Double bleg

Two pieces of advice being solicited this morning, dear readers!

First off . . .  how does one choose a holster?  I know, I know, try lots of stuff and see how it works . . . but where’s the starting point?  There are lots of things one needs to purchase before actually getting a gun (e.g. holster, bulletproof vest or big bucket of sand, cleaning kit, gun safe, etc.).  Where do I begin?  Which shops do y’all patronize?  How do I go about this business WITHOUT dropping a few hundred bucks on experimental holsters that I’ll never use?

***

And the second piece of advice I’d like today is:

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR COWORKER WILL NOT BLOW HER GODS-BEDAMNED NOSE????

The woman in the cube next to mine has severe sinus problems.  She continuously sniffles, snorks, and snerks.  You can HEAR the gunk in her neb move about as she snorts.  It’s absolutely disgusting.

And she does it VERY BLOODY FREQUENTLY.  I counted once — in the space of one minute, the longest she went without horking was thirteen seconds.

Mind you, there were a lot of five- and six-second intervals before we made it to that golden thirteen.

I freely admit that I have my fair share of character flaws.  It so happens that one of my flaws centers around aural cues such as sniffles — said flaw being that I cannot tune them out. No matter how hard I try to concentrate on my work, I find myself keeping half an ear out for that next, repulsive HNGKKKKKKK inhale.

It actually got bad enough that I broke all sorts of work etiquette rules and offered her a tissue.  Very politely, very sweetly, very hesitantly called her name and, when she looked up over the connecting wall, held up a box of tissues and sweetly, hesitantly asked if she needed one.

“Oh,” she said blankly.  “No,” she said flatly.

Four seconds later:  “CNHNNNKKKKK.”

I’m contemplating wearing my hair down and loose today so that I can hide earplugs.

There’s gotta be a better way.  Help me, Readers wan Kanobe — you’re my only hope!!

UPDATE:  Jay G links, and SayUncle links us both.  Thanks!  And thank you, readers, for the great suggestions in the comments!

Gun show undercover

Did anyone else wander by HuffPo and see the story about Mayor Bloomberg’s undercover gun show sting?

I had a few thoughts on this.  In no particular order:

1) Wait, so undercover camera work is GOOD now?  Huh.  Could have fooled me.

2) This is bad, any way you slice it.  This isn’t a private seller making a sale to a private buyer and innocently fumbling a few of the rules; it looks like vendors deliberately dodging laws in order to skip fees.

I understand that gun laws can be stupid, cumbersome, confusing and time-consuming; I’m going through the song-and-dance myself and it’s taking both time and money.  (Thank you Mike for doing the lion’s share of the forms!)  But breaking those rules and laws to make a few bucks, and doing so brazenly, seems to me like A Bad Idea.

If wishes were horses and I had my way, I’d have stupid gun laws pointed out Rosa Parks style, rather than Mayor Bloomberg’s exposé.  I.E., I’d have two law-abiding citizens get up in front of reporters, then have the licensed gun owner hand a bullet to a non-licensed resident, daring anyone to arrest them.

But wishes are not horses.  I’m certainly not volunteering for such a stunt.  I have other, important things to do, like a) not break the law, b) continue to go to my job and earn money, c) cook dinner, d) pet my cat, e) muddle through this state’s confusing restrictions as best I can, etc.

3) First trans-fats and now out-of-state stings.  To me, these seem like odd things for a mayor to concentrate upon.  Shouldn’t he be concentrating on local problems?

You all know I’m a baby gun chick searching for knowledge, so as always I welcome your thoughts.  Enlighten me!

(h/t the Hot Air headlines)

Trouble with plumbing

Poor Shoothouse Barbie had a nasty episode with her new digs.  It reminded me of the troubles I had a few years ago. . .

Once upon a time Lissa lived under the rule of Slumlord Jim.  Now, I need to emphasize right off the bat that I don’t regret living in the Hobbit Hole for three years — it was cheap, it was safe, it was conveniently located, it had a private garage for my car, and there was laundry through an adjoining door in my bedroom.  (Which, yes, was irritating when folks woke me up Saturday mornings doing laundry, or that one time the water main broke and my entire bedroom went for a swim, but whatever.)  However, despite its great locale — a block away from a bar and three blocks away from the police station, hooray! — its flat utilities rate and its full-sized bathtub, there were a few little hangups that occasionally caused problems . . .

