War on Christmas Jam!

Got a nice digital camera so I’ll be able to participate in future Jams.

Practicing with photos of my mom’s dogs.

We don’t do presents, haven’t done ’em for years, so I’m sending some generic winter scenes. A couple are from Facebook but I don’t know if we’re all there so I’m repeating them here. The large body of water is the Ashokan reservoir that supplies the city. Built around 1918, five villages were drowned to make it. There is still resentment here against NYC because of it.

All this crisp powdery goodness has now devolved into wet gray gloop.

Been reading maps and mean to start hitting the trails soon.

@Benedick:
Cute doggie.

@rml
Nice outdoor tree because it is small. For about 10 years, my parents had a 30 ft spruce tree in front of their yard and they lit it up for the holidays. Actually, I lit it up being the one who “volunteered” and climbed up a ladder to put the fucking lights on it while the cold winds blew over soggy muddy ground. It was an Xmas miracle that I never broke any bones when the ladder fell over four times over those 10 years.

It was always maddening because my mom insisted that I put the lights up higher each year and every year I retorted, “if you want it higher then YOU do it.”

Surprisingly, they stopped the year after I finally moved out. My dad nearly broke his ankle when the ladder fell over as my mother demanded that he put the lights up higher.

@Benedick: Looks beautiful. The little bit of wintry mix we had has melted, as days have alternated between the high teens to the mid 40s. Give me serious snow or give me 80 degree weather, sez I.

A dime-store monkey and Catdog!

@Benedick:
The snow-pup is adorable!

@nabisco: You want serious snow? I got it right here. And you can have it!

Oh, the adorable doggies!

@Mistress Cynica: I’d rather take the misty fog down here, thanks. And yes, may I add, I’m loving both the kittehs and the goggies.

@Mistress Cynica: You’ve got some serious digging to do before you get that Accord free.

I have no idea what inspired me to send in that photo from Havana.

@JNOV:
Okay, check out this story from your fair city. Spot the multiple reasons why this is such a weird story.

Man shoots talker at movies, police say

(CNN) — A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

James Joseph Cialella, 29, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations, a police report said.

Cialella told the family sitting in front of him in the theater on Christmas Day to be quiet, police said.

An argument ensued while others at the Riverview Movie Theatre watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Cialella then approached the family from the left side of the aisle and shot the father, who was not identified, as he was standing between Cialella and his family, according to the police report.

The victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital with a gunshot wound to his left arm, police said.

Here’s my favorite part of the story:

Cialella was carrying a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun clipped inside his sweatpants, police said. He was arrested and taken into custody.

Gun clipped inside his sweatpants? Now that’s just Klassy with a K!!

I think that our favorite liberal gun-owner RML can advise us as to the lack of suitability of clipping a gun inside your pants, whether or not they’re sweatpants. Plaxico?

Nice pics everyone.

@SanFranLefty: The snow-pup is the dachshund.

RML is really rockin the Xmas spirit. Manchu gets the Sedaris Prize for craziest family.

@SanFranLefty: Jr says: “Seriously? Seriously? Klassi with an ‘i’ not just a ‘k.'”

@SanFranLefty: I miss your sweet, sweet doggeh.

Jr. got an Xbox 360 and Fallout III for xmas (Drinky Clown, that’s your game, right?). Anyway, I’ve been treated to three days of him battling mutants of all stripes with slo-mo slaughter. Ugh.

@SanFranLefty: I read a story on this last night — link to a local tv station I think — that reported the shooter returned to his seat and continued watching the movie. That was my favorite part of the story.

@blogenfreude: Thanks to the crappy economy, I was able to hire a laid-off steelworker and his wife to do it. It took them 2 hours. I don’t even own a shovel, so DIY was out.

@Benedick:
The dachshund is adorable! How can he see with all that hair in his eyes?

@JNOV:
Tell Jr. he is brilliant for thinking up “Klassi with a K and an I” – awesome! (And the I is dotted with a heart, right?) I miss my doggeh too….especially when I pull out all the ridiculous holiday hats I used to put on her. I need to scan a photo I have of her in the Santa hat and my then-roommate’s dog in a yarmulke, side by side.

@SanFranLefty: Four more inches to the right and the story would have been less amusing.

Anyway, the Kel-Tec .380 auto may be clipped inside one’s sweats (apparently the preferred fashion choice for the discriminating shooter of one’s self and others) by means of a $12 after market clip that attaches to the top of the grip, thereby dispensing with the need for a holster. The Kel-Tec .380 itself is well-regarded by some for defensive purposes and fires the .380 auto round, the same as used in James Bond’s Walther PPK. Another good choice in a .380 auto defensive pistol would be the Ruger LCP, which would be the better choice for quality (I own three Rugers, two revolvers and a semi-auto .22 LR rifle.) Both are light, compact pistols made by US Americans and go for about $300-350. According to my research, the .380 is quite the trendy caliber these days.

