Happy mommy birthday!

[cleolinda]

Ugh. I just ate three Samoas on an empty stomach, and that was kind of a bad idea.

Meanwhile, today was my mother and her sister's birthday. Note: they are not twins. That's right: they were born five years apart on the same day. My sister and I were actually born seven years and three days apart. Altogether, it's a little weird. Anyway. There was Johnny Ray's barbecue and chocolate roulage. I think we now have an entire month without a family-gathering holiday, but we'll be back on Easter with, if I remember my family traditions correctly, baked ham and four-layer chocolate dessert. The Jones family is nothing if not deliciously predictable.

Happy Year of the Pig from Neil Gaiman: "Pigs, I learned as a boy, reading books, especially young pigs, are loveable, brave, noble and intelligent animals who have adventures. I hope this year you get to be brave and noble and intelligent. But mostly I hope you get to have adventures. (As G. K. Chesterton once said, An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered... )"

Nowadays, an inconvenience really is just a journal entry waiting to be written, and an adventure is just a particularly awesome interpretation of an inconvenience. Or at least that's how I like to think of it. Of the entries on this journal worth reading, this is, in fact, the basic format of half of them (see also: the rooster story, the Sonic incident, "It has stripes!," and so on). I'm just saying, think about that the next time something crappy happens to you: it's going to make a great story.

Also: Longford, AIEEEEE. Who knew that Andy Serkis was pure evil?



Reid: Iraq 'worst...policy mistake' in U.S. history. Yes, even considering Vietnam (he says).

Confessed Web addict sues IBM for firing him.

Sack of baby skeletons found behind hospital. Almost too depressing to post... but too weird not to.

Mummified body found in front of blaring TV. The body had been there for more than a year. They're already confused as to why the power was never shut off. Here's my question: why was the TV blaring only then? In other words, had it been on for a full year, because that's what he'd been doing when he died--watching television? But if so, why had no one ever reported it before? Had they just put up with an oft-blaring TV for a year... or had it only just started blaring? I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, except that... weirrrrrd.

This one's going up there with the Liz Hurley safety pin dress and the Jennifer Lopez spectacle: "Thai actress Chotiros Suriyawong poses for a photograph in Nakhon Ratchasima, 260 km (162 miles) northeast of Bangkok, February 12, 2007. Suriyawong, a rarely known Thai actress who has become infamous overnight after wearing a revealing black dress to Thailand's version of the Oscars, will read for the blind for two weeks, a penalty from her university for the controversy."

Ghost Rider Burns Up Box Office. I was shocked until I remembered that it's February, the box-office graveyard. Even August has better movies than February.

WB Issues Press Release Defending Dan Radcliffe. This after weeks of either threatening to replace him or being rumored to be threatening to replace him. My theory is that either Warner Bros is too smart to have ever threatened any such thing, or they're even smarter and they did threaten it just to have millions of fans rise up foaming about how much they love him.

David Cronenberg Working on Opera Version of 'The Fly.'

A New Poster For The Star Wars Comedy '5-25-77.' Believe it or not, there are actually two Star Wars Fanboy movies: "If Johnson keeps to his release date, it might put the film in competition with MGM's Fanboys, but considering what Erik thought of the Fanboys trailer, 5-25-77 should have a fighting chance."

Oscarwatch: The Costume Design Guild winner (period costume category) was... Chung Man Yee for Curse of the Golden Flower. This is the only movie I've been worried about beating Marie Antoinette, and now you see why.

Vote for new Edy's ice cream flavors in some kind of American Idol tie-in thing. All I know is, Sister Girl wants you to vote for Take the Cake, although I'm more interested in the triple chocolate one myself. (Yes, I already had a pre-existing "ice cream" tag. I can't believe it ei... well, actually I can.)

Comments

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

Oooh god, now that you mentioned Samoas I want Thin Mints. Mmmm.

[golden-d.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Thin Mints. I discovered that they make a reasonably good meal, if you put non-salmonella-causing peanut butter on them.

And by "discovered," I mean, "had nothing else in my dorm to eat." :)

[the-lone-jen.livejournal.com]

will read for the blind for two weeks,

Were they trying to be ironic?

