Weekend

No regrets, not really...but...

How different could my life have been if we had been watching Gossip Girl when it mattered?

Sigh.

Crisis averted?

The only thing I can figure is that the Vikings got McNabb because the state of Minnesota needs to have Joe Webb, say, run on a treadmill and be the only source of energy for the entire state during the winter, because of budgetary constraints. Maybe.

As I am the new Agatha Christie,

I might as well resurrect her not-very-well-known sibling sleuths Tommy and Tuppence. I mean, if they can keep putting out Godfather books or spin-offs called things like The Wilkeses of Twelve Oaks, I should surely do this!

Anyway, the first will be about the last real pub in a village in Blighty and a murder therein.

It will be called At the Sign of the Loafing Pig.

Nature amok, part 8 - The owls ARE sorta what they seem, which is to say AWESOME

Another correspondent sends this link, and it rules:

http://www.factzoo.com/birds/owls/html

Look at them in all their odd permutations!

Nature amok, part 7 - Morning of the grasshopper

I keep hoping, sensibly enough, that, when we are out at 5:45 in the dawn pickin basil, a hedge toad will wander up...alas, no.

This morning, though, disposing of some bolted rapini [twss], a full-on grasshopper crawled on my hand. An old fashioned grasshopper. Didn't even know those were still around...

Nature amok, part 6 - the most gross bugs in the universe

We all thought that the tomato hornbug was the worst thing that ever happened, but wait!

A correspondent writes:

Behold the disgusting bugs that eaten most of my evergreen tree.

Wiki
lowlights -

- the evergreen bagworm's case grows to a length over 6 cm,
tapered on both ends

- commonly parasitized by ichneumonid wasps [bonus,
right?]

- The female never leaves the cocoon, requiring that the male
mate with her through the open end at the back of the case. She has no
eyes, legs, wings, antennae and can't eat, but emits a strong pheromone to
attract a mate.

Ew! Ew ew ew ew ew!

Further, kittens

Oof!

Mighty weak

Hey! The NME says Bob Dylan's grandson, Pablo Dylan [yes, really], is releasing his inaugural free rap mixtape. Not sure if this is Jakob's son or what...

Anyway, another generation of Dylans to bore me into further desultory lassitude. CANNOT WAIT.

Overheard:

"What about that guy out in Seattle? Wasn't he 27?"

Ugh

This will be my only post today, because I got stung by three bees yesterday and am itchy and miserable!

XO XO!

Weekend

20%

Poking around the inner chambers of this here blogspot earlier, I see that, three years in, I have used 20% of my allotted space on the hosting server. But what a 20%! And just think, there is 80% left to go!

We are all going to be so impossibly rich!

Kitten care is my business

Holy cats! Kelley is gone for the weekend so the trio of Bellpepper, Squishy and Fruitbat are having their various meds for pinkeye, mites, worms, etc, administered by ME!

"Are you going to take my picture? I think I'm ready!"

"HEY! Too much light, asshole! Didn't you just say I have conjunctivitis???"

Sorry, Squishy!

Graffiti = art: OFFICIAL

About a month or so, Kyle and Chris Glass had a terse exchange as to whether graffiti constituted art. I vacillated slightly at the time, because good, well-done graffiti has quite a lot of merit, but just some random squiggles on a storefront, done by the cretinous, chromsome-damaged freaks of nature I call neighbors? Not so much!

Or so I thought, until these Statements rolled up a couple of blocks away:

Yep! "G3t shitt3d on" - got it!















And, yes, let's as a nation - nay, as a civilization - check out this artist's boom stick!

Join us!

Beaton lives!

In fact,

can't be more than a couple of weeks at the outside now before these pups turn their ripe yellow and then I eat nothing but tomatoes for two months.

Yow!

Progress

Remember this?

Look!

Mammaw wept

Flaming Lippage

Haven't mentioned these in nearly two years, so to recap: like them but don't love them, "This Here Giraffe" drum part I want to use on every song ever, Hey, Wayne! Stop with the goddam white suit schtick already!, etc...

But yesterday I could not stop smiling when I saw on NME that they have a new song in the pipeline called "Is David Bowie Dying?"

