For those who come here on a Duran Duran google search, or those who might want to go to the tour, its coming back in the summer to smaller venues/cities this time - woot!

JULY

Fri. 15th - Nashville, TN - Starwood Ampitheatre - On-sale 5/21

Mon. 18th - Orlando, FL - Orange County Convention Center - On-sale 5/20

Tues. 19th - Atlanta, GA - Chastain Park - On-sale 6/3

Wed. 20th - Charlotte,NC - Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre - On-sale 5/21

Fri. 22nd - St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre - On-sale TBA

Sat 23rd - Kansas City, MO - Midland Theatre - On-sale 5/13

Sun 24th - Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre - On-sale TBA

Tues 26th - Dayton, OH - Fraze Pavillion - On-sale 5/7 (I’ll be at this one!)

Wed 27th - Baltimore, MD - Pier 6 Pavillion - On-sale 5/14

Fri 29th - Atlantic City, NJ - House Of Blues - On-sale TBA (please note: this venue is opening soon)

Sat 30th - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arena - On-sale 5/7

Sun 31st - Wantagh, NY - Jones Beach - On-sale 5/7

AUGUST

Tues 2nd - Pittsburgh, PA - Chevy Ampitheatre - On-sale TBA

Wed 3rd - Virginia Beach, VA - Harbor Center - On-sale TBA

Indiana lawmakers OK state daylight-saving time - no more trying to figure out “Indiana time” using pie charts and voodoo dolls. 6 Months of the year you were always wrong.

Oh yes I did. It’s all mine baby. Oh yeah.

At the medieval week-long “camp out” I go to with 12,000 of my closest friends all dressed in costume our camp has a party, The Feast of St Elvis, which has been growing every year and getting a lot of word of mouth. We do it because it’s fun, not that we’re huge Elvis fans. It’s a funny excuse to have a “non-period” party and ditch the medieval crap for an evening. And it’s even funnier when we get “faithful” who take it way seriously. We humor them, and just have fun.

We go all out - we have have hourly services, hymnals, sing the “hymns”, even testimonials and communion wafers (’nilla wafers with peanut butter and slices of ‘nanner that we can’t make enough of).

We consider it to be more of a pre-party “pilgrimage destination” than a full out party. Pilgrimages are really medieval thing anyway, so we masquarade as the “Abby of St. Elvis” for the night and put out the welcome sign. You come, get something to gnosh, socialize, drink and go on your way to other parties - we like it a lot.

It’s grown in popularity each year and pretty cheap to run with it being a “stop and go” party. Every year more and more folks say they have heard of it and considering we only had a couple posters out last year and had our biggest year ever, I’d say that’s largely due to it’s word of mouth awesomeness and my kick ass posters I designed to be readable at on a dark night. (really is!) You notice them a mile away.

I’m happy to say my new purchase will be the center of a new triptych we’re having a woodworker friend make for us. Oh yeah.

Oh do read the rest

login: registration@yousuck.com
password: byteme
(provided by BugMeNot, so if it doesn’t work, go find another there)

Proof that we’ve gone insane over security.

And totally unrelated:
This is cool.

Big Brass Blog has this thing you need to read about congress “defining” what a woman is and is’nt.

This bodes ill.

I so love product design so this earns an entry:

Target introduces first new Rx bottles in almost 50 years

I was gonna blog about this new bottle as Mr Man and I use the local Target Pharmacy, love them. Usually paper to bottle in 15 minutes, faster and less hassle than any of the big boys who we’ve had problems with. Great service, friendly, feel like less of a number. But, as Mr Man isn’t back from Vegas yet and his are with him and I haven’t refilled mine yet - I dont’ have a bottle to shoot. So I found a better, even more killer article on them - with a detailed photo and features breakdown. Who loves ya? Me, that’s who!

You can see the bottle here, on the second page of this article. If you are a design geek it’s a great read about that explains the design and thought processes they went through.

Having seen them in the flesh, I have to say the new bottles are great looking design, and great useability. I can’t wait to get my refills.

iPodlounge has a slight redesign. I think it’s easier to digest now in just three columns.

Previously it was 4 to 5 columns, and it got a little hard to hop around with the extra feature boxes, and highlights and other stuff screaming for your attention - I think so far this is a nice subtle improvement.

By the way click on the graphic to the left there, I wanna win some pricey headphones.

My big toe on my right foot keeps giving me this sensation of being touched ever so lightly with something like fur or feathers off and on for a few days now. It’s very unsettling. It has even woken me up from a dead sleep.

It’s just to the top of my big toe, not the foot itself, not the nail, just The “knuckle” of my big toe. Not any other toes, not even the toe next to the big toe. It’s happend in various places of the house both sitting, standing and laying down.

I went so far as to shave the top of my toe with Mr Man’s electric razor in case I had wild hair there that was catching a breeze or something. It certainly didn’t look like I did. It still does it.

So now, I think I have a brain tumor - or a ghost.

Which one makes me look the least crazy?

(BTW, don’t do a Google Image search for “big toe” - GAH!)