In addition to the gunpowder for reloading rifle cartridges, I got ammo for my .30-30 lever action deer rifle and 12 ga shotgun from my brothers, who got vintage fly fishing books from me.

@SanFranLefty: Yes, please. I’d love to see the interfaith doggehs!

Jr. just drove off to a party. In fog. Far away in my rusty bucket of a car. I know it’s just the anxiety making me nuts right now, but I almost made him stay home. Bad mommy. He says he’ll call when he gets there. Hope I’m still awake from the megadose of sedatives I just took. Yes, it’s past time for some intensive help, but I knew I wouldn’t be okay at the hospital tonight without knowing he made it home safely. And I’m procrastinating my admission. They don’t have to let you go home, you know.

Mrs RML’s holiday decorations.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4919&l=5f6fb&id=1598198006

@SanFranLefty: Fucking pussy. If Cialella had his shit together he would have silently armed and lobbed a grenade at the family – or if he had a flair for the dramatic would have pulled out a home made flame thrower like this psycho Santa in California.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/12/27/santa_gunman_lost_job_wife_before_gory_attack/?page=2

This guy is what America is all about.

FCS

@JNOV:
Hang in there, sister. You’ve raised a good kid, and I’m sure you’ve told him that if he’s going to drink to spend the night wherever he is.

@FlyingChainSaw:
The Psycho Santa story is so horrifying.

@redmanlaw:
Oh I know that it’s no laughing matter to be shot, I don’t know if it’s amusing or weird.

@redmanlaw:
Very cool art pieces. I like the burning heart on the wall that appears to be made of tin. It looks like a piece I almost bought the last time I was in ABQ.

RomeBoy got me a cleaning lady for six months. BEST PRESENT EVER. However, hard to take a picture of it.

I’m returning to Stinqueland after the 4th, when I’m back from Paris. Can’t wait to get back to normal!!!

@RomeGirl:
Hey RG.

@SanFranLefty: Yes, even if he’s too tired he’s to sleep over. Argh.

@SanFranLefty: Check the stream for details of the heart and a few other pieces.

@ nabisco – we have that Spy vs. Spy book, too.

Hey, hey, I am all disappointed, didn’t anyone see the best present I ever got, my own personal original Achewood cartoon, of Ray, with Martini? Drawn by that genius, Chris Onstad? I am bursting with joy and appreciation that Mrs. Prom could come up with the bestest gift ever. I am going to make it my new avatar, my own personal Ray, wearing a normal bathing suit instead of those speedos, but with that crotch bulge, how did he know!

@redmanlaw: You looking too close at the details, dude!

@Promnight: I’m afraid I’d never heard of Achewood, it being a cookbook and all, but I did recognize the little doggie that used to be your avatar before the Farrah-wannabe-representing-every-girl-who-was-mean-to-me-in-high-school (because it is, after all, all about me). Sounds like a very cool gift, though.

@Mistress Cynica: Were you mean to me in high school? Or were those girls mean to you in high school? I get confused. This one actually, in my mind, represents only one girl, someone I knew, I have forgotten what she looks like, despite the fact that I have thought of her at least once every day for 27 years now. She was not mean to me. But she isn’t a person at all in my mind, anymore, she just represents my youth, the summer of my 21st year, and the world that was all promise and opportunity that I saw then.

@Promnight: It is an awesome gift, Prommie.

@redmanlaw: The boy discovered Spy vs. Spy when we visited some friends in London this summer, and he’s hooked. It’s better than Cpt. UnderpantsGarfield, and was cheaper than the complete Bone that he was looking at in the store.

@nabisco: Whoa — I love Mad as much as the next geek, but don’t go slighting Captain Underpants. Dude lives in Eugene, and I’m amazed anything so untainted by political correctness can emerge from my ancestral home.

@Promnight: I meant they were mean to me. I was a goth before there was such a term, and I hated the cheerleader blonds. I enjoy thinking about how fat they are now.

@nojo: Fixed.

@nabisco, nojo: Capt Underpants got Son of RML into reading for himself. He went from that to Harry Potter. I also got him subscriptions to Shonen Jump and some skating and boarding magazines, plus rock and metal magazines I pass on to him. Right now he’s also deep into a study of Slipknot. Wonder where he learned to obsess over rock bands? He also got interested in building a bow from the “youth issue” of Primitive Archery magazine I brought home one day, so that’ll be our project this year.

@nojo: For how long is this thing open? I meant to get pictures of the Festivus pole this afternoon, but unpacking and such took longer than expected.

@mellbell: All week. New Jam next weekend, starting our monthly First Saturday schedule.

