ATTENTION STARLINGS! You are cocoons. Nothing but pointillist cocoons. You think you're octagonal, but you're not.

really should do some work today.

Smurf Name Generator.

oh man, mine is Golden Flash Smurf. how awesome is that?
I AM GOLDEN FLASH SMURF! I AM FAST LIKE LIGHTNING!

Welcome to the Word Police Academy.

woohoo, i passed the test! i am an official Word Police officer. i have a certificate and everything. even citations that i can give out. and you KNOW i WILL give them out. hee hee.

Christmas Cat Hat.

i really want to make one of these. for myself. is that wrong?

Knit Your Own Fry Up!

aw yeah. everyone's gettin onea these for christmas!

(ok. just kidding. no one's getting one. don't panic.)

enchanted ceiling. pretty, pretty.

today's thought-provoking quote overheard at the office:
The snack guy better come soon. And he'd better stop bringing that nutritious shit.

Pass the Pigs.

i had this game (the real board-game type version) when i was a kid!
the computer version is sort of fun. in a distraction-from-work kind of a way.

yeah, that NaNoWriMo thing? out the window. maybe next year.

in other news, i've gotten a LOT of knitting done in the last month. :)

Tony Thompson - obituary.

oh shit. drummer from the Power Station died. if i were John or Andy, i'd be a little nervous right now.

Bad Baby Names 5:

"...the younger one is kryslyn (like chrislynn)

Death to all vowels! The Ministry of Truth says vowels are plus undoublethink. Vowels are a Eurasian plot! Big Brother, leading us proles to victory!"

killing...me...almost fell off my chair from laughing...

Bad Baby Names 5:

"Alexa Rae is almost 3 years old now and I don't regret our decision one bit....We're going to get another one....My husband liked the name Shasta, but I can't imagine naming my child after a can of soda."

I wrote out a nice long diatribe about this one, but can distill it into a single thought: This woman is a slave master. A slave master who will soon 'get' a child named 'Mountain Dew' and display her in a decorative case. "

killing me!!

Bad Baby Names 4: "Jayson, Also curious about different spellings? Jacen? Jaycen? Jaysen? Tyler? "

oh my god, this site is KILLING me...very funny stuff. although, kind of scary and pitiful at the same time.

Subvertise.org - Subvertising & Misalanious - Andre the Giant has a posse. a bigger picture than i was able to find last time i posted about it. by the way, anyone drawn one for me yet?

Subvertise.org - Politics and Religon - Monkey Bush.

nice!

whichbook.net.

recommends books to read based on what mood you're in. neat stuff.

Yahoo! News Photos - Michael Jackson.

do you think these people were hired by someone in the jackson 'camp'? i mean...all they're doing is advertising his new cd. yeah there are a few signs (in other pictures) proclaiming his innocence, but there are also many promoting the cd. isn't that just weird?

and anyway. i'm not saying the guy is guilty of molesting children--or that he's not. but i do believe that if you want to act as weird as he does, then you'd better be prepared for the consequences. if he truly just loves children and everything he does with them is innocent, that's nice, but he should realize (or one of the probably hundreds of people he pays to have realizations for him should tell him) that there are better, less dodgy-looking ways to express that love. having a big party for kids and their parents or other non-partisan chaperones at your ranch? yes, good. sleeping in a big bed with children with no chaperones in sight? no, bad. and anyway, who are these parents who are letting their children sleep over his house? why do people trust him--just because he's famous? i mean, we all know that i just worship, say, simon le bon, and i know that he's been married for years and has what, 3 or 4 children (all girls, incidentally). he seems pretty stable and not very nutty at all. however, had i children as well, i would not let them sleep over his house, just because he's famous and i like his music and think he's attractive, etc. etc. i mean come on, parents, have some freaking common sense.

sigh. the world's a funny place that is going right to hell.

Presenting the new 20-inch iMac.

someone buy me onea these for christmas? thanks.

HEY, THERE SHE IS! the black woman who was rescued around the same time as jessica lynch. posing with jessica lynch. except, notice any difference? yeah, she's wearing her uniform, not an evening gown. because she has not left the military to write a book about her ordeal. like some other people wearing evening gowns that we know. no, Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, apparently, takes that whole commitment to service thing seriously.

