Elizabeth’s Neighborhood

I was just about to say - thank god its Friday.

But its only Thursday isn't it.

Well I hope there's a cold bottle of wine in the fridge.

You know how sometimes you have a job to do and everything goes wrong? I had one of those jobs this week. It was an order of 20 tiles and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. There was a point yesterday when I felt like taking all the tiles outside and smashing them to small pieces, then seriously hurting whoever was nearby. In fact at that point I would've paid the people to take them away from me.

So I considered lying on the bed and having a quick cry, but I didn't. I sucked it up and got them done. And now they're all packed up ready to post.

And it reminded me of this job I had once. It was my first job when I left school. For an accountant doing boring bookeeping type things.

And he was a dodgy creepy sleazy bastard who fancied me.

And his wife who also worked there was a nasty mean bitter old bitch.

And she in particular made my life hell. She was so mean and twisted that she made me a nervous wreck and I used to do everything wrong and then she'd think I was stupid. She'd just be at me all the time and I couldn't concentrate.

Of course these days I could drag both their ugly arses up for harrasment but back then there was nothing like that. You just had to suck it up.

I left in the end because it was starting to mess with my head.

I hope they both got their comeuppance

oh look, almost wine o clock

anyway, here's a sort of newbie

 

While watching Zach give the cats a good workout by means of a high-power laser pointer, a thought occurred to me:

When used in a particular way, a laser pointer is essentially a virtual tether with which one can literally slam a cat against a wall.

You can also fling a cat down the stairs or even into a hapless victim’s lap as he sits distracted by his game of Super Smash Bros. Fact is, a cat will pretty much go anywhere a glowing red dot goes. They'll even do it in teams!

Whenever all four of us have to be away from the house at the same time, we make sure all the kittehs are closed off downstairs mainly because Dioji is a moody terrier and cannot be trusted. This past Thanksgiving Day was one of those times and Zach was assigned pet segregation detail. He proceeded to do this, believe it or not, by leading them all down in one big group with his laser pointer.

I was hell of impressed.

Alright, I know the title of the post made it sound like some major scientific breakthrough had been discovered. And sure, adding “major” might be too much, but Zachary’s discovery really is quite a breakthrough!

Have you ever tried to herd cats?

I've been having a shocker with the 365 day photo thingo. I take them but then forget to post them.

But when I get back from Thailand I'll be able to bore you for weeks with photos. I was thinking today that its very inconvenient, how when you're trying to get ready to go overseas, normal life keeps going on and taking up time.

So, some photos.

Here is my friend Jem. We were out celebrating her birthday.

 

 

And here she is with her hubby.

 

 

Here is my foxxxxy daughter Kimba, the devil, and her good friend, Cleopatra getting ready for Cleopatra's birthday party.

 

 

And here I am with Big Ears.

 

 

And this is Betty chewing on the hindquarter of a small elephant. Or something.

 

 

Oh yes, and these are Lloyds shoes. Because he thought it might be a good idea to buy a pair or white dunlop volleys to wear to all the summer music festivals he goes to. This was after Parklife.

 

 

And these were my new nail polishes that you've seen before. And I don't really like either of them. But its ok because I have a newer smokin' rimmel red.

 

This much cute in one place might be dangerous. CimC could implode under the combined weight of DG's good looks and the incredible cuteness in this video. I only got a B in Physics, so don't hate on me if this blog suddenly gets sucked down some black hole of adorableness.

Squeeeee!

There’s a rather steep, winding road I take on the way to work that understandably narrows to a single lane on the downhill side. The speed limit correspondingly drops a little, as well. This all occurs shortly after a traffic light and for the next mile-and-a-half drivers are relegated to whatever position they were able to aggressively acquire during the furious Competition Merging that invariably occurs at this type of juncture.

It is the right lane that merges into the left, so you’ll usually see the BMW and CRX drivers choose it, particularly when they end up (oh-so-egregiously) stopped at the light. Their logic is simple: only the right lane provides the opportunity not to get stuck behind one of the left-lane lame-asses who lacked the foresight to buy a car that stuck to the road like an AFX* slot car. They crane their necks to watch for the cross-traffic light to turn yellow; it’s their cue to take the RPMs up to 1200 and shift their clutch-foot to the very edge of the pedal for instantaneous release.

