Supafine!

I'm only sorry that it took me this long to see it: Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine is the most inspiring, traumatic, painful and hopeful movie I've seen this year.

Spend $3.50 and rent it this weekend. Now. Log off the internet and go rent it. I'm serious. I don't care what you're doing, you need to at least watch this film.

And while you're at it, turn that damned television off, will ya? It's rotting your brain. Ours has been off for four months now, and I feel better for it.

And when you're done watching, you may get back on the internet and get your citizenship on by visiting Mike's Action Page. Making a difference in this country is not an insurmountable task. In fact, I've been contemplating running for office ... maybe the Register of Wills?

Come on. I know this sounds like a bunch of optimistic hippie liberal crap, but it isn't. It's fucking democracy, and you owe it to yourself to do something about it.

I'm serious about this. Why bitch, moan and complain about the state of the Union if I don't do something about it? I already vote [hint, hint, you non-registered people of voting age] and I turned off the misinformation box [we call it a TV]. But there's more to be done: Educating myself about my community, my new state and national issues, for a start.

And if we all band together ... if we all do something, however small, however simple ... imagine.

I'll be back with missions of my own in the coming days/weeks ... simple things, petitions, e-mailing congressmen, that we all can do. Hell, if you live in Chllicothe, Ohio, I've got a pal down there who's got political connections [hey, Carrie!].

Something, somewhere, has got to change. ...

I was flipping through Harper's Bazaar the other day at the library, and came across an ad for the "Right Hand Ring." What the hell? Hey! Diamonds aren't just for Smug Marrieds anymore, ladies! Step up and be the first to fall for this ad campaign aimed at suckering single women into buying pressed carbon!

From The Professional Jeweler:

The Diamond Promotion Service introduced its extensive marketing program for diamond right-hand rings to jewelers at the recent JCK Show-Las Vegas. The right-hand ring ad campaign, beginning this fall in consumer magazines, features the tag line "Women of the World, Raise Your Right Hand" aimed at inspiring women to take a fresh look at diamonds.

DPS is offering retailers a range of marketing material to complement and extend the consumer advertising campaign. These materials include postcards, ad slicks, acrylic sign, CD with six ad images, positioning copy line, four-color ad, Web banner, radio scripts and a newsletter story.

DPS created a diamond right-hand ring educational program for store owners/managers, which includes research and strategies to help maximize sales opportunities at the counter level and effectively train their sales associates.

Should retailers create ad campaigns featuring their own jewelry designs, they may use the "Women Of The World, Raise Your Right Hand. The Diamond Right Hand Ring" line. DPS authorized the diamond jewelry trade to use this campaign tag solely when promoting diamond right-hand rings. DPS will protect its rights to the full extent of the law.

Excerpts from the campaign: “Your left hand lives for love. The right hand lives for the moment.” "Your left hand loves candlelight. Your right hand loves the spotlight." Priceless.

Now, I'm all for empowerment, as we know. All for a lady doin' her own thang, makin' her own choices, bein' all she can be, even if those choices don't jive with what she's "supposed" to do. Hell, 22-year-olds aren't supposed to "throw their lives away" and settle down with just one man anymore ... it's too "old-fashioned" and patriarchal and limiting and all the rest. But I did it anyway [to the surprise of many] because it was what I wanted to do.

I just think it's interesting that yet another niche in the consumer market has leaped on single women and their so-called insecurities to make a little profit, all the while turning it around so that it seems like the empowered, I'm-my-own-woman thing to do. Guess it was just a matter of time.

Phew! I did it. The Site and The Blog are up, running, and pretty much functional.

I'm jazzed. Now I can move on to other things.

Don't cry, Ewan! Does anybody else bawl like a baby at Moulin Rouge? I do. I watched it today with Iain, who had never seen it.

Yesterday we watched Rushmore, which I had never seen. It was good. Very much like The Royal Tenenbaums, which I also like. Gotta love those Wilson brothers.

Next up: new stories on 210 west.

Today's triumphant euphoria brought to you by Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots from the album "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" by The Flaming Lips

Nostalgia for college still going strong. Am planning a reunion, but the question is: When? AND -- if i start reminiscing about high school, somebody please slap me.

