Pratchett’s Peculiar Predilections
By · CommentsYou know, you try your best. You try to raise ‘em right. You love them, teach them, and send them out into the world, hoping they’ll make the right choices.
And then they break your heart.
:::sigh:::
So the other night I was in the kitchen working on dinner and flipped the radio on. I’m an NPR junkie, but Alison’d had it tuned to one of her stations. It was getting late, and I didn’t bother to fiddle with it; it was just supposed to be background noise after all.
And then, like in some terrible, mullet & silicone-filled horror movie, things…changed. Apparently after 7 the station switches over to some sort of light n’ easy format: Air Supply, Bee Gees, Bette Middler, you know the type. But I was up to my elbows in frying beef, and tuned it out. How many parents say that? “Oh, I thought it was harmless, I didn’t think anything of it…” Until Kenny Rogers came on. I groaned, but still didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation.
Pratchett started whistling, very excited. I won’t say he was dancing, but he was running back and forth across the top of his cage. He even puffed up with his wings curled around him in a semi-aroused stance. It seemed my little boy had experienced his first rush of sexual excitement.
For damned Kenny Rogers.
God, where did I go wrong?
I grabbed the pocket Canon, hoping to document this shocking behavior and show it to him later, maybe do a little “Scared Straight” act. “This is your brain on Kenny Rogers” kind of thing. But he was so worked up he lunged at the camera, grabbing the case and pulling the protective cover off the inside of the lens. See what being hopped up on the Gambler’ll make you do?
But it was too late, the moment had passed and all that was left was the awkwardness.
It immediately made me think of the Kathy & Mo show from a decade ago & a skit called “Kenny and the Prostitute.” I searched everywhere but just couldn’t find it online anywhere. I remembered that I had the dvd and did the po’ man’s copy- set my sad and newly injured camera to tape it while it played on the computer. It’s no longer focusing correctly, thanks to Pratchett’s job, but it’s the audio that’s the important bit anyway:
(youTube Link here)
I laughed my ass off when I first saw this, because it touched such a nerve. (Particularly the look she gives at the 4:30 mark, where it’s especially clear that if she actually had to live with Kenny, one of them would have to die.)
You see, I know all too well the pain of growing up in a Kenny Rogers affected household. My mother wasn’t a big music fan- she only had a handful of cassettes, all greatest hits collections: Kenny Rogers, obviously. Anne Murray. Neil Diamond. Barry Manilow. And yes, even Helen Reddy.
Bizarrely sappy, every one- particularly strange since my mother was neither a romantic nor an idealist. In retrospect, her musical tastes were so out of character that I wonder if it wasn’t a cry for help that I was too young to understand. Honestly, my siblings and I wondered if we weren’t a product of immaculate conception, because we’d never seen anyone so seemingly disinterested in the opposite sex- although her uber-nasty divorce might’ve been the very thing that made her decide that fantasy Kenny was the only kind of guy she could be bothered with, and since his songs are about as realistic as the Tooth Fairy, the odds of his doppelganger coming along and sweeping her off her feet were slim.
But in the end I can hardly be blamed for that metalhead phase in high school, can I? And the fact that I’m lactose intolerant after all being force-fed all that cheeze can hardly be a surprise…
So now we’ve come full circle, and Kenny’s claimed a new victim. Of all the things you thought could never happen to one of your own…
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This is just…uh…
just…
wow.
We just came out of a bitch of a Legislative session. I won’t go into the hairy details, but it was painful, drawn out, and exhausting. Which, I suppose, makes this performance a perfect representation:
(Youtube vid here)
I had to track this down after it was mentioned by the Times-Pic’s Capital bureau chief in a post-session wrap up live chat:
Q: [Comment From Jk]
Why was Hurricane Chris allowed to perform a rap song in the well of the House? Don’t they have anything better to do?A:in truth a lot of songs are sung at the House podium, lot of performers come by ….it was really nothing that new…Cajun and country music — and patriotic songs… tend to be the norm.
I read that and snickered, figuring it was just some yokel offended by rap in those hallowed halls. But no, it was horrendous on too many levels to be real. Still, I wasn’t quite sure I trusted my ears, so I went and looked up the lyrics.