At some point in the near future I plan an entire site and blog redesign (and possible move to Wordpress), but in the mean time I needed a slight change as I wanted to feature some stuff a bit higher, and add more folks to the blog roll.

The roll list, as it was on the left, was getting too long, but now it’s got room to breathe and grow to lengths unseen!. So look for new entries over there soon!

I just got the news, Duran Duran is playing at the Fraze in Dayton on July 26. Holy hell.

It looks as if there will be a repeat of the Cleveland excursion with myself, Shannon AKA “Hot Momma”, and her lovely new sidekick (as opposed to her surgically implanted SideKick) Kevin AKA “The Blonde Wonder”.

See, The Fraze is a 3,000 seat outdoor pavillion that doens’t possess a bad seat. Even the lawn spots are great views. Oh hell yah. It’ll be like having DD perform in your backyard, almost literally for me as it’s just about 20 minutes north of VBB HQ. I already have the Mr Man seal of approval direct from Las Vegas.

As good as the lawn seats would be, we must be closer this time. To insure my geek master’s degree I’ll be there in person with my ipod and lawn chair at 6am for the tickets that go on sale at 10am on May 7 for nothing less than the best tickets money can buy.

To prepare: I need this to go with.

As an emphasis on how exciting my life is today I heard from the manager of the local Taco Bell regarding a complaint I filed with the national call in number over the weekend about the near complete absence of cheese that my local store seems to have.

We go once or twice a month maybe to Taco Bell and normally if this were a one-time thing I’d let it slide, but this seriously was the umpteenth time and it wasn’t just one item it was nearly the entire order. I’d had enough. I’m not asking for a HANDFUL of cheese, I’m just asking for it to at least cover the top in a reasonable enough amount to hide the lettuce.

Check it out what we got in our bag:
Gordita, tacos, taco supremes… no cheese was removed, and any flakes of cheese loose in the wrapper were added back in. There is more cheese is in the lettuce container that fell in there by accident than there is in those tacos. The shells weren’t even full.

I removed all the cheese from one taco (the one that had the most for be fair) and laid them end to end on a ruler - not even five inches. I eat more more than 5 inches of dog hair in a day by accident for chrissake! (People with dogs know what I’m talking about).

So the manger of the store called today, said they’d like to make it up to me with a whopping $5 gift card, I told her to keep it and “for the love of god just put cheese on things”. That this wasn’t a one time thing, but a extended habit this store had and that cheese is the ONE thing in everything they make, so they have no excuse for not having any or parceling it out in portions that would leave Thumbelina hungry.

She asked was it just that it had a “small amount of cheese?”

I said small was too large a word for so little. That it was 7 items, not just one. That it’s become so common that when we eat at other Taco Bells out of town Mr Man and I will exclaim joyfully at anything more than a pinch of orange shred, “Cheese! they have cheese here! That I’ve actually ordered asking “put some cheese on it, pretty please?”

She then asked that next time there’s a problem that I should complain direct and not bother with the national number (Gee, and not get her case jumped by a district manager either I imagine). I told her we in fact have complained to the store directly before and look, here was the same problem yet again.

I then asked if they had a guy with a prosthetic hook working the cheese station or if they were just hoarding it for a eventual nuclear war with Wisconsin. I don’t think she thought it was funny. Oh well.

My card is in the mail (joy) I think I’m going to ask for $5 of cheese - in a bag to go.

Affleck chooses the name “Bennifer II” after the passing of “Bennifer I”.

God, I love that site.

This ain’t you Daddy’s brain rot - 0 Comments

All the pros say not to touch roulette, but we’ ve always had enormous luck with it. See, 36 is a very good number for us. It’s won us big on roulette many times before and today was no different.

He wasn’t even in town 12 hours and Mr Man is already up $700. 36 hit two times in a row, twice. Both times he’d let it ride and harvested the chips.

Go Mr Man! Jenny needs a new mac!

A history of John Bolton. Wow, Regan, Bush regime v.I, the kiss of approval from Jesse Helms, as well as other sneaky asshattery*.

Yup. It appears he’s yet another “Thank you comrade, here’s a cushy job for your years of subservience to the partyline” candidate for his part helping to shut down the recount in the 2000 elections in Florida.

*=my new favorite quasi-word.

Dropped Mr Man off at the airport for four days in Vegas. I hate the CVG Airport. For one it’s in Kentucky, not Cinci, and the other one is it’s a freaking maze designed by blind donkeys.
—
Things I said in bed at 4am this morning under the blankets protesting my having to get up to drive Mr Man to the Ariport:
My next husband will hate Las Vegas
But my blankie and pillow won’t fit in the car, you bastard.
I heard airport shuttles give BJs - I can’t compete with that
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Dear BK, Maybe I *want* my Enormous Omelette Sandwich slightly before 7am on a Sunday, eh? (BTW, I finally got sick of waiting and went home to eat unbuttered leftover dinner rolls instead. Thanks for gawking at me waiting in the parking lot like I was a serial killer from inside your cozy sausage scented fortress.)
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Evidentially the shopping center near my house is the beauty center of the universe - TWO beauty supply stores, a gym, a used sporting goods store, two hair salons, a nail salon, and a beauty school.
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Snow, in late april. Argh. Bite me mother nature.
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The Darth Side: Darth Vader’s Blog
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Geeks: I need a DVD burner - Opinions please?
LaCie or Plextor - MacWorld Reviews of both and some others. But I’m deciding between those two… I’m using it on a 400Mhz G4 (Yes that’s all, it still works, a new one is coming eventually.)
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Tired of paying for ringtones to get sent to your phone? Already have a song/graphic you want to use? This is free, and really works. Was up till 230am converting some mp3s for Mr Man. He is now the proud owner of some Simpsons tones (from the post earlier this week) to announce his calls.

i do, and I’ve always been awed by the music score of the schow - now you can too! The Simpson’s mp3 music

iPods away!!!!

