lambie of the week

You see? It's not just me. You don't have to be English, but it helps. Or is that crazy? I dunno.

Meantime, I'm starting my own Larry Craig campaign re-election fund. I feel flushed with pride. He's not out (of the closet) yet. Water closet, that is. Yeh, right. Now why does this video remind me of Larry Craig? Hmmmm.

lambie of the week

This is a Cotswold Sheep. I've never seen one before, but it's darn cute. It wouldn't have taken me so long to put the lambie of the week up, but I found a site with literally thousands of sheep-related products. No, I don't mean you can find those boots (ick!), but there are about a billion sheep t-shirt, mug and note card designs. I just couldn't stop looking.

There are a lot of really cute ones, but I'm designing my own. I'm thinking maybe a series, with different kinds of sheep. I'm gonna draw them so that there are no copyright problems.

I'm naming this one Kyla Ebbert, just so I can make a reference to her in a blatant attempt at exploitation of an apparently endlessly fascinating topic. My sheep Kyla is always appropropriately dressed wherever she goes.

I love Glenda Jackson

Not in the Biblical sense. I just love the body of work she produced while acting in films. I also admire her work as an MP in England- they're lucky to have her for that too.

If you've never seen a film with Glenda Jackson, consider yourself unfortunate. She was brilliant in "Stevie" as English poet Stevie Smith (as was Mona Washbourne alongside her). You should also try to see her in "Women In Love", "The Music Lovers," "Elizabeth R", "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Mary Queen of Scots," "A Touch of Class," "House Calls," "The Romantic Englishwoman," "The Incredible Sarah" (that's about Sarah Bernhardt, also a brilliant woman), "Hopscotch" (which was with the divine Walter Matthau, as was House Calls). Not that I have an opnion about it.

I actually checked into her voting record as an MP for the Hampstead/Highgate area, and she's just as intelligent about her voting choices and as impassioned about the issues she believes in. I doff my hat to you, madam.

lambie of the week

You'll never guess what I'm making for dinner tonight- boneless leg of...no, not cat. Not very meaty. I swear, I totally forgot. I just loves my lambs, I loves them inside of me and outside of me. I loves to play with them and then I loves to eat them, as long as they're not the same one. You know what they say on farms: "never name your food." That's why they're called things like Mr.Mutton, Legg, Chop, Stewie, and Number 61.

I've got a pink phone!

Yes, here I am, approaching 50 in less years than I care to think about and it was time for a cell phone upgrade. What do I get? A pink RAZR. It's an older model, but then so am I. Pink!!! Ick. I've never been a lace and pearls girl. I'm even less so these days.

What's going on here?! Actually, it's an act of pure pragmatism. Hubby has a black one and we needed a different color to be able to tell them apart. Now I have to admit, I am kind of excited to have a slimmer phone and it has all kinds of new doo-dahs that the old phone didn't have.

So to get into the spirit of the thing, I decided to immediately find myself the most godawful girly type genuine Japanese schoolgirl charms to put on the new phone. I found 2 perfect ones for surprisingly little money, even with shipping. One is a shocking pink mink ball with beads hanging off, another is a Hello Kitty with japanese noodle dish. Perfect. Am I true Otaku or what? People who know me will think I've gone off my rocker.

Well, folks, that boat sailed quite a long time ago, I'm afraid. Why, just the other day, I went to pick up some prescriptions we had filled at our local supermarket and I chanced to see squeaky toys in the shape of dangerous animals on the endcap. I HAD to have them. I resisted buying all of them and settled for a shark and a lizard with that ruff thing that pops up. Hey, for $4 I can bother the people I work with endlessly. Seems like a good investment to me.

Meanwhile, if I ever lose my phone, it'll be very easy to describe and find. I might just be laughing too hard for you to understand the description though.

Religion- Who Needs It?

So far, the most popular religions these days are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. There are lots of others. Some worship one god too, others prefer a pantheon- that's many different gods, you know.

I was raised in one of the first three, but, sad to say, it never stuck. Just wasn't interested. I figured if there was actually one all-knowing, all-seeing bearded guy in a robe, maybe with some wings or something, if this mighty Guy was actually real, that's a mighty big job. There are billions of people on this miserable planet, and everyone wants a piece of him. Look at me, Guy, over here. No, no, look at ME, Guy, I'm over HERE. And all these billions of prayers and supplications. How awful must THAT get? What a job! Who'd want it? Imagine, it's like the worst customer service job ever- no one appreciates you, they're always complaining about everything, never satisfied, fighting amongst themselves all the time. It's more akin to being the parent in the front seat of a car with a bunch of unruly brats screaming and fighting in the back seat, only instead of 4, there's like 4 billion of them. Yikes! I know if I were that Guy, I'd want to opt out like nobody's business.

