Stop calling my gay houseboy, please

I'm spending the long weekend down in the OC, with my peeps. This is where all the SoCal Republicans live and I must tell you, it's glorious to be around rational people. After shopping at South Coast Plaza yesterday I made an observation -- I had not seen a single John Kerry bumper sticker, not one anti-American sign or slogan. Instead I've seen countless magnetic "Support our Troops" ribbons.

From my smoking balcony, I can see other homes and more than three of them have American flags displayed. It feels like another country when contrasted to the Libzilla insanity of Lost Angeles.

But that's not what this post is about.

I got a frantic call from the compound this morning.

You see, a few months ago Andrew, my gay houseboy and I were at the Mondrian hotel and bumped into Paris Hilton. We must have charmed her because she programmed Andrew's name and phone number into her cell phone. She promised to call us for cocktails some time.

Paris Hilton never called, but every other idiot in the world HAS.

Thousands of phone calls, literally. Text messages. Tabloids asking for dirt on Paris. Horny young men wanting to know how to meet Paris.

I know more than a few people had wood over seeing Anna Kournikova's digits in her T-mobile address book, but please folks. There are a lot of people (i.e., my gay houseboy) who are about to have a stroke.

And now, back to my vacation....

canon i9900 reporting for duty

It seems pretty silly to take a photo of some photos I printed yesterday. But if anyone wants me to, I will.

I printed out quite a few 4x6's and 8x10's and then grabbed a few jasminelive photos that came from the photo lab. Mixed em together and made Andrew, my gay houseboy pick which ones were done on an ink jet printer. It was like asking a liberal to identify soap.

He thought the photos printed on the Canon were the lab prints. Why? Because they looked better. More vibrant colors and sharper resolution.

Canon's new ChromaPLUS 8-color ink system produced prints with great color accuracy. I even printed out some photos taken in an all white art gallery and every shadow and detail was exquisite. In fact, one shot with stacked wine glasses looked three dimensional. As if you could grab a glass and demand someone fill it immediately.

Some people have said after 30 years the photos may fade, they aren't archival. Canon claims a lifespan of 25 years, and I suspect using UV glass and archival materials would extend that significantly.

However, I'm not terribly concerned.

Some of my clients demand contact sheets and output within hours. Sometimes very late at night. And my Epson (I'm too lazy to go upstairs and see which model it is) has never lived up to expectations.

If you hold an Epson print sideways near a light, you can see the dyes lying on the page. With the Epson, even after calibrating my monitor, the colors are never accurate. There are excellent Epson printers in the 1k+ range, however for my small outfit I don't have the budget nor need for one.

One last thought on the longevity of prints -- I have several lab photos and ink jet printouts on my refrigerator. Some from my HP and some from the Epson. The only prints that have faded (and badly) were the lab photos. I've added a few from the Canon and will report back in about 6 months.

To be honest, I'm not sure why lab prints are considered the gold standard. In theory, yes. But in reality...not so much.

Lastly, I'll talk about the photo paper. Printer manufacturers are pretty dirty. They want you (of course) to use their own paper. In this case I can see why. After experimenting on top-quality Epson, Canon and Kodak photo papers, and by experimenting I mean taking one sheet of each out of the sleeve and comparing just the look and feel of the paper -- it was clear the Canon paper was superior.

I made a few prints on the other paper as well and while the output was just as good, the paper itself wasn't.

In the process of researching this purchase, I asked several photographers about the Epson 2200 and they all thought I was crazy. As did the salesperson at Frys. When a saleperson steers you away from the more expensive option, you can usually trust his advice.

and then there were three

There are now three cats buried in the far perimeter of the backyard.

This one decided it was time to go when the ground was still frozen and Dad, in his 60’s had to work really hard to dig her grave through the snow and into the icy soil.

She was tired. Gone blind. Bladder went to hell more than a year ago. But until two days ago had a ravenous appetite for food and life.

Mom called on Saturday and said Nika wasn’t eating. We got her when I was 19. Nika was mine, or at least I talked my jasminlive folks into getting another critter. Dad drove us home from picking up the kitten from her keeper. In the passenger’s seat, Nika was curled up in my lap, about the size of a large apple letting out crazy, loud human sounding “Wow’s”

We laughed.

I told my Mom, she’s stopped eating before. Constipation. Hairballs. She would be okay. We have a crazy family tradition of talking to each other’s cats via the telephone. For a moment, I thought about asking my Mom to hold the phone up to Nika’s ears so I could tell her I loved her one last time and that she will always be my pretty kitty. I didn’t.

My Mom went to sing at mass on Sunday as a cantor. Afterwards, she was tired and called my Dad. He had just checked on Nika and she was okay. I’m 19, it’s summer and I’m holding this kitten up above my head, babytalking to her while my boyfriend takes photo after photo. I want those photos right now.

Though tired, Mom stops at the store and picks up some ham, because if anything can make Nika eat – it’s ham. She arrives back at home and finds Nika where she left her. In a warm furry cat bed, shaped like a cave with a soft blanket under her. Nika loved to be outside. I would put her on the raft and float her in the new pool. When she got bored of floating around she’d jump and swim ashore like a pro.