Perchance to dream: Yeah, so I overslept this morning ... making me about three hours late to work. I think that's a new MB record.

Ooops: This obsession with the supafine redesign is causing me to become lax in other areas, such as keeping up with my e-mail and posting to 210 west. But i swear, as soon as I finish this i'll be back on track.

OK, kids, that's all for now. Rest up for Labor Day.

I Love The Nineties

So I'm sitting here with my best pal Hal Sparks, and we're making a list and checking it twice.

Things I Love/Miss about the '90s. [in no particular order]
Note: These things may not actually hail from the 1990's, but tough shit, it's my list, OK?

- The Insane Clown Posse
- Hypercolor T-shirts
- My So-Called Life
- Kennedy the VJ
- Hole
- Garbage
- Grunge as a viable fashion alternative
- Soundgarden
- the return of Hush Puppies
- Pogs
- Edward Scissorhands
- Nirvana, duh
- Lilith Fair
- Cypress Hill
- "Under the Bridge" by the Chili Peppers
- The Lion King
- Slap bracelets
- Rope bracelets
- Hemp everything [or was that just me?]
- River Phoenix
- Sassy magazine
- Real baby-T's, babydoll dresses and Mary Janes
- Guns'n'Roses: "November Rain"
- Bill Clinton as president

Seems like life was pretty near perfect back then. Now everybody's either sold out, died, or dropped off the face of the earth, and my favorite trends have been co-opted and mangled. Sigh ...

Changes, they are a-comin'

I'm workin on some new HTML and CSS for Supafine: The Blog, so get ready. The plan is to clean everything up, first of all, and then see how creative I can get. You can watch my progress at the test site, if you wanna, but as of right now it's just a boring generic starter template.

The Wedding Story: So Iain and I went back to Pittsburgh to see his cousin Janielle get married. The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, held outside in the fading August sunlight, candles and white tents and red dresses. Boring, though. Bad DJ. But it was pretty to look at.

Before we left for the 5-hour drive back on Friday we stopped at Red Brick Station for teachers' happy hour. A Bad Idea. I had no food in me, and three strong drinks. I was a barely-mobile wreck. Fortunately i processed most of the alcohol before we made it back to the in-laws.

Very Bad Idea. I won't do that again.

Pumpkinhead, revisited: I'm thinking the dye job doesn't look as bad as I feared. I think I'm going to leave it be.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Time to get my code on. Thanks to Raena today for some inspiration.

Okay, one more thought before i pull the old "barf and faint."

It's so interesting that this nostalgia thing is not just me. I just read Jen's blog and Kristalyn's blog. Apparently, we're all feelin' it. What's up with that? Are we just that in tune? Or is it the whole "back-to-school" thing in the air making us reminisce?

What say we have a little reunion, guys?

Grab some breadsticks at Pollyeyes, have a beer at Brathaus, hassle some people on Main Street, browse through Finders, get stinking drunk at Downtown and cap the night off with some burgers at The Corner Grill.

Oh, for jesus. It's all too much right now. Lonely is not the word; maybe sad is. Two years out of college, and I want nothing more right now then to go straight back to Darrow Hall and skip class.

What am I supposed to do with this? Jen? Kris? You girls got any ideas?

Bah.

Ow, my head!

Headache headache headache! Ow. What is this? Is this a blood clot? What's going on? These are becoming a little too common for my liking.

Just call me Pumpkin-head: Oh, lord. I have committed the Brunette's Mortal Sin: I overbleached my dark brown hair, resulting in charming chunks of saffron framing my face. I swore I would never do this again. Shit. I'll tell you how it happened, and then you can slap me.

OK. So the alarming number of grays popping up on my head lately finally broke my Vanity Barrier. My typical opinion is that hair color is OK if it's like, purple, but that if I ever went gray, i was going to do it gracefully. Like Lauren Hutton or somebody. But then I'm thinking, Fuck, at 23 I'm way too young to be sporting these random silver threads in ever-increasing numbers. I don't look like Lauren Hutton, I look like .. well, a lot like my mother, God love her. At which point i realize the grays are hereditary, and I need only to look at Mom's silver head [now bottle-brown] to realize my mane's dim future. Or my dad's silver head, for that matter. All salt and no pepper.

