Item the first: Not all cars have automatic transmissions. Some of us old farts (and gear heads) drive something called a manual transmission or a "stick shift". If you've gone to movies like "The Fast and the Furious", any Bond movie, "Bourne Identity" or any film featuring race cars, you have seen the stick in action. It requires the use of a clutch and a gear stick to manually change the gear ratios in your engine, making use of said ratios to gain or reduce speed. With me? What this means in practical terms is that when we are all driving up a spiral ramp in a parking garage, I have nothing slower than first gear, unless you want to count rolling backwards. DO NOT, repeat, do not pound your brakes on the top of the spiral when you are driving in front of me. Although I keep a respectful distance from your rear fender, there is really nothing else I can do except stick it in neutral and play heel toe with the clutch and the brake and pray that I do NOT roll backward into the jackass who has his front grill stuck to my back bumper like I'm going to...
to do what? We are all in a line on a spiral parking ramp. What the fuck does he think I'm going to do? Pass the car in front of me, and thereby win the very last space in the lot?

Item the second: An elevator is fairly old technology by now. It should not be beyond the average person to understand how it works. However, this morning I learned that is not the case. So in an effort to help those recently deposited in the 21st century by a time/space worm hole, I will explain.

The elevator button only needs to be pressed once. If it is lit, it has already been pressed, and pounding on it will not make the elevator switch directions or arrive faster.

If the big arrow over the elevator door is lit up in green and pointing up, that means the elevator is going to go up. If the big arrow over the elevator door is lit up in red and pointing down, that means the elevator is going to go down. There are no other choices. It isn't trying to fuck with you by pointing up and then going down.

Once the doors open for you, you should enter the elevator and move to the back. Or to the side, if you are the first one in, and there is nobody else there. It is helpful to all the other people trying to get on the elevator to hold. the. door. open. Or you can press the button on the control panel that says "Door Open" and it will hold the door open for others. It actually speeds things up when the doors aren't shutting on people. Also? Moving to the rear of the compartment also speeds up the loading process because people don't have to shove around your fat ass to get into the elevator. The elevator is a public transit device and as such is designed to hold many people, not just you.

While I'm on the subject of packing people into small moving spaces, let's try the same concept out on busses and trains. If there is a door, go through it and keep moving. To the middle of the car. Standing in a doorway prevents others from getting on or off, slows things up, is discourteous and generally just lame.

Thank you. This ends today's lesson in modern technology.

Part the first: The Rude Pundit said it best on Wednesday morning when he said: Has anybody in this bed got a cigarette?

To quote the ur-progenitor of all the past six years of madness: It's morning in America.

To quote the American voting public: "Go fuck yourselves, arrogant Republican chicken-hawk constitution rapers."
Part the second: Miz Shoes Reviews: ANTM

We are back in the house with the bitches and the hos, and surprisingly we are still interested despite last week's recap show. To be fair, the high point of the recaps was watching the Queer Eye for the (Nominally) Straight Model Wanna-be. Well, that and the scene of the clinically insane Moooonique playing echo with Melrose. And the scene of the clinically insane Moooonique stomping on Doritos. To which we can only say, what the fuck was wrong with that girl?

Oh, well, we can also say this: How about a Supermodel Season on ANTM, where they bring back all the most delusional and insane B&Hs. A house filled with Camille, and Lisa, Tiffany and her weave, and Jade and Moooonique and Jayla and what's her name who wouldn't cut her hair and just walked out and the blind girl who wasn't blind when she had to leave in the dark of night, and of course Furonda. Can you imagine? And the judges would have to be equally unbalanced: the Divine Miss Dickenson and Naomi Campbell, whose name has finally been uttered by Tyrant. And she didn't hack up a hair ball or anything. Of course, if it was me that she likened to Naomi, I wouldn't have gotten all smiley and thank you. I would have gone back to the house and packed, thinking that next week it would be my head on the block. I'm just saying, that if you remind Tyra of Naomi? That cannot be a good thing.

So, where are we. Oh, yeah, back at the house with the bitches and the hos. Everyone is laying around thinking that there aren't so many of them anymore to get lost in the shuffle of who sucks the worst. There's a little pity party for Brooke, but not much of one. No, the bigger pity party is the one that Anchal is throwing for herself.

Allow me to sum up: Wah, wah, wah. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to go off and make myself feel better by eating a few more pounds of bacon and then stress out over getting fatter not thinner and how come nobody in this house will shut up about my weight already, and why don't they like me? Wah, wah, wah, wah. Repeat ad nauseum.

