Supafine!

1. Geezers be stylin': So I've been noticing how cool old men are nowadays. The black frame glasses, the sweater vests, those little golfer caps ...
   
2. What economy? So Denise and I tallied up our friends the other day, trying to think of some who are A.) employed, B.) employed full-time and C.) employed full-time in the field in which they received a college diploma. We came up with four people. Four!! And we know tons of people. What's up with this? Nearly everyone we know is barely scraping by. And we're talking smart people. Capable people. College-educated people with massive debt, and nobody's finding work. That's some fucked-up stuff right there.
   
3. Indescribable joy: Stop the presses! There's a BP out White Marsh way that actually carries Kamel Red Lights. I'm in heaven. I'm going to smoke myself stupid. I bought the last two packs they had.
   
4. Sesame Street was just a dream: So as much as I want to move downtown, I just don't think I have the balls for it. I'm too acclimated to two-way streets and ample parking. Let me tell you, I'm still reeling from this thought.
   

Update: A recount was commissioned, and it turns out I know seven people who are employed full-time in the field in which they studied: Iain, Brandi, Brandon, Vince, Jen, Jeffy and Dani.

This post brought to you by: Rockin' The Suburbs from the album "Rockin' The Suburbs" by Ben Folds.

Great weekend. I turned 24 Friday, battled a few issues, mostly in the vein of "Wow, I didn't think I'd make it this long!"

And Iain came home from school with an armload of flowers for me, for which he wins major bonus points.

That evening we went out to dinner at Steak and Ale in Timonium. Right in our price range for a steak dinner and not crowded at all. Gorged ourselves on beef. We decided to continue the evening in Towson, drinking at the Charles Village Pub, where we made fun of all the baby college children and listened to some sort of band-type-thing. CVP, by the way, is very schizophrenic -- totally different clientele on a Friday night than on, say, a Tuesday afternoon. But we survived, at least until our cigarette supply ran out.

My birthday present was to go shopping, which is a big deal considering our grand money-saving scheme. So we bummed around Hampden Saturday morning (I'm trying very hard not to do the mall thing), got some books at Salamander's -- surprisingly decent selection compared to other used bookstores I've seen. Made me sad that Pauper's in BG went out of business. I picked up one by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because I haven't read any by him, and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood because it's good and I don't own it. The big plan was to buy me some threads, but I didn't find much I liked. Picked up a decent work shirt at Cloud 9, but that was it. I just can't rock the pleated corduroy miniskirt thing.

So I totally cheated today and went to the mall anyway. Still didn't find much, though. I think my ass is simply not constructed to be fit by off-the-rack clothes, making the Hunt For A Decent Pair of Freaking Pants nearly impossible. But I did score some sweaters at the Gap. Don't hate me for it ... they were on sale. That makes it OK, right?

This post brought to you by: I Don't Want To Grow Up from the album "Beautiful Maladies" by Tom Waits

I'd just like to thank Mom and Dad for getting together 24 years and nine months ago.

Two-score!

In the spirit of total disclosure, I must say that Iain and I watched High Fidelity today for the 15th time.

John Cusack cracks my shit up: "I will now sell 5 copies of 'The Three EP's' by the Beta Band." And my personal favorite: "WHAT FUCKING IAN GUY?!"

We had reheated pizza from Pizza Shan's for dinner -- Iain bought a few on Monday to stock up for the week, since we don't usually feel like cooking on Wednesdays. How lame is that? And Pizza Shan's is a very interesting pizzeria. It appears to be Asian owned and operated. Of course, I can only say this by virtue of the fact that a) "Shan" is not, say, very Italian-sounding; b) A secret-asian man took our order and c.) A secret-asian man delivered our pizza. If this makes me a presumptuous bastard, so be it. Besides, their pies are amazing.

And my girl Hurricane Denise [a moniker she earned far before Isabel hit the streets] called. I must say, it's so good to reconnect with old college friends.

