Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Strokes Concert

The supposed highlight of my birthday was that Trey stood in line for 7 hours, starting at 3 in the morning, to get me Strokes tickets. My immediate response, when I woke up at 10 on Saturday and found he had disappeared, was to say no I would not go, because the concert was at 9 on Monday night. Then I consulted Alex about this, and he was greatly envious, so I thought I should take advantage of this and not be such a stick in the mud. As if this job is worth giving up my ENTIRE LIFE over; it's worth a lot, to be sure, but I should be able to do a few things occasionally. I decided I would go and have a Virtual Sub day, meaning that I am there, but I give the students assignments that I would ordinarily leave for a Substitute. If someone is going to wait in line for 7 hours, you had best do whatever they waited in queue for that long to do for you. Also Trey didn't have any money, so he had to sing and dance to earn enough money to pay for the tickets (which were only $12 each.) You have no idea how happy I am I did not have to witness this; I would have died of embarrassment. There were supposedly only 300 tickets sold.

Well, I nearly DID die of embarrassment anyway; more about that later. I saw one of my students at the concert, he said Hello Mr. Thomas! And I got all excited, I was happy. I was hanging out with the Young instead of the Old and Boring. My classes were impressed that I was going to see the Strokes. The concert was Standing Room Only, and very very crowded- there may have been only 300 tickets SOLD but then there must have been a lot available through other means- and the way it was set up only about 6 people in the very front could actually see the band. The rest of us could just see the backs of the rest of the audience's heads.
And it was hot, too, and I got claustrophobic. The band didn't start until quite late, about 40 minutes late- they were good, but I couldn't understand what the lead singer was supposed to be singing- and my student said he was drunk, which I believe. It was OK, I would do it again- but not with Trey. A lot of people at the concert were drinking A LOT, which made me wonder why go to a concert to get smashed? If you need to get smashed, do it somewhere else.
Trey (the singing cowboy) proceeded to get smashed. Once the concert was over, he did not want to leave; in fact, he refused. I want to hang out here! He insisted, and then he lay flat on his back on the pavement and refused to move. I struggled with him for a while and then I got his keys out of his pocket and went home and left him there. I don't feel I have to put up with this, and if you think I'm a bad person for that, tough. It was late and the concert was over.

I do think I would like to go to more concerts, like Death Cab for Cutie, but I definitely do not want to go with Trey.

On a completely unrelated note, I discovered if you have trouble going to sleep, envision Aqua Follies set to Mozart, especially the Marriage of Figaro. It is extremely relaxing. Has anyone previously combined the two genres? That would be excellent! Also if anyone can think of movies in which the Aqua Follies appear, I would like to see more of them. Leave me a comment.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Cowonomics

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM:
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on six more.
To get away with murder, you get the White House involved and hire million dollar paper shredders.
When shit hits the fan, you hire experts to eliminate witness with accidents and heart attacks.
The public buys your bull. Now do you see why a company with $62 billion in assets is declaring bankruptcy?
==========================================
CALIFORNIA HAPPY COWS
Crowd herd of happy fun loving cows into a small dirt lot.
Feed cows weeds.
Hire Hollywood to show commercial of HAPPY COWS in green pastures.
Smoke weed left over from cow feeding.
Make millions selling "HAPPY MILK."

CALIFORNIA #2
You have a cow and a bull.
The bull is depressed.
It has spent its life living a lie.
It goes away for two weeks.
It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change operation.
You now have two cows.
One makes milk; the other doesn't.
You try to sell the transgender cow.
Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.
You lose in court.
You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.
You now have one rich, transgender, non-milk-producing cow.
You change your business to beef. PETA pickets your farm.
Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.
Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help "working cows".
Hillary Clinton calls for the nationalization of 1/7 of your farm "for the children".
Gray Davis signs a law giving your farm to Mexico.
The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming you groped their teats.
You declare bankruptcy and shut down all operations.
The cow starves to death.
The L.A. Times' analysis shows your business failure is Bush's fault.
==========================================
CORPORATE LIFE in the USA....
AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the 2 cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
The state has previously told you how to milk your cows, when to milk your cows, how much to milk your cows and the most that you can charge for the milk.
The state now leads you to believe that you will be allowed to actually manage your cows yourself.
You propose a plan to do so, but the state insists on continuing to tell you how much you can charge for the milk.
You agree, since under the plan, you'll still make a profit.
However, the price of feed skyrockets and you go broke.
The state spends millions buying feed on your behalf, and blames you for the current milk shortage.

FLORIDA CORPORATION:
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who like the brown one best vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best looking one.

NEW YORK CORPORATION:
You have fifteen million cows.
You have to choose which one will be the leader of the herd, so you pick some fat cow from Arkansas.

ARKANSAS
You have two cows.
That one on the left is kinda cute...
==========================================
American Political Parties....

