Sweetney

Buoyant.

So I'm sort of overwhelmed with practical stuff-needing-to-get-doneness right about now, what with glorious beachhousedom arriving bright and early tomorrow. But have no fear, dear comrades: you can expect plenty of liquor-soaked updates, coupled with photographic evidence of drunken stupidity (and plain ol' regular stupidity), to begin within 48 hours. Yippee!

Okay, but we're really going to do things other than drink. Important things, like scientific experiments to see which of our kids sink fastest in salt water.

Oh my god, can you believe I just said that? I mean, REALLY.

But anyway, since you're here, why not mosey on over to Jinkies! for Comix Friday, hmm?

Gore On The Daily Show.

What, you were expecting original content from me, the link master?

Behold, an intimate glimpse into one of Tracey's dreams realized:

Two men I'd like to kiss.

Admittedly this would've been improved upon if Jon had, for example, had his shirt off. But beyond that? Perfect.

links for 2006-06-29

• Channel 102 - Movin' Moms
  Why are Canadians so funny?
  (tags: humor video)
• The Way Of The Pirates
  Everything you ever wanted to know about pirates (but were afraid to ask).
  (tags: history pirates)
• Avery and Phil Oozinate ShopWiki - Consumerist
  No shooting in the face, please.
  (tags: toys humor)
• "Chocolate Factory" theme park to open in Amsterdam - Yahoo! News
  This is almost too awesomely perfect.
  (tags: wonka amsterdam amusementpark)

Yet Another Inconvenient Truth.

Courtesy of The Zebro Show.

[via]

This Week, I Will Personally Redefine “Phoning It In.”

I do have goals, you know.

So as you might recall, we're leaving at the end of this week FOR THE MOTHERFUCKIN' BEACH, man, and I can barely contain my excitement. Whatever I'm doing this week at any one moment in time has seemed a pallid grey shade of mere existence in the face of my great expectations of Beach Life, a sad, hum-drum prelude to coming RIGHTEOUS AWESOMENESS.

Some might say I'm internally talking this vacation up too much, or setting the bar too high. But I knew for certain that line of thinking was bullshit when I received the following one-line email from one of my soon-to-be-beachgoing compatriots this morning:

I think I'm going to buy this just for the beach.

Dudes, we are going to have SOOOOOO much fun, it hurts.

After The Flood.

Its been raining for forty days and nights it seems. This morning, miraculously, its dry and sunny.

The garden approves.

Good News Hughes.

You and me, maybe we’re not made for grocery society. But you can still run — go, save yourself. We dared to soar today, and they can never take that away from us.

Pat, we've missed you, brother.

Stadium Pal.

A little something to start your morning off right.

Recent Searches That Led Folks To This Site.

round ass [Duh, I mean OBVIOUSLY.]

black round ass [(Pumps fist vigorously) YEAH! I STILL GOT IT!]

pirate flag [Next search term for me to work on acquiring relevance in? Zombies.]

transvestite prostitutes [So appropriate, because ya'll know too well that I just can't seem to stop talking about tranny prostitutes.]

cheating mommy [uhh WHA? Who's been cheatin' me?!]

anal probing [Continues to be a winner for me, though I can't quite figure out the connection... Which is just the way the aliens want it.]

A hat tip to you, dear Google.

Scientology Orientation Video.

Can anyone divine the source of this? Gotta be a joke, right?

You can also dive off a bridge, or blow your brains out. HA!

EDIT: But wait, there's MORE!

A Decent Proposal.

Yesterday, while M_ napped and Jamie watched The World Cup, I went to see An Inconvenient Truth. And let me first say that, as a parent, there is almost nothing better than getting to go see a movie alone. Not only do you get to focus solely on the film -- rather than on the squirming, spastic, flesh-clad megaphone your child invariably shape-shifts into upon entering a quiet, darkened theater -- but the people-watching is spectacular. As I sat waiting for the film to start, I silently surveyed the interactions of those seated around me, many of whom fit a certain expected type: crunchy, and vaguely hippyish in that collegiate sort of way that requires the men wear sandals and the women sport multi-colored braided bracelets from Guatemala. I half-listened to their conversations about Harry Potter and farmer's market produce, happy that I could just sit and be quiet. Because living with a preschooler has made stillness and quiet almost transcendent -- nay, divine. It was the closest I've gotten in a long time to something akin to a religious experience. A-fucking-men.

