Books Lying Open
¤ The Year's Best Horror and Fantasy, 2001, Editors: Terri Datlow and Ellen Windling
¤ A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
¤ A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin
¤ Shelters of Stone, Jean M. Auel
¤ The Complete Tales and Poems, Edgar Allen Poe
¤ Abarat, Clive Barker
¤ Hearts in Atlantis, Steven King
¤ Everything's Eventual, Steven King

Soul-Devouring Worry
¤ That crusty green stitch thing protruding from Jinxies' shaved abdomen.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May anger lead directly to great introspective sadness.

Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "mostly".
¤ Usage: "They mostly come out at night.  Mostly."
¤ Synonyms: N/A
¤ Deviations: Most any qualifying word you can use in a sentence, and then repeat afterwards for extra emphasis.  Eg: "probably," "sometimes," and so on.
¤ Origin: Newt's famous line in Aliens.
¤ Notes: Cribbed from Cartman who cribbed it from Aliens, this word and it's deviations spice up most any conversation.  Malaya and I have developed it to a science, where one of us will speak a viable sentence, and then after a momentary pause we'll both repeat the repeatable word in almost perfect harmony.  Yes, we realize how sickeningly cutesy this is. 

The best usage yet? When I said, after we saw the results of this boxing match: "Who kicked Oscar de la Hoya's ass tonight?
*pause*
*M and F speak together*
"Mosley." -- September 18, 2003

There has been some of the "kitten after the big cat's tail" action, which Dusty pretty well ignores, and they've had a few pawing incidents when they get up in each other's grills, but those are very playful, despite Dusty's paw being about the size of Jinx's entire body.

Oh, and as you can see in the above photo, she got a new collar.  Bright red, which we thought would go well with her silver plumage, and while I never wear anything red if I can help it (being as it goes very poorly with my plumage) I think the collar looks damn sharp on Jinxers. She's poking her head through the back slats of a kitchen chair, playing a game we refer to as "jailhouse kitty."  It's a better game with Dusty, since he can't simply slither between the bars.

Below is a shot of them lying close together on Tuesday night, which was about the first time they were doing so.  They aren't really that close, since Jinx is on the table and Dusty is on the chair about 3 feet behind her.  Plus the forced perspective here makes her look almost as large as he does.  Which she ain't.

They weighed her at the vet on Tuesday and she clocked in at 2 pounds 4 ounces, which is just slightly more than a kilogram.  Dusty hasn't been on the scale in a couple of years, but he was a 15 pounder when last checked, and we have no reason to believe he's slimmed down any since then.

There were also a number of good reader emails about Jinx and Dusty and kitties in general, as well as suggestions on whatever EA game I should demand, re: my comments about it in Tuesday's Blog.  And were I not so tired and headachy, I'd get to discussing that today.  But since I am, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

And now for the random news items.

¤ I would call this one "Darwinian" but for the fact that 1) no one was killed, and 2) making fun of hallelujah singers crashing a bus would make Baby Jesus cry.

Okay, seriously, how do a bunch of gospel-hour passengers make you lose control of the bus?  Did the driver keep turning around to scream "sit down and shut up!" or did he get caught up in dat ole holy spirit and start swerving along with the beat or what?  Keep your eyes on the road, sir.

¤ Depressing but excellent article by a man who was arrested and spent three days in jail due to identity theft, exacerbated by his being black and getting zero (or perhaps negative) assistance from the criminal system.  Beats spending 20 years for a crime you didn't commit due to incorrect eyewitness testimony (which is just about the only kind there is), but it's still a pretty shitty way to pass the time.  He chronicles the events that lead to his arrest and then how the time passed while he was in jail, before finally getting to his release, and the explanation for it all.

That's the really depressing part.

Judge Stolz ordered the delivery of the arrest photos and fingerprints just before the afternoon recess. He ordered me released on my own recognizance, but I was told to return after lunch. I was then taken back to my cell to sign release forms. Three documents were handed to me.

One had my name printed on it, and the others had the name "Anwar Bostick" typed above my Social Security number. The papers seemed to suggest that Bostick had obtained my name and personal information. When arrested for the crimes with which I had been charged that weekend, he somehow passed off my identity as his own, was released after making bail, and then failed to show up for his court date. His three arrest warrants were thus reissued—in my name. Because our arrest photos and fingerprints were never compared when I was arrested, it was nearly Monday evening by the time anyone in the system found out we were not the same person.

I refused to sign the release forms. "You'll sign them if you want to get out of here," a guard said. Another officer agreed.

"Anwar Bostick is your alias," the second officer informed me while flipping through the forms. "Are you refusing to sign this? Because if you are, you'll just have to sit in jail and wait until whenever they get around to calling you back to court." I refused to incriminate myself. They ignored the judge's ruling that I be released, and returned me to a basement holding cell.

After lunch, a captain and lieutenant for the Department of Corrections showed up to settle the dispute. Following a lengthy debate, it was discovered that my signature was not even necessary. According to the captain, someone without the authority to do so had introduced the mandatory signature policy as "a rule" and it had become the standard.

This is the sort of thing you need to know if you're one of those, "Oh, more and more arrests are great, since bad things only happen to guilty people and it could never happen to me or anyone who didn't do anything wrong." Pollyanna types.  Get a clue before a weekend in jail over a typo on an arrest warrant gives you one.

