happy new year!

it's time to wheel good ol' dick outta storage, blow the dust off, plug him in and make sure he's topped on on antifreeze.



when the shit really goes down all that's gonna be left are cockroaches and this guy. well- cher will probably make it too.

here's to a happy and peaceful 2006 to all my friends, family and random readers.

biglove,
g

to the lovely people of austria....

earlier today at work i happened upon this article on cnn.com. it appears as though a recently launched austrian ad campaign was a bit much for even those uberliberalunifiedeuropeans and sadly the ads are being pulled. but before they disappear forever.... they're absolutely fabulous. a bush-chirac-queen b menage a trois a la political statement.





you know (ima)dick cheney is jealous that g.dubs has better man ta-ta's...

in the artist's own words:

'Carlos Aires, the artist who created the two posters, denied his works were meant to offend, telling APA when asked for his motivation: "I suddenly had this image of three decision makers who are having an orgy while everything around them collapses.'

yeah- pretty much. well- it might have been a little better if condi had been let in on the action:



so i have a favor to ask of the lovely people of austria- since you're not going to be doing anything with the ads, would you mind shipping them over to us here in the US so that was can put them to good use? i'd love to see one of these beauties along i-93 headed into town. but the bulk of them i'd save for various high visibility areas way down red. ERECT one of those bastions of sinful political parody in downtown salt lake city and those mormons would be on their hands'n'knees reaching for the light faster than you can say look kids it's the queen mum taking it up the royal ass.

ho-ho holiday cookiepuss

somehow xmas has come and gone and we've all been reshackled to our desks- but i was really just starting to get into the routine of sleeping in, eating a huge breakfast with a peppermint mocha and then parking it in front of the fireplace with my new slippers and hoodie and a book... the kind of days where you leave the couch for *nothing* except further gluttony (aka leftover pasta, bread and cookies) and necessary trips to el bano (although with the proper equipment and/or diapers i could have been convinced to skip that part as well).

speaking of cookies... from this mess of a kitchen:




...came these beauties once the flourdust finally settled at 1am saturday morning:





you know you're in massachusetts when all the little gingerbreadboys hold hands....






even buddha got in on the action...


oh yeah- salad too....


clearly food is my medium... my true calling. on the other hand, street hockey *definitely* is not my forte. after 10 mins of playing hockey with william xmas eve this was my mangled appendage once known as an arm:



and what familybabyjesusbdayshindig would be complete without a two headed gingerbread man?

they're a cutie, huh? i think they need to get together with the three-eyed angel for a special holidaymutants photo shoot.

other than the food related pics above we didn't really take a ton of photos of the peeps once everyone was there (i know, shame on us)... but honestly- would you rather see 40lbs of homemade, hand-cut, painstakingly decorated cookies or three ol' nanas on a couch comparing the merits of various denture adhesives?

it was good fun and everyone had a great time and gorged. sunday morning was nice and quiet- just j.mo, myself and his momma opening presents and lazying most of the day away. santa was very good to me this year and i got some very nice gifts :) we did finally venture out in the evening for awesome japanese food- the perfect way to counteract all that starch the past 24hours. not much else happened on our day off yesterday, either... we went to ikea in the morning and ended up getting some new chairs for our tv room and later in the day i went to super88 to get all the fixin's for thai food. we're going to make a concerted effort to shop there more often because the produce is awesome and everything is so cheap... well, that and i'm part rice farmer from chiang mai way down inside...

so that's about all i have... next stop new years.

hope everyone had a good xmas.

-g

have yourselves a merry little christmas...

i'll be shackled to the oven tonight- mixing, rolling, sprinkling and shaping until my fingers have festive holidayblisters... and just for lys i'll be wearing my apron with no pants on. that's the way she likes it.

i'm sure i'll take some pics of cookiefest2005 for blog related purposes over the weekend.

so until the next time, i hope santa is good to everyone. don't forget to drink up- there's bound to be lots of family around ;)

on the twelfth day of christmas my true love gave to me...

our jackass conservative mormon republican governor standing at downtown crossing ringing a bell for the salvation army this morning. i'm sure he was screening donors who approached the bucket to ensure they were not of that dreaded liberal persuasion.



this man really bothers me. one of the most vocal opponents of same sex marriage (sorry mitt- we win), busily traipsing about the red states sucking republican dick whilst trying to cement support for a potential presidential run in 2008... he filed a bill this april to reinstate the death penalty. and he flipped from 'pro-choice friendly' to to 'bitched up mormon pro-life zealot' just like that. didn't sign a power plant emissions reduction pact that was signed by 7 other neighborly states. no more state financial aid for undocumented students. and he recently announced that he wasn't going to seek re-election... not shit mitt- like any of us were going to put you back in office.

