From the Astronomy Picture of the Day archive, a new rock slab is growing from the dome of Mount St. Helens. Currently 100 meters tall, it’s growing at the rate of one meter each day.
Author: Shelly
Pablum
I didn’t put enough water in my Sturdiwheat apple and cinnamon cereal, so it ended up being way too thick. I hate when that happens. I’m not a huge fan of hot cereal anyway, so when it’s not Just Right, it makes the baby Shelly cry. The addition of a snack-sized container of applesauce fixed the problem easily enough, but lordy, does it ever make a disgusting sound when being stirred in. Aaack!
Not Persephone
Pandora is 19 years old. She’s pretty spry and active for an old cat, and continues to wield a wicked sense of humor. It’s hard to picture her as a kitten. All I remember is a tiny puff of fur, fearless and full of fun. She was the runt of the litter, and noticeably smaller than her littermates. That never slowed her down, though. Only days after I got her, she climbed into the fridge. When I noticed she was missing, figured out where she was, and opened the door to let her out, she was completely unperturbed. She hopped out and made a bee-line for the dog, tackling her ears and demanding to be played with. As far as Pandora was concerned, everything was an interesting adventure. That has been her approach to life, for as long as I’ve known her.
I can’t believe it’s been 19 years. Nineteen years. It’s such an unlikely sounding number.
Genealogical Name o’ the Day
They just don’t make ’em like they used to.
It Takes a Screw and a Nut
Oh. My. Gawd.
A frothing rant on Teh Gay Menace by wacky preacher man Willie Wilson has been delightfully Flash animated by the folks over at Something Awful. I cannot recommend it enough. Really. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s way better than Cats.
Enjoy!
The snail in his museum
This was possibly the world’s most gregarious and inquisitive snail. When I picked him up, instead of retreating, he extended himself and pointed his itty bitty antennae toward me. When I placed him on my gate, to take his picture, he immediately started checking out his new surroundings.
Sunday Dogblogging and an Instant Review
Harriet often sits upright on the couch, with her paws on her belly, like a little old man watching television. This time, her left paw was strategically placed, which cracked me up, so I got out the camera.
Instant Review: An American Haunting
Ms. Lea, D, and I went to see An American Haunting last night. I just wanted to see a movie–it didn’t matter which one, as long as Tom Cruise wasn’t in it. I like horror and ghost stories, so An American Haunting sounded good to me.
It is allegedly based on a true story, and I had done a little reading ahead of time on the story and various explanations for what had happened. The first 2/3 of the movie seemed to follow the general storyline fairly faithfully: The father pisses off a neighbor in a land deal gone wrong. The neighbor is thought to be a witch. She curses the family. When a series of strange occurrences plague the family, they blame the neighborhood witch. Most of the haunting involves tormenting of the family’s daughter, then, later, the father.
But then, the movie took a bizarre right turn. Instead of the common assumption that the neighbor was responsible for the haunting, the movie storyline involved the father molesting the daughter, who then had some sort of psychotic/supernatural split. It was the daughter who was responsible for the haunting. Why she would have spent years tormenting herself is a mystery to me. Perhaps it was a passive-aggressive way to get back at her father? In any event, the daughter does end up getting her revenge on her father, by goading her mother into poisoning him. After the father’s death, the haunting ceases.
I didn’t get obsessive about doing pre-movie research, so I could’ve missed some theories, but nowhere did I come across a father-molesting-daughter theory. And, while there was some set-up for that conclusion, it ended up feeling abrupt, like it had been tacked on at the last minute.
I do wonder if the daughter might have been epileptic. In the early 1800s, when the haunting took place, it was thought that epileptics were possessed by spirits. Exorcism was a common “treatment” for the disease. It may have been preferable to make one’s community believe you are the victim of a haunting than to admit that your daughter was possessed by evil spirits. Someone with epilepsy might have been blamed for all sorts of bad happenings, so deflecting the blame onto a neighbor would have been a stroke of PR genius.
Instant Reviews: Undead & Hostel
A video store recently opened up next door to me. Actually, my neighbor has acquired a roommate who has a ginormous DVD collection, so I’ve been availing myself of it. And, lucky me, he has a good selection of horror fil-ums. I win!
First, Undead. It’s a hi-larious little zombie movie, set in an Australian fishing village. In addition to zombies, it has a cowboy fisherman, a reluctant beauty queen, aliens, and the requisite woman-in-labor sub-plot. What’s not to like? For the zombie aficionados, it has a bit of a Shaun of the Dead feel, what with Teh Funny and all, and the zombies are slow and shambling.
Second, Hostel. This is another Eli Roth film. Hostel wasn’t as good as Cabin Fever. It lacked the same humor component, which made the gore feel more relentless. Roth does a great job of creating texture and atmosphere, though.
Next up, Dog Soldiers. Werewolves? Check. Gore? Check. Stunning views of the Scottish Highlands? Check. Okaythen!
Look at the Bones!
I’ve been playing around with a few small pieces, trying to decide if I can salvage them or if I should just give up. I thought I’d add some bones, because a few bones can cure all manner of artistic ugliness. Right? Okay, maybe not. But! I stumbled on a couple of fun ideas.
First, bones are really easy to color with Walnut Hollow oil pencils. It took a couple of layers, and I used a Prismacolor blender to mush everything together, which worked well. I also went over them with an uneven layer of metallic gold wax paste. It was kind of a pain in the arse, because I was using itty bitty chicken rib bones, but the end result is pretty cool. I was going for a tarnished, worn, flame-y look, and I think I achieved it.
collage (bones and paper), acrylic, and oil pencil on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches
Second, I’m in the process of coating some pig vertebrae with crackle glaze. I don’t know how they’ll turn out, or what I’ll use them for, but if the result is as cool as I think it’ll be, I’ll post pictures of those, too.
While doing all this, and because an idle mind is the Debbil’s playground, I’ve been “watching” the NCAA women’s gymnastic championships. It’s pretty cool to see gymnasts that don’t look like anorexic 8 year old girls. And, you’d never hear Guns n’ Roses as floor exercise music in elite gymnastics! I do have a complaint, though, about the commercials. Well, aside from objecting to their very existence. Specifically, I wish they’d lay off the T. Rex. It started with JC Penny and, I think, some car company, and now Coke (and The Slider, no less!). It’s bad enough that the good music from the ’80s is being abused, but there’s no excuse for messing with T. Rex. Bastards!
Make. It. Stop.
It’s really not a good idea to hum along when you’re wearing headphones. A) It’s impossible to carry a tune that way and B) you have no idea how loud you are being. And, if you are listening to top 40 country music, just don’t. Period.
Don’t mind the blood, that’s just my ear drums hemorrhaging.
