Avast, Ye Scurvey Dawrgs, and Heave To!

Tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and frankly I've talked like a pirate so much I've started to repeat myself. I tend to fall back on cliches when speaking pirate. My friend Emily, on the other hand, left a 45 second fluently piratical message on my voice mail that delved into entirely new levels of high seas vocabulary. I was impressed. Also slightly frightened.

Mazel Tov, T & T!

My buddy Tripp in Chicago is gettin' married! And while I haven't yet met Trish, she must be a kick-ass person or Tripp wouldn't be marrying her--such is my considered opinion.

I got to know Tripp while I was at grad school at Loyola; he and Jersild were kind enough to include me in their social activities despite my being a good friend of Jeremy's. Tripp's a great guy, he and I have had some wonderufl discussions /debates on church history, religion, philosophy--all things I love talking about, and all things I don't get to debate that often these days! A while back, he made the big decision to embark on a pastoral career and headed up to Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (in whose library I spent many happy--and a few unhappy--hours researching my master's thesis.) This seemed to me to be a perfect fit; and it gives me joy to know that the friends I have who've chosen the pastorate as a life commitment are people who really embody what Christianity is supposed to be all about--kindness and caring for your fellow man. So congrats, Tripp and Trish! In hoc signo vinces....

Gone Fishin.

Yesterday I added new fish to my tank for the first time in quite a while. Both my neon blue gouramis died last month, due to extremely poor fish-care techniques on my part; I have no one to blame but myself. It's not like when Red died, and I went to great lengths to try to rescue him (though I did evac gourami #2 to a hospital bowl for a day or so to see if it would help. It didn't.) So I did pennance: a massive water change, cleaned the hell out of the tank, added Stress-Cote Slime Replacement Fluid to help the other fish get over the loss.... Then waited a month for the tank to settle itself out. So I'd been reading about these anabantoids called Paradise Fish, and figured I'd give them a try instead of just getting more blue gouramis. (Which are also anabantoids, as are Siamese Fighting Fish. I think it means they can breathe at the surface.) Went to The Reef, my pet store of choice, and found that the Paradise Fish tank was full of albino Paradise Fish. Now, I'm not opposed to albinism on principle, but these fish were frankly creepy looking--and I want more color in my tank, not less. It's a very dark tank, too, the back glass is painted black and the substrate is dark, so white fish would look really ghostly and odd. Instead I say, how about those Black Paradise Fish hiding behind the filter? Reef guy says sure, they're cool, I'll net two out for you--and sure enough, they're gorgeous. Not really black, more dark gold with blue stripes and red fins....actually they look a lot like gouramis... Turns out this is because they ARE gouramis; the Giant Gourami to be exact. The guy at the checkout informs me that the tank was mislabeled, the only Paradise Fish they have are the albinos, and I've got Giants. I say, "Whoa. Don't those grow to be like 20" long?" He says, "No no--there are two kinds of Giant Gouramis. These are the other ones." Riiiiiight. Like I believe THAT. But I bought them anyway, because I was embarassed and didn't want to argue with him.

Damned if there aren't two completely different fish called Giant Gouramis. One is Osphronemus gourami, grows to the insane size of 2 feet long, and is raised for food in its native India and Malaysia. The other is Colisa Fasciata, two of which are enjoying the relative peace of my tank where they are not being constantly assaulted by roving gangs of albino Paradise Fish. They're gorgeous. I'm in love.

An Excitable Boy, They All Said...

Well, Warren Zevon died last weekend. Another great talent lost--though my shallow music collection contains no Zevon albums, I think it’s telling that the very first song I ever downloaded off Limewire was “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” He’s always been one of the artists on my “love him when he comes on the radio, one of these days if I ever have money I should pick up some CD’s...” list. So, sad to see him gone.

Not much else to mention this week, I’ve spent hours and hours painting, trying to finish up three different commissions at once and save myself an extra trip to the Post Office. My car blew its head gasket (actually that happened over a month ago, but it took this long to figure it out) and I got to spend $860 on the repair. IUPUI’s Financial Aid Office is auditing my application; they are a thorn in my flesh. (I'd blame "Legends of the Superheroes" for both these things, but that'd be giving the movie a lot of credit...) On the up side, though, the kitchen and bathroom are still clean, and it’s been a whole week. Um. Yeah! I ruuule!!

