Princess Sparkle Pony has been featuring a couple of posts concerning Struts! Whorses for girls!

Please note, this is an actual toy.  Please also note that PSP coined the "whorses" word.  Must credit PSP.  His post is hilarious, as he envisions biographies for this latest reason for parents getting fed-up with toys since Bratz.

My own observation:

On deeper reflection, what seems an unholy alliance of pandering to the worst excesses of "what girls like" (note: may not be what girls actually like) really comes across as almost a randomized grab-bag of quirks. It's as if some alien or artificial intelligence was fed in a long list of surveys from young girls and randomly popped out: dress-up dolls, horses, cheap-looking purses. Voila! Struts!

We may easily also have seen: cupcakes, bedazzlers, stuffed animals. In which case, we'd have gotten Tartz© -- the loveable plushie dessert toys that you can put earings and bracelets on. With comable icing!

Why they didn't zee up the name (i.e. "Strutz") is beyond me, unless the product isn't made by the Bratz makers.  Unless they just wanted it closer to "sluts," which seems to be the case.

In honor of Struts, I've created a new blog tag (still working on getting those visible and linkable to viewes) for this item called "The Horror."

And the text is pretty good.  Given, that the test was to "select any of these words that describe you," it'd be a piss poor test that didn't, y'know, just recycle the data and somehow completely fail to describe me based on my self-description.

Tworavens also mentioned that Gary Gygax passed away. I'd no idea he was 69.  I think I must've pictured him as a perpetual adolescent nerd.  He is the father of the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game system, which I can thank for many hours of fun and geekery, and can still thank for such diversions (I'm fascinated by the Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer expansion pack; it manages to be fun AND wonky).  And some good friends, Tworavens in particular, and the man who will be my best man if the California courts get their shit right.  Two of my best friends are the direct result of me succumbing to my inner nerd.  Actually, same goes for my career, I suppose.  ("Excel makes graphs? Cool! Let me try!")

Edited to Add:  One of my favorite sites of satire, Sadly, No! has an obit to Gygax.  It made me laugh: 

Gary Gygax Runs Out Of Hit Points
Posted at 2:56 by D. Aristophanes

The man who invented Dungeons & Dragons has died at 69. He pwn3d pen-and-paper gaming.

Above: Missed saving throw

Hee hee! One ticket please, and I brought my own handbasket!

Goldfrapp has a new album out, Seventh Tree.  It's a departure from their previous electronic/glam sound, and the cuts I've heard from the album seem to corroborate their declaration that they were aiming for a more subded, quieter, but upbeat sound.  "Happiness" is their first single, but this song, "A&E" (which apparently is what the Brits call the ER) seems to be the first released video.  It's charming, as is the song.  I'm looking forward to hearing more from the album.

William F. Buckley, Jr. is dead.  I will keep my commentary to a minimum, because my tolerance for the old-school bigotry he represented, that has utterly permated and suffused the modern conservative movement, is very, very low.  But hey, if standing athwart history, yelling "stop!" is your thing, so be it.  But you're just setting yourself up to get mowed down. 

I think the author of this obituary was trying to be kind, but you can tell his heart wasn't in it:

Yet on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent's discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

I can't help but picture him as a child with a magnifying lens and an anthill.  One of those creepy children who you know ain't quite right, that look up doll's dresses, and takes a little too much pleasure in pulling girls' hair.  That even the big kids keep away from, because he bites and kicks and gets you into more trouble than you signed up for.  I hope the author didn't intend that, but that's not a very good image with which to memorialize.

See ya, Bill.  Feel free to take that movement conservatism that you loved and defended with you.

Oh, I'm a skyfish!
It's what I do.
Coming real soon to a sky near you.
Well, I swim with the trees
And the birds and the bees
And I'll wave hello to you.

Oh, I'm a skyfish!
I chase airplanes
Flying all around in their air lanes.
I freak out all the pilots
And the people in the toilets
And I make them all insane!

One day I'll fly to Europe
I'll speed right over the sea.
I'll speed over the waves
Past the coral and the caves.
There's no other fishes like me!

One day I'll fly to Europe.
I'll fly all the way to Spain.
Hello, my fishy señorita!
Well, it's really nice to meet ya
But let's not go to Barcelona, I hear they eat fish there, and, yuck, that's just kinda gross, you know what I mean?

¡Arriba!

