Tiny Bubbles

Just got through with a Phase II evaluation of an 18th Century site in Southern Maryland that was slightly less interesting than it should have been, but it was nice to get back outside for a while at least. Unfortunately, my second unit was done directly in a large patch of poison ivy, and minute blisters have cropped up all over my arms and fingers, and the swelling around my eyes is just going down as I type. Of course, I couldn't resist the urge to rip all of those little blisters off, and now my fingers look like cute little mauled pig carcasses hanging from meat locker hooks. And I can't touch Janine until they're healed. I'm a little chagrined.

Video for the Radio Star

Congratulations to my sweet, sweet mistress Rachel Maddow on getting her own show on MSNBC! She's one of the most intriguing, entertaining political personalities on any medium at the moment, and one hell of a good kisser! Makes me wish I had cable...

And one way to celebrate the birth of Mr. Providence: what looks like it might be a decent Lovecraft movie not involving either Jeffrey Combs or Stuart Gordon. S.T. Joshi calls it the best adaptation to date -- the competition for the title is far from stiff (and I hate to think Joshi's actually sat through all of them), but it's heartening. They've started taking comic books seriously in cinema, maybe gothic horror is next?

Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"

Something to chew on while I come up with something interesting to say...

I Always Mean To...

My now-habitual failure to post anything isn't from lack of desire, I've just gotten very, very far out of the habit. And I aim to get back into it, starting tomorrow. Damn it, I got the "get in shape" resolution under control finally, you'd think I could wrap up something like posting on my damn blog more often...

Meanwhile, I just got a 95% on my boating license test, which means I can pilot any motorized vessel less than 65 feet in length. We went in on a small craft with an outboard with Ray shortly ago, so the next time we're down in Bivalve, the seas are mine! Arrrrrr.

Kitty Vacant

It's sort of old news now, but Kitty is now back with us after spending a week in lost cat camp on the Eastern Shore a couple of weeks ago. Not wanting to lock him up in our house alone for three days without his life-coach of a dog, we took him with us to my mom's house for her second annual Memorial Day blow out. Unfortunately, Kitty took advantage of the opportunity to escape the room we were keeping him in, effectively fleeing one unfamiliar environment for the much larger unfamiliar environment of the great outdoors. We spent the rest of that long weekend looking for him, expecting to hear his keening any moment, but it never came.

We spent the next week working in Baltimore/Frederick, e-mailing missing cat posters to my mom for her to post around the area, and called the Eastern Shore Humane Society to make sure he hadn't been incarcerated. We drove down the following Friday evening -- I'd somehow figured I had about a 20% chance of finding him; he either stuck around the house as a fairly familiar place, or fell in with a gang of ferals and found a new life as a bad kitty.

We arrived around 11, exhausted, and after stopping along the side of Nanticoke Road when Janine saw an orange tabby in a ditch. The cat ran off after we pulled over (something Kitty would never do after Carter jumped out of the back seat), but a couple of local came out of a nearby house with a shotgun to make sure we weren't the folks that broke into their shed. I was resigned to turning in, and to the fact that we were going to wind up spending the rest of the weekend tromping through the briars looking for the cat. Janine wanted to take a few minutes and roam the immediate neighborhood, so I went out with her shirtless, calling the cat's name. And about five minutes later, we heard some plaintive meowing coming from the neighbor's shed across the street. Cat found. But man, was he bitchy after we got him out -- he kept us up most of that night banging his head against our chins trying to get us to pet him.


You've got a week's worth of massages to catch up on, you bastards! Get the hell up!

The Internet is the Death of Smug Cleverness

Sigh. Someone else thought of the same joke and was much, much more clever about it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You the Clinton Campaign

Come, Michelle! (sound of coconuts)

Assorted Shit

First, now that the temperature is prime, I'll be starting on my cardboard-aged Irish stout kit tomorrow evening. I'm sure somewhere in this god-forsaken house I can find a forgotten corner that's a perfect, constant 65 -75 degrees and is free of mummified mice. I'm taking a couple of Youtube refreshers from this guy.

Second, kudos to Heather for knocking my degrees of separation to the Law and Order people down to a mere couple! I've never seen this show, and think the most interesting thing about it is the name "Mariska," but seeing as I got kinda jazzed when Step Up 2: the Streets was being filmed in Fells Points, I know how it feels.