Me, I’m one of the lame-asses, I guess. I seldom worry about my spot in the bizarre, unwritten hierarchy of competitive commuting. I’m of the opinion that making it to my destination alive, undamaged and sans citations is far more desirable than getting there seven seconds before everyone else. But you already knew I was a bit strange.

Anyway, this morning I did play the game because tooling down the hill was a dirty, fume-belching truck with a giant tank on the back proudly emblazoned with The Shit Bilge: We’ll Pump Out Your Poop! (or something like that; I didn’t have anything to write with at the time). The huge coil of corrugated PVC tubing verified what was inside that tank. I’m not sure if moving so slowly was also directly related to his occupation, but the fact wouldn’t surprise me.

For the record, I wasn’t the only one to pass him. I was behind at least a half dozen drivers making the same sensible move.

Here’s the thing, though. As I changed lanes and sped up to squeeze in front of him just before the guardrail could cave in my passenger door, I felt a little like an impatient teenager for whom driving like an asshole has become a requisite personality trait. But the guy in the sewer truck didn’t speed up to force me back behind him the way so many people do, nor did he tailgate me the rest of the way down the hill. He just took his time transporting his contaminated cargo, seemingly unmoved by the growing distance between himself and the crowd of cars in front of him.

I guess if you make your living sucking putrid body waste out of other peoples’ septic tanks, you’ve pretty much already broken and tamed your ego.

*Yeah, that’s right, I was an AFX kid. Big time. Had to save up just a little more chore money, but it was worth it not to settle for Tyco’s second-rate, schlocky slot cars.

Karin and I have been into this show called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia since it started.in 2005. It's a tad lowbrow sometimes and silly and Amanda absolutely despises it. Her refusal to even be in the room when it's on should probably be some sort of barometer for me, but the thing is, every time I watch an episode of this show I nearly bust a gasket laughing.

To wit...

So .....   the mother of the groom woke with a really blood shot eye;  the sister-bridesmaid broke her shoe before she left the house; our side of the church was lean in guests (small family) and had to be filled with the bride's family and friends; the mother of the groom and her manservant got terribly lost on the way to the reception and did not get to hang out drinking in the "green" room with the bridal party before being introduced to the crowd and the groom's trousers split when he was hoisted into the air by guests. Oh, and the first set of professional photos taken at the groom's place have me in what can only be described as "house shoes" because I forgot to take my "real" shoes with me to his apartment!!   But, for all that it was a great day!  I think it was the best wedding I have ever been to - though I have to wonder if young people just don't want to talk to each other because everything was so loud!   

The church was a lovely old Catholic one in Hunters Hill  

This is my daughter, the Princess, who was a bridesmaid  Here is the bride and her parents: - before we left their home  This is my other son playing groomsman: Cute brother & sister act - this is the 6th time they have done this!!! (mother in bright pink) Here comes the bride:

Well, after attending my nephews wedding I have only one thing to say.

Arabic people sure know how to party.

And how to make an entrance.

But, I bet a lot of the older generation have terrible hearing, because they like everything SO LOUD!!!!!!!!!

Lots of trilling voices, tinkling glasses, drums, smoke machines, shooting confetti and indoor fireworks. I mean, thats what I call a wedding.

Of course my inner freak was wondering how the smoke detectors could possible be turned on with all that smoke floating around, and how would we get mum down that one steep set of steps if there was a fire, and did it really matter that someone had been shot dead in the same street the night before in a gang war.

But the way I see it, if it could get Daz on the dance floor, then it was a good night.

And, it was the first wedding I've been to that had a bottle of Chivas Regal on the childrens table. On every table.

It really was an amazing night. Australian weddings are so boring really. This all started with fireworks and drums and all the bridal party and their parents being introduced. Then it was straight into the dancing. No hanging around the bar, then a long dinner and hours of speeches. Just music and dancing and drums and the bride and groom being carried around on peoples shoulders. I'm sure the bride didn't get to sit down all night. She did a lot of dancing.