Better Than Sorceress... But That's Not Saying Much.

I'm a big fan of bad films. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was one of my favorite programs (especially during the Joel Years.... Oh, Joel.... how we miss you and your deadpan delivery...) and during college we made a point of watching every bad sword and sorcery flick Empire Video had on offer. Until recently, my benchmark for bad was Sorceress, a film whose only redeeming quality is occasional nudity. In the words of Aaron Shattuck, " this movie does its best to wedge a tent spike into your soul." (For his full plot synopsis and painfully apt commentary on this horrible waste of celluloid, click here.) Now, I am not saying that Sorceress has been surpassed in my annals of badness; but Rob certainly gave it a run for its money last night.

"Legends of the Superheroes" was a made-for-TV movie on the order of the old "Batman" series, right to the point of including Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin reprising their roles as campy sendups of comic book originals. I loved "Batman," mind you. It's some of the best parody TV ever created. Now, imagine if you will, the "Batman" TV show--without a SINGLE REDEEMING COMIC FEATURE. Now you're getting closer to what "Legends of the Superheroes" is like. It's awful. Spectacularly so. A bunch of supervillains--badsupervillains, mind you, like Weather Wizard and Gargantua--sitting around their incredibly poorly-furnished secret lair, decide to end the world with a doomsday device (a large clock which descends from the ceiling) and to give the Justice League clues so that they'll try to foil the evil plan. They don't even TRY to make that make sense! The Justice League, for their part, goes rushing around trying to find the bad guy lair; the unifying feature is that since apparently they don't have wrist communicators or an answering service, the superheroes plan to leave messages for each other at the corner gas station. Everyone ends up at the gas station at some point or other, and the only--ONLY--funny thing in this movie is the black lady--played by Marsha Warfield--using the pay phone at the gas station: "Child, you would not believe what just walked in here. A big white guy with wings. Yeah, wings. Now he's talking to that ugly dude I told you about...." The movie's piece de resistance is a jet ski battle between Batman and Robin, and some sorceror dude called "Mordu." Oh, god... But wait! There's more! Apparently the producers of this...thing...somehow got the funding to do a sequel, which Rob also has on tape. It's worse. Far, far worse. It's got Ed McMahon. And a musical number from a supervillain. And a guest appearance by one of the most offensive stereotypes I have ever seen in my life--Ghetto Man! Yes. It's things like this that set the civil rights clock back during the 1970's... It's not even funny, it's just painful.

So was it worse than Sorceress? Li thinks so. I'd have to say that comparing the two is like apples and oranges; you have to take the filmmakers' intent into account, and the people who made Sorceress were really under the impression that they were making a quality fantasy film on the order of Conan. "Legends of the Superheroes" was intended to be campy, corny, and stupid. All goals it admirably achieved--without actually being FUNNY in any way shape or form. So Sorceress still holds its place in my heart.... But if I ever have to watch "Legends of the Superheroes" again, I might actually claw my own eyes out.

And One More Thing...

Football Season starts tonight. I finally succombed to peer pressure, and I'm in not one, but two fantasy football online leagues. My first game in Jane's league is against Tripp. Tripp, being a seminarian, has God on his side... All I have is Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James. You're going DOWN, Tripp! DOWN! :] Oh, and also, due to some massive technical meltdown, Lycos Email has been dead for going on 4 days now. If you happened to have tried to get in touch with me using the link button off this blog, I can't get at it til at least tomorrow. Try me at hamaker88 at yahoo.com if you need to track me down in a hurry. OK, so that was two things.

Mais Oui, Apparently.

Make that 6 people--8 if you count my grandfather and my mom--all calling to check in and make sure I'm not soaked or dead. I'm loved. And it was 9 inches in 48 hours, which is some kind of record round these parts. Today it's sunny, and things are starting to dry out.

The sunshine, combined with a certain amount of self-loathing, has brought on a new sense of personal resolve about my house this week. The one thing I truly, truly hate about myself is my inability to keep my house/personal spaces clean and uncluttered. Everyone who's ever visited me knows that I tend to outwardly shrug off my messy tendencies; I've been a slob since I was a kid. But I'm crying on the inside. Deep in my heart of hearts, I hate it, and I hate that I can't seem to do something that other people make look so simple. About twice a year, I decide that I'm going to turn over a new leaf and 1) clean the hell out of my place, and 2) keep it that way. Obviously, I've never yet accomplished #2 for any length of time. But hope springs eternal... I've done the kitchen. I'm working on the bathroom today. Tomorrow is living room and front porch. I just know that at some point critical mass will hit, and while I'm juggling the dining room I'll somehow drop the kitchen and it'll all come crashing down. And if the worst thing about me is that my house looks like crap all the time, well--I can live with that. But I'd like to think I can do better. We'll see.

