Halloween!!

Important details to come but, for the moment, some pictures.

We ended up going to a gallery opening consisting of "Dead of the Dead" inspired art above an Ethiopian Restaurant. It was pretty good - though once over it we went to the old bar haunts: The Black Cat - Red Room, and The 9:30 Club - Back Bar. I'm not sure how we managed it, but we ended up getting home around 3am.

Doctor Diatribe

Let me preface this story by saying: I am a bit of a workaholic and don't take sick days very often. So the fact that I took work off today alone should say something about the issue.

I wanted to take a moment to diatribe about doctors. I hate them and do not trust them or respect them. I mean, I do respect them as human beings. But I do not intellectually buy in to the idea that they know more than I do, although I apparently do in practice. What am I talking about?

Well, I took off work today because I have been feeling especially sick for the past two days. I say especially because for the paste several months my neck has been giving me trouble. You might remember that I had something hacked out my neck last year. I have now had recurring issues where my throat feels swollen, like someone is jabbing their finger in to the surrounding muscles (and whatever lymph nodes and other weird things are around there). Sometimes this will be accompanied by feeling flushed.
So I go to the doctors today to get this stuff checked out. And I tell him "and I cyst taken out of my neck" yadda yadda. You'd think a doctor would say "oh, she has a pre-existing condition" and send me to a ear nose and throat doctor who knows things. But no. He suggests I take allergy medicine, and has me get blood taken because I walk my dog and maybe a tick bit me.

Nice.

Of course I had absolutely no spine, and should have said "hey, give me a referral will you or a soft tissue xray". But I didn't. I just did what he told me. Which is annoying because I know two weeks from now I'll just be back in there with my neck still feeling obnoxious.

The Halloween Tree

It's pretty much mandatory for me to read Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree every October. It's the book that got me interested in the writing of Bradbury in general, and of course, focuses on my favorite holiday topic.

I was first acquainted with it because The Cartoon Network made it into a movie (part 1, courtesy of YouTube!), and the voice of Mr. Moundshroud was done by Leonard Nimoy. My Pappy was a big video person (one room of his house was lined with VHS) and this was one of the titles on the shelf.

Because the quip "the book was better" is almost always true, I decided to look up the book online. And it was true - the book WAS better. It is, in fact, one of my most favorite books of all times. Which you would think is weird - I mean, technically I guess it's a young adult book. But the writing style of Bradbury is so rich in imagery and poem, and the scenes the book goes through are just so aesthetically please to me, that the pretty standard plot (kids, saving their friend) doesn't pinch the intellect.

Anyway - I'm going to start reading it tonight and I highly recommend you get your hands on it.

Halloween NOMS

I love halloween. I have never been a big candy fiend, or a big "foodie". But something about this holiday makes me both. I want to make delicious autumn food, and eat extremely snotty candy. Like the stuff below:

Day of the Dead Skulls
Sweet skulls, sweet skulls! A skull for a soul! These look delicious and they SOUND delicious. I've had some chocolate from these folks before and while it is most definitely pricey it does a crazy dance on your tongue.

Classic Pumpkins - aka Drunken Chocolate Figs
Not only do these look cute, but they are FIGS drenched in whiskey clove ganache. I support inebriated fruit, and autumn so really - what's not to like?

Grey Salt Apple
There are lots of yummy items at this link but, in keeping in with the fruit theme - chocolate covered apples. They have lot of varieties lists but I think the grey salt apple looks fanciest.

That's it for now! More Halloween to come...

Dead things, and more dead things

The New York Times was definitely on the ball. They've run TWO articles recently that got me excited.

ONE: American Psycho, the musical
As most people who have been around me for any length of time know, I'm kind of a fan of American Psycho. It started with the movie (Christian Bale!) which prompted the speedy purchase and consequent reading of the book. And, as usual, "the book was better". So, then a became a Bret Easton Ellis fan. Anyway - it seems to me like American Psycho would be a fantastic musical. It has a great balance of comedy, music, and of course horror. I am most definitely going to see this in person once it gets into production - requiring a trip to NYC, and maybe reservations at Dorsia's (kidding).

TWO: Ornithology as art
Most of us know about John Audubon or Albertus Seba (or maybe I just think people do... nature art nerds!) but I've always been intrigued by nature as art in areas other than illustration. What really got me going was the idea of "Nature and Birds: Science Art From Cave Walls to Computer Screens". When ever there is a synthesis of different media it usually turns out to be something very novel and interested (or at least unexpected). The idea that humans and animals have been linked from day one is something I support, and it's interesting to see art thrown into the mix as well.

So, there was have it. Two of my favorite ideas involving dead things.

Unacceptable!!

So.. the internet was down at work from 1:20pm yesterday to about 11am this morning. For most people this is a bummer - you can't surf the interwebs, or check your personal email and so on. It extra-sucks for people who want to do work. In this case we couldn't access our shared drives which decreased the amount of work people could do.

But if you're someone like me - who position is WEB associate (you see that? right in the name, there?) you are sad, sad, sad. Because you can do jack. Because the internet is your thing. I was restricted to working with things I had saved to my computer's C drive. And really, reading Raiser's Edge guides is only so interesting.

Although part of me was griping about why there wasn't a redundant line (apparently there was, but both failed - but no one told me who our ISP is so I could kick them in the nose regardless) another part of me was really, really happy it was not my problem. It was liberating not having to care about fixing the internet, or having to hound someone to fix the internet. The work hierarchy was in place and I didn't have to worry about it. Leaving me free to gripe in my head. It was great.