All of those TV shows about cops and lawyers and CSI people doing magic to be sure the guilty are punished and the dead are avenged and the innocent are treated fairly are utter bullshit, compared to real life.  The criminal justice system is an ugly, dirty, inefficient, corrupt mess, and countless innocent people have weekends, months, years, and entire lives ruined by incompetence and complacency every day.

¤ Microsoft is shutting down and introducing restrictions to the use of their version of ICQ, the MSN instant messaging system.  Basically they're not going to let people keep using it for free; you have to have some other type of MSN service that you are paying for, and a valid account with a credit card number. It's largely since most people use AIM or ICQ, which I find very encouraging, given how goddamned hard it is to avoid the fricking MSN pop up if you're running WinXP.  Another reason they give is:

Microsoft Corp. is shutting down Internet chat services in most of its markets around the world and limiting the service in the United States to help reduce criminal solicitations of children through online discussions.

Eliminating and curtailing the service will help curb inappropriate uses, MSN spokeswoman Lisa Gurry said, including pornographic spam as well as pedophiles or other sexual predators.

"We recognize that it's a common industry wide problem," she said. "We've taken a look at our service and how can we make efforts to step up our efforts to provide a safe environment."

In recent years, authorities have pursued cases in which suspects allegedly sought out children and others through online chat rooms, including an incident in July in which a 12-year-old British girl ran off to meet a former U.S. Marine she had met in a chat room.

So they're closing down the whole thing since some infinitesimal percentage of users are after bad things?  Talk about shooting the messenger.

And yes, I posted this whole thing just to make that joke.

If I gave a shit, I'd point out how stupid it was to close it down since there have been some cases of pedophiles picking up kids.  Should we shut down snail mail since people use it to send bombs and snuff films?  But since this is MS, and as we all know they are evil, I really could care less. I use ICQ for my less and less frequent instant messaging needs anyway.

That's not what high fashion designers are thinking about, though.  They've spent their summers stitching away on simply sumptuous creations and like the proverbial caterpillar, now is the time when they shed their cocoons and emerge, glorious wings spread for all to see.  Or at least to slap on a bunch of overpriced model hide and sent down the runway.

The following photos are collected from various fashion show slideshows as seen on Yahoo, and if you're a stranger to high fashion shows and expect to see something that you might ever envision a living human wearing, you should try and get over it quickly.  Fashion shows exist in an entirely insular universe, one with many parallels to the fields of independent film making and literary journals.  In such areas, the entire point is to impress your peers, who are the only people so thoroughly indoctrinated that they can 1) appreciate your work, and 2) be trusted not to point out that the emperor has no clothes, metaphorically speaking.  Any hint of popular appeal or mass commercialism are traits to be avoided at all costs.

The only real mystery is why so many people pay attention to high fashion shows, while no one (other than other misfits in the field) gives a shit about artsy independent films or artsy literature. Well, on second thought that's no real mystery at all, when you take a look at the sort of presentation high fashion gets. If you had nearly naked supermodels strutting about while movies about gay cowboys eating pudding were screened, or had bare boobies on display while a six-foot blonde from Sweden red a novella about some navel-gazer's tortured childhood at the hands of his imaginary absinthe-swilling father and his invisible pack of corpulent hogs, I suppose there would be quite a bit more press coverage of those art forms as well.

As for the photo, it gets worse as you move upwards.  Nice mini > absurd top that looks like a dog bed with a hole cut into it > Groucho Marks meets eyeblack googles?

No one had a lint brush backstage?

A model walks the runway during the Antonio Ortega show during Toronto Fashion Week in Toronto, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003. (AP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)

This shot seems hopelessly out of place. It's a gorgeous model with reasonable hair, nice make up, and she's wearing four (visible) garments that a living human female might actually wear, at some point in her life.  True, no one would ever wear them all at once, at least not without an added blouse, but it's almost unsettling to find this somewhat realistic outfit swimming in the sea of absurdly avant-garde crap you'll never see anywhere other than on a fashion show runway.

A model walks the runway during the Chris Hewson show during Toronto Fashion Week in Toronto, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003. (AP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)

After that brush with reality, it's nice to get back to the fashion show staple; clothing that has no foreseeable use or commercial viability whatsoever.

A model walks the runway during the Daina Grigenas show during Toronto Fashion Week in Toronto, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003. (AP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)

She's a quick application of an unconvincing forehead prosthesis away from passing as a Romulan ambassador on The Next Generation.

A model wears a design from Hamish Morrow's collection for Spring/Summer 2004 at London Fashion Week, September 23, 2003. REUTERS/Peter Macdiarmid

I like a skinny girl as much as, if not more than, the next guy.  But when I see this picture... ewww!  Someone get her a double bacon cheeseburger and some curly fries, stat!

A model displays a pink bikini created by designer Angel Schlesser during the Spring/Summer 2004 Pasarela Cibeles fashion week in Madrid September 23, 2003. The Pasarela Cibeles will run until September 26. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

The funniest part for me is that whenever they show the actual designers, they are always wearing something they appeared to have stolen from a thrift store. I suppose that, more than anything, is a sign of the actual real world utility of their high fashions. 

British designers Sadie Frost, right and Jemima French during their show for London Fashion Week in London, late Monday, Sept. 22, 2003. The designers are showing their Spring/Summer 2004 collections. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

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