Got this in an email from my sister, and it made my day:
No, we haven’t voted yet – I meant to today, but then I was stupid sick and had to go to the doctor’s. My goddamn ears again – they woke me up a couple times last night, convinced I had a double ear infection. It turns out they just both *still* have a lot of fluid behind them – boo. But now I’m on steroid nasal spray, and it seems to be helping tons already, which is awesome.
Also, I emailed my professor to let him know I might be missing class today. (This was under the assumption that my ears were infected and I’d be given antibiotics, and antibiotics always take a couple days to make me start feeling better, so I was expecting to still feel shitty around 3:30, and therefore miss class.) Well, it was a good thing I emailed him, because it’s fucking FALL BREAK. Yeah. He let me know, and I didn’t have to go sit in an empty classroom until I figured it out. Sweet.
Anyway, the plan is to vote Saturday and then maybe go to the STATE FAIR Sunday. (We were originally going tomorrow, but it’s supposed to rain, so we’ll see.)
Goddammit, Nelsan Ellis! Look what you did. I hate Anna Paquin, and I’ve been avoiding True Blood (and you know me and anything even vaguely supernatural are “likethis”), and now I have to start watching it. Sigh. I guess I’ll forgive you, since that scene is so awesome, but you just better keep it up.
I just looked at 900+ dress patterns on Ebay. I’m now positive it was a Style pattern, but it’s not on Ebay (at least, not currently).
I did, however, bid on a vintage repro Butterick pattern that I don’t have and that is no longer on their website. It’s fucking fantastic, so cross your fingers for me that I win. I want it so badly.
Ugh. My ears are still bothering me, and I went home early today because of it. (And actually I was quite nauseous on the bus, and thought I might vomit. I didn’t – but I *had* decided that if I did vomit, I’d aim it at this hateful bitch who had a free seat on either side of her but didn’t want to move so a bigger gal could sit down. When she did move, she only scooted over about an inch, and the poor gal actually *apologized* for making the skinny one move. So, yeah, I would’ve puked on the skinny bitch. She and I both lucked out, though.) I’m going to take decongestant again regularly, and this time add some tea tree oil ear treatment bullshit, and if it doesn’t clear up in a week, I guess I get to trot back out to the doctor’s. “I know you said they weren’t infected, and I think they’re still not actually infected, but they’re KILLING me, so can I please get an ear-ectomy or something?” Nice.
I may have found a suitable pattern for the Thin Man dress: New Look 6774.
You can’t really tell because that damn print is so busy, but the main view (with the actual photograph) is pretty close. The straps are not quite at the right angle in the back – but Greg’s opinion is that the flounces on the shoulderblades are hideous, and that I should start the spiral flounce at the waist and go down from there, and leave it off the top. So the straps being slightly off wouldn’t matter so much. (And if I decided to start the flounce at the straps, I could easily scooch them over a bit.) And the bodice is good (and not actually surpliced like most of the other views).
I also remembered yesterday that I have (or *should* have) a pattern in my pattern stash that is, assuming I’m remembering correctly, absolutely perfect, but I can’t share a picture of it with you because all my patterns are in the storage space, and that specific pattern is now long out of print. (I used it to make a dress in 10th grade. So, 13 years ago? And then I loaned it to a girl at Science and Math one day, and she split the seams. It was rather form-fitting, and I tried to gently dissuade her from borrowing it since she was a size up from me, but she really wanted to, and I couldn’t bring myself to say, “Yes, but Kimchi, it’s georgette and if you split the seams it’ll fray and then I won’t be able to sew it back up without it being too tight for *me.*” Ah well. It was a gorgeous dress. Not that it’d fit these days anyway, ahem.) Anyway, I should have at least one copy of that pattern kicking around, and possibly two (the one I originally used and cut up, and then a second copy so I could, ahem, make a larger size without scaling the cut-out pattern up). I might see if I can find a copy on Ebay, since I loved the shit out of that dress and want to make another anyway – but it was either New Look or Style, and I’m almost positive it’s Style, and do you have any idea how infuriatingly difficult it is to search for a dress pattern by the Style pattern company? Since “style” shows up in sooooo many pattern descriptions? Greg’s agreed to go with me out to the storage space sometime soon, though, so I can dig out my patterns and my sewing machine powercord.
