Tuesday Random Crap

I went to a blacksmithing class on Sunday.  It was a letter opener class, and there were only three of us there, which was nice because it made the class fairly leisurely.  The instructor showed us the basics of the project, and then turned us loose in the forge while she walked around and offered comments and suggestions.  This was the second class that I’ve taken at Adam’s Forge, and I really enjoy it.  Hopefully I’ll be able to attend a few open forge nights in the near future.

BBF

Hello hummers and dogs who know the words, and welcome to Big Boob Friday.

 

 

Your model today was born on March 19, 1995 in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.  She measures 30G-24-32 on the headturner scale, and stands 5’10” and the obligatory 125 lbs.  Please get off the barre and welcome, Miss Jamie Love aka Alice Brookes!

Let’s Do The Time Warp Again

There’s something about the year’s end that turns my thoughts inward, even more so than a birthday. It may be that my birthday is in July, the height of the summer. I’m really not a resolutions guy. I figure if the changes were that important to me then I would have done them or will do them of my own accord. Well, there is that one resolution involving your mom.

Random Tuesday Poat

TOP OF POAT UPDATE [leon]: I just looked at the agenda for my CPR class today and it runs until almost 730pm EST.  I will have a post scheduled for 7pm, and anyone with edit privileges is welcome to add photos as they open gifts, or send them to me and I’ll add them as soon as I can.

I don’t have it in me to do art today, but we need a new poat.   Here it is.

Upset that there is no art today?

I’m sure I have plenty of fun and interesting stuff sitting around my desktop. Like this nice Holiday themed meme.

Don’t like that?   File a complaint with corporate, because IDGAF.

Moving on.

One of my co-workers wanted me to name the new pupper Ling-Ling.  She won’t shut up about it. Then she called me racist for posting this on facedouche. (she was joking)

I’m sure I have more stuff. OH YEA.  So Hannah (first year in college) was CERTAIN she bombed her math final and was going to get a c+ in the course. Well, she ended up getting a 86% and an A- in the course, so luckily the following will not apply to her:

YEA Hannah. She’s got a 3.79 for her first semester.    And she didn’t lose a single pair of my headphones the entire time she wasn’t living here.

Well, I have to say I’m awfully proud of this post. It probably took an entire 5 minutes. Time to rest on my laurels.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t hit the hard news: Hillary lost the election ONE more time yesterday, so it’s time to celebrate.

Ok, enough of that.  Time to finish that shopping.

Update- just because

Thom Yorks ex died yesterday of Cancer. They were together for a long time and had two kids together. His last album obviously was colored by the breakup of their relationship. This song especially. I know they’re famous and all and it’s not important, but even big famous people are affected by life sucking.

I also lost a friend yesterday – a VERY VERY nice regular. She had Leukemia which made her recovering from an appendectomy (not to be confused with the Addadicktome surgery) very difficult . She got weaker and weaker the past few months and was removed from life support on Sunday.   :(

Update [leon]: America, one month from today:

Whole Lotta Nope

The wildlife in Florida is varied and deadly. We’re not quite Australia, but we’re not far.

Venomous Snakes: 6 – Eastern Diamondback, Pygmy Diamondback,Timber Rattlesnake, Copperhead, Water Moccasin, and Eastern Coral

Venomous Spiders: 5 – the Southern Black Widow, Northern Black Widow, Red Widow, Brown Widow and Brown Recluse

Random Animals: Black Bears, Wild Boars, Alligators, Sharks, Jellyfish, Florida Panther

Those are just the ones indigenous to Florida. Because people are stupid and lazy and incompetent, they bring potentially dangerous animals into Florida via smuggling. We now have Nile Crocodiles in Florida.

A team of scientists has identified three reptiles captured near Miami as Nile crocodiles, a species native to Africa.

Through DNA testing, scientists from the University of Florida were able to confirm that the reptiles captured in the wild from 2009, 2011 and 2014 were Nile crocodiles, the second-largest extant reptile species in the world.

But Florida’s largest and most destructive invasive species by far is the Burmese Python. Introduced to the Everglades, largely escaping during the massive damage due to Hurricane Andrew, these snakes have now made their home here and are the Kings of the Glades. With no natural predators and a climate that is perfect for them to breed, they are dominating.

An examination of the digestive systems of 104 pythons killed this year in a public hunting competition turned up the remains of seven alligators, 50 mammals — including two deer — and 38 birds.

It was ample evidence of the toll the non-native constrictors were taking on Everglades wildlife.

Alligators. The damn things eat freaking alligators.

