Wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care!

Fukin funee. Have you ever seen the sad ass reality show called “Cheaters”? A film crew spies on a partner suspected of cheating and arranges to film a meltdown bust in with all the parties involved. It’s pretty stupid, and thus famous. Cheaters is filmed here in Dallas.

Anyways, during this remodel that sees no end, we are looking for a short-term rental for Christine. So I went to look at this house for rent in my hood. Biek trash who answered the door looked *exactly* like me, ponytail, amused sneer and all. I said, “‘S’cuse what I am wearing, doood. I am remodeling my kitchen.” He said, “Uhmmm. Actually we are wearing the exact same thing. Come on in.” LOL I could tell when he opened the door that his bachelor pad was way too man-stinky for my baby. However. *Mofo sho had it going on*. Turns out he is the fucking producer of Cheaters! Hysterical. The whole show is fake, and he said he wouldn’t do it if the drama was real. There were all these fine babes hanging out and waiting to do a shoot. LOL His pad was like a fucking porn set. He was leaning back smug in his grimey office chair and I could tell he also thought his whole lowdown was a gotdam hoot. Getting paid. Hey-yullll.

Yeah. Suzi and lil’ Heaven are leaving me too! I will be all alone in the Shack (not the Love Shack no mo, not with Christine away). Just me and my hot plate. And little Charlotte who likes to play with chunks of plaster. I get damn near zoological when my wife is away, two steps away from howling at the moon. Last night I had mac n’ cheese and cornbread. It was gotdam good too. With the kitchen gone, I am way off my healthy wagon.

My handyman has done work at almost every house on the block, and the Desperate Housewives adore his tight little ass and peacock ways. Twice the gaggle of geese have gathered in front of my house just to twitter on about what an upstanding young man Angel is. Ohhhh, here he comes down the sidewalk carrying something heavy on his shoulder, jeans just so! Pfft. Angel is down with the ladies, my wife included. Ya see I been taking notes on how he do. Fucker.

Anyways. The kitchen and sunroom are coming along. Finally re-wired. No more cloth and tubes from the 20’s! Foundation repaired. Today is insulation and drywall day. I decided I might as well bust out the entire kitchen floor with a sledgehammer.It is just too heavy — four inches thick with cement from folks leveling all the floor for 80 years. The history of tile and linoluem in layers. I smell like my dad.

Back to rubble!

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A fat, happy caterpillar resembles Jabba the Hutt. A mantis looks like a Giger-esque robot, and he is only pretending to pray, like you used to do in Bible camp.So look a critter in the eye before you stomp it, eh!

http://pishmo.com/macro/
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Leapfrog sculpture.

Hey now.

http://www.ceeskrijnen.com/gallery/gallery_11.html

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This dood is the diggety.

http://www.koudis.com/

_______________

And this one is for my buddy Ashman.

http://www.tankchair.com/

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So I am in Cape May on the coast of New Jersey at this elegant old, old, OLD hotel with wonky crooked-ass floors. Cape May is one of those tiny, charming eastern seaboard enclaves. (I love saying “Eastern seaboard” and I hadn’t had an oppurtunity to say “enclave” in a long while.)

Why am I here? Because I am stalking the Diva Etta James. We saw her last night at the House of Blues in Atlantic City. Christine’s seat was simply unacceptable, so in the middle of the show she somehow wrangled us the best box seats in the whole joint. AH! Etta! Etta was humping her chair (which surprised me! lol) and purring and posing. Etta James. ETTA JAMES! (Etta James just lost something like 7 or 8 thousand pounds. Seems like me n’ Chris are two of the few fat peoples on the planet who haven’t had gastric bypass.) Anywayz… It was magically deliscious. And Susan Tedeschi opened!!!!! Susan who? Ah. Find out who…. if ya don’t know. I was a huge fan before the show, but now I just might stalk ol’ Susan too. That girl can hollar the blues and bend a guitar plumb in half! Psst! Shh! Pfft! Shoooo. We are also planning to see Miss Aretha before we head back to Big D. Diva Week on the Eastern seaboard. I’m down.

The Miz is stirring. Yesterday I made Chris stomp around dirt roads at a cheesy pioneer village, and I accidently told her she had to wear this gingham bonnet before she could get in. hee hee She was not impressed with the whole Laura Ingalls scene, so today is Chris day. Brat-tay said she wanted to hang on the beach a bit, walk around and look at the little shops n whutnot, and then catch the sunset by the lighthouse — which is supposed to be pretty amazing. My plan is to love on her. Check!

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First thing. I got up really early to run errands this morning, and found some punk had shattered my driver’s side window. I was kinda chuckling over the irony because my car alarm had gone off again last night after a RILLY loud false alarm the night before. I knew it would cost me a coupla hundred to fix, but the fact that some people just fucking suck ass didn’t damper my mood.

Wherever I go, white trash follows me within my skin. I am not ashamed of it because it is who I am and people of all classes recognize that. Sometimes it ain’t a thang. Really, usually I exchange banter with other bloo-colla strangers out in the world. Fuck assumptions that blind us all.