Like, oh, lemme think, having the toilet pipe run through the storage closet.  Which was located roughly four feet from my bed.

And, oh, hmmm, having said toilet pipe start . . . misbehaving.

Now, it wasn’t a Golgathan, thank goodness.  It’s just that, well, the pipe stopped really doing its job. Instead of carrying the water away down the pipe, it sort of just pooled around the base of said pipe.  In my storage closet.  Next to my bed.

Did I call Slumlord Jim?  Well, of course I did!  And then I ghetto-fabulously continued to deal with the thing in the three-plus months it took him to call the plumber.  “Dealing with it” meant picking up the bend of the pipe and then letting it fall back with a smack, which usually led to a sucking sound similar to a huge toilet being flushed and the water fleeing down the hole like it’s ’sposed to.

Months later — I’m not kidding, MONTHS — after one feeble attempt by Slumlord Jim’s plumber to clean it out and tell me it was fixed, they took the whole pipe apart.  BOY was that fun — having my slumlord and his plumber traipsing through my bedroom and my storage closet taking apart a pipe habitually used to get rid of human waste.  Oh, the memories.

And to add insult to injury . . . Slumlord Jim informed me it was my fault because they had found a bunch of, er, feminine products clogging the pipe.

I informed him in no such terms that his problem predated me, his latest tenant, as I was very careful about such things.  (That goes back to the unmentionable incident with the Golgathan.  I’m still not telling that story, as it gives me the heebie-jeebies.)  Happily, the pipe stayed fixed for the rest of my stay there.

And now — pictures!  No, none are gross.  But d’ye see the bubbles around the pipe?  That’s from my shower!  Yes, the shower water built up in there too.

Futility (n): Taking a shower and scrubbing yourself clean, only to go to your storage closet and manhandle a pipe which carries away sh*t.

The best line I’ve read today

A snippet from the (fictional) romance book being written by Sanford (highlighted from the original Ace post):

“Her bosom heaved like a college freshman on dollar beer night.”

I laughed so hard a jelly bean almost came out my nose.

Oh, and what do I think of Sanford?  I pray God it gets less sustained attention than when Brad Pitt hit his mid-life crisis, ’cause I’ve had my fill of the trainwreck called Brangelina.  Seriously though — I know a lot of married couples have problems and liaisons and stuff, but if you’re MIA and you’re a governor, that is a PROBLEM. 

I think he should resign because he unforgivably neglected his job as the governor of South Carolina when he ran off to Argentina and was unreachable for days.  I really, really, really wish he would resign quickly because his selfish o-poor-me-without-my-soul-mate melodrama is disgusting.  It disgraces himself, his wife, his children, his mistress, the position of Governor, the state of South Carolina, the Republican party, and every poor sot unlucky enough be caught within range of ABC without earplugs.

UPDATE: Seems like a good opportunity to link one of my favorite funnies.  My two personal faves?  “She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.”  And “The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.”  Enjoy!

Public service announcement

In these trying times, it is wise to take a few basic common-sense precautions when traveling on the subway.

For example, it is prudent to always carry a pack of tissues.  Should you suddenly be overcome with sniffling, or sneezing, you will be able to tidy yourself neatly and quickly.

It is also wise to carry a small package of Sani-wipes or alcohol wipes with you at all times.  They are very handy if, for example, you wish to eat something but have not recently washed your hands.  They are likewise useful if you wish to cleanse your hands but there is no soap in the bathroom. 

Finally, if you have forgotten to carry tissues, Sani-wipes can be useful to clean yourself in the event that YOU HAVE SNIFFLED AND SNORKLED FOR THE LAST FIVE MINUTES AND I FINALLY LOST CONTROL OF MY STOMACH AND THREW UP ALL OVER YOU.

Thankfully, she was not sitting directly next to me, but rather a few seats down.  That way, the sounds that she was making – rather similar to a hippopotamus at feeding time, mixed with a healthy dose of a toilet coming unplugged – were not QUITE as loud as they could have been.  Still, I’ve lost all desire for breakfast.  *hurl*

P.S.  Yes, I did have tissues.  No, I did not offer her one; she looked, er, uninviting in the extreme.  Hearing someone snork and sniff for five minutes is preferable to getting in an altercation, which seemed the likely outcome judging from her appearance.

