Via: getluky.net » Blog Archive » Are you the favorite person of anybody?

Thanks for sharing this, man!

When you’re named after a movie, it’s a good idea to see the movie. I kind of wish Laura had been more heroic in that movie, but it was really cool seeing Vincent Price being a good guy for once. If you had asked me ten minutes ago, I would have SWORN that David Niven was in that movie, but it looks like that part was played by Clifton Webb. It’s funny how memory does that.

No one has ever asked me if I was named after this movie. I think the only two people on the planet who have seen it are my mom and me.

I wonder how many other Lauras have been named after this movie.

Via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Film Noir Movie Posters from the 1940s

I’ve been writing Merriton for almost two years, but when I saw this scene from True Blood, I was so happy to see Curly brought to life.

Sure, Curly isn’t gay and he’s built a little bigger and more muscle-bound, but this guy brought my beloved Curly to life. A special thank you to Nelsan Ellis for being EXACTLY what I wanted from Curly.

If you have no idea who Curly is or haven’t been reading Merriton, you can get all caught up here:

• Merriton » That? That’s a shed…

Merriton is the story of Randy and Sierra McCain, who move twelve hours away from San Francisco. Some people go to Merriton to ski. Some people go there to get away. Some people go there to stay.

Via: BIBLE VERSUS: TIP YOUR WAITRESS

• Retweet @libel_vox On Election Day, your choice of t-shirt could cost you your vote. Don’t get kicked out. http://tinyurl.com/5cgokm #
• Dot Matrix Wallet: I know Pi to a thousand places: http://tinyurl.com/6ewmqv #
• Cute tree gift tags: http://fogandthistle.com/?p=230 #

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Giant spider eating a bird caught on camera – Telegraph

The Halloween party this year was a little quieter, but a lot more enjoyable. For the complete photo collection, go here:

• Halloween 2008 – a set on Flickr

I dressed up at Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek:

Mike dressed up as a science officer (not a Vulcan) from the original Star Trek:

Mom and Reed skipped dressing up this year:

Stacey and Dan dressed up as Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin. Stacey won for Scariest Costume.

The Meatloaf Cake made by Stacey and Dan won for Best Potluck. The frosting was made of mashed potatoes. I’ve been eating it all week in leftovers, so frankly, I’m a little sick of it, but it tasted SO good!

Anne and Mike came as cowboys and Anne won for Sexiest Costume.

Lisa also came as Sarah Palin and won for Funniest Costume. Stuart came as Mr. Palin this year.

Si came as Pancho Villa and won for Beast of Show. Nicole came as a cat.

It was a great party with lots more costumes. You can see the rest of the photos here:

• Halloween 2008 – a set on Flickr

I woke up in the middle of the night and wandered into Mike’s office. “Is Obama still president?” I asked him in a sleepy haze. He looked at his computer and replied, “Yeah. It looks like he’s at 350 now.” Safe in that knowledge, I stumbled back to bed. It feels like our entire country has taken a turn for the better. Check out this comic from Joy of Tech:

• The Joy of Tech comic… laughter is the best tech support.

I remember two years ago at SXSW, I was talking to George Kelly. He asked me who I thought would be the next president and I sighed and said John Edwards. He looked at me and said, “You don’t think Obama?” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I would LOVE Obama as our next president, but I just don’t think he could make it.”

When I saw George dressed up to go vote yesterday, I remembered the conversation in full.

I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life!

Here’s a link to a transcript of Obama’s speech last night:

• Transcript: ‘This is your victory,’ says Obama – CNN.com

Here is his speech on YouTube:

• Scrabble Inspired Seats & Cushions: http://tinyurl.com/5blwdh #

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I took a trip to the Salt Lake City Library. They have all the Seventeen magazines on file, bound in large, blue books. I snapped a few photos of some Swatch ads from the Eighties.

I love how those old school Swatch Guards look. Why did they stop making them?

