Sweetney

For The Rest Of Us

Dudes.

No, seriously. DUDES.

No, wait. Scratch that. DOOOOODS!:

But really, dudes, c'mon.

HAPPY FESTIVUS!

[This post brought to you by dude.]

Odds/Ends

Big ol' interweb content-dump ahoy!

1. Guitar Face made me laugh for about half-an-hour straight.

2. I think its safe to say that Lindsay Lohan is not much of a writer.

3. Have you been keeping up with MamaPop (as well you should)?

4. Oh that David Sedaris is a funny dude.

This 'Mouths Of Babes' Moment Brought To You By The U.S. Department Of Labor, Capitalism, And The One Hour Commute

Him, examining our xmas tree: Wow, I don't even remember us having a lot of these ornaments. Hey, look M_, its a picture of you as a baby! And here's one with your name on it!

Her: Where's the mouse? The mouse writing on the desk?

Him: Right there (points to ornament). I've never seen that one either! Jeez, where was I last year?

Her, loudly, and in a tone suggestive of stating-the-obvious: At work!

And the retaliatory tickle-torturing continued late into the night.
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Unrelated PS: Today's the final day to vote in the 2006 Canadian Blog Awards, my friends. I had the distinct honor and privilege of nominating both Debaucherous & Dishevelled and Milkmoney Of Not, Here I Come for the Best Personal Blog category, and highly recommend both/either for your voting pleasure.

To Do List Of Doom, Or: A Preview Of Things I'll Be Complaining About In The Months To Come

With winter finally upon us, it now falls to me to face the wreck of our domestic sphere head-on, though the thought of doing so fills me with a level of dread aligned with that generated by horrors like having to watch a Paris Hilton music (and I use the term “music” loosely here) video, or the sort of anticipation associated with an impending root canal. Let's just say I've let a few things slide, okay?

Bed made. Must now lie in it.

Overzealous Holiday Adornment

Its not too early yet, right? I mean, my understanding was that once Thanksgiving had passed, it was time to PLAY BALL.

Stop Motion Beatbox

A guy with no musical training creates a great song using stop motion. Amazing.

The Sweetney.com Holiday Gift Guide

I have only one solitary thing to offer here, but I believe its something that will truly be the perfect selection for anyone on your holiday gift-giving list, young and old alike.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our beloved Pat's Diary Of Indignities.

Okay, so it doesn't come out until the spring... but you can just pre-order that shizzle and hand out the IOUs like candy this December, right?

Seriously, I'm so happy I could spit.

EDIT: If you need a few more ideas, check out last year's gift guide.

Talking Points: Regarding Your Expected Update

1. Is it awful of me to say that I'm kind of happy to be back to the same-ol'-same-ol' weekly schedule? Yes, yes, I know its pedestrian and dull to the point of bordering on a kind of masochism of banality, but all this festive TOGETHERNESS and DISORDER doesn't jibe well when married with my Felix Ungeresque persona. Frankly, what jibes well is regimen meshed with seclusion, interrupted by occasional refreshing bursts of human fellowship. But this being around other people all the time thing? Why, that's just crazy talk. And stop touching me, dammit.

2. M's best buddy R was over yesterday, and the two of them produced together about twenty separate crayon-and-pencil scenes that each involved explorations of the destructive power of hot lava and the inability of living things to escape its furiously scribbled clutches. Kittens, flowers, Bratz Dolls, and, yes, even monkeys, all met similar fates, getting -- and I quote -- “Burnded up” by torrents of imagined magma. The bald-faced joy taken in all this death and destruction was, to say the least, rather unseemly.

“Self-Indulgence: a Primer”

I just spent the last half-hour reading customer comments on Amazon.com regarding Ethan Hawke's novel The Hottest State (yes, THAT ETHAN HAWKE). And yeah, hello and welcome to the sort of crap I do in my 'downtime.' Anyway, some of these reviews border on the poetic... if poetry were blood-tinged bile, that is. Taken altogether, the intensity of reader's responses presents a wholly separate sort of meta-narrative drama. My favorite scathing break-down of the moment:

The horror, June 15, 2000
Reviewer: “phaidros23” (New York, NY)
At first I was impressed at Hawke's ability to string together words to form sentences, which then made paragraphs, which followed from then on in logical sequence. At least the guy put words on paper, and managed to turn out 200 pages. But his writing becomes worse as it goes along, descending from the starting point of “competence” and ending in “bilge”. You get the feeling that his editor just quit halfway through the book. And who can blame him? Ethan Hawke is one self-absorbed, pitiful dude. His daddy abandoned him. His mother had him when she was quite young, and then had boyfriends after her divorce. Shocking. He likes to punch things and break furniture. And as if life weren't cruel enough, he's from Texas.

