Lee.org

I’ve got this crazy painting that was given to me by Vickie from Oakland… At first I just liked it because it had pretty lines and I didn’t really give it that much thought. Then it was pointed out to me by Charlotte that the woman is pooping hats. I love it now! She looks so happy… pooping hats. Or maybe, it’s been hypothesised over breakfast, she is spontaneously giving birth to hats out the backside while having sex with the one in front… or…. It’s a very curious image and I totally love it.

“Janky” is a favorite word of Rbca, my Flaming Lotus Girl friend.

Wiktionary gives its meaning as “1. (slang) of poor quality; untrustworthy”

Let’s say you have to lift a 1 ton sculpture onto the roof of a shipping container but your forklift can’t lift it quite high enough (and it doesn’t have brakes but that’s another matter entirely). It would be a janky setup if you lifted the piece onto a card table with the forklift and then lifted the card table up into the air.

I present the photo that belongs next to the definition, lifted straight out of the most recent Harbor Freight catalog.

Strega Nona Meets Her Match by Tomie dePaola

Wherein Strega Nona defeats her business competition by sending in a saboteur.

I was researching books that I might give to my niece and I came across this gem.

Strega Nona is a traditional healer in a little town in Calabria. Her friend Strega Amelia is a healer from over the mountain. Strega Amelia comes for a visit and sees what a good business Strega Nona has in the town and decides to compete with her. Strega Amelia says, “I see she still uses the old-fashioned ways too. Hmm, I’ll have to think about this.” Strega Amelia goes home and returns a week later, setting up her shop. She offers modern, effective remedies and “free sweets and coffee with every visit.”

Strega Amelia is an instant hit! After a few weeks, everyone in the town has realized that Strega Amelia supplies better products and services than Strega Nona and Stella Nona’s tired old business has dried up completely.

So what does Strega Nona do? She gets her helper, Big Anthony to infiltrate Strega Amelia’s company. Then, when Amelia is away on business, Big Anthony finds his moment and sabotages Amelia’s corporate image. At the height of his attack, he “forgets” how to operate the headache relieving machine and almost kills the mayor.

Strega Amelia returns the next day only to be run out of town. Strega Nona works her magic one last time and makes sure her fingerprints aren’t on the crime.

And everyone lives happily ever after. (?!?!?!) Yes, it really plays out like that. This book sends a very bad message.

In the next Strega Nona book she gets even with her mean neighbor by framing her for a felony. Then Strega Nona orders a hit on the mayor. Hilarity ensues!

There’s been all this talk about buying carbon credits for the Serpent Mother for Burning Man since she burns 500 gallons of propane per night. That’s right, 1 ton of pureed dinosaur per nocturne. And the new theme is “The Green Man” (here I was thinking that was all Walden-Thoreau-y “Man’s interaction with nature” and they’re thinking “Biodisel uber-alis”)

Here’s a perfect suggestion of how to deal with this from Coyoteblog (via TJIC).

By the way, I wonder if it will occur to anyone that if you really want to offset carbon, you probably need to clear cut old growth forests, bury the logs, and plant new trees.

Check it out!

Swarm web site

( local archive of proposal) (local archive of video)

Save the date: April 8th, 11am-4pm
Easter, Ostara, and the ancient fertility rite of consuming chocolate, having brunch, Egg-coloring, Scones, Chobunnpegelly, and perhaps Peeps…

We reserve the right to take it to Dolores Park, if the weather cooperates.

More info to follow…..

The Hand of God is returning from Australia on a slow boat. The Lotus Girls have all made it back already. I was all excited to see this image at their last show. Do you see the little bracket under the big flexible pipe? It is sitting pretty much right under the yellow handled ball valve. I made that! (image via)

My sister remembers the 80’s. She’s selling Mr T Chocolate lollipops on Etsy

Useful information if you own an AprilAire 2400 whole house air cleaner:

The OEM filter (model 401) for the AprilAire 2400 is a MERV 8 (via since it mentions “70% of 3 micron particles”)

(more info about MERV ratings) (image via)

You can get filters that catch smaller sizes but they get expensive. For example, the best, a MERV 16 filter costs about $120 instead of the regular $25. Also, I think higher MERV ratings require a more powerful blower (see the image and mention of “Final pressure”) and/or it will wear out your existing blower faster.

Everyone (except Julia) smokes in my parents’ house. They use standard filters and I’ve noticed that all my clothes smell of smoke after I’ve been there for a couple days. I’ll try getting a MERV 11 filter for a while and we’ll see how it goes.

Andre tagged me. So… 5 things about me that most people don’t know….

When I’m having stressful weeks, I sometimes talk in my sleep

I never use nail clippers on my fingers. I bite instead.

I am proud that I can eat an ice cream cone without a single drip

I have a collection of Chief Big Wheels. In high school, one of the kids I sat with, George Karl once tore up the Chief Big Wheel from his package of Big Wheels (cousin to Ding Dongs and Ho Hos). He said something like that he hated them and wanted to destroy them all. In response I (of course) took the Chief Big Wheel from my package and said that I loved them and was starting a collection. Every day, the more he told me how he hated them, the more I’d -need- to collect them. My collection has grown to about 70. That’s about 140 Big Wheel treats! Yum!

I have a secret super-hero identity where I wear the letter “R” on my chest. I’m called Resourceful Man! No, really.

I don’t really feel comfortable tagging others. But if you are reading this and saying to yourself, “Bring it on!” Consider it “brought”!