And the food. Unbelievable. When we arrived our tables were just full of little plates of hommus and oils, meats and salami and fetta, potatoes, nuts, fresh vegetables and fruit, olives, crabmeat, leb bread, kumara chips and dolmades. And every time a plate looked like being empty a new one took its place. Then there were bottles of red wine and white wine, a bottle of chivas regal, coronas, carlton colds, cascade and a light beer all in ice buckets. Topped up all night. Endless. Plus bottles of water, and jugs coke and orange juice.

But then there was a meal. I know I couldn't eat mine. That was followed by fruit platters and then wedding cake.

Then there was dancing and dancing and more dancing.

Oh, and the bridesmaids dresses were absolutely beautiful. Too often the bride seems to pick something hideous for her girls to wear, maybe so they don't look better than her. But these were perfect. Not quite the blue in the photos.

And I don't know the significance of the bride being carried in the chair sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the hell!?

Now, you just know I have some choice words to share about this. Please make yourself comfortable as I proceed to illuminate just how little these Conservapedia nitwits know about the real world. I’ve bashed them before, but their offense then was downright innocuous compared to this mess.

For those of you who can’t visit Conservapedia without donning a Haz-Mat suit, I’m happy to republish their silly content for you here because few things are more fun than cramming Fair Use straight up the collective asses of a bunch of idiot fascists.

Basically, what this self-appointed scripture Gestapo wants to do is alter the Bible so that Jesus doesn’t come off so cotton-picking liberal. Evidently, far-right extremists like Conservapedia founder Andy Schlafly* are made very uncomfortable by Jesus doing things like condemning the rich, turning the other cheek, and forgiving those who crucified him. Those things just don’t jive with their black-and-white, might-makes-right, fright-with-spite mentality. How are they supposed to subjugate the poor, amass enormous wealth and power, suppress all opposing viewpoints and still get though the Pearly Gates if the rulebook for their faith contains messages of love and compassion and warnings against the woes of material greed and unchecked hubris? Action must be taken!

Their solution is to go in and “fix” God’s word.

Thing is, just by suggesting this project, they’ve created a massive contradiction that reveals the inherent guile of their intentions while fully obliterating any cogency of their their so-called religious beliefs.

See, as ironic as it is, the Bible wasn’t always a book. It’s second half, for example, started out as oral recitations composed and continually repeated by Christ’s disciples. Generations later, those recitations were committed to paper by men who never actually met their Messiah. Then, over the span of a couple thousand years, these writings were translated a gajillion times by people of dramatically variant levels of intelligence, bias, and mastery of ancient Greek.

As a kid growing up in a Christian household, I often wondered how anything written in the Bible could convey an idea that was even remotely similar to its original meaning. Considering that the phrase “typically nasty weather” becomes “tickle your ass with a feather” by the time it’s reached its twelfth set of ears, the very idea the Bible had any validity seemed impossible to me.

Then my mother explained to me that the reason the Bible was not subject to the errors of men was because God was all-powerful and would not allow it. She told me that the Bible was “the eternal and unerring word of God” and that I ought to avoid doubting the Lord. That satisfied me for many years. I have since come to find it is the go-to response to the Bible translation question.

Until now, that is.

What is so beautiful about the Conservative Bible Project is that it is based on the assumption that God is a fuck-up – that he is incapable of keeping us silly humans from bastardizing his Word. The defining statement of their mission is that “Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations.”

Another way they could have said this is: “The single biggest problem with the Bible is that God has been unable to keep man from distorting it.”

So right off the bat, they admit their God is a failure. He can’t even stop us from putting words in his mouth, for crying out loud!

Too easy? Fine. We can go deeper. Let’s assume that Satan was cleverer than God gave him credit for (a lesser offense on God’s part, if still indicative of imperfection). We’ll say for the sake of argument it’s the devil’s fault there are “liberal” translations of the Good Book and that some remarkable Christian needs to step up and defend the integrity of his Savior’s conservative intentions.

 What qualifications, I wonder, does Mr. Schlafly have in translating ancient Greek texts and how many of the original scriptures has he personally studied at length? Does he have any renowned Bible scholars on his team? Can he readily see the glaring flaw in the logic employed by Thomas Aquinas to prove God? What is his IQ? (If that last question seems unfair, consider that he wants to call the Holy Spirit the “Holy Force”. o_O Bothered by this Yoda is… distresses him, it does!)

