cleolinda | Entries tagged with birmingham

So, what I did yesterday: saw Up a second time, but this time in 3D. (I love Dug so much. He reminds me of Scout personality-wise, for some reason.) Then had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, the Iguana Grill--I mean, the food is great, but it's the interior that I love: ( Read more... )

Also: my mother wanted me to ask y'all this rather than screw around on eBay, so: she was doing this Southern Living catalogue stuff, and the woman who ordered these dishes from her decided she didn't want to buy them. Except that then Southern Living wouldn't take them back. So, if anyone wants to buy these--I don't want to split up the individual plates or mugs, but someone could buy the plates and someone else could buy the mugs, I don't care. Shipping for the two sets combined was $37, so I don't know how much it would be to send them to two different buyers, but--I'm just saying, that's also involved.

12 Southern Living at Home Christmas Memories Collection Holiday Mugs $6 each ($72)

12 Southern Living at Home Gail Pittman Banded Dinner Plate – Provence $8 each ($96)

So... you know. If someone actually does want to buy them, it's first come, first serve. If nobody does, I'll take 'em to eBay.

So McRachel, one of my college friends, now lives in New York but she comes down to visit at Christmas on her way home to Mississippi, so we were all excited about her coming to the Lovely Emily's birthday party Friday night, except that... her flight got delayed. Or canceled. Or both. Cancelayed. Something. And then she couldn't get in on Saturday, either. But Sunday! We will all have brunch on Sunday! And there will be other mutual friends there that I haven't kept in touch with but would like to get back in touch with and we will all learn the spirit of Christmas or mimosas or something and it will be awesome.

Em and I get to The Grill--formerly The Mill, down in Five Points--and no one is there. That's okay, maybe we're a little early. Em makes a couple of calls. Guess where McRachel is? Cincinnati, a friend tells us. She... she will not be coming to brunch. Apparently we are the last to hear about this, which is why no one else came. But it's eleven and I didn't have breakfast at all and Em just had ~~half a bagel with cream cheese and it wasn't even real cream cheese~~ some yogurt, so we are going to have lunchfast anyway, dammit.

So we dig into our biscuits and gravy and ham and eggs (this is how we brunch in the South) and discuss the party on Friday and Em's wedding dress and divers other subjects when hey! It's McRachel on the phone!

"I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN AIRPORTS FOR THREE DAYS," she says. "I AM WAITING ON A FLIGHT TO BIRMINGHAM AND WHEN I GET THERE I WILL GET STRAIGHT IN A CAR AND DRIVE THREE HOURS HOME."

"I'm going to mail your Christmas present to New York," I say, when Em hands the phone over to me. "It'll probably be there by the time you get back...?"

"OH GOOD."

"Yeah... hey, whatever doesn't kill you, right? It's an adventure."

"I FEEL LIKE AN ADVENTURER."

"See? Having adventures, looking for artifacts--your present kind of looks like an artifact, it'll be there when you get back..." And I make a mental note to tuck something extra in the package for her. I don't know what, but she sounds like she needs it.

("DID I TELL YOU THAT I SAW TWILIGHT?")

We wish her a safe trip and much ham. And then we fiddle around with our cheese grits until noon, at which point the restaurant can serve alcohol, so we can down a couple of mimosas in her honor.

This afternoon: ~* MOAR SHOPPING *~. Man, I am glad I had that mimosa.

Current Mood: desk-dancing
Current Music: MGMT, "Electric Feel"

So my computer crashed in the middle of me footnoting "The Prestige in Fifteen Minutes" (and I had just spent like an hour discussing, uh, who I thought was in each scene--if you've seen the movie, you know what I mean) for the e-book project, which was a buzzkill. Meanwhile, my grandmother's sick (a sinus infection similar to mine, I think, only worse, since she's so frail), she's also worried about her money being with Merrill Lynch (yeah... I would too, right now), Shelby's having stomach problems, my stepfather is having a really, really hard time at work right now, my sister's having to do catering deliveries again and she inevitably ends up getting her car totaled by some nut loose on the street, we're going to have to have a plumber come out and look at the downstairs toilets, Tiny Tim needs a new crutch, and I'm just tired of it all, really. And feeling bad for everyone.