Swatches featured: Yamaha Racer, Calypso Diver, Dotted Swiss, and Tri-Color Racer

This is the first Swatch ad I remember ever seeing. By then, Swatch had won hearts with their fruity smelling Swatches.

When am I going to find that sweatshirt on eBay?

Swatches featured: Sheherazade, Mc Swatch

I don’t remember seeing this advertisement when I was a kid, but it was right there in the old Seventeen magazines that I read every month.

Swatches featured: Sir Limelight and Lady Limelight.

Another advertisement I never remember seeing, but I KNOW I read that magazine, so I must have seen it. It didn’t make an impression on me, however.

Swatch featured: Sir Limelight

This advertisement is the reason why I bought Sir Swatch back in 1986.

Swatches featured: Lancelot, Sir Swatch, Valkyrie, Lionheart

I wish I could have had a chance to buy some of those Swatch clothes…

Going through those old Seventeen magazines was a fun walk down memory lane. I was so surprised how much of my choices in clothing were from the advertisements in that magazine. The day I discovered Seventeen magazine, I went from being a dork in high school to having a fighting chance. I am grateful to them to this day.

In addition to finding Swatch advertisements while I was looking through those old Seventeen magazines, I found a lot of companies who stole Swatch’s style.

Awatch was another brand of watches that stole the Swatch style in the mid-Eighties. Unlike the others, they were smart enough to name their watches, just like Swatch did. Instead of Tennis Grid, they had Fashion Grids.

Even Timex jumped on the bandwagon. They released an entire line of watches macking on the Swatch line.

Back in 1986, I worked in the jewelry department at K-Mart. We carried these Timex watches. I was so tempted to buy the one with the sunglasses on the bottom row. Kind of wish I did, now…

No Excuses was another brand that released watches that were suspiciously similar to Swatch.

Armitron has built an empire making watches that look like the watch du juour. In 1986, their watches all looked like Swatches.

These type of watches aren’t technically counterfeits, but they are still slimy. My “real” counterfeit Swatch is FAR more valuable than any of these watches would be now, but all of them are garbage compared to legitimate Swatches.

Ever since I got this Swatch, Jade:

I’ve been racking my brain how to do the same thing for my beloved Lazuli Swatch:

The only suitable band I could find was for Poolhof, but the band has silver highlights instead of gold, which wouldn’t match with the gold flecks and hands of Lazuli.

So, I decided to buy a Jade band AND a Poolhof band and switch the metal highlights on the ends of the flex bands. Here is how I did it. (Continue Reading…)

Dear Lancome,

Does anyone really NEED vibrating mascara? I have a hard enough time not getting mascara all over myself without a wiggly applicator brush.

Game over, man… try again.

Laura Moncur

It looks like Dolce and Gabana had a little fun with the glue gun over the weekend…

I guess I’m going to be crafting up my sunglasses for the winter season. If Dolce and Gabana can do it, so can I.

The LDS church is in the news again this week:

• Holocaust survivors to Mormons: Stop baptisms of dead Jews – CNN.com

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

The question that I have is: why do they care? If you believe Judaism, then what the Mormons do in their little databases and in their temples is none of your concern. In fact, if I’m to remember my theology correctly, we are worm food after death according to the Jewish teachings. There is no afterlife in Judaic teaching, right? Am I wrong?

Why should they care whether people who are Jews are baptized in proxy in LDS temples? I don’t even know why the LDS church agreed to bar the practice. What right do Holocaust survivors (or anyone for that matter) have to tell the LDS church what they can and cannot do in their little imaginary world? They aren’t hurting anyone by dunking teenagers in water and checking names off lists, so this seems like a pretty clear cut case to me.

The LDS church’s involvement in Prop 8, on the other hand, is pretty damn infuriating…

• Catholics, Mormons defend backing same-sex marriage ban – CNN.com

I wish I had known about the protest here in Salt Lake. I would have been at the front of the lines.