Oh, I'm a skyfish!
I swim in space!
Comets and quarks all over the place.
I'll swim past Jupiter,
I'll swim past Mars,
But I always stop for cuties in the cocktail bars.
Yes, I'll always stop for cuties in the cocktail bars
All Venusian cuties in the cocktail bars.
Skyfish always stops in the cocktail bars.
Shaken, not stirred.

Okay, there really is an explanation to this.  I actually dreamed last night that I was doing improv with a group.  One of the players takes me aside and just gives me one line:  "Okay, you're a skyfish."  Cardinal rule of improv:  try not to resist an idea, no matter how absurd or ludicrous it might seem.  "Yes, and . . . " not "No, but . . . "

So, I go for it and I'm being carried around stage by another actor, Dance Fever-like.  And I sing this song, more or less.  I can't remember all of it now, but this is the gist of it.  Another actor (actress, actually) joined me on stage and was similarly carried around Danny Terrio-style.  She was a skyblowfish.  We hit it off.

Happy New Year!

Light posting these days. Sorry about the continued YouTubers, but this one was just too good to pass up. (Found via Towleroad).

Flash-mob style group Improv Everywhere descend on Grand Central Station and, simultaneously, freeze for five minutes in place while the world whirls by.  Great idea and effect.

My own improv work as slowed down, as I missed the signup for the next course.  I'm reviewing my options and hope to resume in March. 

Simplified form follows:

Brief outline here.  Downloading pictures and labeling them and such.  Accidentally deleted three pictures from my arrival in London. Feh, don't download tired!

Also, American to Yorkese index:
street = gate
gate = bar
bar = pub

12/28/2007 - Arrival, London.  Jet lagged and smacked silly by it.

12/29/2007 - Wandered the area, including Bedford Square, Bloomsbury Square, Tottenham Court Road, Sicilian Ave, Fleet Street, and proceeded to get lost until I got to King's Cross.  Miles arrives - hooray!

12/30/2007 - British Museum, which is in spitting distance of the Academy Hotel where I'm staying.  The "Terra Cotta Warriors" from China are at the Museum, visiting the first time outside of China, ever.  We get up somewhat early and get in line.  500 tickets reserved for walk-ins and drop-bys.  We wait, and wait, and wait on the queue, and with 20 people in front of us, they run out of tickets.  Wah and phooey.  Nonetheless, a fine museum despite my jetlag and apparent injury to my left foot.  We visit Covent Garden that evening and wander a bit around Theatreland.

12/31/2007 - Sleep late (yay).  Walk to Russel Square.  Explore the area just a bit, as my foot is definitely not well, and I'm limping my way through London, heh.  Get some wine and wait for Z-Man to show up.  After he arrives and cleans up a bit, we decide to try to catch the fireworks.  Foolish us.  Camping out on the bridge at 3pm would have been the smart thing to do.  We go to a really, really great little Greek place, wine, dine, brave the crowds, and give it up as a lost cause.  Head back to Covent Garden where we drink in the new year, seeing occasional flashes of light, but no real fireworks to speak of.  Hooray, it's 2008! We make it to SoHo after a small death march of drunken lostness (oh, well, Miles), and go to Freedom club and I actually enjoy myself (at a club! I know!)  

1/1/2008 - Struggle out of bed and take the train to Milton Keynes, where Miles parked his rental car.  His regular car died and is now scrap.  Z-man and I have to sit in a different car from Miles and we manage to miss our stop.  Explain embarrassedly to the conductor, but fortunately, it's only like a 10 trip back.  Meet some of Miles' awesome friends who feed us, and then hop in the car for the long trip to York.  It goes from being rather SF-like in the South and London to being decidedly more humid, foggy, and chilly up in the North.  Meet up with Ian and we all go to Jaipur Indian restaurant in York, some of the best Indian food in England that I've tried.  Ohhh, so good.

1/2/2008 - Sleep late, drive through the Yorkshire moors, see the Hole of Horcum (hur hur!), and travel to Whitby, a coastal village on the North Sea.  So cute, and so cold.  Bram Stoker wrote chunks of Dracula there, and we see the Graveyard he was supposed to have haunted.  Attempt to look for ammonites on the shore, decide that the wind is like an icy knife and head to a pub for hot alcoholic beverages.  Hooray! Drive down a bit to Robin Hood's Bay, which is seriously cute.  And still cold.  Head to another pub. Warm up, head back.