Apres Moi, le Deluge?

You know it's been raining a lot when not one but two of your local friends call you to find out if your house is underwater. We had, I think, about 4" of rain in 24 hours here, and I live on a tiny triangle of land situated between a river and a canal. Thankfully, I'm on about the highest ground possible, and I'm right on the canal, which can't flood. (well, I shouldn't say can't... but it'd have to rise about 5 feet to top my levee, and since the opposite levee is shorter, it'd flood all of the neighborhood on the other side before it could ever get to me.) My neighbors closer to the river, of course, are ankledeep in basement flooding, and their yards are lakes. Jason tells me he had several inches of standing water in his basement at 5 pm yesterday, and spent the whole evening sucking it out. (With a pump, presumably.) Me, I just had a little water on the back porch, which drained away leaving soggy rugs and gardening equipment but no other damage. Still, knowing my friends are concerned about my well-being makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.... No, wait. That's the mold starting.

Mars Needs Women

Oddly enough, as it happens, I live within walking distance of one of the most powerful telescopes in the midwest. It's at Holcomb Observatory at Butler University, and it's a 38" monster. Now, knowing that Mars is presently zinging past the earth at a distance of mere millions of miles, I figured that now was the time to take advantage of Holcomb and go have a peek through the telescope. Figured I'd head over there Wednesday night, catch the 9 pm planet'arium show and then check out Mars.

Only, when I reached Butler campus and wandered around the Lily music hall toward the Observatory, what did I see but about 500 people standing in line outside the building? The line went all the way down the hill where the Observatory is perched, and part way around the long cement sidewalk that loops below it. Good god, thought I. I could just come back another night.... OR I could stand in line for 2 whole hours to get a look through the scope. Which is what I did, of course. I swear, it was like being at a Dead show--all these folks milling around, kids taking turns rolling down the hill in the grass, people shouting out entertaining Mars facts to one another.... A bunch of dudes from the Astrophysics Dept. there had set up smaller telesecopes on the lawn, and you could go kill some time looking through those while you waited. It was just plain fun, and I didn't mind the standing. (At least til the backache hit, about 18 hours later.) Finally, though, I got into the Observatory, climbed the 3 flights of stairs to the room with the view... And saw it. Mars, triumphant. Polar Ice Caps and all. I'd imagined it showing a little more color, it was pretty much just bright greyish with a faint orange tint. But it was still cool...

And to Sarah, whose attempt to see Mars at the Adler in Chicago was a tragic comedy of errors, I have only these words of sympathy: BWAAA-HAAAAA!!!!

Gaahhh! It's Got Me!!!

OK, Sitemeter is totally, horribly fascinating in an obsessively self-involved way. Not only does it guilt me into thinking about more frequent posts (a thing which Jeremy has been trying to do for months, without success) but I'm captivated by the occasional totally random visitor to my site. This morning, someone did a google search for the phrase "Ninja Hedge." Cautionary Tale is the FIRST SITE to come up on Google when you search for ninja hedge! Can you believe it? You'd think Ben Edlund would have gobbled up ninjahedge.com back in the early 90's....

Thank God the Tiki Bar Was Open...

Musically, it’s been a great week! Non-musically, only so-so. But that’s not the point. Point is, I got to go to a fantastic concert on Saturday night, for only $15. John Hiatt is one of my all-time favorite artists; I’m usually frustrated when he comes to town because his concerts sell out so fast. Anyone who’s ever looked at my CD collection knows I have pretty shallow and eclectic taste in music--II have a lot of different stuff, but seldom more than one or two albums per artist. There are exceptions, of course, and one of them is John Hiatt. He’s from Indianapolis, he’s got a quirky sense of humor and his stuff rides the rail between country (which I hate) and blues rock. He’s written a lot of stuff that other people cover, though I find I usually prefer his original versions anyway. So John was playing this charity blues street festival this weekend, along with Johnny A., who’s also pretty freakin’ amazing if you love the blues. It was a “bring your own chair” event, to which of course I failed to bring a chair. The street was packed for a full block with people who DID bring a chair, and I ended up spending the concert standing in a doorway on Mass. Ave, about 50 feet from the stage, with a great view and great sound. John Hiatt’s set was 2 hours of acoustic solo material, and it was the best $15 I could possibly have spent. Sometimes you get the blues.... and sometimes you just need the blues. I needed some blues in my life, and Saturday delivered for me.

