Monkeys and keyboards aside, one Random + CSS still doesn't make poop.

!!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:14:12 GMT

People who know me or have seen pics know that I have floofy curly super-fine Crazy Irish hair that is about five inches longer when straightened, will stand straight up with little provocation, and will 'fro if it's cut too short. It's usually impossible to deal with--it floofs with hair spray, it floofs without hair spray, it floofs within hours of having been relaxed, it floofs with or without special shampoos, and if I beat down the floof with gel? I look like a drowned rat.

So when I tell you, dear internets, that I've come across a shampoo that can tame the infamous Crazy Irish hair, I need you to know that this is akin to a light-from-the-sky chorus-of-angels miracle that blatantly and completely defies the laws of physics.

And it's even hippie-friendly, too. :D

I really wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't tried it myself--but now that I have, I'll probably never buy normal shampoo again.

went to the movies!

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:10:56 GMT

Re: Paranormal Activity

Thingie: *goes bump-tap-skritch-thunk-screech-"O hay thar" in the night*

Guy: I am a big manly man and, armed with my camera, I will handle this wtfery on my own with my cunning plan! What plan? Who knows!

Girl: I AM FREAKING OUT AND WILL CONTINUE TO FREAK OUT AND WILL STAY RIGHT HERE AND FREAK OUT LOUDLY.

Me: You guys are so not good at this*.

*Perchance I've run into a few too many things that go bump-tap-skritch-thunk-snore(yes, it snored)-"O hay thar" in the night . . . But I've got the feeling this movie will be to people who've actually dealt with ghosties/poltergeists what "Let's split up and hide from the axe murderer in different rooms of this creepy old house!" is to most normal people.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:50:16 GMT

Yesterday I decided I'd be healthy and go for a run/walk with Oni. Okay, so it's less a "be healthy" and more a "In a month I have two back-to-back workshops with Rachel Brice and Mardi Love. If I intend to survive and/or not have the workshops close with me laying on the floor crying and them toeing me every so often and telling me to STFU and deal, I need to severely up my cardio."

So on my good-intentioned adventure I turned my ankle (again) and ended up hobbling two miles home, and Oni got a tick that ended up partially embedded in his ear, requiring a $50 vet visit. FML. :P

He talked to the vet too much and she muzzled him. I can't really say I blame her--he does have angry eyebrows, a jaw that hinges at the back of his head, and a tendency to sound ferocious. After it came off, he seemed mortified (and thus was silent) for almost ten minutes.

Almost ten. Then it was back to normal . . . well, as normal as he can get.

A hop on the vet's scale showed that Oni now weighs in at sixty-eight pounds--almost twenty-five pounds up from when we got him at the shelter back in '04. This information prompted me to be insensitive--"Damn it, you giant fat hairball, stop stepping on me!"--and prompted zen_of_nihilism to tell terrible jokes: "He's not fat, he's husky! Ba-da-dum-ching!"

One week until Nekocon. I have way, way too much stuff to make--though the steampunky rings have come out fairly interesting thus far. :P So we all know what time it is . . . Bulleted list time!

To do:

Clean not-made-by-me merch from merch wheelie

~~Check bank balance, mail etsy orders, make byz and half Persian bracelets for local store~~

At least fifty hair forks: ~~5 purple/silver, 5 purple/orange, 5 blue/silver, 5 blue/orange, 3 bronze/geary,~~ 4 silver/gold, ~~4 green/orange,~~ 3 green/silver, 4 fall, 3 calico/geary, ~~3 gunmetal,~~ 3 gold/geary, ~~and whatever else I turn out.~~

Hair sticks. Lots. Like 100+ lots. This might require a

trip to Lowe's for a new dremel drill bit.

~~Finish flower & steampunky rings~~

Figure out how many supplies I really need to take--I'm tired of lugging an Oni-sized wheelie around.

Paperwork things

from cnn.com

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:03:49 GMT

I was finally starting to be completely past my Law & Order SVU-induced depression--taking two or three or five seasons in a row apparently does a number on one's mental state--but found myself thrown right back in via cnn.com's front page today. So a poor teenage girl got gang-raped outside her high school's dance by at least four guys and ended up having to be flown to the hospital in critical condition. Further investigation showed that this wasn't just a gang-rape, it was a show--at least fifteen and possibly twenty guys stood around and watched and did nothing to help for the two hours plus duration. Some even joined in.