Hell, does he even know how long a cubit is and, if so, just how important does he consider that data to be? I have to ask because, from the standpoint of having to contain two of every single living thing for water transport, one would hope the Bible’s definition of a cubit would be a liberal one.

There’s no shortage of lunacy in Schlafly’s project to keep me going for a while. I could go off on how anti-intellectual it is to get rid of holy names like Yahweh and Jehovah or how revealing of their hypocrisy it is that they want to remove passages such as the one wherein Jesus tells a crowd to “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” at a suspected adulteress. I could tear apart the idea of hell as a direct contradiction to freewill or simply point out how Conservapedia denizens are so stupid and confused the notation “disfavored here” had to be added next to their link to their own Feminist Bible page.

But, the thing is I have a project of my own in the works I need to get back to. I’m currently in the process of fixing all the silly conservative rhetoric in Gray’s Anatomy. I personally think it’s time we gave things like tapeworms and corsets and lead makeup another chance.

*Andy Schlafly is the son of Phyllis Schlafly, a failed politician who did her hypocritical best in the 70s to stop the ERA even as she enjoyed a lofty career as an attorney.

I've just gutted my entire house, right down to the studs, and am slowly rebuilding it. After months of nothing but demolition, I'm finally starting to reverse the process. My bathroom contractor is working today to get ready for my tile guy. The insulation guy worked yesterday, so the house is nice and cozy now. (Right, except that I have to put the windows back in.) On Tuesday, the sheetrock guy comes to start putting my ceilings and walls back.

Just as soon as I wrap up my work in the attic: 2 more ceiling joists to sister, one more ceiling fan mount to install, plus 3 more fixture mounts for other lights. I'd planned to sister all the 5 ceiling joists that need it this weekend, but Tuesday I created a little emergency. While trying to rip out a piece of planking in the wall that had bowed and split--thereby preventing the sheetrock from being flush--I discovered that two of my ceiling joists were actually resting on that plank, instead of on the exterior load-bearing wall. The reason? when the foundation failed in the 40s that wall bowed out about three inches, and the joists slipped off it.

Which is how I broke my nose. With all that weight on the plank, it was under a lot of pressure, so when I finally managed to pry it off the studs, it came loose at high speed and whacked me in the face. I blacked out for about a second, before that little quiet voice in the back of my head kicked in. You know, the little voice that whispers, "Maybe you shouldn't take that short cut," and "Get up and check the door." My little voice said, "Don't fall off the ladder."

I didn't. I managed to get myself down the ladder, my head ringing, and my dust mask filling up with blood. As I was just starting to wonder how badly I'd fucked myself up, I heard this soft groaning sound and looked up. Above me, the ceiling was sagging about three inches. Not terrible, but likely to become so.

This was at about 8 pm, and who was I going to call for help? Sure, 911 would take care of my face, but they wouldn't do anything about my ceiling joists. So I went out to my truck, grabbed the jack, and a couple of 2 x 4's on my way back through the garage. I slapped one 2 x 4 up to the ceiling with a pair of screws (thank you, trusty cordless drill), wedged the other one up under it, balanced on top of the jack, and cranked the ceiling back up to the proper height. Contrary to my expectations, it worked perfectly. After all, that little jack was designed to lift one quarter of my truck, so it was strong enough to lift one tenth of my ceiling.

Then I could worry about my nose. Luckily I still have a kitchen sink, so I went it and pulled the dust mask off. Blood, lots of it. I washed off a bunch of it, but I didn't have a mirror, so I couldn't really see what the damage was. I had half a bag of ice in the freezer, so I grabbed that, stuck it on my face and drove to my temporary digs.

I kept the ice on it for about five hours, and that seems to have done the trick. I have a bump, a bruise, and my eyes are a little black, but my nose is straight. I'm pretty sure it's broken, because I can feel it wiggle when I laugh, and my eyebrows actually hurt.

Episode 2 was me calling into work sick the next morning. Only I didn't stay home. I couldn't. I went to the house and crawled up in the attic to sister in the three joists that just couldn't wait for this weekend. Then I had to repair and replace the plank I'd originally been intending to fix when it bitch slapped me. I won the rematch.