Wherefore art thou, Martini Boy?

I miss you.

Would you please start writing again. Sometime soon?

Or I'm going to have to delink you. Not to throw a threat out there first thing, but hey, a girl's gotta have her standards.

It's nothing personal, it's just that I try not to give permalinks to bloggers who---ahem---don't bother blogging. If you've got other stuff going on, hey, great. Just let me know, and I'll keep the link up there and will wait for your return. But this, "I'm here. I'm not here. I'm here. I'm not here." stuff is killing me.

Like most people, I have a particular order in which I have my bookmarks set. I do this so my sleep-addled brain can have a chance to absorb the caffeine I feed it whilst I surf, like an automaton. Every morning, I sit down at the computer, read the comics, then Sullivan, then Lileks and then you. You are above Goldstein on my morning surf-fest. You are above Catalano. You are even above the Instadude in the batting order.

To put it bluntly, your absence has been fucking with my surfing chi.

I simply cannot get into Michele's stuff, when I haven't had any Vodka with my cheerios. Goldstein just doesn't seem as funny if you're not around to suck up to him. Why, I can't even really take Instapundit seriously if you're not on the case first. I feel incomplete. A shell of my former self. Unhappy and unloved, etc.

Could we please have an end to this in absentia business?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oh, man. This is funny. I can only imagine that the irrepressible Mummies of England were either laughing their fool, yet well-coiffed, heads off or were so scandalized that they just slapped the telly off.

There really isn't an in-between on this one.

Shamelessly pilfered from Margi, who, under the circumstances, could not have titled her post any better.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Yeah!

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Damn. I wish I'd written this.

It appears I'm not the only one who's had it with the constant staging and restaging of The Vagina Monologues.

{hat tip: Drew}

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It had to happen sometime.

The San Antonio City Council has passed a measure to regulate strippers:

SAN ANTONIO - Strippers in this city will soon have to put on something they can't take off — a business license.

The City Council on Friday approved a measure requiring exotic dancers to apply for permits and wear them while performing.

Law enforcement authorities said the rule, which was unanimously approved by the 11-member council and goes into effect in 10 days, will allow them to quickly identify those dancers who are breaking nudity ordinances. (Among other things, full nudity and contact with customers are not allowed in San Antonio strip clubs.)

"We're trying to reduce criminal activity inside the establishments on the part of the entertainers, i.e., prostitution," said Lt. Mike Gorhum, who heads the vice squad.

The permit — expected to be roughly half the size of a credit card — would include the dancer's stage name and a photo. Police would be able to check that information against club records to determine her real name and other personal data.

{...}The new rule also mandates a 3-foot space between dancers and patrons to ensure no touching during table dances. Such contact is already banned, though violations are not uncommon.

Proving that once again, if you can't ban it, the best way to control it is to regulate it!

Snort.

More ruminations after the jump. more...

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I didn't feel like working this afternoon, so I hopped a bus to the mall and went to go and see a matinee of Flight of the Phoenix.

Dennis Quaid is, indeed, sans shirt for a few scenes.

This is good.

If you need more details than that, well, you'll find them after the jump. more...

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Drew makes some very good points about the Michael Moore vs. Mel Gibson, flog to the death-athon that's happening within the media as Awards Season starts.

Moore's film concerns politics. Gibson's film concerns faith. Creating this false dichotomy may also put faith and politics in competition, or perhaps equate them in a dangerous way -- as if both filims express extremist views, or both play fast and loose with the truth.

When drawing ideological divisions in this country, it's tempting to call "The Passion" a Red State movie, and "Fahrenheit 9/11" a Blue State movie, but labels are never that simple. Just as there are people who are not professing Christians who support our President, there are certainly people critical of George Bush who also have faith in Christ.

Go read the whole thing.

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Taking to heart the general consensus of my very generous commenters, I am starting with Jeeves. Then will move on to Psmith and then the golf stories, leaving Blandings for last.

As such, I have reserved Very Good, Jeeves, Much Obliged, Jeeves and Ring for Jeeves. And courtesy o' the Hennepin County Library's incredibly generous delivery policy, which allows for the winging of books hither and thither across the county, I shall be picking them up at my branch within the next week or so.

Thanks for all of your help, and I will update when I get into them.

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And no, I'm not talking about this or this or this. (Although, while the critics appear to be evenly divided about whether the last one sucks rocks or is a bit of escapist fun, the reason I want to see it is because I've always had the hots for Dennis Quaid, and he's sans shirt in it! Woohoo!)

