Bad Reputation

A headline you just HAVE to click

"A Swiss Village Has Peace, Quiet and a Product Endorsed by Marilyn Manson"

Inexplicable

Why do I love "Rescue Me" so much, when all of the characters in it are basically fucking idiots and if I knew any of them in real life I would have to cockpunch them?

I'm thinking about starting a college fund for her

I'm often entertained by how certain behaviors of my felines are just like human kid behaviours, but this morning Nobby was in overdrive.

• She woke me up, crying loudly, at 3:00 so she could sleep with me

• She kept stealing all the toys from her big brother -- anything he was playing with, she wanted

• She played in my makeup while I was getting ready for work

• She annoyed her big sister until a full fight broke out, complete with hitting and yelling.

At least her lack of opposable thumbs limits the havoc she can wreak. I hope.

Full of grace & coordination

Took the garbage out last night. Slipped on the ice and fell. Now my back is in agony.

FUCK!

That's twice I've fallen this week -- once from the leap from death and once from a combo of clumsiness and gravity.

GODAMMIT!

And up to that point, it had been a relatively good day.

What's a good word for a random collection of things that have crossed my mind today that I could have Tweeted but instead decided to make a blog post?

Voting for the Best Science Blog in the Webbies was like making Sophie's choice. How can I pick from Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy and Neurologica? They are all so full of teh awesome!

Dear iTunes Genius: this playlist you created based on MC Lars' "Ahab" is totally the shit! It's the first Genius playlist I've actually saved.

So I was up until 2:30 last night catching up on posts from Matt Logelin's blog, which is basically his online diary and is one of the more compelling things I've read -- just the outpouring of raw emotion alone is enough, but he writes pretty well and has a great sense of humor, not that he's necessarily feeling it much. Plus his photography skillz are mad and he has a fortune-telling robot. Also, I'll be working the phrase "I'm robot pissed" into my vocabulary so if you talk to me frequently you should go there so you know what I'm talking about.

Crap. I had more nonsense to spew forth onto the interwebs, but the McCain cat* came looking for cuddles (of a sort) and now I've forgotten most of it. I guess you all are spared.

*I call her the McCain cat because she's old, cranky and not all that bright sometimes.

Promotion

Because I voted for The Bloggess in the Webbies, I have been promoted from "minion" to "henchman" and she made us these cool buttons:

 

If you don't read The Bloggess, you really need to start. Start here. That contains some of her best posts of the year, including the ones about the angry transvestite army and the dead hobo fingers. Do yourself a favor and go now.

Nothing like near death to wake you up in the morning

So this morning so jackass tried to run me over in his SUV. (I'm using "he" as a generic pronoun. Could easily have been a she.)

There's a corner right by my apartment that joins two fairly busy roads -- the one that runs in front of my building in particular sees some serious traffic. And everyone tears down that road at at LEAST 10 miles over the speed limit. And at this corner, they traffic light is clearly labeled "NO TURN ON RED".

So there I am, waiting to cross. I get my little white walking signal and start off. Now, because I know that people tear ass down this road, I always check before I step off the curb; there's no one coming immediately. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the crosswalk when ASSFUCK comes tearing around the corner in said SUV. I don't even think he slowed down for the fucking turn, nor did he apparently look at the road in front where I was clearly walking. He swerved right and I jumped left. He kept going, not really even slowing and I fell on my ass.

Some very kind woman who was obeying the traffic laws hopped out of her car, full of concern and asked me if I was OK. I was, except for being all shook up and nauseated from adrenaline.

So, I'm fine, although I think my ass will have a gigantic bruise. I lived to tell the tale but it was probably one of the closest calls I've ever had.

Times like that are when I really wish that a) psychic powers were real and b) I had them. Because nothing would have made me happier than to make that SUV's engine die and then make the driver hemorrhage out of every orifice in his head. Not necessarily enough to kill him, just enough to cause a lot of pain and panic. (Notice how I make sure the SUV is out of commission so it can't hit anyone else when the driver explodes in blood? I'm civic-minded that way.)

