Random Musings

This will be my last post.............

.....on this ridiculously obnoxious and slow-moving,m Fred Flintstone craptop, er, laptop. Our computer will be home today, hopefully better than ever and this craptop will be relegated back to the closet where it stays in case of emergency.

I am thrilled. I spent a few minutes on the phone with Carlos yesterday ranting about this thing, and going all Mario Cantone/Bette Davis on him:

"It's. A piece. Of. Crap."

And it is, but, well, i guess that, without it, I might not have been blogging at all this week, so......

Yeah, it's still a piece of crap.

I've been watching HGTV Design Star: All Stars, aka We Don't Have Any New Programming. I've only been watching because of Dan Vickery and Tom Vecchione. Dan was asked to pack his swatches and go home this week, so that made me mad. But then there was Tom in a nice pair of jeans and a tight sweater, and there he was again all suited up, so, all is good.

I'm shallow like that.

Joe Biden said the R/R's would "unchain" Wall Street and pout us all--the Middle Class--back in chains, and the GOP went nuts. See post from earlier today. But then Meghan McCain weighed in, too, and while I usually like her, this time she worked my last nerve. She called Joe Biden a "crazy grampa" and, well, I think Meghan ought to take a look at her family and spot the Crazy Grampa there before she goes name-calling.

In  Missouri, voters have approved of something they are calling "Right To Pray" because, you know, prayer is not allowed in this country. Or at least that's what the people of Missouri think, which makes me wanna pray that they get a chance to see the Wizard about a brain.

But I digress.

Part of this new "law" will allow students to refuse to be taught evolution.

I see Missouri's future and it doesn't evolve at all.

I love this.

A music group called the Silversun Pickups have issued a cease-and-desist order to the Mittsy campaign, asking them, well, ordering them, to stop using their song "Panic Switch" at Mittsy events. 

Their statement read, in part, "We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign."

Suh-nap.

Mittsy's spokesbot, of course, immediately responded that using the song was just an accident.

Sheesh, is everyone involved ion that campaign an unrepentant liar?

Kelsey Grammer is moaning that he didn't get an Emmy nomination for his roll on the Starz channel's "Boss" TV show. And he says it's because Emmy voters don't like the fact that he's a Republican.

I think maybe they don't know that Grammer has a new show. Starz? Really? Or, maybe, they just don't think as highly of Kelsey Grammer as Kelsey Grammer does.

Last week, when I was flying from Seattle to Charlotte, I got my usual window seat. I rarely get up from my seat while flying so I don't bother folks by climbing over them, and I hate having people climb over me, so a window seat is the best option. Plus, I can lay my head against the wall and take a nice long nap.

When my row-mates arrived I was looking out the window and heard this very, very rural accent saying to me, "Hi! We're in here, too. I hope ya don't mind a couple of fat people sitting next to you."

And because I inevitably pick the wrong thing to say, I answered, "I'm just glad I got a seat."

I know! Socially inept much?

But this woman began telling me all about her life in the hills of West Virginia, and her church, and her husband's stroke, and how they both wear hearing aids and doesn't that young girl look just like their granddaughter and how they're staying the night in Charlotte because it's a four-hour drive back to Butcher Holler and they didn't want to bother asking anyone from church to drive them to and from the airport and the Days Inn has a lovely Continental breakfast every morning and.....

You get the picture.

So, when she finally turned the  conversation from her to me, I was ready to snap. And when she asked what my wife did for a living I was ready to tell her all about my "wife."

"Well," I began, "HE just started a job at a counseling center that works with alcoholics and drug addicts and he works with the Hispanic community in our country as an HIV educator and an HIV/AIDS counselor."

And she looked at me and said, "Well that sound fascinating. How does he like it?"

I really need to stop judging a book by it's cover.

And it's accent.

What's on YOUR MIND?

Random Musings

Chick-fil-Antigay.

My final word. I hope.

See, here’s my deal: Dan Cathy can be anti-LGBT. He has the right. He has the right to speak that thought and he has the right to give his money to groups that promote that thought, no matter how hate-filled I think they might be…and they are that hate-filled.

So, we protest right? We use our voices to tell people that Chick-fil-Antigay takes the money we spend on chicken and donates it to hate. That’s the good fight.

The bad fight is a kiss-in. What the hell did that do, except make it look like The Gays just wanted to go all kissy in the restaurant? What did the spraying of graffiti on a franchise do except make us look like vandals?