@nabisco:
What happened to Dock? Not that I don’t love Yo La Tengo but it is such a pretentious hipster band these days?

@Mistress Cynica:
Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a Popsicle Stick, how I wish you and I could have gone to high school together to smoke our clove cigarettes after theater and being ragged on by the size 2 cheerleader/flag corps bitches for wearing too much black and big shoes and holey sweaters from the flea market (super duper secret: I wasn’t trying to be alternative or goth by wearing that shit – my family was poor and my crazy mother thought that $25 a year was enough for back-to-school clothes purchases)

ahhh, philadelphia. don’t i keep telling you?
the best part def was he resumed watching the movie!!!

and have you seen they’re starting a little war in israel now just in time for my ETA?

i. want. that. dachsie!!!!!!! if israel doesn’t work out, woodstock is looking awfully good to me. it’s bedford falls!

i love everyone’s pics. i’m so pissed i can’t find my camera charger in all this rubble. my stepmother sent fluffy dog and cat toys in the shapes of candy canes, xmas trees, bagels, and the best-a menorah that play’s “tradition” from fiddler, instead of squeaking. i can’t find a charger on this rock!

lefty and cyn, we would have been hanging out in high school. i never even knew a cheerleader to detest. (i told my daughter, you will NOT cheer, you will PLAY. and so she played varsity softball and field hocky for 4 years–so proud of that kid)
and i smoked in the bathroom every day. but my original outfits won me “best dressed” and my attitude and contempt for the teachers won me “class clown”. we wouldn’t have lunch together though, as i was eating in the principal’s office for a year for a crime i don’t even remember.

@RomeGirl:
did you see i elaborated here on the pic you posted of peggy guggenheim’s grave-with-pets in venice? isn’t that the greatest?
that was my fave museum in venice, and we were in all of them.
we got so tired of looking at wall sized portraits of jeebus, we started examining the fab mosaic floors.
as lewis black says, “jesus is BIG in italy. he’s like coca cola”

@Benedick:
did you read the sedaris story where he goes home for xmas and his sister amy shows up in a rubber “fat suit” to freak out her father’s over attentiveness to her looks? i still pee my knickers every time i read it.

everyone knows “santaland diaries”, but NOTHING is funnier than the french class he attended in paris. nothing!
(from his book, “me talk pretty one day”. if you haven’t read it, i insist you start reading it RIGHT NOW! heeeee-larious)

are you a fan? i LERVE him!

WalMart starts selling the iPhone today.

@redmanlaw: I am torn as my contract is over with AT&T and I get a good 15% discount on their goods and services, and I lust after an iPhone, but honestly, it’s a want, not a need, and the extra data plan is not necessary.

@SanFranLefty: Shows how out of touch I am; I thought Yo La Tengo was still my little secret.

@redmanlaw: I know. If I didn’t already have a ‘berry for work I would prolly get one.

Right now we’re looking at getting a printer/scanner/copier for the home/office – I would be surprised if I couldn’t get a coupla recommendations on price v. quality from all the stinquers.

@rptrcub: That’s my hold-up too. I heart the iPhone, I just can’t justify increasing my cell phone bill by more than 100% for the sake of having high-speed Intertube access the remaining 1.5 hours a day I’m not either at work or home.

@baked: Me Talk Pretty One Day is by far the funniest David Sedaris book. He’s still funny, but his newer books are more disjointed since (I think) he’s already mined the best of his material from his past. And I love Amy just as much–she was brilliant as Jerri Blank. And she has a house bunny, like me!

@Mistress Cynica: @SanFranLefty: I was as foreign a creature to the cheerleaders as I would’ve been to both of you in high school: I was a goody-two-shoe “smart kid” and all my friends were equally nerdy–we were all in the AP classes together. It was just as clicky in its own way, but definitely not any higher up on the High School Social Status Ladder than the goths. And, in retrospect, it would’ve been nice to learn how to put on eyeliner at some point–I still don’t know how to do that.

@SanFranLefty: The Modern Lovers already did the Velvet Underground to death, Yo La Tengo, they’re like “Crystal Ship,” or Beaver Brown, no? No, I keed I keed, I like them, they do it good. A good friend of mine is great buddies with one of the guys in Yo La Tengo, the one whose wife wrote Hedwig and the Angry Inch, he thought it the greatest gift he could give me to bring me to dinner with the dude. Is Yo La Tengo still duing their annual Hannukah-marathon at Maxwells? They used to play every night of Hannukkah.

@baked: Indeed you are moving to a clusterfuck – what the hell is going on in Israel?

@flippin eck: I was totally a geeky nerd in the AP classes, but our act of rebellion was to wear a lot of black and read a lot of Sylvia Plath. Winona Ryder in Heathers was our aesthetic idol.

