scuslidge

thesugarmonster @ 08:07 pm: Today I played with my makeup and hair. And took pictures!

( An unproductive Saturday )

Tags: hair, killing time, pictures

thesugarmonster @ 02:57 am: I was bored and went through my makeup in order to find stuff to get rid of. I took pictures for no real reason at all.
( Makeup and weird food choices )

Tags: food food food!, pictures, the gigantic move of doom

thesugarmonster @ 11:35 pm: Hi. I’m bored. And totally high on painkillers. Not high high. More like...slightly buzzed. Yet very tired. So I made a new icon. Fentanyl patch + liquid Tylenol + a couple of Darvocet = a little much. Live and learn.

Okay, I fell asleep after I wrote that and woke up four hours later. At 10pm! I’ve just gotten so used to taking a lot of drugs and them never helping that I didn’t think to scale back with my new patch. But now I’m awake and feeling like doing a little box rearranging and some sorting. First, though, I’m eating a giant bowl of popcorn with melted butter, powdered nacho cheese flavoring, and red pepper flakes while watching The Office (UK version.) Which is how I spend more of my evenings than I care to admit.


Accomplished this past week re: The Gigantic Move of Doom

( Saturday through Friday )

Interesting Things Found
• Meh...boring week.

Tags: food food food!, health, the gigantic move of doom, tv

ladypixel @ 08:16 pm: I'm beyond numb today.

Tomorrow is my uncle's funeral. I'm unenthused.

Early this afternoon, we went over to Lane Bryant so that I could do a little clothes-shopping. Anyone who knows me will know that I hate shopping for clothing. I live in jeans and t-shirts, typically. But I got some 'nice clothes' for my uncle's funeral, and given that I still have $100 of my $150 giftcard left, I may go back and get some shorts and tops later. I haven't decided yet.

We went to my sister-in-law's house for a BBQ, and I sort of... sat there. I'm not conversational right now. But I played with the baby (well, one-year-old) a bit.

We then hit Walmart on the way home. I am teh sulk, though, because they no longer carry cross-stitch supplies. They do carry cheap-ass shoes, which was one of my primary goals there, and I got those... but dammit, I wanted to cross-stitch tonight. Grumble. Now I have to find somewhere to get flosses/aida cloth cheaply.

And in the morning, we troop out to Canyon Country en-masse to go sit in a building at a cemetery that my uncle isn't going to be interred at, to talk to people we barely know about someone who I really haven't let myself realize is gone. And then we go to my cousin's wife's family's house to go do more talking.

I don't want to talk. I don't want to think. I don't want to socialize.

I just... want to sit here.

tragerstreit @ 07:10 pm: Go ahead, put that anywhere.
I can't help but think how much easier it would be to sleep anywhere, at any time, if I didn't have shoulders.

Cats make it look so easy.

derspatchel @ 07:43 pm: HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, ABBIE THE CAT
The other day I opened Abbie's bag of cat food and watched a grain moth fly out.

"Get it!" I said to His Nibs, but he wasn't going in for it. I looked in the bag and I saw a little grain moth larva all wriggling around indignantly too. This I did not tell Abbie to get. I mean, sure, the extra protein could help the cat some, but what would people say if word got out that I was feeding him moth larvae? If he was eating them of his own volition then that might be all right, but I'm not going to be the one to put them in his bowl.

To solve this problem I went out to the store and bought a new bag of cat food and a giant plastic airtight bin. It is a nice thing to know that the bin contains almost an entire bag of cat food, minus the amount you put in his bowl when you fill it up. Makes thinking easier.

However, we had purchased a boring-looking plastic bin -- clear, so you could see the awesome cat food strata, but boring nonetheless, and I realized I needed to label it lest someone think it was, I don't know, breakfast cereal, and pour themselves a big delicious bowl and munch away before the cat indignantly jumped up and demanded what the hell was going on with his food.