Anyway, back to the movie: it is absolutely [searches for Big Word to communicate the Bigness of its Bigiosity] STAGGERING. I don't think I can express how shocked, moved, amazed, awed and downright terrified this film made me, other than by saying that I think anyone who gives a crap about the future of our wee planet (which, uhh, should be EVERYONE) NEEDS to see this movie. By the end of it I was actually crying, overwhelmed by the reality of what we've collectively done, and what we need to do to begin setting things right. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I have a little proposal for all of you.

The proposal is, as follows: I will send everyone who sees this movie a copy of my righteous (if I do say so myself) Summer 2006 Mix cd, chock full o' 20 hot tunes to rock your world (or, well, what's left of it. HA!). Its a goodie, and well worth the price of admission to the movie.

So here's what you should do to get your copy of the mix:

1. Go see An Inconvenient Truth (find a theater where its showing near you here.)
2. After you've seen it, send me and email at sweetney AT sweetney.com with your mailing address.
3. I will respond, asking that you answer ONE QUESTION about the movie that only people who've seen it could answer, thus verifying that you've indeed completed #1.
4. If you have a blog, you must post a link to the film's website (http://www.climatecrisis.net) on it (you can write a post about seeing the movie, or just link to the site in your sidebar or linkblog or blogroll or whatever).

That's it. Everyone wins, man. Please note, however, that this offer will be good for the next two weeks only, so start planning your trip to the theater now, peoples.

Sorry, time's up!

Fairy Princesses.

[A few shots from M_ & R_'s dress-up fest yesterday.]

Or so they claimed...

links for 2006-06-22

• The Urban Etiquette Handbook -- New York Magazine
  How not to alienate that guy from TV by David Cross
  (tags: davidcross funny celebrity humor)
• HappilyBlue.com | Get into it
  I think we may need to buy these. (thanks, liz!)
  (tags: clothing politics)
• Fresh Pics: Hitler Cats
  because, well, BECAUSE.
  (tags: humor cats)
• Walking Ghost Caught On Tape?
  watch the video. CREEEEEEPY.
  (tags: ghosts paranormal video)
• List of fictional expletives - Wikipedia
  snort.
  (tags: language humor wikipedia reference)

This is hard.

The Hitler vs. Coulter Quiz.

I actually got HALF of those wrong.

I don't know how much of that to chalk up to my just-plain-dumbness, and how much to the unforeseen depth of Ann Coulter's scariness.

Brief Shout-Out Interlude.

Heh-heh. She said “lude.”

Really, this is just to say that if you aren't reading Space Monkey Pants, well, what's wrong with you, anyway?

And furthermore, heh.

Bye-bye.

Converted.

Alright, so you may recall my mild snark about Vox. Well, for the past couple days I've been playing around with the site (thanks to Anil and Zoot for the hookups), and I'm gonna [grumble, shuffle] haveta eat my snark. Its actually pretty cool. And yes, its much like LiveJournal in that its community-based, but its also much cleaner (and spiffier!) design-wise, as well as offering a buttload more features. And, to be perfectly frank, I'm pretty excited about having a semi-private space on the web (Vox lets users limit access to individual posts to contacts labeled family, friends & family, or make them wholly public), a place I can talk about my vagina and secret foot fetishes and stuff. Ya know?

cough.

Anyhoo, my profile is here, so if you're on Vox holla back. And if you're not a member but interested in getting a starter membership (which gives you a member profile, neighborhood, the ability to comment, and can be upgraded later to a full membership), I can hook you up if you email me at sweetney AT sweetney.com, because I'm a giver.

M_ [heart] Mr. Moo.