That said, I've already posted twice today and I was very productive (the computer crash aside), so I've got that going for me. Actually, I think I'm cycling back through a manic or hypomanic phase again. ( Who wants to make bets on what I'll be doing at the end of October? )

Oh, and apparently Let the Right One In is going to be playing at the Sidewalk Film Festival here in town on Saturday night (!!), although I don't know if I'll be able to go.

Speaking of which: Cloverfield's Matt Reeves Remaking 'Let the Right One In'; Countdown under way for 10th Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in downtown Birmingham.

More linkspam! ( Hey, it's Alice! In Wonderland! Why is she on a ship? )

Current Mood: working

Sort of languid-sleepy. Feels a little like being stoned. Having a hard time concentrating--can't read for very long.

Banana pudding for my stepbrother's birthday. Race to shower for hair-washing rights; lost; still waiting. Had "Gimme Shelter" playing all day, for some reason. Two missed calls from "Number Withheld"; phone won't let me call back, because... number withheld. Need to call doctor about going on Lamictal. Not thrilled about it, but... not feeling good. Applying again for job; don't need to keep feeling like this. Not so much bad as... ready to hibernate.

Herewith, links compiled last night/this morning, when feeling more grammatical.

O SNAP: Turns out Sumner Redstone's wife is the one who got him to dump Tom Cruise from Paramount. Why? Of all the shenanigans he's pulled, the Brooke Shield comments pissed her off like whoa, and she used those to convince her husband that Cruise had bombed his own popularity with women. I can't put my finger on why I think that's the most poetic thing ever, but I do.

Demotivators: the original motivational mockery site. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom. Hee! And a few more.

Heeeeee--a Veronica Mars Threatdown, Colbert-style.

Local news: Scrushy ordered to repay $47M in bonuses, will start panhandling at all buildings in town bearing his name.

The only thing more disgusting than the Forbes article? The responses to the Forbes article. So toxic that the closest I got was the comments about the comments, which indicate that not reading the originals is probably for the best.

Kidnapped Austrian teenager begins to tell harrowing story. Freed Austrian kidnap girl refuses to see parents. Sounds bad, but it's more that she's saying she needs time to adjust to freedom.

Fire destroys St Petersburg cathedral domes.

New Pirates 3 pic of... someone. Look, I don't know. (Keira? Really? Why does her face look weird?)

Knightley and Grant targeted in phone scandal. Apparently this is where some gossip tips have been coming from.

Stick of dynamite found in student's luggage; student claims he works in mining and that he therefore "knows how to handle" explosives. Damn, son, don't you at least watch Lost?

What terrorists want, and how we're giving it to them. Just something I found interesting, particularly the part about the liquids: "We're all a little jumpy after the recent arrest of 23 terror suspects in Great Britain. The men were reportedly plotting a liquid-explosive attack on airplanes, and both the press and politicians have been trumpeting the story ever since. In truth, it's doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public."

China cracks down on striptease funerals. Wait, what?

Am I crazy for wanting to put fonts on my Christmas list? (Petronella! Old Glory!)

Halloween lipgloss. I kind of want the Sleepy Hollow, Full Moon, and whichever one is the gingerbread one. I bought some of their catalogue glosses--what, last year?--and the scents are amazing. The ones I ordered seemed to have no flavor at all--not sure what's up with that--but user comments on the site seem to indicate that they are supposed to be flavored. So I don't know.

Sweet Lord. Apparently it's really not a tumahhhhh.

Wrote some last night--I had to push a little bit to keep going, which says to me that it wasn't a hypomanic episode or anything. Which is kind of encouraging, as it says that I can write whether I'm having moodswings or not. I'm going to start going on Lamictal sometime later this week, I think, so that'll be interesting.

The Flaming Chicken of Doom! I wasn't making it up!

Kevin Federline debuts his dope rhymes on the Teen Choice Awards. I think the swooping camerawork is supposed to distract us from how utterly whitebread he is. Also, I don't know what's up with all the fire, but it's a lot funnier if you imagine the Flaming Vendetta Chicken up there.

