Ambergris

[Middle English, from Old French ambre gris : ambre, amber; see amber + gris, gray; see grisaille.]

A substance of the consistence of wax, found floating in the Indian Ocean and other parts of the tropics, and also as a morbid secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), which is believed to be in all cases its true origin. In color it is white, ash-gray, yellow, or black, and often variegated like marble. The floating masses are sometimes from sixty to two hundred and twenty-five pounds in weight. It is wholly volatilized as a white vapor at 212[deg] Fahrenheit, and is highly valued in perfumery. It is added to perfumes to slow down the rate of evaporation.

where’s my head?

Tired eyes
weary bones
active mind
a little too warm
walls look sticky
left foot scraped skin
tingle on the chin, running up left cheek
hear my beloved’s voice, from memory
50’s girl
and my queen
and my little girl
and a cat
and a friend
and a companion
and a cohort
red nails
ghoul nails
her tears on my chest
her smiling lips touching mine
my arms holding her close
barefoot
rubber lizards do our bidding

songs for a hallween CD…

1) Fred Schneider – Monster
2) The Doors – People Are Strange
3) David Bowie – Scary Monsters
4) Beck – Devil’s Haircut
5) The Cranberries – Zombie
6) The Psycedelic Furs – The Ghost In You
7) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
8) INXS – Devil Inside
9) No Doubt – Spiderwebs
10) Radiohead – Creep
11) A Flock Of Seagulls – Nightmares
12) The Ramones – Psycho Therapy
13) Oingo Boingo – Weird Science
14) The Police – Murder By Numbers
15) Concrete Blonde – Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)
16) Billy Idol – Flesh For Fantasy
17) Squirrel Nut Zippers – Hell!
18) Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
19) The B-52’s – Devil In My Car
20) U2 – October

King Kong Song – ABBA

Lead vocal: Björn/Frida

Well I was looking at a movie on the TV last night
Then I had a very funny notion, yeah
I really had to write a song about it
And then I’m gonna sing it with my rock’n roll band
And I bet the people gonna like it, yeah
I know that everybody’s gonna shout it

And what a dreadful mighty killer
A big black wild gorilla

We do the King Kong song, won’t you sing along
Listen to the music and it couldn’t go wrong
We do the Kong Kong song, gotta sing along
Can’t you hear the beating of the monkey tom-tom
Listen to the rhythm of the King Kong song

Now we can make the jungle out of any old place
We can make gorillas out of people, yeah
Well who can tell a monkey from a monkey?
So people get together, gonna have a good time
Everybody listen to the music, yeah
‘Cause what we’re gonna sing is kinda funky

So let your arms hang down
And waddle all around
Like a dreadful mighty killer
A big black wild gorilla

We do the King Kong song, won’t you sing along
Listen to the music and it couldn’t go wrong
We do the Kong Kong song, gotta sing along
Can’t you hear the beating of the monkey tom-tom
Listen to the rhythm of the King Kong song

Like a dreadful mighty killer
A big black wild gorilla

We do the King Kong song, won’t you sing along
Listen to the music and it couldn’t go wrong
We do the Kong Kong song, gotta sing along
Can’t you hear the beating of the monkey tom-tom
Listen to the rhythm of the King Kong song

We do the King Kong song, won’t you sing along
Listen to the music and it couldn’t go wrong
We do the Kong Kong song, gotta sing along
Can’t you hear the beating of the monkey tom-tom
Listen to the rhythm of the King Kong song

A couple of my friends are seriously talking about wearing latex gloves when they handle their mail at home. I feel silly telling them that they shouldn’t do that – everyone’s scared, the FBI’s apparent failure to make any progress tracking down the culprits is frustrating, nothing they tell us seems very sincere or comforting. You do what you can.
More reasoning below…just rambling

eldritch antiphony

eldritch EL-drich, adjective:
Strange; unearthly; weird; eerie.

Eldritch perhaps derives from a Middle English word meaning “fairyland,” from Middle English elf, “elf” (from Old English aelf) + riche, “kingdom” (from Old English rice).

antiphony (an-TIF-uh-nee) noun

Responsive alternation between two groups, especially between singers.

