Life and Other Things I Don't Understand
Saturday, August 28, 2004
A New Blogger!
Tig has decided it was time to have her own place to talk and (sometimes) vent. I added the link here a couple of days ago, and didn't mention her. Shame on me! Musta been that blow to the brain I got the other day...
Go on over and say 'hey!' She's got some big news to share!
Friday, August 27, 2004
I've Got To Do Something About Those Eyebrows!
Better, but I still look crooked. Please ignore the silver hairs. I'm trying to.
Posted by Hello
But not today. Or for a few days, I think. My right one is still too sore.
Sorry, Julie. Nothing majorly gross here. It really looks much better today. Lots of sleep, lots of Keflex, blue gel coldpack 'til I had a right eyesicle all did their part. A little (okay, a lot) of makeup so I could go grocery shopping without feeling like a sideshow attraction helps, too.
Nice bags, eh? Even after twelve hours of sleep last night (and I rarely sleep more than six without awakening on my own) and the wonderful things it did to reduce so much of the swelling, I still look like I'm coming off a two-week bender.
What comes after yellow in a bruise? Whatever it is, I'll be seeing it in and around my right eye socket.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Sealed Up Tight
Yellow-green pus bubbles under superglue.
Doctor's office. Tweezers. Peeling.
Big ugly antibiotic pills.
Ugh.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Superglue, Plexiglas and a Temper
God, I hope I don't have a black eye in the morning.
I am not graceful, and I have a temper that simmers and usually dissipates without full ignition.
And I'm not too tickled by the store manager we're currently trying to, er, break in. He's completely lost his sense of humor with the stress of his new position, and, well, for some strange reason, I tend to get offended by people who walk away when I'm talking to them. Or who stop listening when I'm answering a question they ask.
So, my temper surfaced today, and unfortunately, it ungracefully landed square in my own face. Across the bridge of my nose, the bone under my right eyebrow, and my cheekbone, to be specific.
Circumstances (read: Suits from corporate coming to visit) dictated that I finish revising fifteen feet of electronics merchandise before I left today. Other circumstances (see rant above, plus it's been rather busy in my area) caused me to get only half of one three-foot section started before this morning.
I was almost done with the whole thing when I spotted some of the new merchandise on a top overstock shelf that hides behind a black Plexiglas header above the wall I was rearranging. I didn't know it had come in; someone had stuck it up there when we received our last shipment of stock. One of the packages had no business being up there; it didn't fit through the narrow space between the shelf and the plexi header. I tried turning it slantways to angle it out, and knocked a four foot long section of quarter-inch plexi loose and straight down onto my face.
Now, these headers never want to come out when they need to be changed. So why would a stupid clock-radio box bumping into it send it flying? Fate? I yanked it harder than I thought in my pique? I really have no idea. But fly it did, with my face to break its fall and keep it from shattering.
A trip to urgent care later, the space between my eyebrows is superglued back together, the bridge of my nose is swollen so that I resemble a lion, there's a nice knot in my eyebrow making my right eye look even more distorted than the bridge of my nose alone could do, and my cheekbone is a lovely shade of light purple.
And I think I yelled a loud expletive when the plastic connected with my face. I don't remember; I was worried that it cut my eye, since that's where the immediate pain was. Thank God it didn't. Plexiglas has nasty edges.
Squinting hurts. Smiling hurts. Sneezing, too. And to top it off, that's the eyebrow that likes to fly up on its own, and right now, it's been grounded.
I can't wait to see how it looks in the morning.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Another Stupid Factoid
To date, 158 people have fallen out of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Maybe they didn't realize that the floors inside would be slanted...?
Monday, August 16, 2004
Two Days in a Row
Squished his narrow ass good, I did
Posted by Hello
Found a smaller one of these on Saturday night in the sunroom, heading for the living room. Stomped 'im into the carpet. Twice. Just to be sure.
This one came to visit Sunday night, lumbering across the tile on his way toward the living room. Gave him the smackdown treatment with a spare flipflop and he lost.
I don't know how they're getting in, nor why, but I'll squish each and every one that does.
Nasty little land lobsters...
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Friday Factoid
The average American spends two weeks of his/her life at traffic lights, waiting for them to change from red to green.
Can I just camp out on the median at some intersection for a coupla weeks and get it over with? "But honest, Officer, I'm exempt from red lights. I did my time in the little crosswalk triangle at the corner of Juan Tabo and Montgomery a few years back..."
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Ahh, the Nikon may be a bit grainy, but at least he's got a FACE! (and a tattoo on the side of his head *yeeoowch!*)
Posted by Hello
Ozzfest, Numero Dos
Gah! How time flies when you're not having fun... but enough about gearing up for today (the first day of school, and yeah, I think it's too early, too) and all the happy-crappy it took to get us here without somebody suffering a gory, stress-induced death...
I think I was talking Judas Priest on that day oh-so-long-ago when I foolishly thought I'd get back to blogging in the evening. Owa tagoo siam.
Rob Halford is back with a vengeance. I wish they'd have had more than seventy-five minutes to play. Lots of hits, but not enough of 'em. I was really hoping to do a full-house crowd sing-a-long to United. Especially after Halford had us all echoing silly little bits of tune (which got harder and longer as he went along, but we kept up quite nicely, thank you).