Wow, I said. It's like Crank, only--oh, wait, Crank wasn't fucking funny either.

For reference: In the Jason Statham movie Crank, Statham's character needs to keep his heart rate up or he'll die. At one point he decides to up his heart rate by having sex with his girlfriend. Against her will. In public and in broad daylight. As a crowd of mixed ages and genders stands around and watches and does absolutely nothing to help her, despite her screaming and shouting no and trying to get away/fight the guy off. Of course, she magically decides she likes it mid-rape (to the cheers of the onlookers), and of course the female witnesses are more concerned with Statham's character's sex appeal and the size of his cock than they are with the woman who was just assaulted in front of them.

It's nightmare-fuel rape played as humor. It's without a doubt the worst movie scene I've ever watched. And now it's come to life, with a resounding shout of, "Silly female! Did you actually think anyone around you would come to your rescue?"

So . . . Do we really wonder where some people might get the impression that this behavior is appropriate?

I'm not advocating censorship here; just awareness. Here's a movie clip where the ditsy blonde girl has her clothes ripped off and is violently forced to have sex in public, despite her struggles. Not one of the onlookers tries to stop her rapist from carrying out his assault. You the viewer are supposed to see it as comedy.

Here's the real-life reflection: teen girl, possibly drunk or drugged, is violently gang-raped in public. Not one of the onlookers tried to stop the rape. What did the guys standing around think? That it was funny? That putting the girl into critical care was a good time? That this was a good chance for them to get off as well?

The area's police haven't released any explanations yet--though I'm sure no explanation given could ever hold water for the victim or victim's family.

In slightly more lighthearted news, a French court convicted the Church of Scientology of organized fraud because of their high-pressure "spend money on us and be saved!" tactics. Scientology spokespeople responded by comparing the ruling to the Inquisition--which, while a step up from shrieking and throwing poo, still goes to show that they Just Don't Get It.

Being fined for victimizing people: It's like being horribly tortured and burned at the stake, in a way. Only not.

Sad when throwing things at Scientologists registers as braincleaner.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:26 GMT

Our Bella got the flu, so we only got half the movie filmed. The rest should go fairly smoothly, though . . . well, as long as Oni continues to behave. He's mis/behaved wonderfully so far, and only managed to eat the toe out of a sock.

Don't ask. Yet. :D

~~

I finished Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and am pretty sure I'm obligated to make the man cookies at some point. The end is a little sudden, but the writing is high-level for a kids' book and overall is one of the better ones I've read in a while. I recommend it.

~~

I finally finished Chelsea Cain's Heartsick. The book's main murder mystery plot seemed eclipsed by the side(?) plot of the insane yet beautiful female serial killer and the suicidally depressed cop she's Stockholm syndrome'd, tortured, and brainfucked into a scarred, divorced, and drug-addled shadow of his former self. I'd say this is probably because the latter is a pretty new concept, while the mystery/thriller section is overflowing with the former.

Either way--the book got off to a somewhat slow start, but once it started moving (and the WTF-y interplay of Gretchen & Archie actually got going) it was interesting. If anyone wants my ARC that I've been hoarding for the past couple years, let me know.

~~

I started reading Captain Blood, too--what can I say, I wanted something out of the ordinary--and was pleasantly surprised. The main character is a near-radioactive Marty Stu (an Irishman who's the best physician around, was an awesome soldier and is still an awesome fighter, speaks perfectly accented Spanish, is oh-so-physically appealing, plots the best & sneakiest plots to ever be plotted, repeat any of those a few times over, so on and so forth) but the story rolls along really well for its originating time period, and it's written on so much of a higher level than what I've been reading lately that I'm frequently astounded. I'm not mentally tripping on the sentences because the language is archaic, I'm tripping because it's such heavy-duty wording that I as a reader have to pay close attention to in order to properly get the feel and description of things. I still don't expect much from it storyline-wise--I'm willing to bet dollars and donuts that the titular character will break hearts, defeat everyone, find treasure, get the girl, and possibly fart roses by the time it's all over--but I'll probably keep with it for a little while longer. Or at least until I find something else entertaining.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:02:57 GMT

We're shooting New Moon Over My Wereheiny tomorrow. God help us.

