The Good, The Bad and the Delightfully Cheesy.

Been a little quiet the past few days, I know.  Going through some stuff.  Had to cut off contact with someone who was very important to me in order to save myself a whole lotta time going through the emotional wringer and would you know it pretty much blows?  Big time.  Running the gamut of emotion, angry, sad, self-righteous and well.. you know how it is.  Boys n' such.  So I've been disgustingly emo over the last 24 hours.  I've had a few of my closest girlfriends be super supportive as I got all weepy and snotty and introspective about it, even though over the last 12 months or so the "I swear this time it's really DONE" has been nothing new to any of them.

But I swear, this time, it's really done.

Hit the local Party On The Dock this past weekend, which proved to be quite the raucous affair.  There was much beer, much dancing to all-ages friendly (as in 9 to 99) cover bands.  Okay, this is something that gets me every year.  The headliners are a group called Northern Harbour, who bill themselves as

The Ultimate Jimmy Buffet Tribute Band!

But.. if it's true as some say that Jimmy Buffett is essentially a cover artist himself, then wouldn't a Jimmy Buffett cover band really just be a generic cover band that happens to play Margaritaville and Let's Get Drunk and Screw? (which, incidentally, Northern Harbour DID play much to my amusement).

Anyway, was a fun-filled evening.  We closed the party, headed to the local bar, closed the bar, got food, ended up at the park and next thing you know it was all "Oh hey.  Hello, 5 am! Fancy meeting you here!"

A word of advice: Sitting down by the water in the wee hours of the morning may sound like an awesome serene idea, but you change your mind quickly when you wake up in the morning with goose shit on your pants.  Had awesome Karen-Walkeresque moment the next day as my bestest and I sat in her backyard feeling rather rough and a small child was driving around in one of those Power Wheels dealies.  Shielding my eyes from the sun I asked "Is it really necessary for that kid to be driving that thing this early in the afternoon?"

I'm fucking witty when hungover, I tell you.

My shitty mood after last night's drama nearly resulting in an ass-kicking today as I got a wee bit snarky with some folks who insisted on ignoring the giant No Loitering sign on the front door of our building and wound up with a rather frightening woman up in my face because apparently I'm doing a huge disservice to their hanging-around-in-front-of-Tim-Hortonsing by not-so-subtly suggesting her friends try standing 2-3 feet to the left or right AND NOT IN FRONT OF THE FUCKING DOOR.

How silly of me.

And then some guy got his ass handed to him in the parking lot about an hour later.  Cops and everything.  I have a great view from my desk.  And YES, I DID call 911, as buddy was taking quite the beating but I guess someone beat me to it because all I had to say was the address and "Fight" and they said "Yeah, we're already on our way." at which point the cops pulled up.

I swell with absolute pride at my town, which is NOT AT ALL white-trashy in ANY WAY.

Today my geek worlds collided.  For about 6-8 years I was a soap fan.  To be clear I was regular follower of the Guiding Light.  It started when I was hospitalized at 18, after which I drove my ex-husband nuts with it for years, and when the Sister and I lived together we watched religiously.

I stopped watching after I moved out on my own in 2005, as I wasn't home when it was on and I didn't have a VCR.  The show was cancelled in 2009 and a little part of me was heartbroken that I never saw the last episode.  I found out today that in 2006 Marvel Comics did a Guiding Light crossover based on a halloween storyline where Harley (one of my favorite characters) gets super powers and becomes a heroine by the name of 'The Guiding Light'

Har Har.

So this evening I wasted a whole lot of time looking up clips from this story arc on YouTube, and trying to find out where I can get my hands on the comic portion of the storyline, which apparently included Spiderman and the Avengers, as well as GL characters such as Buzz Cooper and Gus Aitoro (*drool*)

Beth Ehlers and Ricky Paull Goldin

Harley all Comic-fied - Source

 The link to the Comics Alliance page has a preview where you can see some of the other drawings.  I enjoy seeing the characters rendered in comic style.

The story arc on the tv side is atrocious, but what do you expect? Part of the fun of soaps is the groaningly bad melodrama and improbable story lines.  Hell, that's part of the fun of comics too.

They have so much in common.

Watch, and giggle.

