flightless hag

A chronicle of the adventures of birdwoman: a lonely, talentless freak who wanders the internet in search of entertainment.

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Location: Philly

I'm a 40-something married white female, survivor of weight watchers, avid reader of pulp. Dogs (not cats), extreme right (handed, not politics), ENTJ, alto, wanna-be knitter.

February 27, 2007

Down With W!

I’m sure you’ve all heard many rants against George W. Bush – Mr. Chimpy McHalliburton himself. If he isn’t destroying the Alaskan wildlife, drilling willy-nilly for Texas Tea, he’s murdering hundreds of thousands of people, all in the name of a war to avenge his daddy. His arrogance and deeds of evil seem to have no limit. And yet, I have been silent.

I can remain silent no longer.

His stubborn insistence that a change of Daylight Savings Time is beneficial economically is a huge pain in the butt. I’m sure it’s just because he wants to play late-night softball (senior league) earlier in the season. All the computers in the world have to be patched specifically, which is inherently risky and, in my opinion, is a lot of unnecessary work. I have to worry and work overtime just because George “I’m King Of The World” Bush thinks Daylight Savings Time should change.

It’s the straw that broke the birdwoman’s beak.

End rant



On a side note, does it bother you when you go to the lavatory at work, sit down, and realize the seat is warm?

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February 25, 2007

An Inconvenient Truth

We had a guest priest at church today. He was talking about prayer, and how we should pray about everything. He gave several examples, one of which was that we should pray for our warming globe. Talking of the Al Gore movie, and how you're supposed to "spread the news" on warming, he said that nothing had ever struck him more of what the early church must have been like. He went on to say that Al Gore was the prophet.

I couldn't believe with him more. Global warming is a religion. Hail Gaia, full of crap.

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February 23, 2007

It's Only Natural

Stinky was petting Titus tonight.






He was petting Titus on the belly, kind of low. So I said, "Hey, Stinky, be careful, you don't want to touch Titus's penis. I mean, you wouldn't like it if he touched your penis."


He looked at me and shook his head. "No, that would hurt. Especially if he got the other part."


"The other part?"


"The part with the skin and the... nutty things?" (cupping protectively)

Yes, it's only natural. But I preferred it when he referred to the whole package as a bug.

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Funniest Commenters Ever

OK, I've read Tim Blair on and off for years now, simply because his off-handed irony makes me laugh. And because his commenters are funny as hell.

However,
this post and ensuing comments had me crying. (warning, not for the left at heart!)

I think I must own Underwear of Ambiguity.

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February 14, 2007

Lessons My Mother Taught Me

My mother is staying with us right now, trying to avoid the cold of the one-light town for the relative warmth of Philly. Yes, it is warmer here, by about 15 degrees.

Anyway, this year, she’s telling some stories. Must be the chardonnay I keep plying her with.

Tonight’s tale was that of the 1940 Halloween escapade (not to be confused with the 1940 St. Valentine’s Day Snowstorm, after which her father helped SHOVEL the road from Fairdale to Forest Lake, clearing close to 2 feet of snow).

Trick-or-treating was the theme of the evening among the Rush students (Montrose got a rooster – put him on a fence – Rooster crowed for Rush High – because he had some sense!). They (the hooligans being the Halls – Barbara, Art, Bobbie, and Dick; Doris DeWitt, Mary Louise Olmstead, Clara Jane Cronk, and all the Hewitts – Dick, Edie, Nina, Halsey, and Margaret) had already been partying it up at the Grange Hall, but decided they hadn’t had enough fun for the evening.

They went by the house in Fairdale where the old maids lived. One of these innocent old ladies went by the name of Miss Taylor. Apparently, Miss Taylor chose Trick, or she wasn’t given a choice. Because by the end of the evening, there was a sign in front of her house:


“Men At Work”

Mom pleads innocence – she had no idea why putting that sign in front of the old maids’ house was so funny til years later.

Sure. I believe that.

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What Happened to Kim Ferron?

I was listening to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack today. I love some of the songs on there, but the song "Nothing but You" is just awesome. Awesome.

I decided to see if the artist had anything else in iTunes. Nada.

I did a google search. Only the Dean Guitars website has anything on her - hinting that there was a debut album in 2000 and linking to the official website - which has been taken down.

Kim Ferron, if you're out there, you have an amazing talent. I hope to hear more of your stuff somewhere.

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February 12, 2007

Like Schindler’s List, Only Not As Uplifting!

I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth this weekend. It's a highly-acclaimed fantasy film that takes place in the mountains of Spain during World War II. Everything the critics say is true: it’s beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, intricately scripted. In short, it’s a very good film.

But I left the theater wishing I hadn’t gone to see it. My buddy and I were talking about why, and she put it better than I could.

She felt emotionally manipulated, and there was no redemption. There was no knowledge gained, no emotional insight achieved. In short, we were not in a better place in any way than we had been when we entered the theater, and we both had stomach aches.