A few blocks from our house there's a strip of shops, and among them one of Baltimore's best restaurants, The Chameleon Cafe. The owners of the restaurant live above it, and their incredibly friendly cat, Mr. Moo, is always hanging around outside the joint, meeting and greeting patrons. M_ has, over the course of the past year or so, fallen completely in love with Mr. Moo. We can't drive by the place without her pleading that we stop to visit him.

Strange? Try TERRIFYING.

I think I may have just stumbled across the creepiest site ever.

You have been warned. Ugh.

Dear Pussycat Dolls.

A year or two back, I thought I had found a public figure that fairly epitomized everything I loathe most in popular female representation, tied up neatly in the grotesque celebutante package of one Paris Hilton. But oh, I so underestimated the depths to which our culture could sink.

How could I have foreseen your meteoric rise? I couldn't have, any more than I could've predicted the inexplicable popularity of that aboM_ble, psychosis-inducing Alex F Crazy Frog song, or Botox. Some things just don't make no sense.

Regardless of what unfortunate events led to the generation of your group, you are -- collectively and separately -- in a word, Vile. Your in-your-face sexuality isn't empowering, its banal and repellant. The only people who would find your particular brand of exhibitionism compelling are the sort who think strippers dance at clubs because they like it, and that lap dances aren't degrading because the woman is on top. In other words, assholes.

Your lowest-common-demoninator-pandering antics are, frankly, pathetic. And your music sounds like something my preschooler might pound out on a $10 My First SK-1.

I hate you. Please die soon.

Your nemesis,
sweetney

Total Void Tells Me Stories / Sometimes They Make Me Sorry.

Last night I dreamt that, for Father's Day, I got Jamie a bear.

In my dream, I'd gone to a pet store for some reason or other (dream logic being no logic), and in the center of the enormous, big-box-like pet store there was a large green indoor/outdoor carpeted platform dotted with tiny cubs. About twenty or so people milled about the cub area -- mostly families, it seemed -- joyously cuddling and playing with the brown, roly-poly lumps of baby bearness. Surprised by all of this, I hung back on the periphery, eventually siding up to a young hipster-ish looking store employee. Do bears really make good pets? I asked him. Oh sure, he replied. They get pretty big, but they're a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, They're Clubbing Moms.

For their highly-prized, luxurious pelts, of course.

And now that I have your attention, please proceed to Jinkiesify yourself. Thank you.

Dorky Self-Portraits.

Because ya'll won't leave me alone about seeing The New Glasses in their natural habitat. Behold:

Seriously, is there any way to take a non-dorky self-portrait? I mean, without being Heather, of course.

PS: This is fitting (when speaking of self-portraiture): I've been reading about Poetry Thursdays, and thought I'd [gulp] offer up this (a few of my poems, PDF download).

Next time I post a poem, however, I promise to spare you my own.

I Blame My Uterus.

I cannot seem to get my motor running this week, nor can I get out on the hiiiiwaaaay. It is all my uterus's fault, what with that monthly thing it does, that thing that leaves me feeling exhausted and bloated and crampy and all-around generally pissed off at my own annoying corporealness. SUCKS being, you know, bodied, man.

I am holding on by my scrappy, mildly-nibbled fingernails only so that I may get to the beach in two weeks.

And thank god for that, or I'd surely be spiraling out into some sort of existential crisis (yes, AGAIN). But for the moment I KNOW what the meaning of life is, and that's surviving just long enough to GET TO THE GODDAMN BEACH. Finis.

M_ In The Morning.

Food Bites Back.

I sent this to Steve at The Sneeze. A sort of metal-testing challenge, if you will.

Which reminds me: I think its been at least 6 months since I linked to this. And why break the tradition?

Greetings And Salutations.

Top o' the mornin', friends! A few bits and pieces:

* Threadless $10 sale ends tomorrow! Also, did you notice that they now have kids tees (also for $10 until tomorrow)?