i will never understand how this byu graduate, card-carrying member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, spineless republican schmo ended up at the helm of the bluest blue state in the country? dooce, you're the expert on these things- please explain...

proud papa's random happenings

now that our busy season is upon us at work i think the bulk of my blogtime will be after hours. i'm sure there will still be the occasional midday update, but i've got to spend my hours shoveling group pnr's (ah! sorry- travelspeak) into the furnace all day or else massabossman go cross.

i barely knew what to do with myself tonight when i got home from work. school's done. exams are over. i didn't even have any transcribing waiting for me (my part time job). it was exciting and slightly unnerving all at the same time.

so i did my chores- laundry, trash-taking-outing, homemade chili and cornbread on the menu... and i watered the plants:

i know- you're probably thinking 'laadee fucking dah- it's a picture of a properly hydrated poinsettia a few days before xmas..'

but it's not just a picture of any ol' store bought poinsettia soon to be tossed in the xmas trash once the gifts are unwrapped. i rescued this one 4 years ago from the travelgulag (aka grand circle)- i think we were both pretty emaciated at the time, so we shared a special bond of general deprivation.

this poinsettia has moved every year with us for the past 4 years and a couple of times had some little red flowers happening- but always in the middle of summer. this is the first year that it's doing it's poinsettia thing at the appropriate poinsettia time. i'm so thrilled and so proud of my little poinsettia that could (and finally did!)

topping other news this fine and frosty evening...

i still can't believe i survived 5 classes on top of a full time job and a part time job.

i have my grad school interview tomorrow. i remain convinced that even after getting my BA in australia and taking 16 classes at bridgewater state college to make it equal to a US BA, that during tomorrow's interview i'm going to be told that since i never took the developmental psychology of mongolian salt miners i'm going to have to go back to school for another year before they let me in. i suppose that remains to be seen- undoubtedly there will be a post after the meeting, so stay tuned.

i guess that's about all i've got for now. j.mo will be home soon and i'll be face down in my bowl of chili, so i should go put some eatin' clothes on.

biglove,
g

i should have known...

it's nearing 1am and i'm wide awake. i think it may have something to do with the 13 hours of sleep we got last night. so what better way to while away the hours until my narcolepsy returns than a little blogging...

so after the marathon sleepfest was over i headed off to the obgym and after that had to visit target to finish my xmas shopping. i knew it was going to be a little on the busy side at target, but i was totally unprepared for that hour long adventure in holidayretailpurgatory that awaited me.

the parking lot should have been my first clue.

bodhi and i nearly got backed over by a little asian woman piloting a comparatively giant white minivan. she had driven up the curb while trying to slip into a parking spot as a car was leaving. so she decided that since *she was the only person in the parking lot* she would simply reverse off the curb and into my lap.

and then there was the woman mouthing off at the poor kid trying to push 40 carts back to the store- the first couple carts at the front had broken loose so he left the whole thing where it was to chase after the runaways, blocking a tank-sized expedition and its holidayrager of a driver in its parking space. she was pissed.

things weren't much better inside. the closer it gets to xmas the higher the level of crazed retail desperation- this i should have remembered. normally i quite enjoy the target in dorchester. it's close to home and it's 1million times better than the kmart that used to be in the same spot. when it was a kmart you only went there if you were high, travelling en masse, and there was absolutely no other option for getting whatever it was that was bringing you to the threshold of painfulshoppinghell. today target was a litte more like the kmart of yesterday. there were no carts. huge lines. there were lots of upset children. and the model UN harmony of urban vietnamese, various island peeps, ghetto folk, crackahs from southie, eastern europeans, gays etc that normally exists had broken down into some perverse turf war for holiday fixin's- would the fags find the 49cent gift bags before the haitians bought them out?

i don't know who found them first- but someone didn't make it out alive.

oh well- serves me right for venturing into retail land the weekend before xmas. at least i'm officially done now. just a little more wrapping and it's all over. well, all over other than the cookie making marathon that awaits. j.mo helped me compile the list of all the appropriate quantites of the necessary ingredients. 12 sticks of (soy)butter and 8lbs of flour, just to name a few- i don't mess around when it comes to xmas cookies.

ok- time for a snack and bed (hopefully!)