[From antiphon (a song sung in alternate parts), from Middle English, from Greek antiphona.]

Oh heaven help me, I’m going to “Tropicon” the weekend after next with Danny. This is a convention that we attend fairly religiously every year, in order to go out to breakfast and chat for a while, hit the con, poke a nose into the gaming or dealers room, do a little anthropology work regarding other fan-types, then head off to the Red Lion pub, or Pier 66 (usually only an hour or two is spent at the convention) to have a beer or two, and maybe some light fare while going over our obtained goodies. Last year was the occurrence of the aromatic fan-type that I mentioned some time ago. We’re naughty, in that we don’t pay to get in. We just saunter into the lobby, and then head to the dealers room. (The one exception was in 1998, when the guests were Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess… that was actually worth going to the respective panels, so we paid. I got a great too much coffee man CBLDF t-shirt, too, that year.)

Brief aside on con goodies – I used to wear a fishing vest at work so I’d always have whatever was necessary at hand as I made my rounds. It’s sole decoration was a con-purchased patch for “Logic Memory Systems, Urbana IL” on the left breast pocket. It was Halloween everyday for me, costumed as a tech rep on the HAL9000 project. Add an anti-static wrist strap with coiled cord artfully wrapped around my forearm and I was stylin’. /aside.

This year is going to be different…I fear it will be difficult to peel him away from the anime video room…and I think that I may get caught up in the dealers room more than usual, if they have treats for assorted folks there. I can think of things that my boss would really dig, and maybe a few things in mind for my sweetheart, too. Maybe get a feel for the current breed of RPG gamer, too, possibly sit in on a game of champions, GURPS, or maybe a card game (if I can remember any of their rules.) I hope someone has a cheapass games section out there… that’s been the biggest bounty in my recent attendance. Bitin’ off heds,( the dinosaur racing game where you run around a volcano, tossing boulders and biting each other…very fun) and Orcs in the hood (inner-city gang warfare with warring orc factions) in particular. Cheapass games puts out some fantastic stuff. Little board games and card games for between 4 and 8 bucks.

Looks like LJ is limping again. (UPDATE- according to status.livejournal.com – LiveJournal was completely offline at this time.) I’m glad that I write in notepad instead of the left ‘semi-connected’ LJ client… I logged it out to relog in to access a revised set of icons and it promptly refused to reconnect. (I knew it wasn’t the firewall, because I’m using a machine to hit my dial-up net connection, and I can still browse yahoo mail and some of the other sites I also frequent.

I hit random the other night, and got a journal whose text that mangles the English language with the cruelty of a psychopath struck by a bookmobile as a child and unable to forgive. After pressing it once or twice more, it confirms my feelings. Random is no longer a button I wish to push, unless I can modify it with a few parameters, like age / length of post / time spent on LJ, etc. I long for the search engine and some of the old functionality to return.

Saw this witch pic on deadjournal, and thought it was interestingly placed for Halloween. for the piccie, if you’d like to see it.

Backitty Back.

Fresh from the shower after walkies.

Meandered up to the beach, waved to the fishies, and toddled on back home. Not many people out and about, and the weather was *perfecto* not hot, not cold, perfectly mild. It really surprised me that there weren’t many people on the beach or Atlantic Blvd…Almost a ghost town. It was comforting to roam unfettered by folks in my way…take as long a stride as I chose and not worry about stepping on or worse coming up too fast behind someone in my path. Soft, , sugar-fine, pale sand that was loosly packed…I really enjoy treading barefoot there, a light sea spray in the wind.

Returning to the walkies was nice, I feel that there was no effort involved at all, even walking up the bridge… I think there was more boat traffic than any other sort. Large Skiffs using the wind to their advantage (I was too… I love a light breeze to my back as I hike.) I think I’m going to hit the lighthouse tomorrow, instead of just tagging the sand and heading back.

Newt’s playing with the sandy sandals now… I think I’ll join him.