P.P.S.  CrankyProf wrote recently that “Before I was a mom, I had never been peed on, pooped on, snotted on or urped on — all in the same day.”  I have noticed that small children seem to excrete bodily fluids from various orifices at regular intervals; does this somehow become less gross when they are your own children?  Does the goo that they spew magically become less disgusting?  Inquiring minds – and future parents – want to know!!

A survey so I feel less embarrassed

And if enough of you participate, I might — MIGHT — relate a very very embarrassing story from this past month . . .

I think I have sunburn on my tongue.

A post to put your teeth on edge. Literally.

If you have any fear of the dentist whatsoever, THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU. (Likewise, if you don’t want to hear me whine like Rajah when he wants to bite me, then you probably need to go elsewhere.)

I spent almost four hours at the dentist yesterday. FOUR. On the upside, I am no longer afraid of the pain that will accompany childbirth.

Did you know what the tool of the devil is? You’d think it was a scraper, but you’d be wrong.  It’s a hideous, ungodly melding of evil, an unholy alliance in the name of dentist tools.

The progenitors of this evil contraption:

Tool of Satan + Other Tool of Satan = PLEASE GOD KILL ME NOW.  (A.k.a., a scraper that also shoots water.)

Now, I am the first to admit that I deserve some pain at the dentist, for I have the unmitigated temerity to be a NON-FLOSSER. I floss when I get something stuck in my teeth and that’s it. I *know* that’s bad. I am prepared for agonizing pain at the dentist because I know I deserve it.

HOWEVER.

Do you KNOW what that fiendish tool does? DO YOU????

It doesn’t just scrape your teeth, oh no. It emits a high-pitched keening noise RIGHT INTO YOUR EAR and it VIBRATES and when it hits your teeth you feel GRINDING and THEN IT SHOOTS WATER DIRECTLY INTO YOUR NERVE SOCKETS, INDUCING UNQUENCHABLE ANGUISH AND MISERY.

I’m not particularly brave, but I’ve got what I consider a decent threshold for pain. I’ve been through numerous sprained ankles, some lovely dry socket from my wisdom teeth, a rather large tattoo, etc. etc., without much difficulty. It’s nothing like SEAL school, or SERE school, or a serious car wreck or anything — I’m not THAT stupid — but I’m not exactly a whiny little girl.

They shot that Manifestation Of All That Is Evil into my gums and I jerked like a fish on a line. I was physically spasming in my chair with tears running out of the corners of my eyes. I’ve been the recipient of accidental electric shocks (stupid frayed lamp-cord) that were easier to deal with.

Apparently I *am* a whiny little girl when it comes to the dentist. *sniffle*

Oh, and I’m also an idiot to boot. In the interests of saving time and not using any more vacation than absolutely necessary, I decided that while I was at the dentist I should get my teeth professionally whitened.

IDIOT.

I’ve already informed Mike that he’s not allowed to divorce me because I’m never doing that ever again. After they shoved plastic into my mouth to hold my lips off my teeth, and covered my gums with gel, and treated the gel to harden it, and applied bleaching agent to my teeth, and swabbed sunscreen on my lips, they shoved a UV-light directly at my mouth and left me to cook. The first two fifteen-minute sessions were bearable, despite my sensitive gums. Towards the end of the third session I became utterly, irrevocably convinced that the UV-light was home to an unusual species of tiny alien, who selected among themselves the strongest and bravest to essay forth and jab their heat-tipped spears into my tooth sockets.

I’m pleased that my teeth will be whiter for the wedding photos.

I’ve also got sunburn/bleach burn on my lower lip. And a scrip for Tylenol 3 at night.

*whimper* *sniffle*

P.S. Thank you to Dr. Borepatch for his scrip for wine. Unfortunately, I’m prohibited from masticating any strongly-colored foods or liquids for the first 24 hours. Like red wine. Or Diet Coke. Or ketchup. I dined on plain chicken breast and bread last night. I’ve been eating white-colored yogurt and string cheese today. I’d absolutely kill for some Cheetos. Only chewing them would hurt too much.

P.P.S. I will admit that the new system of  X-raying teeth — taking photographs that instantly pop up on the computer, rather than developing actual X-ray film — is WAY COOL.