After 2.5 minutes of contemplation, I have decided that honesty is the best policy. To know me is to love me. "Fuck" is an acceptable noun/verb/adjective/adverb. And, let's face it, my ego would starve if I didn't feed it by writing down every damned thought I have.

Just so long as y'all don't hold anything against me, we're cool.

Sorry, no quotidian details of late. Trying to reconcile what I write with who may be reading. Would hate to burst bubbles of those who know me in, say, a professional, daughterly, granddaughterly, or sisterly manner.

... a belated shoutout to my pagemonkeys [thanks, Dan], my parents [I swear I'm still a good girl], my siblings [who can't access Supafine because the liberal use of the word "fuck" seems to have excited the Parental Controls] and all the people visiting my site via Tribune Company [Who are you guys, anyway?].

My only words of wisdom are [RADIO EDIT, -- ed.].

Lord. I can't believe I'm stealing rhymes from Kid Rock.

Sometimes, I wonder why Dubya is still president.

Fortunately, his approval rating is crashing. Are people actually catching on? Do we actually have a chance at escaping his clutches?

Iain and I got all het up about Cowboy President today, and we wonder: What's it going to take to get someone else in?

Overslept again today. Again! I think there are little Tardy Elves living in my apartment and fucking with my alarm clock, possibly even feeding me Tylenol P.M. when I'm not looking.

Simple minds, simple pleasures: Iain and I have a new project! It's called Thrift-store Sofa, a new comic series/two-player game.

This is hours and hours of entertainment, I'm telling you. At least, for us it is.

Enter to win! Thrift-store Sofa is sponsoring a sweepstakes! You could be the lucky grand-prize winner! You could win a luxury all-expenses-paid cruise to Tahiti! Of course, you'd have to win somebody else's contest to get that prize, but our prizes are good, too.

Boo. Can't believe they canceled the Baltimore Book Festival. Stupid hurricane.

Bah. So we're going out to dinner with Karen and John instead. But I can't find my shoe, and we have to leave in a few minutes.

Guess I should go look for it.

BaltiBlogs.com. Movable-Type-powered blogs for Baltimore residents. Rock on.

Blogging, B-more style: Crablogs.com

We're recuperating from the Wrath of Tropical Storm Isabel today.

About 11 p.m. yesterday, we set up shop on the back porch, ready for the show. Just as I was feeling especially idiotic for getting excited about My First Hurricane, Isabel delivered.

Several beers into the show, the transformer down the street took a hit, sending up rainbow-colored sparks and knocking out all our power. Every time the current tried to wriggle its way through it, a tremendous WHHRRRRM sound belted out, all the lights in all the apartments flickered, and the sky turned green.

It was better than the Fourth of July!

So Iain and I did a victory No Power dance and ran down the street to watch the sparks again. Of course, at that point we're standing in a big fat puddle directly underneath the power lines. I evidently learned nothing from Louie The Lightning Bug.

From a New York Times op-ed piece on the completely misnamed "partial-birth abortion":

It now looks likely that in the coming weeks, President Bush will sign into law a ban on so-called partial birth abortion, thereby culminating a long campaign of deception. The measure, which has been constantly misrepresented as limited to late-term abortions, would in fact ban common abortion procedures used after the first trimester of pregnancy but well before fetal viability.

This will be a substantial blow against women's reproductive freedom, a clear contradiction of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. That is why the Supreme Court struck down a very similar law in Nebraska just three years ago. We can only hope this law will also be successfully challenged.[Emphasis mine].

What in the hell is this? If your goal is to stop abortions, this is the exact wrong way to go about it. Make it legal, make it safe, make it easy, make it accessible. Eliminate the bureacracy, the parental notification requirement, and the bullshit. Do these things, and late-term abortions won't be as necessary. Early-term abortions -- where the fetus is still only the size of a grain of rice -- would be easier to acquire.

And if you really, really want to stop abortions, you educate your men, women and children about sexuality, planned parenthood, reproduction, and STDs. You enfranchise the people. Give them the tools to make informed decisions about their bodies. You most certainly don't outlaw abortions and make Sex Ed an abstinence-only option.

