Garden Nome, Alaska

I'm thinking of designing a new line of garden gnomes
that look more like this guy. Whaddya think?
I'd miss the red Phrygian caps, but I think we
already have more than enough beards in the world.

Question Air Supply

I think I've found a new #1 Language Annoyance.

#1 used to be when people passing on sidewalks and in hallways would reply to my "hello" with "How are you?" and then walk on. Asking a question and then walking away without even giving anyone a chance to answer.

That was bad enough, but then people got stupider. I'd say "hello" and they'd say "fine," answering a question I had not asked.

But now I have found a greeting that annoys me more: people who call up at work and begin the conversation with "How are you today?" before immediately plowing into the real reason they called. Why do they ask a question if they're not going to let anyone answer? And it's become so common that now whenever someone does wait for me to answer, I'm so shocked that I just stammer and don't remember what to say, not even with the customary "fine."

Yes, I realize that this is just social politeness and I should appreciate the fact that they're not being rude on the phone. And I know that language is mostly a matter of habit and they're doing what most everyone else does, without realizing the illogic of it. But I am astounded at how many people talk without ever thinking about what they're saying. The Scarecrow was right: some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.

And, dammit, don't ask a question if you don't want an answer! It seems a bit like waving your dick at someone then putting it away again before the actual sex happens.

_ __ ______________________________ __ _

Now that my health seems to have calmed down (blood pressure back to normal, no mysterious aches and itches plaguing me), I've resumed working out, which I started just to look better but now I'm hoping it will help with the blood pressure too. I'm alternating lifting every other day with something more aerobic to work of the fat.

Today it's running, so I have to get my lazy butt up from this chair in a few minutes.

Friday is the first, so it'll be time to take my measurements again. But I doubt I'll be brave enough to post them here.

_ __ ______________________________ __ _

And now this week's experiment of putting in random words to see how they affect what ads Google gives me: cheese, cheesy, cheddar, Swiss cheese, smoked gouda, Monterrey Jack, cheese sauce, cheese knife, cheese grater, Wisconsin, Monty Python.

Hits as of now: 10983

Freak Angel of the Morning

Thanks to the daredevil Stephen, today I discovered Freakangels, an free online comic with weekly updates written by Warren Ellis (no relation) and drawn by Paul Duffield (also no relation, but since there's no similarity in our names there's no reason to suspect one).

So far there have been 21 installments, all of which I read this evening while I was "working" late. Clicking the image above will take you to the start of Episode 1.

I haven't gotten into an online story like this since Random House had the Lurkerfiles twelve (TWELVE!!!) years ago, or I was sucked in the melodrama of Brian and Me over at the Nifty Library.

Hmmmm. I wonder whether anyone else remembers the Lurkerfiles. If I re-read them now, they'll probably seen like crap, but the people in the Ratskeller and I loved them then. And where is Fledermaus now?

Hits as of now: 10959

Idle Talk

"Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done
if we are always doing." - Thomas Jefferson

Hits as of now: 10893

Wildebeast of Prey

Today the weather was beautiful,
so I went to the zoo to check out the wildlife.

Hits as of now: 10830

What Would You Do for a Kitt, Kat?

Hits as of now: 10727

X-Ray Vision of Loveliness

As long as I've declared Marco Dapper my Man for Monday, here's another pic of him.

He's slightly younger in this photo, and last October I uploaded to Superhero Universe a version of it where I'd painted a Superman costume over his body. The edges of his belt are a bit too fuzzy, but in general I like the way it turned out.

I may have shown this one here before -- I don't actually remember -- but if this is a repetition, forgive me.

Marc O' Quality

Marco Dapper. Just because I like looking at him.

By the way, does anybody know how tall he is?
He doesn't look very tall on camera, but I'm trying to convince
a friend of mine that he would be right for a script
he's producing, and for some reason height is an issue.

Hits as of now: 10672

Counter Top of the Morning

Cleaning the kitchen. I mean really cleaning it.
Even pulling the stove away from the wall
so I could scrub the floor behind it.

I only clean this thoroughly when there's something
more unpleasant to do that I'm working hard to avoid.
I wonder what that is.

Hits as of now: 10620

The Age Brothers, Bond and From

"Love is not all wine and roses.
Sometimes it's handcuffs and cheese."

- Tim Minchin

Hits as of now: 10157

Smile for the camera, man!

I love a beautiful smile on a guy.

Physicians will tell you that a great smile
is a sign of good health, but to me it's more basic:
I just like my ponyboys to be happy.

Welcome You to Minchin Land

Tim Minchin
Not Perfect
I'm quickly learning to love this guy, and not for my usual hormone-filled reasons. Most of his songs are smart and funny, but this one adds a poignancy that gets to me. Sad, sweet, and amusing is an odd combination, but I like it.

Hits as of now: 10008

Aqua Marine Biology

I don't like the newer Aqualad costume (although
it makes a lot more sense than those horrible
shorts) but I did what I could with it here.
Ain't this boy pale, though!

Prince of Wales Spotting

HRH Harry of England. When he and his brother
were younger, I felt sorry for him because I thought
he'd live in the shadow of his beautiful older brother.
But time has passed, and this prince is hot.

I know they use last names in the military, but why
does his uniform say "Wales"? Surely that's a title,
not a name. His family's name has been Windsor
since that awful WWI when having a German name
was not the British thing to do.

