Via joreth
Noted without comment: Science and religion
36
Via joreth
Tag Archives: pictures
Tape and plaster, Part II
In Part I of this tale, we wrapped joreth in layers of paper tape with water-soluble glue, for the purpose of creating a cast of her body from which she could make a dressmaker’s dummy.
That same day, we also created a plaster cast of her body, using plaster bandage strips.
The plaster was applied directly over skin, and was considerably messier than the paper tape. The process was a lot of fun, but absolutely in no way, shape, or form safe for work.
Noted without comment
Strange things this morning
So David and I walked down to the car this morning to head in to the office, and David noticed a folded scrap of paper tucked in the window.
Now, my first thought when there’s a note stuck to my car is always “Oh, no, someone ran into my car in the parking lot.” I don’t know why that’s my first thought, since to date I’ve found a grand total of three notes on my car in my entire life and not one of them was about an accident, but there it is.
Anyway, this note was not, in fact, about someone ramming me in the parking lot. Or maybe it was; it’s hard to tell:
Though honestly, I think it’s more likely that it was aimed at David than at me.
I can’t give you any rational reason for it, but I have a feeling that this note was more likely written by a man than a woman. I could be wrong, but it feels that way…
This, apparently, has been an ongoing issue with David, as well–he tends to get hit on by a lot of guys. I might be being unreasonably modest in assuming that the note’s intended for him but not me, though in all honesty I have to say he’s most likely the “hot” one:
Tape and plaster, Part I
A couple weekends ago, Shelly and I headed down to Tampa.
There were a few reasons for this. Shelly just graduated with her undergraduate degree (yay!) and has a few weeks free before going into grad school. It offered an opportunity to spend time with friends before the move. The new Star Trek opened on the IMAX theater in Tampa. And joreth needed to be covered in papier mache and plaster.
Each of these things could easily be a post in its own right, and likely may be. In fact, I am now in possession of a photograph of datan0de, my former archnemisis, which may put to rest once and for all the debate about whether or not capturing a person’s image also captures his soul; if that photograph doesn’t define datan0de quintessential essence, then nothing does.
But I digress.
The plaster and papier mache was actually pragmatic, not kinky. joreth is in the process, you see, of constructing some dress dummies of herself which are suitable for creating tight-fitting clothing, and so we needed to make a cast of her body.
Strictly practical, right? Not salacious at all, honest. Nevertheless, the rest of this entry, with pictures, is probably not safe for work
You see this?
You see what I have to put up with, when I’m just trying to answer some email? This kind of cute violates the Geneva Convention, I’m pretty sure.
I know folks who’d fuck this light
Saturday, my roommate and I went to see the new X-Men movie.
This isn’t a post about that movie, except to say horrible movie was horrible, it’s boringly, tediously predictable, and Rorschach would have dropped him down an elevator shaft.
We got our tickets early, expecting a sell-out crowd (which never materialized; the theater was only about a quarter full), and then spent a little bit of time wandering around the tiny strip mall where the theater is located.
There’s a kitchen and bath shop right next to the theater, and in the showroom they have the most amazing chandelier. And I mean that in the worst possible way.
It’s a crappy picture, taken as it was through the window into a darkened store with my iPhone. Still, I think it gets the general idea across.
The chandelier is huge, and is made of an enormous lump of glass with long tentacles coming out of it. And, I want to add, each of those tentacles has a knob on the end of it. An oblong, rounded knob.
This is a lamp for people who really, really, really love their Japanese tentacle porn. This is a lamp that would, were it not chained down, be able to fuck half a dozen schoolgirls in every available orifice simultaneously, without breaking a sweat.
This is the lamp you’d see in the main foyer of a Japanese tentacle demon’s house, assuming they had houses (which they don’t) and used chandeliers (which they also don’t). This lamp is not so much a source of illumination as it is a tribute to Legend of the Overfiend and La Blue Girl wrought in extruded glass and electricity. This lamp is the stuff of nightmares, or perhaps of erotic dreams if Hentai tentacoo wape is your thing. Merely sleeping under this lamp opens a doorway to Realms Beyond, filled with unspeakable horrors desiring to do unspeakable things to nubile flesh.
I think I want it.
Some thoughts on British linguistics
The Brits have it right.
This morning, while I was in the shower, I was thinking about snogging.
Not the practice of snogging (which, I hasten to add, I’m strongly in favor of), but the language of snogging. Which is something where we on this side of the pond have got it all wrong.
I quite like the word “snogging.” It’s a fun word. A playful word, kind of like the act itself. The American term, “making out,” is dreadfully dreary by comparison. You can see the Puritan work ethic here; only the Puritans could make it sound like a manufacturing process.