So I'm freaking about the gray. I find a coupon in the paper for L'Oreal's latest "haircolor experience." I buy it, like a sucker. This stuff is a two-step process: Dye your hair an allover color [Rich Chocolate], then use the "Illuminating Wand" [Luxe Caramel] to add "multi-tonal luminescence." All right. I'm down with that. I dye it brown, and it looks good. I add the multi-tonal whatever. Which they don't tell you is BLEACH, for the love of God. So I'm streaking away, dreaming of the subtle nuances my hair is going to have. I notice a very peculiar transformation occuring on the strands I've already illuminated: namely, that they're turning orange. But the box says For Best Results, Leave On for 15 Mins. So i leave it on for 10, like a dumbass, before i realize that it's bleach oh christ it's bleach. At which point, the damage is done.

I am now Pumpkin-head.

Iain says it looks all right. And actually, my hair bears a striking resemblance to that of a girl I taught last fall. So maybe this two-tone thing is trendy -- that's how i'm going to try to pass it off, anyway.

Push comes to shove, I'm dying it all black next weekend. Ach! Like i need this.

Latest screenings: Movie time again. The arts editor dropped off a lot of good screeners the other day, and I picked up "Grosse Pointe Blank," "Sliding Doors" [so cute] and "Rushmore," which I've never seen. And I used my $20 coupon at Suncoast today to get "Chicago" and "Moulin Rouge." Buildin' my DVD collection a wee bit at a time.

Designing women: Coworker Donna called me at home today, trying to feel out my preferences for the SND design conference happening soon. I think I might actually get to go, which is pretty cool, because A) This is an expensive conference, B) This is a very classy conference, C) I really want to go to this conference and D) Patuxent is likely going to pay for me to go. So I'm way excited.

As far as redesigning supafine goes, I've got some ideas, thanks to Dan. One of the places he pointed me to was Stop Design, which is a nice reference and inspiration.

Lawfully wedded: We've got another wedding to go to this weekend. This time, Iain's cousin is tying the knot [ahem, with the father of her baby, more power to her], so it's a total family affair. I picked up the sweetest dress at Salvation Army the other week -- black and white, Express, very swingy, very forties -- for $4. Oooh, and Iain tried on his interview suit with this spread-collar pear-green shirt, and shot the cuffs out so he looks very Brad Pitt-in-Ocean's-11. We're going to be so hot.

Where have all the cowboys gone? Man oh man. I don't know what's up with me lately, but i've been getting more little hits of melancholy. I'm screaming nostalgic for college, Ohio, friends in far places. I want to go back home, see my parents, my sibs. I want to have all my friends in town. I want to go to lame-ass college parties and drink too much cheap beer. I want to run into a dozen people I know the second I step out the door. I want Mandy to be living with me, too, cooking creamed corn and lending me her deodorant [don't ask].

I am getting used to Baltimore. I'm growing to like it. I'm getting to know people. I may even be carving a tiny niche out for myself -- I can't tell. But it still doesn't feel like home. Even though most of my friends have picked up and moved to far places [holla Jen, Kris, Jeff, Matt[s], Carrie, Tasha, my Newsers, all y'all], I still feel like i know everybody in Ohio, but barely a soul out here. The damn appalachians are splitting me off from everywhere and everyone i know and love.

These little bouts come and go, and I'm sure every transplant feels the same. But it's disheartening nonetheless.

Look at the little baby! A little note about age, and this kind of references the above freak-out about gray hair: I feel so old. Somewhere, I passed the line that totally separates me from the young. I was copping a smoke outside work the other day, and there were these high-school boys on skateboards, doing tricks in the parking lot. Once upon a time these guys would have been my buddies, and I would have been out there with them, waiting for them to finish boarding or playing hackey-sack or whatever so we could go inside and play Nintendo. Now they whiz right past me. I don't even register on the radar. I have no idea what music the kids are listening to nowadays, and that's no cliche, it's for real. My sister is in high school, and she speaks a totally different language. I have no idea what she's talking about half the time: bands i've never heard of, etc. When did this happen? What the hell? I'm only 23, but I feel 35. What am I going to feel like at 35? 50? How do I get young again? I don't know.

