shiny things: not shiny at all

All right.

That's it.

I've had enough.

It is time for another edition of shiny things.

Today's theme: shiny things which are, in fact, not shiny.

squid hat by obeymybrain of etsy

Awhile back Pearl let me know about a funny YouTube series called The Guild. It is now apparently a Thing which people watch. I can only approve if it involves the wearing of such hats. Apparently some squid hats were specifically designed for the show; there are many varieties available. This particular one is my favorite, and while I can't conceive of likely a situation in which I would wear it, it makes me wish that I could!

I think squid, especially cartoonish blue ones, are inherently happy-making to contemplate. However, it certainly counts as fluffy rather than shiny.



There is such a thing as a liger. Think about that when things seem frustrating in your daily routine. Somewhere--perhaps nearer than you think--is a magnificent, impossible half-lion half-tiger, and it is not impossible that someone is petting it. It is also very, very unlikely that someone is being mauled by it. Petting yes; mauling, no. The classic win / no lose scenario! Which I just now made up.

Humans do all sorts of crazy things--some of them awesome, others downright terrifying--but occasionally something ridiculously unlikely to have occurred in nature turns out downright cool.

Raise your hand if you want a pet one of these!
And, ah, lots of goats to feed it.
Perhaps a vet on call with a fully paid retainer.

Unregardless! I want one.




I sincerely hope the inherent blurriness of cameraphone pictures does not prevent that nametag from being legible. It says "HELLO! My name is Superman!"

The guy in the pic is one of the courtesy clerks (read: bagger, mopper and cart patrol) at my store. He is a pretty smart and nice guy who has come up with an ingenious way to compensate for the fact that his limited English robs him of what I read to be customary eloquence. On that one you have to trust me. I talk a great deal and listen slightly more than I talk. And what people are about to say, most of the time, is at least half of what they're saying. Sometimes you can even tell what it is!

And this guy has a running joke that despite its simplicity never fails to amuse me. Or him, either, which only raises my opinion of him.

Most days of the week, he greets all coworkers by saying "Hello! I'm, today, Superman." Witty responses are encouraged but not required. The comically exaggerated expression on his face makes it virtually impossible not to laugh or at least smile.
Then, whenever someone gets on the PA to call him for bagging assistance up front, wet cleanup in aisle 2 etc., I can think "aha, they are calling superman to the rescue!"

Sometimes he'll switch it up and say, "I'm, today, Manager!" On Fridays he used to be Dracula, which lent an element of danger to the first of the ridiculously busy weekend days and gave me an opportunity to use the phrase "stainless steel scarf" in real life. Alas, one of the actual managers told him not to say he was going to be Dracula anymore, as it might creep somebody out. I say that's a shame. Anyone creeped out, rather than uplifted, after meeting Behrouz is most certainly not paying attention.

Shiny, no. Fluffy, only in the hair department. Awesome? 100%.



If you have ever washed dishes, this is something I hope you've had a chance to experience. If you've never washed dishes in a commercial sink, let me tell you, it makes an everyday chore a pretty dynamic experience. Properly appreciated, a sink such as ours can make even a day full of ridiculousness more fun. Who can say no to a high-speed jet of water, its temperature almost infinitely adjustable? Sure, it's inadvisable to spray it on floor, coworkers, salads in process etc. Yet there is a certain amount of visceral satisfaction involved in just spraying the living daylights out of stuff--have I mentioned there is also hot and cold running soap solution?--until it's clean enough for food to be eaten off of it.




This pic is from last winter, but trust me, this is a very, very important part of my day. Surfing lolcats is an occasional--very occasional--pleasure and/or vice. Surfing the internet generally, even if it's just to play KoL, is something best accomplished with the cat leaning her head over my wrist and demanding I pet her instead of the keyboard.

She may not be a liger. But she fits on my desk!

We're in the process of getting married! And moving!

That's us, yesterday, at Ronny's Original Chicago Steakhouse. Steaks and Buds for both of us were only $20, because Ronny's was having a sale. The piece of paper I'm holding in the photo is a marriage license, which cost twice that. (Dave found a fellow restaurant patron who was willing to get our picture using Dave's phone, because it seemed to me that you-all would be slightly mollified if we at least had a picture.) So we have between now and Nov. 14th to get it signed by a judge or cleric and sent in to the Cook County officials. Perhaps we will keep the actual date a secret for awhile after the fact--but we are most certainly keeping it a secret before. This is going to be the most non-secret elopement it's possible to have, but it's still going to be an elopement. Because that's what we want to do. So there. At some point after the actual documents are official, when we can afford it and have agreed on a design, we're probably going to find us a good tattoo parlor and get our wedding rings. :D



Immediately after food, we went north to see an apartment which I can actually afford on the money I'm making working at the deli. And as Dave pointed out, if he found a job in the neighborhood, we would be making significantly more than would be necessary to survive. We could, in other words, start doing cool stuff like debt service and savings. We'd still be living right next to a train line--just a different one. The one I take to get to work. Much, much closer to work. In a neighborhood that's actually slightly nicer than the one in which we currently reside. So depending on how fast we can get an appointment to see the leasing agent (and whether our execrable and/or nonexistent credit is adequate) we could, in theory, start moving our stuff into it while it's still September, and start paying rent Oct 1.