And, additionally, this new legislation makes no provision whatsoever about the health of the mother.

I ask, again: What the hell is this?

Do something about it.

Thanks to Matt for the link.

Jeffy called from San Jose a little while ago, to check on how we were doing in the face of the Supercane. I told him we were doing fine, just a little rain, nothing to get worked up about, blah blah blah.

He said, "Oh really? 'Cause I was just watching CNN, and that's one hell of a storm headed directly for you."

So I actually turned on the 6 o'clock news this evening, for shits and giggles. Jeff Pegues was reporting from Ocean City, getting batted about by the wind. The cameraman actually had to reach his arm around and wipe the rain off the lens with a bit of Kleenex. We had it on mute, so I don't know what Jeff was saying, but he was dancing around excitedly and pointing at things, so it must have been good. The other stations had some great "Holy shit" footage as well -- oceans of water pouring into the street, a mini-hurricane [a waterspout?] in a hotel pool, etc. And the Doppler Super-Alert Radar of Premonition showed the hurricane blotting out the northern hemisphere.

Hmm, I said. Maybe this is a little more than Just Rain. Maybe this bears paying attention to.

So Jeffy went back to working on the Readers' Recall Guide [a captain, the skipper, the millionaire and his wife, a bounty hunter, a prostitute ... ] for his paper, and Iain and I made some hasty Tropical Storm Preparedness plans.

"Pepsi?"
"Check."
"Rolling Rock?"
"Check."
"Tobacco?"
"Check."
"Milk crate lawn chairs?"
"Check."
"OK, I think we're set."

Word has it the show will start around 1:30 a.m., so we're "battening down the hatches" (i.e., making Supercane noises and generally taunting the Windy Vortex of Destruction). I wanted to drive down to the Inner Harbor and watch the water flail around, but we were, in the end, too lazy.

The power's already flickered a few times -- enough to set our clocks to flashing 12:00, very nice ambience -- but has stayed on so far. But I really, really want it to go out. If this is going to be my first hurricane, I want the whole enchilada, dude. Outages! Gusts of wind! Excitement!

Bring it on.

Our apartment has a very interesting smell right now. It's the delicious, homey smell of baked chicken combined with the vomity smell of the stanky mulch the yard rearrangers used to rearrange the landscape outside our building. We can smell the mulch because we had to open the windows and doors, because the chicken mysteriously burned, smoking up the place worse than usual, and setting off the smoke alarm, and generally causing problems.

So not only did the geniuses tear up all the trees, but they replaced them with shriveled plant matter that smells like an elementary school hallway. Lucky us.

But besides that, and the spidey I just saw crawling along the floor, it was a pretty good evening. Iain's decided he should join a band. So we popped a few beers, and he busted out the guitar and the harmonica for a little jam session. I'm trying to cajole him into doing an Open Mic night somewhere; I've just got to find the right bar. Well, and blindfold him, drug him, drive him to said bar, sit him on a chair, put his guitar in his hands and hold a gun to his head. But -- consider it done.

Oh well.

Oh! And though it doesn't have the same cachet as, say, a Snow Day, Baltimore County Public Schools called a Hurricane Day, so school's canceled tomorrow, and hence, Iain gets to sleep in and stay home. Score!

Transcontinental shout-out: So I says to Mabel, I says, "Mabel? Tell Jeffy it's just jokes. He'll understand. Damn him and his California ways."

Now you've done it: OK, I know I totally dissed the hurricane, and she's going to get all pissed and retaliate on me and strand me for days in my apartment, fending off flooding and locusts and whatever the hell a hurricane brings, but please, just let me wake up before she arrives and get some more cigarette filters, 'cause I'm going to be hurting like hell if I have to stay holed up in here chewing on loose tobacco.

I'd like to thank the Academy: Supafine is Baltimore's Best Local Online Addiction, sez The City Paper. Who knew?

Careful, now: Today's post brought to you by You're With Stupid Now from the album "You're With Stupid" by Aimee Mann.