Thousands sing at "Idol" trial in Alabama: "More than 8,000 'American Idol' hopefuls auditioned for the hit talent show in Birmingham, Ala., on Monday, hoping to follow in the footsteps of two previous winners who hail from the southern city. Would-be pop stars from states as far flung as Virginia, Michigan and California attempted to sway producers in brief auditions. Monday's try-out was part of a series of nationwide events. Reigning champ Taylor Hicks comes from Birmingham, as does Ruben Studdard, winner of the show's second season in 2003." Which is not even to mention runner-up Bo Bice, who's been more successful so far than both of them put together. Once again: Alabama, the Center of the Universe. I'm not saying we deserve it; I'm just saying that we are.

A clip from Kids Incorporated that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. All I know is, my sister kept bombarding me with YouTube links last night, because she used to be obsessed with the show, and I put my foot down when she said there was a clip of them doing "Get into the Groove" ("Oh, hell no"). But she did make me watch this one. I know I saw Mario Lopez in there, and Sister Girl says that the little blonde in the stripes is Fergie. Yes, "Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas" Fergie.

And then there's this, possibly explaining why Fergie turned out the way she did. As someone on Snarkfest noted, "No wonder she wets herself."

Current Music: New Order, "Guilt is a useless emotion"

A few announcements:

Please post links to pictures rather than pictures themselves. And lest anyone feel bad, this is in response to a number of incidents over the last week or so. Number one, it's going to appear in my email without warning no matter how unpleasant it is; number two, if you're worried that people won't look, well, trust me: curiosity will cause people to click a link more times than not. I would appreciate any picture being linked instead of posted in its entirety, but if I personally find it unpleasant in any way, I will definitely screen it, and it will be up to you to repost a proper link, because that's how the cookie crumbles in Cleoland, y'all.

As several people sent this to me: hamlethunt, a community dedicated to getting the New Orleans Facekicking Asshat arrested and prosecuted.

onyx_noir: "There are additional pics of him, including his tattoos, available at the noladarkside community on lj. His hair and clothes he can change, but not his ink." And given that his hair was shocking pink the last time I saw a picture, it is very likely that he would.

And I'll repeat what hamlethunt says: DO NOT go vigilante if you find this guy. When I said that we had a chance of "running into the guy," I meant so we could call the police. As all_ephemera says,

What concerns me is the rampant vigilantism that's going on in this case - the police are involved and what SHOULD be happening is people keep an eye out and if they see him to contact the police. There's a disturbingly real chance that someone else will find him and take it upon themselves to enact a little hometown justice and then THEY'RE going to go to jail. People shouldn't kid themselves that "no one would convict someone for kicking this kids ass" because they will. Or - worst case scenario, this kid Will goes free because he gets a gifted and talented defense lawyer who can use this hooplah to get the trial repeatedly thrown out because the jury pool is tainted. [My note: if he's from Mountain Brook originally, he will have a good lawyer.]

I hope this kid gets caught, prosecuted and thrown in jail, and I hope the girl recovers. I also hope that people can rein in their emotional responses and be able to act like mature adult. Threatening to cut this kids balls off does no one any good except his lawyers.

Here's another reason I'd like to see this guy arrested and prosecuted: this kind of thing happens every day. A friend of mine had an abusive boyfriend in college. My mother had an abusive boyfriend in college. My father threw a small metal vase at her that I still have, and there is still a large dent on the brim where it hit her. Before he left for good, he kicked in screen doors and wood paneling, threw things at my sister and hit my dog--and when the law did finally come for him, it wasn't for physical abuse. Abuse happens every day, and it rarely gets reported. And you know why it happens? Because abusive men (and, when it happens, women) know they won't get reported. They'll wave it off and the police will let them. We need to prosecute abusers so people will understand that it is not something you can get away with. That's why this is important. Not because a pretty girl's face may have been damaged, as much as we might feel for her. It's important because we might be able to prevent it from happening again--prevent other victims from the same pain and suffering--if we find this guy and turn him in to the police peacefully and let the law get a bitchslap in for once.