:D

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:19:23 GMT

http://whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com/

I don't hate men. ~~I believe in not discriminating; I hate everyone equally.~~ This site, though, makes me lol for hours and hours on end. Also, it makes me overwhelmingly glad I'm not in the dating pool any more.

Seriously, try it. The commentary on these guys' personal ads will slay you. It's better than fandom_wank in its heyday. (It's also incredibly NWS, but this thing will eat so much of your time it's best to not touch it at work. Ever.)

Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Srsly. ~~I am so srs rite nao.~~

I'm not sure what's worse about this particular entry: That the poor piece of furniture wasn't suspecting a thing, or that there's more than one of them.

randomness

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:08:27 GMT

I set up the fishtank again, after a few years of being without. I salted and scrubbed it to kill any remaining unhappiness; I lost main components for the filtration systems and re-purchased them; I bought 50 pounds of pond stone at Lowe's and spent a half hour washing it in the bathtub.

I nabbed the single goldfish from the pond (which has a broken filter and will certainly freeze solid this winter) and tossed him in the tank. He's there to make sure nothing's going to go terribly wrong. I named him Canary.

I'm a bad person. >.>

~~

Bella Sara's pinot grigio is a little more dry than my usual favorite wines, but it's still exceptionally tasty. I have a large bottle--ph34r for those who get in my way tonight. :D (This means any more people who start trying to tell me what I can and can't copyright/own the rights to. Shit never stops. Srsly.)

~~

I need to figure out what I should make more of for the etsy. Any suggestions, dear friends and lurkers?

functionality

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:38:19 GMT

Me: almost blinded myself too
had the copper spray paint
it got clogged
pushed the button a few times
didn't work
turned it around to look at it
you know how this story goes.

zen_of_nihilism: :-/
is my baby copper finished?

Me: Nah--your tv was safe inside :D

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:49:36 GMT

Justine Larbalestier's book Liar is the antithesis of the current YA/urban fantasy/paranormal romance werewolf novels.

I can't go into it very much because the pathological liar narrator creates so many WTF moments, and you as a reader have to pay so much attention, that to start explaining it is guaranteed to start spoiling it. Hell, I've thrown a bit of a spoiler in with my intro sentence here.

I kinda get the impression it won't do as well with younger readers because it does require you to weigh and think and pay attention and make your own decisions regarding the ending . . . but fuck them anyway, I thought it was kinda neat.

Also: Angry owl will eat your face if you say "Orly?" one more time.

Pittsburgh & the G20

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:32:11 GMT

Jesus Christ, I lived there. I found a pigeon that'd flown into a window on that stairwell--I brought it home so it'd be okay. I've used that over-street bridge any number of times.

It's like a fucking war zone.

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:25:05 GMT

I've found that an interesting thing to do to a storyline is gender-swap it--make the male characters female and vice versa--in order to gain a different perspective on the work.

With the WIP, I picked the genders of the main characters based on society's standard perception of gender roles and with the knowledge that they're both going to have to buck them to grow. Switching gender there, I feel, only serves to lessen the impact.

I went a step further, though--was my decision a right one? Did the girls of this day and age really need yet another female-centric story about our need to fight past gender constraints in order to make our own decisions and mistakes?

A few days ago, I ended up having an enlightening conversation at Kurokirrocon with two girls in the bathroom. The one girl was upset that her boyfriend wouldn't let her go to the dance. His reasoning? The dance was slutty. Also, he was afraid she'd cheat on him.

For reference, the dance was drum & bass (about 180 BPM), hardcore & HHC (about 200 BPM), and gabber (inching up to around 250 BPM). The air conditioning was off, the con funk was so thick it could almost gag you, and the heat probably made it up to 110-115 degrees Fahrenheit. The people dancing there were not slutty; if anything, they more resembled a nest of ants with glowsticks--if you doused the nest in bleach.

Ever helpful (and more than a little overheated), I tried to explain a very important phrase/idea/way of life to the girl: "Fuck him if he can't handle it."

The girl was still upset.