* Watched Jesus Is Magic last night, and despite really wanting to like it -- loving the funny broads as I do -- my overall impression was decidedly “Meh”. For much of it I laughed not at all, though perhaps the film would be more enjoyable if I, say, downed a few shots of bourbon beforehand or something. Booze: The Wonder Drug That Works Wonders!

Next up: Dave Chappelle's Block Party, and you can bet your sweet ass intoxicating substances will NOT be needed for that one, suckas.

* You really must listen to this. Heh.

* BlogHer headcount: Who's going? And will you be put off if I screech your name from across a crowded room, and then proceed to physically tackle you and kiss you full on the mouth? Huh?

* File under: What, Like I'm Not Under Enough Pressure As A Parent Already?: Now I have to make SILLY CAKES?!?

* Yes indeedy, I'm all over the place today. Deal with it (you have no choice, really).

* Need a little hope and solace regarding energy and the environment? Jon's got you covered (that's MY Jon, bitches!).

My work is done here.

New Edition.

Everyday it seems I notice new plants blooming in our garden that I don't recall being around last year. I think perhaps I was a little overzealous last year with my weeding, and probably unknowingly cut down/pulled out a bunch of things that this year are finally getting a chance to bloom.

Good thing for them I'm too busy/lazy to bother with pulling out all but the most obvious of weeds this year, huh?

PS: (Utterly unrelated aside:) Please, for the love of sweetney, don't forget to check Jinkies! daily!

Dig If U Will The Picture...

1. It took $41.75 to fill up my car's gas tank yesterday (a 1998 Toyota Camry... because I'm a Mom). Please insert into your mind a picture of my head exploding.... now.

2. The bathing suit, she has arrived. It will probably be a week or so before I get up enough nerve to actually try it on though. Details at 11.

3. My pal Kelly had her bachelorette party this weekend (apparently in the basement of a haunted sanitorium or something), and one photo from that night in particular I think speaks to what the bachelorette party experience should ideally be all about.

4. My best moment of my day so far? Checking my cell phone and finding a text message from Amy on it, including a photo of her with a very special someone... but I'll let her do the honors.

5. Oh no, FUCK, wait, my other very best moment of the day so far? Getting an email from one of my real-life heroes about a little sumpin-sumpin that down the line will be revealed (shhh!). But seriously, I SWOONED.

Is there an emoticon for that?

6. Preschooler Anarchy Update: I'm happy to report that M_ rapidly came to her senses and stopped acting like a complete crazy person... at least FOR THE MOMENT. Truth be told, I now suspect she actually was fighting off some sort of virusy-type bug thingy that day last week when she totally and completely lost her shit (later in the afternoon she had a temperature and seemed mighty glassy-eyed and woozy). And well, you know, WHEW! Dodged that bullet! Now I can go back to my accustomed (and much-beloved) non-parenting version of parenting! Wheeeee!

7. And now here it is, your moment of zen.

The Passion Of The Flower.

This bloom appeared yesterday on our passion flower vine, completely out of nowhere. Like a miracle. [snort.]

Lost Los Angeles.

I've never been big on Ansel Adams, but these once-lost photos he took of Los Angeles are wonderful, if only for the 1940s aura.

So Me It Hurts.

This morning, as we were reading the NYT with our coffee (oh Sunday morning, how I [heart] thee), Jamie tossed the Book Review at me and said, pointing to some text on its cover, “THAT'S what you'll be reading at the beach.”

And he was so dead-on right, its spooky.

CANNOT. WAIT.

By Leaps And Bounds The Smartest Thing I've Heard All Week.

[From a discussion of Gay Marriage between William J. Bennett and Jon Stewart on Tuesday's TDS:]

Bennett: Look, its a debate about whether or not you think Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Stewart: I disagree. Its a debate about whether you think Gay people are a part of the human condition or just a random fetish.

Oh my god, I didn't think it was possible, but I NOW LOVE HIM EVEN MORE.

Body Double.

Or: Me and my big, fat computer-generated ass.

