Eight Random Things about GDK

JJ, of Her Royal Unrepentantness, has tagged some of us lasses for the "8 Random Things" meme. I noticed that JJ also tagged Politics 'n Poetry, so I hopped on over to P'n'P to catch up on Berlynn's fab blog. To my utter embarassment, I realized that Berlynn had also tagged me for this 8 Things meme, and I must have totally missed it!

Just how many times to you have to tag GDK before she buys a clue? Turns out the answer is "two." So! Without further furthers, here we go:

1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

GDK Factoid the first: I accidentally administered bamboo-torture to...myself. Well, except it was a piece of wood from a kitchen chair, not bamboo. You see, I was tidying something around the table and I tripped on a carpet snag and tried to grab the chair to regain my balance. Oh boy, did I grab that chair! Next thing I knew, I had at least a centimetre's worth of chair-wood lodged under my thumbnail. Yeoow. It remained there all night, and most of the following day, until I could get the swelling to subside. I eventually removed the offending object with tweezers. Some people will do anything to avoid Ontario's Emergency rooms, eh?

GDK Factoid the second: I married my first boyfriend. I was on a strict, self-imposed "ne pas de boys" regime until I left home. I met Mr. Kitty in first year physics class. I brought him home at Xmas to meet my folks. They liked him, but my dad was very skeptical because Mr. Kitty was 23 and I was 19: "It'll never work. He's too mature for her." Yeah...as I type this post, Mr. Kitty is striking a very...*aHem*... mature pose on the couch, playing Xbox.

GDK Factoid the third: I have personally flushed hundreds of dollars' worth of Prozac down the toilet. In my defense, I was only 16 and the drug had just come out on the market. Something felt fishy about it and I didn't trust my doctor at all. Just the same, I can hardly blame my parents for dutifully filling those prescriptions. I don't remember how long I carried on the ruse of consuming the green & yellow capsules. Maybe 8 months? A year? I do remember that each month's supply cost ~$60 (the ink on Eli Lilly's patent was still wet back then). So...sorry to my parents' generous drug-plan underwriters. I was gonna use the "hey! It was the 80s" excuse, but I woulda been wrong: it was actually 1990.

GDK Factoid the fourth: When I was 10 years old, I had to have a crochet-hook removed from my foot. I was sitting on my bed, crocheting slippers for somebody, when I got interrupted and left the room for a while. I must have placed the hook in the ball of yarn and forgotten about it. That is, until the next time I got out of bed and...Yeoww! He-llo! Mississauga General!

GDK Factoid the fifth: I can't go to bed without a sugar-free Halls. Something about it helps me relax and breathe a bit easier. 'Extra-strong mint' is best. I did 'black cherry' for a while, but I wound up leaving unfortunate red drool stains on my good pillowcase. Now where can I pick up my free case of Halls? ;)

GDK Factoid the sixth: My first trip to a bar was to a gay bar on Thanksgiving weekend, 1993. I went with my University Residence manager and his boyfriend. We were the only ones who hadn't gone home for the weekend, so we felt like we had a whole city to ourselves.

GDK Factoid the seventh: I hate mirrors. All reflective surfaces, really. It's a miracle I can dress myself in the morning. Well...there was that one time I put on a black bra under a white shirt and didn't realize my mistake until after I was finished giving a presentation for 4th yr genetics class. Oy.

GDK Factoid the eighth: I'm an agnostic. Ok, a foul-weather atheist. Here's the weird part: I don't believe in God(s) and I don't think there's life after death BUT I often catch myself imagining bizarre scenarios surrounding the actual experience of my own death. e.g. I'm issued a 'death ticket,' not unlike a notice for jury duty. There's an "Awww, crap" moment, and then the practicalities take over. Or...a relative will visit me and insist that I sit myself down on a special heating-pad-like cushion, designed for the express-purpose of sucking out my remaining bleats of consciousness. Yes. This is how I entertain myself. There you go, wingnuts: I'm prolly just as batcrap crazy as you. Enjoy!

Thanks, JJ and Berlynn for the tag. If it's ok with you, I think I'm going to gently toddle-off without tagging anyone. It's been a very loooooooong week!

Read on, MacDuff!

Don't look now, Ethel: this blog's rated NC-17?!

Well, this is complete and utter shite. Tut, tut, tut...bad blogger.

