wyrllwynd of dysfunction

I am finally done with the major projects I needed to finish in order to submit stuff for the Sculpture in the South show! Wahoo! I am really proud of the lilies I did. (Yea, I actually like something I finished. Interesting, huh? Am really excited about it too!) Somebody take a minute and go take a look! http://stormcarver.deviantart.com/

Now...I want to get into that show, dammit! More than anything I have wanted in a long damn time. Wish me luck, skill, black magic, whatever! I want in!

I know I haven't updated in quite a while. Am currently up to my proverbial ass in projects (why haven't you been checking the website??) but really had to vent on this...

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers is suing "God." I love it. An Agnostic politician is suing an absent father-figure. The irony is almost painful.

If you want real irony, take a look at the picture that Associated Press chose to run with the article reporting this "event:" AP article. (I won't link just the photo, so deal with going to the article itself.) For those who read first-check later, or who just don't get it, the halo effect of the large room fan behind Chambers' head has got to be an intentional mockery by the photographer -- or a fantastic mistake!

While we are on the subject of mistakes, let's mention Ms. General Mistake herself, Britney. Seen her stumble around during her big number at the VMA awards? If not, how did you manage to miss it? MTV did her a major favor in light of her recent press and she mis-stepped and giggled her way through it, much to the non-amusement of the crowd. This is more of a testament of how to piss off that annoying English kniggit from American Idol than how to open an awards show -- even if it is MTV. (I know watching Britney is normally painful. This time, it's really amusing, and kinda sad...)

Please, America...let's put an end to the senseless and random breeding of morons in this country. Better yet, let's put an end to the popularization of said idiots. Seen the movie Idiocracy? Let's stop all this before it becomes a sad reality.

In the process of moving, besides making a huge mess, we found one of the cat's old toys. When you pull the string, it vibrates. The cat looked at me like I was crazy when I gave it to him...and then Maia stole it and brought it to me to play fetch. I pulled the string and tossed it to her...and started something. She brought it to me a second time, and then just left. About an hour later I kept hearing this odd "zzziippp....zzziiiippppp...zzziippp" noise from the hallway. It was the silly dog pulling the string on the toy over and over. The next time she did it, I caught it on video...

For those of you who haven't yet heard and have had problems with wear or breakage on Wii remote "safety" straps, check this out.

Your Band Name is:

The Ketchup Soaked Hussies

I refuse to brave the mobs of psychotic holiday shoppers this year. Instead, I am using the computer to peruse art sites like Deviant Art and Etsy for the majority of gifts.

My twisted little nephew is getting a plush Zombie Hamster. Jo's stocking stuffers are an assortment of stuffies from Etsy artists around the world, and I even found Lee a lump of coal!

While perusing prints at DA, I found one I thought everyone would appreciate, so here's a link: Starbuckaroo!

I hope some of you will do the same and go perusing the art sites for some really personal gifts for those you love. Cuz, ya know, there is some really amazing stuff out there and artists need love and gotta buy presents, too!

If anyone missed it, Maia has her own MySpace page. Part of me is disgusted that I would do such a thing, and the rest is just amused. Maia has a whole slew of friends (mostly other dogs!), with more requests coming in daily. Kinda scary. If you can stomach the cuteness of canine meme pages, check it out at http://www.myspace.com/maiagsd.

J and Maia tore up the living room last night, wrestling over the poor-poor mutilated squirrel toy.

This photo was taken a while ago, and I ran across it today while looking for something else. It still amuses the hell outta me.


The photo is linked as it is huge and I just didn't feel like resizing it....would be hard to read that way, anyway.

So sad! I have a digital camera within reach whenever I am in the living room. Yesterday was a major holiday. Did I get pics of the table? No. Of the children? No. What I did scoop up the camera for was to take a photo of the fuzzy girl! I just couldn't resist this face!

damn. just....damn!

The new camera came in last night, and I have already updated pages on the website.