The lesson this week is how to action model, and they are taught by none other than Gabrielle Reese, who really is the shit. See, this is why I used the title I did on this entry. This year I have liked more of the special guests and been more impressed with the photo shoots than any previous season.*

As expected, Caridee, Melrose, Michelle and Jaeda do well. Anchal sucks and doesn't want to wear a bikini and plays beach volley ball exactly as you would expect a girlygirly to play, which is to say, she all but closes her eyes when the ball comes at her and her dive toward it falls about four feet short of actually connecting with anything ball-like.

The next day, they have to do a shoot (and simultaneously shoot themselves using an infra-red shutter release, and frankly I think that's rather more multi-tasking than any of these girls could possibly handle under any circumstance) with some guy** from NASCAR who is allegedly a hottie and a part time model.

Michelle rocks it, and even climbs up on his car, puncturing the hood with her spike heels. Nicely done, tomboy. Nicely done. She totally commits to the shot. Guess who doesn't? Anchal? Anchal? Michelle wins her first challenge and gets to pick three friends. She picks Amanda, Caridee, and Melrose. MELROSE? Melrose whom everyone despises? What up? The four of them get to go on a free shopping spree at some shop run by? owned by? featuring clothes by? the nameless NASCAR guy. To keep the theme going, they have 30 seconds to run from the starting line into the show room***, grab as much shit as they can carry and get back to the line. Whoever has the most stuff wins, and gets to keep not only her shit, but all the other girls' shit, too. Melrose is the only one paying enough attention to figure out the rules, which means that she wins, much to Michelle's chagrin. And since the whole thing is edited for effect, we have no way of knowing if Melrose was a total dick and didn't share the spoils with the girl who took her to the dance.

The other girls, the girls who are not part of the winner's spree, all bitch and moan and piss and whine about having to be there to see the other girls shop. I may be getting soft, but this season's hamsters still strike me as being the most ungrateful little whiners to date. Jaeda and the hair. Anchal and the nobody likes me. All of them and Melrose is a bitch. Wahwahwah, already. To complain that they have to watch the winners have a good time? Please, girl, just be glad you didn't have to massage Jade.

Next, they have the challenge photo: reaching for product while (in-door) sky-diving. OK, all of you who WOULD have liked to see Mr. Jay toss them out from 20 thousand feet, raise your hands. They all suck. Jay offers up this direction to Melrose: Give it to me, girl; make them all hate you more! Amanda manages to look good, Michelle only sort of. Anchal, despite wanting to in-door skydive all her life, and despite being the only girl to manage a decent angle, still sucks. Ditto Eugenia, et. al.

Panel! The in-person contest is totally lame. Using techniques from improv classes I took 30 years ago in college, the judges pull out an action verb and an adjective for each girl to try to do. Swim frighteningly. Dance aggressively. And so on. Anchal, poor poor Anchal is asked to dance aggressively and needless to say, she fails dramatically. She also runs out of the room. Do you want to guess who gets sent home?

The bottom two are Michelle and Anchal. Michelle is a natural, the judges say, but she just doesn't Want. It. ENOUGH. Like, say, her twin sister. Or Caridee, who the judges are finally beginning to figure out is insane. Or Melrose, who is maybe or maybe not a total bitch, but who, like Lisa, despite being older than dirt and abrasively know-it-all, manages every week to turn out a fierce pic.

So who goes home? Anchal, poor, poor, Anchal, who ran out of the judging panel. Bad move, there, sweetie. Next week they finally travel, and if Tyra isn't geographically dyslexic, it looks like they are going to Spain. Please, oh please, do not make them try to learn flamenco.

* Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a fat girl, she don't sweat so very much.

** What? You think I would watch NASCAR? Puh-leeze people. That's driving in circles. Real racing is Grand Prix racing with, you know, straight aways, hair-pins and wiggly bits.

*** Also known as a Grand Prix start. Ahem.

Born here, although I'm not supposed to call myself a Native American on surveys and census questionaires, which, frankly, I think is sort of a rip. I AM, after all, native to these shores. As such, and since I am not a convicted felon, it is my right (some people, myself included, would say that it is my duty) to cast a vote in every election. And I do. I haven't missed so much as a vote for dog catcher* since I turned 18. I think I had a voter's registration card before I had a driver's license.