Hell, I know that my occasional use of 'colourful' language may offend some sensibilities. So I can't say that I expected a "G" rating from the folks at "What's my Blog Rating?"

But this is fucking ridiculous: my blog garnered a NC-17 for being too...um...gay?!

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* gay (6x)
* shit (3x)
* queer (2x)
* dead (1x)

Excuse me? WTF? In what universe are the words "Gay" and "Queer" considered profane?

Fuck y'all at mingle2.com. You and your little dog, Toto, too.

Oh, yeah...I forgot: you guys don't know any Friends of Dorothy, where you live.

It's still Pride Month, people! Jeebus!

h/t Impolitical for the evil Blog Rater thingie

Read on, MacDuff!

That shit is disrespectful :)

Who said we're better than monkeys, eh? Last Wednesday, D.C. Capitol Hill police discovered three "piles" of excrement in the Senate-side of the building. I shit you not, folks. Roll Call reported:

Reports also circulated that the yucky stuff had been smeared on seats in the gallery overlooking the chamber floor, and the gallery remained closed hours after the incident was first noted.

So who was responsible for this desecration of the world's most...um...deliberative...body?

Sources familiar with Capitol maintenance speculated it was “an unfortunate incident involving a child,” although they have no culprit and very little detail about how it transpired.

Sure. Blame it on the kids. It worked so well during the Marc Foley scandal.

The section of hallway was still closed as of late Wednesday and officials will engage in an “intense cleaning” of the section following Senate business Wednesday night, the sources said.

*snort* Senate "business" *snort*

Of course, this being D.C., nobody's really buying the "single shooter" theory:

Witnesses said they couldn’t believe that a single culprit could have produced the volume of poo present or that a person could have, well, deposited it the normal way without attracting attention. Several witnesses speculated it had been brought in from elsewhere.

A-Ha! A vote by proxy!

“There was so much of it, there was just no way it came from a little kid or even that one person had done it,” said one staffer who witnessed the stinky scene.

What is this, CSI D.C.? For now, I guess we'll just have to take their poop-calibration on faith. In the meantime, the DCist has profferred some good theories of his/her own. Draw your own conclusions.

With respect to dealing with future violators, may I humbly suggest a few "Passive Aggressive Notes," like this beaut'? You can table your suggestions at the start of "business" next Tuesday.

Adjourned :)

h/t Hegemo and Zézette for the Passive Aggressive notes

ETA: link to the original Roll Call article. It's behind a subscription wall. "Cordoned-off," if you will :)

Read on, MacDuff!

Ladies & Gentlemen: I'm afraid we're going to need a *lot* more weed

That is, if we want to survive this protracted 'silly season,' we call the US federal election process.

Have you seen this campaign video for Fmr. Sen. Mike Gravel? You might have caught a snip or two on the Daily Show, last week. Messieurs et Mesdames, I bring you: "Rock" by gravel2008.us

Better 'trippy' than 'Trippi,' eh? (Please don't shoot!)

Now, if you're at all like me, then that 2min 51sec clip definitely challenged your attention span. Well, you can just imagine my royal-ADHDness trying to cope with his 7min+ video, "Fire"

Gotta love that mournful foghorn in the background, eh?

I know, I know: Gravel ain't winnin' anything. That doesn't mean that I can't love him. I figure he's like Kucinich, except channelled through Vice Adm. James Stockdale.* And I gotta give this Gravel guy some props: he may not have intended to appeal to the arthouse crowd,** but I know I've seen this style of short-film before somewherez artsy. Maybe even artsy-fartsy...

Now where have I seen this before?

...scratching head...

...grepping brain...

A-HA!!! I remember: it was Wholphin, Vol. 1.Wholphin is a series of DVDs containing short-films (a brain-child of the McSweeney's gang). I'm totally in luuuurve with these discs, but more about that some other time. For now, I ask you to behold the main-menu 'loop' for Wholphin, Vol. 1, starring Patton Oswalt and David Byrne:

So! A hearty & arty kudos to you, Sen. Gravel. I expect to see more of your work in Wolphin, Vol. 5. I hear that Errol Morris is looking for a new project :)

*7min18sec: "Who am I? Why am I here?" Stockdale was Perot's running mate in 1992

**I am not, nor have I ever been, "arty" and I mean no offense towards the arthouse crowd. Y'all are a riot. Especially when you don't get mad at me for my lack of artistic sensibilities (artlessness?).
Are we still good?

Read on, MacDuff!