Dear Person from Sussex:

I know -- through the magic of Sitemeter, so don't get any creepy ideas of me stalking -- you're from East Sussex and this happened in West Sussex, but do you know anything about the GrannyKart Blowout?

I found this bizarrely, and maybe macabrely, fascinating. For instance, did happen at Tesco's or Sainsbury's or somewhere else? I don't know why that matters, but for some reason it does. What started it? I could see if it were over the last package of Chocolate Hob-Nobs.* Was either morbidly obese, and therefore have an unfair advantage? One was taken away to hospital, after all.

Update: Further research tells me it happened in a place called Crawley, (Really? "Crawley"? What's the next town over, Little Snivelling?) a new town which has Tescoses, Sainsburyses, and ASDAses and Icleandses.

*Mmmmmm. Chocolate Hob Nobs. Though my research has discovered a Milk Chocolate and Orange Hob Nob, which I would Kill to Get. Yes. Kill.

**Seriously, check out the site. It's angry! No wonder the grans were playing at MarioKart.

Why I hate NC, part 12,563

Senator Dole:

As one of your constituents, I wanted to inform you how appalled I was at your attempt to attach Jesse Helms name to the recent Congressional bill for AIDS relief.

Helms was a racist and a bigot, and I am sure -- whatever his late actions in office may have been -- history will confirm his legacy as little more than a rabble-rousing hate-monger, and a relic of a less progressive age.

Your attempt to attach his name to the bill was a flagrant act of partisanship and an obvious attempt to whitewash Helms' dark memory. Were you just not able to find the names of some actual victims of the AIDS epidemic to attach to the bill?

While I don't doubt this act will be popular with the majority of your electorate, I think it's important the strong minority make their voices heard.

--Jaylemurph

Dammit!

The day -- the very day -- I mention ER here, I find out next season will be the last one.

I'm not very torn up about it -- it jumped the shark a while back* -- but still, I had to find out today?!

And in other TV news, who's going to tell that Dayton kid from The Baby Borrowers** that he needs to go somewhere and do a solo stroke flick and/or a Peter Z Pan movie***? Oh come on. You know you'd watch it. And I refuse to believe he uses that much peroxide, Nair and fake tan without self-selecting to look like a twink.

Not that I'm convinced he hasn't already, but he is the sort of ammo that the US twink market needs against Eurocreme and the other leading companies from Eastern Europe. And something in me is adamant that the US can -- and should --compete in this market.

*I'm pretty sure it happened 'round about the time /every/ episode got promoted as "a very special/touching/can't miss episode."

**You should really, really hate NBC for thinking you need to be watch hours of TV to learn that teen-agers are stupid and shouldn't (successfully) breed. I say "you" because *I* watched it and can't personally bitch. Granted, I probably watched with a creepy leer (see above), but I did watch it.

***No? Oliver Twink? Betwinked?**** The Da Vinci Load*****? Tell me he doesn't belong in there, somewhere.

****Well, obviously you know about the dreadful mike problems in the last few scenes. Marred an otherwise lovely film.

*****The gay one. Apparently, there's also a straight porn title called "The Da Vinci Load." Who knew?

Ars Gratia Auctore

I think it's stupid to take your own photos at an art museum (doubly so at a gallery where you ought to be coughing up actual money for your gawping) , since there's practically no chance you're going to get a better image than has already be made for a post card, coffee mug or calendar.

But there were two I couldn't resist.

One should be obvious to anyone reading this.

The other is for anyone who's ever seen me.

I was also delighted by a Giacametti sculpture of the type I particularly love, and a really engaging Matisse I'd never seen before, "Laurette with a Cup of Coffee"

Trip Debriefing III

As in St Louis, I didn't actually stay /in/ Chicago, I stayed away in Lisle, a pretty distant suburb, but closer to Union Station than my place in Brooklyn was to Manhattan (timewise, on an express train, anyway).

Now, I may never have mentioned here, but I'm a big ER fan. As in "I have all 9 DVD sets and have watched all of them twice". So my biggest treat in being in Chicago was going to nose around ER locations. Consequently, my first trip was to try to find the Michigan Ave bridge, just down from where Cook Country General Hospital is supposed to be. Of course, I got lost. But I did see the Sears tower and the Chicago Opera House (Which is right on the river. I don't envy their damp problems...)

I went back the next day and found it. And took spent most of the day wandering around, taking some pictures. (And giggled a lot to myself -- "Look at me, I'm Dr Greene jogging by the Lake" or frowning and thinking "Now I'm all serious and moody like Dr Benton*)

I also got a pizza. I was sat next to -- literally -- the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen. I use the word beautiful because it's more accurate than "hot" or even "cute". He was almost like a Botticelli youth, or a similar period cartoon** drawing to gage an artist's technical perfection rather than his talent at conveying actual appearance: his lips and eyes and colour were so perfect they had that look of being drawn on rather than have grown. His lips were literally pink. I've never seen that before on anyone, male or female, without make-up. I had trouble not looking at him. I hope I didn't come over as "creepy" rather than "interested" or, since I know what I can reasonably attain, "appreciative" since I know he caught me looking at him. And it's not like he was the best thing that happened to me there, so I don't know why he gets all these CIs. I guess it shows I've been swallowing the Twilight series virtually whole. In any event, this guy has Edward Cullen nailed better than Oliver-whatever-his-real-name-is-Wood.

I also went to the Art Institute of Chicago, on a Friday afternoon when it was free***. I enjoyed it. I also took a ride around the entire Loop, just to say I had written the El. One picture that I didn't post here was for the CCGH stop (Library-State/Van Buren). Yeah, it's pretty sad I know which one it is.

*Oh all right, Dr Luka probably is a better comparison. Not that chip-on-their-shoulder Docs are hard to come by on that show.

**Not that kind. This kind.

***Thank you, Target. A big box deal I can approve of.

Nerd Topicality: I Has It.

Yes, The Kings of Convenience were bump music on this week's rerun of This American Life.

Un-hunh. That's right: Jaylemurph has his finger on the pulse of Geek Life.