The Revolution Starts Now). Since I only listen here and there during drive times I don't hear all the shows or all the hosts, but I dig it.
AIR EROTICA


dang this is dinky

The guys upstairs have been married for a year - is it really a year already?? Yeesh. There has been some bickering. Full-volume, dish-throwing bickering. Mostly the one screaming at the other (for example, the other went to tell the one that he should come to bed so he could be sure to get up on time. This somehow initiated a full-blown fest, which woke me up, it being 2 a.m. My reaction was to lie in bed seething and wishing I had the nerve to storm upstairs and club the one with an iron skillet. What prompted the tantrum is a mystery to both the other and me, and the other is getting tired of being picked on). Anyway, life has been a bit grim, since I never quite know when it is safe to go upstairs and play with my sewing machine, or even say hello. Plus, the one is failing to respond to the landlady about a tree that needs to come down, because he hates her (meaning is scared of her) and I'm scared she'll take action against us. Not looking forward to living in my car, which is what would happen if I got thrown out. I hope eventually we find out what the one is so mad about.
LINGERIE SEX FIGHTS

When I was a kid, if you didn't wear green on St. Patrick's day, you got pinched. The rude boys would pinch haaaarrrrddd. I would be scouring my outfit to find a speck of green in a little leaf or anywhere. Some years I would fail to produce my green armor and get bruises all over my arms. I'd try to affix a leaf or clump of grass to myself to avoid the torture. Horrible. Of course I would retaliate on the years I did wear green, and pinch the daylights out of anyone I could. Nowadays, anytime I have tried to pinch somebody I've gotten threatened with a lawsuit.

F**KED IN IRELAND (keepin' it clean)
(until you look at the picture)

I just read a really fun book called "Candyfreak" by Steve Almond. It is a true book, and a rant in the absolute best sense. The guy is consumed by his devotion to candy, and he goes all over to visit little candy companies. He couldn't visit the big ones, because all the Willy Wonka espionage stuff is true; even the repairmen have to be blindfolded until they are placed in front of the machines.

If you have any sort of candy jones (or "freak"), or any fond childhood memories of some kind of candy you forgot about, or quest for, or reminisce about, pick it up. I got it out of the library the same day I watched "Supersize Me" and "Fat Actress"; kind of a media food day. Of course, you can't read this book without actually having to eat some candy, so beware.

He covers such regional rarities as the Idaho Spud (which sounds downright revoltin') and the famous GooGoo Cluster, as well as the elusive and messy Valomilk. He is an ectomorph, which means that although he eats major amounts of candy, he stays thin, which means I hate him.

Today, at the recommendation of Mr. Almond, I picked up a few bars made by the Lake Champlain company. They are about the only candy he writes about that I can easily get my hands on. Well, kind of easily, if shopping for anything at Whole Paycheck (a.k.a. Whole Foods) is easy, especially in Me Valley (a.k.a. Mill Valley). They have several varieties of big flat chocolate bars, and these fat squatty bars called Five Star that come in 4 flavors, of which I found 2. Steve's recommendation was most astute, as these chocolates are pretty great. Check 'em out.

A TASTE OF CANDY

I am going to step on the Linkey-Loo coordinator's toes a bit, because I have a link instead of a title. It is, however, very much related to my position here as porn robot. Don't be scared, but you will have the dubious pleasure of viewing some pretty nasty, although non-human, sexual objects. When I worked at Gamelink (the porn place that started all this), the customers always asked what these looked like. I'm kinda glad I didn't have this to show them, because our inventory would have rotted. There are a couple I almost want to have as art objects. Almost.

Whew, almost didn't make it! I got all wound up last night in the last hour of the last Project Runway and forgot my rant. Shut down my computer this morning saying "doh!" as I remembered my rant, but too late. I came late to Project Runway and am sorry now that I missed so much. I'm not into the reality shows, you know, except for an occasional foray into Survivor, and a peek now and again at some of the wierder ones (I confess I love Dawg the Bounty Hunter). However, seeing as how I am peripherally in the fashion industry, this one was fun. As usual I rooted for the hated Wendy Pepper - I liked that she was upfront about cutting everyone's throat from the get-go. I knew she wouldn't win, but I rooted nonetheless. I hated Kara, especially wen she pretended not to understand her breaking the rules about the shoes. I was glad when one of her models almost took a header getting tange=led up in a dress. The guy who won, though, Jay. I knew he'd win the second his models stepped on the runway. This finale would be the water-cooler topic here at Joann's except we don't have a water-cooler.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMO
I am in an art show again, this time in Pacifica at the Sanchez Art Center. It's hanging until 4/9. I don't have the deets here at work but I'll post them later.
FASHIONABLY LAID (hee hee)

My sister and I have become huge afficionados of dog shows. We watched Westminster over the last two nights (unfortunately since several hundred miles separate us we weren't actually together) and it was quite fun and educational. They give a good overview of how each dog relates to people, like how the Scottie displays obvious superiority to its people, and Bull Terriers will join you on the couch after an active puppyhood. I have a hard time believing that dogs are all the same species. Look at a Chinese Crested next to a Neapolitan Mastiff and you'll see what I mean.


Chinese Crested


Neapolitan Mastiff (this was the breed that plays Fang in Harry Potter)

How can these both be classed as "dogs"??? Cats don't have as much variation. Long hair, short hair, long face, squishy face, but all around the same basic size and shape. Definitely cats. Even the Big Cats pretty much look like cats.
Here is another example, and then I rest my case:


BARK LIKE A DOG
off the leash and on your bone!!!

