To quote Leonard...

Freak show. Car crash. Don't stare! Please Dear Reader, do NOT stare. Retinal damage. I was performing a wee bit of database cleanup. At work. (I need to clarify that point). Title: Nicole and the Trial of the Century, an Opera. Intrigued. Scroll down. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my gawd. Subject heading: "600 10 Simpson, O. J., ǂd 1947- ǂv Drama." Only in America. Google google google. Track list. Oooh. "Kato the Dog" ... "Connie Chung" ... "Ito's Entry." ?!?!? and for good measure, ! I have never ordered anything from Amazon, but I did order this. I had to. I don't care how bad it might be, I had to have this in my collection. I felt a little cheap. Dirty even. An existential abyss yawned before me. I jumped in. Did a cannonball really. It arrived yesterday. I listened to a few tracks. I was not disappointed. You will not get a review Dear Reader. I remember a Dan Aykroyd character on Saturday Night Live from bygone years. Leonard Pynth Garnell. Host of such spots as Bad Ballet and Bad Opera. But that was satire. This isn't. There is even a track called "Mr. Fung." "Bad. Very bad indeed."

Switching gears. Downshifting. It is payday. Mmmm. Cheesecake. Payday cheesecake. Chocolate chip cherry cheesecake. Cleanse the mental palate.

Ooops

Everybody makes mistakes. All kinds of mistakes. Good learning tools those. I bought the wrong PEZ dispenser. Not just a regular PEZ dispenser, but a giant one. I came across a giant Clone Trooper at a candy store the other day. It was to be a nice fit into the giant-outer-space-oriented robots theme that I have limited myself to when it comes to the giant PEZ dispensers. Must have limits. Or else... I have only three giants: Darth Vader, a Storm Trooper and the Lost In Space robot whose name escapes me at the moment. It isn't exactly mental gymnastics trying to keep them straight. I bought the Clone Trooper. When I returned home I looked through my catalog (I know, I know) and to my dismay, there was the Clone Trooper. The giant one. Dang it! I had mistakenly metadenoted it as a giant Storm Trooper. Dang it! Dang it! Dang it! Now I would have to go all the way back and exchange it for another. There was a giant R2-D2 that Susie had suggested I get instead. But the bad guys look so cool. I called the store just to find out what I would have to do. Should have been a snap I assumed. The Clone Trooper was still in the package, I had the receipt. No problem, right? Wrong. The lady on the phone said I should call back and speak with the store manager the next morning. I did. The store manager said she would have to speak with the district manager because they usually do not accept returns or exchanges. It is a candy store. What would there be to return? Yadda, yadda, yadda. She called back and said I could exchange it for R2-D2, which she would put behind the counter with a note. I toyed with the idea that if I were to have a duplicate of any giant PEZ dispenser, it might as well be a Clone Trooper. Works quite well. But no. I shall take the bus to the next town after work today and spend all of thirty seconds I suppose trading giant PEZ dispensers, re-boarding the bus back to this town, transferring at the downtown station, and going home. For the record, I corrected the metadata in my catalog. There is a lesson there somewhere. Mind your metadata, I suppose. Start by reading labels.

Я ничего не говорю!

There is probably an easy way to upload several pictures and line them up all neat and purdy. I just don't feel like trying to figure it out. Now. Possibly ever. I made my largest (to date) single PEZ acquisition last week. It might have been the week before. I may have lost track of time as I was in a buyer's euphoria. I'll admit it is a little sad that as I opened the box they arrived in, (in which they arrived?) I was thinking about the lighting conditions for their digital photos. And then cataloging them. Metadatating them really. Or as deepfry coined, metadenoting them. It's actually better.

"To the readers of our New First Unexpected.

We alone was the face of our Time. Through us the horn of time blows in the art of the world.

The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible than hieroglyphics.

Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the Ship of Modernity.

He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.

Who, trustingly, would turn his last love toward Balmont’s perfumed lechery? Is this the reflection of today’s virile soul?

Who, faint-heartedly, would fear tearing from warrior Bryusov’s black tuxedo the paper armor-plate? Or does the dawn of unknown beauties shine from it?

Wash your hands which have touched the filthy slime of the books written by the countless Leonid Andreyevs.

All those Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chornys, Kuzmins, Bunins, etc. need only a dacha on the river. Such is the reward fate gives tailors.

From the heights of skyscrapers we gaze at their insignificance!...

We order that the poets’ rights be revered:

• To enlarge the scope of the poet’s vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-novelty).
• To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time.
• To push with horror off their proud brow the Wreath of cheap fame that You have made from bathhouse switches.
• To stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst the sea of boos and outrage.