1/3/2008 - Snow! Wake up to snow in York.  So pretty.  And so warm compared to Whitby.  Ian is laid low by a NORO virus.  M, Z, and I explore some of York, including the old ruined abbey, the Holy Trinity church, the White Swan pub, the Shambles, and Betty's tea room.  Investigate the local Absinthe at the Primal Eye pub.

1/4/2008 - Miles now has the NORO virus.  Z and I walk the walls from Bootham gate to Monk's gate.  Explore the Minster.  Go back to M and I's place and decide that the trip we'd planned to the Lake District was simply not going to happen.  Also learn that there were avalanche warnings for that area and terrible road conditions.  Am secretly relieved we're not going.  Whitby was fucking cold.

1/5/2008 - Ian, feeling a little better, drops us off at Clifford's Tower.  We explore that, the York Castle Museum, and then warm up at a little café nearby.  Z-Man now has the NORO virus.  What the hell? We manage to limp back to Clifton Green and let my man rest.  I play lots of SimCity while waiting for the Black Death to take me.

1/6/2008 - Ian doing better, Miles not as bad, Z-Man doing better.  Ian drives us all to Boroughbridge, nd then Knaresborough.  Stop for tea in Knaresborough and have some sticky pudding.  Delish.  Z-man encounters the difference between crumpets and muffins.

.

1/7/2008 - British Transportation Museum in York, where the Eye of Yorkshire is parked.  It's a ferris wheel like the Eye, but much smaller, and mobile.  It is set to travel every three years to another part of England.  Gorgeous views.  We then head to the walls again and walk another section of it, passing by Micklegate Bar.  Walk past Clifford's Tower to look for an Ancient Music museum that turns out not to be there anymore and is now a meeting/performance space in an old glorious small church.  Stop at another cool pub.  Walk to another one (the Black Swan), and then head to the Happy Valley Chinese restaurant, which is actually in a row of buildings that are the oldest still standing commercial shops in Europe.  Z-Man marvels how many old buildings are still in use.

1/8/2008 - Part sadly with the boys, and Z-Man and I head back to London by train.  We hie it to the Russell Hotel, explore Leicester Square area, eat at Simurgh Persian restaurant (delish!). We find the shiny, tiny Chinatown by the Sqaure.  Awwww, cute! Head back to the hotel and sleep together on the tiny double bed.  Damn reservation glitch.  I almost fall off. Heh.

1/9/2008 - Z-Man's last day.  I drag him through the Tower of London.  Beautiful day! The Yeoman Warder was very amusing.  We get to go inside St Peter ad Vinculum -- Saint Peter in Chains, where many famous Tower prisoners worshipped and said parishoners' remains are also entombed under the church or in the vault.  This includes the 9-day Queen, Jane Grey, as well as the much-maligned Anne Boelyn.  Relax a bit and bid farewell to my honey.  Alone, I go back to a spot I'd seen by the British Museum, Tas restaurant, which turns out to be Turkish -- and freaking great.

1/10/2008 - Don't sleep well, so get up early, repack, shower, and head to Heathrow.  Watch more tv and movies on the flight than I have in all of 2007.  But it was a good flight.

I'm still a little jet lagged and tire early, but it was a fantastic trip despite NORO viruses (which I somehow escaped!) and self-inflicted foot injuries.

I'm blogging to you from London, Bloomsbury Square.  It's . . . nice out? With blue skies? Thank you, Weather Pixie!

Not much to say yet, given that I'm getting over a truly loopy combination jet lag/insomnia.  I'm staying at the Academy Hotel.  In the Virginia Wolf suite.  No ovens, but there is an unused fireplace.  (Or, wait, was that Anne Sexton who killed herself that way? Or Sylvia Plath? Sad British suicidal lady writers. I can't keep them straight.) If I have the urge to write Mrs. Dalloway and mope, I'll have to switch to the, I don't know, Pete Townshend suite if they have one.  Perhaps that one comes "pre-trashed." 

Farewell, readers! I'm off to England for a couple of weeks for sun, surf and . . . oh, wait, no.  That would be Australia.  I'm off to freeze my wet lil' keister off in London and Yorkshire County. Hooray! Dr Rogish will be seen! Z-Man will be meeting me there!

A bloody good time will be bloody well had by all.

Oh yeah:  watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special 2007.  I won't say too much about it, but it was more like The Posieden Adventure than A Time Lord Christmas.  A pretty big body count for a Christmas Special, although not for a run-of-the-mill Doctor Who episode.

The theme, I think, is "sacrifice."  Discuss after you've seen it.