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Bring it up again and we’ll all vote on it

The upchuck. The rolf. The spew. The barf. The chunder. The technicolor yawn. Feel free to share some of your favorites; I might need them.

It was the damnedest thing. I made some elderberry cordial — a pound of elderberries in a demijohn, pour 750 ml of vodka over it, let it sit for two months, strain it off, add sugar to taste. It was absolutely delicious. I had my first sip last night — a thimbleful in my mother-in-law’s tiny cordial glass — and half an hour later…well. You know where that’s going.

What the hell could that be all about?

Plus, Uncle B has a cold. Uncle B has an intense, consuming, irrational hatred of colds. That never made sense to me, until I realized…

He’s been self-employed most of his working life. A cold is nothing but misery to him. He feels like shit, and he has a normal work day anyhow.

Me, I punched a time-clock most of my working life. Unless I had a critical deadline to deal with, a cold meant I got a couple of days off with pay to schlub around the house in my PJ’s, enjoy the narcoleptic embrace of Nyquil, watch TV, sit up in bed alternately reading and dozing, and feed a cold with all my might. Sure, a stopped up nose is miserable, but a rhinovirus was otherwise a happy mini-vacation for me.

Oh, well. It’s all misery in Badger House today.

November 17, 2010 — 12:08 am
Comments: 51

Do you smell something?

Ha! Just kidding! You have to have some degree of self-awareness to produce flop-sweat. This guy will go to his grave thinking he’s bestest president that ever was.

A whole forest of swinging clue-bats wouldn’t help this one “get it.”

Still, I’m stonked that there are already calls for him to stand down in 2012. I can smell the FAIL from over here.

November 15, 2010 — 11:15 pm
Comments: 17

Sweet dreams!

I find the best stuff searching for images. I was looking for a parchment texture to use as a background, and I discovered that the Museo de las Mumias has a slick new website. And, apparently, a slick new museo to go with.

You know these guys, right? If you’ve watched Believe it Or Not or owned a book about repulsive weirdnesses (and who does not?) you’ll have heard of the mummies of Guanajuato. Little silvermining town in Central Mexico.

Between 1865 and 1958, Guanajuato authorities dug up anyone whose family quit paying rent on a crypt and stored the bodies in a warehouse. Some of them were remarkably well preserved, which was put down to dry air circulating around the tombs (some reports say minerals in the soil, others are emphatic that the bodies were from above-ground tombs).

People, morbid shitbags that they are, came from all over to slip a few pesos under the table and take a tour. They eventually shrugged and officially made 111 of them into a museum.

Early pictures of the collection are skeevy as hell. Many of the mummies were just tied to the walls with twine. People could could feel free to poke fingers through or break bits off. Which — being shitbags — they often did.

Look like it’s all climate controlled glass cases and track lighting now. Though it’s still skeevy as hell.

More about the Museo here, here and here.

Or just skeeve yourself out and look at the pictures.

Good weekend!

November 12, 2010 — 10:49 pm
Comments: 11

In the spirit of helpful bipartisanship

Okay, I understand the point of view that Nancy Pelosi was only doing her job by putting the screws to her caucus and making them vote for shit. But she didn’t have to walk right through the middle of an enraged, chanting mob, laughing and carrying a huge fucking clownhammer of a gavel on her way to said vote.

She really didn’t.

There’s “getting the job done” and there’s “getting the job done then taking your opponent by the collar and smashing his face into the steamy shitpile you just passed.”

She deserves every drop of what’s headed her way.

November 11, 2010 — 9:35 pm
Comments: 29

Catmind…

Yay! The election is over and I can go back to catblogging. Popular, lucrative catblogging.

I try not to anthropomorphize my cats. I know what passes for feline thought processes is pretty basic stuff. On the other hand, I’m not one of these faux-scientific types who think animals are unfeeling machines and all behavior is mere tropism. Haven’t these dingleberries ever kept a hamster, for cri-yi?

But every once in a while, we who serve pets are rewarded with a little glimpse into the mysteries of petbrain.

This cement cat? We call him Monsieur le Grumpypuss (yeah, sick-making, isn’t it?). I bought him because we don’t have nearly enough statuary in our garden, and this bad boy looks thoroughly cheesed off. I like that in a garden ornament.

Problem — Charlotte thinks he’s a real cat. It simply never occurred to me she would react to a badly cast lump of cement, at least after she got a good look, but she spent a week creeping up to it in…horror? Fascination? Who knows?

Even after I pushed him over and patted him in the face and demonstrated to her in every way I could think that he was a lump of inanimate crap, not an actual animal of any kind, she still acts damn strange around him.

On warm days, she sits with him and keeps him company.

November 10, 2010 — 11:30 pm
Comments: 53

My mom would be so proud

Inspired by this tweet. Did I say “inspired”? I meant “stolen.”

Yes, I’ve put it on stuff, but Zazzle hasn’t kicked any of it loose yet. Hey, you know all that “DEFUND PBS” merchandise I promised? I made a bunch of it and they pulled the lot. “Trademark violation” for using the name PBS.

Stupid Zazzle.

I’m still soldiering on manfully with Twitter, the way one brushes one’s teeth or eats one’s broccoli. I haven’t really “got it” yet, I guess. Too many blind links, too much repetition, way, WAY too much pointless attention whoring. Marketing never was in my skillset.