Rather, I'm talking about this. Make sure you watch all three movies. Then go and listen to Jonathan's critique.

How the hell he got three plus minutes of funny, yet somehow valid, film critique out of those I have no idea.

{hat tip: Galley Slaves}

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Just got a photo Christmas card from my brother's family.

My fourteen year-old-niece, who, when I saw her this past summer, swore she was never going to smoke or drink because she'd seen the movie Thirteen and it scared her straight, has gone goth.

Yep. That's right. Goth.

She has dyed her formerly brown hair to that purply-black color that generally leads to bad things. Like dark purple lipstick, loads of black eyeliner, tattoos of Japanese characters that look cool, but in all reality mean "I'm an idiot," and multiple piercings in places most of us would cringe to think of having a needle touch. While she's wearing a very pretty, well-adjusted smile, a normal amount of makeup and a sweater that I'd swipe if we lived in the same town, it's the hair that's completely throwing me. It's black! What the hell?

This is surprising behavior from the girl who literally begged her parents for tickets to a Britney Spears concert for her birthday. As in she wrote a dissertation on why she should be allowed to go and posted it on the kitchen bulletin board, for all and sundry to read and chuckle about. Em didn't give care what other people would think of it: she simply wanted to go thought that if by posting her dissertation for all to read that perhaps she could gain a few allies, well, so be it. She's got chutzpah. Moxie. Whatever you want to call it. I can only surmise that this hair coloring adventure was not Mom and Dad approved. It was probably achieved in a friend's bathroom, under the cover of a slumber party.

Ah, the joys of transitioning from grade school to high school. I'm sure she'll outgrow it, but damn. Em! Your hair is black!? What the heck were you thinking? Aieeeeee.

Of course, this makes me wonder about high school nowadays. Particularly the high school she attends, because it's the same high school where I matriculated. All I can say is that there must not be too many hard-ass nuns left teaching there, because if Sr. Anthony (and yes, that was her name) was alive, well, let's just say my lovely niece would receive a reaming like you wouldn't believe based strictly on the color of her hair.

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Oliver Stone sez that Alexander didn't do well in the States because Americans iz stooopid. At least when compared to those Humanities lovin' Europeans.

"People in America are apathetic to ancient history — they are," Stone told reporters Thursday in Paris. "They don't study the classics like they do in Europe, so there is a significant difference in reaction. I know this because I've been in 12 foreign countries in the last month, to 12 openings."

The director noted that his film — based on the life of Alexander the Great — was No. 1 in about 18 countries, including Greece. He said he's happy just to share the story of Alexander.

"It was a privilege to make a film about such a unique man, so financial concerns were not uppermost," he said. "I'm glad people can at least get a part of his mind and remember this man because he will be forgotten."

Of course the reason that this movie failed wasn't that the movie sucked, but rather that we Americans are apathetic to ancient history. And of course financial concerns weren't an issue: he's a friggin' genius and as such he's not ever going to be held accountable by the Gods of Money in Hollywood. They'll just keep forking over the cash for him to make movies that suck.

Because he's Oliver Stone and all. His reputation precedes him.

By at least a mile. And makes people laugh at his delusions of grandeur.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:59 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Snort.

Don't forget the outhouses. Even Tiny Tim needs to gimp himself outside for a little relief every now and again.

I would also have to ask where's Bedlam? Department 56 made a huge model of Victoria Station a few years back. They should also have a model of Bedlam. Raving lunatics are so Dickensian. After all, had Ebneezer not got it together come Christmas Morning, chances are he would have wound up there.

{hat tip: the sex crazed llamas}

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Laci Peterson and her unborn son were murdered on December 24, 2002.

Almost two years ago.

Her husband and the father of their child has since been found guilty of their murders and was sentenced to death yesterday.

According to the FBI, in the year 2003, out of a total 14,408 murders in the United States, 3,125 of those murder victims were women. Of those 3,125 women, 1,927 were white, just like Laci. Of those who did not look like Laci, there were 1,113 black women, 133 women who fit into the "other" category, meaning that their race was mixed and it would have been too time consuming for the FBI Statisticians to break their numbers down and 44 women whose race was "unknown," meaning God only knows what.

Also, in 2003, 573 women, out of that whopping total of 3,125 were also murdered by their husbands. Just like Laci.

The data for the year 2004 has not been totaled up yet, but from the preliminary statistics released earlier this year, while the overall percentage of murders had gone down when compared to the same period of time in 2003, it wasn't by much...and there was plenty of time between June and December for those numbers to skyrocket.