If you want to have your guts ripped out by a nasty-truth laden, WWII-era flick, then you should at least, in our minds, come away having learned something or having acquired a new perspective. This film did neither.

It just wrung us out and left us to cry.

No, thanks.


[I also watched the new BBC (Masterpiece Theater) version of Jane Eyre last week, and that, my friends, is a good piece of filmography. Finally, a Jane and Rochester who had passion – they burnt up the screen, practically – and who told the story fairly close to the book. This I may just have to buy on DVD.]

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February 09, 2007

Who Were They?

One morning, one beautiful, sunny, dry morning, I was sitting in my cube at Spaceleys when my friend came in to the office and said, “Turn on Stern!”

I didn’t have a radio, but someone did, and then someone remembered there was a TV in the workout room down the hall. We all went there to watch and wait and pray.

I remember driving to one of the branch buildings – it was a blood drive day, and I always gave blood. As I lay on the table, knowing that my blood would definitely be used that day, rumors abounded. It was because the pilots couldn’t see; it was an accident. Well, maybe the first plane was, but the second?

What? There are nine un-accounted-for planes in the sky? A bomb just went off at the White House?

A plane hit the pentagon?

Then the towers fell. We saw all the people in the windows, begging for help. We saw all the rescue personnel run into that building. We watched it from the exercise room.

All of those people.

I have the Philadelphia Inquirer from 9/11 and 9/12, 2001. What a difference a day made. The first thing we wanted to know was: who did this? Why?

Then, we started reading the lists.

There was the family going to Australia. The little girl’s name was Zoe.

And there was that remarkable boy who had won the science fair.

How about the South African man who made sure all his people made it out of the building, then went back to help others out?

Or the native New Yorker who had laughed through the earlier bombings, and stayed at his desk until the buildings fell.

These are the stories we need to hear. We don’t need to hear “approximately 2,400 people died.” Numbers mean nothing. We know millions were killed by the Nazis in camps, yet Anne Frank is who we remember, because we know her story.

The
current plan for the 911 memorial has the idea to just randomly list peoples’ names. No details, no groupings, just random names. I think that’s crap. As the save the memorial folks have said, the only people who think of the victims as a random group of 2,400 are the terrorists who killed them.

If this is going to be a true memorial, it should tell some truth – it should memorialize these people.

Tell us their stories. Tell us their ages. Tell us why they were there that beautiful day that so quickly turned to hell. Don’t tell us numbers. Don’t give us random. Give us the truth.

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February 03, 2007

Viewing The Damage


So, two weeks on, this is the damage. It's a nice, lightning-strike shaped scar, and if it were just placed a bit differently, he'd be really cool with the Harry Potter crowd.

Mothy's still yelling at his Fatht Thoeth, which he claims made him run in the house and trip. He scolds them daily as we tie them. I guess it's better than "the devil made me do it."

His brother, however, is taking evil lessons from Mothman. See, here he is teaching Stinky how to be a chainsaw massacre boy.




Can you tell I just opened a photobucket account? Got tired of waiting for the ball and chain to fix his blog.

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Sometimes the Internet, She Ainna Such A Good Thing

So, I exited out of hotmail yesterday, and the MSN story was about Lady Lake Florida having this bigg-arse storm. No house left standing. Dozens dead.

I know people in Lady Lake Florida. More important, my mom knows people down there: elderly relatives who would stand no chance in a storm like that.

I sent an email out to a cousin who lives down that way and spent all day waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, I kept hoping no one would call Mom.

Well, it’s all much ado. We were finally able to get in touch with the cousin who got in touch with the aunts. They’re all fine. Thank goodness.

(and any of the family who’s looking – thank Lurene for tracking down Anna Mae).

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The Book Is Better

I am a Nora Roberts fan. I adore her heroes and her heroines and her plot lines and her bad guys and most of all her wording. Somehow, her dialogue just leaps out at me.

So, I saw that Lifetime had made four of her books into movies. I viewed that with mixed emotions. How would it translate to the little screen.

“Angel Falls” was on this week. I’ve never read it, so I don’t know how the story was adapted. There were scraps of dialogue that seemed Nora-ish, but were delivered in such a flat manner that I wanted to gag. The lead female was played by Heather Locklear who didn’t, to me, really fit the part. And the background soundtrack? Don’t get me started.

A friend of mine is a real movie production buff. She can see something good in just about any movie. If the dialogue is bad, she’ll look to the acting, the costumes, the soundtrack. Through her, I’ve learned to view a film with a multi-dimensional eye. Unlike her, it makes the experience harder to enjoy when something is really off.

So, although I enjoyed this piece of fluff, which got my mind off the fact that I had a big confrontation coming up the next day, I want to repeat the age-old (or, at least, tech-age-old) truism: the book is almost always better.

Can anyone think of an example where that is not the cases? (For me, The Princess Bride was better as a movie than a book. The book was too snarly and sarcastic; the movie had gentle humor instead. And Mandy Patinkin. I love Mandy Patinkin.)

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