So first thing this morning, I went and pounded the shit out of that tacky little electronic device that can't give me a paper reciept. I even voted for a Republican. Not for anything very important, only the Commissioner of Agriculture, and I can't even tell you why, except that I just felt that if there was at least one R in the vote, maybe the (hacked) machine wouldn't eliminate my vote.**

If you live and vote in California, please vote for my old fellow traveler, Larry Cafiero, Green Candidate for Insurance Commissioner.

If you live and vote anywhere, read the Rude Pundit before you go.

If you don't vote, well, first of all, Shame on you. Second of all, shut the fuck up about what you think of our elected government, good or bad, because you pissed away your chance to do something about it. And third of all, when the jack-booted neo-con christian jihadists come to your door to cart you away, remember that you didn't vote. And remember that there were plenty of us out here in the wilderness shrieking warnings like banshees.

* Do people still vote for dog catcher? Is there still the position of dog catcher somewhere out in the fly-overs?

**Come ON, people. I live in South Florida. You don't think there is some serious Republican party-backed shit going down here? Puh-leeze. You have been drinking the Kool-Aid again, haven't you?

I spent the weekend in bed. Sounds delightful, but it wasn't. I was propped up with caffiene, pillows and snacks. I had the laptop on my lap and no less than four books on writing PHP code piled up next to me. I only got up to eat and empty.

What I have to show for it, besides a crater at the head of the bed where I was sitting for 36 hours, is a new shell for the EE site. I blew up the first one. By accident. I have ported all my entries from here and the photoblog over to EE and will probably have to do it again with different parameters set so that I don't have to reformat all the line breaks.

The photo entries don't port well at all.

The hack I found for the more jump (the one you just took) doesn't work. But it does show the entended entry... just all in the first window.

The photo gallery page hack may or may not work, since I can't seem to get my photos in it. I need to go back and try to redirect the program to correctly find my photo directory.

I'm beginning to think this might be easier on a (ick) PC than my mac, but that's just too bad for me. It's going to work on the mac or I'll die trying to make it work.

In the meantime, I'll just keep on writing here, because the anticipated switch is going to be a lot slower than I thought. Dammit.

I know that I said I was going to flip the switch over to Expression Engine, and really, I did install it and tried to customize it and everything, and really, the spam comments are driving me crazy on this platform, but Jeezus H. Christ, that is one tough program. Completely unintuitive, as far as I can tell. No manual to speak of, no third party books at all, at least not that I can find on Amazon.

Sure they have forums and tech support, but I'm a hands on kind of girl, and this is just blowing my circuits all to hell.

So. Anybody out there an EE guru who wants to have some long, meaningful e-mail exchanges with me this weekend, as I try to make the switch once and for all?

I'm cutting bias strips to make bias tape bindings on five quilts.

I totally hate bias strips. I hate cutting them, stitching them into ridiculous yards and yards and yards of bias tape. I hate pressing them, sewing them and finishing them by hand. And yet.

I only use bias bindings on my quilts. Why? Masochism? Devotion to a tradition I gleefully split from when I piece and quilt by machine? I really have no idea why I do it.

I just do. Two of the five are spoken for. The other three will be going up for sale, soon.

The first of my auctions are up on e-bay. Knitting patterns from the 40s for babies. Knit and crocheted hot pants patterns from the 70s. Emboridery kits in the original packaging from Germany, looking like the 60s...linen tea towels, no less.

There are only five up, so far, but feel free to look and even bid. You KNOW you want those hot pants.

I have this phrase running through my head, and I've been giving it a lot of thought. Turning it around, looking at it from all angles.

The phrase is "unconditional love".

I know that I loved my parents unconditionally, but to be quite honest, it took a long time to get there, and a lot of therapy to achieve a place in myself where I could do that. I think that to truly love unconditionally, one has to love oneself the same way, and first.
In the context of my current contemplation of the phrase, I wonder, however, about the difference between unconditional love and enabling. Is there a difference? Is it so easy to mistake the two?

What are the differences? Unconditional love means accepting the flaws of the other. Enabling means, maybe, ignoring them. Or... or what? Approving them?

Is youth a flaw? Is it possible to be young and not blame your inexperience on others? At what point does youth become adulthood? Is it age or knowledge or experience, or just a mental switch?