And interestingly enough, the ladies at work think I'm a baby. They can't believe that I wasn't even around to witness the wonder and glory that was The Seventies. They complain that I make them feel their age. They marvel that I've never seen Captain Kangaroo. They cringe when they realize they're older than my parents. And with them, i do feel like a little kid.

Funny, huh?

Okay. My headache's making me nauseated. This is so not cool. I'm going to go throw up and pass out.

[Closing song: On The Flipside from the album "The Geometrid" by Looper.]

The Mummy Returns!

So yeah. I am already sick of supafine city. It's back to the way it was before, though the ancillary pages haven't been cleaned up yet.

Bear with me, OK?

Supafine City!

Whoa, Nellie! So I decided I was ready for a new Supafine: The Site. I tossed all the old, code-heavy, phat-CSS pages out the window and replaced them with uber-simple sliced Photoshop pages. Everything looks OK in my IE -- hopefully it'll render OK in your browser, too.

l decided to simplify everything because A) it's easier this way -- I can make a web page in about half a second -- and B) my web site is pretty standard, non-dynamic stuff anyhow. It's the blog that changes. And the blog can't use any pictures, so it's super code-heavy and CSS heavy and I'm not ready to tackle that just yet. The web site was much more manageable.

So anyway, go look at it, tell me what you think about the wonky sizes and stuff. The recurring photo is a shot of downtown Richmond; I took it a few years ago, and it just seemed to work well.

I dunno. It's late, and I gotta bounce.

I'm Idaho!

Today's pool visit earned me a tres-gauche sunburn, right on the chest. Very classy. Nose is all red, too. I'm such a novice.

So I broke the apartment today: Had the bright idea to throw our pillows in the washer. Two at a time.

Forty-five minutes later, the kitchen was flooded, and so was the hallway -- on the other side of the wall. The hallway's carpeted.

The emergency repair dude had to come over, and rip up the carpet, and set up Mr. Industrial-size Fan to blow the water out.

Tuesday the emergency repair dude has to come back and rip up the carpet pads and replace them. I'm sure he's going to scold me, too -- good thing I'll be at work.

Gah.

So we have wet pillows and billowing carpet. It's like a bad acid trip ["Am I high, or is the floor wavering?"].

It ain't even Labor Day! So Iain goes back to school tomorrow. He doesn't have to battle the Mini Monsters til next week, but still. This summer flew by awfully damn fast, and it rained nearly the whole time. You know it's bad if I'm not even cultivating my tan until mid-August ... ow. Tan, sunburn, whatever.

The taste of your lipgloss: I am admitting two small girlie indulgences today: The Sephora Catalog and a homemade french manicure. I'm sporting a rather sloppy mani and pedi, because I was talking to Jen at the time I was painting them, but they look kind of downtown-dirty cool.

If I weren't trying so damn hard to pretend to save money, I'd be stocking up on some Urban Decay and some Stila and some Philosophy and some Frederic Fekkai ... ooh, baby. Oh, who am I kidding. I can barely afford some Cover Girl.

[Today's sponsor: Hey Ladies from the album "Paul's Boutique" by Beastie Boys]

De minimis

My groove is off. I've started this blog like five times now, and keep erasing it, because I don't have anything good to say.

Theoretically, I therefore shouldn't say anything at all -- but you know me. Loquacious.

I'll touch on some discarded topics:
1. Accidental friends: When you lose touch with someone [I'm not naming names] and you realize this person was too good to be friends with you anyway, and you wonder why it didn't happen sooner.
2. The New Traditionalist: An IM chat with my brother reveals my new "old matron" status.
Me: i bring this dessert to all the married-people functions we go to.
Brother Matt: That's quaint.
3. Beauty tips: While making said dessert, I used my hands to combine Oreos and a stick of butter, coming away with soft touchable hands -- a result of the exfoliant quality of the Oreos and the softening quality of the butter.
4. Quest for an even tan: I went to the apartment-complex pool, and suffered my own complex while wearing a bikini around all the young, fit, tanned lifeguard chicas.

