And When I Wave I Lose The Time I Save

Whew. It's been hard to keep up with this daily posting.

I mean, I'm not saying I've been back-dating them, or anything.

Doesn't Anybody Stay In One Place Anymore?

View from Sassy Springs Farm, November 22

Our last Thanksgiving here...

All The Leaves Are Brown

Was this really only four months ago?

We Need A Holiday

Give A Little Bit

These were the items given to the studio audience (located this year in Macon, GA, where the Oprah Winfrey Show has consistently received its highest ratings) on the 2007 edition of Oprah's Favorite Things:

SAMSUNG PROGRESSIVE HD CAMCORDER SC-HMX10C $799.99

UGG® AUSTRALIA CLASSIC CROCHET TALL BOOT $120

TOYWATCH $150-$1500

PERFECT ENDINGS CUPCAKES FROM WILLIAMS-SONOMA $59 (set of 9)

MELAMINE BOWLS, MEASURING CUPS AND SPOONS FROM WILLIAMS-SONOMA Bowls $32; Measuring Cups and Spoons Set $18

THE ARTISAN® STAND MIXER FROM KITCHENAID HOME APPLIANCES $349.99

THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S PLANET EARTH DVD SET $59.95

KAI BODY BUTTER and BODY BUFFER $28; $55

CLARISONIC SKIN CARE SYSTEM $195

CLAUS PORTO SOAPS FROM LAFCO NEW YORK $42 set of 3

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH BY KEN FOLLETT $24.95

BREVILLE IKON PANINI PRESS FROM WILLIAMS-SONOMA $99.95

HDTV REFRIGERATOR WITH WEATHER AND INFO CENTER FROM LG ELECTRONICS $3,799

CIAO BELLA BLOOD ORANGE SORBETTO $4.99/pint

RACHEL PALLY SWING TURTLENECK AND SAILOR PANTS $141; $194

SCRABBLE PREMIER EDITION FROM HASBRO $70

UNITED ARTISTS 90TH ANNIVERSARY PRESTIGE COLLECTION $869.98

SHAKLEE GET CLEAN™ STARTER KIT $89.60

O'S GUIDE TO LIFE $29.95

JOSH GROBAN'S NOEL CD $12.99

GRAND TOTAL: $7,105.33

...which would also purchase two semesters of tuition at a large state university (in-state tuition) like, say, the University of Wisconsin. Or send 50,000 lbs of food via Feed the Children to feed a family of four for, well, years.

Or it would buy 107 fresh Balsam Fir Christmas trees, or 130 smoked whole 11-12 lb turkeys ordered from Nueske's meats in Wittenberg, WI. That would be quite a holiday spread for a lot of folks.

Heck, that number of dollars could likely build--or at least start--a house for someone who really needs it.

How To Become Number One In A Hot Body Show

There once was a girl named Beverlee
Who had such a sweet singing voice, you see
In church choir she would
Want to sing "push it good"
But they would not let her be Salt-n-Pepa-ry

This limerick brought to you by special request from its saucy subject

Want Something That Keep Me Easy

I don't know why, but Purple Drank has been on my mind for the past two weeks since I heard of it.

It's been reported that Britney Spears, among her other publicly-displayed vices and ill-advised undergarmentless- and child-driving adventures, enjoys chillin' with something called Purple Drank, basically a colorful mixture of the prescription cough syrup your mom would give you when you were eight and barking with the croup all night and Sprite (or diet Sprite in its calorie-conscious version), served, apparently, in a Styrofoam cup (you know, to keep it cold).

Specifically, it's codeine to chill ya shit out and promethazine to roll ya brain (and Sprite for fizz, I guess), favored by the hip-hop community out of the South, like in Atlanta, Houston, and New Orleans. Gin and juice it's not, immortalized in a song by Frayser Boy ("I got dat drank, that purple drank"), who note that it makes you "movin' leanin' slow seemin'." You also drink--er, drank?--it while you're "grippin grain," which was harder to look up but I think means grasping your faux wood-grain steering wheel and leaning to the right while you drive. Or drizive.

Purple Drank is known by variety of other monikers: Southern Lean, Purple Tonic, Texas Tea, Memphis Mud, and--my favorite--Sizzurp. As in "Sippin On Some Sizzurp" by Three 6 Mafia. You can perceive in the lyrics ("Sexy thang on my arm, cup of drank in my palm") hints of the artistic vision would bring them the Academy Award only six years later.

But I think the song's video sheds some light on what actually sipping Purple Drank is like.



It means you may look and/or feel like an animated, plaque covered tooth dancing on some "gums" and eating lots of sugar.

Oh, and it reminds me: I gotta call the dentist. I think I have a cavity.

...Got Legs, She Knows How To Use Them

Armitage and Leavitt, Summer 2007.

Spider Pig! Spider Pig!

This actually not only provides insight into the WGA writers' strike, it's a reminder of what we're going to be missing the longer it persists.

A Kiss On The Hand...

I had intended to post yesterday's intended post here--yesterday, when I was sidetracked by my ongoing ire with the urban consumerist avalanche, pounding even harder these days with the impending holidays.

And again, I am sidetracked. Today there were those over-your-head ads on the Red Line, the insistent kind that are repeated all. the. way. down. the. car. These provocations were from some national jeweler chain to (I'm assuming single men) to just DO IT and ASK HER each featuring the image of a jaw-droppingly ugly platinum-and-diamond ring the size of the a baby elephant.

It can only be JAR-ED!
Actually, I think it was these gentlemen.

Maybe it's my computer, but that guy sounds like the Men's Wearhouse dude. Hell, he SHOULD work for these guys. Double-hell, James and his Sons should just hook up with MW and start selling their fat-ass rings to the poor guys shaking in their Vans who are picking out a new suit because she is not gonna let him show up at this wedding next weekend in a shirt and dark blazer and pants he's still managed to fit into since the one semi-formal dance he went to in college, why the hell not just grab a ring? I got a big bonus coming and she's been dropping hints like a Miami Dolphins receiver (GOD they suck bad this year. 0 and 9?! De-STROYING my fantasy team.) and it's gotta be the one thing that'll make her happy because it seems like nothing ever seems to keep her happy, not even when I got tickets for Josh Rouse and she was all like, I meant Josh GROBAN, I made you watch him on Oprah when it plays before Jimmy Kimmel, so you should know.
And here I thought women were suffocating under societal pressure to create an Acceptable Identity Through Better Spending. I mean, check out the detailed guide to not just choosing a ring, but proposing.
If you don't know how to propose to the person you're proposing to, then maybe you oughta rethink the proposal, guy.
As for me, these things don't hold much appeal. And I am not surprised at all that the diamond ring ascended as the "symbol of ultimate devotion," given that its popularity was basically engineered by what's pretty much the Rupert Murdoch of diamonds, DeBeers, the cartel that controls the market.
So, I give you something that I find much, much better than a diamond called "Hearts on Fire," sifted by poor dusky youth in Africa, laboring under a global monopoly, cut and polished by the small hands of children India for another monopoly, designed by a different monopoly, and sold to you in a strip mall by some guy with an initial before his first name (or a first-name initial, or whatever) wearing Mens Wearhouse and talking about "inclusions":
A private freaking Caribbean island.