Third, screw this house. I feel like I'm exhausted halfway up a cliff face with no ropes and just want to go home. I spent a good part of this weekend sanding and mudding (and repeating) the walls, trying to get all the little bumps and ridges out of them before priming, but it's just not turning out right. Meanwhile, I'm weary of the clutter and dust and the ever-present Drywall-Knife-of-Damocles swinging overhead. Gimmee back my one bedroom apartment!

Fourth, Cardinals don't suck as promised. That's something, I guess.

The Taste of Workohol

I'm back in Lancaster, OH once again, leading several crews in an exploratory excavation that netted a giant hearth feature (fittingly found before I arrived). And of course on top of that function, I'm also performing my office duties in my hotel room after hours. While at least some of my friends have a taste for the demon workohol (*cough* Laurid *cough*), I've never partaken willingly. I'm going to try to pound out the balance of the outstanding record keeping this evening at the local Starbucks, as my hotel room is morphing into my idea of solitary confinement.

It Drenches Us in Our Clothes

I can't really say thanks enough to my Dad, Mom, Pete, Jennifer, and Ray for spending the weekend in Baltimore and putting up drywall on my living room that would've taken me weeks to do myself. It looks marvelous, and actually, finally gives a sense of what the place will look like when we're relaxing and finally, finally finished with the whole ordeal. Thank you thank you thank you!

Two Words

Morrissey's ass.

His latest song/video is here. Pretty good; still sounding very Ringleadery.

Obamarama

Bigger version at Dipdive.com. I haven't been this enraptured since I saw that Coke marketing video at the bottling plant in Hong Kong!

What She Said...

If you can stomach any more of it, here's Coulter backing up her insistence that she'll campaign for Hillary if McCain gets the Republican nomination. Even better than this being an unmistakable edict to "Just Give Up" to the far Right from its High Priestess, this might actually be the end of Anne Coulter altogether. Whether this is a publicity stunt or not, I can't see the bitter-enders getting behind Coulter again after such a shocking act of apostacy, any more than they'd get behind former Republican Arianna Huffington. Hell, maybe Coulter will start up her own populist news site.

Cheer or Vomit, Cheer or Vomit...?

In my weeks and weeks of being strung out on the sweet crack of election politics, this is by far the most disturbing (and possibly edifying) thing I've seen. BY FAR!

Either way, if this truly is how much reviled McCain is among the off-the-map right, this bodes VERY well for the Dems' chances in November. I've known a few liberals that have sworn off Hillary, and vow to take their vote elsewhere if she's the candidate (and perhaps feed Nader's ego yet again), but not with this degree of vitriol. If it's even possible for Anne Freakin' Coulter to squeeze these words out from between those thin lips of hers, then McCain is doomed.

Update: Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks web TV show brought this up possibility: Coulter is just trying to grab headlines by saying something outrageous. And he just might have a point.

LIGHTS!!!

Oh yeah, anybody else love the title of the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, or that it's directed by Marc Forster, the guy behind Kite Runner and Monster's Ball?

Noel Coward: Mad Dogs & Englishmen

This was during his surprisingly lucrative Vegas days, where he fled when strapped for cash. I definitely want to come back in the next life as a temperamental, cocky, gay British guy.

(And I never did get to see the Noon-Day Gun, dammit.)

Uh oh.

From UrbanDictionary.com:

Murderland

A nickname for the state, Maryland. The hood places in MD are Baltimore City aka Bodymore, PG County, and some specific places in Mo County or other places. (mainly the DC area)

Tyree: "Yo im movin back to Murderland nigga!"
John: "oh forreal? where in Murdaland, B-more?"
Tyree: "Nah, Takoma Park."

Murderware!

Found this in a frou-frou antique shop north of Salisbury. Want your dinner plates to look like they arrived fresh from the scene of a chainsaw slaying?

Breakfast at the Clutter house! Awesome!

I Dream of Janinie

Actually, I didn't last night. For some reason, I was smooching with (alleged!) lesbian talk show host Rachel Maddow, who after the Young Turks sign off in a couple of weeks will be the only thing worth listening to on Air America radio. Maybe it was my way of saying thanks. I told Janine about it this morning, and I would have told her it didn't mean anything, but y'know, it probably did. I'll have to look up infidelity with progressive radio hosts in a dream interpretation book.

Meanwhile, we're chilling with Janine's family on the Eastern Shore for the rest of the week. Hope everyone had a great New Year!