Are you an adult when you think you are? Or when others look at you and say you are? The late, great Satchel Paige said "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?" By that accounting, my own age is somewhere around the mid-twenties. But the calendar tells me otherwise. My bank accounts, my responsibilities, my life-style choices, the amount of time I have left in the workforce, all tell me that I am fast approaching senior citizen status. And yet, in my head? I still heart rock and roll. I still like to go out and shake my groove thang. I have no understanding of the fact that my knees won't let me ride my bike for 20 miles at a clip.

I graduated college on my 21st birthday, and had no doubt that I was an adult. I had a degree, I was of legal age in any country on the planet, and it was time to leap into the world and see how strong my wings were. In hindsight, of course, I was still green and in many ways still the child I had been when I entered school. But I didn't think so then.

In going through my parents house, I have found letters that I wrote them from that far away point in my life. I told them not to worry about me. I told them that I believed that my wings were fully fledged and that I would fly. I told them that I knew I was green, but I was hopeful. I believed in myself. (God only knows why. Maybe I was high when I wrote the letter.)

I still believe in myself. The world has never shaken that belief out of me. It has tried, it has shaken it to the core, but it never shook it out. I love myself unconditionally, which means that I know my flaws. I even try to improve them. But there are things about myself I cannot change. There are other things I could, but would not. The rest? It's all just smoke and mirrors.

Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo won.

To paraphrase him: This TOTALLY sucks.

Uli was robbed. Laura was robbed. Michael was mugged on his way to Bryant Park by some thugs frontin' Yo Hoochie Momma's House O' Bling.

He was an odious, mean-spirited hack and still, he won. Ugh. PR may have just jumped the shark. I knew I couldn't trust that whole redemption edit. And one final thought: what's the point of rehab if you are still a loathesome twat?

On the other hand, part of me rejoices in the thought that the too-cool-for-rules Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo will have to spend the next year being mentored by people he thinks are sell-outs and hacks, designing pret a porter for women who are shaped more like his baby mamma than the swizzle sticks in skinny pants he so clearly prefers.

Still and all, the fact is that he made an older woman cry, just because he didn't like her daughter, and I don't care how they paint Angela's mom as a whiny, passive-aggressive; the fact is that he gloated about it to the daughter and bragged about what an atrocity he made her mother wear; he heaped incessant hateful abuse on Laura (Why doesn't that woman have a stroke and die?; Moth balls and chicken soup, etc.); the constant "I'm a genius and the rest of these guys can't hold my crusty jock strap"... all of that makes me despise him.

I know a lot of folks out here in the blogosphere, especially on the Bravo site and on Blogging Project Runway think that the producers demanded he win for ratings. Maybe. Maybe not. But the editing surely didn't help the viewers believe that JTPS won for his show.

Uli and Laura were both praised for having 12 pieces that made a cohesive collection. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo was criticized for not. He ran over budget and had to give up the blonde Barbie wigs. Michael Kors rolled eyes over that. Fern Malis pointedly told Uli not to leave Miami, that her work could go in stores tomorrow and race out the doors. Nina Garcia said that someone stopped her at the tents to ask where they could buy/contact Uli. Of all the interviews of celebs and fashionistas shown, only one preferred JTPS's collection.

And as for that collection, all I can say is sand-blasted, acid-washed denim is fashion-forward? Would you really trust a man who dresses himself in plaid cuffed manpris to dress you?

In the words of my beloved, departed grandfather (a tailor): Feh. Dun't vaste yer money.

The other day I received an e-mail from The Boss. Not my boss, but The Boss, Mr. Springsteen. OK, so it wasn't from him, personally, but that's the name that showed up in the "from" field. Bruce Springsteen. I also get e-mail from The Bob, that, however, is irrelevant to this story.

See, I'm on Sony's mailing list for news about Springsteen, so when Dave Marsh's new book, a photo history of 20 years on the road with the E-Street Band, was released, Sony was kind enough to let me know.

I already knew the book was in the works, because nine months ago or so, The Coolest Person In the World told me that she's been approached by Dave about using her photos in his latest project. Needless to say, when I got that e-mail I started hopping up and down because this had to be the book with her pictures.

So I called her to congratulate her on this latest achievement. Her response is why she is The Coolest Person In the World.

"Oh, yeah. I have two pictures, but they're small. And really old. They sent me a copy of the book. It's really big. Have you seen it?" (me: no) "Me neither. It's still in the envelope."