Oh No. Hurricane Isabel is coming. Boo Hoo. I'm scared. Wah.

Since when is wind and rain cause for alarm? I mean, shah, I would be a little concerned if I lived in the Outer Banks or whatever, but come on. We're inland, dude. Chesapeake Bay, schmesapeake bay. The prediction so far -- the honest-to-god weather forecast -- calls for rain Thursday [the day Isabel is scheduled to tour Charm City] with gusts up to 30 mph. Last I heard, that ain't hurricane weather. But the weathertainers on the news, and in the news, are calling for Apocalypse conditions and screaming warnings to anybody from Florida to Canada.

People are so damned eager for the next Storm Of The Freaking Century that they'll latch on to anything, going nuts and stocking up on batteries and plywood and shit. Ridiculous. They're talking about canceling school, for chrissakes.

Granted, I was a bit surprised when we got three feet of snow last February [the last Storm of the Freaking Century] ... I was totally unprepared. But we survived being snowbound for three or four days. It's a little thing I like to call "being chill." And having many cans of soup and corn that we never eat except in weather emergencies.

I'm a firm believer in not being a wuss about the weather. A) I'm invincible and B) it's not like we're going to stop it. So there, Hurricane! Come and get me! Hah!

In other news: ... Well, there's really not any other news. Dubya said some dumb-ass stuff about the Clean Skies bill or whatever tripe it is he's trying to push through Congress, and that's about it. How come this guy sounds like a parody of himself even when it's him speaking?

This post is, of course, brought to you by "No Rain," by Blind Melon, off the album Blind Melon.

Three in the morning is a horrible time to be awake. Too many thoughts.

1. This blog is getting way too personal. Time to revert to hand-writing thoughts in my diary.
   
2. With the above noted, I just read Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland and it's freaking me out.
   
3. Are you there, God? It's me, MB. What the fuck is this?
   
4. It's at three in the morning that I get really bad feelings about things.
   
5. I should quit smoking.
   
6. I'll never be on time for work if I don't go to sleep soon.
   
7. When is that magical time when you stop being a kid and start being a grownup?
   
8. Who made the crop circles?
   
9. I have my father's eyes. It's strange, seeing features on your face that you recognize from someone else.
   
10. Why is my life so easy? Why was I born in the US in 1979, and not in, say, Bosnia in 1997?
    
11. I really ought to floss more.
    
12. I think I may redesign Supafine again.
    
13. What does it all mean?
    
14. Maybe I should move to Canada.
    

The world is not so scary when you can write it all down. I just wish I had a thought-transcription machine. That would make everything easier. Oh, and a dream-recording machine, too. Then I could know what the hell was up with my dream last night. It involved high-school basketball, embezzlement, and electroshock therapy.

I hope tonight's dream is clearer and more upbeat.

Come on. We're all sensitive people.

As Carole put it on Friday, "Marvin Gaye is God, isn't he?"

Had a real blast this weekend. Had a Page Design department meeting Friday morning, and it included a delish turkey club sandwich. That sammich made my day, with all its bacon goodness. Plus we got to rehash the SND conference, and that's always fun, to get all design-psyched and shit.

After that, Iain and I headed out to Rosedale Park -- in the rain -- for the high school's annual Crab Feast. This is a Maryland thing I'm not yet accustomed to, but involves drinking large quantities of beer and getting barbaric on bucketloads of cooked arthropods. No plates, no silverware, just a mallet. People banging the shit out of these little crabs, these steamed Sebastians, and then sucking out the innards with glee.

I had a hot dog.

Anyway, we had a good time. Tom and Carole showed up, and the four of us agreed to meet at their house to continue the evening. We brought over "The Essential Johnny Cash," and had an impromptu memorial service/music-swapping fest, in memory of the Man in Black.