"All I hope to do is to be an example to young women that you can be astronauts, doctors, lawyers, even presidents," said Johnson, the mother of a three-year-old daughter. as opposed to ms. lynch, who took the opportunity YET AGAIN to publicly disavow herself of her celebrity--"The heroes to me are those Marines who took a chance to rescue me"--while simultaneously doing absolutely nothing to put an end to the unnecessary attention. you go, jessica. milk it! milk it for all it's worth!

oh, i am so bitter today. i'm sorry.

Yahoo! News Photos - Glamour Women of the Year Awards: "Former U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch accepts her award at the Glamour magazine Women of the Year awards in New York November 10, 2003. Porn king Larry Flynt, casting himself in the unlikely role of white knight to Lynch, said on November 11 that he bought semi-nude photos of the former POW 'to keep them out of circulation.' The Hustler publisher and free speech crusader said he acquired the snapshots of Lynch from two soldiers who served with her."

OH GOD MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE. I CAN'T TAKE THE INANITY ANY LONGER!@!@@!#!#!@#$325Q34563Q256!!!!!

agh. these are the women getting awards? Britney who brings porno to the teen girl set, and Jessica who only got media attention because she's a button-nosed little white girl? (what ever happened to the black woman who was rescued around the same time as her? anyone? anyone? bueller?)

this is the bullshit that seriously makes me want to go jump off a bridge.

Yahoo! News Photos - Glamour Women of the Year Awards: "Pop star Britney Spears poses backstage with her award at the 14th Annual Glamour magazine Women of the Year awards, in New York City, Nov. 10, 2003. Spears was honored for her work helping underprivileged youth experience her ass."

i mean the arts. the arts! not her ass! um, yeah. the arts...

look at how pure i am! just like cinderella. i am a princess, a role model for young girls, just like Barbie. i am so very Barbie-like, lookit me! oh, and in half an hour, if you're not busy, watch me simulate (barely...you'd swear it's real!) group sex on stage in front of a tv audience of millions...including those young girls i mentioned a minute ago!

she's a virgin. no really. she says so. pure as the driven snow (on the side of the turnpike during rush hour). so, so sick of britney spears. does she really still try to say she's a virgin?

MSN Entertainment - American Music Awards show: "In addition, producer Dick Clark said staging the show before the holiday gift-buying season helped organizers secure more performers.

'Everybody is dropping new CDs and albums at this very moment, so they're anxious for the promotion,' he said."

do you really think Dick Clark referred to a cd as "dropping"? that is one of my most hated phrases, by the way. especially when people like Dick Clark say it. and anyway, CDs and albums? what? who's putting out the albums these days? poor Dick. he got so confused after he turned 150.

Snow Globes. oooh i want to make some!

ok yeah, i got a little tired of reading about community-based care. i'll get back to it after lunch.

Olmstead: Reclaiming Institutionalized Lives.

In early 2003, President Bush’s Administration announced a five-year program, the “Money Follows the Individual” Rebalancing Demonstration, to begin in FY 2004 to enable people with disabilities to move from institutions to the community. The program would provide 100 percent federal funding for home- and community-based waiver services for a person leaving an institution for one year, after which the state would agree to continue to provide services for the person at the regular Medicaid matching rate.

well, at least he's done one good thing. if it actually gets followed through on.
this article may only make sense if you know something about 'community-based care' (e.g., group homes for the developmentally disabled), but i'm sure finding it interesting.

this morning, i learned on vh1 that my beloved song 'Rio' was written as an ode to America. i never knew. i love those duran duran boys.

defenestrate.

don't you just love that there's an actual word that describes the simple act of throwing something out of a window? that just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Google Search: winterizing gingersnap.

i found another googlewhack!

Dream Generator: "Last night you dreamt that Jesus was trying to touch you in an old warehouse."

how did it know??

a website full of pictures of men i will never, ever date.

Tattoo - Mac. nice!

i think we have found the World's Biggest Buffy Fan. it is a little nutty, but it sure is pretty...

in fact, there are quite a few people out there with buffy tattoos. to each his/her own. i do have a Rio tattoo, after all.

medical alert tattoo - body and organ donor, no life support.

now that's an interesting idea.

9-11 memorial tattoos.

this one is particularly freaky...

more on a subject i mentioned a few days ago...

Does your kanji tattoo mean what you think it does?.

ha!


You are starch. You are rigid, opinionated, hard-
willed and not too friendly about it. You keep
people out of places, or you keep them in, and
without you a lot of things would collapse.
hopefully you'll never have the authority to
burn people at the stake. Sir. Ma'am.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sony Pictures - Big Fish.

tim burton's newest. looks good, i think. plus, ewan mcgregor with a southern accent...very interesting. also, it's rated pg-13 for 'a fight scene, some images of nudity and a suggestive reference.'

how suggestive is that reference that it got singled out like that? hm.