So I made a nice label for the bin. Now everybody will know to steer clear unless they're going to feed the cat! Isn't that helpful? And seeing as how it was the Fourth of July, well, I put a special patriotic slant on it.

Oh, and there's stuff on the side, too. You will note that it is sometimes very hard to draw on somewhat porous construction-like paper with a Sharpie marker. Maybe the next label will be drawn with a rollerball pen, lord love em.

derspatchel @ 12:37 pm: one of my favorite Kilborn-era running jokes
All together, now:

Dean Wormer? DEAD!
Marmalard? DEAD!
Jesse Helms...

Those of you who do not live in the United States, be prepared for some gigantic fireworks on your friends list today from your American pals. (Heck, okay, Americans, be prepared too!) I suggest you track the timestamps on people's posts so you can work out a complete chart of who knew and when they found out.

Meanwhile, I won't say nothin' else (other than Happy Birthday, USA!) because I used up enough anger against that bastard ages ago and would like to save any new vitriol for other causes. HOW DARE THEY TAKE AWAY THOSE CRUNCHY MINT M&MS, GODDAMN THEM ALL

tragerstreit @ 01:19 am: yowza.
Coolest corset ever.

the_dark_snack @ 01:27 pm: Just a quick "HI!" I am on my way to the convention setup & meetings. I will post over the weekend if possible. Love to you all and I will talk to you next week!

TTFN!

sosoclever @ 10:37 am: I said it wouldn't be common. I didn't say it would never happen again.
Besides, I think this banner is really funny, and I had to share it. the_original1 is to blame for it.



Cougar Ridge, Colorado is a town with secrets. Some lie close to the surface, needing nothing more than a sharp eye to uncover them. Others are buried deep within the history of the town, and have become entwined with each other to the point where puzzling them out is almost a full-time job. Still more may be known only to you.

Come to Cougar Ridge. Search for the Sasquatch. Plumb the depths of the "haunted" Cheshire River. Investigate Men in Black. Or maybe all of this seems . . . normal to you? You can write your own stories into the town's rich tradition of mystery and intrigue. You can even just go on with your life and never notice the weirdness around you. That's all for you to decide.

---

cougarridgegame is an original concept/character, text-based game on LiveJournal, in continuous play since October 2007. Cougar Ridge is a small town in the Rockies where strange things happen, and how your character reacts to these occurrences — if at all — is up to you.

This game has mature themes, and is not intended for people under the age of eighteen. Some of the entries may involve graphic depictions of violence and/or sex. Anyone who is offended by such material should not join the game.

For an idea of what the game is like, and the tone that we try to achieve, please read these entries: Week 2, Week 6, Week 19, and Week 20.

FAQ
Overview
Character Directory
Contact GM at cougar.ridge.gm (at) gmail (dot) com or at cougar_ridge_v2

Tags: advertising, cougar ridge, games

thesugarmonster @ 11:11 pm: Today I visited my pain management doctor and he doubled up the dosage of my Fentanyl* patches. Did I talk about him prescribing them to me? I don’t remember. A couple of weeks ago he prescribed me Fentanyl patches. You wear one for three days and then replace it with a new one for the next three and so on. The painkillers are released directly into your bloodstream on a constant basis. And they did nothing at all for me. So I looked the available dosages up online and, since I had been prescribed the lowest dose, I put two patches on. And it actually helped a little bit! Not very much but I did feel a small difference.

I told him what I had done so he upped my dosage. (12mcg an hour to 25mcg.) I asked to go higher but the next increment is 50 and he says that it usually takes three cycles for it to be felt fully. And by the time I’d switched to wearing two patches, I was out of them after two cycles. I had none left as of several days ago so have just been using my trusty liquid Tylenol to get by.

Aaaaanyway! I’m hopeful they’ll help. I’m also going to try to find a massage therapist in my area. Fingers crossed for that one.