See? All kind of lame, yet that's what's going on with me today.

What are ya gonna do.

[Today's blog brought to you by A magazine called sunset from the album "Enhanced EP" by wilco]

Wait for it ...
OK. Installation is nearly successful ... just about four hours to go. See, not so bad!

Question: I'm thinking of redesigning Supafine again. Good idea? Bad idea? Gots to learn my CSS-p first. Just gimme a couple days.

And maybe someday I'll figure out Adobe Illustrator, too, while I'm at it. I'm at the point where I can draw circles and squares, and very careful lines, but that's it. Might as well draw some shit on paper and scan it in.

Gar.

I think it's time to go sit out by the pool.

Blackout
Lord above. So I know I'm a little behind the times, but i just stumbled upon this little tidbit on
Tom Tomorrow's site about Fox News: They're suing Al Franken for using "Fair And Balanced" in the title of his new book.

Will it never end?

Happy accidents: Ran into an old old friend of mine today online. I love when this happens. He's still doing well, still smart and funny as always. Glad to see some things don't change.

WTF? How did I miss this? Apparently a huge chunk of the nation lost power this evening.

If anyone says "terrorist," I'll shoot them in the elbow.

Level on the level
Listening to Battle Flag from the album "How To Operate With A Blown Mind" by Lo-Fidelity All Stars.

Well, the Evil Eye is gone, but the headaches remain. Since they occur in the mornings when I wake up, I'm either dreaming about Georgie Porgie Bush -- or 12 hours of sleep without a caffeine break is too much.

Takin' the easy way out: Today's task will be figuring out how to download an 89 MB system software update on a 56k modem. Let's just say I don't have 11 hours to spend watching the spiral spin.

Here, kitty kitty: There's a stray cat living in the stairwell of our apartment. I have this fear that he's going to thirst to death and stink up the place. Is that weird?

Pretty boring times right now. Iain's working on another novel. Perhaps I should put my artistic tendencies to work and create something? But what? I simply don't have the patience. I have an unfinished painting, an unfinished piece of knitting, an unfinished short story, an unfinished sketch, and an unopened dress pattern lying around. My attention span is about 12 minutes long. In fact, the only thing that holds my interest is a book ... I guess I'll go enjoy someone else's creativity, until I can think of more things to write about that are worth reading.

Closing song: A Little More Like Me from the album "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers.

Now listening to Up On Cripple Creek from the album "Best Of The Band" by The Band.

This little alert gets inserted automatically from my iTunes playlist through Kung Log. This should making posting and editing easier. i think. I dunno, cause I'm still trying it out. We'll see ...

OK, now i'm listening to Sell Sell Sell from the album "Maroon" by Barenaked Ladies.

This is so cool.

Boy oh boy.

Photos.

Visuals from our trip to Pittsburgh last weekend are here. You can see our nephews, Josh and Caleb, plus my parents-in-law and some shots from Jared's wedding.

Pictures of my and Iain's wedding are here.

While we're at it, here are some from my bridal shower.

Too exciting for words, I know.

Mind you don't cut yourself, Mordecai!

Movies movies movies! That's what lazy rainy days are for -- and since we still, still haven't had a day without rain since mid-July, we been watchin' movies.

Dialogue between Iain and I has degenerated into quips and quotes from "Batman," "Raising Arizona," "Fight Club," "Boondock Saints," and others. We can have entire meaningful conversations this way.

M: {conspiratorial} "They say taupe is very soothing."
I: {congenially} "Shut the fuck up."
M: {getting angry} "Get your stupid fucking rope."
I: {veritably pissed off} "Oh, I'll get my stupid fucking rope!"
M: {forgiving} "That Buford. {smiles} He's a sly one!"
I: {laughing} "He already knows his ABCs. Hit the deck, boy!"

It's like our own little language ... I know, I know, we're demented. Shut the fuck up.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I gotta say how much coffee is making me a happy girl today. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but goddamn, does it take the edge off. I've been having evil-monster headaches in the mornings lately -- I'm convinced a major aneurism is about to occur -- and my inexpertly-made Folgers just knocks it right the hell out.