THEN, last night, I finally finally finally got to hear my friend Steve’s band, The Bishops, playing at a local bar. It’s been my curse for months that I either don’t know when Steve’s got a gig until after it happens, or I find out and there’s no way I can go. At last, another dream fulfilled. Steve’s a fantastic guitarist, and once they got the sound mixed so you could actually hear him over the relentless rythym guitar, they sounded pretty good! It’s a cover band; I still aspire to hear his other band, who do original music. But that’ll have to wait, they don’t get gigs as often as the cover band (naturally.) And tomorrow, I’ll have the pleasure of hearing my friend Emily in concert for the first time. She does original stuff, solo acoustic at the moment; reminds me a bit of Indigo Girls style sound, and she’s quite good. I’d link you to her website, but she doesn’t have one at the moment. But if you like that sort of music and want to give her a try, let me know! Her CD’s $10, pretty reasonable really.

And finally, I signed up for the iTunes Store on Apple.com! The future of music on the internet, legal downloads for $1 apiece. Hell, that’s not so bad, considering the quality of the dl is guaranteed, I don’t have to worry about someone disconnecting while I’m shopping their stuff, and I won’t be prosecuted for doing it. Pirate ship is in drydock, all hail iTunes.

Who Are These Wackos, Anyway?

I've added Sitemeter to my blog. (At least, I think I have.) Either the results will depress me, or will inspire me to post more often. We'll see.

Hmm, What an Odd Aftertaste....

I finally, FINALLY went out to my garden today to see how bad things had gotten. The answer, of course, was bad. Bad like my cucumber plant had utterly disappeared, dying a lonely death beneath the weeds; bad like my bush beans had been completely decimated by the japanese beetles; bad like my tomato plants had produced so many huge, succulently ripe tomatoes that they had bent their tomato cages beneath their weight and had toppled over into the neighbor's plot in one solid viney mass. Bad like all my basil was flowering. For basil to flourish, you have to pinch off the flowers so that the plant will divert its energy into making more and bigger leaves (so it can make more flowers for you to pinch off. It's cruel, I know.) Bigger leaves means more pesto. So I ignored the weeds and the beans, picked the tomatoes, and then started pinching the flowers off the basil. About halfway around the first plant I found a flower that didn't match; thought to myself, sayyyy.... that's not basil. That's deadly nightshade.

Yep. Nightshade is a fairly common weed in this parts, so it's not too unreasonable it's in my garden--but pretty disconcerting that it's growing right next to my basil. While the flowers and little berries are quite distinctive, the leaf is not entirely unlike lemon basil in both size and shape... And while deadly nightshade isn't really deadly, at least for a healthy adult human, it still probably wouldn't be a great idea to get it mixed in with the pesto. Looks like I've got some more weeding to do...sigh....

Iwantone Iwantone Iwantone!!

It's "Shark Week" on Discovery, so naturally I had to flip past it while vegging out this evening. Two words, folks: CHUM CANNON. Yes. It's a cannon that fires a mass of fish blood and guts into the water to attract sharks for filming purposes. A cannon! That shoots chum!!!!

I can think of so many uses for this. Most of them involve cruising the strip, firing chum at unsuspecting pedestrians. Think about it! It'd be just like "Carrie"! Only more mobile! Wow.

Unemployment, here I come.

All good things come to an end, and so it is with my job at the Indianapolis Zoo. This is my final week of digging in the dirt, and I have to say I'm going to miss it. I'll miss the people, I'll miss being outdoors all day... and, of course, I'll miss the paycheck. Not that it was a huge paycheck, I've still been surviving with the kind and generous assistance of my parents this summer--but it was something! And it was the first real paycheck I'd had in nearly a year when I started this job in May. Working 40 hours a week after a year of total inactivity was a bit of a shock; waking up at 5:30 to be at work on time at 7 was even more of a shock. But it was a good sort of shock, and it helped counteract the creeping edge of depression that comes from feeling that no one wants to hire you. I know I'm not a worthless pile (unless you're asking Jason, in which case I am a worthless pile) and I know there are lots of jobs out there which I could do with grace, skill, and aplomb. Knowing that is all well and good--but having it confirmed by someone who actually calls you up and says, "We want you, will you take the job?" is something else entirely. Thanks, Indianapolis Zoo, for helping me get my groove back.

