Heck Yeah Obama! plus Roller Skatin' Fun

Ahh. My favorite President EVER has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which is simply fantastic because my third favorite pres, Jimmy Carter, has one too. My second fave is not likely to get one, but I still think he's cool. And his wife, too. And for those who think he shouldn't have gotten one, I'd like to point out that if a bunch of Norwegians want to endorse our president for their own reasons, then we are already in a better boat than the one we were sinking in last year. ANYWAY, I just had to represent for a sec, because I would seriously walk through fire for Barack Obama. Or skate through it, maybe. Skate? What?

I gotta tell you, I like roller skating. Can I do it well? No. Do I ever go to the rink? No. But I still like it. I did it a lot when I was a kid, because it was the thing to do in the early eighties, and I remember it fondly. Also, the music they play at the roller skating rink (on "old school night" probably) is the music I like best. (Note my new funky slideshow feature at bottom of page.) I had a roller skating birthday party when I was about 9 that I missed most of because right at the beginning I knocked myself out and woke up on a bench with a bag of ice on the back of my dome about an hour later, after all the other kids had eaten cake. Unfortunately, my skills on skates do not match my fervent desire to be a jam skater of highest degree, so I just avoid the rink in general so as not to experience the frustration that is involved with not being able to execute the moves that come naturally to my dancin' feet when wheels are attached to them. So, I devote this post to the fabulous musical skate-fest that is Xanadu. Okay, kids, if you don't know the plot, here goes. Olivia Newton John (ONJ for short) is a Muse (yes, like Greek Mythology) named Kira, who wears those awesome barrettes with ribbons hanging down (I'm bringing 'em back!) and legwarmers and flowy ruffled stuff. She gets sent down to earth to inspire Sonny, a guy who is a great painter and rollerskater but just doesn't know what to do with himself. When she gets there she hooks him up with Gene Kelly, an aging and wealthy bachelor who had his heyday during the big band era. The two fellows decide to buy this great old art deco building and turn it into the most happening roller rink you ever did see, with all kinds of neon and shiny stuff and harem pants and gold lamé. There are many cool, or at least fascinating, music numbers, along with the obligatory 1980-or-thereabouts animated sequence, including roses blooming with drops of sparkling dew and our main characters turning into fishes. HAHA. At this point, if you've seen it, you know of what I speak, and if you haven't, you are like WTF big time. Ah, the fun of describing movies on me blog never gets old. Anyway ONJ falls for Sonny and all she wants to do is stay on earth and build a roller-rink-romance with him, but her parents, Zeus and Hera, are not trying to let her, so she makes a melodic appeal to them in a Tron-like landscape of glowing neon orange and red lines that is supposed to represent the realm of Mount Olympus, I guess, and she gets to come back at the end as a skate chick at the rink, who doesn't know who she was but is certainly down to get busy with Sonny. So all's well. We won't talk about the fact that roller skating rinks were probably not the best long term investment, because it was all about young love, man, and it doesn't matter when you've got a rink designed by a friggin' Greek muse, dude.
Anyway, watch and be blown away by the slice of life in 1980 that you get to witness in this movie, plus the fabulous clothes, hair, and rollerskating prowess of white Southern Californians.
ENJOY, and if you are a braver person than I, go out and learn to skate well enough to put them all to shame.

Party in the Hizzy

Look, I know I usually post about movies from the seventies, and possibly eighties, with a smattering of earlier fare from the Old School Disney selections, but I just watched this movie with my boyfriend a couple of weekends ago and had to represent, so here goes.

Picture it: It's one of those nights where you want to watch a movie, but you've already been to the Blockbuster that week and you just can't be bothered to go again, and you'd rather sit at home and not go out anyway (Insert your "why doesn't she have Netflix?" question here. Answer: I tried it, and they were unable to ship to my apt successfully, so I quit. So there.) So, you peruse your HUGE selection of movies. You have seen all the DVDs what seems like recently. You decide to switch the cord to the VCR, thereby increasing your choices a hundredfold, because your selection of VHS is EVEN HUGER. You then realize that it is a little less huge because your boyfriend is now in residence, and he doesn't like "chick flicks" or animated children's films, more's the pity. So your choices are now limited to selections on VHS that have some sort of universal appeal to both men and women and are hopefully amusing enough for a Saturday Night with Beers On the Couch. This brings you, after a lengthy process of elimination, to a tape made by some guy that used to be a cook at the resaurant where your old roommate worked that he lent to her when she gave him a ride home. This tape has not one, not two, but three features on it. And they are named House Party (I, II, and III, respectively.)