I was in Borders the other day and picked up the book "He's Not That Into You" which is an extension of a bit done on Sex and the City. After reading some of it I wanted to go home and put my head in the oven. According to the folk who wrote this book, no man I have ever been involved with in my whole life has been into me, present honey included (present honey has, after 4-1/2 years, something going, but he is most definitely not into me by the definitions presented). Actually, if a man treated me like the men who are into one is supposed to treat one, I would probably think he was a stalker or a nut. Anyway, on that note, Valentine's Day is coming. I had a date sort of near/on V-day once, I think, when I was about 20. I don't get cards from anyone but family and the occasional girlfriend. I send them dutifully every year, because hope springs eternal. I was much relieved to hear that my sister never has dates, either - this year is the first and the guy thought she was telling him the hotels would be booked because of President's Day, so even the new Mr. Perfect is semi-clueless. My sister is a gorgeous creature who has men hovering in her vicinity at all times, so hearing that she has also been bereft on V-day was a boost to my esteem. It's all a hoax I know but I'm such a hopeless romantic.
STUPID CUPID

My mom and I went to the Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog Show at the Cow Palace last Sunday. I always love the dog show, especially this one - it is a "benched" show, which means the dogs are on display for the weekend, and not just bouncing around the show ring. The best part is that you can pretty much fondle all the dogs. I enjoy the judging, and can't imagine having to choose a "best of breed" from the morass of identical golden retrievers. My mom said they looked like computer cut-outs. I was petting all the dogs, and noticed my mom wasn't petting any of them and when I asked her about it she said she was afraid she would weaken. She found her weakness in a wonderful wire-haired daschund. We did manage to get out of there puppy-free.

We followed up with a visit to a Samoan eatery out there on Geneva a couple blocks toward Bayshore from the C.P. gate. Interesting food, and if you are gastronomically adventurous, worth a visit. Lots of meats and starches. I would go closer to a traditional mealtime than mom and I did, because it is cafeteria-style and some of the food was a little tired at 3:00.

None of the dog handlers were dressed like this. Maybe dog shows would be better attended if they did. (p.s. this is one of my personal favorites of porn, although too stylish for cut-to-the-chase types.)
DOG WALKER

So I have to say that I was in porn title mode until I found out last night that my Grandma died. It was past due, and the first words out of my mouth were "well, good for her!", since she had been on the path for some time. Her body refused to give out on her for years after her stroke, so she spent a fair amount of time being frustrated by her own speech. I hope I am in as fine a form as she was at her age. She was 93 and still strong and quite good-looking. She once told the doctor she wanted to die and he pretty much told her to give up that idea, that except for the stroke she was fit as a fiddle.

My Grandma, Florence, played a great part in my upbringing. I spent much of my toddler-hood and almost every summer until I was 16 (once we had moved to California) at one or another of her homes. Most of my toddlerhood memories are in her house in Wadsworth, Ohio, and I cannot smell a daffodil without blasting right back into that yard. It was she who had to cope with me ripping open the roof of my mouth with a wooden flute, and she who tended my first bee sting. She made me a box kite one spring, and flew it. She and my Grandpa also fed me beer and ice cream until I spewed forth like Mount Vesuvius on my home doorstep, so she wasn't exactly a saint. She was an alcoholic until an ulcer stopped that activity, and replaced the beer with ice cream and chocolate "dope", and bottles of Pepsi. After my Grandpa died, she married her sister's widower, and after he died, she moved to California. She took to drinking whisky again, which improved her temperament.

She always had a special place in her heart for me, since we spent so much time together. I found out recently that she thought my cousin was a lying bitch, so maybe that's why she liked me. She read bodice-rippers but couldn't tolerate sex on screen, loved See's chocolates and sweets in general, could do that thing with one eyebrow going up and down, was incredibly racist and used the "n" word even when she had friends who were African-American, was the only one worried about me in the 1989 earthquake, had these ice-blue eyes that could bore into you like a drill, and hated anyone to see her without her teeth even in the nursing home.

So, no porn title this week, but thank you for letting me tell you a little about Florence Johnston Blough Shriener.

I was in Laguna Beach when the storm hit that brought a record number of inches to L.A. My sister's place is very window-y, and it was fun to watch the lightning and the trees whipping around. At one point the wind was really whistling, and my sister called out from her room "It's a twistah!"

Fortunately, it calmed down yesterday long enough for me to drive home without much incident. Saw snow on the Grapevine, and lots and lots of rainbows.

DVINE (LUV) CAVE #3 " STORM BRINGER "

Years ago I found an album (on vinyl - YEARS ago) by a guy named Stevan Pasero that was the Nutcracker played on classical guitar. It was pretty amazing and I gave it to a guitarist friend of mine, intending to purchase it again for myself. Of course, I never found it again (I just ordered it on CD from Amazon, although I have heard it is out of print). It did inspire a small quest of finding unusual versions of the Nutcracker for my Christmas listening pleasure. I have it by a mandolin group, played on toy instruments, by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Duke Ellington's version, and my favorite, Spike Jones. Not to be confused with the more current Spike Jonze although they both have their quirks. The problem with Spike Jones is that once you hear his version you are ruined for life. Example: to the tune of the Dance of the Flutes: "D'ja ever see a tin flute dancing? Hmm? Ever see a piccolo could dance a jig? Here's the song they dance to when they get a chance to, it's a kind of a rinky-dinky ending with a whirligig." Can't ever take it seriously again.
NUTT CRACKERS

My poor little computer at home is a bit sick-ish. I think it just needs a good registry clean-up but until then it takes longer to boot it up than to write my rant. Therefore, I am writing this in rather too public a space to look at porn. I am afraid I cannot provide a title for you, much less a pic. So sorry. Better luck next week. In the meantime, to paraphrase Scoop Nisker, if you don't like the porn, go out and make some of your own.