All Things Go, All Things Go

Guess who has the flu! GUESS!

Thank you, fresh-washed flannel sheets.

Thankful

For, among other things, living in a place where the owners of the neighborhood coffeeshop not only find and return your daughter's beloved lost stuffed friend to her, but attach a small gift of her favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies.

One Little Boy, One Little Man/Funny How Time Flies

I sent an email last night to my old friend John (who I wrote a bit about a long time back here), someone I've known since High School but haven't been in contact with for well over a year (which seems to be something of a pattern in terms of our contact with each other). It read (in part):

From: tracey
To: johnny
Date: November 21, 2006 9:21:51 PM EST
Subject: my every-other-year (or so) check in!

and aren't you THRILLED?

hey! how the hell are ya? been, umm, a while, huh? you see, i'm operating continually under the assumption that you are out there somewhere, happy and healthy as i (mostly) am... and thus we both go about our lives as people do: conscious of one another's existence, but distracted by the day-to-day, the ins-and-outs of regular ol' life (and other hyphenations). but still, somehow, connected.

So Long, Bob. And Thanks For All The Awesome.

Robert Altman, Iconoclastic Director, Dies at 81

Today is a very sad day for film lovers everywhere.

Happy Holidays From Truman

The doggie war on Christmas? Oh, ITS ON.

Politically Incorrect Preschool Potluck

I only wish it had been hosted by Bill Maher (despite having a fairly complex love/hate relationship with the dude, alternating as I do between intense feelings of adoration and the powerful desire to poke his eyes out with a stick).

Yes indeed, the holiday season is now officially upon us it seems. Feeling the burn yet? I surely am, though the stretched-thin anxiety hasn't quite taken hold to the point that its squelched my ability to appreciate the warped amusements inherent in adults dressing children up and parading them on stage as actors in an historical drama of conquest and subjugation beyond their comprehension. Because I don't know about you, but nothing says festive to me quite like land acquisition through violence and the vanquishment of indigenous peoples by force. Really, when I think about it, its what I'm most thankful for.

Sniff-sniff. Saaay, is that the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire... or the scent of charred human flesh? Who cares! Let's celebrate! Woot!

I do not condone violence. Or this hat.

Congratulations, Its A Postmodernist!

Heartiest of congratulations to Joy (of GingaJoy) and [ahem] Mister Joy on the birth of a baby boy this past Thursday eve. I've known Joy and Frank for, gah, well over ten years, as we attended Grad School together and thus worked and played together, discussing -- with equal vigor and enthusiasm -- the merits of both 70s disco music and Joyce's Finnegan's Wake with one another for many-a-year. All in a scholarly context, of course. [cough]

Oven-fresh babydom couldn't happen to a nicer couple, and I applaud them for continuing forward in their efforts to populate the earth with future English majors. Huzzah!

Go slap em' on the back and enjoy a virtual cigar here.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

That Tom Petty knew his shit, dude.

So here I am, waiting for a Baltimore Sun photographer to come take my picture (which is, uhh, sort of incongruous with reality as I know it), and I'm bouncing off the walls. I have a whole, long hour to kill. I have already primped and done what I can to be presentable. Behold:

Do I Creep You Out?

This pretty well made my day:

I am clearly quite easily amused though. Your mileage may vary.

[via]

Sometimes It Truly Seems That We Were Made For Each Other

Him: Did you see that they're sequencing Neanderthal DNA?

Me: Yeah. And man, doesn't that just sound like the premise of some sort of SciFi-Horror movie?

Him: It sounds like the premise of a SciFi-Horror-AWESOME movie to me.

[beat]

Me: Yeah. Totally.

The Big News

Hayzeus christos, could I possibly post more crap to the internet in ONE SINGLE DAY? Sheesh. Okay, okay, I promise to stop hassling ya'll with my pearl-like musings* and sundry interweb hoo-ha once I've shared this one last little tidbit. Its a guddun. You'll like.

Okay, SO! Remember my awful teasing yesterday about a third bit of news I had to share, but couldn't at that time? Well NOW I CAN.