You wanna make a difference against a company that takes your money and spends it on hate? Stop.Eating.There. Stop giving them your money. Tell your friends and family and co-workers about their homophobia, but when you do kiss-ins and spray-paint their buildings all you do is give them more press.

Just stop.

Funny Tweet:

So there’s a new study that says homosexuality is in the eyes.

What?

Well, the study says that sexual orientation can be detected by looking at the pupils of our eyes:

For the first time, researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils were highly telling: they widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual.

Let me get this queer. This study found that they could tell I’m a big old queen because my eyes get wide when watching male-on-male porn?

Um…..duh.

Dan Vickery

Okay, I said I would probably never recap HGTV Shopping Design Star, and I will be holding true to that. 

But then HGTV goes and broadcasts something called Design Star: All Stars and, while I won’t be recapping I will be watching.

But….Hilari from the season that just ended is an all star? How does that happen? Bitch came in third place so how does that make her an all star? 

Sparkle Josh is an all star? Just by the fact that he calls himself Sparkle Josh means he shouldn't be on TV.

I think HGTV just sent out a mass mailing to anyone who’d ever been on the show and asked them to come back and the first six respondents got the invite.

Tom Vecchione

Still, Dan Vickery, who just missed winning in season four is back, and HGTV is kind enough to focus a great deal of attention, and camera time, to his cute little butt. It’s like they read my mind. And then they go and add some Mad Men-esque, Tom Vecchione, from season 5, and suddenly I cannot look away.

Little, muscular Tom and tall, lanky, sexy Dan.

Must see HGTV.

Must see Hot HGTV.

Funny Tweet:

The hot mess GOP convention. The Ron Paulettes threaten all sorts of fun, and now the party has come up with their list of speakers.

The good news? No Sarah Palin, because even her own party knows she a dimwit and an asshat and basically an illiterate fool. But, they have asked Grampa John McCain, who was oh-so-not successful four years ago against Barack Obama, so I expect he’ll do a little whining, and little backtracking on his Mittsy loathing.

And they’ve even offered a top spot to our own little Tea Party darling, South Carolina Governor, Nikki ‘I’m So Transparent’ Haley, who never met a lie she didn’t want to repeat, and Mike ‘Batshit Crazy’ Huckabee, one of the biggest rightwingnuts in the group; if you don’t count Florida’s Governor/Criminal Rick Scott.

It’s the GOP convention, people, or as I call it, Pander-To-The-Tea-Party-Palooza.

The Illinois Family Institute, the former home of Peter LaBarbera, has issued a call for parents to pull their kids out of the classes of liberal, or gay, teachers.

I see nothing wrong with that. I mean, years back my parents went to the school and pulled me out of classes taught by conservatives—

Oh, wait. That didn’t happen. See, my parents simply wanted the teachers who were best at teaching things like readin’, writin’, and arithmetic.

Gay or straight.

Thanks Mom and Dad for not being bigots.

The People's Designer

It appears that Hottie McHot, aka Dan Vickery, was voted Fan Favorite on Design Star this year and will get an online show at HGTV.com. Dan got the most votes, which proves to me what I already knew, if they hadn't left the choice up the Vern "The Candle Man" Yip, Genevieve "Tragic Design" Gorder, and Candice "How Did I Get Stuck With These Two" Olson, Dan would be the winner.

And he's take his shirt off in celebration.

So, I'll be watching Dan on the interwebz and skipping Antonio on TV.

Just sayin'.

I Had The Swine Flu And Dreamed I Was In A Boat With Dan

Well, the three day weekend has come and gone, and now it's back to the grind. Oh, who am I kidding, I don't do grind. Still, except for a couple of issues we had a relatively nice little Homo Holiday.

I was struck with the Swine Flu at the end of last week. Well, maybe not the swine flu, but rather just the ordinary run-of-the-mill flu. So, I was asleep for the better part of three days, until I began feeling like my old self again on Sunday morning. And how, you may ask, did I celebrate my rebound into health? Well, I did what everyone does when they crawl from the slime of stuffy heads and sore throats and aches and pains, I power-washed the deck!

Yes, we are going to restain the deck and it needed a good power-wash to clean it and remove some of the old stain, so there i was, sprayer in hand, taking the wood back down to bare wood. I'll be able to stain it on Wednesday, providing it doesn't rain. I also took the time to pressure wash our teak table we have on the deck and it also looks good as new, ready for some more teak oil to keep it purty.