My point? Other women besides Laci friggin' Peterson have lost their lives to a murderer since she died almost two years ago.

Yet, how many of them have we heard about in this endless media circus that has surrounded Laci's disappearance and, subsequently, Scott Peterson's trial?

Not many.

Why?

Because they weren't as cute as Laci was. Odds are, even a few of them were pregnant too, but the murder of their third-trimester babies didn't prompt a national debate and federal legislation. They weren't married to the boy-next-door. They didn't have families who manipulated the media to their benefit.

Does anyone care about them?

If you watch CNN, your answer would probably be "no."

I care. While everyone is jumping on the "I'm glad that motherfucker will fry!" bandwagon, I pray for these womens' families and friends. I hope their murderers have been brought to justice and that their attackers will, too, face the death penalty.

After all, justice is served up on a daily basis even if CNN isn't there to cover it.

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Alexander Payne seems to be doing rather well with the myriad movie awards that are being announced.

{Insert random story of trying to weasel in next to accomplished people here}

Now, I don't know if this is accurate or not, but my sister Susie claims Alexander grew up two blocks away from us in Omaha and that she and my brother Mike know him.

Whenever Susie goes to Omaha, she has this habit of doing drive-by's. I've been in the car with her a few times when the urge to drive-by places familiar to her hits her. It's always interesting. This past January, when everyone was in town for the parentals 50th Wedding Anniversary party, I hitched a ride back to my other sister's house with her and her family. Fortunately, Susie has a son who, at that time, had just received his license, so we were taken care of in the designated driver department.

Poor Austin. He was trying to be the only adult in the car, because the rest of us were intoxicated, and she kept thwarting his ambitions by saying, "oh, slow down!" This happened on 52nd Street, where we passed by the house she said Alexander grew up in. She also said she called our brother Mike a couple of weeks previous to ask him---at one in the morning---why he hadn't told her that the Alexander Payne who co-wote and directed About Schmidt was the same Alexander Payne they'd grown up with? Mike, being the taciturn individual that he can be, blew her off. The fact that she'd called him at one in the morning had much to do with said blowing off, I believe.

Payne has filmed most of his movies in Omaha. This is no big secret. Yet, despite the fact that part of Citizen Ruth was filmed in our old neighborhood---Dundee--- and it's been said that he grew up there as well, I didn't think anyone in my family actually, like, knew him. I can't imagine there were a lot of Alexander Payne's running around in our old neighborhood.

Hmmph. So it could be true. I'm not sure. And I don't suppose we'll ever find out because I have a hard time imagining Alexander and Susie running into one another nowadays. Yet, it's always good to point out that stranger things have happened.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The husband has only one thing to say to the Llamabutchers regarding their sex scandal:

Live by the photoshop. Die by the Photoshop.

That's just too damn disturbing for a Monday.

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Gary over at Dayton v. Kennedy got linked by today's Opinion Journal.

Well done, sir!

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Margi has an excellent story about why Santa is so very important this time of year.

Go read.

I am commonly referred to in our family as the "afterthought's playmate." Meaning my older sister, Christi, is the "afterthought." There was a five year dry spell between our brother Mike and Christi. Apparently, according to family lore, Mrs. N. from down the block, after her own dry spell, had her son Jeff, and he got Mom to babylusting again. Christi owes her existence to Jeff N. It's a bit different for me, though. Eighteen months after Christi arrived, I came along, the logic behind this move being, as I understand it, hey, why not have one more while we're at it?

Christi and I have always been paired-up, as it were, because of where we line up on the family tree. That and there are eight of us, so we paired-up nicely. The fact that we're both female didn't hurt the selection process, either. We used to share a room. This was a bad idea, because as my mother puts it, "she's the sun; you're the moon." We didn't get along too well because I was an annoying younger sister and she was an infuriatingly bossy older sister. It's just the way things were. We started getting along better when we got our own rooms. Nowadays we get along splendidly. But when we were little, well...

You see, Christi has this head of flaming red hair and a milkpale complexion. I vividly remember that when she got ticked off at me when we were little, she would turn bright red. The transformation started in her cheeks. Two little red splotches would appear and then it would spread, like a rash, across her face and neck, completely drowning out the few freckles she had at that point in time in a wash of red. Her hands, however, were white as snow, clenched into fists at her sides and her knuckles were so tightly held you could see the translucent skin straining against her knobby little bones. I remember watching this transformation, more than once, and finding it so fascinating that I would completely blow off whatever she was yelling at me about. As you might imagine, my mental wandering did not please her, and she yelled at me about that, too.