hope everyone's week gets off to a good start :)

RLS (also known as really lame syndrome)

we don't watch a ton of tv- mainly for reasons like this:

the other night we saw an ad that could have easily passed as an SNL creation. it was for a drug called requip- a drug to treat something called 'restless leg syndrome.'


restless leg syndrome? is this shit for real? i'm afraid so. another drug company has invented yet another awful 'disease' that afflicts at least nine out of ten unfortunate americans. i'm sure it has nothing to do with appalling diets and a complete lack of exercise (unless you count trips to/from the fridge). i'm also sure that it costs $150 for a 2 week supply and is non-habit forming, even though it needs to be taken daily and turns your legs into jello and instantly puts you to sleep.

'Are your legs keeping you up at night?® Do you dread long business meetings, going to the movies, or traveling on an airplane because you know your restless legs won't let you sit still?
You just know you'll have to get up to relieve the discomfort in your restless legs disturbing your work colleagues, other moviegoers, and fellow passengers.'

i don't know about you, but i can't stand it when my legs insist on resting on top of my head...


and really- all those straps and tie-downs do get a bit much after a while...


maybe RLS explains why i had the uncontrollable urge to bust into the running man waiting in the self-checkout line at the grocery store yesterday?

thanks to requib we no longer have to suffer alone with this terrible disease.

3 down, 2 to go

i've multiple-choiced, short answered and essayed my way through 3 of my 5 finals. i've got one tomorrow morning (doesn't an exam on a saturday morning count as cruel and unusual?) and my last one is monday night- same night as j.mo's. and then i can finally relax a little and enjoy the holidays.

well, i did have an excellent day yesterday with my dear butter queen. after an hour of physical torture at the o-b-g-y-m in the morning i met up with mags and we meandered around back bay, doing a little christmas shopping and munching along the way. we had sushi with spinach, tomato and avocado (amongst other varieties) that was simply to die for. i would have never thought that seaweed and tomato work- but it was a little roll of makibliss.

later in the day we finally visited the holy mecca of cheap yet irresistably funky and functional swedishglampressboardhomefurnishings'n'fixins. i mean c'mon- any place that sells a sectional sofa for $299 *and* 75cent coffee that actually tastes good... not to mention all the meatballs you can eat (sadly of the once mooing non-soy variety... but they're european, i won't hold it against them).

i was rather impressed.

and the day before that my mum came for a visit and we had a great day in the city. it's always nice to spend time with someone who doesn't venture out of the wilderness too often- it reminds me just how much i love boston and how unlikely it is i could ever live any place else.

tonight i think we're getting bertucci's and that makes me moist. there's no denying that i'm exhauseted- in every sense of the word... all i need right now is for my guy to hurry up and get home from work so that we can spend some time together with the fireplace going and a giant pizza parked on the floor between us. it's his simple wholewheatlovin' that makes this all worth it :)(:

have a good weekend-

g

a man of few words...

hi all-

sorry i don't have much elovin' to dole out today... i'm only at work one day this week and between the 90 minute snoozefest meeting this morning, having to trek out on to a very frozen boston common for the holiday photo shoot and a trip to the gym later that leaves minimal time for working.

i'll whip up something crafty as soon as the dust settles...

bigfrostylove,
g

my god the 80's were fugly...

yesterday j.mo and i found ourselves dodging toycrazed parents and daylight-deprived toys'r'us employees looking for gifts for the lovelyladies of south carolina...

if this doesn't scream 1983 i don't know what does:

i'm confused by a couple of things- why is this still for sale? do little kids really watch rainbow brite anymore? the package says this one is 'red butler' and *his* cyndilauperfurbysidekick is called 'romeo.' that's right- i said 'his sidekick.' does red butler really look like a guy to you? every website i checked confirms he's supposed to be a he.

now i'm wondering how i would have turned out if i hadn't spent saturday's watching rainbow brite's he/she glitterfest with my sister. all those rainbows and sparkles- it's no wonder.

i mean- look at the cast...


the pinkringleader and her puffballpridesidekick


butchbrite the local lesbian clover farmer


butchbrite's femmegirliegirl


buddyblue (aka a young richard simmons) and his blueballboytoy


this one we met earlier- our red butler with a penchant for showtunes (kinda reminds me of my first college roommate)


partybrite and her magic party favors- now we know who the drug pusher was and where all the rainbows come from

and last but not least-

and

the rainbowville hoochie sista's

and i thought the teletubbies were oddballs- this crowd could eat the teletubbies for breakfast.

