pedestrian saga

Well, this video pretty much sums up my weekend.

Friday evening Scott and I headed to the Coliseum and watched my alma domina whomp my alma matertera in the first home meet of the gymnastics season.

Then last night we hunkered down at home to watch the musical-cum-action-flick-cum-marionette-spectacle that is Team America: World Police. Scott had seen it at the cinema back in the fall of 2004 and recommended I catch it right away, since many of the political jokes and plot points would soon be dated. I managed to miss it anyway, but luckily Bush was reelected, and this delightful puppetry parody of the Bruckheimer/Bay bombasticistical brand of filmmaking remained relevant long enough for me to enjoy it on DVD. My favorite song is probably “Montage,” but it’s that catchy main theme that’s stuck in my head.

To unstick it, I’ll revisit last weekend’s theme, “White & Nerdy,” and maybe kick Scott’s butt in a game of Ping-Pong, sip some earl, pimp out my Facebook profile, make a homepage for my dogs, assemble a bowling team…

We were all about the wholesome Sunday morning entertainment here, at least until Greasy Kid Stuff on the radio somehow slid into Tone Loc and Eazy-E on the tape deck. Next thing you know, the honkies have invaded Compton.

(If Tipper Gore were here, she’d slap a parental advisory sticker on the following links, kids.) Nina Gordon does N.W.A., and The Gourds are sippin’ on Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.”

All the honkies in the house, say, “Hey!” And then go outside and play.

Man, the creators of this deliciously awful Reagan-era War on Drugs music video were way off. Having now seen that the David Hasselhoff poster in my bedroom might spring to life and serenade me, I’m actually more tempted to try drugs! But don’t worry. I’d probably just get hooked on a feeling.

Why didn’t I get to star in this video? Alas, in 1985-1986, it would be a few more years before I hit my faux-goth, sulky girl, teenage years, and I just didn’t fit the part. I was, however, a huge Whitney Houston fan at that time. I used to don my leotard, tights, and leg warmers, play her exotically orange debut album on the record player, and make up dance routines to “How Will I Know?” in my dad’s living room.

Nostalgia trip courtesy of boingboing and Scott, who lovingly shares the best of that burgeoning blog when I can’t keep up with it myself.

(Years of obsession; name of boy band; favorite member)

1985-1987; The Monkees; Davy

1988-1990; New Kids on the Block; Joey

1992-1994; Sex Pistols; Johnny

2000-present; Fingerbang; Wendy

Tonight Scott held my hand as I made my first edit in that ubiquitous behemoth of a wiki, correcting a misspelling in the entry for The Name of the Rose. (Much, much more on TNOTR soon.) How thrilling and satisfying! And yet the potential for dangerous copyediction…

File this under Easily Amused. I’ve started reading The Oregonian (OregonLive.com) regularly. Yesterday I wandered over to their Tails of the City to peruse the photo albums of cute canines. Next thing I know, I was following some weird late-night Internet show-and-tell impulse, and now, check it out! My dogs, Oregonians. (Never mind that those particular photos date to our previous move.)

As they say over at Salon’s Video Dog, all together now, Aw!

It’s Poop for Peace Day, y’all. Do your doody and really take some time to think while you work up a stink!

[I'm collecting all things sewer on this page-- history, fiction, my own adventures. Hard hat area-- it's under construction! Always taking suggestions...]

John Steinbeck wrote about preparing to sail the Sea of Cortez:

There were some romantic accounts by young people who had gone into the Gulf looking for adventure and, of course, had found it. The same romantic drive aimed at the stockyards would not be disappointed.

And so it is with the sewers! I’m not sure exactly when I aimed my romantic drive their way– Vague recollection of staring down a lot of drains in Berkeley between 1998 and 2000, but that may have constituted depression more than romantic curiosity. However it’s come about, those dark and dank byways tunneled below our cities or flowing at their fringes are alluringly repulsive to me in much the same way that Harry Lime, emerging from the shadowy Wienkanal, is hauntingly attractive to the lasses of Heavenly Creatures.

