The Power of TK

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yousaytomatoblog[AT]gmail[DOT]com

See Also

100 Things About Me
The Bull's Testicles Project
Russia Trip: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Best of 2002: Movies, Books, Music.
Best of 2003: Movies.
Best of 2004: Movies, Books.
Best of 2005: Theater, Books.
Best of 2006: Theater, Books, Television.
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My Slate archive
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YST Movie Madness
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003

It's Web Crack
Don't go to this site unless you have lots of time on your hands.

Is this why I never have dinner parties?
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Friday, September 26, 2003

Hey, Ma, I'm in the Mirror Project!
Mirror Project Photo No. 18,472.

Mirror Project Photo No. 18,473.

(Uploaded on the MP's fourth birthday—more or less.)

Man, I milked that trip, didn't I?
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Thursday, September 25, 2003

White Feather
Hunter S. Thompson has vowed to take his revenge on the dogs that killed four of his prize peacocks (link via Bookslut).

Once, when I lived in someone else’s house in Washington, D.C., I came home to find white feathers all over the dining room. Not my house, not my cats, not my headache, so I turned around and went to visit a friend until the roomies returned.

When I got home, I found them telling the neighbor, who was asking whether they'd seen his pet dove, "Oh, no, but I do hope it's all right."
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Monday, September 22, 2003

The Naut Haut List
Courtesy of the good folks at Nerve.

My favorite?

33. Lower-back tattooes. Lately, it seems that if there's no faux-Celtic design between your low-rise jeans and your baby tee, something's missing. Recently, we've been seeing girls with their names in thug font in that place. Must save a lot of awkwardness.

Check out all 50 right here.
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Sunday, September 21, 2003

Will the Real June Junio Please Stand Up?
Remember the other day I mentioned that since becoming a homeowner I’ve been doing things I’ve never done before—keeping the place clean, crazy shit like that? Well, I now have proof that the real Junio was abducted by aliens and replaced by a facsimile (you know, like Rita Mae Brown was years ago—I mean how else could the author of such right-on classics as Rubyfruit Jungle and In Her Day turn into a pillar of the Charlottesville establishment who writes mysteries in which cats and dogs talk?): I just spent five hours making plum jelly. (I can’t remember what we call jelly in England—it’s jam without any visible or chewable fruit chunks.)

I didn’t do it because a) I’ve become a survivalist who wants to live off the land; b) I think it’ll be better than the stuff available in the store; c) I want to give it for gifts; d) any other sensible reason. It was just that the plum tree in our garden was bursting with fruit—R and I picked about 30 pounds of the little buggers this morning—and even though I didn’t personally plough the fields and scatter, I felt bad just letting them rot in the cupboard—so … there are eight jars of plum jelly cooling in the kitchen.

Exhibit 2 is my behavior Friday night. I had a bachelor party to go to—my first evah—and since it was a vanpool event, there was lots of booze involved. So, I made no plans for Saturday (except for nursing a nasty hangover); I stocked up on pain relievers; hell, I even pinned a note to my jacket telling people where to call if they found me passed out by the side of the road … and what happened? I ended the night as sober as a judge, despite the massive quantities of alcohol I imbibed as we went from bar to bar to strip club to hip-hop club. I could’ve driven home at the end of the night—if I knew how to drive, that is. (I had even gone to the effort of mixing my drinks to really get a good drunk on.) Tell you what though—limos rock. Not only was it my first [co-ed] stag outing (I’m thinking it could also be the last), it was also my first limo ride (not counting lame-o hotel/airport “limos”). They’re comfortable, they’re fun, they have ice chests and CD players—it’s like the most comfortable booth in a nice bar with free drinks (well, your own liquor, at any rate) and a constantly changing view. I could definitely get used to that.

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Saturday, September 20, 2003

Any Ideas?
Last weekend when we were heading down to Oregon for R's family reunion, I discovered that my iPod is bust. Actually, I know exactly what's up, but I have no idea how to fix it. The problem is that the "hold" switch—the thing that prevents the device from accidentally being turned on—has broken. I can move it from one side to the other far too easily—and moving it to the "off" zone has no effect.