House Party was made in 1990, that glorious year that distilled all the late eighties had to offer and gave you a taste of that most fabulous decade, the 90's, complete with mustard and purple rayon shirts for boys and stretch pants and sports bras and huge bangs for girls. And Kid n' Play, an immensely popular (at the time) "rap" duo ("rap" by the standards of a different time, man) that are featured as the main characters in the film, accompanied by Martin Lawrence and Tisha Campell, who are not a couple in the film, which can be confusing for those who watched a lot of the Martin show in later years. And also some hugely buff "thugs" that play their nemeses while wearing distinctly homo-erotic slashed sweatshirts and constantly suggesting that everyone but they are gay pussies (pardon me.) The plot is basic; Play is going to have a party 'cause he has the house to himself. It's a school night and it'll be hard for Kid to get to it because he got in some trouble at school and might run afoul of his dad. Also, some fine chicks (Sidney and Sharane, played by Gina and somebody you never heard of) have been invited and both Kid, Play, and their friend Bilal (Martin) want to sex them up. Hijinks ensue, yada yada yada, insert hilarity here, and the party gets going. Kid and Play rap, while Martin deejays at the party, and some smokin' hot dance moves are laid down. A little confusion about who has a crush on who plays out, with the girlfriends fighting over rights to Kid, who if you refer to the picture is an extremely weird lookin' dude but they seem to want a piece. What's funny is that these "kids" (Martin is like 25 I swear) go to all this trouble to party, and they just wanna dance! And have a good-natured rap-off! No drugs or boozing for these fine young gentlemen and ladies. Sex, sure, but that comes up later, when Gina (I mean Sidney) realizes she really likes Kid and he figures "Sure, why not" and they hook up. Also, there's a cameo by George Clinton in the movie, but it almost doesn't bear mentioning because he doesn't even perform and they sorely misuse his talents (which are some of the best, if not the best, talents ever.) Anyway it's a good-natured romp that is a fabulous snapshot of a time that I, personally, remember well. And it's funny, so take a look and go back to 1990 in all its glory.

I, Photoshopper.

I have been taking a class this semester, name of Electronic Strategies/Computer Imaging. It is a Painting & Printmaking course, but we are mostly learning how to use different awesome and prohibitively expensive for the private citizen programs, like Dreamweaver for web design (look out world; I know HTML code!!! I can marquee whatever I want! AHAHAHAAA) and the incredibly cool and endlessly kick-ass program, Photoshop Creative Suite Four (CS4) which retails for like $700 and I am no way getting for Christmas from anybody, more's the pity. But, I can use it at school, so I thought I'd post you all a couple of examples of my superb creations that cost me $7.74 to print, with ink at .028 cents per square inch. To post on blogger, though, is FREE! Both were created with the use of good ol' Microsoft Paint (mostly the stretch/skew and inverse color tools) and screen caps of fabulously talented peoples' quilts, which I then altered drastically with Glorious Photoshop, which did I mention is freakin' cool as hell? Yes, I believe I did. What isn't cool is that no matter how I try, I can not get the final and truly badass versions of these files to upload to Blogger. Why? Not for lack of trying. So feast your eyes on the just-short-of-finishing-touches versions, and imagine how they might be a little cooler. Or I can tell you. This one down here has shadows and fades on some of it, and the one up top has a whole other level. But the gist is present, I guess. I'll try to get the real ones up soon....

Newbie + Littlekins = A whole lotta hissin' goin' on

Well, I have some exciting news to report! Exciting for the likes of me, anyway; namely, a person who is thrown into flights of ecstasy over the presence of baby cats. I got a new one! My boyfriend called me at work on Saturday and casually asked if I would like a kitten (!!!). I casually replied "Oh, maybe, what do they look like?" while thinking "OMG! OMG!" and practically jumping up and down. It turns out his aunt had a couple left from a litter of fine countryside Virginia farm-cat stock. He said there were two, a grey-and-white, and a "gold" one. When he said "gold," I very un-spazzily asked if by that he might mean orange. Orange and white striped, maybe? And he said "Yeah, I guess you could say that." I then said "Is he fluffy? Is he healthy? How old is he? Is he tall? How long is his tail? What color are his eyes? Does he have large paws?" To which he replied "He looks cute to me. If you want him, I'll bring him over tonight." Needless to say, I could very much not concentrate on work for the rest of the afternoon, especially since if my boyfriend is willing to use the adjective "cute" on anything, then that's a really cute kitten all right.

Now, let me explain why I don't have a kitten already if I like them so much. You see, I have Smalls; ol' Jasper over there in the pic on the left, and he's quite a handful already. He co-habitated with another cat for the last six years, and thoroughly hated her ass the whole time, engaging in at least one bloody scrap-fest a day, coupled with all kinds of chasing, harrying, and cornering under the bed style activities. He is not called the Princely Prince for nothing, man. He is the man around the apartment, more's the pity if you forget it. So I was not going to bring some poor sucker into that world without a damn good reason. I did notice that when the other cat moved out for good, he seemed to be a little lonely with no one to lacerate on a regular basis. I also noticed that when my boyfriend spent time with him while I was at work, he seemed way less needy when I got home. So, I considered another cat, but wondered if Kins was perhaps one of those kind of cats that needs to be the only cat in the household. I have had a long-standing policy, though. That policy is this: If a kitten falls into my lap; be it found under a car/bushes/bench, thrust upon me by well-meaning co-workers, sleeping on my doormat, etc., I have no choice but to keep it. This scenario fit the bill, mostly. Also, I went to Chincoteague on a real vacation with my family when I was about 8 or 9 (meaning not visiting the relatives over the holidays, but just my family, with DAD who almost never got leave to spend time with us from the Navy) and it was a fabulous week of fishing all day for crab with my big brother and when not doing that, playing with the one thousand orange stripey kittens that lived on the docks across the street from our rental. I never had an orange cat, but I liked them from then on. So when this little "golden" fella fell in my lap, it was no contest. And Jasper's taking it well, all things considered. He was even playing with him this morning, even though when he saw me looking he pretended he was ignoring the kitten. A little swatting when the baby gets near the food dish, and the odd hiss here and there, but a much better reaction than I expected. It's just a tiny six-week-old baby, after all. So, Clyde, the Orange Kitten Of My Dreams, has now joined the household. May it be a long and prosperous relationship. And may the two cats start sleeping together in a squishy pile sooner rather than later, because that is some cute shit, man.