So I start back to school next week, and I've got my old job in the Museum Studies office, assuming that my work study gets approved again. I just applied for a job at the Indiana State Museum, and we'll see what comes of that. Hopefully I can keep my momentum going.

And now I've got time to think about my own yard again! I'm contemplating burning bush and bayberry to replace the honeysuckle which forms a crappy-looking privacy hedge along the front of my property. Or maybe a ninja hedge, like in the Tick comic book of yore! I bet I could pick up some surplus ninjas cheap at Lowe's! Mmmm....ninja hedge....

A Religious Experience...

(first, let me just say again how irritating it is that Blogger is unable to handle posts from a state that doesn't go on Daylight Savings? 99.9% of the time, who cares... but when I post on my birthday, I want to see the dateline say "July 30, 2003" dammit.)

So last night I got an excellent t-shirt as a gift. (the second excellent t-shirt I've gotten this week; for the story of the first, click here.) It's a black shirt from goodwill, never worn, from the Baptist Bible College of Indianapolis. The back of the shirt has a number of quotes screened on it; a couple from the bible, perfectly nice firey quotes from Isaiah and such. Then there are the slightly more corny quotes that caused my friend to actually purchase this shirt for me:
"God meant the Bible to be bread for our daily use, not just cake for special occasions!"
You hear that, folks? The bible ain't cake. The other good one is "Be careful how you live, You can be the only Bible some people read." To which Karen suggests we add a footnote: "Now available in Braille!" Heck, I might just have to start a ministry with that...

Lest folks think I am an utterly sacreligious pig, I should point out that my philosophy of religion for my own life is quite in-depth--which is one of the reasons I find distillation of religion into t-shirt form so darn funny. Anyway, I went ahead and followed Tripp's link to the Belief-O-Matic, just to clarify where I stand in the grand scheme of things (other than poking fun at Baptist t-shirts.) After answering 20 questions about my beliefs and their priority in my life, here's my top 5:
1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (99%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (98%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
5. Baha'i Faith (85%)
#3 surprised me a bit, just because it surprises me that it comes out only 2 % points different from Reform Judaism in my list, with the Quackers sandwiched in between. At any rate, it was interesting to me to see that nearly 20 years after deciding that Reform Judaism was the path I wanted to follow in my life, and after then spending those 20 years weaving back and forth on the issue of formal instruction and conversion, my core beliefs apparently still line up with where I thought I was going (philosophically) when I was 13. Maybe it's time I revisted this issue. OR, maybe I should look into Baha'i, just to make sure I'm not missing something.

No, I Didn't Fall In. Or, Happy Freakin' Birthday To Me!

I like to stretch my birthdays out. Especially after my depression at hitting 30, 3 years ago, I make it a mission to have the happiest freakin' birthdays possible. What makes me happy is being surrounded by friends, and doing something different than we usually do. This year being no exception, I planned a trip to Rustic Gardens, a mini golf course here in Indy that's been in operation since 1930. The course goes around an old farm yard, up hills and around trees and through the chicken coop, and it's just too cool to be believed. Only $2.50 for 18 holes, or $5 after 6. So I invited all my buds to come play mini golf with me, and then to go to the Broad Ripple Brewpub for food and beer and friend time.

BUT, now here's the best part, today was also "Seasonal Gardener Appreciation Day" at the zoo. That is to say, all our gardener bosses held a pitch-in for the seasonal help. We had masses and masses of food, and then--joy of joys!--we got to go over to the Marine Mammal building and have a personal encounter with the walruses and dolphins. I got to pet a goddam walrus today!! A WALRUS!!! It was amazing. They're very smart and darn cute to boot. The dolphin was cool as well, though more kind of nervous and shy. I'd always been told that touching a dolphin feels like touching a wet balloon, and I'd have to say that's true. But a >living< wet balloon, which is totally different from the ordinary kind. The walrus was kind of velvety and wet, and the whiskers (called vibrissae, I believe) are like really thick fishing line. It was just amazingly cool, and an excellent way to spend my birthday. Oh, and I got a twinkie with a candle in it from Kyle and Emily, and a personally drawn birthday card from Emily as well with a picture of me complaining about my advancing age.

