January 30, 2007
Ah... isn't that cute.
CJ thinks he doesn't get as much sleep as I do.
Here's my response.
BTW, my response was making the recording. CJ is the artiste.
April 01, 2006
Mythotopical
CJ and I are coining this new neologism.
Mythotopical
Adjective
- referring to the confluence of current events with events, creatures or symbols of mythological origins.
- referring to a creamy medication, possibly mythical or magical, which when applied to the skin, counteracts the effects of curses or bad sci-fi/fantasy media.
An example from our TV viewing this afternoon, that satisfies both definitions: SciFi channel's Manticore
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, a US Army Squad is sent to a small Iraqi town to locate a missing news crew, only to find the residents of the town dead and a living Weapon of Mass Destruction, a Manticore, awaken from it's long slumber by a terrorist leader wanting to rid his land of the American invaders at any price. - imdb.com
July 01, 2005
Consumer Affairs
Cleaning out my email today, I found this letter written by my husband, CJ Holmes. This is one of many letters he has written to big business...
Frito Lay Consumer Affairs
P.O. Box 660634
Dallas, TX 75266-063418 April 2004
To whom it may concern,
I have long doubted stories of the "things found in my junk food" variety. However, I may be far less skeptical after today's encounter with a bag of Frito-Lay's Nacho Cheesier® Doritos® brand tortilla chips. This was part of a large "12-sack" my wife purchased to help fill out our son's lunch boxes for school over the next couple of weeks.
We have two children ages 3 and 6 who, being children, greeted the sight of a brand-new huge red bag full of smaller red bags of nutritionally void cheesy snacks with instant hunger. We gave them each one of the little bags and sent them on their merry, now cheesier, way.
About two minutes later our 3 year old daughter presented us with "a yucky thing from the chips". It was in fact so yucky that it frightened my wife who, without touching it, immediately scooped it back into the bag from whence it came. Like most Americans she was exposed to the traditional cannon of urban legends in her teen years, so her chief concern was that it might be the fried remnants of a rodent or rodent-like creature. As the man of the house, I was summoned to investigate.
As you can see from the picture, it is a moderately disgusting item. It is so thoroughly fried that it's origins are not easily perceived, although its color is suggestive of fried skin covered with cheesy Doritos® flavoring. Viewing the thing from different angles suggests different possibilities. Maybe it is simply a clump of spices and dough that found its way in to the batch of chips. Perhaps we have been lucky enough to recover an item of clothing lost by one of your employees. You may have a serious pest problem. Or maybe the urban legends are true, and your facilities are occasionally used by hired killers to dispose of their victims.
Whatever it is made of, it is quite gross and we're returning it to you. It is our hope that you have something akin to a Forensic Nutritionist on staff who can properly identify it and give it a proper burial if that's what is needed.
No no, there's no need to thank us. We're just doing our bit to keep America's food supply safe in these trying times.
Best Wishes,
CJ Holmes
A couple weeks later we received Frito-Lay's response: four 35 cent coupons for the Frito-Lay product of our choice.
May 26, 2005
I pledged.
And getting tired of trying to remember if my membership had expired, I signed up for continuting membership. Just easier that way, and I don't ever have to feel guilty about being on the wrong side of the ratio - only 1 in 9 KQED listeners is a member!
May 23, 2005
Somewhere out there, there's a Herb...
Wow, I just heard from my old friend Lizzie. She and I were good friends back in the late 80's early 90s. She and I were both student assistants in the Library Microform Room. She was doing her masters in biology, studying this particular species of limpet and the kinds of seaweed they eat. I would sometimes help her as she gathered seaweed and limpets from the tidepools (or return them to the tidepools).
We used to shop together at CostoCo. Sometimes we'd run into people we knew from campus - they always looked a little shocked to see us together on the weekends and we joked about being a couple.... I think some people might have believed it.
Lizzie was supposed to be maid of honor at my wedding, but I had to reschedule the wedding, and it turned out she was already booked on a vacation to the virgin islands on the new date. Bummer.
I haven't seen her in years...
Another old friend made an appearance, albeit a virtual one. I was totally shocked to see Rick (whom I knew back when I was friends with Lizzie) in the latest Alumni Newsletter. He was another student assistant back when the library was the Ruben Salazar library. He once made up rapper names for himself, Lizzie and some other friends. He was "Minty Fresh!" I think mine was something like "DJ Master Babsalot." I'm sure that if his new boss, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, new about his shady past, the Under Secretary for Homeland Security would be all over his butt.
These things happen in threes - so now I'm wondering who else will suddenly appear?
May 05, 2005
Weird Dream
OK, so I had a really weird nightmare last night. I was a soldier stationed on an outpost on some wasteland planet. When I arrived, everyone else had been killed by the enemy, and there were burnt corpses on the ground. I had to dig in under the ground to get into the station. There was communication from my far-away commander telling me I was on my own and would have to defend the station. I knew the enemy was evil, and that they tortured and killed whomever they captured. Everyone I knew was afraid of them.