Classy, y’all:
She fine den a bitch ass and her tits
Thick in tha hips every nig want her
Call her Halle Berry, Halle Berry
Halle Berry, Halle Berry
She walkin like a model
Hands on your knees
Scrub the ground
She aint nothing but a tease
Halle Berry, Halle Berry
Halle Berry, Halle Berry
So, once again, we look like morons. The one upside is that I know Piyush had a heart attack over this, which makes the national scorn almost worth it…
Sphere: Related ContentOoh La La Hibiscus with the teeniest grasshopper
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This was actually taken a couple of months ago and I’ve just gotten around to uploading it. There aren’t many blooms at the moment- we’re in the middle of a god-awful streak of sky high temps with near-drought conditions, so I can’t blame them for not wanting to be bothered. Every time I step outside I lose any motivation I might’ve started out with, so I can completely relate. 
Pratchett guards his new toy
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I was poking around and came across a new concept in bird toys and gave it a whirl. You go to Birdy Booty to check out their samples, decide they’ve got a whole lot more time and creativity than you, and fill out the form.
You don’t choose a specific toy; you determine how much you want to spend, and tell them about your bird(s), their likes and dislikes, color preferences, the whole shebang, and wait for your box to arrive. (Pratchett’s instructions were that he’s easily annoyed- he wants to be able to break his toys up immediately, all the better to make me have to buy new toys ASAP.)
There was much rejoicing at the opening of the box:
I suspect more boxes will follow.
Oh, and they accept donations for the amazing Project Perry- if you donate a toy to them, BirdyBooty’ll match it. Click the link to see phenomenal photos of the aviary they created for rescued greys.
Sphere: Related ContentThis heat is getting a little ridiculous…
By · CommentsFrom tonight’s Times-Pic updates:
Four streets in Kenner buckle in extreme heat
by The Times-Picayune
Monday June 22, 2009, 6:21 PMKenner officials said public works crews spent much of this afternoon racing to fix streets that buckled in extreme heat.
Temperatures at New Orleans International Airport hovered around 95 for much of the afternoon and were forecast to climb higher Tuesday.
Amid blistering sun, crews cut down buckled roadways at 39th Street and California Avenue, in the 4000 block of West Esplanade Avenue and at 3701 W. Loyola Ave., a City Hall statement said. On Sunday, they repaired an eruption in 2900 block of Palm Vista Drive.
Jerry Dillenkoffer, assistant director for public works, suggested that motorists drive slowly on unshaded concrete streets and report buckling by calling 911.
They were racing to repair ‘eruptions?’ I mean, yeah, it felt like breathing molten lava out there today, but jeez. That’s pushing it a bit, no?
Sphere: Related ContentSeveral people have asked me if I was kidding and/or exaggerating about Bruiser and his froggie “problem.”
I could’ve retouched the first photo to get rid of the ‘possessed by demons’ look that’s so popular these days. I thought you should get the full-on, totally crazed brunt of the ugliness of addiction.
Now we pause for a commercial break…
By · CommentsWould someone please explain this to me?
So…let’s see. Toilet paper is ‘archaic’ and this is the first ‘improvement’ since the 1880s? This? This is a ‘modern solution’?
They seem to admit that their market is made up of:
- People who are too ‘big’ to reach around and take care of the deed themselves (and the answer isn’t to lose weight, but, naturally, buy more stuff.)
- People with arthritis who can’t grip or turn properly (If they can’t grip the paper, how on earth would they be able to grip this, turn, push the weird button thingie, etc?)
- People in need of serious therapy who don’t want to go anywhere near their own body.
Everything else aside, from a purely practical point of view, um…ew. Really? If you think toilet paper is ‘disgusting?’ just wait until you have to clean that plastic thing up. Plus, from a purely editorial POV, the woman at 0:41 is hysterical- she starts out serious, then is all flirty about maintaining her dignity- I think it has to do with suddenly letting her native New Yawk accent come out. There’s a Freudian bathroom joke in there somewhere, but I’m going to take her message about dignity maintenance to heart and leave it alone.
Unfortunately, I think they’re right- this is a ‘modern solution.’ Have a problem? Even better, can we invent a problem so we can sell you some crap (har har) you don’t really need?
Sphere: Related ContentBlackjack Hibiscus (and black cat)
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I think it just confuses Bianca when I take photos of boring things like plants. She tends to get in the middle of it and look at me like I’m crazy.
So Black Jack is/was a Dupont variety; I note it’s not listed on their website any more, so it might have been discontinued. I’ve never been a big fan of the browns and greens in hibiscus blooms, but Charlie thought this one looked exotic.