Being a T-Shirt Whore on the Interwebs is like being a Smack addict... well, anywhere there's a lot of heroin lying about.

Remember a while back when I told all y'all about my T-Shirt collection that is slowly taking over every-drawer in my dresser?

I'm finding blogging is leading me to a whole new world of T-shirt whoredom.  I'm not necessarily talking about 6 Dollar Shirts or the unfortunate but appropriately named T-Shirt Hell, but I refer to a recently discovered genre of T-shirts.

The Blog-Inspired Inside Joke T-Shirt.

I kid you not.  This year for Christmas, I may populate my entire Christmas list with Awesome T-Shirts I've See Around The Web That No One Will Get But Me And Other Blog Readers.

First, from Josh at The Comics Curmudgeon (along with the help of the other 'mudges, and the writers of Apartment 3G) is this gem here - The 'Too Fancy For Hoboken and Too Hot For Church' design:

Source

The fun one about this one, is you can get matching underpants.  UNDERPANTS.

Actually, I may bypass the T-shirt and arrange to have "Too Fancy for Hoboken and Too Hot for Church" engraved on my Tombstone.  How kickass would that be?

This next one is the handiwork of The Bloggess:

Source

I'm not sure if I like the shirt so much as I just love the story behind it.

But.. I'll admit, I have an ulterior motive behind writing this post about Awesome T-Shirts On The Web.

I do, it's true.  I am not proud.

Here it is.

Source

Sometimes I just can't wait for Christmas.  And I'm cheap as all hell, and I love, love, love me some free stuff.  And now, right now, right this very minute, the famous-as-well-as-infamous Aunt Becky of Mommy Wants Vodka is holding a contest to win one of her profanity-laden T-shirts.

And i want that one.  In purple.  Because it's true, purple should be a flavour. It's my second favorite color behind red.  If it was available in red, I'd get in in red, honestly.  But I like purple a lot as well.  When I'm old, I'm going to be one of those Red Hat Society ladies, and just wear a shit-ton of red and purple.  ALL THE FRIGGIN TIME.  and drink tea laced with bourbon with my red-and-purple-wearing friends, and man oh MAN is it going to be a kick-ass time.

So yes, go check out the contest.  In the meantime, until I can be a red-hat lady, I will be happy to wear my Aunt Becky T under my work clothes at my customer service job and when I am on the phone dealing with people who by rights shouldn't be capable of driving or owning property, I can look down my own top and think "Yes. 'Shut Your Whore Mouth, indeed."

And I will smile.

half-assedness and artistry

crafting is good for the stress levels so I thought I'd share some of the stuff I've completed lately.

But first!!

Guess what came in the mail today?  I won a blog challenge a week or so ago over a it's never too late to save a hopeless case and today I received, care of one ms. steph gas, this lovely tote bag from her store Rule 42 Inc.  You should go check it out, especially the custom t-shirt bags that I would love to make myself if I wasn't ridiculously intimidated by my sewing machine.  Seriously, it scares the shit out of me.

sexy, no?

I'm pretty stoked that she also addressed me the package with my full name and title, as requested:

click to enlarge.  my thumb is covering my address to prevent stalkers.

In the meantime I've been working on some fun stuff and in honor of the half-assed weekend post, I'll share:

This is a mirror that my friend gave me that had been kicking around her basement for the last four to five years.  It was originally a plain blond wood mirror.  I sanded the frame down and painted it with a bright red acrylic, then decided to do the inside perimeter in black.  I had inteded to do the entire frame red.  Then I used an enamel glass paint to do the zebra stripes in the corners.

It was pretty time-consuming, and I had to do it twice since the first time I used a brush-on varnish instead of a glaze (turns out there's a difference.. who knew?  I know, everyone but me.)  The varnish peeled half of the paint off.  I guess it hadn't quite settled.  So I had to scrub it all off and try again.

The second time around I used a spray-glaze that claimed to dry 'crystal-clear' so I just kind of sprayed the whole thing in this stuff and much to my chagrin, this resulted in a nice frosted-glass mirror that wasn't of much to anyone who actually wanted to, oh, I don't know.. look at themselves.  Out came the Windex and before it dried too much I managed to scrub most of the glaze off the reflected surface.  There's still a bit of a sheen from it though.