First, a little business announcement: I am moving this blog from Movable Type to Expression Engine. The primary reason is EE's built-in commerce module (I said I was going to start selling my quilts and the RLA's paintings on here, and I mean it.) The second reason is its better spam commenting protection.

Anyway, until I master the new software, we're going to be losing the hot pink shoes, and entries may be sparse. Just so you know.

But never fear, I'll be back with the snark full-on by the Project Runway finale. In the mean time, here's a little something 'bout the bitches and the hos over on ANTM.

ROCK & ROLL!!!! Head bang, hair toss. That would be Megg, happy to see the last of Moooonique, who turned out to be unique in her delusions, her psycho bitchiness and her total lack of focus on the modeling portion of the competition. It's hard to focus on modeling when you are so completely focused on being a psycho bitch, plotting to rub your crusty undies on the girl you like the least.

This week the girls learn to pose like contortionists, helped by an actual contortionist and one of Canada's Next Top Model Judges. S/he claimed to be a top Canadian runway model, but that was one scary individual.

The girls all try to stick their feet in front of their faces from over their shoulders, and other very attractive, edgy, editorial-style poses. Anchal proves to be the most flexible, despite also being the only girl with hips, tits and body fat. This pisses off Melrose, who has, with the departure of Moooonique, stepped up her bitch game and taken the position of alpha-delusional bitch. If AJ is Another Jayla (but without --at least so far-- the loathesome personality and yellow teeth), the Melrose is channeling Lisa, but without the humor the quirky charm and the ability to take a fierce shot.

So. Melrose gives Anchal all sorts of unwanted advice about exercise, body fat, charm, beauty, quantum physics, posing and anything else that runs through her mind and out of her unregulated mouth. Anchal takes it with the sort of grace we have seen her display before: she tells Melrose to shut it.

Dinner with Twiggy. This a very short sequence, because unlike the divine Miss Dickenson, Twiggy doesn't get falling down drunk or abuse the girls. Melrose sucks up, big time. The other girls all glare at her and talk trash about how she's always sucking up.

Next is the challenge, to put into practice what they have learned. They trot off to an art gallery, where they are stuck in some really bad hair and hats, and told to pose on pedestals, to show off 30K worth of jewelry. I don't recall the jewelry at all. Did we even get to see it? (really, really need to stop pounding down those cosmos during the show)

Eugena wins, which means she gets all the jewelry. This makes her very happy, and pisses off Melrose (imagine that). Melrose responds by giving the girls another modeling lesson, a la Tyrant, in which she insists that two identical faces are dramatically different, if only you had the eyes to see.

At the house, there is much trash talking about Anchal, who cries and needs ego-boosting as a result. Her extreme neediness is going to get her tossed soon, you just watch. There is unwatchable drama. There is the visit by Tyrant who tells thinly veiled stories about how mean Naomi Campbell was to her when they were baby models. Melrose sucks up. The other girls glare at her.

The next day's photo shoot is somewhere out in the sort of junkyard waste land that can only be found in proximity to abandoned movie lots. It's a turn-of-the-century (last turn-of-the-century, not the one four years ago... we're going to have to come up with another way to say that soon, or people will start getting confused, you know?) broke down circus theme. The girls are all going to be side-show freaks, so this ain't going to be much of a stretch, is it?

Caridee gets an elephant snout, which means that everyone gets to blow air and pretend their arm is a trunk at least once during the episode, even Tyrant and Miss Jay. Anchal is the giant lady, Jaeda is the strong man, Megg (ROCK & ROLL, head bang, hair toss) is the bearded lady. AJ is a cannibal, Eugena is the bird lady, Melrose (are the art directors mean or what?) gets to be the 100 year old lady face with a rockin' bod. The twins are, shockingly, Siamese twins joined at the head. There are two more girls and I can't remember what they were. That's a bad sign, girls. Brooke and... Brooke and....and the guest judge is the editrix of 17 magazine. She has jet black hair and a chin that puts Jay Leno to shame. She scared me.

AJ rocks the shot, so does Melrose, to everyone's dismay. Ditto Caridee and the twins. Eugena sucks, but not as badly as Megg (ROCK & ROLL, head bang, hair toss). Which is really a shame, because she, Megg, has the biggest, bestest smile ever. She just never smiles on the set. In fact, she doesn't do anything on the set except suck. This is noted by all the judges, and she is mercifully sent home at judging.

And while I'll miss her big old smile, I sooooo will not miss the endless ROCK & ROLL, head bang, hair toss.