The time of year has come that many of us, myself included, dread: swimsuit season. In about three weeks, Jamie, M_ and I are headed to Delaware's Bethany Beach to a beach house we've rented, and I couldn't be more geeked. It'll be a whole week of total relaxation, sans the typical vacation hub-bub. I plan to do a lot of laying about, reading, consuming of movies and television, and, of course, drinking (because what is a beach house vacation without frosty tropical alcoholic beverages?). And, as if that weren't enough, we'll be sharing our time there with some of my favorite people, we'll be a mere two blocks from the actual beach, and the beach house has wifi. I KNOW! Its a geek's dream, realized! Anyway, the only slight tarnish on all this bright shiny goodness is, yes, the whole swimsuit aspect of the thing. Sigh.

Disappointing The Internet... AGAIN.

New Glasses Update! I am now in possession of The New Glasses. And I'm sad to say that, despite trying on like a bajillion pairs of horn-rimmed glasses and variations on the theme of horn-rimmed glasses, that particular avenue became a stylistic dead-end. An ugly, freakish dead-end. For though I love the style, the style does not love me. Instead of looking hip and smarty, the horn-rimmed variety of glasses somehow managed to consistently make me look something like Bea Arthur in a blond wig. And, well, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that.

So, yes, we ended up going square-ish. I'm actually quite pleased. Sooooo....are you ready for the pictures? ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY FOR THE PICTURES? REALLY, REALLY READY? Okay, brace yourselves...

From The Actual Email Files of Sweetney.com.

From: sweetney
Subject: Piratey Goodness
Date: June 7, 2006 9:41:44 PM EDT
To: lothar

Ahoy, Pirate Party Peoples,

Count me in!

Yours in booty,
Tracey

...................................
http://sweetney.com
sweetneyATsweetney.com

Plug Plug Plug.

Thankfully, this plug has absolutely nothing to do with butts.

Ahem. So hey, have you been keeping up with Jinkies!? Because, you know, good shit.

Alright, back to The Big Preschooler Freakout I go.

“Strong Willed.”

I'm writing this to keep my sanity. The last two days with M_ have been stretching every last thread of patience I have to their absolute breaking point. Yesterday, at least, there was an explanation: she didn't (well, refused to) nap, and so the fact that for the rest of the day she was unbearable (I cannot count the number of times yesterday that I said some variation of “If you don't start behaving yourself, [insert situation-appropriate threat (”we're leaving the grocery store RIGHT NOW!“ is a good example, which I must've repeated about 15 times during our 1/2 hour trip there)]”, so it made some sort of weird sense in the context of sleep deprivation.

But today we're having a continuation of Preschooler Anarchy.

Super Mega Garden Update.

There's a lot going on, peoples.

Mommy? What's That? Mommy? What's His Name? Mommy? What Do You Call That? Mommy? What Did He Say? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?

It is in M_'s best interest -- in the interest of M_'s self-preservation, in fact -- that she take a goddamn afternoon nap.

DO YOU HEAR ME M_? MOMMY'S NOT KIDDING! DO I LOOK LIKE I'M LAUGHING?!?!

jamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamieplease
gethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoon
jamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamieplease
gethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethome
soonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamie
pleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleaseget
homesoonjamiepleasegethomesoonjamiepleasegethomesoon

Grrrrls Who Wear Glasses.

A momentous moment of momentousness is upon us, friends. It is a day that comes perhaps once every decade. TRACEY IS GOING TO GET NEW GLASSES TOMORROW. I KNOW! AREN'T YOU JUST GOING TO LOSE YOUR SHIT?!?!

Okay, so perhaps everyone isn't as excited about this as I am. Understandable. But maybe helping me decide what style of glasses to get will raise the excitement level a titch, hmm?

Continuing The Theme.

Calm down. Now. Please.

The last sentence of that piece should at the very least include Mindfucked Control-Freak Parents along side the Government & Lawyers.

Colbert Commencement Speech.

Transcript here.