After that I sat in a Starbucks parking lot with the car running and the air conditioner on full blast, enjoying some Tarragon Chicken Salad Sandwich and lemonade slushy.

I’ve been feeling very odd all day today. I don’t know how to explain it. Very restless. Physically, though, not emotionally. Like I had to keep standing up and wandering around while waiting for the doctor. Which I never ever ever do. I’m a sitter, through and through. Even once I was home I was trying to work on something on the computer and my body was just freaking out about it. I had to keep getting up and walking in and out of other rooms. I’m not sure what that’s all about.

While waiting for my appointment I began reading How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously (which was gifted to me by a very kind someone who recommended it highly.) I’m only about 70 pages in so far but I’m really liking it. Here are some points he really stresses. And that I really needed to hear.

* Right now, at this very moment, you have:
1. A roof over your head; 2. Clothes to wear; 3. Food to eat
So right now, today, you are perfectly all right.

* You are a human being. Your heart, your mind, your soul are your reality. You are not your bank balance, you are not the sum of your debts.

* Your creditors do not own you. You owe them money, not your life.

* This isn’t a rehearsal. It’s your life, right now. And the fact that you are in debt does not obligate you to suffer today.

* Your feelings are not facts.

* It isn’t Armageddon for you. It never is. You owe some money, that’s all. And only for awhile.

* Debt is nothing but a temporary situation.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book.

I had a few really horrible weeks in terms of pain and depression but I’m starting to feel better. Well...less horrible, at least. And I’ll take it!

*“Fentanyl is a powerful opiate with a potency approximately 81 times that of morphine. (It) may be hundreds of times more potent than street heroin.” My therapist (who is an addiction specialist) told me that, because of its strength, he’s seen people eat and smoke the patches. God, if you’re listening? Even if the pain doesn’t stop, at least give me a decent high.

Tags: $, books, health

derspatchel @ 11:02 pm: in which we take the long way
One of the classic film urban legends (or rumors, or perhaps "hopes") is that somewhere in South America, stashed in someone's basement or hiding in a chest in an attic, is a full, uncut version of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons. Welles finished his first cut of the film in 1942 while in South America shooting a documentary called It's All True, which itself was devised in an attempt to improve relations between the US and several key Latin American countries. We were in a war, see, and needed all the pals we could get. If we couldn't get pals, we would've settled for good neighbors.

Neither Ambersons nor It's All True turned out the way Welles wanted them to. Higher-ups at RKO, the studio which was to distribute the films, grew seriously unhappy with the way Orson was behaving while down in Brazil. Oh, sure, the guy worked like a madman, but he also played like a madman as well, and his filmmaking approach (progress? what progress? can't you see there are dances to dance, skirts to chase and delicious drinks to enjoy?) had long since ceased to worry the RKO brass. It had begun to piss them off something fierce. At this point in time Welles had only one film to his name. It just so happened to be Citizen Kane, which nearly everybody but William Randolph Hearst had praised, so Welles was under serious scrutiny from a lot of different eyes. His second film would have to surpass Kane in brilliance or else it'd just prove that Orson had gotten lucky the first time around.

The first audience preview of Ambersons was an absolute disaster. The film was previewed second on a double bill. The first film screened was a light-hearted, zippy peppy musical, which was what audiences wanted, especially so soon after Pearl Harbor. By all accounts, they loved it. The Magnificent Ambersons, on the other hand, was a brooding, slow-paced moody drama with (in the original cut) no uplifting ending, and it clocked in at just over two hours. Faced with this ordeal, the audience turned sour, began heckling, and left behind angry survey cards which were the 1940s version of YouTube comments only with just slightly less cussing (and, one presumes, without seventeen comment cards all containing the same line of dialogue with no extra comment.)

RKO knew they had to make drastic cuts to the film. Orson would never approve of their cuts, and they knew it. They also knew they didn't have to worry about that since Welles was completely powerless, being out of the country and without the right of final cut (he'd given it up during contract negotations.)

