The Moving Process
We're temporarily back in Madison to get everything in order for the move to Albuquerque. So, unfortunately my posting will probably be sporadic at best for the next week or two. I hate moving. It makes me want to light everything I own on fire and start over.
2008-02-26 16:04:03 UTC
Rent-a-Dildo
So, remember the story about how a federal court finally overturned Texas' stupid law against the sale and promotion of sex toys? Well, then you may also recall that the now-defunct Texas law also banned the lending of sex toys. At the time I'd wondered why Texas had felt the need to legislate against people lending their sex toys. But that was before I knew about Rent-a-Dildo. It seems to work like Neflix:
You pay a monthly fee and have sex toys delivered to your door. You choose the toy you want from an online catalog, they send it to you (in "discreet packaging"), you use it for as long as you like, send it back, and get your next choice sent to you. For $19 per month you can have one toy at a time, for $29.99 you can have two, and if you sign up for the Golden Dildo Plan at $49.99, you get three at a time. And for those of you worried about hygiene, they claim they've developed a patent-pending process for thoroughly cleaning the toys. See? Not gross at all.
2008-02-26 15:43:00 UTC
The Halls of Taxidermy
After about a week of apartment-hunting in Albuquerque we found our new place. We'll be officially moving there in early March, which means we get two full weeks of serious, evil, Midwestern winter. Yesterday we spent the day reacquainting ourselves with winter in Chicago. We spent most of the day at the Field Museum. We were there for over five hours. They have the most insane taxidermy collection. It's overwhelming and eerily beautiful. They've got every animal in the world stuffed. It's like a crazy dead Noah's Ark. Except they have more than two of every animal. I saw more than a dozen stuffed zebras. They have at least three taxidermied rhinos! There's a bunch of baby animals too. They have lots of the animals set up in little scenes, like a Golden Eagle bringing a rabbit back to the nest for its babies:
It's truly bizarre and fascinating. Most of the animals are over 50 years old. Many of them are from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (photo). They don't buy skins anymore. The only new animals they receive are from animals that have died at zoos or shelters or whatever. Here's a panda that died at the Brookfield Zoo in the late 30s:
We spent like three hours wandering the halls of taxidermy and didn't even see all of it. It was pretty awesome, especially compared to the frightening taxidermy collection in Quito's Museo de Ciencias Naturales. I hadn't been to the Field Museum since I was a kid. I'm really glad I made it back.
Pictures from Bluejake.
2008-02-20 22:42:26 UTC
Happy Presidents' Day, GW!
You've been castrated through fashion!
2008-02-18 18:20:13 UTC
Happy Presidents' Day, Nixon!
Who doesn't love Presidents' Day? I feel like it's never properly celebrated though. Sure, schools are closed and furniture stores have big sales, but no one sends Presidents' Day cards or gives Presidents' Day gifts. Nobody decorates their homes or lawns. And why doesn't anyone throw big Presidents' Day parties? Noah and I were planning on having one this year, but unfortunately, we're still in transit (read: homeless). We'll have to wait until next year to properly celebrate this great nation's presidential leadership with all the dignified pageantry it deserves. It'll be a costume party and guests will have to dress like a US President. There will be decorations, cocktails, hors d'oeuvre, a cake, and presidential party favors. Maybe even a piñata. I think I could make a nice Lincoln piñata with some balloons and papier-mache. But alas, it'll have to wait till next year.
For now, I'll have to content myself with castrating our nation's Presidents through fashion. Here's Nixon in an ensemble from Thom Browne's Fall 2008 line:
Happy Presidents' Day, everyone!
2008-02-18 18:00:23 UTC