The Rolling Stone’s article on “Mad Dog Palin” (by Matt Taibbi), is also a good (and telling) read.
Edited to add a quote from the article:
So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we’re actually going to need in government if we’re going to get out of this huge mess we’re in.Here’s what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat fucking pig who pins “Country First” buttons on his man titties and chants “U-S-A! U-S-A!” at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas.
Oh jesus. I laughed so hard at that last paragraph. It’s funny (and scary and sad) because it’s true.
Edited again to add this one – Taibbi, you are fucking brilliant:
The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn’t that she’s totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the ass for eight solid years, and we’ll not only thank you for your trouble, we’ll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.
A story by Rolling Stone writer, Tim Dickinson, about what a douchebag McCain is.
Okay, Dickinson isn’t calling him a douchebag – but I am. Here are some highlights:
-McCain signed a paper denouncing the US in Viet Nam and got preferential treatment there
-In 1974, he chose to be deployed in Rio because (and this is a married man and father of three) he had “a better chance of getting laid.” (Those are his own words!)
-The article covers his flip-flopping between his first presidential run and his current one – including the fact that he almost joined the Democratic party after his first run, and is now basically one of the group he so passionately (or maybe that should be “passionately”) decried back then.
-More flip-flopping: he used to vote against Bush’s tax cuts, against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and worked “in the “Gang of 14,” which blocked some of Bush’s worst judges from the federal bench.” Where’s that “maverick” now?
-He had a horrible temper even as a child: when mad, he would hold his breath until he passed out. (I’m just saying, that’s fucking ridiculous behavior, even for a kid. Damn.)
-Apparently he admits to a Napoleon complex in his own memoirs: “My small stature motivated me to . . . fight the first kid who provoked me.” Awesome.
-”The summer after his sophomore year, cruising with a friend near Arlington, McCain tried to pick up a pair of young women. When they laughed at him, he cursed them so vilely that he was hauled into court on a profanity charge.” Damn. How bad do you have to curse to go to court for it? Jeez. Although, not surprising given his temper and lovely epithets for his own wife. But it is troubling that he feels so entitled to sexual attention (if not favors) from women, that when they turn him down he reacts like this.
-He basically should have been kicked out of the Naval Academy – and came very close to it several times. But (surprise, surprise) his family stepped in to rescue his sorry ass.
-He was a shitty and dangerously irresponsible pilot – in fact, one of the best bits is about crashing a plane, and then bailing out (the articles notes that he was an expert at bailing out), and then running off to the ready room while others dealt with the burning plane and get others out. He just stood by while 134 men died, 161 got injured, and a supercarrier almost sank. Nice. That’s real hero behavior. Here’s what he has to say about that: “This distressed me considerably,” he recalls in Faith of My Fathers. “I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal.” Are. you. fucking. kidding me? People are dying, people are getting injured, people are PUSHING JETS OFF A SUPERCARRIER INTO THE SEA SO THE JETS’ BOMBS WON’T BLOW UP AND MAKE IT WORSE, and he’s chilling in the ready room, “considerably distressed” because his ambitions might not be realized?
-When he crashed and was captured in Viet Nam, he offered to give them military information if they took him to the hospital. He now insists the offer was a bluff – except he actually DID give them military information, and more than just his name, rank, date of birth, and service number. The Code of Conduct for POWs also dictates that they “give no information” and make no “statements disloyal to my country” – McCain did BOTH. “Only two weeks after his capture, the North Vietnamese press issued a report — picked up by The New York Times — in which McCain was quoted as saying that the war was “moving to the advantage of North Vietnam and the United States appears to be isolated.” He also provided the name of his ship, the number of raids he had flown, his squadron number and the target of his final raid.”
Go read the whole article, and be appalled. What a fucking worthless piece of privileged shit.
Don’t forget to vote.