And just this week, a 15 FOOT BURMESE PYTHON was captured and what did they find in it’s stomach? Not 1, not 2, but 3 deer. It ate 3 deer in 90 days.

When they checked the contents of the snake’s stomach, all they found was some fur, a few teeth, and hooves.

It’s not just the people that are out of control in Florida, it’s the animals too. Whole lotta nope.

MMM 228:rejected pony edition

So the new pony beat up our horse to the point we were worried about her being lamed by it.  Bloody chest, bleeding leg wound, just awful.  We’ve got them separated now, and he’s headed back to the horse rescue sometime this week.  Our donation will be staying there too, unfortunately.  Horses are dumb pets.  If you haven’t heard me say that enough times to put you off getting some of your own, I can’t help you.  Get a guinea pig or a rabbit or something if you have to have an edible pet (or a dog if you’re related to the SCOAMF), but not a horse, unless you’re Amish and intend use them for work.  At least our old horse isn’t awful, but they can’t live alone, so we’ll have to try again.  Yay.

Las calcetinas.

MMM 227: Isn’t that a sitcom?

I remember it.  Not well, because it sucked and it wasn’t really something I could relate to as a little white boy in the suburbs, but I’m pretty sure Two-Two-Seven was a black sitcom with mostly female leads in the 80’s.

*checks wikipedia*

Yep.  Aired from ’85 and ’89, starred Marla Gibbs and Jackée Harry.  There was really nothing there for me.  Pretty sure it still sucked, even if you could relate to it.

Anyhow, Pupster sent me this, so you can all accuse him of being into trannies too.

MMM 223: Nueve de Mayo

Time to sober up and head back to work, party people.  This promises to be another action-packed and fun week at work for me, and by “action-packed and fun” I mean that I’ll be regretting taking the job in either active or passive fashion every minute of every day.  Also I had regular flour tortillas tortillas a couple of times this weekend, and more carbs than any human should have, so I’m fat and sick right now as I write this on Sunday evening.  Week’s off to a promising start, no?  All right, bitch session’s over, time for pictures.

It’s behind her, resting on the machine.

Our Friend Rosetta

Rest in Peace, Rosetta

~thank you for the gifts of your humor, your love, your hugs, and

your wonderful being you~

June 17, 1769 – April 9, 2016

***

The following is a post originally published on October 26, 2011. It was a brilliant concept where we all wrote eulogies about each other but got to read them before we were were gone. Below was the eulogy written by BlackIsWhite on Our Friend Rosetta:

*** *** ***

 

Allen Klein said “Humor does not diminish the pain—it makes the space around it get bigger.”

Allen must have known our friend Rosetta, who was taken from us at far too young an age by the first known transmission of plant-to-human potato blight.

From an early age, Rosetta knew the kind of emotional pain that many are fortunate not to experience until later in life.  When he was 7, his parents allowed him to be kidnapped by cast members of “Up With People” when the show passed through his home town, or so he thought.  As it turned out, they actually sold him to the producer of the travelling production, although he did not find this out until later in life when he had a chance meeting with his brother in a latex fetish store that he had wandered into seeking a neon pink hosenphucker suit.  He was soon reunited with his parents, who were impressed that his fetishes had exceeded even their own in terms of their weirdness.

Those early years in the theatre made an impression on our young friend, as did the straps and leather ties used on him by his “uncles and aunts” as soon as he was old enough to drive the touring company bus.  While he never liked to talk much about those formative years, they did nothing to reduce the sensitivity of young Rosetta, whose overriding love of show tunes (especially the score from “Paint Your Wagon“) was only surpassed by his fascination with latex clothing and the myriad of colors and styles that were introduced at the annual Latex Fashions Show in Berlin.

When Rosetta left the travelling theatre company to put down roots and attend community college, he soon realized that his upbringing was anything but average.  He excelled at his studies, having trained himself five years earlier to get by on only an hour of sleep a night.  While his perspective was not often appreciated by the more serious peoplesurrounding him, others quickly came to realize that he was a funny mofo, and he quickly drew a following that was willing to overlook his personality quirks and Howard Keel-esque voice belting out famous show tunes through the dorm hallways after the local bars had closed.  Not a few of his fellow students also came to resent his easy wit and ability to charm the pants off of their girlfriends…literally.