REPUBLICAN:
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So what?

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You vote people into office who put a tax on your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax.
The people you voted for then take the tax money, buy a cow and give it to your neighbor.
You feel righteous. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
==========================================
Corporations around the world....

CHINA:
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

FRANCE:
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch. Life is good.

GERMANY:
You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years eat once a month milk themselves are all blond drink lots of beer give excellent quality milk and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

GREAT BRITAIN:
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

INDIA/HINDU:
You have two cows.
You worship them.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go in hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

ISRAEL:
So, there are these two Jewish cows, right?
They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights.
They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors.
So, who needs people?

ITALY:
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

JAPAN:
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them world-wide.

NEW ZEALAND:
You have two cows.
That one on the left is kinda cute...

POLAND:
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

RUSSIA:
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have 5 cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 12 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
You produce your tenth 5-year plan in the last 3 months.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

SWITZERLAND:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.

TALIBAN:
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which is two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
At night when no one is looking, you have sex with both of them.
Then you kill them and claim a US bomb blew them up while they were in the hospital.
==========================================

"...ISMs"....

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows.
The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE:
You have two cows.
The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

DICTATORSHIP:
You have two cows.
The government takes both, then shoots you.

FASCISM, I:
You have two cows.
The government allows you to keep your cows, but tells you when, where, to whom, and for how much you may sell the milk, and you may not sell your cows without government permission.

FASCISM, II:
You have two cows.
The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

FEUDALISM:
You have two cows.
Your lord takes some of the milk.

COMMUNISM, I:
You have two cows.
Your neighbors help take care of them and you share the milk.

COMMUNISM, II:
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

SOCIALISM, I:
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

SOCIALISM, II:
You have two cows.
You keep one, but must give the other to your neighbor.

TOTALITARIANISM:
You have two cows.
The government takes them both and denies they ever existed and drafts you into the army.
Milk is banned.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Eurythmas/Happy New Year

We had a good Eurythmas- a very quiet one, and nothing interesting (read: bad) happened, except for my friend had to have surgery.
What did we do? Not much, and we didn't do much in the way of loot either. I gave everyone Chex mix and Cheese straws; Trey got his camera back, gave me some money, and got a carton of cigarettes. Alex and I got my dad an AQUARIUM, which is one of those things he's lusted after for YEARS but never bought- and probably never would buy for himself. He managed to complain about this, because Ma is supposed to be moving in, but that isn't expected to happen for months and months realistically. They can be so irritating. Sandy got lotsa stuff, like a Coach bag which cost $350 and made me happy I was born a man - doesn't happen that often, folks- and don't lust after things like that, and she got a digital camera, and Brittany got a guitar. I offered to come over and sing "Nobody Loves Me Anymore", which is what they call "Don't Ask Me Why," but so far this offer has ben rejected.

I suppose the major event was that -well, I have been trying to get Trey to be more Imaginative in bed- because right now, all he does is paw me for a few seconds and then say Roll over baby I want some. After much whining on my part, what does he do but acquiesce- trust Trey to REALLY be imaginative- and he goes and gets a long handled plastic- spork sort of thing from the kitchen and then he comes back and jabs it into my side while asking me, "Are you a robot, or are you human?" I failed to see how this was supposed to be sexy. Trey promised that next time, he is going to use the eggbeater. I am not sure what to think about this, but I promised him that next time, I will try harder to view whatever he decides to do as intended as sexy. This could be interesting.

O and his friend Steve, the person who was going to be a Hare Krishna for a while, moved in. He seems nice (he gave me money) and he tries to keep to himself but one or the other of us is always bothering him. For 8 months, he was living in a tent behind the Methodist Children's Home. I rather envy this, because I think it is just not fair to get gray hairs and all worried and anxious and spend my life working at a high stress job and not making enough money after paying bills to eat at Checkers, and he can get along living in a tent, and he is 31 and looks 21, and I'm 30 and look as old as John Kerry. I don't see that we are going to have anything to retire ON in the future, even the way I am socking it away now, because once the baby boomers retire, all their contributions will go out of the stock market and 1929 is going to look like a Golden Age of Prosperity. Hmph. And I get poked with a spork, too. I want a fun, irresponsible life! I'm not getting any fabulous benefits out of the other kind, as far as I can tell.