So the whole monotheistic thing just never worked for me, personally. I figure that if this poor shmo is stuck with the job, he doesn't need one more screaming child, begging for the latest toy in the back seat of the car of Life. So I don't want to bother the poor dear. I don't really need him particularly, so I'm just gonna live my life and do the best I can to be the best person I can. All the definitive writings in Bibles and Koran and everything else I've read seem to say pretty much the same things anyway: don't lie, cheat or steal; don't covet your neighbor's husband/wife/lawnmower, respect your elders as much as is humanly possible (sorry, but some are just jackasses), be polite, have compassion, raise your children with love, etc.

I don't worry about if I had meat with milk or ate only fish on a friday or whatever. I don't need anyone else telling me what to eat or not eat, wear or not wear, do or not do. I'm pretty good at figuring those things out for myself. It's called, somewhat wrongly, common sense.
I especially don't need some guy in one of these organizations telling me on a weekly basis what the official stance is on political figures running for office, what I can and can't do with my body, with whom, under what circumstances and how long. Again, nobody's business but mine.

So I tried paganism- the definition varies, but wicca, witchcraft, all that sort of thing. I have actually never run into the types that religious right folks seem so afraid of- oh, you know. Worshipping the devil, sacrificing babies, all that crap. I've run into more than a few crackpots, flakes of all descriptions and screw-ups, but no one who was into being evil. Most were, at worst, confused by life. At best, they've turned out to be a little left of center, but essentially good people just trying to find ways to be better people. Mostly, they seem to fall into the same traps as the monotheists, but they call them different things. They like the illusion that the pagan way is different. Meanwhile, it's pretty much the same, only with more tree-hugging, fun outfits that would work just as well at a Ren Faire, and more bonfires to stand around, usually involving a drum circle. That's pretty much it.

Sadly, paganism doesn't seem to do it for me either. Goddess knows I gave it a good try. I couldn't even manage to pick a Tradition- this means which ancient Path you Walk, which is usually in capital letters, perhaps for emphasis. The Traditions can be Norse, Celtic, Babylonian, Sumerian, Baltic, Siberian, you name it.

I decided to start my own religion. It's called None of The Above. There aren't any official gods or goddesses, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and make some up. We don't believe in any one thing in particular, but mainly we just don't want to bother anybody, nor do we wish to be bothered. We like to keep the fuss to a minimum, there are no official prayers or supplications, no particular rituals, no standardized holidays. Our God/dess, if there actually is one at all, can be called simply To Whom It May Concern. Just in case, you understand. Meantime, we just try to be the best people we can be. If we screw up, we think you should try to fix it and own up, and if that's not possible, say you're sorry and move on. We believe in the power of good manners- saying please and thank you to everyone where appropriate, not speaking when one's mouth is full, making sure that everyone is introduced to each other at parties, and treating every human being we interact with with respect, at least until they prove themselves unworthy of it. That's my religion. I really don't care if anyone else wants to join, because frankly, it'll only increase the paperwork. Start your own branch if you want.

Ebbert Redux

So what kind of world is this ? I write some personal, ahem, uh, moving pieces about those nearest and dearest to me- who cares? Nobody, that's who. I write scathing things about the failures of my local ISP- nothing.

I write about some stupid little bimbo, who works at Hooters and got thrown off a plane by an even dumber dumbass and all of a sudden, I'm all over Technorati. Oh wait, the same thing happened at NBC's Today Show- Matt Lauer had to interview the chick and her family- what bet did YOU lose, Matt? You can see the interview here.

I've never been there, but my husband went once and he described Hooters as a testosterone dream- big boobs (except in Baltimore, apparently- John Waters says there are no pretty girls in Baltimore), big screen TVs with sports on everywhere, watery, lousy beer at outrageous prices, but not as bad as strip clubs, and barely adequate typical bar food. Altogether unimaginative and overpriced. All that's missing is loud, smelly farts.