that more than made up for monday...

wow- that certainly was some crazy weather yesterday... the boston.com article has some great pictures.

between the blizzard, thunder and lightning, ice and all that shoveling i think i'm all set for a while...

it's amazing to see what the daily commuters bust out with to cope with the bad weather. beyond the veritable ugg boot orgy that was going on yesterday- there was also this man wearing a plastic bag over just his left shoe:


and this little elf in a fetching chapeau looking for santa's workshop (i think he's gonna have a hard time finding it riding the 5.15 stoughton local commuter train, though):

fa la la la la

despite my precious south pacific blood and non stop bitching once winter starts, it is rather pretty the first few times it snows every year:





the novelty will, of course, wear psychotically thin come march when it's still snowing and we've been trapped indoors for 5 months with no sun. but for now it's all fluffy and lovely.

protest, interrupted

on my way back from the o-b-g-y-m i passed by the armed forces recruiting place a few doors down. as usual, the recruiters were standing around outside smoking- the guys have a habit of 'befriending' any lady that happens to make the mistake of passing by... what exactly are they recruiting for-? yup, tax $'s at work.

and across the street was a huge group of worker's rights protesters making their way up to the state house.

recruiter1 said to recruiter2: 'thank god it's someone else's turn today- i couldn't leave here tuesday night to go home until the cops showed up.'

once or twice a month (sometimes more often) the recruiters get harassed en masse by angry college kids, most with piercings and blue hair. tuesday's protest was unusually well attended and loud since there was all that press about the supreme court hearing on the recruiting-on-campus challenge. it's quite fun to watch from the sixth floor. the big burly army guys can't leave and all the neighborhood crazies turn out to see what's going on. a political cirque du soleil sans deodorant.

(lys- i half expect the glss bus to pull up and kendra to hop out and work the crowd for a while)

good stuff indeed.

today it begins...

mornin'

today i have my first final... monday is the last day of classes and then my other four finals are all crammed into the end of next week.

but when the dust settles and grades are in i will finally have made my australian bachelor's degree equivalent to an american bachelor's and can get on with the show. i'm rather excited by the prospect of sitting in a classroom next semester that isn't full of 18 or 19 year old kids that all spend the entire class either text messaging or IM'ing each other. oh the sweet bliss that will be classes with *adults*

anyways- today's going to be a good day because all of the exec's and many of my other co-workers are at an off site meeting- so that means i can listen to fnx all day without having to worry about any noise complaints and will spend the bulk of the day doing schoolwork. oh yeah- and a two hour trip to the gym.

and next week, i only have to work one day :) now that makes me happy, even if it is only 18 balmy degrees out. brrrrr....

ps- nearly forgot... stahbies was having some serious issues this morning... only three people working instead of the usual 5 or 6, cranky people waiting outside in the wind tunnel that is winter street in a *long* line, spilled coffee- so after waiting 10 mins to order they started giving free coffee to everyone :P :P :P :P i nearly got back in line after i got my first gingerbread soybliss.

leaning to the left

we interrupt this program to bring you an important public service announcement.

utility poles leaning like they’re about to topple over… case in point- waiting for the train this morning:



any moment now the wood is gonna snap and those that survive the spray of rocket propelled splinters are likely to have their legs crushed when the whole thing comes crashing down. (or if you’re j.mo you’ll probably get electrocuted in the inescapable tangle of wires)

it’s not right- i see these everywhere we go. i’m sure jmo thinks i’m crazy. maybe i should get a giant map of boston up on the wall and starting marking them with pins. i’ll have our spare room looking like a scene from a beautiful mind in no time.

but all this telephone pole anxiety is for good reason-

four+ years ago jmo and i were driving down dot (aka dorchester) ave when about 7 or 8 blocks ahead of us one of those big sturdy looking cement streetlamp poles came crashing down right across the street and broke into big ol’ chunks- thank god it missed all the cars nearby and there was no one standing on the sidewalk because it would have been real ugly.

now i bet you’re gonna start noticing them too…

ps- i asked santa for a helmet this year.

so much for that winter wonderland i was supposed to be walking through this morning

bazzah- you really dropped the ball on this one...

might i suggest you climb up on the roof of the studio and crank the handle on the doppler3000stormatrix... might want to top her up on snowflakejuju as well.

maybe next time big guy-

let the feeding frenzy begin...

guess who's coming home for a little beantown r&r?