I'm just going to go straight there. I don't like Jeffrey-the-PInheaded-Shmoo. I don't like his designs. I don't like his television persona. I don't like his haircut, his tattoos, his girlfriend's haircut or the fact that he wears manpris. I don't care that he's a recovering drunk, rehabilitated junkie or a failed suicide. I particularly don't like the redemption edit he's gotten the past couple of weeks. In fact, the nicest thing I can say about him is that he makes Santino look like a sweet-talking charmer by comparison. Now that we got that out of the way, let's take a look at last night's show.

We open on the final four being told to take their 8K budget and go home and create a line of twelve looks. See you back here in two months. Then Heidi and Tim Gunn walk off the runway giggling like two school girls and trading very stiff banter about running away together on holiday. Although, I have to say, the thought of Tim Gunn in a Speedo with about half a dozen frozen piña coladas under his belt makes me giggle like a school girl. I'd pay to be on that Windjammer.

The designers pack their bags, and yes, Laura packs with the same attention to detail and meticulous fitting that she uses to design her clothing. Laura cracks the joke about producing a line of clothing being no more difficult than producing a line of children (I love that) and ignores the cabs in front of the Atlas in favor of sauntering down the avenue in her high heels, dragging her Luis Vuitton behind her. Really. She has to be the most fabulous contestant ever.

Michael bids a fond farewell to all, assures us that he WILL win, and blows. Ditto Uli. Jeffrey is left on the street waving for a cab. One can only hope that nobody picked him up.

Then Tim goes visiting. First is Michael. He lives in a very nice house. He says that he's doing a safari theme for his show, and has some swatches and samples and a beautiful laced-bodice dress on a mannequin. The overall look is sort of Ralph Lauren (several seasons ago) meets Diddy in the Hamptons by way of Yo Momma's House of Bling. Meh. Except for that white dress, it isn't really calling out my name. Or Tim's.

They go to visit Mikey's family, because Michael wants Tim to meet his family and he also wants to cook for Tim. Is this guy for real? I hope the stories of Brandy and him hooking up are true, not because I know anything about Brandy, but because he is the nicest guy ever and he should have a famous good-looking girlfriend to walk around showing off his clothes. And also? I bet she could get him into a Diddy/Hamptons party.

Daddy Knight turns out to be an Army lifer, and probably the only one in the history of the military to speak the following (paraphrased) sentence: By the time Michael was nine, we knew he'd be a hairdresser. But what ever made him happy and whole, we were behind him 100%. Jeez. A whole freaking family of sweet and nice. And military, as if that isn't the biggest oxymoron of them all.

Then it's off to see Uli in my hood. The truth of the matter is that Miami always looks good on film. It's just living here, with the humidity and the idiot drivers and the abusive service workers, and the mosquitos that dims it a little in reality.

Still, Uli gives a great interview about growing up poor in a tiny village in East Germany (EAST? Germany) and how she always watched Miami Vice on t.v. (I'm having a hard time with the whole East Germany/Miami Vice dichotomy) and dreamed about America. Then, one day, the wall came down, everybody was free, and she was on the next flight out to Miami Beach. Now she's a finalist on Project Runway, and dreams come true in America. All she has to do is stick out her hand for the little blue birds to land on her palm.

Her line looks, well, like pretty damn near every other thing she's shown since the beginning of the season. There is flowy. There is pattern. There is not a set-in sleeve to be seen. And instead of the ever-present halter tops, she's holding her hippydippy chic up with what looks like a belt under the armpits and a bone hook and eye. Her theme, she says is Safari. Oh.

Next we travel to LA to visit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo. He has a wife, girlfriend, you know. It pains me to say this, but she seems to really care about him. She also has a two-tone mohawk and a baby by Jeffrey, so maybe her judgement is a little off.

JTPS talks at great length (and with absolutely no appropriate self-consciousness) about his abusive father, his childhood drug addictions, his alcoholism, his failed suicide, his mad parenting skillz, his something or other. I don't know. His mouth was moving but all I heard was quack, quack, quack.

They head over to what he coyly refers to as his "little sewing space" and they trudge down a dirty hall to a dirty door and open it to reveal a cavernous room the size of my entire house. There are racks and racks of clothes, and 10-foot long work tables and in short, a working fashion production facility.