"Is David Bowie Dying?"!!!!

Messed up sunset

Weird rain last night for six minutes, then every cloud known to man all aboil in the twilight sky.

I like this (bad) picture, it reminds me of little Barry getting scarfed up in Close Encounters...

Also, mercilessness

Is that even a word?

Gonna go through the closet and get rid of crap I have not worn in ages. If I haven't worn it, it goes.

The Book Storage Plan

No matter what, there are always more books gathering on every conceivable surface in the house and now, with this baby coming, we have to make room for it. And so an upper bedroom full of books must be made crib-ready. Gonna build a huge bookshelf in the dining room that will hold a lot of the stuff from the three bookshelves being removed from baby room -- but here is the uselessly exciting part!

Am going to box up all the other loose crap that needs to be saved (and I AM going to get rid of a bunch of crap as well, I promise), and then label the boxes with a file card listing what is in each box. This is where I have failed in the past: when looking to put hands on the one thing that is needed, I have to dig through nine boxes to find it (hint: it will always be in the second-to-last box to be inspected). This way, I can know ahead of time what's in each box by placing the file card outward toward the looker.

So, if you come over for dinner and you need that Edith Head bio or one of our extra copies of The Secret History or whatever, rest assured you WILL leave with it!

Little 15

Sorry, that was only fourteen posts. This is fifteen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYSACg0cOxk

Buy me, Chooch!

And yes, this amazingly huge house still waits for a buyer. Five fire places! AND graffiti...

Not sure, but I bet the asking price is dropping at 11 dollars a second!

Maverick!

Some pre-rock rehearsal shots, you know, of hanging out. Waiting for Ian...

Ooh! A new regular feature is thus birthed. I will take pics and post every time we wait for Ian, yes.

L'il Gardner!

Nice watch!

"Will ah ever be that beautiful?"

Nope! Now get back on your hamper lid flying carpet!

Speaking of flying saucers,

a certain piggish cretin around the house (no, not me) has been sitting constantly on the lid from a laundry hamper, like it's her job.

"Get me a flyin' saucer of cream up in this mug, bitches!"

My brother says he saw a UFO

No, strangely not a recently unearthed Pollard solo track from 1990, but rather a phone call I had. Phil (it is he!) was driving on 75 heading north on Friday night and saw something odd. He contacted some UFO folks (Mufon?) and they said other people had seen something weird, too.

Now he's having an interview with them on Saturday!

I told him to watch out that they didn't "probe" him. But it's his life.

Also, he postulates that it was a TR-3B, which is some top secret (but for the half of the internet about it) US spy gizmo that zips to and fro:

Here is a top-secret (again) photo of it in dry dock:














And again, on a cassette from 1994 that I had in my Plymouth Horizon:

"A Summer Wasting"

Now I'm on to the much more sensible The Boy With the Arab Strap, which is seeming to blur in the heat. I may be dreaming.

The Shame

For the last couple of days (it has passed), I was convinced that the three-song run of "Big Bang Baby," "Lady Picture Show"* and "And So I Know," off Stone Temple Pilots' Tiny Music...etc was the Greatest Three Song Run ever. This is odd, because the rest of their oeuvre I find beneath discussion.

I don't know what was wrong with me. And it's passed, of course. But if I bothered you with this in the last 72 hours, I apologize.

* the bridge on this is still sick, however

Best Youtube comment of the new century:

"This movie are amazing"

Nature amok, part 5 - HOT STUFF

(listen to the Rolling Stones song of same name whilst reading)

Drudge had this graphic up, but what I really want to know is: if it's 102 in New Hampshire and 69 [heh] in Maine, what kind of hellish The Road-like netherworld is it like at the state border between these two, where the two fronts are colliding with apocalyptic fervor???

[edit: that little "1 = Coldest" key probably denotes that this is not actual temps, but some other measurements...either way, let's hope that that Tom Petty-looking dude with the weird little "aeroplane" from ...Thunderdome is at the ready!]