And if for the time being the filthy stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” are still present in our lines, these same lines for the first time already glimmer with the Summer Lightning of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-sufficient (self-centered) Word."

Metadenoting it shall be. And don't get me started on The Future! The Cris either.

Giddy up! Cartographically speaking

New bell. New whistle. Possibly a source for disappointment. Probably so. From a Typo of the Day to you Dear Reader. Check out the map to the right of this post. It was almost an accident. At least in that I don't think I could recreate, or recount precisely what happened. Or how. Come again? Now is when I would like to hear from Brazilian Perfumes. Or Rebecca with the cake from back East. (Rebecca. Not the cake). Maybe the truly mysterious psonica. Alas, I fear the little blue dots will only appear in the Willamette Valley. For the record, the dot that is there....right....wait for it...now, is mine. What does that say if I am visiting my own blog? At least I don't read my own profile. Except when I am lost and have forgotten just who I am. So hurry up and visit, while the alignment of this post and the map is synchronous.

Gimme, gimme, gimme

Sometimes I feel like rugelach. Sometimes I don't. When I'm not thinking about rugelach that is. When I think about rugelach, I feel like rugelach. Cream cheese dough rolled up in neat little spirals and filled with cinnamon and nuts, or chocolate. Mmmm. A few minutes ago I went for rugelach. I was feeling like rugelach. I went to Barry's for said rugelach. Barry's has pretty dang good rugelach. They have other good stuff at Barry's as well (bialys come to mind) but their rugelach is most supreme. I found the plate of rugelach in the case with my eyes. Oh sweet rugelach! There were seven left. Only seven! They cost 2 dollars for three. Or 75 cents each. When the counter person asked what he could get for me, it just came out. I didn't even think about it. I didn't have to. "I'll take all the rugelach."

Old World Craftsmanship

Now that's funny. Not funny ha ha, but funny weird. If you're paying attention. In itself difficult if you are near a window as the weather creeps toward Summer. Sidles really. Now where was I? Or was I? Wha? The Merry Music Maker PEZ dispensers arrived. There are six critters and a clown. The whistles suck. In conjunction with waterboarding they may serve a purpose but this ain't Gitmo. After I dutifully (read: compulsively, nay, obsessively) cataloged them and took their photos, I was struck by something. Comme un coup de foudre. Look it up if you'd like. What is the deal with the clown's eyes? I know some people are frightened by clowns and clowns have a sketchy rep in slasher movies, but...is this clown dead?

No worries (?)

Ahh. Gardening. I cannot say too much about the joys of gardening. For the first time in my life, I have my own backyard. Well, we do. Susie and me. That is, Susie and I. Dang you Kilpatrick! And I have been busy Dear Reader. I have. Rather than share one of the panoramic shots of the slightly eccentric flower/blueberry patch, I'd like to show you something a bit more...gruesome. On the deck I am creating a special garden. A carnivorous garden. Sarracenias and fly traps so far. A butterwort too. I forgot about the butterwort. Well, a house fly made the mistake of entering my space yesterday. A big mistake. I tracked him. (I just assumed it was a male because he obviously wasn't very bright). I tracked him with my electric fly zapper. Whoosh. Zap. He was stunned. While he was out cold, I picked him up with a tissue. (Flies are filthy disease-ridden things!) I took him out back and carefully placed him...well, see for yourself.
At first, there was nothing. Then a slight buzz and a quiver and snap. Not really a snap. More of a purposeful closing. Steady and firm. Let that be a lesson to you and your filthy friends. It was quite a rush for me too Dear Reader. I think Susie liked it as well. Like a junkie, I needed more! I had to have more. Just a little taste. So I went to a pet store and bought some crickets. I didn't make eye contact with the clerk. I didn't want him to see my shame. (Not really. It just sounded more, um, sleazy. Yes!) I wasn't going to feed all of the crickets to my Fly Traps at once. I did a bit of research and knew better than that. I set up a little cricket container at home with a little water and some potato. Fresh food on demand. I peered in at the little crickets. Who would be first? I just picked one at random, put her (equal time) in a little glass and inverted the glass on a bar of Blue Ice. The cricket became motionless after a few seconds. I picked it up by a splayed leg and went to the deck. I placed it neatly in a trap and waited. As the cricket thawed and began to quiv... Mmmm. I thought about how cool this will be when we have guests over. I thought about the Circle of Life. Hakuna matata. Unless you are a bug. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha.