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Once again it's time to review our talking points, goals, warnings, key initiatives, and do-its. It's more important than ever to keep a laser-like focus on our bullet points and remain at a nose-to-grindstone status. Below are some non-negotiable items from the 100,000 foot level:

Steroid and doping scandals in scrapbooking: zero tolerance.
Compulsory mark-to-market pricing of school lunches.
Can "green jobs" truly be color-blind?
The war on Secretaries' Day
Our national parks: boondoggle, or force majeure?
Punitive tariffs on boy bands
Flossing: another liberal lie?

If you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to contact me directly. My door is always open.

Current Mood: accomplished

I apologize for barely reading any of you lately. A new job and shoulder problems aren't conducive to plowing through LJ posts and RSS feeds. If you've announced something to the world via LJ that you assume I know, I don't!
Shoulder. Ow, still, I had to get forceful with the internal medicine guy about the fact that the pace of investigation is glacial and I hurt so damn much that I spend a fair amount of time writhing. He tightened up the appointment schedule and gave me some Vicodin, which is unpleasantly doping but does give me a couple of hours taking the edge off.
I think I might go to Bar Camp L.A. ( http://barcamp.org/BarcampLA-3 ) tomorrow. It looks pleasantly nerdy, and a least a couple of people I know are going. I hope the nerds can deal with 12th & Long Beach in the warehouse district!
I heard a My Chemical Romance song and liked it. Yow.
On more definite musical ground, I enjoy this band The Early Years tremendously. ( http://www.theearlyyears.org.uk/ ). They sound a bit like the Chameleons and earlier Joy Division, or even Television. But not imitators either, I think. Let me know what you think. obnoxicant in particular!
I am reading a history of the Algerian war. What a horrible mess.
I enjoy my new job.

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Music: baader meinhof - Cabaret Voltaire

Driving down Chapman in Orange today I saw a woman in a witch costume. By "witch costume" I mean the full Wicked Witch of the West outfit with conical black hat, flowing black garments, weird shoes. I could not figure out what this meant on the day after Thanksgiving in Southern California. As a bonus, the entire effect was ruined by the large neon pink duffel bag she was carrying.
The cranberry ginger cherry relish made by salome_st_john is Cranberry Crack.
culfinglin is a very cool person and I enjoyed the long convo over coffee today tremendously.
The "Holiday Season" has arrived in the traditional way here in Southern California. Today I was tailgated by my first SUV-with-grille-mounted-wreath of the season!
My cat has been staring at me a lot lately.
The new Pynchon has arrived. I am simultaneously eager to start it and afraid of its bulk. It's like having an entire ten pound cheesecake in the house.

Current Mood: awake

This is a series of random observations or questions. They're short because my ADD-like symptoms are bad and I can't comprehend big ideas right now. Which pisses me off to no end! But anyway:

Nick and I keep discussing that action-movie shot in which our heroes run or jump in slow motion away from a big fiery explosion. They almost always jump while running in the air and extend their arms, and are silhouetted against a wall of flame. Is there a name for this shot? There must be, because almost every action movie has one. We think it originated with the Lethal Weapon movies but we're not sure. Anyone know?

I was at the grocery store late last night. It being Friday night, there were a number of couples there picking up items after a date and before going home: beer, ice cream, snacks, wine. The couple behind me in line seemed like nice people and were alternately looking a little annoyed and then laughing about something. The guy kept leaving and coming back as we waited. The line was long. I caught her eye and said "What, can't he find the goldfish crackers?" Turns out he was trying to get condoms, which were in a locked case near the back of the store. There were only a couple of employees in the whole place so it was difficult. I looked at the line behind her, all couples with snacks and beer. "You'd think they'd know better..." she said and then started cracking up again. He returned and we all decided that instead of a lock, there should be a happy bell clang and circus music whenever anyone got a condom, or maybe a booming CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR SEX! announcement.

burntcurtis is a great date. We IHOP'd it last night and had a good long chat, after I introduced him to Andy A and they nerded out about circuit boards and other electronic hardware items and their manufacture. The IHOP people were using an unusually sexual advertising technique to sell French Toast. Is "leave happy" like "happy ending" but with breakfast food?

Does anyone know where one goes to shoot rifles around here? Yeah yeah I know, lol clocktower. I mean for real, for learning. I want to get a .22 and poke little holes in things at a distance.

The orange cat who guards my street 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, approached me this morning as I stood on my doorstep, pointed its paw at me, and said "Gnaaaaarp."

Current Mood: awake

The dunes are on the move.

In the market tonight a sixtyish man in one of those store-provided handicap carts was buzzing around the aisles, followed by a clerk who was helping him. (They're really nice there.) At one point he lurched suddenly around a corner at me and I saw that the entire front basket on the cart was full of the largest possible containers of skin lotion. "You want all of these, really?" asked the clerk as she dropped a couple more in. Looking and sounding exactly like Jack Nance in Twin Peaks, he half-yelled "Yeah! I use them to PUT MY ARTIFICIAL LEG ON." The bro dudes next to me, who were buying protein bars and vodka, looked stunned. I bet he has a fish in his percolator, too.

I think too much, I talk too much, I write too much. At least I don't smoke, drink, or eat too much, so it's more a problem for others than it is for me. Something I inherited from my father is the tendency to take over a conversation and deliver paragraphs, speeches, stories. Like him I have a compulsion, and like him I always feel later that I've overdone it. It's like a miniature bipolar cycle in which I have the most! important! thing! to say! and then later on I bottom out and think "What the hell was I babbling about, and why were they so patient?" Stupid brain, can't find a happy medium.

The new girl at Diedrich has a really forced-sounding Irish accent. I wonder what that's all about?

Tonight at the table there was a pause in the conversation, and berg74 suddenly turned to the two twenty-something Newport party guys sitting there and said "So. You ever been in a car with a nun?"
I recommend guruphiliac if you like weird stories about cults and their leaders. It syndicates http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/ .
A quicktime video of a classic Aston Martin DBR1 doing the hillclimb at Goodwood is here.
Here's how to lose five pounds in a hurry. First, take an amphetamine ADD drug, so that you have to remember to eat because you're rarely hungry. Then, have an unexplained middle ear paroxysm that causes you to hang out of your car window barfing like crazy for hours before you're taken to the hospital by emergency ambulance for rehydration and antinausea drugs. Finally, have your doctor prescribe you a diuretic for the ear problem and your high blood pressure, so that you pee out gallons of retained water the first day. Presto! Five pounds gone. Next week I'll demonstrate how to build muscle tone by getting stranded in the desert and killing mountain lions for food to survive.
Now you can get porno brand rims in up to 24" sizes for your big, stupid vehicle. No, I'm not kidding, sorry. (Links not necessarily safe for work, may trip nudie-alarm of web filters.)
Here is a short film advertising beer, which happens to be in the style of early Buñuel films.

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C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas Windows Genuine Advantage

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