Next:

This is the completed frame that I had mentioned doing a few weeks back.  Finding a plain frame was a pain in the ass. I searched the salvation army and finally tried the Dollar stores, as usually they have plain frames in the arts and crafts section.  No luck though, couldn't find them.  So this is kind of a cheap dollar store plastic frame painted red, with black on the interior rim, and polka dots.

I still don't know the photographers name.  I'm thinking my dad might know.

Update:  So I was at the gas station the other day and I saw the guy who took the Betty Boop photo and remembering this entry and my earlier one, I ran up and asked him his name again for the sake of being able to properly credit him for his work.  His name is Corey Ramsbottom and he does a lot of scenic and landscape photography.  Check out his website here.

This one I'm pretty proud of:

Once again, dollar store frame which I happened to find while searching for the frame above, plus paint, and podge, and comic book leavings.  I love the way it turned out and I'm thinking of going back for a few more of these frames, because I'd love to make more of these.

A few weeks ago Facebook had a meme going around where you take the first five people on your friends sidebar (no refreshing!) and they become your team for the Zombie Apocalypse.  I got three of my best friends and two co-workers, whom I happen to like and respect.  Got bored so here's my rendering of my zombie apocalypse team:

I'm third from the left

So that's about all.  I'm off to enjoy the rest of my weekend.

this has been a half-assed weekend post, brought to you by a Simple Dude in a Complex World

Isla de Encanta - Day one

"Arriving in a foreign country by the dark of night is a disconcerting experience.  It's as if no time, no space has passed.  As we taxied to a stop over ground that glittered like snow I laboured under the delusion that we had not moved at all, we'd merely been hovering for the last four hours only to land where we started." - Vacation journal 01/28/11

Well as promised, over the next few days I'm going to give a run down of the happenings of my trip to the Dominican with two of my besties.  I should just interject here that although I use the word 'Bestie' I invariably want to punch myself in the face when I do.  Yet, I insist on using this term.  That, dear folks, is friendship. 

Having dropped my ladies off to school in the morning last Friday I decided a haircut and an eyebrow wax were in order before I left for the airport.  My flight was leaving at 4:30, which meant to get to the airport for the recommended three hours previous, I had a good four-hour window in which to make an hour-and-a-drive to Pearson International.  Needless to say, I was leisurely.

One Eyebrow wax, One haircut and a last-ditch, failed attempt to find a reasonably priced, attractive one piece swimsuit in the dead of winter later I was on my way, this time managing to not get too lost on the way to the airport.  After getting my luggage checked and making my way through security I tried texting my friend Jay, a self-described baggage monkey for the airline we were taking, to see if he wanted to hook up for a coffee since it'd been a good two years since I've seen the guy.  I got a response to my text this past Saturday morning.  Such is life.  So not to be thwarted, I started looking around for the special lounge that they were promoting but trying to find the lounge in such a huge airport is a little like trying to make your way through Hogwart's.  So I eventually gave up, and wandered some bookstores before getting a rather delicious fish and chip meal from one of the restaurants.

Does no one outside of specialty shops actually sell comic books anymore?  I found myself really craving a good one to read but none of the magazine shops had any.  Lame.

After eating I made my way to my gate, and killed some time people watching.  As I observed the folks lining up for my flight, I texted Kaylee and Mindy:

There's about a dozen 20-something guys getting on my flight to Puerto Plata.  This is going to be a good vacation.

The film playing on the flight was Eat Pray Love, which was ironic in a way, although in retrospect, mine would be more like "Eat, Drink, Lust".  Not a whole lot of prayer involved.  Except maybe negotiating the Dominican traffic on our day trips, but that's another story for another day.

"The airport is dark and the air is fragrant.  Although the night is cool there is a humidity that sneaks under my jeans within minutes, rendering them heavy and oppressive.  I am still wearing my winter boots." - Vacation Journal 01-28-11

 I felt awkward on the bus to the resort from the airport.  At this time, I was there by myself as due to previous engagements I had left a day earlier so I could depart a day earlier.  By the time I got to the hotel and settled into my room I only wanted to have a bath and go to bed.  Vacation could start the next morning.  This meant I missed out on karaoke, which was unfortunate, but at that point I had not quite reached the comfort level to venture out by myself. I would wait until daylight.

**************************************************

WWWednesday - or not.