Where are all the real leading men?

For discerning adult women (and adult gay men) who enjoy developing pointless yet very serious crushes on good-looking celebrities, today’s wussy American pretty-boys just don’t get the job done.

but...i LIKE wussy pretty-boys.

Valley URL.

holy crap, totally funny. put my URL in it.

ever wonder why the hell i totally have a giant fish tattooed on my arm?

hehehehe.

jack skellington has one.

ghandi has one.

hannibal lecter ate one.

even rufus wainwright has one.

(and of course, my secret boyfriend wil wheaton has one. but we already knew that.)

man, i need to get one.

is this phenomenon (which started with this sticker) a new york thing, or what? i'm not sure. and i'm not sure why i find it so amusing, but i do, i do.

someone draw me my own? thanks.

just realized that i have not been receiving email because my mailbox is full or some shit. i'll empty it out tonight at home, but, to anyone who's sent me email and gotten nothing but a message telling you that my mailbox is full, my apologies.

that's a nice koi.

so's that.

japanese tattoos | Metafilter

good stuff on aging with tattoos:

"I fully expect that it will be a dark smear by my ninety-fifth birthday, but that's part of the adventure, life being a one-way street and all."

"A sword on the hip at 23, a butter knife on the hip at 90."

also, a great suggestion that those of us caucasians who feel compelled to get kanji tattoos should just have it read baka na hakujin--"stupid white person."

ok i probably shouldn't be so prejudiced about people with kanji tattoos, seeing as i have a japanese-style tattoo myself. maybe it's just that they're so trendy. and that they always say things like, "integrity," and "peace," and "mystery," and are always on cheezy britney spears types.

i don't know. like i said, i'm a tattoo snob. but i can really get behind the mythology of my koi. plus, it's really pretty. why would i write something on my body for all eternity that i can't even read?

ever wonder why the hell i have a giant fish tattooed on my arm?

here's a story.

here are some pictures of other koi tattoos. i think mine is better than all of them, but then, i'm a tattoo snob.

yeah, i'm thinking (again) about getting the tattoo finished. and added to. i was thinking of getting a dragon to go with the koi, but i'm not sure i'm at the dragon part of my life yet...

i also want something with my initials on it, i think.

and i've always thought it would be neat to get two tattoos of the maneki nekos, but with the colorings of my cats.

oh, so many choices.

ok, to get a 3' X 3' graffiti thingy of Ozymandias, it would run me $445.56. slightly less excited now.

Wonderful Graffiti.

this is AWESOME.

when i lived in brooklyn, i sort of tried to do something like this--i wanted to write Ozymandias above my fireplace. i got as far as pencilling it in, because i'm a lazy bastard. but this stick-on stuff--i'm very excited about this! i was just thinking a couple of days ago that when i get an apartment, i want to do a mural, or something with words painted on a wall. the stick-on stuff may be good, as i am not much of a painter...

ok, far too excited about this.

Rutherford - NY Times Article.

rutherford is the town i grew up in. it really is a lovely town; if it weren't for the damn yuppies who made everything there (including rents) expensive, i'd be living there now. sigh.

anyway it's an interesting article, though maybe only to me, because it's my hometown.

oh yeah. it's time for some stupid quizzes...


you are the "you suck, and that's sad"
happy bunny. your truthful, but can be a bit
brutal.


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

supposedly, this is peter murphy. a long time ago. it's supposedly a real ad.

i don't know. just throwing the idea out there.

even John Irving has tattoos.

eSpeed Articles

The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund was established on September 14, 2001 to provide financial, legal and emotional assistance to the benefit of over 800 families who lost loved ones during the events of September 11th, including 658 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, eSpeed and TradeSpark and as well as employees from approximately 14 other companies who were working on the firms' floors during the attack.

