I was going to put the Skully Puppet in my Etsy store, but the Owlvark wanted it, so I gave it to him instead. I had intended there to be a series of them, so I suppose I better get on it. I'm not looking forward to three days of beading with fives tubes of superglue, but there you go. At least I have nail polish remover to deglue my fingers.

DEVOtional '09 Pics

The disguised members of Fartbarf project their catchy electronic hooks at us.



The Pittsburghian members of The Weird Paul Rock Band play a rocking set from Devo's Hardcore CD's while an entrancing Z-Grade flick plays behind them.



The Spudboys bring down the house- I swear they get better every year. I danced so much I'm still feeling it today.



Use your Freedom of Choice!

Hardcore DEVOtional 2009, vol. 1

Short form: it was awesome. I'll put up some pics later when I'm less tired and half-deaf.

"For this was the other thing that Elric knew; that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance. This knowledge gave Elric his strength- his profound anger at injustice and inequality- his belief, now that he had visited Tanelorn, that it was possible to live in harmony with mortals of all persuasions and remain vital and engaged with the world. These things he would neither sell nor offer for sale, and, in refusing to give himself up wholly to Chaos, it meant he bore his weight of crimes upon his own conscience and must live, night and day, with the knowledge of what and whom he had killed and ruined. This, he guessed, was a weight that Gaynor had been unable to bear. For his part, he would rather bear the weight of his own guilt than the weight Gaynor had chosen."

- "The Revenge of the Rose, " Michael Moorcock

A rare photo of Duamuteffe in her natural habitat.

Things I Am Reading:

The Yellow Sign and Other Stories - Robert Chambers
Opening The Dragon Gate, The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard - Chen Kaiguo and Zheng Shunchao, trans. by Thomas Cleary
The Great Black Jockeys - Edward Hotaling
Ship Of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea - Gary Kinder
Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris
The Great Railway Bazaar, By Train Through Asia - Paul Theoroux
Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats - Jerry Belanger
After Big Game in Central Africa - Edouard Foa
Man-Eaters of Kumaon - Jim Corbett

Things I Have Recently Finished:

The Weird of the White Wolf (Elric of Melnibone book 3) - Michael Moorcock
The Vanishing Tower (Elric of Melnibone book 4) - Michael Moorcock
The Bane of the Black Sword (Elric of Melnibone book 5) - Michael Moorcock
Endurance - F.A. Worsley
Dragon - Stephen Brust
The Forge and the Crucible, Origins and Structures of Alchemy - Mircea Eliade
Sam and Max, Surfing the Highway - Steve Purcell

I <3 Cedar Point. The weather was perfect and we opened it up and closed it down. It doesn't get any better than that.

Or does it? The Owlvark came through his coaster testing with flying colors, and is now ready to take on the big rides. The next trip is going to be more awesome, if that is at all possible.

New "Feature" - Things I Am Reading

Things I Am Reading This Week:

The Weird of the White Wolf (Elric of Melnibone book 3) - Michael Moorcock
Opening The Dragon Gate, The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard - Chen Kaiguo and Zheng Shunchao, trans. by Thomas Cleary
Endurance - F.A. Worsley
The Great Black Jockeys - Edward Hotaling
Ship Of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea - Gary Kinder
Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris
The Great Railway Bazaar, By Train Through Asia - Paul Theoroux
The Forge and the Crucible, Origins and Structures of Alchemy - Mircea Eliade

Things I Have Recently Finished:

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (the chronicles of Conan vol.1) - Robert E. Howard
The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard - Robert E. Howard
Schott's Food And Drink Miscellany - Ben Schott
In the Heart of the Sea, The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex - Nathaniel Philbrick
John Paul Jones, Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy - Evan Thomas
Jungle Tales of Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Reason 1,002,721 why my life rules

Duamuteffe: "That's the place they let you pet the stingrays, and they bump up against your hands like cats. Flat wet sandpaper cats."
Owlvark: [Bob Fossil] "The sandpaper cats? The little wet flat sandpaper cats?
Owlvark: [Howard Moon] "...The stingrays?"
Owlvark: [Bob Fossil] "Yeah!" #mimes tape recorder# "Say that again?"
Owlvark: [Howard Moon] "Stingrays."

Best. Anniversary. Ever!