@SanFranLefty: I think I’m the only one here who doesn’t know Spanish. What does that Havana billboard say? I can figure out “Mr. Imperialists,” but that’s it.

@SanFranLefty: I told you guys about running a stuffed armadillo for student body president – came in third in a field of four.

@JNOV: @JNOV: “Mr. Imperialists” sounds like an 80s American New Wave band trying to be all Euro and political. In the singular, it could be an awesome comic book character.

Is Yes man or the dog movie # 1 at the box office? Also, what’s the word on The Day the Earth Stood Still? Mrs RML saw Benjamin Button last night and did not get shot.

@redmanlaw: Last I heard the dog movie was #1, then Button. Mr. Imperialist would be a kick-ass villain. Makes me think of the song “Mr. Fantasy.” I love that song. And “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

@flippin eck: @SanFranLefty: You want nerd? I won the Latin Prize in high school. I still have the 4-inch-thick Oxford Latin Dictionary I received, and after 35 years, I have a use for it in my work with medieval manuscripts and early printed books.

@redmanlaw: @JNOV: One headline I saw re xmas box office was “Aniston Tops Pitt.” Let it go, people. I think the new question is, “did anyone get shot for talking during your movie?”

@flippin eck:
i agree with you, it’s his best, though i love ’em all.

fun fact: know who amy’s BFF is? stephen colbert.
perfect, right? did you ever see her on his show?
she takes over and he loses control. love amy too.

@SanFranLefty: I somehow navigated both the freaks and geeks waters: AP yada yada but I wrote a music column in our crappy paper in which I shamelessly promoted a fictitious punk band my friends and I formed in our minds. We ended up “playing” 30 seconds of “Watching the Detectives”at the “senior show”, knocking over our instruments and fleeing the stage to a standing O.

I was fortunate enough to go to a very excellent magnet high school where, by and large, the students actually wanted to be there, since they’d worked hard to get in, and being smart was an asset rather than a liability, so the “cool kids” were all nerdy (a drawback of that being that I was passed over for a really great state-run summer program because they capped the number of students from my school who could attend).

@baked: Speaking of Stephen Colbert, check out the t-shirt I found for him. Think if I address it to Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A., c/o The Colbert Report, that it’ll make it onto the show?

@mellbell: I don’t understand why the shirt is for him (is there text I can’t read?)

I can’t see any pictures anymore. Tried reloading the page several times. Boo.

ADD: Fixed! Just closed and opened Firefox.

@Mistress Cynica: Color me impressed by your Latin accomplishments. I took Latin for two years in high school and one year of college, and all I remember is the stuff I learned in the first hour or so: Hic est Quintus. Quintus est puer…

@mellbell: Dooo eeeet!!

Also, I want you all to know I’m conducting my own Sound of Music sing-along at home right now. It’s fabulous. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…”

I also navigated between geeks and freaks and even jocks. I was a geek-freak, a long-haired pot-smoking sci-fi obsessed straight-A’s getting hippy. But I dressed preppy. My friends, my little group, were Gentry, total geek, sci-fi nut, Todd, star outside linebacker on the football team, Paul, totally preppy rich kid, dad was a stockbroker, wanted to be a stockbroker, Tim, complete redneck urban cowboy with the boots and the belt with his name on the back of it. On the periphery was a total stoner, a total total geek, and a couple of die-hard surfers.

The Linklater movie Dazed and Confused is so completley accurate a description of my high school years that it astounds me. The final scene, a stoner, a jock, a few geeks, and a few just kids, sitting on the football field getting high, that was every weekend for me in high school. I was the kid with long wavy blond hair and glasses, right down to his diffident, shy ways, I see me when I watch that movie. And I knew the Mathew Mconahay character, too, hanging around the pool hall hitting on the high school girls.

SFL, I know Dazed and Confused was set in Texas, was that your life then?

@SanFranLefty: Because of his character’s fear/hatred of bears. A bear getting clocked by a burly lumberjack-type seems to fit in well with that.

@mellbell: Ahh, got it. But why does Colbert H8 our rptrcub and other bears (and cubs?) ;-)

@Promnight: Mas o menos, with a good dash of Slacker mixed in. Two or three of my H.S. theatre classmates were in scenes from Slacker, filmed around Austin for about $25.

@mellbell: @SanFranLefty: It was going to be alligators, but it was easier to find file footage with bears. Running gags are that fragile.

@mellbell:
i can’t see the t-shirt but if it is something bear, YES, send it!
he’ll get it for sure, we’ll hope it makes it on air.

@SanFranLefty: I lived around the corner from where he shot a lot of Slacker, a block off 25th and Guadalupe – there was a parking lot separating my backdoor and Whole Earth outdoor shop. An easy stumble back from the Hole in the Wall, my favorite bar of all time.