JTPS tells Tim that the inspiration for his line is Japanese ghost stories (traditional, not anime). Yeah. Whatever. We see lots of Japanese woodcuts with women in kimonos and frankly, I'm still not seeing it, but whatever. Quack, quack, quack.

Tim is very excited by the pieces he's shown, and just goes batshit over this green striped thing that has open zippers defining the seam lines on a halter-topped, full-skirted dress. Which, I hate to say, is pretty cool. Except that the seams are describing a giant oval over the belly of the dress, which if one is not concave, will make the wearer look like they lost the strap-on pregnancy belly that so obviously goes on that oval. Quack, quack, quack and off we go to see Laura.

Laura interviews that she's surprised herself with how competitive she's become over the course of the show. Oh, yeah. Pull the other one, woman, it has bells on it. Like you weren't competitive before. Then she says the second greatest thing (second to the line of clothes/line of children) which is that she wants to win so badly, if for no other reason than to keep Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo from winning. Except, she leaves out the Pinheaded-Shmoo part.

Laura lives on what looks like an entire floor of a New York City sky scraper. Bitch. It is a gorgeous space and if she wasn't totally my imaginary BFF, I'd hate her for the apartment and all the art in it. One of her personal basketball team tries to hand Tim Gunn a lump of turtle poop. Can we get that on You Tube, yet?

Turtle: $25
Turtle food: $5.
Turtle wading pool: $15.75
The look on Tim Gunn's face: priceless.

Off to the cramped little corner of her spare room, where Laura shows Tim her line. Just as Uli does Uli, Laura does Laura. But my god. It is soooo beautiful and elegant. The grey and chartreuse dress is stunning. I want it. The red, with the bling inside the seam along the skirt slit, so it only shows when the wearer moves is another stunner. Each of her evening/cocktail dresses is more beautiful than the last. Literally. The last dress she shows is so not Laura, that even Tim asks: Is it even pretty? The answer is no. No, it is not pretty. It isn't even acceptable.

Finally they all meet back at Parsons, or their new hotel or someplace in Manhattan. There is much designer love all around, except for, you know, Jeffrey-TPS. They are shown their Macy's supplied workspace, which is about one fifth the size of you know who's warehouse.

Out come the tools, the dresses, the pins, the fangs, and everybody gets to work putting the final, finishing touches on their lines. Everybody except Jeffrey-TPS, who seems to have completed everything down to the last stitch. Even when they get their models and do the final fittings, it seems that the only thing JTPS has to do is smoke cigarettes, twiddle his thumbs and make snotty comments about Laura.

Laura doesn't take kindly to that and takes a peek under the plastic drapes at JTPS's line (which she also notes seems to consist of more than 12 pieces). Surprise, surprise, surprise. Every piece is well made. Much more so than the work he did during the challenges. Michael weighs in on it, too, saying something to the effect of Dawg, when did YOU learn to sew so good? And Laura, pithy to the end, says that you don't pull that kind of workmanship outa yer ass. So she takes it up with Mr. Gunn, and he takes it Very Seriously.

And then, it's over. We're shown a clip of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo crying piteously while Uli pats his narrow little shoulder, and we hear Tim say "Unfortunately..." and then there's something else on my tv.

Is he in? Or out? We don't know. Until next week, keep the scissors sharp.

The Girl Cousin sent me a link, and I was so smitten with what I saw that I wrote to the site owner and asked if I could embed a copy of one of their movies on this site. She was very gracious about saying yes.

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the work of vidlit.com, and their new featured book, Yiddish with George and Laura.

I have said it before, peoples, and I will say it again.

I AM the Geek Goddess. Bow down to my mad skillz.

I fixed the POS Dell before the guys from IT ever got their lazy asses up to my office. Can you say "just needed a new cable?"

I thought you could. Excuse me, but I now have work to do and the means to do it.

By the way, I finished another three quilt tops this week, and am sending out four to my sistergirl for quilting. Stay tuned, because by Halloween, I expect to have the sales area of this site open.

So. My office pc has been off-line since mid-day Friday. Repeated calls to the help desk have gone unanswered. I am only able to get to my office e-mail by virtue of this little e-mac crammed into a spare corner of my work cubicle going through the exchange server.

My boss isn't getting any external e-mail, because it's all bottle-necking in the spam filter. He isn't getting any service from the help desk, either.

My personal e-mail seems to be stuck in some back alley of the internets, and isn't opening either.

The only comments I'm getting on this blog are spam.

I am a very unhappy camper today.