Of course, then Sunday night was Design Star, which started off with a shirtless Dan getting out of bed. I. Was. In. Heaven.

The challenge was to design a celebrity room, or a celebrity's room. Dan got Jason Priestley who looks a little "road hard and pout away wet" if you get my meaning. But Dan was charged with turning Jason and the lovely Missus Priestley's guest room into a nursery-slash-little-boy's room-slash-guest-room-slash-sitting-room. I guess those 90210 residuals aren't as good as they once seemed.

Lonni was given Tiffani Thiessen's--who lost her Amber apparently, and is also a 90210 alum--guest room and charged with turning it into a, wait for it, guest room.

Fred Flinstone, er, Antonio, drew the gay card and got Kathy Griffin who wanted to redo the offices of Team Griffin.

And off they go.

Dan gets boring with paint color, and furniture choices but redeems himself with the boat hull mobiles on the ceiling. I seriously want some in my house if Dan will come wearing just those snug show opening boxer briefs and make them himself. He also painted a mural and did a painting of the sea for the room.

Lonnie wallpapered, creating one wall with a wallpaper silkscreened with a repetitive design. Lonnie is nothing if not repetitive design. Lonnie is nothing if not repetitive design. See, she has me doing it. First there were the Chevrons, then the Home Plates, now she does some Fleur de lis kinda fother-muckin' thing.

Antonio picks subtle colors of purple and lavender--and he isn't gay. He orders desks, he buys clocks, he has a stainless steel map of the USA crafted, and he walls over the fireplace. Antonio is good with a big shock--that map was cool--but cannot accessorize to save his life. He also cannot pronounce the word 'the,' but I digress.

At the judging, they all go ga-ga over Dan's room, loving the mobile and the painting. Vern doesn't like Dan's giggle; Vern's an ass. Genevieve says Dan seems stiff in his hosting. I say, what's wrong with a stiff Dan? Candice loves Dan, from mobiles to painting to murals, and she didn't even see the show-opening-snug-boxer-brief-shirtless Dan.

Lonnie gets blasted for the one-trick-pony-focal-wall-paint-trick that she uses every week and for not being able to hang a headboard. Kudos, though, for her greening of the room, although I found it bland. She didn't even rearrange furniture; she papered, hung a few new things and made the bed. Ho. Hum.

Antonio gets points for the map. He gets knocked for the use of a placemat as a rug; seriously, it was like a washcloth dropped to the floor and a table set upon it. His room is just, well, incomplete. No art. No plants. Empty shelves. But he does get points for being unique, which is design-speak for What the hell is that?

I know I'm partial. I likeee Dan. But I think Dan had the more difficult room. He actually had to change a room while Lonnie had to merely redo a room and Antonio had to furnish a room.

In the end, Lonnie went home because she couldn't hang a headboard. I thought it should have been Antonio because his room didn't seem finished, but I guess a Charming-Dimpled-Shirtless-Giggling Dan versus Gruff-Dese-Dem-Dose-Tattoed-BedRock-Boy-Antonio final will pull in more viewers.

The way I see it, Dan will win because he has the design chops, the cute giggle, the telegenic face, while Antonio is a bit too gruff and rough around da edges. Dan is TV while Antonio is radios......AM radio.

Princess Jason Turns Into A Frog

Ah, Design Star. Designing for the most horrific client of all, the child. And then having to do the hosting tryout on top of that.

Dan. Beautiful Dan. Dan the man. He was given the green room of Helena. No, it wasn't actually green, but his client was the family recycler, so she wanted eco-friendly. And he gave her that with bamboo floors and repurposing her dresser and bubble gum machine. I liked his room, though it seemed a bit sparse, especially above the headboard with the recycled ironwork that Vern hated. Vern. Pffft! He's a design-by-the-numbers kinda gay--not a misspelling--who wouldn't know a good design if it smacked him in the head. And Genevieve hated the color; I hate Genevieve. Arrogant little pissant, smug, self-righteous, pompous, egotistical.....Huh? Oh yeah. but Candace's knickers got all a'twitter at the gumball machine lamp. I know how she feels. Dan does that to my knickers, too.

As a host Dan was a adorkable, all grins and giggles--the judges didn't like the giggles but they made me wanna hug Dan even more. Okay, so I would have hugged him anyway but the giggles were cute. He comes across as extremely likable, lovable, hug-able. Dan.