Welles could make suggestions from afar via telegram and telephone and he did, very much so, but his dispatches often carried no weight. If he had been in Hollywood, or if Robert Wise, the film's actual editor, could have gone to Rio to work with Welles (his trip was denied due to wartime travel restrictions) there's a good chance that the film might not have been butchered as it turned out to be. As it was, Wise edited the film under the guidance of studio executives who disliked Welles. Also involved with the editing process was Welles' own business manager, Jack Moss, but he was completely ineffective in defending the project and upholding what Orson wanted.

The result was a drastically shortened movie with a new, happier ending tacked on. Welles' relations with RKO fell apart. The studio eventually destroyed all the unused footage of Ambersons ("to free up vault space" was the official story, though it doesn't take a tinfoil hat to theorize they'd done it to keep the material out of Welles' hands.)

It's All True suffered disaster after disaster, including the accidental drowning death of an impoverished fisherman whose true story was being recreated for the film. The jangadeiro was one of four who sailed over 1600 miles down the coast of Brazil in order to bring public attention to their way of life, which involved working in a semi-feudal system of dubious legality. In the spirit of the pseudo-documentary, Welles had cast all four of the jangadeiros as themselves. However, as they were filming the re-creation of the dramatic conclusion of their journey, their raft capsized, killing one of the jangadeiros before a rescue crew could swim out to help him. Stop for a moment and boggle at that irony if you'd like; then we'll move on.

RKO quickly cut their losses on the project, which first had its budget slashed before it was eventually cancelled outright. Combined with the well-publicized Ambersons disaster, Orson Welles' reputation as an enfant terrible who couldn't finish a project was amplified and inflated, however justly or unjustly you want to call it.

Stories would later circulate that a print of the Ambersons first cut had been sent to Welles in Brazil, and there would be some folks in Rio who claimed to have seen it. Where that print went, though, nobody knows. It could very well be stashed somewhere. One can hope.

I only write this tonight (wait, was that just a lead-in?) because of an awesome piece of news out of Argentina. What appears to be an original, full print of Fritz Lang's Metropolis has been discovered in Buenos Aires. Lang suffered Hollywood studio butchery similar to Welles' ordeal when his amazing German impressionist masterpiece went over to the States. Executives at Paramount slashed nearly a quarter of the film's content, oversimplifying the story and removing key scenes for American audiences. Lang's original cut was lost in Berlin, and the versions of Metropolis you can get on DVD today will tell you, at certain points, what the next scene in the original narrative was supposed to have been. Even that, however, is based mostly on speculation.

Well, soon we won't need those title cards anymore. The discovered print has been brought to Berlin for restoration (after 80 years in hiding look as good you will not, hmm?) and it's only a matter of time before it's released. This is an amazing find. I cannot wait. Isn't it wonderful? And to think that maybe someday we'll be saying the same thing about The Magnificent Ambersons. Hope springs eternal, cat. Just remember that.

thesugarmonster @ 05:11 pm: It's a Contest!!
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Tags: questionable internet fame

granamyr @ 06:49 am: Profile

Name: Molly: a.k.a. Molly Le Boo, Princess Boo-Boo, Molly Boo, Boo-Boo Cat
Age: Not telling
Likes: bottle caps, tuna, mowsy wowsies, Mommy serenading me, looking out the window, being aloof and mysterious, begging for food, June bugs, Grandma's soft blanket, spilling my litter everywhere, The Sopranos, The People's Court
Dislikes: Grandma sucking my face, Baby Kat, Scratch telling me about his day, crows, hummingbirds, Sarra barking, those skinny models on Project Runway, Lost, loser boyfriends who want to be on my cell phone plan

