a coworker emailed me "One never outgrows Nancy Drew. Life lessons learned in those adventures still applicable today… You kind of look like her, at least the original drawings, you know?" - so i laughed and told my officemates that. THEY TOTALLY AGREED! they're all like 'oh yes you're so nancy drew!' 'you look exactly like her!'

in all my days!!

The infamous Dr. Fang Von Fang:



He is holding test tubes with two different colors of instant snow.

Also, we made our first playlist together (for the ride to the Rosh Hashanah Party). It's behind the cut. If you feel like sharing, add one of your playlists in the comments so Fang and I can check out what you're listening to.

( Rosh Hashanah Playlist )

happy to report certain songs are out of my head...but they have been replaced by singular horrors that have gotten overplayed since our purchase of rockband2. im mainly thinking about Lit - My Own Worst Enemy and Alanis Morrisette - You Oughta Know.

although singing the morrisette song ad naseum has left me contemplating it's deeper meaning. knowing it's written about joey from full house mingles it with all kinds of sexy and unsexy feelings i dare not pinpoint. i also think its pretty cool as the ultimate 'hell hath no fury...' song, i never cared for the song much but anyone who got viciously dumped that year STILL loves it. and it's a pretty impressive effort for a young girl, i wish i'd been able to articulate myself so well in times of heartache, might have saved myself a few trips to the ER.

( Read more... )

i just put a shit ton of photos up...most notably the 'weekend of awesome' set

here are some faves
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after pegging a few people in the office with their spirit animal, i demanded my officemates tell me mine. they said i have to figure it out for myself, from themes i see in my life, things people tell me and animals i see/feel (he says i can also have a unicorn or a griffon, skies the limit!).

i always thot i was a puppy but im sort of past the humping-your-leg getting-the-floor-wet stage these days. so what's my spirit animal, any suggestions? i'm going to keep looking and i may have to go on quest. maybe now im a more composed dog of a later age.

What one Georgia Democrat had to say about why he voted yes.

Doesn't really change my opinion, but I'm willing to respect his judgment.

I get really tired of dancers coming in and trying to negotiate their way into a Level 2 class without ever having taken a class from me before.

"We have been dancing cabaret for 3 years..."
"Then you may advance quickly."

"We already know all this stuff."
"You probably know some versions of these moves, but in tribal the movement vocabulary is very specific and the arm positioning and body positioning is very exacting. You need to learn it from the ground up to really be successful at it."

"Can't we just try it? (stay in Level 2)"
"Well, imagine if you came into a choreography class at the end of the session and wanted me to put you into the choreography, and expected everyone else to dance around you. I'm afraid that wouldn't really be fair to everyone else."

I try really, really hard not to be discouraging, and I try really hard to use language that won't be misconstrued as me telling them they aren't "good enough" for my class or their other classes weren't somehow good enough and I need to "fix them". People who don't understand how tribal works could easily be confused by anything I say if I am not very careful in the words I use.

And of course, usually this "debate" is happening in the meager few minutes between two classes while students are all around me waiting to ask questions, pay for classes, etc, because these new folks hoped they could convince me to let them take the class if they just showed up to level 2. People, I am not naive, and I will not let you try and railroad your way into my class based on where you *think* you are in your dance skills right now. Whatever you did before, if it wasn't my class, it didn't prepare you for my class. That is not me being snooty or "putting you in your place" or some such hierarchical nonsense. It is because I understand the fundamentals of what you are coming to me to learn, and I can't teach it to you if you can't trust me to place you where you need to be right now to best develop you as a dancer. And that means starting at Level 1, regardless of what you have done before. Maybe you will advance very quickly, and that will be great! I am not trying to hold you back or turn you away. I am trying to put you on the best path to learn what you are paying me to teach you.

So I probably lost another couple potential students last night--a mother and a daughter. The Mom seemed really frustrated with me, but I can only do so much to explain in 60 seconds why they need to come to Level 1 and can't skip it, especially since they have never done tribal before.

Last night:

Me: "When you come and learn what tribal is all about, trust me, you will see why it was really important that you learn it from the first level up."