Yes, I think about language in the shower. Hush.
In many ways, I think British English gets it wrong. And I don’t want to hear any “they did it first, so that makes them right by definition;” American English is English 2.0, the bugfix release of the original. Like calling the trunk of a car the “boot” for example–I have often stored things in a trunk, but the only thing that gets kept in my boots is my foot, thank you very much. (If they’re using boots for cargo storage and transportation over there, I don’t want to know about it.)
But in the language of physical intimacy, American English kind of falls down flat, with a sort of shocked expression on its face, and then lies twitching in the gutter for a while. “Bumping uglies.” “Doing the horizontal mambo.” “Doing the nasty.” “Hot beef injection.” Ugly language for a beautiful act.
It’s not all this bad, of course; I’m kind of fond of “the act of darkness” as a sexual euphemism. And the Brits have their own ungainly words as well; “bonk,” “bugger,” and “shag” are all perfectly ridiculous in their own right.
But “snog”? Yes, I quite like that word.
Fragments of Atlanta: Oakland Cemetery
When my friend Jan was visiting a couple of weekends back, I decided to do something I’ve not done in the three years since I’ve been in Atlanta: play tourist.
Atlanta is not exactly the tourist Mecca that, say, Orlando, with its fun frolicksome army of intellectual propery attorneys, is. Nevertheless, it is home to some interesting places, including the world’s largest indoor aquarium and to Oakwood Cemetery, an old 19th-century graveyard with a fascinating history.
The place was founded in 1850. In 1864, Confederate general John B. Hood directed the Battle of Atlanta from within the cemetery (a fitting place, one might argue, from which the leaders of the agrarian South could conduct their ruinous war against an industrialized opponent). Today, it’s a public park, situated smack in downtown Atlanta’s runaway urban sprawl.
And it’s beautiful.
The entrance to the cemetery is gorgeous, all Victorian brick walkways and enormous oak trees. The back of the cemetery descends a rolling hill in carefully designed terraces:
The place is so interesting, in fact, that when dayo came into town for Frolicon, I brought her there as well.
The rest of this post has a very large number of massively bandwidth-crushing pictures, so I’ll put most of them behind cuts for your browsing pleasure.
As we wandered through the cemetery, which is huge beyond reason, one of the things that struck me was how much of a society’s social values and social norms are reflected in the way a society commemorates its dead.
Everything from gender roles to priorities to class hierarchies can be seen reflected in the headstones of an old graveyard. What are we to make, for example, of the Trotti family plot, which delineates expectations about gender and family norms with astonishing starkness:
Strange things are afoot at the Waffle House
A couple weeks ago, my friend Jan was in town for a visit. A couple of Fridays ago, we jaunted down to the Waffle House for some waffles before heading to Oakwood Cemetery, about which more later.
On the way to the Waffle House, a cop car flew pas us, lights flashing and siren screaming. Then another. And another.
“Someone’s having a bad day,” I said.
Then another and another. By the time we reached the Waffle House, which is right down the road from where I live, nine cop cars had gone flying past.
So we get to the Waffle House and sit down. Another cop car flies by, then another one.
And then they all turn around and start screaming into the restaurant parking lot, which isn’t the sort of thing you see every day.
About ten seconds later, there were twelve police officers crowded into the Waffle House. Some guy was sitting at the counter, probably wishing he were somewhere else–preferably somewhere where he wasn’t the subject of great interest by a large number of armed men.
So they did the whole “Put your hands on the counter where we can see them” and “Everyone move away from this man” thing, then shortly thereafter led him out in handcuffs. The whole thing was very “Quentin Tarantino goes out for breakfast,” only with fewer fatalities and nobody losing an ear.
Anyway, a few days later, this sign appeared taped to the Waffle House window:
Now, two things strike me about this picture. First, the guy in this sketch most definitely isn’t the guy who got hauled out in handcuffs, which makes me suspect that this guy is that guy’s partner, or this guy had nothing to do with that guy and it’s all some bizarre, Tarantino-esque coincidence, or maybe, just maybe, the cops got the wrong guy on the first go-round.
Second, “Both teeth on either side of his two front (middle) teeth are edged with silver.” That’s a pretty striking characteristic. If one is to make one’s living sticking up restaurants, perhaps one might consider another option, such as not changing one’s appearance in an easily-remembered way that makes one stand out, or maybe one should, I don’t know, wear a hood or something. Seems to me that once they get this guy, the positive ID is going to be a no-brainer.
Might as well tattoo ‘poor impulse control’ on his forehead, really.