Now, if I were you, and if I read this from the other side of the interscreen, I can tell you what I'd be thinking right about now.

(And by "you" I mean "our friend or loved one, who quite likely knows us in real life and would have been invited to our large, public ritual for the acknowledgement of heterosexual life-partnerment, such as the one shown in the above photo I copied without permission from the website of a photographer apparently named Ian Haring, if in fact we were having one, which we are not, at least not at the traditional time in the process.")

If I were "you", I'd be thinking:
"Huzzah, good for them, and about freaking time!"
"Those sneaky jerks have forgone a large public ritual, thereby denying me and everyone else who knows them the opportunity for the vast exchange of social-structure and relationship information which the organization and performance of such a ritual exists, in large part, to expedite! How very rude, even if it is monetarily practical at the moment!"

See, this is why elopement is both frowned upon and attractive, depending on one's feelings about large, complex social relationships among large numbers of people. When many different relationships, some very intense, between a whole lot of people at the same time are all going to be altered by a single event, it makes good sense to mark that event with a public ritual. Just in terms of emotional and mental economy. That way everyone who has a stake in the event can symbolically communicate to everyone else involved what the event means to them, how their relationships with various other involved parties are going to change, and (just for garnish!) how they feel about the fact that it is happening. Furthermore, because these changing social realities are acknowledged publicly, simultaneously and symbolically, everyone has a much better chance of remembering who now means what to whom afterwards. The form of the ritual itself acts as a mnemonic device: common ceremonial elements serve as shorthand to describe relationships even to persons not within the social group but familiar with the culture. "Oh, do you know them well?" "Why yes, I [did X] at their wedding."

Also, too, it gives people an opportunity to express their love and support* in a highly condensed and reasonably approachable way.

So, if you feel you absolutely must do something to express your love and support**, by all means, please come and help us pack, help us move, come over and find stuff we're not going to be able to take with us and take it back to your dwelling with you***. Or you can, y'know, wait for us to give in to the inevitable and start planning a post-matrimonial party of some kind. Haven't talked it over with Dave yet, but I'm thinking Firstiversary Party. Has a nice sound to it, and is sufficiently far away****. ;)

Love and pez be unto all of you.
I for one am exceedingly***** happy.







* or their hatred and opposition
** or hatred and opposition
*** or call our prospective landlord and tell him nasty things about us, sneak into our current apartment at night to unpack our boxen, and leave behind large, badly damaged pieces of furniture
**** also, it now occurs to me, announcing a Firstiversary Party would require revealing the date of the actual marriage, which would be fun
***** but not, I think, excessively

some of the good guys

Talked with Amber on the phone again, and because I am extremely lazy, I'm putting up the links to some cool things I found here. In the blog window I already had open, rather than open a new window and put them in an email.

In addition to being that lazy, my other reason for posting these here is that I want everyone to see them, even though I told Amber about them first. Well, second, if you count Dave who was in the room with me and hence got to hear me go "squee!" for the birdy and the cake. And also weep for the cake. (Different cakes, though.)

In this Pleiotropy post, Scientica Pro Publica 9, there is a video of a crow that demonstrates one reason why they are my favorite bird. This crow has a straight wire and is confronted with the conundrum of a basket of food hidden at the bottom of a very tall glass. And this thing has a brain smaller than my cat's brain! And my cat can barely play fetch!

A tale of two circles by barkingreed. Just like there are two Americas, there are also two Christianities!

Charity, conclusions and cake over at slacktivist. Evangelism: UR DOIN IT RITE

More Geeky Cupcakes at geekologie. Including one that I want to find out who makes, so I can have it made for some birthdays next year:

And something I covet for my very own use and enjoyment:
:D For this, I would learn to sew a straight line by hand!

shiny things 2: the "diamonds?!?" edition

[Currency]

Diamond
evaporates;
bright metal melts away.
Attention is the hardest thing
to pay.