On September 19, 2001, only one week after the attacks, Cantor announced its intention to donate 25% of the firm's profits. This 5-year commitment is to benefit the families and loved ones of the employees it lost, including providing 10 years of healthcare coverage without cost.

this year, Cantor Fitzgerald and their subsidiary eSpeed announced that 100% of the worldwide revenues their operating business lines generate on September 11, 2003 will be donated to The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund...In addition, many of Cantor Fitzgerald and eSpeed's 1,600 employees have agreed to donate their pay on that day, to be added to the revenue proceeds.

i know next to nothing about this company, but this really warms my heart. i imagine they're big money-makers, if they can donate an entire day's proceeds, and that their employees make the bucks, too, if they can donate a day's pay. but who cares--and good for all of them for donating it. yeah maybe it's all a big tax write-off, but still. i can't imagine that at least some human kindness isn't behind it all.

i can't go more than a day or two without reading or seeing something about September 11, 2001. this is more by choice than anything, though--i stumble across pictures or stories about it, and i choose to look at them.

you know how it is. it's all so horrifying, and beautiful at the same time. the above notes about Cantor Fitzgerald being part of the beauty side of it.

anyway.

one of these days i'm reeeeeeeeeeally going to have to do some work...

i knew it! i knew it all along!


You are Jan. Without you, Marcia and Cindy would
kill each other.


Which Brady Bunch character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

oh my god...just like real cats!

interesting (well, sort of) trivia about 'Pretty in Pink': 80s Movies Rewind.

apparently, the girl who played Andie's friend Jena was murdered around the time the movie was released. sad. she was awesome.

anyhoo, this link came from my new favorite website: Pop Culture Junk Mail.

if only i still had my belly button pierced...

don't ask me how i find this stuff, or why i feel the need to share it. i don't know.

errorwear: embrace your computer problems.

cute.

VIN DIESEL (MOVIE) TATTOO PICS: "Stomach has the word 'Melkor,' the name of Diesel's real-life Dungeons & Dragons character. "

what?

no wait, WHAT?

wow. today, on this blog, i publicly admitted to searching the internet for pictures of nick lachey and clay aiken. i think i must go flog myself now.

i hate to say this, but...doesn't clay aiken (mr. american idol runner-up) kind of look like thom yorke (of radiohead fame)'s pretty brother or something?

i caught 20 seconds of a clay aiken video on tv this morning and when i first saw it, i honestly thought, 'wow, thom's really cleaned himself up.' whoops!

but, i must say, i am thinking thatJohnny Depp must be one of the most perfectly-formed male humans on the planet.

Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica.

ok so i had this dream a few nights ago, wherein Jessica decided last minute that she did not want to marry Nick, and asked me to marry him instead. so i did. he did not seem to disagree with the idea. so we were like married, and i'd stop and think every once in a while, 'something is just not right about this.' but he was really cute, and he was very nice, so i figured i'd just go with it.

(let me just clarify that in non-dreamworld, i am not in love with the guy. i did think he was minorly attractive, but i just spent about 30 minutes looking for a picture of him to illustrate this, and cannot find one that makes me think, *boing*. also, he has a fairly large amount of very cheezy tattoos, and he did marry Jessica Simpson, who appears to be [and i try to believe that this is all the fault of tv editing, because she seems unbelievably dumb] The Stupidest Woman Alive. so really, what's to be said for the guy?)

anyway, perhaps i am watching too much tv?

i am so. freaking. tired. today.

ok...i just realized at 8pm that today was NOT 11/4, but 11/5, so that 'today in history' thing i posted earlier today was actually all about yesterday. duh.

but hey, at least i learned that i was born in the same town as loretta swit, right?

Today In History.

a sampling of what happened today (non-election related, mostly):

1842 - Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois
1845 - 1st nationally observed uniform election day in US
1846 - Benjamin Palmer patents artificial leg
1908 - Brooklyn Academy of Music, opens in NYC
1922 - Howard Carter discovers tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt
1939 - 1st air conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited, Chicago, Illinois
1948 - TS Eliot wins Nobel Prize for literature
1979 - 500 Iranian "students" seize US embassy, take 90 hostages (444 days)
1981 - Columbia shuttle launch scrubbed with 31 secs remaining
1981 - Dr George Nichopoulas is acquitted of overprescribing addictive drugs for Elvis Presley


today's birthdays:
1879 - Will Rogers, Oologah Indian Territory (Oklahoma), humorist
1916 - Walter Cronkite, St Joseph Mo, news anchor (CBS Evening News 1962-81)
1918 - Art Carney, Mount Vernon NY, actor (Ed Norton-Honeymooners)
1923 - Alfred Heineken, beer brewer (Heineken)
1931 - Darla Hood, Leedey Okla, singer/actress (Little Rascals)
1937 - Loretta Swit, Passaic NJ, actress (Hotlips Houlihan-M*A*S*H) (hey, i was born in Passaic, NJ, too! and i was born in 1973--she was in 1937--coincidence?...well, yes.)
1946 - Robert Mapplethorpe, US photographer
1950 - Markie Post [Marjorie], Palo Alto Cal, actress (Christine-Night Court)
1954 - Chris Difford, guitarist/vocalist (Squeeze-Tempted)
1961 - Ralph Macchio, Huntington NY, actor (Karate Kid, 8 is Enough)
1969 - Matthew McConaughey, actor (Contact, A Time to Kill)

deaths:
1982 - Dominique Dunne, actress (Poltergeist), murdered by boyfriend at 23
1995 - Yitzhak Rabin, PM of Israel, assassinated at 73