[clears throat, and inserts annoying cut for dramatic effect...]

links for 2006-11-15

• Zune install screen raises eyebrows
  I'll have what she's having.
  (tags: technology)
• Woman kicked off plane for breast-feeding
  Maybe the fact that Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" was playing loudly over the plane's speakers had something to do with passengers' discomfort?
  (tags: women children law)
• KFC logo first to be seen from space
  Great. Thanks KFC. And is advertising our planet's 'finger-lickin'-good'-ness to the aliens REALLY such a good idea?
  (tags: advertising space marketing)
• HAL9000 S.r.l.::High resolution photos::Iconos Technology
  Contains what is quite likely the largest digital image in the world-- 8.6 megapixels. May take some time to load and/or cause your computer to burst into flames (just kidding).
  (tags: photography web internet history)
• The All-TIME 100 Albums
  This list has so many holes in it that even my overflowing disdain can't fill all of them.
  (tags: music lists)
• A Cats Christmas
  Cats "decorating" a christmas tree. Soon they'll be splitting atoms.
  (tags: animals xmas)
• White & Nerdy
  Fluent in javascript as well as Klingon!
  (tags: video humor music)
• My First Day In Hell by Jack Handey
  Despite the tasty food and warm weather, there's a dark side to Hell.
  (tags: humor newyorker)
• .:Some of My Best Friends Are American:.
  Hee-larious.
  (tags: humor video)
• YouTube - baby laughing
  If this doesn't make you smile, YOU HAVE NO SOUL.
  (tags: humor children video)

The Coolest Eight-Year-Old In The World On O'Reilly

Because if evil parent bloggers like myself are going to exploit our children, why not do so for the greater good also?

Snort.

[Thanks, Leah!]

Indecision 2044

I have seen the future of democracy.

And it is HILARIOUS.

.....................

EDIT: Durr, link fixed!
Oh and PS: Be sure to watch both parts for maximum hilarity.

Crayola Bathtub Catastrophe II: The Revenge

Its a new work entitled Flying Spaghetti Monster On A Bloody Rampage In Lettertown

FSM, noooooooo!

A true artist's vision often isn't pretty, folks.

And yes, the crayons are most certainly goners.

“Everything That Rises Must Converge”

The superfantastico people at Birds For Bulbs sent me my very own BFB bird last evening. It is SUBLIME (said in the voice of Will Ferrell doing James Lipton).

What I love about it is that despite its overwhelming, undeniable pinkness, it is a bird that looks poised to peck your motherfucking eyes out. And so resembles this very blog, no? YES.

Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers

Which is what these flowers I bought late last week bring to mind, at least for me:

Pods preparing to burst open and implant
their deadly alien spawn! Awesome!

Minus

Welcome to earth!

Crayola Bathtub Catastrophe

So I'm reading this book about the Cholera epidemic that swept through England in the mid-1800s, because I apparently enjoy nothing more than being driven to horror and nausea just before going to bed every night. Or something. Anyway, I have to tell you that there's nothing in this world that'll put the trifling problems and annoyances of everyday life here on planet Earth into perspective quite like, oh, A PLAGUE. And, as if simply to underscore the insignificance of the reader's worldly grievances, the book contains little perspective-giving pearls like this:

If some rogue virus wiped out every single mammal on the planet, life on earth would proceed, largely unaffected by the loss. But if the bacteria disappeared overnight, all life on the planet would be extinguished within a matter of years.

YEAH! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, puny humans! You suck, bacteria ROOLZ! WOO-HOO!

Yes, its bacteria's world. The rest of us just live in it, folks.

And saaaay, speaking of petty human trifles (and bacterial breeding grounds): with your indulgence, I'd like to take a moment to lodge a purely informal -- yet vigorously worded -- complaint against the recent scourge of bathtime handiwork wrought by my daughter, enacted under the foul, seductive influence of these so-called “bathtub crayons”:

Water-soluble MY ASS.

Danger 50,000 Volts: ZOMBIES!

This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my entire life.

Space-Time-Memory Music

Because my husband knows how to bring The Awesome, last night he gave me this:

Its a 2-CD reissue of Pavement's Wowee Zowee, one of my top-ten favorite albums of all time. 50 tracks! Plus a vinyl 7-inch! PLUS:

A very cool Steve Keene poster (whose paintings we've been collecting since the late 90s)! Woot! BONUS!

The thing about this album is that its one of those pieces of music that completely summons up a specific time and place for me. When it was released in the summer of 1995, I was in the throes of full-on Pavement obsession, and living in Cairo, Egypt with my folks. I'd asked a friend in the states to mail me a copy of the CD as soon as it came out, which he did, and I spent MONTHS listening to it. So now when I put it on, I get this very visceral, almost space-time contorting feeling of that period of my life in Egypt and who I was then. Other albums/songs make me feel this way, recalling bits and pieces of spaces and times past, but not quite to the same degree or with the same intensity that Wowee Zowee does.