And I’ll tell you this for free: there are several people on Twitter who would be well-advised not to be. People who come across as decent and thoughtful in long posts and as screaming assholes in the rapid world of 140-char interchange.

November 9, 2010 — 11:51 pm
Comments: 28

Winchelsea Mark II

Saturday’s bonfire was in beautiful, haunted Winchelsea.

The original Winchelsea was an important shipping port next to Rye, on the edge of Rye Bay. Probably. Nobody’s entirely sure, as the sea came in and ate it up one day in the 13th Century.

They saw it coming, though, and had time to build another one. Edward I ordered the new Winchelsea built in a grid pattern, high on a hill nearby.

It was quite a large town by Medieval standards, but it was sacked by the French a couple of times. And then, you know, there was the Plague. That sure wasn’t good for tourism.

Winchelsea today is a tiny place, a fraction of what it was. Walk half a mile over empty, rolling, sheep-covered grass and you’ll find what used to be the farthest town gate.

It’s tempting to call Winchelsea luckless, except what’s left of it is absoLUTEly lovely. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that every building in the town is listed. And everywhere, the sweet, pervasive, inescapable, permeating smell of contemporary money. Gobs and gobs of it.

Winchelsea being Winchelsea, their Guy was a guy. In a Guy Fawkes costume. The good citizens gathered around the town well and put on a little pageant, with the Himself, two guards in 16th Century armor and a narrator. Then they trussed Guy up in a cart with a rope around his neck, and we all marched him around the town to the commons behind a small pipe and drum troupe from the local prep school and had a jolly good bonfire and fireworks display.

They replaced dude with an effigy for the bonfire, of course, but Winchelsea being Winchelsea, it was a really good effigy. Highly realistic. There was more than one gasp and nervous laugh when the Guy caught fire and burned up all convincing-like.

November 8, 2010 — 11:31 pm
Comments: 19

Remember, remember

England isn’t lost yet; these people love them some fire and explosions.

Happy Bonfire Night! Remember, remember the fifth of November — 1605, when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the houses of Parliament. Parliament, king and all. He and his buds hoped to make England a Catholic nation again.

Problem is, the last time England was a Catholic nation — 40-some years earlier, when Bloody Mary was on the throne — a good 300 Brits were burned alive for the heresy of Protestantism.

They’re still grouchy about it.

Still, any excuse to dress up, parade around with torches, drink beer, set off fireworks and have a hellaciously huge bonfire with an effigy on top. I think only Lewes still burns an effigy of the Pope every year — 17 Lewesians were burned at the stake during the Marian persecutions — but everybody burns somebody.

In Sussex, they don’t have Bonfire Night, they have Bonfire season. From September almost through to Christmas, local village bonfire societies take turns having bonfire celebrations, so we can all turn up to all of them. Or lots of us turn up to lots of them, anyway.

On the fifth itself is our favorite: Icklesham. It’s a tiny town near Hastings, but they have a robust bonfire society, the Robin Hood Bonfire Society (out of the Robin Hood pub). And they charge £3 admission, which goes towards next year’s festivities. They always put on an excellent show.

They did it again tonight — though it was a bit a mizzly out and attendance was down, which may affect next year’s celebration. Still, the beer was my favorite!

Pull up a toasted Catholic and join us!

November 5, 2010 — 11:25 pm
Comments: 41

Emo president is emo

I watched the whole hour of Obama’s post-election press conference and, honestly, I thought he did okay for the circumstances. And I thought the press did okay asking reasonably stiff questions.

Like he was ever in a bzillion years going to say, “Meh. I guess people just hate my ideas after all.”

Remember that weird obsession the press had with making Bush confess he’d made mistakes? And they thought it was super creepy that he wouldn’t?

Right. The guy on the raft says to the great white sharks, “excuse me, boys, while I toss a little chum your way.”

Same for Obama. So he keeps a straight face and drones on about electric cars and communication. Like Scarlett O’Hara in the slutty red dress, he had to go out there and say the words one more time. Must’ve hurt like a bastard. I cut him slack on this one.

But after this, the hairy eyeball.


If you don’t recognize the source image, punch here.

November 4, 2010 — 9:56 pm
Comments: 21

Ummm…yay. I guess.

Ach. God. What did I drink last night? My mouth feels like I’ve been chewing pine martens.

So! Biggest Republican wave in 80 years! Why am I not happy?

Maybe because I was expecting the biggest Republican wave, like, EVARRR. I’m highly susceptible to last-minute hype.

Maybe because a I CAN NOT Be-LEEEVE Massachusetts didn’t take the opportunity to rid itself of that spiteful, edentulous old queen Barney Frank. Or that I’ll spend another umpty-ump years staring at Harry Reid’s gray puss.

Mostly, though, it’s because I’ve been banging around the ‘sphere today and I’m shocked by the amount of acrimony on ‘our’ side about the ones that got away.

I’ve been chewing it over, and I don’t think I’m wise enough to get into it without, at best, adding to the general bitterness.

Except…just…we have a long, long way to go yet. That thing last night? That was a good beginning.

We have to maintain our giant stitched-together alliance at least through one more cycle. We can’t afford the luxury of poking each other in the eye. Which means putting up with some less than universally popular choices.

Just, please — I’m begging you — no Huckabee. Okay?

Now, somebody get me some hair-of-the-dog, stat.

 

November 3, 2010 — 8:32 pm
Comments: 57