I am not religious, certainly not Catholic, but I’m sick of all the pundits slamming the pope for his past in the Hitler Youth and being a “Nazi” in WWII. I have rarely been so embarrassed to be American as I have these last 48 hours listening to idiots spout off in the media about the new Pope about topics they have no inkling about. There’s a reason Europe hates us, it’s for being educationally stupid, cocky, self important and having NO historical concept of the rest of the world.

Point in fact, Americans know little how common being that is amongst people his age in Germany fought in WWII. Half the grandparents in Germany are “Nazi’s” if you put the broadest label on them for merely wearing a military uniform in WWII. We tend to think here that everyone who was in German uniform were all evil and wanted to be there and all helped to commit genocide or horrendous acts of inhumanity. Not true.

The Hitler Youth memberships were required for ALL children. You did it because everyone else was or someone got in BIG trouble, probably your parents. It was like DARE is in our schools, you went and didn’t have much of a choice because your school made you go and it got you out of class, which at any time is a cool thing when you’re a kid. It was a hyper-patriotism movement for children, gee we don’t know a thing about hyper-patriotism nowadays do we?

Just as compulsory, Male teenagers in Nazi controlled Germany were required to be in the army. You said no, they killed you, or drug you off to the camp and killed you. End of story. If you wanted to at least possibly live at all, you went along with it and you maybe had a chance.

Your grandparents are to blame for the labeling of “nazi”. They called every German solider a “nazi” back in the day. Simply wasn’t true. Nazi’s didn’t do KP. Nazi’s were not infantry. Nazi’s were officers (but not all), Generals, SS, and most importantly the Government. Merely being in the military did not make you a “Nazi”, no matter what your Grandpa Joe says.

The Nazi Party was just that, a Political party. It just happened to be the one that ran the government. You had to join. Sometimes you even had to be “brought in” by someone else on recommendation, but rarely did they just take anyone off the street to the party. Some business men joined looking for better opportunities, just as business men in the US still join the Republican Party, Shriner’s or Rotary clubs looking for better business connections.

At age 16 or 17 Ratzinger was drafted to be a German solider in the compulsory military service that all boys were required to do under the Nazi regime. It is the same as many of our soldiers that were drafted against thier will in the late 60’s. It’s like saying McCain can’t be a senator because he was a marine in vietnam, where just like in Nazi run Germany, men of certain age who got tapped did not have a choice. Only back then you’d be killed for saying “NO” by the Nazi’s not jailed.

Ratzinger didn’t work at a camp, or a train depot, or anyplace that made him a war criminal of any sort. He was assigned to a artillery group and carried shells to the gunners. A low level grunt. When he was captured as a POW he did not go back when he was given the chance and instead deserted. He took the chance he was given to leave, he deserves some credit for that. He had gotten out of SS recruitment by stating he was going to be a priest and as I understand took a lot of torment and probably a few hits, from that. He had his “chance” to become a nazi and said NO. You have to give him some credit for that. You also have to give him credit for never keeping it a secret. I guess he’s dealt with it in some of his books. But then as I said in he beginning, men of his age in Germany who were NOT having been in the Army is more out of the ordinary. It’s a fact they live with daily. It’s not a controversial thing.

He tried to retire several times, JPII each time refused. I think JPII was molding him for this job and that’s why he was elected - he was JP’s favorite.

That all said, his election does nothing to me, I do not subscribe religiously to anything. They could all convert to “Church of Elvis” for all it matters to me.

And, while I’m on it, Germany needs credit for turning their country around after that war. Talk about a 180. They, as a country, redefined themselves, shamed at the acts they permitted. Nazi’s are reviled in Germany, and are actually illegal - as are most forms of discrimination.

Okay, I’m done. I just got sick of hearing idiots with microphones.

How I Hate Walmart part II

When I was in last week I got a shopping card and put the minimum $5 on it for Mr Man. He likes buying gas there as it’s about the cheapest in town, and with their card you save 3 cents more a gallon.

So I buy this thing, and I find out that the cashier who sold it to me flat out lied to me. I can CHECK the balance online, however I cannot fill it UP online. I cannot fill it up at the gas station either. That’s right they make you go inside, and wait in line.

I could do it online, there is even a pin number on this card, they have a way for you to check the balance online - but won’t let you do the rest online, despite having the ways and means with their online store. UnbeFinglievable.