The School of Rock: critics' reviews.

i mean, THIS got better reviews than the new Matrix movie. poor keanu!

The Matrix Revolutions: critics' reviews.

ouch!!

Glen Phillips :: Bio:

I intend to die as a happy man, but am not quite ready to live as one, which means that I am not yet ready to die. Whatever it is, I'm working on it. Trust me.

i love him so. really i do.

i have not had a list of links on my site in so long (well, i mean, like a permanent list...i know i post endless links every day) that i am having some insecurity about those links i put over there on the right. they feel inadequate.

yay! archving fixed!
i am so pleased with this...

new template, whee!

isn't it...pretty in pink?

heh. anyway i'm having some archiving issues...they seem to be not there. i'm workin on it.

and, unfortunately, more proof that is probably true:



hey, i needed a break from reading all the anti-government terrorist conspiracy stuff, ok?

and still more proof:

now there's definitive proof:

THE CONTEXT

In 1999, the FBI recognized the increased threat to the United States posed by Bin Ladin and created the Usama Bin Ladin Unit to handle al-Qa'ida-related counterterrorism matters.

1999! he had an entire governmental department dedicated to just him in 1999. sheesh.

yeah, i'm still reading it...it's long.

CONCLUSION – FACTUAL FINDINGS

Despite intelligence information on the immediacy of the threat level in the spring and summer of 2001, the assumption prevailed in the U.S. Government that attacks of the magnitude of September 11 could not happen here. As a result, there was insufficient effort to alert the American public to the reality and gravity of the threat.

thanks, W. we love you, too.

CONCLUSION – FACTUAL FINDINGS

The continuing erosion of NSA’s program management expertise and experience has hindered its contribution to the fight against terrorism. NSA continues to have mixed results in providing timely technical solutions to modern intelligence collection, analysis, and information sharing problems.

this is so disheartening. this is also one of my biggest peeves with business in general--and some people in general. i know i've mentioned this on here before. people so often lose sight of the idea of working together for the common good, instead focusing on (for example) what your department should be doing and what my department doesn't have to do because that's not in my job description. sounds like this goes all the way to the top in our country, huh.

CONCLUSION – FACTUAL FINDINGS

No one will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn between these disparate pieces of information. We will never definitively know to what extent the Community would have been able and willing to exploit fully all the opportunities that may have emerged. The important point is that the Intelligence Community, for a variety of reasons, did not bring together and fully appreciate a range of information that could have greatly enhanced its chances of uncovering and preventing Usama Bin Ladin’s plan to attack these United States on September 11, 2001.

let's start this week off with some scary--and angering--reading:

Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001

Finding: Although relevant information that is significant in retrospect regarding the attacks was available to the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, 2001, the Community too often failed to focus on that information and consider and appreciate its collective significance in terms of a probable terrorist attack. Neither did the Intelligence Community demonstrate sufficient initiative in coming to grips with the new transnational threats. Some significant pieces of information in the vast stream of data being collected were overlooked, some were not recognized as potentially significant at the time and therefore not disseminated, and some required additional action on the part of foreign governments before a direct connection to the hijackers could have been established. For all those reasons, the Intelligence Community failed to fully capitalize on available, and potentially important, information. The sub-findings below identify each category of this information.

sigh. my boys are old men. check out the neck wrinkles, the obvious botox, the tired eyes...

but i still love them.

i've been looking at awful plastic surgery, and i've been debating posting a link to it, but then decided that i definitely have to, based on what the person who runs the site wrote about Sylvester Stallone's mother:

Please Mrs Stallone (she's Sylvester Stallone's mom), no more collagen. What shade of foundation is she wearing? 'Mask of death'?

hee!

and finally, a good comparison of pete burns then and now. like i was trying to illustrate on here a few weeks ago. i still weep for pete burns. or, at least, for his hair.

but--gasp!--how dare they!!