when it rains, it pours

friday night, i was treated to lovely thai food and good conversation (which consisted mostly of me holding forth) by a fellow nerdsholmer. today i'm invited to a lego tree-trimming party by a friend of sambushell's, which sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. next saturday is GURPS night with kratkrat and the guys, and next sunday i'm invited to a gaming party at cyan_blue's. (i found her via random livejournal browsing, and noticed that she lives nearby and knows both dglenn and jbsegal... what are the chances?) thank you, lovely people, for the lovely invitations!

in other news, those bastards on nerdsholm are talking about food again, and now i have a desperate urge to fire up the grill and smoke a pork shoulder. (curse you, frosch!) one simply can't get good BBQ out here, dammit. and i'm still trying to think up a better vegetarian fish sauce substitute. there's got to be something closer to the flavor of the real thing...

whee!

just got back from the lego tree-trimming party. it was great, especially once i actually met my hosts and stopped feeling like a party-crasher. i was entertained and amazed by the variety of lego ornaments people created. myself, i made a couple of peculiar abstract things, an oil derrick (well, it was the first thing that came to mind), and with the creative inspiration of the amazing Crisper, a bondage monkey on stilts with some barrels hanging around him in a sort of goofy reverse-barrel-of-monkeys tableau. i'm so pleased the hosts enjoyed it.

i spent a goodly part of my time there admiring the ceilings. they live in a wonderful old building that has a plaque saying it was built in 1875 or somewhere thereabouts, and the apartment was very cool. one day i'd really like to live in a place with that sort of character and history. around the tops of the walls is a foot-tall border that's either pressed aluminum or molded plaster (i'd assume the former, since that's relatively common and would hold up better in earthquake country), painted a deep sage green. there's a chandelier in the living room suspended from a large, ornate molded fitting complete with cherubs (unless i hallucinated those). really fabulous.

i sometimes think i should've been an architect or interior designer. buildings, especially living spaces, just fascinate me. it's so cool to see wonderful old stuff like that.

still, i'm pretty happy with my 60's-vintage apartment, although it was a lot cooler before they painted the building taupe with dark green trim. when i moved in, the whole building was painted light blue and looked like a cheap motel. talk about character. either way, i like to think i've imposed some of my personality on my living space with the old B-movie posters and eclectic collection of knickknacks and books. and, to be honest, my decorating ethic in general would work a lot better in one of those odd little 50's-vintage bungalows than in a magnificent old Victorian mansion.

but hey, a girl can dream, right?

all i can say is...

how stupid would you have to be to do what this guy did?

SFPD Officer Found Dead After Being Suspended for Child Pornography

still, it's sad he killed himself. although i suppose in his position, i might have felt ashamed enough to do that too.

sheesh

Ben Affleck, the sexiest man alive?

i guess i'd fantasize about him during sex if i didn't have England to think of, but otherwise...