Spent at the beach, baby! It was 93 degrees outside, and gods only know how much hotter in the city (and our apartment...) and since we had an amiable and adventurous houseguest (not that we have any other kinds- we're very particular :) we decided to make a day of it on the peninsula. We aimed for the ten am swim opening times, ate breakfast, packed up our suits and towels, sunscreen, bug spray, and a picnic lunch, and headed to Presque Isle, deciding to get as much beach time in as possible before the severe thunderstorms that were forecast arrived in the afternoon. I guess the thunderstorms arrived for someone, but it wasn't us; we stayed until nearly four in the afternoon, and the weather was perfect the entire time. It was hot and bright with a strong breeze, and some heavy weather somewhere out of sight was giving the lake big rolling waves, which made it all very much like the seaside, except the water was cool, not freezing, and you could stay in as long as you wanted, or at least, until you got tired from swimming over the waves.
The weather started to close in around four, so we regretfully packed up and headed back home. Two showers later and I'd almost gotten all the sand out of my hair. :)
We then all went out to dinner at Red Lobster, and had some extremely tasty salmon- we approve of their new wood grill in a big way- and I had a few snow crab legs, as we also approve of their "pick two off this list for a very reasonable price" thing. We had intended to hit the ice cream place on our way back, but we were all too stuffed, so we settled for heading back to the apartment and watching the entirety of the third season of the Mighty Boosh.

The next day, as our houseguest had to return to home and work, we decided to have a continuation of our anniversary, at least as far as dinner was concerned, and went for candles, wine, cards, etc. It was really nice. We'd picked up a bottle of the same champagne we'd taken with us on our honeymoon- something called "Bubbling Catawba, " from one of the many local wineries- and it was very nice indeed. I used a bit to make some mussels in cream sauce, the recipe for which follows. Like all my recipes, it doesn't have much in the way of measurements, so your milage may vary.

Mussels in Technically a Cream Sauce:

You will need: two pounds of mussels, cleaned and de-bearded, an onion, preferably sweet, some butter, some olive oil, some garlic, some ginger, preferably fresh, some wine, a little cayenne pepper, milk, and flour. Also some pasta.

Heat olive oil and butter in the bottom of a large pan. Cut up onion and garlic, brown this in the pan. Grate in ginger. Add some wine (enough to provide steam to cook the mussels, not enough to drown them) bring to boiling, then dump in mussels and cover pan. Steam mussels for six to eight minutes. While they're steaming, mix flour into a cup of cold milk- say one tablespoon for the cup of milk, and one for every cup of liquid in the pan you're using to steam. Mix a little cayenne into the milk as well, to taste. Ladle out mussels into another container, discarding any that didn't open or those with cracked and broken shells. Turn heat down a bit on the pan, and add in the milk, stirring/scraping/whisking as you do so. Everything should thicken into a sauce. Carefully drain the liquid from the bottom of the bowl of mussels into the pan, and stir that in, too. Serve the sauce over pasta- we like linguini, but hey, to each their own- and you have the choice of either putting the mussels in your pasta or just nomming them alongside. Have with some of the leftover wine. Crusty butter bread is nice, too.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Obligatory Boosh Clips- Charlie the Hubba Bubba Nightmare

Technomouse!

And *that's* why I don't like cricket!

Also, since it bears repeating- the Four Yorkshiremen, updated edition (Note: not the Boosh)

Okay, sleep time.

Jealous Of Your Cigarette

And all the things you do with it...Hawksley does it all in one shot- wonder how many takes it took?

"I'm a soldier, and that means
I'm both defendant and judge
I stand on both sides of the fire
Bending along the steep turns, overtaking death and life
I'm running to fight the shadow of the lies

No matter how many threads deceit weaves
The truth will show its face to the light

Save your tears for the day
When our pain is far behind
On your feet, come with me
We are soldiers, stand or die

Save your fears, take your place
Save them for the judgement day
Fast and free, follow me
Time to make the sacrifice
We rise or fall

I'm a soldier, born to stand
In this waking hell I am
Witnessing more than I can compute
Pray myself we don't forget
Lies, betrayed and the oppressed
Please give me the strength to be the truth

We face the fire together
If we don't, we'll lose all we have found

Save your tears for the day
When our pain is far behind
On your feet, come with me
We are soldiers, stand or die

Chase the dream to the edge of the abyss
This is the only way to save the world

Don't you cry,
Hide your tears
Because there will be a new day
Your fire will be heating
Thousands of hearts
Now, rise up
Hide your pain and fear far off
The right will prevail
Remember, everything is in your hands

Save your tears for the day
When our pain is far behind
On your feet, come with me
We are soldiers, stand or die..."

- Origa, "Rise"