Hits as of now: 9912
Oooo, check that number.
I think I'll break 10 thousand tomorrow.

Brief Encounter

Making my own personal tribute to
Seventies wallpaper with my underwear

Actually, I spent the day getting things back under some kind of control after a few days with the nastiest respiratory infection I've ever had (which is really saying something, considering I typically have three or four a year). I missed three days of work and went for days without eating a real meal because I couldn't stand the idea. But I'm much better now, and yesterday I even ate solid food. Hurray!

So today I cleaned the apartment and did laundry, sorted out the many confused pictures I'd saved and got my finances back in some kind of order.

Tonight I sleep a lot, and tomorrow I go back to work and resume making daily updates around here.

Hits as of now: 9834

TGIJensen#32

Hits as of now: 9662

Run-on, Eileen

"A man who cannot reason is a fool;
a man who will not reason is a bigot,
and a man who dare not reason is a slave."
- William Drummond

Chlorine Burns My Eye Candy

Meanwhile*, out at the pool...

* Those who've seen The Broken Hearts Club
will know that I mean by "meanwhile."

Hits as of now: 9478

Brazil Lleno

Frank Sinatra
Brazil

When the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil came out in 1985, I lived in Cologne, around the corner from the local cinema. One night I went to the 7pm show and it amazed me. I went back to the apartment and told my roommate that she had to see this great movie.

She went to the 9pm show. And when she got home, she slapped me for wasting her time.

I guess it wasn't for everyone, but I loved it.

Hits as of now: 9336

Welsh Rare Bit of All Right

Christian Bale. Most of the hyper attention to the upcoming
The Dark Knight has gone to the late (still a bit hard to believe)
Heath Ledger, but Batman is the star character, dammit,
and I think the latest actor in his body armour should be
our Man for this Monday. He's aging well, but something
about current pics makes me want to see him in Newsies again.

Incidentally, I've heard that this movie starting selling out in some cities three weeks before it opens, and in some places they've added 3AM showing after the midnight showings, to accomodate more people. Now if only the actual theatres got a cut of that money...

Hits as of now: 9196

A Tale of Two City Desks

Tony Snow (the one with the red tie), the former White House Press Secretary, the guy who met daily with various media correspondents and gave them the official statements on everything, is dead. He died at the age of 53, after a two-year struggle with colon cancer. He'd left his position at Fox News [sic] to become Press Secretary in May 2006 and resigned that post last September as his health continued to decline.

Because of his death, he won't be able to write a tell-all book about the slimy, corrupt inner-workings of the administration of Bush the Lesser, like the one that Snow's predecessor in the position, Scott McClellan (the one with the ovoid head), published last May. McClellan's book, What Happened, tells some horrible things that the administration didn't want revealed, and since it's publication the Bush supporters have complained loudly that McClelland is all kinds of a traitor and turncoat.

But I've haven't heard many say that McClellan didn't tell the truth. It's a common tactic: attack the messenger to distract from the actual message.

I don't trust McClellan's motives. Maybe he did find himself forced to choose between supporting his president and supporting his nation, but I don't buy it. I think he's too ambitious and attention-hungry to reveal dirty little secrets just because of the public's need to know. But since he's the son of Carole Keeton Strayhorn, one of the spoilers in our last governor's election that gave us another term of Governor Goodhair, I'm prejudiced.

Persistence of Vision of Loveliness

I've seen this photo of Paul Bester in lots of places lately,
and every time I think, just for a second, that it's Evan Wadle.
Does anyone else see a resemblance?

Waiting Room to Breathe

Sitting around, waiting for Scott-o-rama
to write his first blog entry since,
it seems, the Nixon Administration

Hits as of now: 9045

Beauty and the Beastly Feeling

I don't do a lot of diary entries here, but let me talk about Saturday.

During the course of various chores, I was outside when the kid down the street was washing his car. I say "kid" because I think he'd just about seventeen. Definitely still in high school. I've only seen him twice, but he's absolutely beautiful. That's not his picture over there, but there is a resemblance.

At first I just perved on the beautiful view, enjoyment sprinkled with bits of guilt at leering at a guy young enough to have been fathered by me, if I was into that sort of thing.

But later the sight of him just made me sad.

And it took a while to reason out why. And, as usual, it stems from jealousy. The boy depressed me because he was beautiful and young, with all that time, all those possibilities in front of him. And it made me feel keenly just how much time I've wasted in talking about big plans and not working to accomplish any of them. Years of just existing without giving any thought to the time that was flying by, as opportunities dried up and my body got older.

Usually when I get to feeling like this, the more practical voice in my head pipes up to tell me to just get over it, that the two things I absolutely can't do is get younger or taller.

But some days, that voice is silent, and I indulge the sadder, more melancholy voice in my head - the one that ran my life for twenty-five mostly miserable years - and let it depress me. Yesterday was one of those days.


In the evening, as I was working on something, I watched a movie I'd purchased about a week ago but not yet watched, The History Boys. It was charming and cute and entertaining, the story of eight British schoolboys of fairly ordinary background who spend their last year in school preparing for entrance exams to Oxford or Cambridge (The soulless bureaucrat who runs their school calls them the "Oxbridge candidates.")

I loved the movie, but it didn't exactly improve my mood, watching young men about to begin their lives.

But today is a new day, and my attitude is better.

M Appeal

TGIJensen #31

Good genes... uh, jeans.

Hits as of now: 8820