Mom: (with a little sneer)"Yeah, we were in the hall, we just saw what it was about."

(me thinking: "You just made my point.")

I really wish they could understand, and give me a chance to show them. I don't blame them for not understanding--you can't know what you can't know. But if you want me as your teacher, you need to trust me to guide you. And if we can't start that relationship from our first class, then maybe someone else would be a better fit for you.

who knew?
sometimes the impossible is possible
esp if you work in marketing
adn you had an ugly boss 2 years ago tell you she's "open kimono"

http://blogs.msdn.com/officeoffline/

I was going to leave pretty much all the finishing up moving stuff till today, when I was at the apt yesterday, I really was. We're about 95% done with item removal, a few sundries left behind. I had gone to grab my power drill real quick, and also some condiments from the fridge that hadn't made it the first time.

Now, an idea I deplore is the whole, "well, if you left it behind for that long, obviously you don't need it."

On the one hand, this is probably literally true. But need is rather irrelevant, when it comes to a lot of things that one, myself exemplar, owns. There are a lot of things I own that I don't need, but are precious nonetheless. Witness me going into the former craft-room and realising that that red binder down there? My father's Dungeon. From his old D&D days, the one he'd lovingly crafted and passed on to me, with all of his books and dice and things. I.E., one of the most precious objects I own, for reasons instructive as well as sentimental.

So I freaked a little, loading up the already kind-of still stuffed car with all manner of additional sundries. The stuff we'd left behind! Admittedly, there was yet some junk, but the vast majority of it... and there's still an entire bin of artworks and things up there, letters-- objects I dearly love.

All right, if there were a huge calamity, one in which I was lucky to escape with my life... I could live without most of the items I own. And I've survived the lost of a few of my more precious possessions before. But there's a difference between necessity and choice in these matters. And while I can still choose, I'll go ahead and choose the Stuff.

For it is, ta'keh, stuff.

Yep, another picture post. This one is specifically for a certain kick-ass photographer in Portland who was sweet enough to acknowledge my stalker level devotion on her own blog today.

I've been meaning to post these images of her work in my home for awhile...so at long last here are images of My Alter to Elisa Laso de Valdez...also known as my apartment...

Over the bed we have left to right...Eve, the piece I picked up at the SEAF Gala last year; a further away image from her smoke series, I believe; and the infamous squid corset shot(didn't get it at SEAF year before last but its the same image the was the Belle of the Bidding Ball that year):



Either side of the bureau, we have two more images from the squid series that were acquired at SEAF the year of the tentacle. A good pal actually called me from the gallery store on Friday night(I was a bit too hung-over from the VIP party the night before and had to miss the official opening) when she saw the them and noted they were the last two left. She got as far as "I'm in the store and there are these two beautiful photos with tenteca..." I stopped her right there and said buy 'em. And then I asked how much they were. What? I like teh tentacles...anyhoo, she ended up putting them on hold for me and during a bit of a clusterfuck the next night when I tried to find them I ended up meeting the artist...she was standing right behind me while I paniced that the lovely tentacle goodness that should have been mine was sold to another. Roger of Circle 23 introduced us, though I think he let me spin a bit longer then necessary...evil imp of chaos.



Side note, the image between those two pretties is a Michael Manning piece called Sweat.

This piece is on the opposite wall to the last one, which need to move, because it is hard to see the details, which are worth seeing. But I like the composition with the branches framing it and the red window frames on either side:



Lastly, is the piece over my couch. I don't know what it is called but there is another more seen image from this series. I like this one because it looks like the model is leaning over to hear what folks are saying while sitting below her. The brown frame it is in right now will probably be replaced with something with equal borders on all sides



I'd hoped to take pictures with some of my playmates artfully positioned but I guess that will have to come later. I do have a party planned for the end of October and I'm very much looking forward to all of the above loveliness getting a nice big audience to appreciate it. I fully expect to hand out many of her business cards.