Her friend tries to make things better: "Well, if you wanna talk about slutty, there's someone selling bras in the dealer's room!"

"Yeah," I said. "That's mine."

I did explain to them that yes, it's a costuming thing, and yes, it makes me happy to not have a naked mannequin--but overall I couldn't even bring myself to be offended. They were both obviously too stupid to be let out on their own let alone understand anything beyond their own little worldviews.

Which happened to hinge on boys & on what's "proper" or "slutty," and in no way shape or form draw focus to their own supposed/stunted independence.

Fuck it, I said--it seems this song needs sung at least a few more times.

current events

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:04:48 GMT

The G-20 summit has brought the protesters out of the woodwork, and the protesters inevitably bring the police--approximately one thousand of which are newly deputized in order to deal with this event--as well as the bored people with nothing better to do than be angry, and the end result is the tear gassing of CNN reporters in the Strip and students at my old college, the breaking of windows and setting of fires blocks from where I used to live, the arrest of Greenpeace members who'd taken to dangling from Pittsburgh's bridges, and general destruction and mayhem.

newageamazon got a new camera, and has been getting some awesome shots of the protesters--whether or not what they're protesting makes sense.

And now zen_of_nihilism, at work a few blocks from the center of the latest riot, tells me that some students are being ~~dicks~~ ~~awesome~~ awesomely dickish and throwing the canisters of tear gas back at the cops.

I . . . kinda want to be there to see it. :P

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:48:33 GMT

Making Friends
WIP
Dog help us.

5079 / 35000

Being busy . . .

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:04:05 GMT

Clock parts shipments are starting to arrive, so tiny tiny (very tiny) gears are starting to end up . . . well, underfoot. And in jewelry.

The screwdriver set I need to properly take apart some of these watches is on the final leg of its journey to my house, a good chunk of my craft stuff is boxed in preparation for the massive house shift (zen_of_nihilism's gaming stuff & the tv to the old bedroom, the bedroom to the old bunny room, my craft stuff to the old TV area as a semi-office/workspace), and I have too much stuff I need to make.

Also . . .

If something is created with the ability to reason and choose, and that ability is stripped from them, may it still be considered alive? Is stunting free will stunting the development of life itself?

3617 / 35000

(I'm scared. You should be, too.)

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:34:30 GMT

To do:
--Finish & package up 4 orders by tomorrow

~~Make one set of crackle glass & shell sticks since the old set sold at the last show~~

~~Make two forks & 1 barrette set in bronze + red~~ Done!

~~Find (or make) autumn leaves flower hair fork~~

Locate & pack up rainbow flowers earrings
--~~Finish more steampunk resin pieces so they can be de-molded & photographed tomorrow--because if I can get some steampunk stuff done, I'm in as a vendor @ Tribalcon.~~

The fact that most of my parts for planned pieces are still in the mail isn't lost on me at all. D: D: D:

~~Panic/flail. Then drink. Then listen to extremely angry techno and get over it. Then get resin everywhere again.~~ Only this time I outwitted it by putting down a plastic sheet! Aha!

OH FUCK. I'M PROLLY GOING TO TRIBALCON.
--~~Clean the computer area some more.~~ Hey, I didn't say it had to be spotless.
--Strip the rocks out of the one garden, black-paper the entire mess, and re-cover it.

and then there were three

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:45:32 GMT

There's currently three vampire/werewhatever authors I can stand.

Charlaine Harris, since she doesn't tend to take herself seriously (despite style problems early on in the series and varying problems later on).

Kelley Armstrong, who writes messed up (if tending towards Sue-ish) characters and who's put some interesting work into her world-building.

And now John Lindqvist, whose book Let the Right One In took everything I hate about the standard human-meets-vampire novel and threw it out the window. There's no heavy-handed vampirey seduction here: the main characters are twelve and twelve-going-on-230. There's no epic "ZOMG I R MONSTER" angst. Hell, there's not really even gender. Eli, the vampire, goes about as a girl, then reveals s/he was once a boy who was genitally mutilated before being turned and goes about as a boy, then puts on a sundress and is a girl for a bit again.