Hi there, folks. This blog has been a pretty heavy place for the last little while, and I for one need a short break from all the deep thinking. That cinquain above is one of my favorites of mine (what an awkward phrase that is!). I hope someday to have an office with a desk over which I can have it framed. Cause, y'know, like my all-caps-having motto, tis a good thing to keep before my eyes on a daily basis. Though they are not fluid, like glass, or easily marred, like silver and gold, diamonds nonetheless decay. Slowly, over the course of centuries, a few at a time, atoms of carbon on the surfaces of the stone will loose their bonds with their neighbors and drift off into the air. Like water from the surface of a pond, or skin cells flaking off a body. In merely human timescales, yes, they provide a good image of permanence. But in the longer times needed to measure the ages of stones, stars, species--diamonds are not forever. The only things that last forever are the things you can't take back, the things that echo through time, that change whatever they touch. Which is why the hardest currency is attention.

Gah! You see what I'm like when I get my pontificatey-thing all revved up? I could go on like this for months!

And so in the interests of happiness, sanity, and warm twinkly feelings in the brain, I've decided it's time for another edition of shiny things. I want to focus on Dave's favorite among the gemstones: diamonds. (My favorite is probably opal, so don't you fellow opal-lovers out there get discouraged. I'll get to 'em.) Even all by themselves diamonds are pretty, though I think they do best as supporting players for more colorful stones. However, diamonds are more notable as symbols of wealth and opulence, and as such inspirers of greed, violence, and truly, truly bizarre design concepts. I'm talking about forms of weird which go way beyond mere aesthetics. So today's theme is: people do the darnedest things with diamonds.



Of course, no discussion of diamonds would be complete without bringing to the forefront the issue of diamonds as an excuse for slavery and bloodshed. The caption on this photo translates, "What price for these diamonds?" Which is one reason I'd be hesitant to go around buying diamonds even if I could afford them. I've read jewelers' forum posts where professionals expressed grave doubts about the reliability of "conflict free" guarantees on any stones. For the simple reason that somewhere along the chain you get back to the guarantee being only a given seller's unsupported word that, indeed, the things they're selling were not obtained by forced labor or as a result of murderous theft.

This was the same forum where I found an awesome explanation of how to tell real diamonds apart from simulants quite simply. Dad had left behind some shiny pebbles, and I wanted to double-check what they were without having to pay a jeweler's fee. The poster (alas that I cannot find this forum now!) put up a very good picture. He'd drawn two dots on a piece of plain paper and put two stones face-down on top of the dots. The man-made stone refracted the dot cleanly into a sharply-defined circle. The genuine diamond, being full of microscopic flaws and inclusions, scattered the image of the dot into an indistinguishable blur.

So if you ever find yourself in possession of a pile of shiny pebbles, give the dot test a try. One of these days I might dig some of Dad's old (hardly-used) jewelry-making supplies out of their boxen and try my hand at it, secure in the knowledge that I'm not trapping real, valuable stones in my clumsy creations.

This, however, just makes me a little sick. In a slightly different way than the violence does.

Who would do this to diamonds? Who would do this to a dog? Who would do this?!?!!



Perhaps this is part of the answer.
My first reaction to this diamond pacifier from Itsmybinky was something like this:

"Ha. Go on, website, pretend these are actually for babies, while in the next breath advising they are not recommended for actual use because the jewels are a choking hazard. Riiiight. Actual use by babies. What kind of moron is going to buy this little bauble for an infant who won't be able to appreciate the complex symbolism until they're too old to care? Oh, no, my friend. Roleplaying ain't just for geeks with dice."

But then I read that they were designed originally for Donald and Meliana Trump, as a souvenir gift for their infant son. So I guess somebody really is crazy enough to spend $17k on a pacifier the baby can't even use. (And I should get my mind out of the gutter.) Who knew?



See, I just didn't understand the price structure up at the top. If you want to buy a diamond-encrusted gift for an adult, a mere $17k will not cut it. Unless you're just, like, friends or something. This here diamond-encrusted wedding dress (dress design by Renee Strauss, jewel design by Martin Katz), for example, will set you back a cool $12 million.

Make sure you mark that down. In case you ever become the richest person in the world and want to walk around in / purchase for your female companion a dress with which you could conceivably purchase (or at least feed, clothe, and house) a small country. This is the dress for you.

Are you not marking this down in your dayplanners? I don't hear flipping and scribbling.

Dang. I guess we're all too poor to be able to really be stylish.

At least we can still surf the internet in style, though. Right?



Gaah! Nooooooo!

Not only must I live with the shame and uncoolness of not owning a Mac, I must now also live with the shame of not owning a diamond-encrusted, 24-karat gold Mac.

Woe, woe unto me. Well, I'd better go check the time. I'll just glance at my still-reasonably-cool cheap watch* to see if I can still make it to the store--

Wait, what?

Waaaaah!
Oh, the sorrow! Oh, the piercing envy which hath piercéd my organs in various hurtsome ways!

