And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

Records

Although I certainly don't have as many records as a lot of people I know, I have made it a point to collect really unusual stuff. Old friends will remember my extreme fondness for coloured vinyl and picture discs, and our shopping expiditions to Newbury Comics in Boston to score those rare finds. I have several 33-1/3 sized picture discs & coloured vinyl albums as well, but those are too big to scan.

Once in awhile, a small record store in Hyannis, called Wave Records, would carry some of the coloured vinyl, but for the most part, we had to go up to "the big city" to get them. By the way, these really do play, although they look weird spinning around on the turntable.

Here are a few of my most treasured picture disc 45's:

Here's one for Bryde: Toto's "Africa", b/w "Rosanna" (which has a picture of Rosanna Arquette leaning against a brick wall that has a Toto poster on it). This one was a total score: A green vinyl Turtles EP, called "Turtlesized", which contains on side A, "Happy Together" & "Outside Chance" and on side B, "Eve of Destruction" & "She'd rather be with me".

Men at Work's "It's a Mistake"....which my bff Michelle and I bastardized into "it's a moose steak", since we were in college in Maine at the time this tune came out.

This one I scanned especially for Liz, as a "blast from the past": Jane Aire & the Belvedere's "Call me every night". She was married to Pete Briquette from the Boomtown Rats, which was our fave rave band. Liz & I had a radio show together on our high school radio station, WSDH, and we played punk rock and new wave. The booth had windows that faced out into the corridor of lockers & was across from the library. It used to really freak kids out when they'd walk by and see this spinning face on the turntable, since none of them had ever seen picture discs before.

I just had to include Kajagoogoo's "Hang on Now". Oh what a crush I used to have on Limahl and Nick Beggs. What was I thinking?

Ya gotta love Captain Sensible, although "Jet Boy Jet Girl" was not exactly suitable for radio airplay. The flipside is "Wait for the Blackout" by the Damned.

One of my all time fave songs from the 80's, "Hymn" by Ultravox.

I have 2 A Flock of Seagulls picture disc 45's, and "I ran" is my fave of the 2, design-wise. The other is "Space Age Lovesong".

And another of my alltime fave 80's new wave/electronica bands, OMD, & the 45 of "Telegraph".

Thanks to Tess & Diane for the idea....

The Valentine Cat's play on words for their Friday post got the Elvis Costello song stuck in my head:

"She is watching the detectives.'ooh, he's so cute!'....."

Actually, I'm surprised none of us thought of this before.....

Ya gotta check this out

Dudes and Dudettes!

Mark posted this link on his blog (Knockin on the Golden Door), and it's just way too hilarious to pass up: http://my10kidfamily.blogspot.com/2007/04/everyone-appreciates-good-cock.html

The woman who wrote this has a fantastic sense of humour, and an amazing talent for, um, shaping ground beef.

You simply must check it out.

Gas prices are going up by the hour here in Washington. Last night when I got home, it was $3.25. When Brian went to Radio Shack at 7:00 pm, it was $3.27. When I left for work this morning, it is now $3.31. My monthly Chevron bill jumped from $268 to $331. Kinda puts a crimp in the ol' travel plans and makes me think twice about doing scads of day trips this year. As it is I'm going to have to save money for my trip to Canada, between the long haul between Bonney Lake and the ferries, and then gas up there being way more expensive than down here!

Mark - do you want to do a workshop on how to do a blog roll? I'm getting a lot of requests for the instructions!!!

Blog Roll Roll Call

Mega thanks to Mark, Claire & Fezzi who helped me sort out how to add links to my blog page; special thanks to Mark for kicking me in the ass to do it and posting my site on his page yesterday. "Sayin' thank you, for a real good time!"

When you get a chance, please visit the sites and web pages I have listed (the ones you don't already visit of course), so that we can all support each other. If you know of other great blogs I should be visiting, let me know too!

I added the website for Mandala Connections, the place where I've gotten my colouring books.

Also, check out "Dark Side Radio", Friday afternoons. It's a one hour radio blogcast which airs at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. This week's topic is Fred Phelps, that asshole who protests at funerals because "god hates fags". I heard he was protesting at some of the Virginia Tech funerals, and he's said that Hurricane Katrina (and other natural disasters) are "god's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuals". What a freak show. Methinks he doth protest too much.

Working Out

I did a stupid thing. Well, I did a smart thing, then I did a stupid thing. About a year ago, I joined a gym in Bonney Lake. This was the smart thing. I worked out religiously, 3-4 days a week, cardio and weights. I was eating fruit and veggies all summer long and thought I'd dropped a few pounds. Don't know for sure because scales are verboten in my home, so I only went by how my clothes felt. Well, in the fall, I decided I needed a few pairs of pants. I figured I had to have dropped a size. Nope, I had to buy pants 2 sizes larger. I did a blog post about it, called "an exercise in self loathing". I was really, really discouraged. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the gym out of sheer frustration. Then all hell broke loose with our weather and I spent the lion's share of the winter lifting candies and cookies rather than lifting weights. This was the stupid thing.

So the other day I decided I had to get back to the gym. No more excuses!! All the good that I did last summer, such that it was, was completely erased and I am starting from scratch. Which means painfully sore muscles as I get back into the swing of things.

Yesterday I went straight to the gym on my way home from work. Stopping at home is deadly because I'll never go back out, so I change at work before I leave. The cardio and weight machines are on the second floor, so I have to walk the gauntlet past the muscle-head guys doing the free weights downstairs. It's not very comfortable to make that walk, and I keep my eyes ahead, but fortunately they are too busy strutting and preening and looking at themselves in the mirrors to notice anyone else but themselves.