And though the prose is a bit simplistic at times, and the ending doesn't exactly blindside you, the characters are all so staggering, show-stoppingly messed up that I wanted to huggle the book and carry it around with me. Oskar, the twelve year old main character, is bullied at school, accidentally wets himself on a regular basis, and wants to be a serial killer when he grows up. Eli, beyond gender, is also frequently beyond hygiene--but not beyond picking off the neighbors. Who, by the way, are all messed up. There's the young delinquents, the aging, dreaming alcoholics, the desperate divorcees and the edging-into-abusive cops they want to be with, and oh yeah the pedophile who lives with Eli, who kills people for blood so s/he can live, who steals the money from his victims' bodies, and who gives it to the kids he can't bring himself to molest because they're not Eli.

Strangely enough, even with the pedophile and Oskar's vague interest in porn and the eventual rapacious zombie with a permanent hardon, the underlying 'ship story, of a young boy and the genderless monster who really may or may not eat him one day, comes off as strangely pure. They play with Rubik's cubes, they tap secret messages to each other in Morse code, they snuggle, they wrestle, Oskar has to explain to Eli that when he says he wants them to "go out" that he doesn't mean they have to do anything besides what they're already doing . . .

But when Eli starts acting more like a little kid and less like an extremely old being in a little kid's body, and the pedophile starts to freak out because it's harder for him to justify lusting after an extremely old being that just happens to look like a child, and by the way the crazy cat man in the next building saw something that looked like a kid kill one of the local alcoholics . . .

. . . I think I have to buy this one now. :P

eaten by t3h craft bug

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:54:28 GMT

The entire house smells like resin, the stuff takes forever to set, it's all over my nails, it's taken over my countertop, (did I mention it smells?), and until recently I'm pretty sure I wasn't measuring it properly.

I also made some pretty nifty pieces thus far. I think I have to wait until they're fully cured before I go after them with sandpaper or a drill, but (aside from my first two creations, some less than jewelry-grade paperweights/garden rocks) I'm pretty happy with what I'm turning out.

Now I just hope I don't FUBAR 'em once they're completely cured and I decide they need sanded/drilled.

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:06:29 GMT

I finally decided to go through with the "Let's give up and make some steampunky jewelry" idea. Luckily for me, this coincided with the "Let's make resin jewelry!" thing. Or unluckily--now I have a billion ideas to play with and not enough hours to the day.

So tonight or tomorrow I'll hopefully get to experiment with resin casting, embedments, and so on. (I say hopefully because Borders borked my schedule again without telling me, resulting in my happy ass getting to work the just-announced Dan Brown midnight release party that no one'll care about. Dog knows what else they've screwed up.) I'd like to have the basics of resin work down before I start throwing in a few hundred clock or watch parts.

I got this broken clock movement off ebay because I wanted decent-sized gears and, well, what better way to get 'em? The thing arrived today. I pulled it out of the box, grinning with destructive glee--I don't know how to take it apart nicely, but I'd figure something out--and the little bastard started running.

It makes absolutely no logical sense, but now I'm gonna feel bad killing it. For at least a few minutes.

ETA: Well, that was entertaining. And alarming. I started picking at the thing with a screwdriver and pair of pliers, zen_of_nihilism started helping, the damned clock kept ticking, and eventually he hit one of the springs and it went completely ballistic--falling apart, skittering across the table, and scattering all the pieces I'd managed to take off, all at once.

We've since managed to get all the spring coils out, de-pinion the majority of the gears, and disassemble pretty much the whole thing. I've got a massive pendant-in-process here that'll probably be resin-filled tonight, if I can just find the right round thing for a proper mold. Wish me luck! :D

hate mail from twelve year olds

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:21:14 GMT

newageamazon linked me to a Stephenie Meyer quote where the woman says normal girls won't defend themselves against attackers. I responded as I usually do and ranted for a little bit. My rant ended up on Buzznet's front page.

I'm currently waiting for hate mail from twelve-year-olds. The macro collection is ready--even though so far it looks like my commenters are the grrl-power types. :D

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:57:03 GMT

I got pinged for a fall crafts line-up on the site FoundHandmade, which is sorta cool.

I also got in at the higher-scale semi-local festival for this weekend, which is also pretty cool.