I can’t say it any better…

Via: BIBLE VERSUS: THE BOOK OF LOVE

• my Twitterank is 100.77! http://twitterank.com/?u=lauramoncur #
• My Twitterank is 100.7. Is #1 good or is a higher number good? #

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Back in September, we adopted Elvis. I find it strange that I haven’t talked about him here yet, but two months of my life kind of flew by while we enjoyed our new kitten.

It all started when Stacey and Dan got a puppy. Mini was the tiniest Chihuahua puppy you’ve ever seen and she fit in Mike’s hand. Seeing her made me want a kitten. It had been almost a year since Linda had died. Maggie was lonely and clung to me like a needy baby and I thought having a kitten would be nice for her AND us.

I talked to Mike about looking at kittens, but Mike said, “Cats tend to show up in our lives. Let’s not look for a kitten. Let’s just wait for the next one to show up.”

Within two weeks, I got a phone call from my mom. “There is a 70 year old lady in Reed’s apartment building that is going to abandon a kitten outside. Do you want to adopt him?” Apparently the woman had adopted the kitten, given him ONE day to get used to her current cat and couldn’t stand the fighting anymore. She was just going to let him free outside, near a BUSY road.

Within the hour, we had the kitten at our vets office. He was free of parasites and nasty diseases, so we took him home.

It took Maggie two days to stop hiding under the bed.

It took us two weeks to name him. Mike just gave up and let me name him Elvis. The “official” story is that he’s named after Elvis Costello, but really, I named him after Elvis in Animal Crossing. Everybody just thinks we named him after Elvis Presley.

After two months, he and Maggie play and fight and I’ve even caught her cleaning his ears like she used to do with Linda before she died.

Here’s a video of them playing with their new cat toy. Mike had sprinkled some catnip on it. They both wanted it, but Maggie unilaterally informs Elvis that he needs to wait his turn.

Adding Elvis to our household has been a joy. I’m so glad he showed up in our lives.

• I am increasingly unimpressed by Twitter. I wish it felt like it did last year. I just can’t care anymore. #

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• Oh, Twitter, you have failed me again. Why do you have so little to say to me when I need it most? #

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If you ever wanted to design your own Swatch, here is a template to do it:

• Blank Swatch Template: Right click and choose Save As…

When I was in high school, I never considered designing my own Swatch, but now that I have been scanning eBay for Swatches for the last two months, I wish that Swatch would allow me to design my own Swatch and enter an contest or something. They allow “real” artists to do it all the time. Why don’t they open up the creation process to their customers all over the world? It would be a great advertisement and they could have a huge selection of new Swatch designs to choose from. Sure, most of them would be CRAP, but every once and a while, a REALLY good one would come along.

Swatch REALLY doesn’t understand the new marketing, new media and crowd sourcing. It makes me kind of sad when I think about it…

I absolutely LOVE this photo!

Mrs. H.P. Whitney from The Library of Congress from Flickr

At first glance, it looks like yet another Library of Congress photo from the Bain Collection, but this one is SO much more than that. Who is this Mrs. H.P. Whitney? Look at the photo closely. I’m certain she just said something incredibly witty.

Look at them laughing. It just makes me want to be friends with that group. I especially like how disapproving these two are.

She must have said something TERRIBLY scandalous!

Her full name is Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney and she showed some dahlias at a flower show once in 1918:

• DAHLIA SHOW IS OPENED.; Judge Marean, Mrs. H.P. Whitney, and Others Am… – Article Preview – The New York Times

She established a field hospital in Paris during World War I:

• MRS. H. P. WHITNEY BACK.; Called from War Zone by Illness of Her Daugh… – Article Preview – The New York Times

She even founded the Whitney Museum of American Art:

• Whitney Museum of American Art

All this insistence on calling her by her husband’s name, however, hides who she is. Her given name was Gertrude Vanderbilt. She was involved in a famous case when she sued to get custody of her granddaughter, Gloria Vanderbilt. She was even portrayed in a television mini-series by Angela Lansbury. Here’s the trailer for it:

I didn’t know ANY of this when I first saw that photo. I just saw the laughing eyes and the disapproving looks and I wanted to know more about her. So much more than the allotted thousand.