By his senior year in college, Rosetta believed he had no skills to speak of and thought his prospects to be dim.  Over a pitcher of caiphurnias, a friend convinced him that while no one would ever be looking to him for the next great mathematical equation, the grand unified theory of physics, or the next great novel that high school students around the country would someday be forced to read, it didn’t matter, because he was a funny mofo, and if he used it to his advantage, he could be richer than all those other guys.  Realizing that the charm he used to talk comely co-eds out of their frilly panties and bras was the same charm that could sell Eskimosice futures and politicians shares in wind farms,  he went into financial services, and never looked back, proving George Herbert‘s apt observation, “In conversation, humor is worth more than wit, and easiness more than knowledge.”

Although he managed to turn laughter into conquests, he eventually met a beautiful woman who left him hopelessly smitten.  He tempered hischarm with heartfelt sincerity, and she was impressed beyond any words other than “I do.”  However, he never stopped appreciating the variations on beauty that surrounded him, and never lost the appreciation for a great set of overstuffed boobs that was taught to him by the jaded old queers in the travelling theatre company.  When he saw his first picture of Kerry Marie, devouring an all-you-can eat Chinese Buffet, by herself, he began a lifelong infatuation, marked by photos of the buxom lass in numerous cheeseburger and pizza stalking positions, leaving him the exquisite torment of a fixation that could never be requited, but could at least be calmed by an annual subscription to her website, a CD with a copy ofQueen’s Fat Bottomed Girls on a continuous loop, and the ability to add her in a BBF post every few months, so he could read Wiserbudcomplaining about how much fatter she was in the newest post than in the last BBF post he included her in.

Rosetta drew many people, regulars and lurkers, to the Hostages, mostly because he could make anything into a joke.  People stayed because Rosetta’s jokes and gags helped so many to cope with personal tragedies and setbacks, as well as a world that brought fresh news daily about how it chose in large and small ways to abandon reason, and make the absurd the new normal.  Another friend of mine once remarked that it is a very angsty place.  But it was also a place he helped to make a home. Whether he was blaming Mare, or explaining how he had decided to declare himself a racist because a teacher had decided to be a douchebag to a politically aware young lady who had the temerity to wear a t-shirt that offended thepolitically correct teacher’s sensibilities, he was finding ways to tailor humor into a universal language that made you laugh and made you cheer as he poked the finger into the eyes of those who wanted to suck the joy out of life for others around them.  This bald, grinning man displayed one of the kindest souls I have ever encountered, and understood better than most the power of the tongue.

He never used it to build up, but he also never used it to tear down, which is a remarkable thing.  He was a rare man.  One who understood this great power, and could have used it himself to great effect, but chose instead to use it to help people to forget, or at least take refuge, if only for a few moments, from those things which they could not forget.  I believe that this was because he knew all too well about the sorrows that life could inflict upon the human condition, and generously gave of himself that which he wanted most for himself…to feel the stings of life neutralizedby the healing joy of laughter.  This is why he could touch so many people in ways that left them wanting more, instead of wanting to press charges.

When I read the account of the birth of his and his wife’s son Max, I cried.

In a profession that necessarily robs you of your humanity, just so you can keep other people’s secrets, and bring order to the dysfunction of their lives, I never thought that I would be able to be moved by someone’s story that way.  But that was our friend and brother’s greatest gift.  To remind us that our experiences shape our souls, but our character defines who we are, and I fear that I could never face the same thing in my life without letting the pain twist my soul and saturate it with a bitterness that would contaminate everything about me.  I think of the things that so many of us carry around, and I think this is a confirmation of the old bromide that “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  Rosetta had so much love to share with children that the loss of one couldn’t change who he was; there was so much love that flowed out of him like a river that it couldn’t change him.  And when his son Henry was born, we saw the light that Rosetta carried around shined even brighter.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t ask God to bring our friend back to us; Max waited patiently for his time with Daddy, and even someone as jaded as myself isn’t that selfish or cruel.  My request is for the next best thing:

That God never lets his words lose their power to touch us.

Those words, with our memories, are the legacy that he left for us.  And if we cannot enjoy his company any longer, then those words, and the laugher they draw out of us should be sufficient to take some of the stingout of the tears that we shed today at the loss of our friend, who understood what Sir Francis Bacon knew when he said “Imagination was given to man to compensate for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

“Goodbye” is uttered too often by grieving people at their loved ones’ funerals.  Rosetta and I shared the belief that shuffling off the moral coilis only the beginning.  Therefore I will only say “Expect us when you see us, man, man-lesbian.  Until then, keep the indians cold, and give Max a kiss for us.”

*** *** ***

Hugs for all

XOXOXO

Wire Starter

Introducing Joe Hengst and Sarah Joncas.

Like peanut butter and jam.