happy mardi gras

in the immortal words of the radiators (who are probably still on stage from last night): "party til the money runs out."

in other news, the cioppino gauntlet was thrown down at the weekend and, within hours, the challenge has been accepted from tombstone tumbleweed. someone please buy her house.

better late than never

finally got around to converting the pics i took of my dia de los muerto altar...last november 2. the altar was my best ever, with marigold garlands added to the mix. the photos were not so good, though. here's the best wide shot. two other pics up on flickr.

a cioppino challenge...

...from tombstone tumbleweed, as found in one of the comments on my blog...

"But I thought I made the best cioppino in the world. Mine does rival those made in the finest joints in SF. We should have a cook-off once I move closer to you."

bring. it. on.

day job

normally, articles in the msm about immigration are barely researched, poorly written and, often, just plain wrong. however, i found an article that is actually pretty good, about a top indian scientist who was given all kinds of grief at the u.s. consulate in chennai. as background, his field of research (chemistry) makes him eligible for something called the technology alert list but any consular officer worth her salt would be able to review his c.v. and previous visa history and see that there are no weapons implications and issue the visa without having to get a clearance from department of state. at any rate, it is a good example of how the consular officers treat applicants: they start with the assumption that everyone is lying and go from there. and if that's is how they treat a distinguished scientist, imagine how they treat the average person. this is why i hate my job.

maxwell's silver hammer

just listening to "abbey road" and remarking to myself, "damn, maxwell's silver hammer is such a good song!" it's so f'ing wierd, but then the music is all cute & poppy, which just accentuates the dark lyrics. i love that song. i guess that' s why i named my dog after it. no kidding, that's max's official registered name with the akc. here he is in all his extreme closeup glory (this is basically what i see when i first open my eyes in the morning).



p.s., i put up links to multy & max's dogster sites on the right...

what is this world coming to?

ok, so i'm at the movie theatre (to see syriana, by the way, and i'm still trying to figure that shit out) and the theatre has this pre-show "adver-tainment" that basically has all these ads that you aren't supposed to think are ads, interspaced with, you guessed it, more ads. annoying, but pretty easy to ignore. but at one point they have this really annoying ad for this ky 2-in-1 warming body massage and personal lubricant (it's a floor polish; no, it's a dessert topping). ok, there are so many things wrong with that, i don't know where to start. why do i have to see this uptight yuppie bitch talking about personal-f'ing-lubricant when i'm in a movie theatre!? but it's ok, this gets funny. the commercial cuts to a shot of the entire product line at the end and one of the products is called "paris twilight" and i wasn't exactly paying attention so i read it really fast and i thought it said "penis twilight" and i was all "no they didn't." then i realized that it said "paris" not "penis" and i totally lost it. i mean, totally lost it, laughing so hard i couldn't breathe or even sit up in my chair, tears running down my face, people looking at me, husband trying to pretend that he's not with me - that kind of laughing. so, thank you ky for that moment, but: one, please keep your ads out of the movie theatres (at least normal movie theatres); and two, you may want to rethink using the word "paris" in your advertisements. i'm still laughing.

new pics up on flickr...

...this is one of the cutest, if i do say so myself. check 'em out, flickr link to the right.

I hate it when...

...I hear a song I like playing in an elevator or in a supemarket or mall or something. It makes me wonder about my taste in music.

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

puppybowl

couldn't be buggered to watch the superbowl, but did catch most of animal planet's puppybowl 2. favorite part: the bowl cam, in which a camera is placed looking up from the bottom of the water bowl and you get to see puppies drink. least favorite part: kitten half time. and from what i've heard about the actual superbowl game, this was actually time well spent.