Geodesy Indwell Cyril Vampire

The only thing that drives me more nuts than getting spam with ridiculous subject lines is the horrible punctuation, formatting, and grammar that those same spam contain... The subject lines can be amusing - only one of those is a real word, right?? Who are they trolling for? Would someone go, "Oh cool, geodesy!" and quickly open this email? Or, "Maybe this is that vampire I met in Europe a few years back - Cyril - the one who lives in a dome. What's he up to?"

These messages typically contain pixelated graphics, multiple fonts and colors, and horrible grammar. And, let's say, imaginative punctuation. The worst offender in imaginary punctuation land is the use of apostrophes to indicate a plural. Or should I say, "apostrophe's"... "Get your prescription's here!" Didn't we learn this is an evil mistake as far back as second grade? Or am I just really lucky to have an English teacher as a mom??? Perhaps I just can't separate what I learned in school from the brainwashing I received at home. And I mean that in a good way, Mom. Maybe Mom knows what Cyril is doing.

So, if you are using spam to market a product, at least get your marketing emails right. I am not offended by spam so much as I am offended by ignorance and laziness. Don't even get me started on "your" versus "you're."

Happy Memorial Day

Chimes of Freedom - Bob Dylan

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on their unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden here while the walls were tightening
And as the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
Dissolved into the wild bells of the lightning

Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the raked
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the unpawned painter beyond his rightful time
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations

Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

And through a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
The hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting

Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed 'til the tolling ended

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Good stuff

The sky was an unusual color last night, even for Phoenix. I swear it was turquoise, fading into royal blue. Amazing.

Found out rather than removing stained saltillo tile that neanderthal installer did not seal properly, I can etch them with tri-sodium phosphate and re-seal them. Yea! No need to jackhammer them out.

Discovered pesto and tuna through Lara - really good - mix pesto, oil, and some pepper w/ tuna for a healthy alternative to tuna/mayo.

Finished the porch mural - only took a year and a month... still need to grout the floor... pics later...

Have realized I have such an antipathy now for microsoft that even tho my new laptop arrived on Tuesday, I have not opened the box. I have Vista Fear.

Have been experimenting with thinking about people to see if they call me and it's worked twice this week. So it's confirmed, I control everything. :-)

Found a lost hammer - was looking for a wire brush which is still missing, but finding a missing hammer after about 3 months was exciting in a way that only nerds would understand.

Found out from a neighbor that even though it's over 100 degrees in May, rather than the norm, which is June, that is not part of a changing weather pattern. Also, we should still boycott France, and Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ. On the positive side, yes, he will loan me his electric sander. It is never boring in this neighborhood.

There is a pair of ducks that have decided to stay in the park - they discovered irrigation two weeks ago and have never left. The neighbors are all feeding them to get them to stay. Once the pool is filled the ducks will never leave.

And finally, the series finale of the Gilmore Girls was tasteful and true to the spirit of the show. No neatly sewn up happy endings, just a couple of cool surprises and a pretty realistic conclusion. I realize I'm outting myself for watching this show, which I have been doing for 6 of the 7 years it was on. Sue me, it's funny.

Ruined Music - click for site

Cool new site:

"Most people have a song that’s been ruined.

A breakup turns “our song” into “the one song I can never hear again.” A crush goes downhill and takes your favorite record with it. A best friend vanishes, leaving you holding the mixtape. Talent show disasters, high school humiliations, family crises… somehow there’s always a song playing in the background.

Ruined Music collects essays about these songs we’ve lost. If music is the soundtrack to our lives, here are the scenes when it all went wrong.

Read. Write. Reclaim your record collection."

Nice. Any takers? Wanna rant here?

Mural progress

Full day 5

Body Exhibition - click for info

So I finally went to the Body Exhibition after being convinced by the marketing (LAST WEEKS! GO NOW!) which made it seem like it would take a week to go through it, a day or two to drive there, and then the recovery period. Why not "last days"? Or event ends ... " " ... So it goes.

Here's my previous post about my dread and nausea anticipation - and I was right... Thank god the exhibit didn't really take weeks because I was nauseous the whole time. I don't have any problem with the moral implications; apparently, some are offended by the actual process by which the bodies are made into displays. The participants gave consent for their bodies to be used following death - we don't know how informed that consent was, but it was given... And initially I was shocked by the price of the exhibit, which was $22... the Met and the Modern are hovering around $25, so c'mon - but when you see the labor and the time it takes to make this art, it's more understandable. It takes teams of people weeks or months to do one body...

No, the nausea was just caused by the reality of it - and wondering how they twisted the bodies into these poses and the minute detail rendered by much slicing and dicing. It was just gross... I'm not saying it had no artistic value - it was very artistically presented, and whoever developed the exhibit (one can't really say curated unless there are these plasticized bodies to choose from all over the world) made an effort to mitigate the purely scientific approach by including philosophical, historical, artistic, and biblical references to the body and the study of anatomy in beautifully lit displays on all the walls behind the pieces.

And people who know me know I am very elastic in what I like in art. I did not like it, although it was very interesting - like a really well done gross-out film or book that is not softened with humor or a happy ending... I am just glad it was at the science center and not the art museum... And I'm glad I went in with an empty stomach.

Tempe Mosaic project

Last night I got a call to help out with grouting a mural that's part of the 1% for the Arts program in Tempe - this one was designed and developed by Nina Solomon and Heidi Dauphin, local artists. Isn't it cool?

Luckily we were finished with two sections before the heat of the day, and we had the canopy to work under...

Mural progress

Day 3