It’s a slow grower, and even after being pinched off twice, this was the first bloom in 9 months. (though a second followed close behind.)
So we decided to go see a movie this weekend; pickins’ were kind of slim- we were going to go see Drag Me to Hell, but got talking about Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost. I was trying to explain to Alison what the craziness was of watching the Kroft shows as a kid- how, even when I was little, I knew they were cheezy. But somehow, they were still awesome, and we watched every damn day.
In that vein, we decided the Land of the Lost remake might be fun/nostalgic. (In the end, not so much, but that’s a different story.)
The trailers start, there are a couple things I’ll have no problem skipping, and then this came on:
First off, Tim Burton=”we will go to see it,” so that’s cool.
But, about halfway through the trailer, this music starts to play and I lean over to Ali and ask her who it is- it seems familiar. She looks at me like I’m crazy.
“No, seriously,” I whisper, “I think I know this!”
“Mom, ssssshhhh!” she hisses, looking around to see if anybody’s noticed her Mom behaving badly, not only talking in the theater, but claiming knowledge of some rock-music- something she’s only supposed to know about unless we’re talking Flock of Seagulls-era.
“I mean it,” I ask, still whispering, but annoyed. ”Just tell me who it is! It’s driving me crazy!” The music has gotten louder now, and changed tempo- I am more convinced than ever I know it, but I just can’t…
“Hey!” I say, WAY too loudly. “That’s Coheed!”
“Mom!” Alison withers, sinking down, down, down into her seat, looking up at me like I am the biggest, oldest dork on the planet. I beam, unashamed of my essential dorkish nature.
It was all especially fun since- as we all well remember from teenhood- parents live to embarrass their kids, and I’m not sure how many more opportunities I’ll get. I need to remember to savor the ones I have as an ever-scarcer commodity.
And just to illustrate the level of cheez in the Kroft shows, I bring you the intro (yes, it’s just each episode’s opening credits, despite sounding like the entire series arc) to H.R. Puffinstuff. Hope you took your Lactaid:
Sphere: Related ContentBruiser needs an intervention
By · CommentsSo we have a sad, sad confession to make.
We have an addict in the house. He simply cannot control himself. The sun starts to go down, and he starts to get the shakes. He runs to go stake out the spot where he gets his ‘junk.’ It’s started to affect the whole household. We try to physically prevent him from getting his fix, but his desperation makes him wily.
Sometimes he tries to hold back, even when his pusher tries to get him hopped (ha!) up:
But he always breaks down and has to lick the damned frog, which makes him start frothing at the mouth:
The first night it happened I freaked out, because there was a lot of foam. I mean a LOT. Like, “I think we’re rushing to the doggie hospital now” levels of foam. Instead I turned to google and quickly did a search, yelling out to the kitchen to see if he’d drink some water, which would rule out rabies (yes, of course he’s had his shots, but still) and a couple of other likely suspects.
A little more research and I determined that while he was off in the yard he must’ve picked up a hallucinogenic frog that had effects similar to LSD. Seriously. A description of someone’s ‘trip,’ having smoked some of the venom:
Objects appeared extremely distorted, colors were intensified and facial quirks were magnified, giving people a clown-like appearance. Perception of distance was extremely distorted; objects within arms reach seemed miles away. Height perceptions were also distorted, one minute I seemed like a giant compared to those around me, the next minute I seemed a dwarf in comparison. Light sources provoked an unusual reaction; they seemed surrounded by moving, prismatic colors. Walking was problematic.
The Google gods said that if he didn’t swallow it, he’d be okay, but if he did, we had big problems. After about 10 min, the froth quit flowing like river rapids, and we thought “Whew! Well, bet he won’t do that again!”
Yeah. Not so much.
He spent most of the rest day in the same spot he’d found the frog. Eventually, he figured out they’re nocturnal- now he starts his vigil about an hour before sundown- an addict is a persistent creature. He basically noses the frog around, barks at it a little, and I guess he must lick it because he does froth (you can see some on the pics above if you look at his mouth and the brick below), but not nearly so much as the first night.
We’ve tried keeping him inside, but he’s well aware of the ways of the catflaps, and he can be a focused little bugger. You can practically see him scratching his little stubby arms, shaking and whining, “but I need it, man!”
Clearly, we’re going to need to start up a Scared Straight program for toad tasters.
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