This was (according to one of the sponsoring radio stations) the very first time Judas Priest in its original line-up has ever played in Albuquerque. I have no way to verify or deny this information, but after the response they got here, I'm pretty sure they'll be back, regardless.
See the smile on his face in that picture from my digital cam? Oh, no, wait, of course you can't. 'Cause the resolution from this far out (rest your mousepointer over Section 7, and while you're there, check out the view from the stage *heh heh*), even with an extra-long zoom lens, sucks big monkey boulders with this particular camera. The Nikon was sooo much clearer. If I can only remember to load the film properly...
I couldn't tell you the setlist if my life depended on it. But the band was tight, the sound was crunchy and clear and Halford was in fine voice. Granted, he had to crouch down real low and pull that voice out of somewhere in his nether-regions when he wanted to hit those ol' high-high notes, but he did it, and it was wonderful.
I love rock concerts. 'Specially when the chemistry's right. The crowd feeds the band and the band throws it right back. Such a killer loop, 'round and 'round it goes and it just keeps getting stronger. I can ride that high for days afterward. Or at least until my ears stop ringing and constantly reminding me of what a great night I had.
Ozzy and Black Sabbath were good, too... but sort of a cool-down after the mainline energy feed of Priest. No well-known Ozzy solo stuff (I have yet to hear Crazy Train live, but I'm still a relatively young woman. Maybe next year...?) If you're a Sabbath fan, I guess this was your show. Me, I prefer the more non-dated classic Ozzy stuff. So nobody hit me for saying that a Black Sabbath reunion just didn't tickle my trigger. It all sounded so... nostalgic. Dated. Stale.
Some rock music never gets that way. At least to these ears. The overall sound doesn't reflect the time period in which it was created. Maybe because what to me sounds 'classic,' like what rock should just plain sound like, was the precursor/inventor of so much of what came afterward. Aerosmith never makes these ears cringe and want to change the station. Neither does the Who, most of the Stones body of work (with the notable exception of Emotional Rescue. Just never did warm up to that song...) And Def Leppard, of course, goes without saying (but hey! I said it anyway!)
It could also have been the total lack of friendly interaction between the band. As far as an outside observer could tell, these men had no history together. It looked kinda... cold. Then again, maybe it was just Ozzy's version of dancing with his mic that didn't enthrall me. It's no wonder he broke his leg a little while back. Jumping jacks on a stage wet from the bucket he dunks his head in can be dangerous.
Overall, Ozzfest really was one helluva show. Quite an experience to remember and smile. But in my mind, it was more Priestfest than Ozzy's shindig.
Friday, August 06, 2004
Wanna See Some Ozzy?
Ozzfest 2004
Posted by Hello
If you look really hard, you can see him all over the place. About 32 times, actually. That's how many shots it took for me to realize that the film had come unattached from the uptake spindle inside the Nikon. *sigh*
Tuesday Morning
First off, let me say that the school system here is weird. Every year, even returning students must re-register. So off we schlepped in nearly 100-degree sunshine, with humidity from the recent daily rains bringing us much higher than our normal single digits. Everything feels damp and sticky, the air heavy and oppressively still. We got to wait three hours in this (some of the time outside and some of it in - with the air conditioner in the building off except for the cafeteria downstairs, where all the staff sat at various numbered table stations) to verify all the information on the paperwork that was filled out before the end of the previous school year.
Mason finally got his class schedule, and he's mostly pleased. His first choice for electives was Yearbook, his second, the school newspaper. What he got was a class called 'Creative Publishing,' which he was told was what they renamed the newspaper class when they decided to make the class responsible for all of the student publications except yearbook. He's already decided he wants to be one of the staff photographers and is asking to borrow the Nikon for the year. Uhhh, no.
Anyway, after melting in the heat, we returned, ate, showered and headed out for the Journal Pavilion in the middle of the show. We really weren't interested in the second-stage acts (mostly speed metal), so we figured arriving late wouldn't be a big deal. For the show, it wasn't. For getting those backstage passes, it was.
They'd been, uh, 'overpromised,' meaning that by the time we arrived, the liquor vendor who was a sponsor of the show had already given out all the passes he had access to. No biggie, really (meeting Ozzy or Rob Halford would have been cool, but that wasn't why we wanted to go), but the film I'd bought was intended for shooting from the photopit at the foot of the stage. Not from the seats we'd gotten, centerstage but about twelve rows from the walkway separating the reserved section from the lawn seats. When I figure out how to post the rather crappy shots I wound up with all in one post (maybe tonight, after the Further Adventures in the Quest for School Approved Uniform Clothes That Fit), I'll get those here, too.
As we were patted down for weapons at the entrance, Ozzy came on stage to sing with Black Label Society. I honestly don't know the real name of the song, and since I'm typing this twenty minutes before I hafta leave for work, I don't have time to research it, but it's the one that's all over the rock airwaves right now, with the chorus of "I've waited here for you for so long." Great song, and a fantastic welcoming wall of sound into the show.
My ears are still recovering. We slouched around in the VIP area for a while (a patio-furnitured area for select ticketholders and guests - the promoter got us that far, at least), snacking on the catered chili and salad, slurping our $4 sodas while several bands we didn't care for played. We ventured out for Slayer (sounded kinda harsh in the venue proper, not very bassy), waiting for Judas Priest to take the stage.
Priest stole the show.
(to be continued after work. Sorry.)