So you may (because I like to pretend more people care what I write than probably do) have noticed a dearth of WWWednesday posts.  This is because I haven't actually been to weigh in since they changed the program and I'm really struggling with whether I want to go back or not.  I'm afraid of backsliding but I really have a bad taste in my mouth as far as the rampant corporatism goes.  Sigh.

I made banana bread tonight but I think I may have under cooked it.  It's a bit mushy.  I made a pretty cool comic-themed headband which will not be going on the Etsy store - no, this one will be for my own personal use.

jealous?  *nods knowingly* You're jealous.

Taking a cue from Saskatchewan's sexiest blogger, Tyler, I've had this song stuck in my head all day:



Apparently this is the song the Scott Pilgrim books and subsequently the film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World film was named after. I can't tell if she's saying "I've liked you for a thousand years" or "I've liked you for a dozen years".

A quick Google search tells me it's thousand. This is comforting. I hate to think I've been singing it wrong. all. day. long.

Yesterday's post was pretty heavy...

...and right now I'm tossing around thoughts for a post on mainstream porn and feminism in response to Kissie Catastrophe's post at Ethecofem - basically expanding on some thoughts I posted in the comments section.

So to break up the uber-serious monotony, here's a few random awesome things I've found kicking around the internet.  Some are new, some are things I've known of for some time.

1. Brandon Bird.  I love this guy's artwork.  It's what I wish mine could be, a twisted parfait of surrealism and pop culture.  Since I don't personally celebrate the soul-sucking mindfuck that is Valentines day, part of me really wants to buy the complete set of Law and Order SVU Valentines Cards (sorry, you're going to need to scroll a bit) and have my kids distribute them amongst the other little hooligans in their class.  I'm pretty sure that might warrant a call from their teacher though.
   
2. This Post from Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka.  I was in tears reading it, especially when I am reminded of how my now-10-year-old nephew, upon entering Junior Kindergarten and discovering the world of literacy, decided to label everything in his room.  In black Sharpie.  His bed.  His Sheets.  His pillow. Everything.  It also reminded me of how up until recently everything I owned seemed to be covered in a layer of stickers, courtesy of my little one (who also seems to have a tearing/ripping/otherwise destroying paper goods fetish.)
   
3. Nirvana-Themed Ballet Flats.  I rarely drool over shoes (okay I sometimes do..  but I rarely trying to mentally justify 80+ bucks for shoes) but these are too freaking cute for words.  This woman's store also has some wicked cool Wonder Woman wedges. Sweet Jesus.
   
4. This friggin van that was in the parking lot at work today:
   
   
   Is that not one freaking sweet flame job?  Do you think they paid for that?  Or do you think the guy got a stencil and did it himself (or herself, let's be fair).
   

In other news, the mirror I was given to recondition is coming along nicely, but I have to lament the lack of a decent craft and/or art supply store in the vicinity.   Michael's is a good 35 minutes away, and that pretty much leaves the Quest Art Gallery, which has limited selection, or Wal-Mart, which is.. well.. you all know my opinion on Wal-Mart.  Plus there's still a lot of stuff they don't have either.  So yeah, travelling for art supplies is crap.  But my mirror is going to look awesome.  Will post pics when done.  I wish I had thought to get a picture before i started this project.

The post-modern Everyman

After a conversation with a co-worker, I've reached the conclusion that the greatest example of the modern-day Everyman is this:

Arthur.  The Tick's timid yet level headed sidekick. He lives a rather mundane existence.  Some unknown part of him longs to break out,  for excitement, for intrigue.

He wants to be a hero.

Arthur.  A shining example of the post-modern everyman.

He is the voice of reason.  The Ego to the Tick's Mighty Blue Id (the pleasure principle being the joy The Tick derives from the unending fight for Good - Honk if you love Justice!)

Having set his goal and made his decisions, he faces battle, albeit reluctantly, screaming "Not in the face! Not in the face!"  He is torn between his safe, non-descript existence and his yearning for adventure.  Although he may appear a coward, Arthur is a realist.  He looks fear in the face and although he may cower, he still flies forth.

He embodies the crisis of masculinity.  He's brains over brawn.  In the Tick Vs. Arthur, he has difficulty negotiating his masculinity when it is given a new dimension.  He feels powerless, but his empathy with the little guy keeps him from embracing his darker tendencies.