Of course, every good wake requires a toast, so we walked over -- in the rain! -- to Jerry's Friendly Belvedere. For those of you who are familiar with BG: Picture a blend of Howard's Club H and the Brathaus, and you'll get the gist of this bar. We headed straight to the basement, where we laid claim to one of the two pool tables and monopolized the jukebox ["Never Been to Spain," by Three Dog Night]. I had to add my graffiti to the library of information on the wall: "Westminster Pride In the Hizhouse!"(sic), "Johnny Is Gay!", "For A Good Time, Call Paul! Or His Mom! They're In The Book!" I think I wrote somethin' about Supa MB, but I don't remember.

Events got pretty fuzzy after Tom scratched on the eight ball, and Carole and I won the Boys Against Girls round.

By the end of the evening, I found myself impressing this old guy with my knowledge of "the old cowboys," Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe. He evidently didn't expect a wee little girl like me to know who those old/dead farts were. But I did. We all had a good laugh.

We left sometime after that, and I do remember Iain pushing me around in an abandoned shopping cart. Fortunately, no one was injured. Next thing I know, I'm declining an offer of reheated fried chicken and crawling into bed.

So that was Friday. Good times. We don't get out much, so I treasure those evenings. Saturday was super low-key. We laid around, bein' lazy, and watched "Signs," which I never saw before and which scared the shit out of me, in a good way. And today, which is Sunday, we cleaned the house. And sorted our CDs. And burned some CDs. And re-watched the juicy parts from "Signs."

Boring! I know! But so fun!

Jesus, who put the X in my drink today? I'm so in love with everything and everybody [as evidenced by my posts below]. Sigh. I take these days when they come, though. No complaints here.

Do you want to find something worth saving?
The change would do me right.
I've been just waiting and hesitating
with this heart of mine

Still a mystery,
but there somethin' so easy
in how you're sweet to me.
I feel completed,
like it's something I needed
for this heart of mine
"Heart of Mine" by Peter Salett

I know, I know, enough with the lyrics. I can't help it. I made Iain watch "Keeping the Faith" yesterday because Ed Norton is too freaking adorable as a priest. Our buddy Clint's working on his second year in seminary, and he's going to be every ounce as cool and cute and helpful and God Squad as Ed Norton is in this movie.

Anyway, because Iain's such a good man he watched it with me.

I don't post a whole lot about him, and us, and marriage and all that. Mostly because what's suitable for public consumption is boring: We Went To The Grocery Store. We Read The Paper. We Cleaned The House. Et cetera.

And of course the private stuff, the inside jokes, the routines and rituals, nobody else would even get. You know how it is.

But sometimes, it's just so good, it's so happy, that I have to spill a little of that happiness out or I'll just burst.

It's true that our life is very predictable. Hardly anything new and exciting happens. We don't have drama. We don't have calamity striking all the time. We do our thing, and stay in on the weekends, and do boring old-people stuff like read books or sort our CD collections.

It's also true that I really don't want to be That Girl ... the one who's so sunshiny with love and happiness that you just want to knock her upside the head because her contentment is so annoying.

But .. I am. So knock me upside the head, already, and let's get it out of the way.

I am, as a friend described it, "ridiculously in love."

I feel the way I imagine really attractive people must feel. Or really rich people. The whole "Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful" -- I was born this way, and I can't help it, so don't make me feel guilty. Or "Hey, Mom and Dad played the right stocks in the '80s, so here we are, I can't help it, so don't make me feel guilty."

Even writing that sounds obnoxious. And I know, I know that it's not everybody's dream to find the Right Person and settle down.

But part of me does feel like I have to downplay how content I am, how happy I am with the way things worked out, because otherwise I'd just be gloating ... and no one likes a gloater.

Ridiculous, isn't it? Ah, yes. The intricacies of modern friendships and acquaintances. The intrigue of life as a 20-something ... sure is interesting.

And also, just goes to show you how paranoid I can get about things ... but we knew that. Overanalyze, that's my motto.

Anyway, consider this a kind of shout-out to Weeb-dog, The Skootch-meister, King of the Mixed Tape, Champion of the Hamburger Helper, Watcher of Girly Movies and Defender Against The Scary Bad Guys.