(hat tip to Amanda for posting the article on her lj, where I saw it first)
Oh shit. Someone on Kingdom of Loathing (one of my clannies, tudori) introduced me to FAILblog today. Sweet jesus.
see more pwn and owned pictures
I snorted over that picture. Does that mean I’m going to hell? (Like I don’t already have a handbasket.)
HOLY SHIT, you guys. If you haven’t been keeping up with Anti-Craft, well, shame on you. How fucking rad are these:
Totally fucking rad! I have a new hobby, just as soon as I can get to the dollar store. Carin Huber, you are a genius.
Bleah. I’ve been trying to find a suitable pattern to replicate Nora Charles’s (Myrna Loy’s) Christmas party dress from The Thin Man for a good chunk of today, to no avail so far. I’m fucking tired of looking at a computer screen, and I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to draft this fucker from scratch. I mean, it’d be so worth it, but so far I’ve only drafted an a-line skirt. I guess it wouldn’t kill me to learn, might even be good practice. It’s just that I want this dress, like, yesterday, so having to draft the pattern puts it even further off into the future. Fuck some delayed gratification, you know? Anyway, it wasn’t a total bust, because I finally bought the 1930s kitchenette pajamas pattern from Decades of Style that I’ve been drooling over forever and a day.
I’ll go trawl ebay for patterns some other time. Also, I need to look at top and skirt patterns that I could draft/sew together that might fit the bill. All is not lost, yet.
Now I’m going to go watch Midsomer Murders, and maybe The Thin Man again (yes, again; also, Greg watched it with me, and he liked it, although he feels slightly different about that dress than I do), or maybe some Campion mysteries on Netflix (although that would mean staring at a computer screen some more, vomit), and crochet. Party central over here, let me tell you. (But I mean, I’m basically an old lady, so it’s all good. I’ll be enjoying the hell out of it, even if it’d be a snoozefest for most other peeps.)
Let me leave you with this – and it’s basically safe for work. I mean, it might not seem like it at first, it might seem like it’s going in a NSFW direction, but I’m pretty sure you won’t get fired over it (there’s no nudity, no simulated sex, it’s pretty much all good, and I find it hilarious):
So, last night was the Slave to the Metal show. I saw all the bands but the very first and the very last – we got there too late for the first band, and Greg’s band (Armored Uprise) was second to last, and it was late when they finished, so I went and slept in the car during the last band’s act. (Greg thought it was going to be Cloacal Kiss, and I guess they’re kind of experimental or something? Anyway, he thought I probably wouldn’t like them, so I decided to sleep in the car. But apparently Cloacal Kiss backed out of the show, and it was some other band, but oh well.) How was it, you ask? Well, the only good bands were Armored Uprise (and I’m not just biased) and Age of Despair. Everyone else kind of sucked. (Sorry, but it’s true.)
You know who else sucked? JULIYA. You read right. It’s the “Slave to the Metal Tour, hosted by Mistress Juliya” – and what does she do all night? Sit at the bar, bitching. First of all, she showed up late, sometime during the second or third band – third, I think. While they’re setting up. She starts bitching about how slow the show is going, and I’m thinking, “Well, aren’t you the damn hostess? Get this shit started already, dumbass.” But no, no – too busy sitting at the bar and being a bitch. I guess she’s known for her “brashness”? But I’m over it, frankly. So she managed to get up on the stage to introduce the bands, and fucked up a couple names (even after asking a bandmember what their band was called), and was all, “I wanna see you motherfuckers in the pit! This is a METAL show!” And then did she get in the pit? Of course not. (I mean, I sure as shit didn’t get in the pit because I don’t want my pretty face getting fucked up. Also, I’m a pussy. But I’m also not the bitch onstage telling people they need to be moving around and moshing, and then sitting on my ass like a hypocrite. Yeah, that’s real metal of you, Juliya.) So, she went back to the bar and drank some more – and I should say that while she certainly didn’t seem sloppy to me (in fact it kind of looked like she was working on one drink the whole night), when she’d fuck up a name or something, she’d talk about all the whiskey she’d been drinking. Yeah, I don’t know about that. Anyway. What else did she do? Well, she didn’t clap for any of the bands, and she didn’t really even pay any attention to them, or, you know, LEAVE THE BAR to go stand in front of the stage so she could watch the bands. And then when she introduced Armored Uprise, she said some shit about how she’s sick and if we don’t think she’s doing a good job as a host we can suck her ass, because she doesn’t feel well. Well, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you’re getting paid money to do this, so suck it up and act like a goddamn professional, instead of a whiny poseur bitch. Oh, and what ELSE rankled with me? Every time she introduced the bands, she’d say, “This is the Slave to the Metal tour and we’re bringing back underground metal!!!” Rawrrr, or some shit. Um, no, you’re not. “Underground” metal? Didn’t really go anywhere. Wasn’t really relying on you, Juliya, to “bring it back.” Thanks.