Paging the Doctor

OK, first I just have to say how awesome it was that my Twitter feed was bursting with Whovian goodness over the announcement of the new Doctor. None of my IRL friends are Doctor Who fans, but I still got to geek out with people who do care. I <3 the interwebs!

Second, this new Doctor. I was really hoping for a female Doctor this time around -- it's past due, I think. Anyway, this boy -- I have no clue who he is and he is awfully young. (Of course, I'm getting old, too.) I Googled to find a picture of him, and he looked very young and pretty. And I thought, "Huh."

But I've seen some video of him on BBC, and he looks less pretty-perfect in motion -- still cute, just not "pretty" -- and also somewhat mad, so I'm hoping that's what will come through in his performance. And, of course, hoping his acting doesn't suck in general.

I smell a lot of hope coming off of this.

And I will continue to mourn the departure of David and his sexy self. At least for a bit.

Motivation

I think I've truly found something that will serve as motivation for me to start exercising and lose weight and generally get into better shape.

And that thing would be personal violence.

I saw a T-shirt that said "If you can read this, you are within roundhouse kick range."

And then I got the beautiful image of WHAT IF I REALLY COULD ROUNDHOUSE KICK PEOPLE?

Not that I would, mind you. But just the thought that I COULD and that it's my DECISION not to kick you in the face would give me such a warm, tingly, fuzzy feeling.

I could swan along, serene in the knowledge that I have the energy, stamina and flexibility required to beat the everloving shit out of people afflicted with the stupid.

Now, it's not a goal that will come easily. Or speedily. But I can do it. And I don't think anything -- not health considerations, not the fascist Western beauty standard -- has EVER made me this eager to work out.

My god, I feel giddy at the possibility of it all.

[update: OK, I'm aware that I couldn't actually *reach* people's faces, unless they were Gary Coleman or that dude who played Mini Me. But I can totally roundhouse kick people in the sternum. And I'll settle for that.]

Death Proof Holly-daze

Well, look at that. A new fucking year!

The holly daze were quiet and enjoyable, as usual. Mainly because, as usual, I stayed far, far away from any large family gatherings. Because I'm smart that way. I did spend part of christmas eve with some of my good friends, which was nice. christmas day itself was pasta with bolognese sauce, sleeping in, reading Rex Stout, eating my way through a box of dark chocolates, snorgling on the couch with kittehs and watching a marathon of "Supernatural" Season 3. Which included their christmas episode! Full of gore & torture & pagan gods!

Two of my favorite quotes from this season:

"Does anyone have a beath mint? Some guts splattered into my mouth while I was killing my way in here."

"Ed, you know you have to do. You have to go be gay for that poor, dead intern. You have to send him into the light!"

New Year's day was pretty much a repeat, except I watched Death Proof. I can't think of a better way to usher in a new year than to watch 3 bad-ass chicks completely annihilate a sadistic, mysogenistic serial killer. When Stuntman Mike turns into that mewling pathetic baby? AWESOME. But before that, Stuntman Mike is a totally terrifying motherfucker. I love how Kurt Russell can be that scary, that kind of skin-crawly, dead-weight-in-your-stomach scary. He makes ROBERT FROST POETRY SOUND MENACING. Honestly, I don't think Tarantino's ever made a movie I didn't love. Characters, dialogue, soundtrack, shots, stunts  -- it's always perfect. And now I am full of the need to see The Thing, Escape from New York, Vanishing Point and Bullitt. Off to reorder the Netflix queue!

Other shit I did over the down weeks, besides work and have migraines, was to finally read Batman: The Killing Joke and to give the cats their own Twitterfeed. Mostly, Bobbie tweets about how she has become implacable in her drive to kill Gussie and Nobby tweets about life at the speed of light. Gussie tweets about whatever.