So, the station was in bad shape. Things were broken, exploded or in disaray. There was some sort of system that shielded the station, but only a few inches outside whatever walls and ceiling there were. On a display I could see the shield represented as a zig-zagging line around the perimeter of the station.
Eventually, the station was under attack, but I was safe as long as the shield held up. The attack subsided, and the shield went down. I realized the only way to fix it was to pull a new cable from one are of the station to another, but I would have to punch through 40 feet (or maybe 40 yards?) of soil and rock to do it. I thought I could it, because the enemy had to go 400 yards to get to me, so I thought I'd have just enough time.
I had a tool that let me thread the cable right through the soil. Oddly, the cable was really more like a big band of cardboard, wrapped in plastic - it looked sorta like a big stick of gum. Just as the cable was emerging into the room where I needed it, it was like big steel elevator doors closed on the cable. I had a hammer that I used to try to bang it into place, and only just got it connected in time before the attack started again.
It was sometime during this, that I became two people in the dream: the soldier trying to get the shields up, and another person - me, I think, who knew that a bad thing was going to happen. I knew that the enemy had realized the shield was down, and had sneaked into the station, and were hiding, waiting for the soldier-me to get back into the little cubby hole where he would sit to control the equipment during the next attack.
Hiding-me hid behind some big equipment, and I could see down a long hallway where the enemy were quietly coming closer. (They looked a little bit like the martians in Mars Attacks, but taller, no glass helmets, and not quite as cartoonish. At least one did have a pointy-collared cape, though.) My plan was to stay hidden until the enemy came around the corner, then I would sneak away down the hall and escape. To the left I could also see soldier-me climb into the little cubby, and could hear myself grumbling about how cramped it was there and that I couldn't even stand or sit up straight. Soldier-me focused on the zig-zag red shield display. Hiding-me watched as the enemy came into the room, bent over and grabbed the ankles of soldier-me, pulling him out of the cubby. After a millisecond of shock and fear, and the knowledge that I was about to die, soldier-me felt an immense, total and brilliant joy. I had the thought, "wow! this is great! maybe we were all wrong!" and then soldier-me was dead.
Moments later, hiding-me saw soldier-me stand up. He looked ok, looked better, in fact.* Soldier-me said "Hey, that wasn't half-bad. What's the big deal?" and laughed happily. But then both of us saw there was another part of soldier-me sitting on the ground, and I knew it was soldier-me's soul. It was dark and slimy, and totally corrupted. It had pointy ears and nose, big slanted eyes, and long fingernails. It was muttering "It burns, it burns,"+ and was slurping the brains out of soldier-me's real head.
That's when I woke up. I was crying. It took quite a long time to calm down and get back to sleep.
* I thought (that is babs thought during the dream) "Wow, that gave him a +4 to charisma."
+ Yes, just like Smeagol. Ely has starting saying this from time to time as a joke, and said it last night at Mary's Pizza Shack when he bit into his Bambino pepperoni and sausage pizza too fresh from the oven.
April 25, 2005
What type of killer am I?
You are a Samurai.
You are full of honour and value respect. You
are not really the stereotypical hero, but you
do fight for good. Just in your own way. For
you, it is most certainly okay to kill an evil
person, if it is for justice and peace. You
also don't belive in mourning all the time and
think that once you've hit a bad stage in life
you just have to get up again. It's pointless
to concentrate on emotional pain and better to
just get on with everything. You also are a
down to earth type of person and think before
you act. Impulsive people may annoy you
somewhat.
Main weapon: Sword
Quote: "Always do the right thing.
This will gratify some people and astonish the
rest" -Mark Twain
Facial expression: Small smile
What Type of Killer Are You? [cool pictures]
brought to you by Quizilla
Hmm...
Identity Crisis
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Gatling Gun of Quiet Reflection.
May 12, 2004
bad blog, bad!
ok, it's not really the blog's fault. It's mine. I'm just bad at making new entries. I'm too busy.
February 14, 2004
if everyone jumped off the golden gate bridge...
I would too.
Pholph's Scrabble Generator        My Scrabbleİ Score is: 25. What is your score? Get it here. |
November 04, 2003
A Little Cranky
So, I've noticed I'm getting a little cranky lately. I'm sure my friends and co-workers have noticed, too. I seem to swear a lot more than I usually do, even when I'm not angry or annoyed. Tolerance, especially of others' more relaxed work habits and demands, is nearly non-existant in me.
It's related to stress, of course. Too many impending and imposing deadlines for too many projects. Not enough time to do anything the right way. Too many important steps that have to be skimmed or skipped. It's hard to be a professional.
This isn't good for my hair, either. There's a whole lotta hair in the hairbrush these days.
Pretty soon I'll be cranky and bald.