I don't know where I was going with this, honestly. 

An incredibly belated grievance against the X-men movie franchiase...

Dear Producers of the X-men movie franchaise (after Bryan Singer, I really got nothin'),

I only have three words for you.

Rogue and Gambit.

Hello?

The bloody 'Ross and Rachel' of the Marvel universe and somehow they manage to go FOUR movies without ever managing to encounter each other? In what plane of existence does this even make sense?

I was bothered by the error in chronology when you made Bobby Drake a teenager like Rogue (whom I refuse to refer to as 'Marie' - everyone knows you're not supposed to know Rogue's name - sheesh), when he really should have been in the same age bracket as Jean, Scott and even the Beast. No, I left that one alone.

But it occurs to me with the latest film, Wolverine Origins, that myself and other fans of "Robit" (yes I am stealing the soap opera couple-name-contraction thing, because comics in so many ways are like soap operas - constant partner swapping, ambiguous deaths, far-fetched over-the-top storylines) are going to to be thwarted from ever getting to witness the wretched, frustrating, so full of sexual tension you can cut it with Psylocke's psychic knife (yeah, you see what I did there?) cat and mouse game that is Gambit and Rogues relationship in all it's live-action glory, and it's all because of this fundamentally flawed chronology you have created.

Let's recap:

X-men: Rogue is introduced as roughly 16, maybe 17 years old. She's place under the tutelage of the 'original' x-men, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm etc. Since they're teachers we can safely assume they're roughly 25-30 years of age (although Famke Janssen looks way older). Inexplicably, Bobby Drake aka Iceman is also a strapping young 16/17 year old.

We pretty much continue on under the same assumptions for the next two movies, so let's flash forward:

Wolverine: Origins; Here we are introduced to a rather smokin' hot Gambit, which is no less than would be expected, since as many would agree, Gambit's probably one of the MOST drool-inducing cartoon/animated characters out there.
This Gambit looks anywhere from 25 to 30.. one could even presume him to be a very fit 35. Granted, he could be a very wordly 18. One can only hope, since in this film we also meet a pre-X-men Scott Summers, who looks to be verging on the tender age of 15-18.

So assuming I'm correct, this puts Gambit anywhere from 20 to 30 years Rogue's senior. Which definitely puts an 'ick' factor on the whole thing.

Please, producers... tell me I'm wrong. Otherwise, I say "What the hell??"

P.S. A random, but related pet peeve of mine is when a movie comes out and suddenly the comic characters looks like the actors who play them. Who says I want to look at Anna Paquin when I'm reading?

Superhero girl.

The girls are sick. Pinkeye and a cough. We watched 6 hours of Sailor moon today.

Yesterday, before they got sick, we managed to get down to the Ontario Science Centre for the Marvel Comics exhibit, and man, that was some good times. I totally forgot to bring any and all directions I had, both the directions to Sammi's workplace, as well as the directions to the Science centre from there. I managed to get to Sam's work pretty easily as I had memorized the directions before I left.

-- by the way, I might mention that I friggin hate the fact that MapQuest and Google Maps will always give you a route that puts you on the 407 whenever possible. The 407 is a toll road, so I avoid it like the plague. --

There were some pretty cool things to see at the exhibit, it was all science-y things that were associated with various marvel superheros, eg. a Daredevil based display about the senses, with a little cave that you had to try to navigate through by clicking your tongue and gauging your location by sound; a magnet display (GUess who); a room where you yelled into a void to test your decibel level (Banshee); Using Lightening measure distance (Storm)... you get the picture.

The girls ran around and we're generally pretty good. Sammi and I took turns taking racy pictures with the giant wall cut outs - Will post some later, we have yet to exchange our pics with each other... half of them are on her camera, half on mine, and the ones I want to post are on her camera. Go fig.

Took a detour to the gift shop where I bought the most wonderful mug ever. Okay, so it's nothing compared to Ninja Chris' Spider-Man Cocoa mug, but it's still pretty darn neat. It may even beat out my Dubble Bubble mug for most favored coffee mug.


This is my secret identity. You can tell by the glasses

I also got the girls a magnet play set and some tattoos and stickers. Reagan is obsessed with fake tattoos. For those of you who know The Boy, are we surprised by this?