• Adorable Bowling Bunny Game: http://tinyurl.com/5sn64p #
• Brilliant crocheted performance art: http://www.aestheticdialectic.com/archives/283 #
• Xmas star ornaments made out of water bottles: http://tinyurl.com/6zxnee #
• Birdseed Skull: http://tinyurl.com/5dnjfw Where do I get one or how do I make one?! #
• The cutest video of a little girl telling a story: http://vimeo.com/2113477 #
• How to cut curves with a rotary cutter VIDEO: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftapple/3046556933/ #
• @libel_vox You were expecting hardball? DUDE, you’re in ZION! They don’t think they have an image problem. They’re PROUD of what they did :( #
• This photo makes me want to put my cat on my scanner: http://tinyurl.com/5b3wgo #

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• @bradbaldwin I’ve got to get me some of that Kiwi Express Shoe Polish. I have some shoes that need it BAD! Where’d ya git it? #
• Best Yahoo comment I’ve read since Jerry Yang left! http://tinyurl.com/634umq #
• Sexy Sugababes video: http://tinyurl.com/67dkve #

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• @tomjohnson Thanks for the http://twitthat.com link. It looks like making notes to myself using Twitter just got easier. #
• Retweet @feliciaday Check out the trailer and a teaser for Season 2 streaming on http://www.watchtheguild.com Season 2 Launches tomorrow! #
• OMG! Police dashcam of meteor in Canada: http://tinyurl.com/5npt2n #
• Crochet sculptural primer: http://tinyurl.com/6bz37e #
• Mike? Can we get this couch? http://tinyurl.com/6x9dq5 #

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• Birth School Work Death by the Godfathers: http://tinyurl.com/6htybh #

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• @ashbuckles Don’t waste your money. It’s not real HD and lens is TINY. Get the Sanyo Xacti and get a REAL camera. http://tinyurl.com/56mmaq #
• Retweet @Craigboy: Squid!: http://tinyurl.com/5jpntm I guess off-shore drilling isn’t ALL bad… #

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• I have TWO Thanksgiving meals today: Lunch at the Moncurs and dinner at the Reeds. I’m doubly blessed! #

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My friend has gotten a job at Macy’s to tide him over until his teaching position starts in the Spring. He logged his experiences working Black Friday.

• Blind Prophecy » Tales of Black Friday

I started writing a comment, but it got so long that I thought it might be more polite to post it here:

I worked Black Friday for seven years in a row when I put myself through college. I was at K-Mart. It’s nice to know that the rich people who shop at Macy’s are just as rude as the plebs that shop at K-Mart.

BTW, the reason they don’t pick up the upper sweaters to get theirs is because their HANDS ARE FULL. That sort of display is ALWAYS going to be messy, but if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t need to pay you to keep it neat.

Oh, those six days you have scheduled off? They’re going to call you in at least once. After today, some of the Christmas help will not come back. They just won’t show up when they were supposed to. If you’re reliable, they’ll give you more hours than you could possibly work and you’ll dread the phone. Luckily, there’s call waiting.

It has been 15 years since I worked Black Friday and I still have scars from it. I NEVER shop the door busters. I find them the embarrassment of humanity. I wish I could forget the year that a riot broke out with fighting for seven dollar blankets. Women pushing and grabbing. The pallet was empty within seconds.

Honestly, sometimes I miss it. Working 80 hour weeks with crabby Christmas shoppers sounds like hell, but part of it was fun. I never fully get into the Christmas mood as I did those years that I worked retail. As difficult as it was, having Christmas thrown in my face every day really made me appreciate those few hours of the day when the store was closed and I could be with my family.

• @ashbuckles RU complaining about LOW gas prices? #

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