And this is where the girl works. I hope they pay a lot of money to their waitstaff. And I hope she sues the pants off of Southwest Airlines, so that they're strongly encouraged to mind their own business when it comes to what someone wears on the plane. No one would even see her skirt when she sat down. If it's like any of the airlines I've flown on, your knees are usually smashed against the seat in front of you. It's not like she was distracting the pilot so he couldn't fly the plane- most pilots are usually drunk anyway and the plane pretty much flies itself except for takeoffs and landings. So who was she bothering? Are you telling me that Keith, the flight attendant guy, was so distracted by her lack of modesty that he was afraid it would render his very important job of handing out warm Coca Colas and tiny bottles of alcohol too difficult? Next thing you know, we'll all have to wear burkas on the plane if they keep this up. Now who does that remind me of?

Airline Employees Arbiters of Family Values

We were watching a movie with a friend. My friend and my husband mentioned in passing that an airline had actually refused to allow a young woman to fly on the plane. I thought they were making it up, but alas, no.

So I searched for, and found the original article about it in the Vail Daily. Sure enough, Kyla Ebbert, a 23 year old student, was asked to leave the plane by a Southwest Airlines employee. The employee told her that she was "...dressed inappropriately. This is a family airline. You’re too provocative to fly on this plane," according to Miss Ebbert, who was flying from San Diego to Tuscon for a doctor's appointment.

According to the Vail Daily article, ""Chris Mainz, a spokesman for the Dallas-based airline, said a customer service supervisor asked Ebbert to leave the plane and addressed her in the walkway leading back to the terminal, “away from the other customers.”

The employee felt the outfit “revealed too much” but was placated after Ebbert made adjustments that included covering her stomach, Mainz said."

OK, who exactly made a flight attendant, or as some of us call them, flying waiters/waitresses, arbiters of good taste/fashion/family values? Were any men with very tight pants or short shorts ever led off a Southwest Airlines plane?

Ohhh, wait a minute, it's a Dallas, TEXAS-based airline, you know- land of big hair, the christian right, gun racks, Bush Jr. NOW I get it.

So if airline employees get to decide what is all right to wear or not wear, how about an airline where no one wears anything? you pre-pay for food or drinks, because where are you going to put your credit card or your wallet? I would insist, however, that there be some sort of disposable cover for the seats, both back support and seat cushion. I mean, really! I don't mind going naked if it speeds things up, but I sure don't want the last guys sweaty balls dragging around the seat before I sit down! Not to mention skid marks. Which I won't. I know! We'd call it Bare Air! I can just see the tagline: "At Bare Air, we don't care what you wear down there. You'll come into this town, or any other, naked as the day you were born and you'll leave the same way."

And, by the way, thanks to other events which happened on this date, 9/11/07, my friend told me that she was taken out of line during the whole scan the suitcase/handbag thing at the airport one time because she had something very dangerous in her possession- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the plane ride. I didn't know they were lethal weapons, but apparently in the wrong hands, anything is. So I guess terrorists have been watching too much MacGyver and got carried away. Now if she had had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich AND a revealing outfit on, I guess we would never have seen her again if she flew Southwest. Whew!

I want my own airline! I'm gonna have my stewards/stewardesses decide if the customers are dressed appropriately- I can just see it! "Hey, you in the flood pants! Please step aside, you're embarrassing the other customers. People will think they're tacky too if they're seen on the same plane as you." Or how about "Excuse me, madam, but that shirt and that skirt- what were you thinking? Two different patterns and completely different colors? As if that weren't enough, those shoes are the ugliest I've ever seen on a living human. Did you lose a bet or something? I'm sorry, madam. You'll have to leave the plane. The clashing colors are giving all the other passengers a headache. You may come back when you pick a color scheme that matches." Or how about the exclusive Vegas run? "Sir, I regret to inform you that there is simply not enough shiny things on you for this plane. At the very least, some Elvis shades would have helped. Don't come back without a pinky ring and lots of chains. Where do you think you're going? Maybe at the Cafe Carlyle in NYC you look all right, but for here? Feh. Get off the freakin' plane."

Lambie of the week

Outrage

So here's my latest rant: I actually received, not in my junk e-mail folder, but in my inbox, an e-mail from someone claiming to be "Carlene Biggs" and this person or persons claim that their e-mail address is MY PERSONAL e-mail address. Talk about the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune!

But it gets better- it's bad enough that someone used my e-mail address and possibly compromised my information, probably using my address for spamming and malware. My own father has NEVER been able to receive my e-mail and has the same provider which I will not name (rhymes with horizon). I know what you're thinking: maybe the vicious asswipes using my address for no good is/are the reason why he never receives it. But it's unlikely that the vicious asswipes had my e-mail address for the same amount of time.

On the other hand, a friend of mine can receive my e-mails, but I've never been able to receive her replies.

So what exactly am I secure from? My dad and my friend? Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work.