I also kinda sorta really want to spend $50 or $80 or $100 on geary bits for shiny pretty crazy earrings and hair sticks. Instead I went to Lowe's and spent $1 on external toothed lock washers. As with most things lately, they ended up being parts of flowers.

Must . . . keep . . . away from ebay . . .

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:16:51 GMT

I'm finding that "craft" shows in my neck of the woods are fairly miserable things--in part, probably, because many let buy&sell retailers in with those of us who make all our own product. It doesn't take much talent to order things from Oriental Trader, y'know.

And the kind of people attracted to shows like that, who happily toss their money at rhinestone-encrusted, mixed-metal, glue-and-plastic low-quality wares . . .

Three customers stand out from this weekend, amongst the people who wanted to try all my earrings on (Eew eew eew no!), and the idiots who tried to tell me my belts are really necklaces (yeah, for those of you with 40" necks), and the bastard children picking things up and literally throwing them on the floor, and the worthless parents who stood by and watched their child grab & twist handfuls of my hair sticks' dangles.

The first really memorable one was a woman who came up, put a finger on my sign for maille bracelets, and said, "Malley?"

"No," I said. "Maille." Sounds like "male." Anyone who's ever seen the stuff, or gone to a ren faire, or even just paid attention in history class knows this.

"Are you Malley?"

. . .

"Maille," I said, in case she'd missed it.

"Malley," she said, and poked the sign again.

"No. Maille. Like chainmaille." I poked a different sign, since that seemed to be the language she was speaking.

"Is your name Malley?"

Apparently not.

"It's not malley. It's maille. Chainmaille."

Blank stare.

"Like knights wore. You know--middle ages?"

Blank stare.

I tried again. "Ren faires?"

Even more blank stare.

"You saw Lord of the Rings?"

She brightened. "Oh! Okay, I get it now."

"Okay," I said, and went to roll into the sales pitch--idiot or not, her money'd still feed me--but before I could get going, she started talking again.

"So you're not Malley?"

I miss convention crowd kids. They understand what you're doing if/when you feel the need to headdesk yourself into a coma.

Then, the next day, Maille turned up. With her mom. I looked up from the anklet I was making to find a tween girl & her mother in front of the table, poking my sign again. Thinking nothing of it, I started talking to them--and got a bit of deja vu when the woman asked, "Are you Malley?"

Actually, it wasn't like deja vu. It was more like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize you're still in the nightmare when the creepy-crawly launches itself out from under your bed.

I'd learned, though. "Nope. That's the bracelet, and it's maille."

The daughter's face at this point went from a bland smile to completely blank. The mother kept grinning and talking.

"She's Maille. We've never seen anyone spell their name like this before."

I did not shriek or headdesk or throttle her. "Well, that's maille. Like chainmaille. Like knights in armor. Or ren faires, or Legolas."

The daughter's face started falling. The mother started to look confused. "So that's . . . maille?"

"Yup." I held up my anklet, which at this point was just a shiny silver & purple chain. "This, too."

"That's . . . Her name is spelled the same way, and we say it Malley. No one else spells it like that. I . . . I've never seen it like this before."

"That's okay," I said. "That's what I guessed," is what I almost said. But I figured the kid was probably already scarred for life, so I held back. It's not every day you find out your parent is an illiterate uncultured moron--and thankfully, it's not every day that their being an illiterate uncultured moron saddles you with an unfortunate name.

At least her name wasn't Chlamydia, I guess.

The third . . .

So it was the last day, it'd been raining, I was burnt out and cranky and somewhat miserable, and this woman walked up to my booth, looked at me, and said, "Belly button."

It was my turn for a blank stare.

The woman stared back. After a few seconds, she tried again. "Belly button."

Staring wasn't working; so I blinked a few times, shook off the urge to run screaming, and finally said, "What?"

"Belly button!"

. . .

Maybe, I thought, she was asking to see my belly button. Or maybe she'd slipped her handler.

I took a deep breath, looked around for anyone who might've been looking for her--didn't see anyone, of course--and tried once more. "I'm sorry--what?"

"Do you have . . . belly button?"

I gave up at this point and poked myself in the stomach. "Yes I do! Right there."

The woman started gesturing at this point, and as she started speaking in something more closely resembling a sentence I realized that she wasn't handicapped--she was just phenomenally stupid. "No, like . . . do you have . . . like . . . belly button!"