Since I bought the device over the Internet, I can't just take it back to a store. Of course, I could go look at the paperwork that came with it (miraculously, I think I know where it is), but, hey, if anyone reading this has any ideas, please let me know.
'
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Excuse, Excuses
OK, this isn’t an excuse—there’s no need to make an excuse for not having done something that you do for fun, right?—but let me just say that when you own a home, you have less time for idleness than you do when you rent.

Actually, I suppose it’s that you have more responsibilities—you can still be idle and lazy, but it feels a bit irresponsible. We’ve owned our home for about six weeks now and have lived in it for about four. I still spend massive amounts of time watching television (more than ever, in fact, damn you, TiVo, for surfacing the good stuff) and reading and working and all that, but I also do things like clean the house and work in the garden (very little, but more than I’ve ever done in my life—not hard since I’ve never done anything in a garden except sit, drink, chat, and read). I also spend a lot of time thinking about the house—pondering purchases and room layouts and what could be improved.

I've always had a rather casual approach to house-cleaning, but now I want to keep the place dust-free and tidy because I actually want visitors. After years of subtly discouraging stop-bys (it’s nothing personal, I’m just rather hermitic by nature), these days I find myself looking for excuses to get people to come by. Part of it is showing off, but it’s not just that—it just feels like a nice place to hang out. I’m considering buying drinks that I don’t care for—for my visitors, don’t you know. When I’m at the store, I think about having things on hand that I could serve up if someone stopped by.
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Monday, September 08, 2003

The Power of TiVo
I have a theory: All those people who stop blogging or go on long, mysterious hiati do so because they buy TiVos and can’t tear themselves away from the small screen. I know my productivity has suffered immensely since I brought home the greatest bit of technology ever invented (including television itself).

So immense is TiVo’s power, apparently, that it is able to read my blog. I can find no other reason why it would have recorded an (utterly crap) episode of Tales From the Crypt that starred Mariel Hemingway. I’ve never watched—and I've certainly never recorded—any shows with any similarity to Tales From the Crypt, BUT six days ago, I did mention that Mariel, circa 1982, would be one of my three. Now that’s software.
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Tuesday, September 02, 2003

3 x 3, 3: Things I Didn’t Write About in Slate
I just did a weeklong travel-writing project for Slate—an account of the Aste Nagusia fiestas in Bilbao. Here are three photographs that didn’t make it into the slide show:
1. I became obsessed with the squeaky toys the hotel workers would put on the bed when they turned it down for the night. Here are the three designs—cat, dog, and sheep. One day, for some reason, they didn’t turn down the bed, and I mourned the missing sheep like a shepherd might miss a real-world lamb.



2. The hippest open-air urinal in the world.



3. A scene from the txosna of the feminist kompartsa. (That is to say, the booze stall organized and staffed by a feminist group.) That's Marijaia, the symbol of the fiestas, who's, erm, having a good time.

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3 x 3, 2: Unpacking Heat
We finally got out of our old apartment on Saturday, with an entire 24 hours before the month of August officially elapsed. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was by having to deal with that apartment—I no longer wanted anything to do with it. Of course that was childish and irresponsible, but nevertheless deeply felt.

Now, we get to focus exclusively on the new house and let me tell you three things:
1. Unpacking boxes is way more fun than packing them.
2. There are few things more satisfying than sorting and shelving CDs.
3. Having a garage is a dangerous thing—never was a more effective stuff-hiding location devised. I wonder if we’ll ever clear enough room to actually get the car in there.
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3 x 3, 1: Celebrity Shagging
For reasons as yet to be revealed, someone in vanpool asked the rest of us for the three (count 'em) celebrities we would do it with if we had the chance. My answers: Mariel Hemingway circa 1982 (but only if I were still the age I was in 1982, of course), Rosie Casals, and Kat Slater from EastEnders (the character, not the actress, though I’m sure Jessie Wallace is a lovely human being).

You?
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