This is my sock puppet Miss Maggie.  I co-teach a Puppet Theater class to children during the summer and thought it would be nice to share this project with others.

Basic Materials needed:

• One long, elbow length, patterned sock
• A 6″x8″ piece of cardboard or poster board (an old cereal box is suitable)
• Wiggle eyes
• Felt
• Yarn
• Old wine cork
• Glue Gun and glue sticks
• Sharpie or chalk

Step 1:  Position the long sock so that the heel is is face down, and the sock is laying flat in the shape of a long rectangle.
Step 2:  Draw a curved line with dark marker or chalk(depending on the color of your sock) under the sewn part of the toe of the sock.  Cut along the curved line through both layers of the sock.  This should leave you with a cutout in the sock that will roughly match the arch of your hand.
Step 3: On cardboard or poster board draw an oval that is 3 1/2″x5″.  Cut out the oval.   On pink felt trace around the oval so it is slightly larger than the cardboard cutout.  Fold the cardboard shape in half and with hot glue adhere the  oval cutout along the inside opening you cut out by the toe of the sock.
Step 4:  Once the glue has dried glue the pink felt mouth shape to the cardboard mouth shape, completely covering the cardboard.
Step 5:  Begin decorating your puppet!!!  Place your hand and arm into the sock first, so you can see where to design the face.  The heel of the sock should be on the top of your wrist, otherwise it will look like your puppet has a sagging neck. 

Miscellaneous Tips:

It’s good to think of character traits before beginning your puppet so the features match the personality.  My puppet is a horse, very girlie, and quirky, maybe even a bit nerdy.   Can you find the visual clues on my puppet that describe those traits of her personality?

• To create the eyes I cut  1/4″ pieces off a wine cork.  This works great in helping the eyes stand up.  You could also use cotton balls or pom poms.
• Use felt, yarn, or even hair extensions to create hair for your puppet.
• Add a tongue or teeth to your puppet.  If you create a shark maybe your teeth should be sharp!

Felt may also be used to create ears on your puppet.  If you want the ears of your puppet to stand up straight, glue a piece of cardboard between two pieces of felt in the shape of the puppets ears.

That’s it!  Hope this was helpful and have a great time with your new friend!!!

Some interesting things I noticed in today’s blog searching…

There’s always the random weird hits of course, completely unrelated.  But the one topping the list today caught my eye.  snazzy_bagels is checking out my blog now?  True, I mentioned her in this post, but only referring to a few posts she’d made in goms_sux; the focus was on certain individuals’ replies to said posts (certain individuals who, no longer being a part of milfs, shall remain henceforth nameless and unmentioned).  Anyway, I didn’t say anything bad about snazzy_bagels, I don’t think… but what strikes me curious here is here she is checking into my blog, quite out of the blue, searching her own username, and is a friend of that previously mentioned unnamed former milf.  What’s curious about that, of course, is that there are, within amputee_milfs, a number of sock puppets.  Could one, in fact, be Ms. snazzy_bagels?  This bears investigating.

I mean, it could just be the obvious explanation, but that’s never any fun.  The great thing about the lack of any reliable communication I get from the milfs is that I am entirely free to draw my own conclusions, and act upon them, regardless of what they may be.  I’m not limited by things as trivial as Terms of Service agreements, or reality.

Another unrelated, but kinda cool point about snazzy_bagels… she and I share a birthday  Of course, she was born the day I turned 15, but the same day, anyway.  So I can add her to my list of people I know of that share my birthday.  And, sorry snazzy_bagels, but Eminem is still my favorite.

And you see that other search?  ”yummy tasty meat”?  Undoubtedly milfs, since, as we know, none of them can resist the BLT meat.  *sigh*  Very well, dears, here it is, yet again.  Fap to your heart’s content.  I’m not shy.  I know you’ve all drooled all over pics of it.  108 posts and 4000 comments worth of drool… heheh.

Also interesting… I got a number of hits today from Facebook.  That’s interesting because I don’t have a link to this blog on my Facebook account.

Apparently, though… somebody does…

“I really don’t care if you read my site or not.”

But really I really do.

Anyway I have created a sock puppet.

He supports my world view. 