Soooo... what's YOUR space-time-memory music?

Odds & Ends

• Tonight's LOST is the last fresh episode for 13 weeks. Suck it dry, people, suck it dry.
• Did someone say ZOMBIE HAIKU?
• USA! USA! LET FREEDOM RING, MUTHAFUCKAS!!
• Eye of the tiger, Fluffy.
• Have scooter, will carry CRAZY SHIT.

That is all. As you were.

Who Your Friends Are

For reasons that may be obvious to most of you reading this, I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately.

Like most people, I spent the majority of my early years cultivating friendships with people who were, at least superficially, much like me. Kids who liked the same music, movies, and books, who shared my politics and my sense of humor, and had similar taste in hairstyles, clothing and other surface-type items. When I was younger, aligning yourself with comrades and finding your niche was simple: in my case, the punk, indie, and weirdo kids (same dif), like all social groups of my high school/college days, clung together in tight-knit bunches and wore their identity -- quite literally -- on their sleeves. Because of this, we knew each other on sight, and we knew those who were Not Us on sight. In my group this insularity was protective, as opposed to exclusive: a safety-in-numbers strategy by which we each hoped to thwart being individually targeted by the dread bullies and their agenda of torments.

Umm, You Guys?

How They Stole The Midterm Election by Greg Palast

...For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps.

Uhh.... Crap?
.......................
Update: So far, so good. Dems just picked up Kentucky; a good sign.
Update Deux: [snorfle]
Update I'm Losing My Fucking MInd: I laughed so hard I quite literally cried.

Vote Or Die

But seriously folks, get out there and vote today, k?

PS: Be sure to check out Utter Wonder's 2006 Election Guide, friends.

Tagged

If there was ever any question about the usefulness of applying tags to web pages, all you have to do is take a gander at the amazon.com page for Kevin Federline's new CD.

TAGGING WORKS, PEOPLE.

[Thanks, Tina.]

PS: Some of the customer reviews? PRICELESS.

Weekend Update

Oh so much ground to cover, so let's get right to it, shall we?

To begin, I have failed miserably as a supposed participant in NaBloPoMo. I tried, internet. You see how I tried, right? I mean, that absolutely delightful post from Saturday about cat litter? A testament to pure force of will (reinforced by just a wee smidgen of guilt). But by Sunday, both will and guilt had failed me, neither being stronger than my overwhelming desire to burrow deep into our couch and watch about fifty back-to-back TiVoed episodes of Flip That House. Apparently. cough.

Product Placement II*: The Deodorizing

Dear makers of Tidy Cats Scoop Small Spaces Cat Litter**,

Thank you for making my household not smell like cat pee.

I love you. No, seriously.

Yours very truly,
Sweetney

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* Second of a series.
**With which I have absolutely NO affiliation whatsoever, monetary or otherwise, so get off my jock already, asshats.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Ladies and gents, I spent this entire morning -- literally HOURS -- talking with a visiting family friend about the band The Smiths. Which, surprisingly, was as potently energizing as several cups of coffee. Who knew?

The reason for the rather epic discussion is that -- and I can't even believe how incredibly awesome this is -- Jamie's best friend from his college days, Ravi (whose last name happens to be Krishnaswami, which is, like, only the best last name EVAH), is starting up A SMITHS TRIBUTE BAND IN NYC. Let me emphasize: a TRIBUTE band, NOT a cover band (which makes all of it that much more awesometastic, in my view).

I KNOW! You're trembling with excitement, aren't you?

Tell me I look like Johnny Marr. C'mon. Do it.

America's Anchors

Because you have a need to know: an absolutely AWESOME cover story in Rolling Stone on Stewart/Colbert.

Go. Read. And be filled with its goodness.

Amen, everybody.

PS: I of course forced Jamie to run out to a bookstore near his office in DC and snag me a copy of that issue. What did I marry him for if not for the retrieving of items I desire, much like an obedient Lab?

(Love you, honey!)

Beautiful Baltimore

I have a soft spot for the industrial edge of this city.

I'm not sure why, but I've always felt most comfortable living in cities like Baltimore, whose heart is steel and sweat and concrete, the bare skeleton of its manufacturing jetting out into the open air. To my mind, there's a kind of poetry in the angular bluntness of this city: a stripped-down, uncomplicated elegance in form that seems dignified somehow.

The Fruits Of Capitalism V. My Immortal Soul*

I need to be honest with you about something. I still entertain the (likely vain) hope that I might one day be able to live in a space such as this:

Halloween 2006: The Mildly Spooky Holiday That Was

Are you scared yet?.... How about now? Huh? Huh?