But anyways, I hate to return stuff because I am accustomed to occasionally being scrutinized by suspiscious store managers. When I am treated like I stole something, I just bear it. Today I had to go to three different stores to do returns and kinda felt like I was begging to prove my decency at two of them — managers called, double-checking, looking me up and down. Meanwhile, my truck is parked outside all open, and I am hoping no one tries to fucking do another heist on me. The day was starting to weigh on me, but I was still bebopping.

Another errand — donating some stuff at the women’s shelter. When I was whipping my truck around, a man screamed and I realized his car was parked at an angle behind me in the parking lot. SHIT! So I jump out, totally apologize— relieved to see the “almost” accident didn’t even so much as disturb the dust on his car — not a dent, dimple, or scratch. I didn’t feel any impact and don’t know if I actually made contact with his car. He was a hootie older guy wearing Raybans, pleated shorts, and $400 BOAT SHOES. I smile, shake his hand and say, “Whew! That was close. I am glad you hollered before any damage was done!” Uhm. He wants to make a report with the police and contact my insurance if I have any, “just in case” there is any “internal damage” later that isn’t visually apparent. So I bend over and clean the dirt from his fender with my white tshirt. “Fella, I think I must have simply backed into your tire. Really. You can see there is no damage at all here, right?” He ignored me and dialed the police.

Texas is a no-fault state and it makes your insurance go up to report a fender bender. Most people just exchange info and take care of it between them. In this case, no fender was bent! No lie. REALLY. No damage at all.

I said as gently as I could, “I am really sorry I wasn’t paying closer attention, but surely you can see there is no damage? I don’t understand why we can’t have the simple kindness between us to be thankful that no damage was done.” But no. Lowlifes will sully up his planet if he does not exercise his rights. My own faith in humanity was truly waning now.

Minutes later… the fucking SWAT team has been called and I am practically handcuffed. Nothing makes me feel like a criminal more than suspicious store managers and affluent old white guys with stupidly expensive shoes — *except* for Johnny Law. When I was younger, I drove a hobo truck that always aroused attention from the police. I never got tickets for moving violations (hell, mah ride wasn’t capable of speeding!) but I would get a pile of tickets because I could not afford insurance or tags, nor the tickets that resulted from being so poor. So I was thrown in jail several times for the resulting warrants that I could not pay back in my college days. I have met cops that I like as people, but my experience with the longer arm of the law has NOT been kind.

And now I am standing in dirty jeans in the sun and white trash is steaming off me, as it always is. My truck window is busted out like I just stole it, and my truck bed is full of boxed household items and clothing to donate to the women’s shelter. Earlier these things felt like a gift of some sort of hope, and now …. tell-tale refuse. My new damned insurance card was on my desk on home … so again I cannot offer any proof of the financial responsibility that is required to operate a motor vehicle in this state. And this cop is tightlipped, not even looking at me, calling in to see if I have any warrants, getting statements from witnesses. Eh, it was so ridiculous, and the cop was just so fucking rude. The old guy started to feel like an asshole somewhere in the middle of my interrogation, so he starts jerking on his pleated shorts and explaining to me that he simply has to be careful and he just wants to be certain there are no problems later… surely I understand… blah blah. But I am done assuaging people today. The cop says, “You are clean”, as if he is surprised or maybe disappointed, and then gives me a look that says I best stay that way.

Back to my to-do list when I got home. I called the police station to file a crime report… because I am… afterall… the one who actually did get robbed today. Pfft. And while the officer is taking my info over the phone to file the report about my bashed in window, my fucking cell phone ran out of juice.

:(

Uhg.

/rant

Fucked up day.

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Did you know

• White tigers are usually inbred (daughter to father etc)
• They often have facial deformities and other problems
• 80% of the cubs die from birth defects

I din’t know that, either, but according to this big cat rescue, breeding white tigers is not so good.

http://www.bigcatrescue.org/white_tigers.htm

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I got a cool new alarm on my truck awhile back. BUT! I have misplaced the keys with the clicky security alarm thingy. I do have several sets of spare keys mocking me. BUT! None of these unmagical keys can open the doors to my armored tank because I have misplaced the keys with the clicky security alarm thingy.

Sooo…

Way too many hours before dawn this morning, the alarm went off with an over-the-top-drama-queen-clutching-her-pearls sonic detonation. For no good reason, my old Ford squeeled like 7 ambulances, a fire truck, and a Michael Jackson video (right at the part when he chokes little mikey and the twins). BUT! I can’t turn off the alarm! Because I have misplaced the keys with the clicky security alarm thingy. To be a responsible citizen, however, I stood right next to my screaming truck in the dark… waving a cheerful good morning to riled neighbors as my ears calmly bled. (Nothing to see here, folks.)

On a spiritual note: This too shall pass.

Why? Because at some point — the truck battery will surely go dead. BUT! I will not be able to jumpstart the gotdamn thang. Why? Because… well, you know why.

Soooo….