Plus the smell of coffee percolating reminds me of my mom, my grandma and my aunt sitting around the kitchen, bitching good-naturedly and saying things like "Bulltweety."

Baby momma drama: JESUS christopher, what a week for drama and trauma in the lives of those I know and love. So much he said, she said, I hate him, I'm not talking to her, he pisses me off, I'm writing her off, he's dead to me now, etc. etc. etc. Why can't we all just get along? Please?

It's so easy. I very rarely fight with my friends -- or anybody -- so I'm not entirely sure how these huge blowups happen. Could I be missing the drama gene?

Catchin' the red-eye: Oh, and speaking of hypochondria -- I think i have contracted pink-eye. It's all red and scary-looking. I haven't been touching dirty little children lately, so it could just be an eyelash, or nicotine overdose, or cancer. Whatever the reason, I'm spending a lot of time leaning backwards over the bathroom sink as Iain pries my eyes open and dumps a bottle of "Extra-sterile!" Walgreens-brand eyedrops into my peeper, with me flailing around and screaming. How did you spend your Saturday night?

Suck it! I'm 'bout to stick a big, pointy-toed boot in the collective arse of Sprint Corp. Remember that phone I tried out back in May? And returned a week later? I just received my fourth bill, this time for $89.76. Ninety freaking dollars for 11 minutes of cellular hell. And, for the fourth time, I called "Customer Solutions" to ask the kindly representatives to please FOR THE LOVE OF GOD cancel my account and waive the charges they were supposed to waive three months ago. For the fourth time, mind you. Miss Kimberly accessed my account and told me the last person I talked to -- who promised, in the vaguely polite southern drawl they all seem to have, to take all charges off -- that it never happened. The last rep just whispered sweet nothings in my ear, apparently, hung up and went to lunch without doing a god-damned thing about the $257 that was on my bill last time.

Now, I pride myself on being cool, calm and collected with the wage-slaves who staff these support centers, but yesterday I found myself red-faced and shaking all over as Miss Kimberly told me that she was sincerely sorry, but I would have to pay the bill, nothing she could do, the Retention Department refused to waive the fee. Fuck the Retention Department, is what I wanted to say, but what came out was Let me speak with your manager, in a wavery voice that hovered on homicidal.

She put me on hold for a hundred years, and then came back and said that Congratulations, the manager OK'd the waiving of every charge, no problem, you'll receive a bill for zero dollars.

At which point I laughed in her invisible face. I have heard this nicety before, I told her, and got her Service Number and the name of the "manager" who approved this. His name is Stanley. Apparently he's a fucking hotshot like Sting or Madonna or Prince and only goes by one name.

At what point, I wonder, do I stop playing Telephone with fucking Sprint and get my [non-existent] lawyer on their ass?

Closing time. All right -- I think this is about all I got for right now. I now have three cups o' joe in me, and it's time to clock out and read some more Fitzgerald [just finished "The Great Gatsby again, now starting "This Side of Paradise"]. You gotta love Sundays.

Family-style

Just got in from Jared's wedding in Pittsburgh this weekend. Long weekend at the in-laws' house, with the nephews and sisters-in-law and whatnot.

Iain was Jared's best man and hence spent most of his time off gallivanting with the other groomsmen, while I built an Octoblast Hot Wheels Brand Racecar Playset for little Caleb and drank tea with my mother in law.

And yeah, I was slightly hormonal and irrationally bitchy at times, but we all survived. The wedding was beautiful, the weekend was terrific, it was great to see everyone.

The things you own end up owning you: With very little fanfare, I finished up my celly contract with Evil Verizon, and now I have no cell phone. Expect more withdrawal and crankiness as I get used to the freedom of being without my digital tether. I have a whole lot more to say about this, but for now just kinda wanted to say "Hey! Sorry, but you can't call me there anymore."

All right, boys and girls, this is basically just a spacer entry, to remind you I'm still alive and assauge some guilt on my part. I gotta get my shower on and head off to work.

Likely will write about these topics more in-depth later. Yay. Stay tuned.