New Year's was also very nice; we went to that Tapas restaurant, Eclipse di Luna, and ate with Freomi etc, and they didn't give us any horrible presents, and then we went to Jason's house and had party. I did not drink anything. Trey, while opening a bottle of champagne, got hit in the eye; Brandon had a gun, which made me nervous- there's something about heavy drinking and deadly weapons that I don't like to see mixed - I asked him why, and he said, "To be prepared." O, I said, "For what?" I, you see, was not prepared at ALL for any eventuality that might require a gun, and did not want to be prepared for any such thing. "Just, you know, prepared, " he said. The dialogue continued in the same vein for a while, and he showed me his concealed weapons permit; I conceded that I could see that there were places that a gun might be an important part of being Prepared but I didn't think that Eclipse di Luna and Jason's New Year's party were the places. he put the gun inside the waistband of his trousers and I was thinking that if I put a gun there, it might shoot parts of my body that I really would not like to live without and that Trey is interested in poking with the spork, and I would not like that at all. No, I cannot think of a good way to carry a gun on my person. I need all of my body, and it isn't in any great shape as it is (particularly my liver) without getting shot up to boot. Naomi drank too much and passed out early; for once it wasn't I asleep at 11. A Certain Other Person (not I) also got very drunk and then sat in a chair and moaned, Trey, Trey, and also tried to dance with us, which I thought was- uncomfortable. I don't like to make other people's significant others upset, at least not inadvertently, and then Trey started doing push-ups so I knew it was time for us to go home. Right then. Immediately, because Trey doing push-ups is a Bad Sign.
Sheridan was waiting for us; Trey sang her a song in the car on the way home but I forget what it was about, it was amusing and very drunk; Then we proceeded to get really silly, and we all put on dresses and danced. Sheridan and Trey looked unbelievably HOT dancing together.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Cruella's Birthday!

I had, for the most part, a wonderful birthday- - - perhaps a little much of it, but O well. It's the big 3-0.
As reported on Ian's blog http://rantnrave.typepad.com/ you can see the list of attendees as well as pictures:
First of all, I have to remark that many people gave me many wonderful presents, such as DANIEL, who gave me a bottle of gin AND bought our dinners. He was remarkably kind, for which we are eternally grateful and appreciative. Alex Sara and Ian collaborated to give me some $$$, which is always valued; Trey got me a box of mystery novels, and then waited in line from 3 in the morning until 10 in the morning to get me Strokes tickets- I will have to write some more about that- Cathy got me some pillows.
Now, on the extreme opposite hand, Freomi collaborated to get me the out and out Tackiest Present Ever, and that takes some doing. They are famous for really, really tacky gifts; Cringeworthy gifts, gifts that make you want to cry. I think they went out of their way to pick this particular thing; there's such a thing as thoughtlessness but this- it can't be. It just can't.
Freomi put a picture together, with some pictures of us (almost none of which, by the way, were attractive) but broke the picture frame when Naomi allegedly stepped on the glass. this did not, incidentally, deter them from presenting me with this. Great, I said, now I have another piece of broken crap to put in my house. Anyone else would have said we got you something but it broke so we're getting it fixed and then we're going to give it to you. No, not them. Their crowning gift was: a half eaten box of chocolates. Yes. They had tried the chocolates, passed them around Naomi's family, no one liked them, so they gave them to me. That is awful. Not only that, but one of the chocolates had been bitten and then replaced.

Now I've re-gifted before: I gave Trey a Starbucks card one of the students gave me because I knew he would appreciate it more than I do, and I gave Alex a Blockbuster card one of the students gave me because we have Netflix, and I'm not going to use it, and I gave Freddy some flavoured coffee that my department chair gave me because I don't like coffee that tastes like air freshener. I don't want it to taste like orange or peppermint or whatever. Yuck. Actually in the first two cases, I gave it as a present, but I told my brother I was re-gifting, and in the last case I said I'm not going to use this, do you want it, but I didn't present it as a gift. And I certainly didn't open it, use it, and then decide I didn't like it and give it to someone else as a "gift."

I have no idea where this comes from. Neither of them have the pathological frugality that I might ordinarily associate with this behaviour; they are quite spendthrifts and the only person I know who is pathologically frugal (my mother; she brings home paper towels from the office and REUSES them) is actually quite generous. Freddy may not have received a lot of nice gifts as a child, but he's been around people who have; Naomi seems to have raised in an environment where appearances were important and had enough money to understand gift giving. She certainly appreciates RECEIVING them. I am beginning to think that they think I won't notice, or won't care. I'll have to think of something suitably horrible to give them on the next occasion.

Well, as Ian pointed out, after the Colonnade, at which I got major accolades for my tiara, we went to Cathy's house, and then we went home. Ian neglected to point out that we made the cocktail with champagne, gin, pineapple, and grapefruit juice; this was indeed delicious but also one of those drinks likely to make one not ever remember a large part of the evening. Apparently whiskey also went into this, which I did not intend. I don't know WHY it is a gooThe last thing I remember was playing "Thorn In My Side" for Sara; I was told after that that I ranted about Trey's dish of salt water, and that Sara was trying to teach me how to Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture and then I pounced on Trey, but I don't remember any of that. Then Ian had his going away party, and I do remember most of that. It was very nice.