Then after work it was the mini golf, which of course I did badly at--Andy W. and Francie tied in our foursome for the win, and i think Stephen trounced the other group but I never did hear the final scores there. Then at the Brewpub I had no less than 12 of my pals hanging out with me, and I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. So was it a good birthday? Abso-friggin-lutely.

President Bush Stole My Flag!

Here it is July 4, and I, a patriotic American, feel cheated out of my independence. In the last couple years--particularly since 9/11--the American flag has been usurped by the present administration as a symbol of support for our current "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!" foreign policy. Here in Indiana (presumably elsewhere too) the flag is plastered over T-shirts, in car windows, and on bumper stickers proudly proclaiming "Don't Mess with the U.S.!" and other idiotic slogans. The greater global good philosophy of the 90's has been tossed out the window, and our flag has become a symbol of an isolationist, love-us-or-we'll-kick-your-ass approach to world politics. So if I, a thoughtful American for whom the flag repesents free speech, due process, and democracy, were to fly an American flag from my house today, it would be taken by passersby as a statement of support for an administration I didn't vote for. This, despite the fact that many recent actions taken by this administration demonstrate their total LACK of regard for free speech, due process, and even democracy (as seen from the very beginning, in Florida's ballot fiasco.) My flag's symbolism has been stolen from me, and Mr. Bush is the culprit.

Two political blog entries in a row. See what happens when I don't have anything else to write about? Right, well, I'm off to make some non-partisan, non-mayonnaise-based potato salad and enjoy the 90 degree Indiana summer afternoon at a pitch-in. Happy Independence Day, everybody!

I Love My Job....

So today at work, my special group project involved weeding virginia creeper out of the bald eagle enclosure. The enclosure consists of a lot of rocks, dirt, plants, and dead trees surrounded by plastic mesh; the eagle spent all of her time while I was in there sitting on a branch about 30 feet above my head and making irritated whistling sounds. I couldn't help noticing that the plants I was weeding out beneath her tree were spattered--nay, covered--with bald eagle poop. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never before had a job that offered me the opportunity to be crapped on by our national symbol. I had goosebumps just thinking about it! Sadly, though, she didn't let fly while I was in there. That might have been the one thing that could have trumped the penguin story....

When you think about it, though, being an American during the second Bush administration is kind of like getting crapped on by our national symbol. Isn't it?

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

The real problem with maintaining a blog mentality, for me, is that I'm usually only moved to write if I A) want to complain about something, or B) have something really funny to talk about. If I don't have something amusing or irritating to talk about, I dry up. So that's really what it's been this last month--it ain't that I'm dead, or even really that I'm busy. It's just that since I broke the hose coupler, nothing else particularly ludicrous has happened to me in recent weeks. And really, life's going along pretty well, so nothing to bitch about. Except, of course, that I have nothing to bitch about, and Jeremy's on my ass again about updating! Jerk. :]

Actually I did do something pretty imbecilic at work this weekend; I filled the lawnmower with 50:1 gas-oil mixture instead of straight gasoline. (For the un-lawn-equipment initiated, what this means is that basically the mower could blow up. Or something. Actually I have no idea, but it'd screw up the engine plenty good.) Fortunately I realized this before I started it up and got the bad fuel into the fuel line.... I'm not at liberty to say how Susan and I fixed the situation, except to mention that the EPA would not have approved of our methods. But no harm done, and I'm still not fired. Other zoo news: our baby elephant died, which sucked. My direct supervisor, though essentially a good guy at heart, has said enough dumbass things to me that I don't quite look forward to working with him as much as I might. (Dumbass examples will be supplied on request.) I still love the job though. And other life news: flooded with painting commissions, more than I can handle. May get to give a presentation at the American Assn of Museums conference next spring in New Orleans, on IUPUI's tab--most excellent. And I got friggin pooch-screwed playing Blood Bowl with Mac this evening! Jesus, could it have BEEN any worse?? Oops, sorry, wrong blog....

That's my life in a nutshell. How are all of you?