Can't tell you how happy I am to have a digital camera again! I plan to torture the whole family, in addition to resuming updating the web page on a regular basis.

"Its scores aren't average enough for 'Best High Schools' consideration"

Apparently the school I went to was one of 21 schools nationwide excluded from Newsweeks's ranking of the best testing schools in the US. I am SO amused. It was, sadly, the only school in Florida to not be included.

http://shedit.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060504/NEWS/605040493


And, if anyone is interested, the school's website: http://www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/pvs/index.html

What I personally found fun was PV's current message board for students: http://www.pvspeech.com/

I should be back online regularly soon. The camera that was stolen by the last cable techs I will ever let into the house without a mouthy dog to watch them. However, I ordered a new one today and it should be here within the week. Happy! Will post when the Stormcarver page is finally updated.

In the meantime, I leave you with this...

(Driving down the road, we stopped at an intersection. The sign above us identified the cross-street as "ST. ELMO)
Lee (the 13-year-old): Elmo is a saint!?!
Me: Not the red guy.
Lee: Oh! Thank god!

We don't have many good pictures of Lenore, so I tried to get them last night and found out why...




After many tries, I finally got some good ones...and some funny ones!

( adventures in naked ratty pics )

Tomorrow, May 25, is Towel Day. What the hell is that, you might be wondering? It's a tribute to, and celebration of, Douglas Adams.

Want to know more? Want to see other people who have participated in celebrating? Check out the Towel Day website, below.




I guess I should go find an appropriately festive towel...

and pics are up!

The series of mini-calla lilies is finally done! Spent the day cutting and shaping stems, fitting them to each lily, and adding color to them. Seven of eight that survived the initial planned nine are now stemmed and drying in the living room. The eighth will be a shelf-sitter.

I still have to sign a few that I didn't sign on the stone, which means I need to find the damn fine line Sharpie. *grumblegrumble

Will be taking pics of them tonight or tomorrow, so they can be posted. Then I have to figure out which ones go together for absolute groupings, as I am gonna try the ebay thing with at least some of these.

All in all, I like the way they turned out. Am really happy with them, and also glad to be moving on to something else. 8)

Apparently, according to this Washington Post article, the CDC, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the March of Dimes, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention's Division of Reproductive Health and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, women are primarily for making babies, and really should focus on nothing else in their lives while they are of childbearing years. Um....wtf? It also states that the US has one of the highest infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation, then follows up with the fact that "approximately 17 million women lack health insurance and are likely to postpone or forgo care. These disparities are more prominent among minority groups and those of lower socioeconomic status, the report states."

I cannot even express my disbelief and outrage at the implications and idiocies stated in this article. Women are breeding machines and have to keep their health in top form at any and all points in life when they can possibly bear children, expressly for that purpose. Do fucked up male genes have nothing to do with birth defects and infant mortality rates? Does the moron of an author even really connect the fact that we have a high infant mortality rate with the absolute lack of healthcare untold numbers of women have? Is he damaged in some meaningful way? Gee, what about Canada's 4/1000 deaths as compared with the US's 6.43/1000 (thanks Google for real numbers, and not an inaccurately rounded up figure)? Could socialized health care in the former mean anything in this picture? Could adequate sex education and readily available methods of birth control maybe figure into this somewhere? Gods!

They want doctors to treat their female patients primarily as potential baby-makers, above and beyond anything else. Again, wtf? Does this mean docs prescribing to this method of non-thought will alter their treatment to distribute to potential population-growers only medications that won't harm potential offspring?

Looks like a the CDC found some old patriarchal religious texts and bought into them wholeheartedly. Or the Religious Wrong got drugs into the coffee...What an interesting and horrible way to oppress women in the US. Runs right along the lines of Bush's "don't talk about abortion or we won't give your country aid," tactics, to me.

Zombie Survival Guide
And, of course, once you have your information, you need the Infection Simulation to get a good look at how things work.

Am so amused!