Also globalization, e-mail, cell phones interconnect our nations like never before. It is possible for even the most insulated American to have friends from all over the world. For instance, I recently received an e-mail asking me to help a deposed Nigerian prince who is looking for a business partner to recuperate his fortune. Thanks to the flexibility of global banking, a Swiss bank account is ready and waiting for my share of his money. I know, because I just e-mailed him my Social Security number.

A shaky, from-afar partial video on YouTube of the event, good for the audio, if nothing else. I'll update this post if I find a better video.

6/6/06.

Because everyone loves demonic children!

And for your edification, a little additional info about tomorrow's date.

I for one plan to steer clear of easily-toppled ladders for the duration of tomorrow, at the very least.

How I Work: Because Lifehacker Didn't Ask Me.

I've recently been fascinated by Lifehacker's How I Work series (and The Blog Herald's similar How I Blog series), but since nobody's going to be asking ME anytime soon to write about my blog work habits, I thought I'd go ahead and post my own little summary of these, and encourage others to do the same on their blogs. There's a certain kind of incredibly geeky voyeurism involved here that I for one find irresistible, and I'd love to read about what others -- like yourself -- do, and how you do it.

[NOTE: I'll be responding here specifically to the three questions posed to bloggers by Lifehacker, so please feel free to simply use those in crafting your own “How I Work” post as well, or expand as you see fit.]

Six Apart Does LiveJournal.

Isn't that what this is? Am I wrong?

PS: Totally unrelatedly (oh you know you love my utter randomness), how many of these do you think I need to order just to get me through the next year?

Headshrinking.

Yesterday was my first session with The Ninja Therapist. I drove over to her house (she has a small office there), and she greeted me at the door with “Welcome to Dante's Inferno!” Thankfully, she was referring to her home and its contents, not the therapy I was entering into. The best way I can describe her house is that the interior resembled something akin to what my mind conjures up when I think “19th Century Bohemian Opium Den” with a touch of upscale flea-market. I think she was afraid I would be put off by entering into a space with so much stuff -- my house, which she's been to, tends toward the spartan comparatively in terms of decor, because my brain sort of short-circuits if I live in too much clutter -- but on the contrary, I was fascinated. Every nook and cranny was filled with weird little treasures. At one point, I noted some blue-and-white chinese porcelain (which I love) lining a shelf, and she casually pushed a few pieces aside to reveal a gorgeous vase hidden behind some of the others. “That's Ming Dynasty... I got it for two dollars at a flea market a long time ago.” YOWSA.

Small Roar.

Shopping alert! Incredibly adorable and cool baby clothes, made by a friend of a friend.

Were M_ still baby-nuggety, you know she'd be wearing this.

Yeah, Like I Said.

Vigilance is enormously taxing—and it's taken all the fun out of parenting. “Parenting has in some measurable ways become less enjoyable than it used to be,” says Stearns. “I find parents less willing to indulge their children's sense of time. So they either force-feed them or do things for them.”

Parents need to abandon the idea of perfection and give up some of the invasive control they've maintained over their children. The goal of parenting, Portmann reminds, is to raise an independent human being. Sooner or later, he says, most kids will be forced to confront their own mediocrity. Parents may find it easier to give up some control if they recognize they have exaggerated many of the dangers of childhood—although they have steadfastly ignored others, namely the removal of recess from schools and the ubiquity of video games that encourage aggression. [Psychology Today, “A Nation Of Wimps”]

Some very smart points, in full here.

Watch This.

Several months back I posted something about Spike Jonze's unseen documentary on Al Gore, and what a shame it was that more people hadn't had the opportunity to view it prior to the last election. Well, now's your chance to see it:

Unseen Al Gore Campaign Video

Hurts, don't it?

Ouch, My Brain.

Helllooooooo crazy!

EDIT: Helloooooooo CRAZIER!

Sunday In The Park With M_.

It'll end in tears.

The Interweb: Now With Extra Drama!

Who knew that the net achieved LiveJournal heights of drama ON OH-SO-MANY LEVELS?

I think the internet might need a hug. And maybe some of these: :) :) :)