Not A Dollarshort

Surrealism A Go Go.

Phineas's and Heather's An Exquisite Corpse is absolutely the kind of site that I wish I had created.

note: don't peek at this image if you're part of my Exquisite Corpse group!

I can't wait to see what grows from my first little piece of the surrealistic puzzle.

Join the fun!

Call me Clara Bow.

Late last night I had the most uncontrollable urge to make a silent movie. Don't ask. I have absolutely no clue what got this idea into my head. So, I went into the garage, looked for a box of old toiletries, and found my trusty old tube of black Halloween makeup. After all, there's really only one way to get that great look. After applying my makeup and doing my hair, it was all a piece of cake. Well, not really. I pretty much spent most of the night editing the webcam footage. Who knew that thirteen seconds of film would be such a beast? Luckily, the program I used -- QuickEditor -- had a film-grain filter. I couldn't really see myself being too enthusiastic about my silly silent movie if I had to age every individual frame. It's short and plotless, but so what? I had a great time making this little movie. View the movie (2 megs). Update: I just had to make another one of these little movies. This time, Ben was my own John Barrymore. Ben would like me to remind my dear readers that sleazy little mustache is NOT real and only a product of a inept make-up artist (me.) View Ben's movie (2.4 megs). Note: This version was saved at a pretty low quality in order to keep the file-size down.

That Crazy Dog.

Ben and I have temporary custody of Annie while my parents try to decide where they want to live and what they want to do with their lives.

Annie's really a great little dog -- she's particularly fond of Ben. She follows him all around the house with actual puppy-dog eyes.

If I'm lucky, I'll get an occasional dirty look from her.

Oh well, my dog likes my husband better. I can deal with that -- especially when I can witness a cute little scene like this (.mov, 1.8 megs).

And in case you're wondering, the theme from Benny Hill does indeed play on our house's sound system 24/7.

Screw you, number 18.

No more than five minutes into my little brother-in-law's soccer game today, I spotted the kid who would most likely be a nine year-old male version of me or my probable offspring.

Number fifty-one on the opposing team, this kid -- Allan -- basically just stood on the field nervously shaking and wringing his hands. And, the one time that the ball actually made it to his part of the field, he kicked it in the wrong direction.

He was a bit pathetic.

Of course, I instantly liked him.

Conversely, there was a boy on Sean's team who scored two goals and wouldn't shut up about them. Not only arrogant, he was a bit of a jerk. And, who do you think what the butt of his mean little nine-year-old schtick? Yeah, you guessed it -- my boy Allan.

Me: Boy, that kid is really pissing me off.

Ben: I know, he's sooo arrogant.

Me: You know what I should do?

Ben: What?

Me: I'm going to go up to him and say something that'll cut him down to size -- for life.

Ben: Is it good to have so much hostility toward a kid?

Me: Well, you can tell he's on the path to being a jerk -- think about all the kids I'll be saving from locker room humiliation and schoolyard bullying.

Ben: You're quite the good Samaritan.

Me: I know.

And no, I didn't say anything.

I'm sorry Allan.

stamps and such.

A visit to the Bath postal museum web site reminded me of a little pact Ben and I made.

When we visited England in 1999, we spent three wonderful days in Bath.

Although it was raining the day we arrived, we didn't let the weather ruin or control our trip. We climbed onto an empty Guide Friday tour bus and let Terry, the guide, tell us about his city. It was quite an intimate tour -- for a great deal of time, it was only the three of us. Quite entertaining, the tour seemed like a private welcome to the city.

Anyway, Terry told us about the May 2nd Penny Black stamp -- the first stamp ever posted. Of course, the Bath spin was that it was posted out of Bath by its postmaster, Thomas Musgrave.

Well, the stamp -- so much a part of Bath history -- was auctioned off a couple years ago for £55,000. The city of Bath, however, couldn't raise enough funds to bring the stamp back home.

When we heard this story, Ben and I thought it was a bit sad. After all, this was 1999 and back home everyone seemed to be making money. And £55,000 didn't seem like that much money. Especially for a town as popular and visited as Bath. We half-jokingly decided that if we were ever rich, we would buy that darn stamp for Bath.

Although our sentiments were genuine, I can't help but think that an American couple spending £55,000 on a stamp and then donating it to a city they visited only once would seem a little odd.

We just thought they should have their stamp back.

Wonderful, wonderful.

What originally began as a playful dare to ourselves (we're not really going to go to the Accordion Festival?), became a pleasurable way to spend a Saturday.

