Rat-A-Tat-Tat...

On saturday, my friend Chet came down from New York to get a tattoo by my tattoo artist. I say "my" only because I've been getting work from him for 8 years and we've developed a nice friendship. I'm pretty much a walking portfolio of his work. If he ever retires, I'll lose my mind.

His shop is in Conneticut, and I'm in Boston-ish, so it's a nice drive to get there. I don't mind the drive at all. It sort of makes the experience special because I can't just go on a whim. The shop is far enough away that I need to plan a bit if I'm going to get a new tattoo. (Although on this trip, I'm not getting any new ink.. only Chet.)

At the shop, we set up a time-lapse camera and set it to take an image every ten seconds. This equals less frames per second than traditional animation, so the effect was pretty neat. The two hour tattoo became roughly a thirty second quirky little video, with the tattoo machine moving so fast that it looks as if Chet's arm is simply being sketched on with a marker.

If I can figure out how to add video to this blog, I'll post it here. I'm not that adept at coding or techie-type things, so don't hold your breath.

Queen of the Bungalow.

For the most part, I really enjoy living alone: I can talk to the cat in funny voices and no one looks at me oddly. I can make pasta and eat it directly from the pot I made it in, while standing over the sink. I can let all my weird little quirks flourish, because no one is around to squash them.

There are two instances in which living alone is less than desirable....

1. No one is around to hold open a garbage bag when you're trying to dispose of 17 day old meat that was hanging out in the back of the refridgerator. You'll end up trying to hold the bag open with one hand and heaving the fridge-dweller in, hoping that nothing will splash the parts of the bag that you'll have to touch to tie it up. ugh.

2. If you're fiddling around with the fuse box in the basement, trying to figure out which fuse connects to which part of the house, there will be no one upstairs that you can yell to as you're flicking fuses on and off. This will cause you to run up and down the basement stairs 47 times, checking what light went off when which fuse was reset.

There are many more positives than negatives to living alone, although last night as I was trying to heave a meatloaf of undetermined age into a flimsy garbage bag by myself, it really made me reconsider things for a minute. But that doubt went away as Dolemite slinked by and i called him "Doodlebug" in a squeaky, fake-mouse voice.

Note to self: Label fuses in fusebox.

Teeny Tiny.

These tiny foods are made by a Japanese company called "Re-Ment." I am mildy obsessed with collecting them. I really like replicas of things that are either wildy small or insanely large. With the exception of ordering online, I've only been able to find them for sale at a tiny toy shop in New York, which I trudge to everytime I'm in the city. The pictures above are of the most recent ones I've acquired. I threw a quarter there for size reference. It's amazing how detailed these tiny foods are.

The other day ! saw a commercial for Wendy's where one of the actors was eating a tiny fast food meal. It filled me with glee.

If Johnny Cash had one of these, he wouldn't have written that song...

It's a well established fact that my basement is creepy. For an in depth analysis of why my basement is creepy check out my post from October 25, 2006 on this blog. Did you read that? I told you it was creepy.

Soooo........

Here is the latest finding in my creepy basement:


It's a fire detector. Not smoke. FIRE. As far as I can tell, if my basement bursts into flames, the liquid in the canister will heat up. When the liquid reaches a certain temperature, it will rise up to the top of the canister and melt a wax ring. Once the wax ring is melted, it releases some sort of component that shoots up into the top of the contraption, which will then allow this relic to emit a repetitious loud noise.

It seems like it's not really a detector, per say, because by the time this thing turns itself on, the fire would already have to be consuming my entire basement. So rather than a dectector, it's sort of a "you're so screwed" buzzer.

I don't know how old this thing is, or if it even works. I don't want to test it, because there isn't any sort of instruction on it for turning it off. I'll see if I can find out more information about it.. because I'm curious about this thing.

Eight ounces of Theatrical RocknRoll...

This is the best tacky souvenir I have ever bought, anywhere...

I bought this mug when I was in London last year. Actually, I bought 8 of them, but only have two left because I gave a bunch of them away to friends. I would have bought more, but it was really tough to walk around London with a bag full of mugs clinking around... It would have been really funny to have a full set of these poorly printed Freddie Mercury mugs.

This mug is so good, because it's so awful. The image doesn't really look like Freddie Mercury all that much, and his moustache looks weird. The shop where I bought this mug had a Queen (the band, not the Mum) tea set that I still kick myself for not buying.

Home Sweet Home...

I drew this a few months ago as part of a masthead for this here blog. Now if I could only figure out how to edit the code of this site to actually put the masthead up.. that would be the bee's knees. gah! Technology!

(and just to be clear, the foundation of my house IS that color pink, hehe)

So THAT'S my problem.....

...my priorities are out of whack.

I was reading a Thai take-out menu this afternoon and printed on the bottom in bright green type was this:
"Make it your priority to enjoy life."

Hmmm, I think I will.

Well, that just flew out the window....

I've got a cell phone, which I rarely use. I've never recieved a call on the thing, nor do I want to. I only use my cell phone for emergencies...like car accidents and me stupidly ending up in Maine, when I was only trying to find some diner in Northern Massachusetts. I think my monthly minutes roll over, which means I probably have something like 79 hours of free minutes. eh.

I don't give my cell phone number out for several reasons...
I don't have the thing on, ever. So calling my cell phone will never result in someone actually reaching me.
I don't know my cell phone number, because I don't ever give it out.

If I'm out and about, that's what I'm doing. I don't want to be interrupting my experiences out in the world by a cell phone call that probably isn't important to begin with. It's like an electronic leash. I don't need to be tethered to everyone i know, everywhere I go.

The most annoying thing is, people act as if cell phones are necessary for survival. They aren't.

All that being said.....
I want an iPhone.
And really, who doesn't?

Someone dropped the ball...

I threw a party to ring in the New Year. Normally, I don't actually care too much about this particular holiday, but I like to throw parties, and this was a good excuse to host one. The big bonus of throwing parties is that at the end of the night, you're already home.

Some snap-shots courtesy of the best Mike I know: Myko,,,,,