Oh, I forgot to mention, there was a hot security guard following us around, we took our picture with him (On sammi's camera again... grrr.) At one point he walked by and tried getting the kids attention by singing the Dora theme. Twas quite humorous.

McDonalds for dinner (at like 9pm no less) and I like I said, considering how late they ate, the girls were really well-behaved.

Got ridiculously lost trying to get back to Sammi's house, or just out of Toronto for that matter. Shouldn't have been that hard, just a matter of getting on one of the major North/South roads, but when we got to them, we couldn't remember if we HAD been going East or West, so without that, it's difficult to decide in the dark in the city if you are going North or South, especially when you know nothing of landmarks, like I do.

Fortunately we are neither of us the type to get freaked out by being lost, we just drove around and laughed at how lost we were. On the bright side, I found a gas station sell for .78 per L. Not too shabby.

Okay I lied, I am going to post some pictures, but I will update this when I have the other pics as well.

Or... maybe not. I hate you Photobucket.

Shoulds and Shouldn'ts

I SHOULDN'T:

-Attempt to cut my childrens hair. Ever. Again. Oh, they're fine, but it's so short. Especially Tierneys. She's got this cute little flippy chin-length bob now. NOT, however, what I was going for. I'm just worried that I cut all the curl out of her hair. I hope it come back. Only pro hair-cuts from now on. I will stick strictly to the trimming of bangs.

- Call someone up and beg them to bring me cigarettes, no matter how much I want to. This is day 4.

- Do anymore Ebaying for a while. Just because. Got three items on their way, currently. But four more on my watch list.

I SHOULD:

- Revive my love of comic collecting. Yes, a little know secret of mine. I'm a reformed comic book geek. Okay, maybe not reformed. A 'lasped' comic lover. 'Reformed' implies that I had more than a passive role in falling out of said habit. No, I used to have a modest collection of about 2-3 dozen marvel titles, and it was a sad day that I sold them for grocery money. Just couldn't afford the habit for a long time after. And I guess I was a little scarred.

I got discussing comics on the forums with a friend, and it got me thinking 'why not?' I don't have a lot of vices -- especially if the not smoking thing works out -- I don't drink a lot, and I don't do drugs (often) so I'm not spending money on that. Other women buy magazines, I don't buy Cosmo, or The Star or Vogue or stuff like that... Besides, comics are like half the price, and have better stories. Hell, in the mental sense, I don't even watch soaps (or much TV at all) anymore, so this can fill in my desire for serial drama.

Incidentally, one of the aforementioned Ebay purchases was a lot of 38 X-men titles. For five bucks, USD. Shipping was a bitch, but all told, works out to about 75 cents an issue. Can't complain about that. I splurged for the airmail option so it will take about a week, instead of 4-6 weeks. I'll be ensconced in the Marvel Universe in no time.

- Call Lakehead university soon to see if they will be offering fourth year sociology courses in the fall, or even in the summer. Seriously considering the whole getting the Masters thing again. Oh it sucks to be torn between doing what I love (which right now is being in school and learning) and doing what will eventually get me out of the assloads of debt I am in.

- Call simcoe health unit for info on becoming a sexual health counsellor. I really think this is something that should be installed in every high school in North America. Like a mini health unit/counsellor, that can answer questions that one might not be comfortable asking in a health class setting... to brigde the gaps left by the sex ed curriculum. I got kind of a wake up call as far as the addictions counselling goes from my friend deb... Especially a point she made about not having any experience dealing with hard-core addiction, whether it be my own or someone elses. It made me kind of reconsider doing the addictions program

My mom keeps telling me that if I want to go for a professorship, I should just fucking do it... go all the way with it, Student debt be damned. Which sounds good for me, but I also would like my kids to know what it's like to live in a house with a yard before they are old enough to move into their own.

I'm already so far in debt. I'm worried that a general BA in sociology isn't gonna do shit as far as getting me a job... the longer i am in school, the longer I can put off paying that debt off, but at the same time, the larger the debt is going to get....

Gah.

Anyhoo... I'm not going to worry about it tonight. I have better things to do... which is a whole lot of nothing. Nothing is great :-)

Up to the J's now.