Our favorites were Tony Lovello, a traditional Italian-American accordionist, Kerry Christensen, the yodeling Idahoan and the Klezmer band, Jule and the Red Hot Chachkas.

And the crowd? Well, the crowd basically consisted of two age-groups:

1) The really old -- meaning a healthy dose of septuagenarians, who were cute and sweet by default.

2) The latter-end of middle-agers who, despite attempts to appear cute and young, were really quite sad.

This judgement was based on the countless middle-aged dancers who would spring up near the stage during a musician's set. Ignoring the fact that there was a separate tent for dancing with a dedicated accordion band, these impromptu dancers seemed to take too much pleasure in their own spontaneity and rhythm.

Or lack of rhythm, for that matter.

It usually takes a great deal of alcohol to enable the usual mild-manner boomer to get up in front of a large crowd and act foolishly. And, I believe the wine and beer were flowing.

Perhaps I'm giving these boomers too hard of a time -- perhaps they aren't pathetic, but rather a foreign species that I have never really seen save for television commercials for Hot August Nights. After all, this is probably the first "concert" that I have ever attended in which the average age was a strong 55. And, in a way, I've probably just become desensitized to the foolishness of my own generation.

Or maybe, I'm just overly-critical of people enjoying themselves. In private, I'm quite often overwhelmed by the power of music. In public, however, I show a bit of restraint and appear quite stoic with hardly a foot a-tapping.

It's like I'm dead to the world.

Well, not really.

Once, at my best friend's wedding, I joined a conga line.

I like to blame it on the drink. But even intoxicated, I realized that I'm not a conga line person. With no more than five steps in that line, and in an act to regain my dignity, I quickly stepped out.

I still cringe when I think of my lack of willpower.

Return of the drowsy turtle.

Chris from Do You Feel Loved? sent me a link to this great introduction-to-Serge-Gainsbourg article from the New York Times (registration required).

Apparently, Gainsbourg is gaining all sorts of popularity in non-francophone countries. But, of course, imitators be damned!

Beck and his ilk try to emulate Gainsbourg -- get bad haircuts, strike ridiculous lothario poses -- but they can't resist winking at the audience: "Don't worry, I get the joke." Gainsbourg never flinched; he was authentically cool, and he reveled in tackiness with gusto and confidence. Listening to his tuneful, obscene, witty records, we encounter an original: a musician with the nerve, and the chops, to make great art out of bad taste.

The timing of this article is right: another Serge biography is coming out in September.

Promises, promises.

What to expect from dollarshort.org in the upcoming weeks:

1. Audio entry: Who blocked out all my good childhood memories?

2. Sad Mena returns.

3. There's a redesign a-coming. And I promise, I'll keep this one up for a very long time.

4. Integration of our own homegrown content management system.

So bear with me -- it may get a little quiet around here.

In the meantime, if you've been around these parts for a while, let me know who you are.

No laughing matter.

I receive a good number of hits from people searching for "hives" and "hives and H Pylori." They arrive to this site because of this post.

It isn't the intense itching, welts or redness that really bothers me. It's the fact that some ailment can just pop up one day, continue for years and be considered undiagnosable or even normal.

What the heck is in my system causing all of this? And more importantly, how do I make it stop?

Joe Maller led me to this site about Tartrazine. It's the coloring commonly known as Yellow #5 and, according to the page, is responsible for a slew of problems.

The fact that some birth control pills contain the additive was promising -- afterall, these hives started a few months after I first began taking the Pill. But after checking my Ortho Tri-Cylcen pack, I learned that Yellow #5 is not added to the pills.

So, I'm back at square one. I'm frustrated and confused.

I'm not going to get all government-conspiracy on you, but I propose that hives might become the new lactose-intolerant. I had never even heard of lactose-intolerance until a couple years ago. And now, half my friends are suffering from the symptoms.

Our processed food is slowly killing us.

And if there wasn't already enough to worry about, the biotech firms are forcing their Frankenstein foods onto farmers.

Link via Rebecca's Pocket.

Do you suffer from mystery hives? What do you do about it?

Chew on this.

Current foreign candy cigarettes over at Cardhouse.

Sure, candy cigarettes don't exactly send the best message to kids. But you've got to love the packaging of this pseudo-vice.

This all, of course, conjures my own memories of Big League Chew. Before Bubble Tape, Big League chew was the it gum of choice.

But like most bubble gums, the Chew rarely lasted more than one sitting. The more I chewed, the more I needed to stuff into my face. It was a matter of minutes before I'd be chewing an entire pack.

Addictions start early.

Link via frantic.org.