My Mom touched her and talked to her. And she was cold. Nika came to Cornell with me but she missed my Mom too much and cried non-stop. We had a schedule; mostly it was Mary, a 5th year senior with only two classes. Mary carried Nika around on her gigantic chest while I was suffering through Organic Chemistry and Psychology classes. At other times it was my RA who would cat-sit.

The next week my parents picked her up. And we missed her. Mouthy, opinionated, demanding and incredibly loving. A sweet brat. Mom made my Dad wait before burying her. Just in case she wasn't really dead. An hour later, she began to stiffen. And Mom reluctantly gave the word.

Mom had a box, a new blanket and toy ready, she knew it was coming. Dad found the shovel and a nice spot in the yard. Nika loved Bentley, and long after I stopped traveling back east with him she would sniff around my luggage and give me hell for not bringing him back to visit.

Tonight, it’s Bentley who’s looking around and trying to figure out what is making me so sad. And it’s the image of my Dad stoically digging another grave for a beloved family pet.

that which does not kill you, only makes you stronger

Sadly, I had to fire my little brown maid, Consuela today. It was bad enough when she served grey goose martinis to the libzillas, but she has now threatened the safety and security of all chaturbate members at the compound.

You may recall Consuela almost killed Steve H. with her copious use of fancy American fabric softeners and generous dashes of Fabuloso in everything from my laundry to mixed drinks.

Today I confirmed a long-standing suspicion.

I took a stroll through the compound's kitchen and saw her using a sponge to clean my utensils and plates. Okay, so she wasn't using the special sponge with the handle containing dish soap. But those things can be confusing to LBPs.

Later I again casually passed through only to find her using the same sponge on the kitchen counter. Still later she was using the sponge-in-question to clean the inside of the kitchen sink.

And on the floor. Windows. Toilet. Cat dishes.

And on Phoebe's crusty ass. Oh, and she forgot to wash a glass from upstairs. Yep -- same sponge.

After cleaning, she replaced it on the edge of the sink, as if it were still pristine enough to touch human skin. Or my utensils.

My kitchen is not sponge-worthy. Never has been. This place was built in the 1920's and that was the last time anything in here has been "new" and exciting. It's paper towels or nothing.

No wonder I've been feeling under the weather for weeks - my little brown person has been trying to kill me.

so you are supposed to update these "blogs" everyday?

Four years and four months later, I'm still not sure about that.

UPDATE: According to the puppy blender, busy folks like me should have been blogging from the DMV today (or insert real-life activity here).

I suppose if I were making six figures from my blogads, it might be a possibility. But lugging a laptop there, trying to find an actual seat, etc -- just adds to the pain that is the DMV.

And his evangelizing of "tire blogging" and "dinner blogging" trends...well, I don't find that meme as cute as he does. In fact, I don't CARE who was getting new tires. If something interesting happened, then fine. Something funny happened there? Even better.

If "bloggers" want to be taken seriously as humorists, journalists, media-watchdogs -- I have two bits of advice. First stop calling yourselves BLOGGERS. Blogger was perhaps the first, free mainstream content management program popular with online writers. Why aren't we all calling ourselves Movabletypists now? Because we are writers.

Furthermore, "blog" is simply short for web log and according to all reliable sources the aforementioned is a reference to an application wherein there are multiple posts, timestamped and linked on one common page. Do people who use MS word call themselves worders? Of course not, so shut the f up.

Lastly, as a writer, quality is better than quantity.

giving thanks

I hope all of you had a lovely Thanksgiving. Here at the Moxtopia compound I went out turkey hunting -- caught and cooked our own bird. My hygienically challenged lefty neighbors had tofurkey, so we pulled out the fan just to be sure the aromas from my oven wafted over to their window.

We prayed to our lord, George W. Bush and thanked him for all the year-end treats.

Honestly, I wake up every day and it feels like a very VRWC Christmas. First the re-election, then Martha Stewart smuggling eggs in her bra, finding out Maureen Dowd's family talks about how brilliant Ann Coulter is and of course Dan Rather's "retirement".

On a different topic, my eyes have been bleeding. No thanks to Jace "pickled" Herring of Bloghosts who for over two months has refused to reset my cPanel password. Not unless I tell him where I live. No joke.

Certainly sending a password for moxie.nu to my email address, which is a moxie address is too dangerous! Without that password, there was no simple way to transfer my four years worth of goods to the new server.

So here we are. I installed MovableType and exported my old entries, of course there are loads of problems. The permalinks for individual entries are different now -- don't ask me why. The formatting didn't transfer.

A friend who has been reading Moxie almost from the begining was kind enough to download all my photos and files and send them in a zip file. Haven't had the time to reinstall the Gallery application.

Things are kind of rough around here but I will be transfering the domain tonight. I have no idea how long that will take and there may be periods of time where the web site is not available.

In the meanwhile, feel free to leave comments and tell me what's not working.

Back to the regularly scheduled liberal bashing tomorrow.