And the press release regarding Radcakes is so vaguely worded that you just know they're still pissy with him.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Heh. My great-aunt and I have the same birthday. It's actually kind of fun considering how adorable she is. (She's seventy-three, tinier than I am, weighs about ninety pounds soaking wet, has a high-pitched Long Island accent, told everybody at a family party how romantic she thought Brokeback Mountain was, and got all excited about standing next to my uncle's boyfriend because she said she wanted to stand next to her favorite nephew. AWWWW. :))

And that dress might be revealing, but damn, it's pretty.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

and got all excited about standing next to my uncle's boyfriend because she said she wanted to stand next to her favorite nephew

That is officially the sweetest thing ever.

[-paxromana.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday, Mrs. Cleolinda! :)

[meshuggeneh.livejournal.com]

Am I unreasonably shocked that CNN had video of them removing the baby bodies?

[lilgoala.livejournal.com]

No, I thought that was unnecessary too.

[spidey-88.livejournal.com]

My mother has two sisters who share the same birthday (7 years or so apart) and one of those sisters has a daughter who shares a birthday with her own daughter. It's all very weird and coincidental.

[bigeyedrabbit.livejournal.com]

I hope your mom and her sister had a lovely birthday. It sounds as if there was no familial drama of any kind, which is lovely in itself where relatives are concerned. :)

[luna-k.livejournal.com]

Shit, how did you manage to stop at only 3 Samoas? I ate a whole fucking box of them last night. *still ashamed*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I don't like them all that much, that's how. That's why I opened them instead of, let's say, the Tagalongs. Oh Tagalongs, how many times I have eaten a whole box of you in one sitting.

[kestrel127.livejournal.com]

Well, if it makes you feel better, let me tell you about my best friend from elementary school, Lisa. Her birthday was June 9th. Her younger sister, Emily, was born three years later on June 5th. Her younger brother, Ross, was born three years after that on June 9th. She was always mad growing up because her mom had missed two of her birthdays to have the other kids.

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

There was a fabulous guide book written in the early '70s called The People's Guide to Mexico. It really could have been called The Hippie's Guide to Mexico, but my parents had it anyway and found it more useful than any of the "normal" guides. There was a line in it that became a family in-joke whenever we were in some weird part of the world getting tense because strange stuff was going on around us: "This has become uncomfortable enough to be an adventure."

And it would actually help for the most part; we'd all take a deep breath and try to regain our perspective, because sure there were live chickens on the airplane with us, but then again, we were coming back from a trip to Persepolis and really, how cool was that?

Of course, these days, my sister and I would probably add "which we will then write about in our LJs."

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Chickens, shmickens. Decent aircraft have BOOKS on them. After all, one needs to be distracted from the fact you're a tiny mass of humanity SO FAR AWAY FROM CIVILIZIATION.

Yes, Lost analogies rule.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

My grandma and I shared a birthday. And my best friend's mom and my best friend had birthdays 2 days apart.

[serenenuit.livejournal.com]

The link about the mummified man is too sad for words. It doesn't concern me that the TV was blaring though. What concerns me is that he was blind AND in front of the TV. I guess he was listening to it, but would he really need to sit in front of it? That story is creepy beyond words.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Why not I say?

What gets me about the story is how come his stupid power didn't get turned off.

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Chocolate ice cream wins. The other flavors sound either pedestrian or nasty.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Aw, happy birthdays to Momma Jones and Auntie Jones. (There's your next short story, by the way. How did Cleolinda/Una's mother feel about the whole dragon thing?)

The mummified body watching TV thing is bizarre. The story just doesn't add up. I know that when my power goes down, as it does at least once a year, the TV (back before I used my computer for TV) would shut down and it wouldn't come back on when the power came back. That suggests that someone was sneaking in and turning the TV back on. Probably also paying the electric bills. Now wouldn't that be creepy?

[kateshort.livejournal.com]

Actually, none of this surprises me.

The neighbors thought the guy was in hospital. They also probably thought he had family checking up on him. I know I'm kind of secluded and wouldn't think to check on my neighbors.

Plus, the shot of that house made it look like it was on a nice-sized lot, back away from trees. That's the kind of house where your teens could have a garage band and it'd barely register next door as long as the garage door was closed.

As for the power thing? It's only surprising that the power didn't go off. My gas company and electric company both have budget billing plans. When I've been on them, I usually end up waaaaaaaay overpaying during the low periods, and have tons of money stashed up for the high periods. Last winter, my gas bill had a $495 surplus. FOUR HUNDRED NINETY-FIVE BUCKS. If the guy dies, all of a sudden he's using up even less energy: no dishes being washed, no hot water for the shower, no other lights being turned on, no loads of laundry. Might not have even turned the AC back on. So if he had an overage, they might have thought it was just a customer spending down the surplus.