Sewer History

SewerHistory.org: From detailed engineering documents to poetry by S.T. Coleridge and Robert Frost to the history of “Ring around the Rosie,” this site’s got something for everyone.

The sewers of London and Paris and Chicago

P.Saga Gets Down and Dirty

Los Angeles Sewer Tour (Summer 2004)
20th Annual Tour de Sewer (March 2005)

Shit Lit

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Miscellaneous Fecal Fun

PoopReport.com: As Eric Cartman would say, “Holy crap!” Why, oh, why didn’t I think of this? Features The Movie Poop-Scene Database, Travel Logs, a load of Intellectual Crap, and much, much more.

Here is a girl who really knows her shit from Shinola!

Horoscope by Lloyd, my favorite astrologist, week of March 29, 2005: “Leo (July 23—Aug. 22). You’re developing a reputation as something of a ‘party pooper,’ because your friends are too proper to call you ‘that chick who shits in the punch bowl.’”

She made my day, that’s what! She recommended this week’s top story from the Onion** to me with the comment: "So this made me think of you watching Labyrinth as a child and being slightly traumatized by David Bowie’s package in spandex…" I almost busted a rib when I opened her e-mail this evening! I’d forgotten that I’d confessed to her how Bowie’s bulge, er, stands out among my childhood memories…

Slightly traumatized? Let’s face it, folks. This is a Muppet movie about a girl’s loss of sexual innocence! Consider the timing of the film’s release. Let’s see, I probably saw it on HBO around about 1987 when I was an 11-year-old drama queen growing up Methodist in small-town Middle America, going through a puffed-sleeves phase, and struggling to cope with my parents’ divorce. "Sarah" with all her big sister/stepdaughter poutiness and fantastical escapism was ME. And we were so confused, torn between the innocent playfulness of those wacky Muppets and the dangerous allure of Jareth the Goblin King and his masquerade, ehm, ball–Oh-my-but-WHAT-is-WITH-that-big-lump-in-his-pants?!?!

So, while the Onion has spotlighted this country’s veritable epidemic of pediatric NNBD (Nearly Naked Breast Disorder), I’ve decided to start my own support group for women suffering from BBPT (Bowie’s Bulge Prepubertal Trauma). Ladies? (’Fraid you hetero males just don’t get it.)

**"U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV," referring, of course, to last year’s Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction.

I was ready to be under-whelmed by Spider-man 2, but I ended up having a lot of fun! It’s tons better than its predecessor. I had a perfect summer matinee experience - well-crafted comic-book camp complete with silly family audience (the best moment came when Mary Jane started kissing one of the boys and a little girl in the row behind me flipped out - "Eeewwwwww! Gur-ooooooss!") Spider-man 2 was much more relaxed, had less of that movie-by-committee feel I hated about the first one. They managed to finish the special effects this time. They presented a much more interesting villain in Doc Ock. They permitted director Sam Raimi to operate more freely in his own style. There’s more of hilarious Jameson the tabloid mogul, and there’s plenty of alluringly geeky Peter Parker to go around, ladies! I couldn’t seem to get enough of Spider-man without his mask on, hair all a-tousled and spandex suit carefully ripped at the biceps. Bob and I spent a good part of the afternoon pondering such heavy issues as "What does Parker see in Mary Jane anyway?" and "Honestly, how could he just suppress his Spider-man powers like he did?" and "Wonder what Mrs. Osbourne’s story was?" and [me] "What they really need to do is have Spidey team up with the X-men! Yeah, two hours of Wolverine and Spider-man (without his mask on) in the same film!" and [Bob] "Naw, but check out all the similarities between Spider-man and Superman…"

Makes me feel quite sad really that I won’t be able to tag along with the brothers this time to the San Diego Comi-con!