I've posted it before, and its also on my website, but here's her link again:

http://visioluxus.com/

So to celebrate the lack of passage of the Bailout Bill dingus (and Rabbit finding herself in agreement with the Republicans for the most part), we're sitting about in tehs new living room and watching 'The Associate', starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Shana Tovah!

so while crafting last week, i go a bee in my bonnet about how muffin-tops are such a "no-no" and everyone has got to bitch about them. because i think they're HAWT and i like mine and i LOOOVE other laydeezes, and its ruining it for everyone to so publicly wish them away. i am wishing for them to increase. i first loved vinyl because i loved how the flesh POURED OUT of the edges. arf.

so anyways i have lots of theories about the influence of media and how we never see real girls... i took a bunch of shots of my muffin top. i'm going to start glamorizing muffin tops. wait til im more dressed up, and get more muffin-toppy girls in on it, and better photogs...you'll see.
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I'm fairly new at this community and this is my first post so first of all hello!

But I'm actually posting with a link to an article I recently read from New Scientist magazine which I thought you might find interesting. It's about the ability of magpies to recognise their own reflections - apparently they join a very small number of species known to have the brain power to do this. Pretty special :-)

Oh.

Dow Falls Nearly 700 Points. S&P is down %8. Apparently Wall Street wants your cash or they'll take all their toys and go home.

UPDATE

The final number was -778.

The house rejected the bailout plan with "no" votes from both sides of the aisle. While something needs to be done, I don't think it was a good plan for you and I, and our representatives were listening.

Perhaps we should let investors take losses and let the market sort it out. But we absolutely must keep the commercial paper market functioning. What finally prodded Paulson & Bernanke to action was the temporary failure of this market in mid September, when the nation's largest money market fund was shown to have a negative return (less that $1 for $1 invested). People panicked and started pulling out their cash, which nearly froze lending for a day. These funds are loaned to businesses so they can cover short-term cash flows and do things like pay their employees and purchase supplies. This is at the heart of the matter - can businesses raise the capital they need to function? If this fails the economy fails. If this is the real problem perhaps the government should step in as a lender of last resort for short-term commercial loans, rather than buying junk investments from banks?

http://mccain-cthulhu.com

(other url down now :(

also, thank you tina fey for always coming to my rescue
Gov. Palin and Katie Couric get real and adorable

"Evidently with my new nose I'm such a hot old snake that I drive men wild. GOT to start uglying down."

-mother

EDIT: OH my god this convo continues to win...

much love to de mom! sometimes i wish i was hotter shit, skinner etc, and then i look at the lives those poor girls have to lead and im happier w/ my less dramatic looks ;)
-me

You're a beautiful girl, Banna. You are dramatic. I was amazed when I saw those photos of (a reunion), you've become more beautiful all the time. Even in your furvert suit.
-mom

awwww!

you know you've arrived when you party all weekend and barely leave the house. friday peeps stopped by but i passed out early. id been having work-related anxiety attacks all day (no big, just crunch time) and muchin xanax...add a little scotch and voila! i pass out upside down in my bed at 10pm, clay took my glasses off.

sat tikka and izzi came by briefly, then pat, dave (who just moved here!), pepe and d.leusch all came by for some napa love. everyone left and then john came by with ROCK BAND 2, preciousfaith, octal and abe came over, mucho grilling was done and we rocked out with our cawks out until the breakka dawn.

sunday clay went and BOUGHT ROCK BAND 2, so we could keep the dream going. i spent the morning in the sun drawing comics, how life should be. wendy came over and she, clay and i went to sun likker and caught up on post-BM hapz. then rose called, she was over in roro's clown den having tea! so we went over there and did vanilla flavored whippets and saw the awesome clown den. home for MOAR GRILLIN with wendy, johnny came by for a bit and then ian and clay and i rocked on n on n on n on! cant stop yall

I have always been fascinated by ravens and crows. There have always been alot of crows hanging about in town, and these last few weeks, I have been finding a lot of crow feathers on the ground near where I work. This has prompted me to pull together an impromtu altar, shown here in a picture behind the cut. I thought you all might appreciate it.
( Corvid altar )