You know what my fucking problem is? I like the music, hate the scene. Pretty much. Well…there are plenty of nice, sincere people, so maybe it’s not the scene, per se. Maybe what I really hate is the SCENESTERS. That could be it. Anyway, that’s my impression of the show, and I’m glad I went because I really enjoyed Armored Uprise and Age of Despair – they fucking rocked. I’ve got pictures, but – of course – still no USB cable, so I can’t share them with you. Sorry I suck so much. I’ll get on fixing that.
Remy inquired after Skeeter’s health, so I thought I’d share the update with the rest of you. (Yeah, all, like, five of you. Hee. But allow me my sweeping, grandiose words, okay? Let’s pretend the world is my audience, like I run things or some shit.) So, Skeeter’s fine – no more constipation. BUT. (Hee, I said “but” and I’m talking about poop. I’m six.) When they get constipated, their shits…How can I put this delicately? Well, I can’t. I’ll just say it: their shits get stuck halfway out their butts, and it freaks them out, and they come tearing out of the litter box and racing around the apartment like they’re fucking possessed. Because, basically, they are – they’re terrified of the shit stuck to their asshole that won’t drop off. Eventually, I guess from the speed and the whipping around corners and whatnot, the turd flings off, and this is why I find them in the hallway, or in the bathroom, or outside the litter box. (They’re both very, very good about never purposefully going outside the litter box, which is probably why I forgive Skeeter all his other extremely bad behavior. That and the fact that he lets me cuddle him. I’m a sucker for that.) So, there have been no turds outside the litter box today, but Chalupa has been tearing out of the litter box and racing around the apartment, so I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well. I’ll probably dose her with hairball medicine tonight, since it works by lubing up her digestive tract so hairballs pass instead of getting stuck and thrown up – it’ll help lube her tract so that poops pass, too.
What other fun have I had today? Well, not really fun, but I got to stay home from work today because I seem to have gotten a nasty case of vertigo out of the blue. I couldn’t turn over (from laying on my left side to the right, or vice versa) without getting horrible spins, and standing upright was completely miserable and I felt like I was going to pass out. Not at all my cup of tea, and being the neurotic mess I am, I didn’t want to “tough it out” and walk around and risk fainting and hitting my head on something, so I stayed home today, and stayed prone. Did some reading, and watched Wire in the Blood and The Thin Man – both excellent. Although I really wish I’d gotten another Thin Man movie instead of Wire in the Blood, because I’d forgotten how awesome Powell and Loy are together, and I’m impatient for the rest of the movies. Ah well, the other movies will get here soon enough. Anyway, the vertigo seems to have finally gone away. But I have no idea what caused it. My ears were hurting a couple weeks ago, and had fluid in them – but that’s gone, and been gone for a while. And it’s not alcohol – I haven’t had a drink in ages, since it doesn’t seem to mix well with my Celexa. On the drive to the show last night, we were on the highway and it was raining and I got kind of panicky and ended up taking a sizeable dose of the clownopin to calm down – Greg thinks that might be it. But I would expect that to make me dizzy while I was *on* the clownopin, not the day after, when it should be pretty much out of my system. Who knows. I’m just glad it’s gone. Good fucking riddance.
Greg just got back from helping someone with some house repairs (and managing to step through a ceiling from the attic – luckily just his leg went through, and not the rest of him), so I think we’re going to head out to Milltown for some fries. Maybe. I think those Belgian frites are calling me.