One time, however, it was Santa that caused this transformation. Or rather the fact we'd missed him once again. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 10:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 I'm sorry the tracka-backa thingie (that's the technical term) didn't work, but oh!! I'm so glad you let me know so I could read this beautiful story. Love. It. Thanks for sharing. xoxo

Posted by: Margi at December 12, 2004 10:31 PM (rKX9f)

2 BTW, that IS *THE* James, innit? The Cutest Redhead on the Planet, right? Give Christi and James my love, in any case. And take a hug for yourself.

Posted by: Margi at December 12, 2004 10:32 PM (rKX9f)

3 Yep, indeedy. That's him. She has to be clever to get around the lil' red head. Glad you liked it

Posted by: Kathy at December 12, 2004 10:39 PM (E0v6D)

4 My husband has been claiming that Maggie's (our 4 year old) tantrums MUST come from me, since HE never acted like that............... Guess he is right. I must have blocked out those episodes, since I do not recall them as vividly as you. Although I do remember saying I wasn't going ANYWHERE next year. And we didn't, if you recall. but they still got us, thanks to the extra back door on the family room. Sneaky, Sneaky, Sneaky. Love ya!

Posted by: Christi at December 14, 2004 02:08 PM (sXOoL)

5 Oh, yeah. Maggie got those from you. (talk about stating the obvious!) I'd completely forgotten about staying put the next year. How the hell did we accomplish that? Did we mutiny or something?

Posted by: Kathy at December 14, 2004 03:51 PM (E0v6D)

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Around five o'clock this morning the wind kicked up here in Cake Eater Land. Or so the husband says. I was blissfully conked out so I missed it.

Until I woke up, when I took a look out the front window at our barren yard to see that the lid to the neglected Victorian-ish lamppost had been completely blown off the lamp and was lying on the ground, three feet away from the base.

This thing is made out of heavy wrought iron. Granted all the bolts that are supposed to hold it in place are missing, because it's one more thing Tweedledumb and the Great White Hunter landlord neglect around here, but it's never flown off before in a heavy wind.

The husband ran out there a little while ago and put it back on the lamp. Taking a cue from Tweedledumb, he secured it with twigs, rather than with nuts and bolts from his own private stash, which he is loathe to share with the management of this fine house we live in.

I can only think that this does not bode well for the rest of the day. There were snow flurries a little while ago, but they've subsided...for the time being. On the tree branch outside of my office window, a pleasantly plump (read wide arsed) squirrel was attempting to shield himself from the wind by huddling next to the trunk and wasn't having much luck with it as the tree is swaying perilously. He has since disappeared. I assume he took to ground, realizing that hanging out in a tree, twenty-feet off the ground, perhaps isn't the best place to find shelter in a windstorm.

Fortunately, I have only one errand to run this afternoon: to go and buy smokes. Which I will do shortly. Just to get it over with.

Have I mentioned lately how much I despise winter?

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I have one more day left to curry favor with (read suck up to) certain blogs who are nominated for the 2004 Weblog Awards.

Not like it matters, because I have all the pull of a mouse trying to haul an elephant around, but here are my endorsements.

(And, no, I'm not running through every category. Sheesh. It's like you people think I have nothing better to do with my time.)

Best Humor Blog: Protein Wisdom I'm endorsing Jeff mainly because I'm scared of what he'll do if he doesn't win. He seems kind of desperate.

That and he's actually funny. No one can elicit more spontaneous giggle fits from me than Jeff.

And what the $#@k is Scrappleface anyway?

Submit your Vote for Protein Wisdom Here.

Best Culture Blog: Big shocker here: The Llama Butchers.

They're my buds. Do you need any more reason to go and vote for them? I didn't think so, but just in case, know that, between Steve-o and Robbo, you get a pretty good impression of what an eighteenth-century Tory on crack would have been like.

You know, had crack been available during that era.

Submit your vote for the Butchers here.

Best Essayist: Another shocker: Lileks

Not because he's good or anything, but because he's my neighbor. Ya have to be friendly to your neighbors.

Submit Your Vote For Lileks Here.

Best Online Community: Munuviana

Besides sucking up to Pixy, this group blog saved the husband's chestnuts from roasting while he put this site together.

Submit Your Vote for Munuviana Here

Best Australian or New Zealand Blog: God Himself.

Vote for Ambient Irony Here.