Since the alarm woke up only a portion of me in the wee hours, I would really like to drive my truck down the street to get some hifalutin coffee to wake up my 42 year old fucking eyeballs. BUT! I cannot actually touch my own truck with my own bare hands, you see.

Why ? ? ?

***BECAUSE***

I
HAVE
MISPLACED
THE
KEYS WITH THE CLICKY SECURITY ALARM THINGY!!!

_________

:::: edited ::::

Ooops. Here are my keys! Found em. On my desk. Under some rilly important stuph.

Heh.

:D

Satire & Silliness, Everyday Élan Vital | No Comments »

Ohhhh… the electrical company who sent a moron yesterday called this morning to argue about funds owed. First of all, the whiney kid didn’t want to go in my attic because he said it was “hot”. (!?!??!?) I guess he wanted to be a dentist instead of an electrician? Anyways, those fools had me out running errands (TWICE) for tools they didn’t have, and then when I got back it was explained to me they would need to come back another day to actually do the work. He wanted me to settle a bill for dropping *two wires connected to nothing* from my attic? Git your damned ladder and git! I was cool about it today, until his ridiculous boss called and got me going. He threatened to put a lien on my house. I says, “Yeah? Well, you can lean on my dick, motherfucker! And don’t be calling here again!” I was spittin’ PISS. But as soon as my face was no longer red, I had to chuckle at my own damned self. Hee hee.

You wouldn’t believe some of the rehabilitation-ish whack jobs who take out ads after stealing someone’s hammer or investing in a two dolla paintbrush. Those are the ones I always call, too! Really. I had to hold one butt crack flashin’ crook’s toolbox hostage until he gave me my money back.

Arrrg… anyway… Chris and Suzi are holding out against the laundry mat. Wiith all the construction and banging, the electicity to the washer and dryer has been knocked out. Wires crossed. Fingers crossed. Eyes crossed! Another man in a toolbelt should be strolling up my drive here in a minute. With these jack-legged tool belt swaggering money munchers… Mr Potatohead best be putting on the angry eyes.

*** edited to add ***

That new electrician just left. For some reason he estimated that it would take him most of the day to see what is wrong with the connection to the washer and dryer and to put in five potlights in a kitchen with all of the studs and wires already accessible. His fee was $5000 for the days work, or $650 or so an hour. Oh. And $60 fee just to come out and tell me this bullshit. A free “10 point inspection” scare ya sales pitch was included with that estimate. Uh. Decline.

NEXT.

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The remodel madness continues. Foundation fellows hit bedrock with a drill as round as I am. Really. It was pretty cool. We will now be filling up the third rented dumpster. Today I kicked two idiot so-called electricians out of my home. We are in a holding pattern for drywall until the wiring is done. More idiots with toolboxes coming tomorrow. Good lawd.

Those who have visited know my kitchen is really kinda teeny. The few splurges (unless it changes again) are super wide bifold french doors to let more light in from the sunroom/office, a new pantry door (etched glass with the word “Pantry” on it — fucking cute as fuck!!!) and built-in banquette seating. I can out-foo-foo true foo real damn fast, so I tried to stay cottage simple. The cabinets are designed to look furniture-like… tall with glass doors and large cove moldings … staggering heights and alternating finishes of a cherry garnet glaze and creamy vanilla. The counter top will be not-too-shiny black silestone. Simple gray streaked white marble for the backsplash. Slate for the floors has been stacked behind my garage for I dunno how long. I haven’t actually found the curtain fabric above yet, but I know it exists somewhere. The wall color as well as solid color for the banquette upholstery will be determined by the fabric. Always liked black and tan. The one thing I am still scratching my head over is storage for spices. I have like 7 or 8 billion jars. Hmmm…

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http://www.johnsadowski.com/big_spanish_castle.html#

Awesome illusion!

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Worth always has the kewlest shiat

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=10621&display=photoshop

__________

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/cities/game.cfm

Really well done. See if you can find all of cities and see how much of the trivia you get.

__________

http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eje3yf.jpg

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
DON’T CLICK HERE! (That means you, Daphne.)

__________

And care bear nice nice rainbow happy to make up for that last photoshopped horror

BE HAPPY!!!!!

http://mfrost.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/flop.jpg

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YaY! A hug for the Love Shack, on paper even.

WHEREAS, the Dallas landmark commission and the city council finds that the Property is an area of historical, cultural, and architectural importance and significance to the citizens of the City of Dallas.

WHEREAS, the city council finds that it is in the public interest to establish this Property as a LANDMARK HISTORIC DISTRICT.

That means that developers can’t raze grandma’s house to puke forth a towering McMansion in my neighborhood, and the slum lords will get huge tax abatements to polish these old houses in disrepair. And best of all — strict laws against ugly!

I think about the architects and designers who worked to create a tiny enclave of “home sweet home” so long ago. I am so happy their vision is preserved. Never thought my outlaw ass could be civic-minded, but I even submitted a Craftsmanesque design for the historic street sign topper for my ‘hood!

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