P.P.P.S. The doctor asked me to show me his teeth. I bared all my teeth in a self-conscious grin and he just STARED at them for perhaps thirty seconds. I haven’t felt that awkward since I snapped at a guy for calling me “Shorty” and my roomie explained it was a term of flirtatious affection. *oy*

P.P.P.P.S. After all the x-ray-photos they grabbed my cheeks with plastic spreader-things and took a zoomed-in full-color picture of my teeth clenched in a bite. Then they left it on the screen for about five minutes while they discussed my dental situation. I had nightmares about sharks last night.

P.P.P.P.P.S. At what point do post-post-post-post-post-scripts get utterly ridiculous?

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I don’t know, but I’m quite, quite sure I’ve passed it.

Movie Review: Watchmen

Short review:  It sucked.  I want three hours of my life back.

Longer review:  Well, let’s start off with Mike’s warning when I told him there was a movie review coming:

MIKE: Okay, but don’t give away the plot!

LISSA: There was a plot?!?

Let’s run down the checklist, shall we?

• The most awkward, embarrassing sex scene I’ve ever witnessed.  And I watched A History of Violence, so that’s saying something. 
• The above was followed not long afterwards by the most stupid, ridiculous sex scene I’ve ever witnessed.  I think it was supposed to be romantic or sensual or something, but the whole theater was laughing.  You would think it would be difficult to kill any and all libido a sane male (or female) might have on seeing Carla Gugino Malin Akerman topless.  This director must be a genius.  AN EVIL GENIUS. 
• Three different, separate scenes of such gratuitous violence that I could not watch.  I covered my eyes.  Would you like to know some of my more favorite movies?  Sin City.  Kill Bill I and II.  Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.  In general I do not mind what my mother calls “the ketchup factor.”  I could not watch parts of the movie I saw tonight.
• Disconnected shards of character background, presented as if somehow one could shake the cinematic kaleidoscope and cause a pattern to emerge.  (In some circles this pattern would be known as a “plot”.)  Nothing was shakin’, y’all.
• Poor Carla Gugino way slimmed down from her Sin City days, Malin Akerman (see update) shoved into an unflattering costume and with such annoying hair that I wanted to drug her and introduce her to a Flowbee.  (She can manage a super-tight latex outfit, a superhero identity and go flying in a huge robot-toy, but she can’t manage to locate a freakin’ HAIR TIE???)
• Last, but SURELY not least — seriously gratuitous CGI penis.  Repeatedly.

In summary:

If you’re going to see Watchmen for the plot . . . don’t.

If you’re going for the characters . . . REALLY don’t.

If you’re going for the super-cool special effects . . . find a friend with a large TV and a Blu-Ray player and get yourself Ratatouille from Netflix.  Watch the scene where the rat gets washed down the sewer; you’ll save yourself $8.00 and roughly 2 hours, 40 minutes of horrific awfulness.

You’re welcome.

P.S.  On the other hand, I cannot WAIT for the upcoming Wolverine movie.  Lissa want.  Lissa like.

UPDATE: Mike pointed out that I had the wrong character for Carla Gugino.  That makes me marginally less sad.  But the movie still SUCKED.

A treatise on female toilet etiquette

I imagine that, to male readers, a female public bathroom seems like an oasis of gentility.  Full of delicate, floral scents, with velvet couches and gilt-framed mirrors — not to mention the occasional amorous lesbian couple — most men can only dream of the powder-puff comfort and rich opulence exuded by a Women’s Restroom.

I hate to tell you guys this, but if that’s what you’re picturing then you’ve watched too many bad pornos.

Most women’s bathrooms are just like men’s bathrooms — just subtract the urinals. 

Okay, okay, you can also subtract some of the urine from the floor.  Now we’re all up to speed on accuracy.

But — and herein lies the impetus behind my blog post — you only get to subtract SOME of the pee from the tiles.

Because, you see, there are several methods for female liquid waste expulsion:

1) Wipe the toilet seat with toilet paper and sit down.  You get an occasional spasm of disgust if your butt hits thoroughly-warmed plastic, but nothing worse.

2) Lay down the nice disposable paper toilet-seat-cover and sit down.  Seems like the cleanest method, but if the person before you left some spatters, well, that paper is going to cling to your butt.  Not the most pleasant of feelings, let alone when the pee isn’t yours.