He appreciates the phenomenal amount of hard work I put into this site.

He thinks my commentry is spot on and ethically sound.

Thanks socky.

No thank you for being such a great guy.

Schucks!

I don’t know what any of this means, but Will Ferrell supposedly is one of the top totally overpaid actors according to Forbes Magazine:

Ferrell took first place largely due to the flop of his summer 2009 movie “Land of the Lost”, which Forbes said cost an estimated $100 million to make but earned just $65 million at box offices worldwide for movie studio Universal Pictures.

The movie followed a disappointing $43 million box office for Ferrell’s 2008 outing “Semi-Pro”, and $128 million for “Step Brothers”.

Using a formula that calculated the actor’s estimated salary on each film, including DVD and TV sales, compared to the film’s revenues from theater box offices and elsewhere, Forbes.com said that for every dollar Ferrell was paid, his films earned an average $3.29.

All I know is the guy makes me laugh. He just has to run down the street in his underwear and for me, that equals serious chuckles. Personally, I would rather run down the street in an green neon jumpsuit being chased by overgrown chickens…that’s what makes the kids laugh nowadays. Believe me, I know entertainment. Give me a sock puppet, a bunch of bananas and some lighter fluid…today’s audience likes that element of danger mixed in with their comedy. That’s why I’m also challenging Chris Angel to a street fight…but he has to be blindfolded so he can’t use that mind freak stuff…also, he has to be strapped to a chair…that seems fair.

If you don’t know who the noted sock-puppeteer Glenn Greenwald is, imagine the most anal-retentive know-it-all dickbag from your high school years, add a boatload of smugness, multiply that by a heaping shovelful of arrogance and you still won’t come up to the towering jackassery that is Glenn Greenwald.

In any case, Patterico takes the dizzying intellect that is Glenn Greenwald out to the woodshed.  Much fun to be had.  Just figured I would point it out to ya’all just in case you were in the mood to see a liberal get his intellectual clock cleaned.

…I’m coming back. I’m getting something together and am hoping it will be just the right blend of sarcasm, dim wit, and judgment. That last part may be me judging someone or you judging me. More than likely it will be you judging me as I just give everyone around me side-eye. Side-eye and duckface…that’s a really good combo.

By the way, even though Gavin is on the brink of turning 10 he asked me today if I’ve ever had a “monia.” Should I have corrected him to pronounce it “pneumonia?” Maybe. But he still sounds little when he mispronounces words, so it’s staying. Here are some words Gavin used to mispronounce but has now mastered, to my dismay.

Madgie = Mommy
Toss = Tom
Togey = Toby
Scabetti = Spaghetti
Ooh, bey bey. Whaddya gonna do, whaddya gonna do? = Gavin’s theme song
binky = blanket, but not Michael Jackson’s blanket
pinger = finger
peelings = feelings
yittow = little
yeg = leg
shuwa = sure

When Gavin was “yittle” he would take my camera around the house and take random pictures. Random as in things he liked and were on his level, not pictures of his junk. Here’s his primary collection:

Meet Sock Puppet. I didn't even KNOW he was into making friends with socks.

Gavin's sweet, sweet dollar bill. He will make a great banker one day...or loan shark.

Oh look. It's Sock Puppet again. Just hangin' out.

Gavin & Togey

I have English homework I really should be doing, but as I’ve hit my semiweekly massive failure in motivation, instead you shall get the Glorious Return of the Perpetual Dissent Abridged Sock Puppet Company, in a series of short sketches for your entertainment, amusement, or annoyance (wait, why are you even reading my blog then?)

Puppet 1: Public healthcare is socialism! If we allow it, then what’s to stop us sliding into anarchy, or worse, COMMUNISM?!?!

PD: Hey, have you heard of Scandinavia?

Puppet 1: Are they godless heathens?

PD: Happily, many are. They’re also pretty much socialist. They also have the highest standards of living and happiness on almost every major scale.

Puppet 2: But they have given up their freedom! Freedom is more important than quality of life, you foolish librul!

PD: Well, ok. But on most measures they’re also more free than we are!

Puppet 2: This is madness!