Best of the Top 2500-3500 Blogs: Potomac Ponderings.

Because she's good and I'm taking this category from her next year!

Vote for Potomac Ponderings Here.

I'm sure there are other deserving potential recipients, but I'm in need of a nap, so they'll have to scrape up their much needed votes elsewhere. If you've got a deserving nominee that I haven't listed---or aren't familiar with, because there are a lot bloggers out there---feel free to throw them in the comments.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Just out of curiosity (and not because I'm a wannabe stalker or anything -- no, never!), how much of a "neighbor" is Mr. Lileks? Like, down the road? Just curious! (and, nice new place, and I'll update sometime soon.)

Posted by: Adrianne Truett at December 11, 2004 11:45 PM (B2T6R)

2 I have his general location triangulated, but I haven't gone a-stalking. I've willfully restrained myself. Suffice it to say, if I wanted to find Jasperwood, it wouldn't take me too long. It's about a five minute drive. Restraining myself from stalking hasn't kept me from wondering when I'm going to run into him, however. It's so weird whenever he writes about "the neighborhood." His pizza guys are my pizza guys. His Target is my Target, etc. One of these days it will happen and I will not know what the hell to do with myself. I'll probably run and hide

Posted by: Kathy at December 12, 2004 12:08 PM (E0v6D)

3 Thanks! And congrats on the new site!

Posted by: Nicole Griffin at December 12, 2004 01:49 PM (xP6LD)

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Two days ago, the former lead guitarist for Pantera was shot and killed by some nutjob who was upset that the band had broken up. Michele objects to lumping this act in with heavy metal's already tarnished image, because, as she puts it, heavy metal's image isn't tarnished at all:

{...}As with any news story that blames music, video games or movies for someone's criminal, deranged actions, the media misses one glaring point: in order for the killer to react in such a manner, he had to have some serious, deep rooted issues that go way beyond the music he listened to, the games he played or the movies he watched.

Metal has long been a favorite whipping boy of the hypersensitive, shallow-thinking My Morals Should Be Your Morals set. From the time Ozzy first barked at the moon, metal was imprinted with a warning label: This music is hazardous to your children. Freaked out parents and sociologists looked much deeper into the music than was necessary and proclaimed the genre as one that would cause its listeners to sign up for the church of Satan or become zombies in an army of juvenile delinquents.

You would think that when all these years later Ozzy became the darling of television and looked upon as a sweet, if dopey, father figure, the world would have figured out - albeit belatedly - that heavy metal is as much a theatrical act as Britney's original virginal persona.

Yet every media commentary I've read this morning on the death of Abbot has the same underlying tone - live by the sword, die by the sword. Metal is music for misfits, don't you know? What can you expect from the fans of a band whose lyrics are all unprintable in a family paper? They were heathens, I tell you! They drank and smoked and cursed! It's all so shrill and so unnerving.

{...}Of course, they will point to Abbott's nickname of Dimebag. They'll look at the Pantera DVDs and a see bunch of hard drinking, hard partying guys. And they'll conclude "the metal lifestyle is a dangerous one." And tomorrow on Page Six, there will pictures of some pop music princess with a bottle in her hand and her tits hanging out of her dress or a some boy band star holding a bottle of Jack Daniels and spitting at the camera. But, hey. They're just having fun, right? Pop Stars Gone Wild! What a riot! Give that guy some long hair and a guitar and suddenly he's a wild eyed beast who wants to eat your children.

It's not just the music of heavy metal that's misunderstood. The fans also get their share of the lies and distortion. We're all emotionally disturbed individuals with deep psychological problems, bad parents and broken homes who draw pentagrams on their bedroom floors and torture the neighbor's cats.{...}

Now, I'm not a metal listener above and beyond being subjected to listening to the husband's---a metal head---choices on the WinAmp. Quite frankly, I don't like much of it. But there are some albums I never would have listened to in the pre-husband-era that I do listen to now. I will out myself as one who actually likes Metallica's Black Album. I've learned over the years that, in the metal head community, this opinion means I'm actually a poser. If I were actually interested in what that community thought about me, I would have uttered that Kill 'Em All was the penultimate Metallica album. Never mind that the Black Album slams and actually, you know, sounds good (as in it's technically proficient and they made their music sound good in the studio). I'm a poser. Whatever. I'm not misguidedly seeking metal head community props. I like what I like, and I like melody when it comes to my music. Metal does not focus on melody. Kill 'Em All hurts my ears, grates on my nerves and sounds like musical vomit. more...

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