Still horribly creepy, and pretty sad... but not that unbelievable.

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

I share a birthday with my (late) grandfather. He would have been 75 the day I was born. My younger brother shares a birthday with our uncle - the younger of mom's 2 older brothers.

And is it bad the first (and second) thought I had about the Thai girl's dress was "wow, those are fake boobs?"

[gracefallson-me.livejournal.com]

that's cool about the birthdays. my brother's and i are a day apart but if you want to get technical we are 5 years, 364, 13 hours and 6 minutes apart. we were both born on Fridays but he is a Taurus and i'm an Aries. my birthday is before his but he's older!

[gracefallson-me.livejournal.com]

i must come back and comment on the dead man for a year thing. i read about that earlier today and was just sickened about the lack of communication this poor man had with his neighbors! couldn't they hear the tv on?, what about bills was this a free place to live? if any of my relatives or friends, even neighbors i don't know very well seems to just disappear I WILL BE FINDING OUT WHERE THEY WENT! i can't believe they never though to check on him. DUH! i hope i never have them for nieghbors!

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

He lived in a house, it's completely comprehensible to me that no one would have heard the television. You would expect that if he had actually moved, you'd see some kind of moving van/truck, but if people are at work all day, it's not unreasonable for them to assume that the truck came while they were at work. I live in the city, not the suburbs, and I know I wouldn't notice if one of my neighbors went missing. I don't even know what most of them look like.
What's sad to me is that he had no family to call him or check up on him. And what's weird is that he hadn't paid any bills and no one called, or if they did, they didn't turn off his services.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

My mother’s birthday is June 20, while my father’s mother and I were both born on June 27.

Re: the opera version of The Fly — is anyone else flashing on Elephant!, the musical adaptation of The Elephant Man in the Jeff Goldblum film The Tall Guy?

[cellardoor28.livejournal.com]

Hee. June 27 is my birthday too :)

[saint-kat.livejournal.com]

Wow. The story about the discovery of baby skeletons is a bit depressing to read. How they ended up there (in a Christian missionary, of all places) is as shocking.

On something that is less of a killjoy (and more of a random point), I had no clue that Edy's share the same company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyer%27s) as Dreyer's. When I clicked on the last link, the first thing I looked at was the logo on the top corner and thought the design of it looked strangely like what I see when I go to the supermarket and cruise down the ice cream aisle.

[lilgoala.livejournal.com]

My best grade-school chum and I were born on the same day in the same hospital and then our families later moved to the same city where we ended up meeting and becoming friends.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

I agree about adventures. I work as a tour guide, and whenever something goes wrong on the bus, I say "every day is an adventure."

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

About the guy who'd been dead for a year, he had a huge house (which you can tell from the photo) and it was pretty isolated, up a long driveway, away from the main road and fairly distant from his neighbors. It's not like he was in a tract house where you can pretty much toss stuff back and forth from your window to your neighbor's.

You can set up automatic payment of utilities and mortgage and such. If he had automatic deposit for his social security or pension or whatever, and automatic debit for his house payment and utilities, then it's believable that none of that would've triggered a question in anyone's mind. What I'm wondering is why the mailman didn't report the year's worth of mail piled up, which was mentioned in a newscast the husband watched and I listened to. You'd think that once they had three or four mailboxes worth of mail stacked up, the carrier would've notified someone who could've had the cops or someone go knock on the guy's door. :/

Angie

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

The automatic payment hadn't occurred to me, but you're absolutely right. He may very well have already paid off his mortgage, he was 70, it doesn't say how long he lived there. If the gov't assumes he's still alive, he gets direct deposit to his account, and the utilities get their money every month. He certainly wasn't spending any of it on food.

[kittenscurious.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, today was my mother and her sister's birthday.

I totally read that as your mother and your sister's birthday and was, therefore, a little weired out to read that they had been born 5 years apart. :-D its been a very long day.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

All us long term LJ peeps 'write' journal entires in our head as the shit is going down and anyone who denies this is fooling themselves.

[stringertheory.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, Samoas. Mmmm.

Nowadays, an inconvenience really is just a journal entry waiting to be written, and an adventure is just a particularly awesome interpretation of an inconvenience.

*whips out pad and pencil* Can I quote you on that?

Longford! How excited am I to see this? SOOOO excited. Unfortunately, we do not get HBO here, so I shall have to wait for a more readily available form.

That poor mummified guy. I read about that story and all I could think was how sad it was that no one seemed to notice he was gone or care enough to check on him.