And you know what the other important thing is? That everyone saw this and was outraged. That everyone saw this and cared. We need people to know that assault does not equal shame, and that people will support them if they come forward. That we will protect them when the abusers come back around. And we need abusers to know that we--as communities and as individuals--care, and that we won't let them do this: that it is not acceptable in the community or under the law.

Also, I hear he might be around Auburn.

Okay, it's been so widely linked that I assume you've all heard the story about the girl who got assaulted (read: kicked in the face with a steel-toed boot) at Convergence in New Orleans, and is asking for help finding the guy. Turns out he was a friend (or "friend," after having done this) and basically your bog-standard jealous drunken psychotic, from what I can tell. Here's the thing that made me stop cold:

He led the cops on a 3 hour wild goose chase Saturday morning and is rumored to have fled the LA border back to Alabama (he's from Mountain Brook, near Birmingham)

See, actually Mountain Brook is a suburb of Birmingham, which I would know, because I live in the suburb RIGHT NEXT TO IT. HOLY SHIT. Birmingham really IS the nexus of the universe.

So, uh, if you're one of my fellow Hamsters, take a look at this asshat, because we actually have a shot at running into him.

OH MY GOD. My mother calls me just now, because she was going to meet someone who works with my stepfather for lunch at Silvertron, but she got there and there was yellow tape all over the place, and a cop told her, "Well, you won't be eating here today, because someone was just SHOT DEAD."

ETA: Okay, the "good" news is that it actually happened this morning and not, like, in the open dining area during business hours. The bad news is that it was the owner.

New icons, from a request on JournalFen for a "heroine addict" icon with Arwen and/or Eowyn--I think it was loki who asked. Came up because you see the heroine/heroin misspelliing all the time on message boards, and I'd been thinking about something like that myself. I think it'd be fun to have a whole series--from all kinds of movies--so if you have any suggestions/requests (characters, pictures, fonts, etc.), let me know.

Rained so hard last night that it kept me awake--tornado passing through. Now the sky has that misty-cold look--apparently we're having snow flurries tonight, which means that everyone's plunged into an apocalyptic panic: "BUY THE BREAD AND THE MILK!" This is Alabama, after all.

Oh, and as a purely administrative point--if you're reading my journal without an LJ account, you might want to get one. You don't have to write in it if you don't want to; I'm just having to friends-lock certain entries--the more writing-oriented ones, for copyright considerations. Something about public entries being considered first-rights publication and friends-locked being considered private sharing. I know, it's lame, but there you go. Just friend me and I'll friend back and you can read. As someone hoping for a professional writing career, I'm pretty much keeping this journal as a public exercise, so I'm not going to go friends-only; I've just been told that there are some things that would benefit legally from being filtered. There it is.

Speaking of writing,

writer_girls is starting to get off the ground with some critiquing now. I need to fill out the User Info with the whole statement-of-purpose thing. Basically, if you write, and you're interested in becoming a better writer and helping other people become better, feel free to join. So far we've posted writing exercises for the group to do, stories and poems to critique, questions for help ("I need a name!")--it's very loose and informal. But it's basically centered around support and constructive (not just honest, but also constructive) criticism. In fact, I don't really care about the current quality of your writing. If you want to improve and you can take concrit, come on over. But I also need people who are willing to give criticism, because so far I feel like I'm doing most of it.

A quick word about fanfic: I don't write fanfic. I don't read fanfic. But a large majority of LJers I come across do, and I'm pretty sure some of the current Writer Girls do. My point is, I don't have any experience with fanfic or very many fandoms and can't help you with OC-ness or Mary Sue-ness. Some of the others might be able to. I can proofread, though. If you'd like to share fanfic, go ahead; writing is writing.

So feel free to pass the Writer Girls info on to anyone you think might be interested. :)

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Cleolinda everywhere

Classy dame, sparkle consultant, gothic enthusiast, sporadic recapper.

Entries tagged with birmingham

Fascinating, I know

Ladies who lunchfast

An entry without the WTF icon

Love, sister, it's just a kiss away

Do not ask for whom the flaming chicken clucks

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Profile

June 2024

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