At this point I realized she was trying to ask for body jewelry.

At this point I also decided that I'm not a fucking mind reader, I'm not being paid enough to translate someone's halfassed attempts at sentences, and it's not my fucking responsibility to ask myself the question about my own stock for them. So I played dumb. "I'm sorry, what are you asking?"

With what looked like a monumental mental effort, she finally coughed out a full question. "Do you have, like, the things for belly buttons?"

"Body jewelry? No m'am--I only carry jewelry that I make myself."

"But do you make jewelry for belly buttons?"

. . .

It really is amazing that I did not kill her.

This coming weekend theoretically puts me at a long-running show where the populace is more artistically minded and the crafters all definitely make their stuff by hand. I've already upped my game with a spiffy new tablecloth and some new displays--hopefully I'll do better there. And not kill anyone. At least not while there's witnesses around.

ganked

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:41:40 GMT

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

If you agree, please post this in all your social networking accounts.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:38:11 GMT

To do:

~~Get to Joann's for fabric for new tablecloth~~

~~Call the township office again and make sure we're speaking the same language~~ Got voicemail, was polite, will wait for return. (One Kabuki-sized goat requires 20 acres of space!?)

~~Get to the fairgrounds again and get the paperwork straight for the show this weekend~~ ~~Drop some stuff off, too.~~

Pics ~~taken and~~ up for the custom sterling byz bracelet

~~Sew new tablecloth.~~

Post more things online. Maybe even some things that aren't flowers. *gasp!*

~~Sort the product/merchandising stuff. (Fix the earring stand, which I knocked over twice and need to re-merchandise anyway b/c my $12 earring section has overflowed.)~~ Ahhahaha. No.

Stock: Finish the barrettes & hair forks; possibly make more earrings.

Print some signs for a slightly more professional touch.

I sneezed all yesterday, have been post-show fried for the past few days, have that weird post-sick taste/feeling in my mouth today, and am wondering if I was able to infect anyone else at work. :D (Especially the one woman who saw me sneeze and freaked out that I might be touching any of the books she might want. Aw baby, it's too late for that. ~~Faggots~~ Sick people been breeding your cows, raisin' your chickens, even brewin' your beer long before I walked my sexy ass up in this motherfucker. Everything on your god damn table got ~~AIDS~~ swine flu!)

Rejoice! For bad things are about to happen.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:17:07 GMT

I may have figured out what's wrong with my writing. A bit of fluff wasn't cutting it--I need to go on an out-and-out screaming WTF binge of parody.

That being said, the cast for New Moon Over My Wereheiny only needs two, maybe three more people. We have a Bella and ~~possibly~~ definitely an Alice, wingedrivers has offered to man the sockpuppet version of Edward, the Volucatholic vamps are going to be styrofoam puppets manned by myself & newageamazon, and if zen_of_nihilism won't toe Bella as Charlie then I'll put on his shoes and do it for him. Add in a cameo by Mark, aka Panasonicyouth of Buzznet, aka the poor soul who's breaking down Twilight chapters so you don't have to read them yourself, and all we need is a SMeyer and someone to be Edward for two minutes. Then we can pick a weekend and get to work on filming.

(Ph34r. Lots.)

But I'm not out of OMGWTFcrack yet. Conversations with newageamazon and with the con-co-conspirator (henceforth Ari) have me certain that the world is bereft of something.

Steelers-inspired shonen-ai manga.

Guys, I need an artist. Someone willing and able to draw the sparkly magical catboys Big Ben & Polamalu, their Buddha-like mentor Master Tom Lin, their darling young fanboy Sid (who really wants to be like them but will whiz around hitting things with a stick until he gets a little older), the dubiously evil Lord Cower (who used to be the boys' mentor, but who ran off and abandoned them), and other such WTFeries. I'm serious about this--like, to the point of looking into printing it via Lulu & dragging it to conventions.

If I just stop futzing about with fanfic for a little bit, I could get a working script knocked out in under a week. But that's if I get an artist. ~~I know at least one of you is good &/or crazy enough to help go through with this.~~

. . . Wonder if DA would be a good place to post this, too. :D