Found a job.

So I’ll have to wax my whole body. Big deal. It’ll be worth it.

Anyone up for some live blogging tonight? Same time, same place.

D.

My life needs more fingerpainting

Last year, M E-L turned me on to DonorsChoose.org (ah, and I see he’s promoting them with another challenge!), a charitable foundation that fixes up mini philanthropists with worthy causes. I donated some $$ to buy paints for an inner city 1st Grade class. Today, I received a nice packet from the teacher: a thank you letter from her, several photos, and thank you notes from the kids, too.

Funniest note was this one:

Daer Dr. Hoffman,

We make butfull pants our class make a boch of pickchrs togetr. thank you

You’re welcome. I’ve been told I have butfull pants, too.

The most perplexing note was this one:

Dear Dr. Hoffman Iieew gg goukoohoam

miBhftihciemusie

HirecwetegoActee

teieteegigmom

Um . . . wow! That’s great! Keep up the good work.

If DonorsChoose.org is trying to encourage repeat donations, it’s working. I want to give again. I noticed that on M E-L’s challenge page (linked above), there’s an untouched challenge to buy a bunch of kids their own copies of To Kill A Mockingbird. That one’s tempting. (No, you don’t have to donate the whole sum.) And that one to help struggling readers with graphic novels — do you suppose they would let me choose the graphic novels? (Almost anything by Alan Moore — who’s with me on this?) But I think I’ll let Karen look this one over to help me decide.

Kudos to a very cool organization. Check ’em out.

D.

So there’s this thing called Craig’s List

Corn Dog, God bless her and her little dog, sends me ads from Craig’s List, like this one:

No nudity or sex required, just lots of panty teasing and camel toes. Fun creative and imaginative shoots; and you get to keep all about 10 pairs of new panties and thongs. $10 to $30/hr for 5 hour shoots depending on your looks and experience.

I’m open to all types of models 18 or older so feel free to submit a pic or two and I’ll get back to you with more details.

I’m feeling fed up with medicine lately . . . but as a doc, sorry, $30/hr ain’t gonna cut it. I’ll pass on this one. Hey, Craig, you got any other offers?

(more…)

Is this what passes for “controversial” these days?

Blasphemy? I think not.

Clicky clicky to see the full-sized bits.

The 20th Century had The Last Temptation and Piss Christ and probably a dozen other books, films, and works of art which surpassed the above image (an ad for a gym, apparently) in outrageousness. Good God, Jesus Dress-Up magnets are more controversial.

Even the non-Catholic leader of the Catholic League, professional curmudgeon and casual twit Bill Donohue, can’t work up much animus towards four nuns and a nude dude.

In any event, this patently stupid ad that Equinox is floating suggests that it must hype its edgy image in order to compete. That’s too bad—apparently their targeted demographic group isn’t lured by the prospect of more barbells and fruit bars. Hence, the need to rip off Catholic imagery in a sophomoric soft-porn ad.

Sophomoric? Meh. I see a poorly composed, overly stylized treatment of an unfocused concept. I fail to see even a filamentous logical connection to physical fitness. This might work as an ad for a men’s fragrance, but even then, I’d be unimpressed.

The other ads in this campaign aren’t much better. Sorry, Equinox — I’m underwhelmed.

D.

Syntax is everything

From my inbox:

Super Tuesday Gathering for

Democrats & Independents

Tuesday, Feb. 5^th 6 pm

Rainbow Rock Condos

So far so good. I like the local Democratic crowd. Not sure about those Independents, though; how can you trust folks who, after seven years of Bush, still haven’t made up their minds?

Hosted by: Anne & Jim

Eat and meet other local folks!

If you want, please bring a dish to share.

See what I mean about Independents? They’re a bunch of cannibalistic polygamists.

Oh, and I asked already: Karen may be a dish, but she ain’t keen on being shared.

***

Here’s a girl who knows what she wants.

I’M 15 AND I’VE SLEPT WITH MEN OVER 300 TIMES!

Assuming there’s any truth to this one — and that’s a HUGE assumption — the girl is infertile, perhaps because of pelvic inflammatory disease. Have you ever seen the odds for conception for a healthy teenage girl? Three hundred hops and no baby, that’s a lot more than bad luck.

But oh, there’s so much to love in this one. The trashy mama. The daughter who has no cervical vertebrae and apparently thinks prostitution and baby-selling are legal in the States. And then there’s Maury Povich, who’s probably calculating his chances.

Enjoy.

D.

Life without Benadryl

Okay. I left a couple of halfway decent comment’s over at Kate’s place, so perhaps my brain is working well enough to write an honest-to-God post. It helps that (A) I’m drinking my coffee — and here at Chez Walnut, the coffee will put hair on your chest. The depilatories are starting to give Karen quite a rash. (B) It’s early morning, so the world has not yet had a chance to crush me like a snail on an elementary school playground. (C) I got a good night’s sleep last night.

Yes! I did! And I didn’t even need Benadryl*.

(more…)

I need a hot tub

Among other things.

We have two hot tubs, matter of fact, and both are vintage 1974. We inherited them with the house. The one outside has teeny perforations all over the place that tickle you EVERYWHERE. And I do mean everywhere. You can’t turn off the bubble flow from the little holes. Thus, not a pleasant experience from that one.

The indoor one is huge and loud and baby blue. It would be a bitch to clean if we ever used it routinely. We do use it routinely, as a matter of fact — as a ferret bath.

I need a hot tub. Can’t do it, because we have higher priorities for our remodeling money (floors, remember? And siding. Indispensable stuff like that).

I need a drink. Can’t do it, because I have fresh tonsils out there, not to mention I have an inpatient, too.

I’m going to watch the debates. That ought to be relaxing, right?

Sorry I don’t have more for you, but I’m still feeling bulldozed.

D.

Drinking and flying

My dad bought Jake Microsquash’s Flight Simulator X for Hanukkah. I suspect Jake wanted a flight simulator because of a recent episode of Mythbusters in which Jamie and Adam tested out the myth that an untrained airplane passenger could land a 747 by being “talked down” by an air traffic controller. (Answer: kind of, sort of.) Jake has no intention of taking the tutorials. He’s going to dive right into it and see whether he, too, can land a jumbo jet with no prior flight experience.

Jake’s father, on the other hand, believes you should take advantage of the tutorials. But why can’t I manage to solve the first tutorial?

I discovered this new beer I like: Pyramid Apricot Weizen. It really does taste like apricots. And so I’m sipping my beer, wondering if a joystick would make this process easier. Use the arrow keys, the tutorial says. But all I can do is climb or descend — how do I level out? And where’s my altimeter, where’s my speedometer? Is it even called a speedometer? And why do I keep crashing?

I need more beer. Clearly.

Now, I’m climbing, leveling out. This is good. I shot past all the hoops the tutorial wanted me to fly through (fuck it — if they’re not flaming, I ain’t bothering), banked to the left, executed a well controlled 180, and took her in for a landing. The voice-over said, “It looks like you’re taking a tour! Land anywhere to complete the tutorial.”

It’s high desert, Edwards Air Force Base, not a rock, cactus, or California desert tortoise in sight. It’s true, I really ought to be able to land it anywhere. (Take another drink, Doug, to work up the courage.) And as I’m coasting in for my landing, I get the blue screen of death. WTF?

This computer must like the blue screen of death. It shares it with us so frequently.

Well, we’re home, really and truly home, and this is a good thing, even if I can’t manage to get past the first tutorial. Tomorrow, I’ll be operating. It’s a tonsil day. And don’t worry — I’ll be stopping at one beer tonight.

D.