I couldn't have hoped for a better first year.

Say when you're alone
it's better 'cause nobody knows you

and when no one's your friend
it's better 'cause nobody leaves you.

Not me, man. I got friends out the ear.

Drunk friends, happy friends, silly friends, in-crisis friends, away friends, here friends, quirky friends, sane friends ... Good shit, man.

(Lifting her glass of Dr Pepper) Here's to all y'all homies. I love you guys.

Thinking about that morning two years ago. Put together a package on 210 West with some of the other writers. The artwork's mine, too.

You can read my personal 9/11 story if you want.

Today will be a quiet day. Just going to do some thinking. Some missing of people. Some thanking of Whomever for the safety of me and mine.

Oh, God. "Add It Up," by the Violent Femmes. I think I'm going to play it again. Love this damn song. Jesus, I can't listen to it without a cigarette. Did I mention that I miss the '90s?

Freaking fantastic day at work today -- everything worked the way it was supposed to. All deadlines met, all designs brilliant, all pages perfect. Good freaking day.

Cyclical melancholy hasn't been too bad lately ... Only a little bit of god-awful depression, and that's fading quickly. Monday was bad; I was sorely missing home, hating my job, hating Baltimore, hating Maryland, hating the East Coast, hating my apartment, feeling sad and miserable and resentful.

But I think that's past.

Still having some body image issues, but who isn't? All this Homecoming talk is making me nervous; I'd really hate to go back and see everybody and have them whisper, "Damn, what happened to her?" you know? Veruca at work asked me if everyone in my family was as "compact" as I. We were in the Testoster-room at the time, and all the page-monkey guys were trying to figure out what compact meant: short and beefy? Square? They looked me up and down and concluded I wasn't "compact," but I don't know what that means I am, then. Maybe I don't want to know.

Ugh. Definitely win the "Smallest Bosom" prize, though. Oh well.

Well, for Christ. I had a lot of deep things to ruminate about ... Oh, I remember now. Babies. Now that I've decided that I owe it to the world to procreate sometime in the next 10 years, I'm desperately afraid that I won't be able to get knocked up. And that I wasted all that latex all for nothing. Funny, huh. Now, don't freak out -- Mini-MB's are nowhere on the agenda for the foreseeable future. I just want to have the option, you know? But it would be just my luck to want to get in a family way someday and not be able to. Serve me right, for vehemently railing against having bebbies. Bah.

So am I being ridiculous? You know what would be even funnier? If I was all worried and got knocked up like, next week. Damn, I'd be pissed.

Best to leave the whole topic alone. Pull a third-grade moment and pretend babies just get dropped off by the storks and forget all about it.

P.S. Disappointed that the Barenaked Ladies' newest song is about chimpanzees.

P.P.S. Delighted that they can make even a song about chimps adorable.

Q: What would entice a seasoned nightowl to start her day at 5 a.m.?
A: An invitation to the annual conference of the Society for News Design.

SND conference this weekend was pretty good. Lot of good speakers, such as Ben Bradlee, former editor of the Washington Post during such exciting times as The Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Lots of inspiring sessions. Got to see "Freedom Sings," a little music group put on by the Freedom Forum. The musicians there sang songs that were banned at one time or another, including one by the Dixie Chicks, one by Elvis, that "Louie Louie" song, other ones. One of the singers was Jason White. Very cute. Looks like Iain with glasses, kinda. Jason White wrote Tim McGraw's "Red Ragtop," which is a great song. Apparently it implies abortion, and therefore (?) pissed off a lot of people, who wanted it off the air. I guess country music -- you know, drinking, prison, guns, trains and Momma -- is only about Family Values. Huh.

Oh, and the dentist visit last Thursday yielded me high marks on oral hygiene. Score one for me. Look, Ma, no cavities!

