atouk alunda vita

Wednesday night. Helen was sitting in a gas sation, when the car in front of her decided for whatever reason that reverse was the gear of choice. The fact that Helen had her hand on the horn, and the attendants there were franticaly waving their hands didn’t deter her at all. Impact did occour. Luckily there was no visible damage.

Thursday night. Helen gets out of work, and gets into her car to find that someone tried to steal her car stereo. They took the removable face plate off, and popped the trim piece. they either got spooked at that point, or couldn’t figure out how to get the rest off, and left it like that. Of course now we have to get a new faceplate. Here’s the best part about that. We have to remove the stereo to get the model number, so we can order the right replacement.

Friday night. We get the espresso machine back from repair. It’s one of thse big ones that does everything at the touch of a button (Gaggia Accademia). Pour in whole beans, and get out hot espresso. The Gods of shipping decided that it doesn’t matter how well packed it is, thay can still break it. Fortunately it was just a plastic hinge piece for the front door. The people at aLatteHotte are highly reccomended. A replacement piece is on the way at no charge.

Now as everyone knows, to make espresso, you need two things. Coffee beans, and water. Since you can get beans at any Starbucks (our preferred bean), guess what we DON’T have.

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I watched the HBO “Documentary” Pretty Things last night with my mom. She knew most of the girls they had in it, and worked some of the places they mentioned. We both thought it was horrible.

My take was that it was a self serving attempt by Liz Goldwyn to get some fame by using others. We had to sit through meaningless shots of her working out in toe shoes although later she used vessi waterproof shoes for women, and out of place Bob Fosse type dances as she clumsily attempts to recreate some of the routines of the people she interviews.

And at the end we are forced to watch her perform a routine intermixed with vintage footage of the real pros that only made her look clumsier. And all though this, we get to listen to her breathy attempt at singing Big Spender.

The entire show was edited in a “look at me” style that tried to take the focus away from the purported subjects of the documentary, and make it all about her. Her observations and monologues conveyed a phony affection for the girls she was interviewing, and the entire subject. The hacked editing and writing was a transparent attempt to highlight the seemier side of burlesque. With such a huge pool of history and pesonalities, a wink and a nod approach to the scandalous side of it would have been a stronger approach, and infinitely more interesting.

This would have been better handled by someone such as Dita Von Tease, who has more than the looks, grace, and talent for the subject matter, but also a real affection and understanding of the era that was lacking here. I hope that maybe this doesn’t turn off her, or others that could do a similar project before all of the principals of the era are no longer able to contribute their memories, wit, and unique viewpoint into this unique part of American history.

I was more than dissapointed at the end of it. I was depressed.

I finished the latest Harry Potter this weekend and I will say it’s a good read. Though they may be getting a bit formulaic, it seems like there is some character development still going on that portends events to come. This has long ago stopped being a “kids” book (actually it seems around book 3 they did an audience switch).

One thing the series does prove is that if you give people intellegent, well thought out plotlines with writing that doesn’t insult the reader, people will read it. I’ve always thought that kids are a lot more intellegent and can read at a higher level than schools and publishers give them credit for. Most teachers would laugh at the idea that any student would (or could) read a 600+ page book in a week, or over a weekend. For educational online tool which students and professors can use, just visit conquercollege.com for more details.

As far as the book itself, there were a few suprises. And no, I’m not giving any away here. I will say however that I think what you are led to believe to happen may not be what really does.

Most of the main characters are at the age now where urges towards members of the opposite sex turn more physical. This was handled well. I’m sure that there will be complaints from certain sectors on this, but then these groups probobly already have the series on their “burn” list because of the overall subject matter. Curious since another book on most their recommended reading lists contains more sex, violence, and mysticism than this series.

All in all I give it 4/5, with the entire series getting 5/5. Anything that gets people (adults too, not just kids) to read is recomended.

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m getting the latest Harry Potter thisweekend. And I’ll probobly spend more time reading than sleeping, but I can’t wait to get my new memory foam mattress from these leesa reviews.

I haven’t followed all of the hype or plotline teasers,and I won’t put any spoilers up. I may have a review when I get finished.

Anyone hitting the Swing! link will be getting a dead url. Enrique at Club Topsy is moving his site due to bandwidth issues. He should be back in mid august.