Nature amok 4 - KITTEN STORM

Listen: so Kelley gets home late Friday night and there are KITTENS in the street, on her porch, just EVERYWHERE. Well, sort of. Only three! And mom! But they scamper and flolic like more cats, y'know?

Here they are:













Squishy! Conjunctivitis-stricken but he's now been to the vet! We will get to put drops in three times a day while Kelley goes to Chicago. Love him!





















Kelley with Fruitbat! My fave, a good egg. Kelley can write about her experience with these kids in Vol II of her autobiography: Kelley Deal: Knittin' and Kittens.




















Li'l Cait holds up Bellpepper! Could this Dayton native be Georgia-bound? Let's hope so!

Nature amok, part 3 - COMING OF THE DUCKS

Okay, so Mike calls (which is odd, because we hardly ever talk on the phone), I call back...

Seems that last week, before the Big Storm, there was a duck living in the pool at his parents'. Do you notice that I must be pretty high-falutin', as the last two post involve friends with pools?

Anyway...after the storm, said duck was gone. No harm, no fowl (ouch).

Well, in the last 48 hours, the duck has returned to the pool - with eleven ducklings!

Mike's dad (Mike Sr) calls some sort of animal-wrangling branch of the regional constabulary. Sheriff says "Oh, no, we can't move those - they're mallards. Federally protected!"

So now, Mike Sr is duty-bound to protect these rascals!

From a forwarded "Pops 2 son" email:

I went out to the pool about 11:30 [last night] and there's Mom duck and 11 little duckies snoozing on the concrete deck by the pool. I'm afraid that a cat will get the little ones. Lots of cats running around the neighborhood, and they will kill stuff for fun. Tomorrow, I have to construct a better [!] ramp for the little ones to get in and out of the pool. And, I need to duck-proof the skimmer so a little one doesn't get pulled in and drown. I'd like to also make a floating platform that is anchored in the middle of the pool so they can get on it at night and nothing can get to them. Put a little canopy on top of it for shade to keep them out of the 90+ heat... Maybe a small color TV and a CD changer for entertainment for them. And a small cooler full of tasty duck treats (whatever they are!). And they should all have a new bike! And a ball glove! At last, I have grand-ducks!

And, yes, that is the back corner where Milo from the Descendents peed on either July 5 or 6, 1987. Probably the 6th...

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqHNUOxkuw

Nature amok, part 2 - NIGHT OF THE FLIES

Text conversation:

Cory: What's the deal with all the tiny flies outside? Have u seen them?

NE: Are you tripping?

NE: None here. Prolly some fucked up
hatch. Billions of 'em?

Cory: Seriously man, I went to Meijer and people
were like freaking out and running inside. Then I got home and they were all
floating on my pool.

Cory: Thousands. And yes I'm tripping.

NE:
Weird. It will probably be on the news tomorrow...I will try to find out.

NE: It's all very AENIMA

Nature amok, part 1 - WALL OF BEES

Whoa! Our friend Chris's mom has a house on some acreage...and, apparently, A WALL FULL OF BEES!

The bees had made hives inside the wall of her house, and a bee-removal expert dude had to be called in at 150 bucks an hour (and he vacuumed up the loose bees and took them away in a box to his BeeWorld wherever it was).

Anyway - it took thirteen hours in a bee suit...

Here is a pic of inside the wall - this is just one spot, there were bee stalagmite/tites all over!

Overheard:

"It's French for 'air mail'..."

FREE JONNIE MARBLES!

Nick Eddy Relents: going the extra distance

I had another picture of a stencil that someone had done on the Oregon side of the bridge, but I musta moved before the picture was ready because it was a blur. SO, this morning, in the RAIN, I went and took the picture before work:

Bridge cleanup!

Behind Emerson Academy! The walking bridge that goes over SR35 and connects South Park (us) to Oregon District!




This was Saturday am. Herewith, coupla pics!:














The bridge in question. Needs paint, obviously, but in pretty good shape, after about twenty-five citizens came and hacked at huge weeds and such that plagued the entryways. Note also, someone's perverse re-enactment of the OJ "white van" chase.

And yes, "someone" SHOULD go over and spray paint "Bambaataa" under this!