What we call MB Googlisms:

• mary beth is now a formally trained registered dietitian and ny state certified nutritionist
• mary beth is also a food consultant to food
• mary beth is available for corporate parties.
• mary beth is a lovely registered anglo
• mary beth is always trying to see how long she can ski before she falls
• mary beth is a new and gorgeous aircraft
• mary beth is responsible for overseeing quality control
• mary beth is sent to the principal's office to discuss her actions
• mary beth is a proven brood jennet
• mary beth is my girlfriend of roughly ten months
• mary beth is manager for the colville tribal planning department
• mary beth is there to back us up
• mary beth is a native of peoria.

I'm laughing so hard the little tears are dropping all over the place.

Going to the SND annual conference this weekend for work.

1. Walking out your front door and seeing that someone has cut down all the trees in front of your apartment
2. Being stuck in Beltway traffic because drivers are apparently new to the idea of fog
3. Having to park in the Stabby Lot, the isolated gravel parking lot behind the building you work in, and stepping in a puddle as soon you get out of the car
4. Putting the paper to bed an hour and fifteen minutes past deadline
5. Realizing an hour and twenty minutes past deadline that the page you thought was color is going to be black-and-white
6. Having to censor yourself in front of people so they don't know what you're really thinking about them
7. Having to censor yourself to protect the innocent
8. Finishing a good novel, and then having nothing else but code manuals and The Bible to read
9. Rolling your own cigarettes, because the tobacco flies out all over the place, and plus it takes a damn long time when all you need, for Chrissakes, is just a toke
10. Feeling left out and unimportant
11. Feeling stupid for feeling that way
12. Feeling like an idiot for posting very personal feelings in such a gaping-wide public location as a globally-accessible Web site.

And the suckiest thing that sucks is having to go to the dentist tomorrow morning, especially when you've been too poor and uninsured to go for the last three years, and fearing that she's going to find fifty-hundred cavities or weapons of mass destruction in there.

Everything blows, man. Everything.

Caught this article about melding Lara Croft and down-home stitchery from a link on Jim's blog. It's from Game Girl Advance:

One might imagine that Lara Croft, having already expanded her franchise beyond the boundaries of the pc/console arena and onto the silver screen, might be looking for ways to expand her realm of influence and extend her reign as one of the most recognizable female icons in gaming. But artist Becky Schaefer has taken her places she might not have imagined.

Schaefer's works--needlepoint kits and framed 'found' works with subtle additions--insert this game-world icon into a wholly different universe. Though she is still toting her gun, it's unclear whether she'll really need it. Rapelling down a large sunflower plant or from a rainbow-hued hot air balloon, posing with one leg on an old wooden fence in a farm landscape, lounging with her pistols by the ocean--not the usual day's work.

By bringing Lara into the traditional hobby-world of needlecraft, more particularly kits that were popular in the 70s, which provided a 'safe' and satisfying crafting experience for a generation of women, Schaefer has created a disturbing juxtaposition between the hobbies and mental media spaces of then and now. She feels it's exactly this breaking of the frame for the viewer--the moment of discomfort at seeing Lara in this alien setting--that help her to achieve the artistic effect she seeks. -- MORE

So Iain had to buy two pounds of jalapeno peppers today for a project he'll be teaching the kids on reproductive something-or-other. Seeds and whatnot. Masochist that he is, he ate part of one -- just a tiny bit, really.

A few minutes later, I gave him a peck on the lips.

A few minutes after that, after the peppers have been stored and topic of conversation changed, we're both suddenly running around the apartment screaming "It BURNS! It BURNS!" and clawing at our faces.

I don't know what kind of potent hell they been putting in jalapenos these days, but the shit's nuclear-grade.

Update: After 20 minutes or so, the burning and pain subsided, and we were able to talk normally again.

Major Lord of the Rings marathon this weekend. We rented The Two Towers and watched it last night [and this morning] and all of the featurettes. And then, just to be sure we're caught up, we watched the extended-DVD version of The Fellowship of the Ring. I'm the biggest nerd ever. But I did decide that I want to be Eowyn when I grow up, because she kicks ass.

Needless to say, am looking forward to the extended-DVD version of The Two Towers.