In human news, the insomnia continues.  I can sleep when tranked out on half a Trazodone, but then I don't wake up for 12 hours.  I can't sleep on a quarter Trazodone.  I've tried.  Sunday/Monday, I went 26 hours without sleep.  I don't know what's going on.  Mom thinks I'm troubled.  I've been troubled before.  Insomnia like this was never the result.

the_dark_snack @ 04:18 pm: Oh yeah, I need to post this. On Sunday, after we got our strawberry shortcake, beldar went over to Starbucks to get his free coffee of the day (we got a card that gives us one free coffee every day through the 14th). Behind him in line was a scruffy gentleman that looked to likely be homeless. The man had two dollars and was trying to get a coffee with it. He ordered and the total came to $2.02. Well, beldar had already spent all of his money at the church and I wasn't there (nor did I have any myself). The bitch (not the word I used to describe her later) behind the counter refused to front him the two pennies or take it out of the tip jar. She was refusing to help him when another employee pulled the two cents out of their pocket and got the man his coffee.

I really can't believe the whole attitude of this bitch. I know I wouldn't have thought twice about covering the two cents. Of course, if I'd been there I would have not only told her exactly what I thought of her, but I would have taken the man down to the independent coffee house (Lazy Daze) and let them serve him (they would have certainly taken much better care of him).

I just really couldn't believe her attitude. Again, it's just good that I wasn't there or I would have made a big scene (deservedly so) and possibly had the law called on me.

What would you have done in that situation?

Tags: bitchiness, money, question, soapbox

the_dark_snack @ 02:33 pm: Just a real quick post. I'm busy applying for numerous jobs.

I had a decent interview this morning but I don't know about the job. It's not that I can't do it but the pay sucks ($10.00 to start but likely a raise after 30 days, the hours are only adequate (9-5 with nothing earlier - I don't think) but there is insurance (in 60 days or less). However, the dress code is very casual (T-shirts, shorts, etc.) and the conduct is super relaxed (there was a poster of numerous naked women on the boss's office wall). It's in construction so I'd be working with almost all guys and they would be pretty crass but I can handle that. I haven't been offered it yet, though.

Last night saw the return of Lesbian Bible Study. We're starting a new study based on "The Bible For Dummies" and it looks to be really fun. Since it was an introductory night, we cut out early. So, beldar & I went to a new restaurant (we had a coupon) and had an amazing meal. We went to Enrico's and it was wonderful. Their food was so delicious and the chef came out near the end of our meal to check up on everything. I was so impressed by it all that I can't wait to go back (perhaps this could be a regular dining option after Bible Study from now on).

Beyond that, not much else happening as yet. I'll keep you updated on things as they occur.

TTFN!

Tags: church, food, lbs, links, stress, unemployment, work

derspatchel @ 07:05 am: timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly semanticy-wanticy
Okay, new Who fans, help me out with something which has been bothering me since Saturday night. We call this segment


You keep using that word.
I do not think it means
what you think it means.

( Merriam-Webster sez... )

tragerstreit @ 12:03 am: kaff kaf kaff
One of the most annoying bits with this coughing is that it's sudden, sometimes. I'll be minding my own business and then all of the sudden KAFF KAFF KAFF KAFF. I'll be happy when I'm done with this, if only so I can stop cleaning off of my monitor. Heh.

tragerstreit @ 04:52 pm: Wow. I am an emotional PUSHOVER.
So I was prompted by XKCD to check out the new Discovery Channel commercial. And it TOTALLY MADE ME CRY.

The world is indeed, just awesome. Being easily emotionally manipulated by marketing maybe not so much, but still.

thesugarmonster @ 03:38 pm: Garage Sale
Garage Sale Time!

(A super quick one because I’m hitting the post office this week!)

Because I like to make life easy, all prices include shipping within the US. And I’m totally willing to ship to Canada or overseas if you’re willing to pay a for it.

In your comment, tell me what you want and an email address I can send a PayPal invoice to.

Please feel free to haggle!

( Stuff!! )

Tags: sellin the goods