Just think of all the different places and events you could legitimately wear this. Any place where it would be appropriate to show off your extreme wealth in the form of diamonds mounted in a skullhead pattern, and where you weren't worried about your watch getting stolen. Anywhere you wanted, really. Except for work, bars, rock concerts, weddings, graduations, funerals...

Hmm. I suppose you could wear it to award shows. Assuming you got invited.

By the by, the website where I found this, geekologie, posts about some other really weird and interesting stuff. Like a gun operated alarm clock, running jackets made from blow-up dolls (nsfw), and a sandal for smuggling booze. Odds of you being able to wear/operate any of those on an airplane: close to zero. I think this guy goes on the science tab on my sidebar. Rock.

Moving on!

Here the artist Damien Hirst has taken the whole diamonds 'n' death theme in a startling and very, very expensive direction. This life-size diamond-covered platinum skull is entitled "For the Love of God" for some reason. It set a record for the most expensive piece of art sold by a living artist. What I want to know is, how the heck did an artist afford the materials to make this astonishing bauble of great and shiny creepiness? Blackmail? Extreme disco blackmail? Pilfering bits of pacifiers and dresses?

I didn't want to end on such a macabre image, so here's the Hope diamond. Gorgeous, huge, genuine, named something positive, and as far as I know, safely tucked away in a museum somewhere.

Ahhh.

That's how diamonds should be.





*In the interests of accuracy, I do not in fact own a watch. I am a city dweller surrounded by banks with those flashing signs that display the time and temp, buses which display the time on a convenient little scrolling marquee up at the front, and endless passersby whom one can stop and politely inquire as to the time. (They all have cell phones for that purpose.) Even if I had a watch, I doubt I'd wear it, for much the same reason I let my earring-holes close. One less thing to compulsively check even when I don't need to be worrying about it. One less accessory get in the way of my movements, catch in my hair, fall off, or otherwise distract me more than it provides me with enjoyment.

P.S. Extreme disco blackmail is my new favorite phrase. Aww yeah.

shiny things

Cable being out in our dwelling, if I get one of my urges to stare at lovely, lovely shiny things I must either dig through boxen to find all the jewelry I've bought or been given, but never have the urge to wear, or go to the internet. It's like with hats or dresses, really. I think they're pretty and enjoy looking at them, but it's a very rare duck I'll actually be willing to put on and walk around in public with. Perhaps it's my hidey-hidey nature.

Anyhow, it just now occurred to me that since I'm finding them on the intertubes, I can share some of the shiny things with you!

These are all from Etsy.

From trophies' shop, some clever pendants (one vulgar, but thoughtfully blurred).

Yes, there are pendants which say "Off with her head!" and "A cat may look at a king", as well as a couple of other Alice quotes. There are some good Harry Potter ones as well.

I think this could make a hilarious gift to a friend with whom a quarrel had just been patched up. If both the friends involved had the sort of sense of humor where this sort of thing would be appropriate, I mean. "See hon? I do give a flying f---!"

I completely agree. In fact, I'm going to go make some tea right now, to fortify myself whilst I show you some more wonderful shiny things.


From beadnurse's shop, some pretty bracelets. (She also has the blog, "Madness: tales of an emergency room nurse" through which I found Etsy in the first place. Props!)

There are lots of different color combos with this lovely wraparound design. This one is called "marrakech."

Coral beauty cuff. Odd how a mineral from the sea can look so warm and comfy!


From lizix26's shop:

This one's called miracle nest. The name somehow makes the necklace even prettier!

Mermaids dancing. You go, high-fiving dancing mermaid babes! Yeah!

Sunset. I love those little petals; I bet they'd look like little lightbulbs if the sun hit them right.

From the valley. This is probably my favorite of the things I've found so far. Simple, elegant; looks at once both totally natural and totally the work of a talented crafter. And totally, totally impractical for everyday wear, alas, especially for someone like me with really long hair. I'd break off two of those petals within ten minutes of putting the ring on!


From edmdesigns's shop. They do a jewelry style called "steampunk" or "steampunk vintage", I'm not sure which. It involves incorporating vintage machine parts into the jewelry, and looks really cool.

This brass bracelet is essentially a watch, only without that pesky time-telling function!

Silver-plated watch parts, silver filigree, red Swarovski crystal. Doesn't it look like something an evil supergenius in a sci-fi movie would wear? Or something a rich teenage grungeoid would wear to prove how much like a robot they are? I can just hear someone in the background saying "don't wear that ring, you'll put your eye out!"

This one, on the other hand, makes me purr. If it weren't so gosh-darned expensive I would either wear it myself or give it to someone as a gift.


That concludes this edition of shiny things. Perhaps later there will be more!