it's perfect- the butter queen gets to bask in a little pre-christmas americana, whilst the good dr gets a rest back home ;)

gurl- we got some eatin' to do!

speaking of eating....


one of my fav mixahlickinmoments :P

sixty minutes

i spent nearly the entire weekend right here:

i think my ass has developed a permanent arrangement with the kitchen chair i've called home the past 48 hours. there's no telling if i'll be allowed to leave tomorrow for class-

with the brief exception of a one hour expedition to trader joe's last night for provisions of the edible variety we otherwise didn't leave the house, and more specifically the kitchen table, thanks to school. it's that time of the semester where i find myself snapping all of the little plastic clips off of my mechanical pencils (i have a severe phobia against writing with pens- nothing pains me greater than the inability to erase). but i did get a ton of work done, including an exceptionally unenjoyable paper on gender relations amongst the bakairi indians of brazil that i've been dreading since september. 15 days and all 5 classes and finals are done.

also in the mix at the moment is the never ending quest to go to grad school. this weekend i finished my (re)application and tomorrow i'll be meeting with a professor to get my last recommendation. a week or two from now i should know if i'm starting classes at lesley at the end of january. fingahs, toes and eyes crossed.

the highlight to this weekend was our encounter with a drug mule named maria (ugh, if only). if you haven't already seen Maria Full of Grace definitely add it to your must see list. an excellent movie that left my stomach in knots for a good few hours

alrighty- time to go change the laundry around and get dinner going. as much as i can't stand this man linda told me all about an easily vegan-ized recipe of his that sounds to die for- it's a butternut squash soup with wild rice and soy sausage etc... should be yumma. throw in the loaf of homemade potato and scallion bread that's about to pop outta the breadman2000 jmo got me for xmas last year and i think we've got ourselves a winner tonight.

see you in the morning.

-g

my mum away from mum...

a certain someone (aka Linda, on the right- seen here riding with mojo and i in the back of a bangkok tuk-tuk on what had to have been a 105 degree day) is leaving where we are currently working together and heading off into the better-paying sunset ;)

i just wanted to take a moment to wish her lots of luck with her new job- we've known each other for a while now and this is the second place we've done time together. over the past few years she's become my mum away from mum and i'm certainly going to miss chowing with my #1 lunchbuddy every day :)

good luck- i'll stalk you if you don't keep in touch!

ps- how about a few pics from that trip? happy viewing...


mo chit weekend market


bayon, cambodia


banteay srei, cambodia

note to self->

never traffic drugs in asia.

there has been extensive press coverage in australia of singapore's decision to execute an australian citizen for drug trafficking- a few articles have popped up here in the US yesterday and today as well. after a few years of legal wrangling and despite appeals from this poor guy's family, the australian people, and various levels of the government today singapore went ahead with its intentions and hung nguyen tuong van.

i don't buy into any level of the death penalty. it's completely inhumane and serves absolutely no constructive social or moral purpose.

that said, when you leave home and head overseas you've got to have some awareness of where you are, what's ok and what could get you into some serious trouble. but i'm sure this twenty five year old kid had no idea his life was going to be ended over his trafficking of 400grams of heroin out of cambodia. it made me sad to read about his mom and his friends that were allowed to see him earlier today.

and then i read this article on cnn.com:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/12/01/execution/index.html

while talking about nguyen tuong van's case, it also takes an asia-wide sample of death penalty practices and quite bluntly makes it sound like all of asia is nothing but a massive death row. when comparing statistics and practices the US is largely ignored (except for one positive reference to how commendable it is that the united states keeps such lovely public records on how many people are executed).

the article points out that 'more than 420 prisoners have been hanged in singapore since 1991, most of them for drug trafficking...'

after some searching around i came across official statistics for the US:
- from 1991-2003 (i couldn't find official counts for last year and this year to date) 766 americans have been executed.
- as of july this year there are 3,415 prisoners on death row.
- and three states still allow death by firing squad.

this article didn't mention any of that- i think before anyone offers a critical commentary on what's going on overseas we should all be reminded of what happens at home.

someone please help her...

is she choking on a little stray glitter?

standing slow

thumb warmed granite left
on right
mostly standing straight
we’re leaving
tracing neon lit letters
with dusty shoes
an ordinary otherwise
otherwhere looking shore
stepping down into quiet
simple ways
incense
sweat
our overpass food
we’re living unseen grace
standing slow
sleeping time to time
with hands and hope
this matters not dusted point
twice held tight
hanging over painted tile bay
around this paper lantern night