3) Wipe the toilet seat with toilet paper BEFORE using the paper toilet-seat-cover and sit down.  You are assured of a clean and dry sitting surface.  Hooray!  As long as you can square the double-paper-use with Mother Gaia, you’re golden.  (Paging Sherryl Crow . . . )

4) The Toilet Squat: Exercising your hamstrings, quads, and gluts, hover over the toilet seat as you do your business.  No filthy public plastic shalt touch thy nether regions!

And it is with the proponents of Method 4 that I have some serious scatological issues.

You see, at Ye Olde Financial Company we have a Serial Squatter who . . . misses.

Oh come now, Lissa, you say, do you expect a female to have the same sniper accuracy as a male?  She doesn’t have the anatomy for it!

That’s not the effing issue, I reply hotly.  It would be fine if she would just WIPE UP HER ***DAMNED MESS!

And it’s not on the toilet SEAT where she leaves her spatters, oh no.  That would be too easy, too visible, too simple to avoid.  Instead, I walk into the toilet stall and there are droplets of pee dripping down the front of the mother-f***cking toilet.

How bad does your aim need to be to get urine down the FRONT of the toilet?  How can you not freaking NOTICE that you are peeing down the FRONT SURFACE of a public potty and NOT WIPE IT UP???

Thanks to Ms. Serial Squatter, I have adopted the habit of automatically hitching up my skirt as I walk into the stall.  Lest the hem come into contact with the pee droplets hovering at knee height.

One of these days, I’m going to catch her, y’all.  And I’m going to force her to write the following lines exactly 3,560,295 times:

My bodily fluids are not drops of manna from heaven and I will not leave them behind like pearls of wisdom.  And also, I suck and everyone hates me. 

B*tch.

P.S. According to Johnny Virgil, men encounter the same problem:

This can be a recipe for disaster.

Why? Let me tell you. Because this urinal is square in front. This means that the two corners of the urinal are fairly close to your legs. As a result, you’re only one bad pantleg-crease away from inadvertently contacting the stagnant piss pond on that ledge, which will instantly wick into your pants like they were made entirely of Bounty paper towels. At that point you have two choices: (1) Walk around the rest of the day with someone else’s pee staining your pants, or (2) grab a giant handful of wet paper towels and — in an effort to avoid simply tearing off your pants and running outside and rolling around in a snowbank — rub frantically at the pee stains until you make yourself look like you just drained your bladder directly into your Dockers.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

Yes, I still get a kick out of toilet humor.  Sue me.

UPDATE: BorePatch linked.  Thanks!

UPDATE: TamLanche!  Thanks!

MOTHER OF GOD, UGLY CAKE ALERT

I mean, dear holy sweet cucumber god on a piece of mayonnaise-smeared toast.  I’ve posted on ugly cakes before, I know, but . . . DAMN. 

Mike and I are looking at cake shops to provide us with a wedding cake.  One of the more reputable cake shops in area surrounding Lissaville (Home of the Evil Conservatives) seemed like a lovely place, so I started looking through their web site.

Why??  Why, why, why, why????  (Logos are withheld to protect the not-so-innocent.)

This first case is a cake with delusions of grandeur.  This is the kind of cake that was a beauty queen twenty-five years ago, and made her daughter enter the same contest, and on bad nights drinks vodka and prances around with her old sash and tiara crying, “I’m a winner!  I’m a winner!”

 

I suppose, then, our next cake has accidentally ingested her sash after that second bottle and the poor thing is now spilling flowers out of her innards.  And also the crown of her head.

 

Oh c’mon, Lissa, you say, they’re not all that bad.  The flowers are kind of pretty.

Oh yeah?? say I.  And what kind of excuse do you have for this??  That the groomsmen has some, er, EGO problems?

 

 

Well, as long as we’re going to the seashore, I suppose we might as well go the whole hog.  If Prince Humperdink ever DID fight to The Pain, and then [was] dumped in a sparkly grotto, this is what he would look like:

 

 

Last AND least, let us examine this charming confection.  When trying to come up with a humorous description I mentally drafted a phrase about female body parts and nasty infections, but since this is post-dinner I’ll use Jenny’s phrase: Oh my god this is SO BABES IN TOYLAND!

 

And there you have it, folks.  Someone decided that these cakes looked good.  Some other people agreed with them and had these cakes AT THEIR WEDDINGS.  Then some OTHER people decided these cakes looked good enough to be showpieces on the website.

The world is most definitely doomed.