Antonio got Connor, the five-year-old dinosaur freak and so Antonio gave him a dinosaur freak room. It was all right, if you're a five-year-old dinosaur freak. But when you turn six and you're into Star Trek or fire trucks, or, as in my case, Malibu Barbie, will you still be in love with a dinosaur room? I think not. And that photo he took of Connor and then pasted on the wall to make it look like Connor was hoisting the TV above his head? Am I the only one who thought it weird that the PhotoConnor had no legs? Am I the only one who pictured Connor waking up from a nightmare to see his legless body walking toward him, aiming a flatscreen at his head?

And as a host, Antonio scared the Baby Jeebus outta me, with that accent and those tattoos. "I did da rock bed and made da cave and did da pitcher of da lil guy for da wall." Hmmmmmm.....nope.

Torie got Carina, the soon-to-be-Soho bound artiste! I liked the bed, although it was a tad too generic for me, and I loved the fact the she put Carina's name on the wall--though why she had to explain that the 'I' was a paintbrush shows just how much it wasn't. But those shower curtains of fabric seemingly stapled to the wall don't spell Carina or design, they spelled desperation!

As for her hosting skills, or lack thereof, it was a little I, Robot for me, like she was a Tin Woman off to Oz to see if she could get some personality.

Lonni got hold of Victor's room; Victor, a seventeen-year-old baseball player, who looked beyond thrilled ::::sarcasm:::: to have Lonni up in his crib. But she persevered and worried about finishing and painted a series of home plates for his wall--slightly reminiscent of the chevron pattern she did last week. Vern worried she might be a one-trick pony and she is, a pony with one .................horrible.........................trick.

Hostess Lonni came off as a bit too Miss Design America. I wanted to see her in a crown and doing that little wave with her hand. Then I wanted her to get off my TV.

Jason drew the luckiest number of all, or so he thought. The seventeen-year-old girl who wanted Princess Chic. He screamed like a seventeen-year-old girl when he found out; and she screamed like a seventeen-year-old girl who was a'scurred of the gay man screaming back at her. Jason cried because he got to do a princess room and he teared up because his carpenter was no good and he bawled when he couldn't find just the right rug. I know how he feels; I had myself committed for seventy-two hours once because I couldn't locate a teal bath mat for the guest bath. But he struggled and fought and screamed and cried, and then tacked placemats to the wall for the 'chic' headboard.

As a hostess, he reminded me of Gilda Radner, on SNL, jumping around the princess room. I fully expected him to slip a pair of white pajama bottoms on his head and show us what he'd look like as a blond.

Neeldess to say it was Bye Bye Jason....your show has been cancelled. Or, as Carlos might say, Pack your knives, the tribe has spoken, and you have been evicted from the race.

I Think She's Still Talking

I loved me some Design Star last night because, well, Dan. And Nathan. That's all.

But then came the judges panel--not like an Obama Death panel (see below)--and the rattlings of Tashica. Droning on endlessly about how can do great design when all she does is assist. How she knows great design when all she does is parrot.

Parrot. See, just one of the several highlairous Tashica moments came when her team--poor Dan and Nathan were once again stuck with her--stood in the garage discussing their plans for the room and she would literally LITERALLY mimic what was just said as though it was her idea. It went something like this:

DREAMBOAT DAN: I'd like to do something sort of Spanish inspired.

TIRED TASHICA: Spanish inspired, yeah.

NOT HARD ON THE EYES NATHAN: Maybe some kind of terra cotta color.

TIRED TASHICA: I see terra cotta.

BITCHY QUEEN BOB: I see a big metal door slamming your behind on the way out.

Which actually happened after the funniest moment of Design Star. The judges, Candice Olsen, who is brazilliant, Vern Yip, who is a notch below mediocre, and Genevieve Gorder, who looks and acts like a first grade teacher--I think she designs using glue and glitter and construction paper. Anyway, the judges are asking Tashica about her contribution to the team and Tashica is tap-dancing as fast as she can: "Great design....I'll show you....I came up with the curtains....great desgn....I'll show you...I painted the floor....great design....I got the coffee....Danger Will Robinson Danger...................."

And while she rambles Vern whispers to Candice and then to Genevieve and then to Clive, who, while Tashica is still tapping says,

"Tashica. Your show has been cancelled."

Before.The.Deliberations.

SLAM!