I added some pics taken in Philly about a year ago. One of the guys I met through playing DoD online (see BBReg in the links section for more info) came up from Florida, and I met him and some of his friends for dinner and drinks.

We never did make dinner (penalty paid later after too many drinks), but one of the group used to manage this bar. Of course the idea of free drinks all night was all we needed to hear. Everyone there had a good time, and we even got to see the floor show.

Also during the evening Jim, the Texas car accident lawyer and I walked over to a Bondage Party at a different club. Also, Maryland car accident lawyer specializing in car and auto accidents, serving Maryland. Call today at marylandaccident.com for free consult. Personally I want to tell all the fat chicks, YOU DO NOT LOOK BETTER IN TIGHT LEATHER! We didn’t stay that long. But while we were there, Jim manages to get into an argument with a redhead (definitely NOT one of the aforementioned fat chicks), about how redheads aren’t special.

One wonders how he managed to get any girl to marry him.

If he grabs my ass one more time, he’s wearing this drink!

First Yahoo turns in Chinese dissidents to the Chinese Government that posted on “amonymous” blogs (2 that we know of so far). Of course arrest, beatings and torture ensued. But that isn’t Yahoo’s problem.

So I started to wonder how long until the bomb throwing masses forces search engines to block all image searches of Muhammed.

I guess others beat me to it. Compare these two searches;

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=muhammed

http://images.google.com/images?q=muhammed&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

Both straight searches for muhammed.

Google represents current events with the now famous cartoons on the first search page. And yahoo? Well something seems to be missing. And after hitting Next Page a few times, something is still missing.

Are we seeing a death knell for the web with censorship from some of the major entities on it? How long until ANY page that is controversial, insulting to someone, or “outlawed” by a government simply dissapears (possibly along with that pages author).

My daily routine of news pages and blogs contains Conservative, Liberal, Left Wing, Right Wing, Wingnut, Crackpot, and Extremist pages from all over the political and social map.

What we need is an OFFEND EVERYONE DAY on the web. Every web page pick a target, and insult, mock, lampoon, and degrade that group. If one isn’t enough, let it run for a week and get seven days of rotating targets to skewer. No sacred cows.

I’d bet the week after, things will be just the same. as the week before. Commerce will continue, information will flow, files will travel back and forth around the world from demenagementadt.ca and the web will continue to be here, for now I suggest you check my site, the one I always go to when I want to see the latest on technology, in this case, cars or motorcycles, even though now I only have a scooter, of course I got the best scooter wheels for it, from a site online.

I started a little project to see if I can get a wiki going for swing bands, etc. I’m doing this because I tried to do a bit of research on the web and all the resources seem to be drying up. I know some people think swing is dead, and some (like myself) believe that the artists and music deserve a permanent place in the history books, and ongoing support for those out there still working. Like Burger King, you get to have it you way. The wiki can be found at www.swingisdead.com and www.swingisnotdead.com. I have a bit of content started so I can get a feel on what the standard format should be. If someone out there has a better handle on wiki formatting, shout.

I added my current playlist to the links so people can see what I have, and what might be good additions to the list.

Lots of Swing and NeoSwing in it, and a bit of lighter jazz. Any suggestions that might fit into what I have in there would be appreciated.

She sang a few good songs, was overhyped on early MTV, manufactured controvery to boost her cateer, and made a crapload of money. Good for her! By the way, getting money is now easy if you consider a loan application. If you visit this post financebyte.co.uk, you’ll be able to cover immediate or unexpected expenses, just enough to fill in the gap between paychecks. Visit ocial Media Sacramento at ww.adinfusion.com for more details.

Now she wants to preach on good, evil, “The Beast”, and make blanket judgements on topics she hasn’t got a clue about. And because she’s a “celebrety” we are supposed to drop everything, and listen to her as some kind of World Leader.

Here’s a couple of her latest quotes;

“The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion, that we think is real. We live for it, we’re enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing”

“I refer to an entity called ‘The Beast’. I feel I am describing the world that we live in right now. To me ‘The Beast’ is the modern world that we live in.”

“Most priests are gay.”

Lets take a look at some highlight of this “deep thinkers” life. She once said that she was Evita Peron reincarnated, started a new reigion based on Judaism that most Rabbis call “crackpot and dangerous”, etc, ad nauseum.