I chose my treadmill, trying to ignore the cruel irony of the Wendy's that happens to be right across from the gym (the smell of fries permeating the air as you walk from your car to the front door of the fitness center is a real test of willpower, let me tell ya). So I start walking on the treadmill, stealing glances around to see who all else is working out at the same time. I am, for the most part, pleased that many of the people in there are middle aged and pretty overweight. But here and there are those annoying spandex covered gym treats who are working out but clearly don't need to be, and setting the bar impossibly high for the rest of us.

I was wearing a pair of shorts that are pretty comfortable, but unfortunately, the faster I walk, the more I can feel a wedgie starting. For those of you in other countries who are not familiar with our American slang, a "wedgie" is when your underbritches start creeping up your ass crack. Have you ever tried to surreptitiously correct this situation? There's really nothing I can do, my back is to everyone else at the gym as the treadmills are right at the windows, and I didn't really want to give the entire place a show if I reach back and pulled them out, so, on I walked, faster and on an increasing elevation. Well, by now, I am walking so fast that my thighs are rubbing together with so much friction that I was afraid I was going to set my shorts on fire. It, also, was not a pleasant feeling. My underwear has now become a thong and my inner thighs are chaffing. So after about a mile or so of distance, I slowed down and came to a stop, then went over and hid behind some weight machines so as to adjust my very uncomfortable situation. Lucky for me no one was paying attention to the fat old broad picking out her wedgie.

Hopefully this year I'll see some results of my working out, and hopefully I'll stick with it over the winter months. No pain, no gain, so they say. But if that is true, judging by the pain in my muscles today, I have gained a lot. Wish me luck!

For Julie

Go to town!

Colouring for grownups

On Christmas Day, 2001, one of the presents Brian gave me was a book of mandalas for colouring. He wasn't sure whether or not I'd like it; he thought he was really taking a chance buying me this gift. I, however, squealed with delight, as I had always loved colouring as a child, and as my oldest friends will recall, I prolifically coloured those posters you can get at craft stores and decorated my room with them in junior high. In college, I found a really cool Unicorn colouring book that me and my bff/sisterfriend Michelle took turns doing.

I started colouring in the mandala book on 12/31/01 and did one page a week till the book was done. I use coloured pencils, markers, glitter glue, water colours, oil pastels, acrylic paint, glittery gel pens, rhinestones...whatever the piece calls for. I always say that I don't colour the designs, they colour themselves. I try to do one per week, that way it stretches out the experience and I don't blow through all of the books too quickly. I also take them with me on vacation and note the date and place where the picture was done.

Since then, I have acquired nearly all of the mandala colouring books available through Mandala Connections in Montana. These include: Tibetan, Native American, Peace, Power, Everyone's Mandalas Volumes 1-3. I am currently working on Keltish Mandalas, and I have one of Asian designs as well. I've also coloured a snowflake book (given to me by Michelle) and one of dragons.

Here are pictures of some of the pages from the 10 different books I've worked on over the past few years. Some of them scanned kind of crooked or cut off.

(This next one's for my British friends in honour of St. George's Day).I started this one in Vancouver, BC and finished it when I got home the next day.

Congratulations, eh!

A hearty CONGRATULATIONS are in order for Kathleen, who has been accepted to the University of Toronto! I really feel old having a friend with a daughter old enough to be starting college in the fall.

Good job Kathleen!

"Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto is Canada’s leading research-intensive university. With roughly 70,000 students, 3,000 faculty and over 300 undergraduate programs, Maclean’s magazine notes in its annual report that ‘Canada’s top-ranked Medical-Doctoral university is a place where learning is the order of the day’. Spanning three campuses in the Greater Toronto Area and Mississauga, it houses 14 professional faculties, 32 libraries, 7 colleges and has links to 9 teaching hospitals.

A liberal arts education is the heart of the undergraduate curriculum at Toronto, and the Faculty of Arts and Science has more students than any other faculty. The education of students for the professions has always been an important part of the University’s role, and the University accordingly maintains a wide range of professional faculties. The University’s insistence on the importance of research in all disciplines has made it the major centre for graduate education in Canada. In many fields it produces a majority of the nation’s doctoral candidates. The quality and range of the programs - undergraduate, graduate and professional - attract students from all parts of the province, from around the country and from abroad.
To support its work of teaching and research, the University has collected a library that is the largest in Canada and among the best in the world. The University maintains many laboratories and specialized aids to research. The University of Toronto Press Inc. is the chief institution of its kind in Canada and one of the most important scholarly publishers in North America. "

What a lovely campus!

Rest in peace.

Thor - God of Hotness

"Adventures in Babysitting" was on last night....quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made, and a clear rip off of the John Hughes style of 1980's teen flix. But it was worth it to see Vincent's brief cameo as "Thor" Dawkins, tough guy owner of the garage, who initially is quite mean, but then softens after a gift from a child.

With profound thanks to Eliza for her fab caps, including the boot shot that I was so hoping she had in her Photobucket stash.

Also profound thanks to my hubby who put up with my switching back and forth to this movie last night so that I could record the scene (he cracked me up when he groaned, "This movie sucks. Please tell me this was his first role!").

Julie, this post is specially for you. Now let's hope I can get the scene off the DVR and onto a videotape so you can see it in action!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADI!

We have yet another Aries on our Vincent blogging team, and Madi's birthday is tomorrow!!

Because we love the way he wields his weapon....

And those smouldering bad boy looks.....

Have a lovely birthday Madi! Best wishes for a lifetime of happiness.

Thanks again to Eliza for the pictures!