PD: This! Is! Reality! *kicks puppet down a hole the Spartans randomly have right there*

***

Puppet 1: Do your homework!

PD: But…I don’t need to, I know the stuff without the homew-

Puppet 1: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

PD: Fine, fine, jeez. *does mediocre job on homework he doesn’t need*

Puppet 1: You have so much ability! Why is your work so poor?!

PD: …because I could skip it entirely and still get a 90 in this class?

Puppet 1: DISRESPECTFUL!

PD: Calling an easy class easy is disrespectful?

Puppet 1: *tirade involving words like “proper deference,” “work ethic,” “courtesy,” “AP,” and “adequate services.”*

PD: Could you define “adequate” for me, please?

Puppet 1: Sufficient.

PD: So if you were payed just above a living wage, that’d be fine, right? After all, it’s “sufficient.”

Puppet 1: DIFFERENT SITUATIONS!

PD: Yes, in this one you’re the one getting screwed -.- Oh look, the bell. Too bad I was the only one able to finish this essay, and still found time to argue with you. Have fun trying to find an excuse to fail me…

***

Puppet 1: Why do you not have straight A’s?

PD: Because I can barely stay awake during half my classes?

Puppet 2: So you disrespect your teachers?!

PD: No, they just have easy classes…

Puppet 1: This is high school, it Matters! You need to make sure you get into a good college so you’re less bored!

PD: Just like how much fun high school was going to be? And just like how middle school would definitely be so much harder than elementary school?

Puppet 2: You are Closing Doors!

PD: I’m also avoiding complete mental pillaging occurring on my brain by Genghis School and his Boredom Horde.

Puppets 1 and 2: BAD CHILD YOU WILL CARE!

PD: *sigh* will you stop yelling so I can finish the homework I was working on when you started? Thanks. Bye.

ETA: She privated her journal (said she was getting “creeped out” for some reason) so I fixed the links so you can still read the referred posts)

I’m going to show you something interesting.

Read THIS.

Now, what did we learn (aside from the fact that useyourwords has an immature, egocentric, and staggeringly sexist view of relationships)?

We learned that she has 3 older sisters.

And that she’s 21 years old, which, with a little math, gives us an accurate year of birth.

These, you see, are the little tidbits that get filed away for future reference.  One never knows when such things will come in handy.

ETA:  The thing that makes this post even funnier and even more ironic is useyourwords‘ next public post, HERE, in which she discusses how to keep one’s private information safe online.  Something which I already covered, in a much more practical and useful manner, early on in this blog.  Obviously useyourwords did not read those posts…

I’m sorry, T, but you’re just not as good at this sort of thing as you think… stop dolling out advice you can’t follow.  At least, if you phrased these helpful entries more like “in my own opinion” instead of the self-righteous “this is what I think so this is how it should be” tone they have, you wouldn’t come off like such a goddamn cunt all the time.

Wait, look who I’m talking to.  Telling a milf not to act like a cunt is about as useful as telling a tree to stop being made of wood.

But, allow me to helpfully expand on your advice.  Take Facebook, for instance.  By default, a private Facebook profile is still going to show your name, your profile photo, your friends, and your networks.  How is this useful?  Suppose, hypothetically, you’re keeping a keen eye on someone online.  But, alas, their Facebook is private, and you don’t feel you have much chance of sock puppeting your way onto their friends list.  Did you know that, unless you adjust the settings, people in the same networks as you can see almost as much information from your profile and posts as if they were on your friends list?  Indeed.  Handy little piece of info there.

Look at my Facebook.  Notice the fact that you see nothing (unless, of course, you’re on my friends list).  You don’t see my friends, my networks, or even my profile picture.  People in my networks who are not on my friends list also see absolutely nothing.  Additionally, if you go browsing the friends list of one of my friends, you won’t even see me there.

Now that’s how to keep a Facebook safe.  Just a private profile isn’t enough, you still leak info all over the place.

And for god’s sake, don’t use your real name.  Do you have any idea how many amputee_milfs gave up their real names via their Facebooks?  It’s just staggering…

The Most Feared Man in America?

The Piss-Stream Media sock-puppets love having Charlie Sheen on their “news” shows (for the ratings), let him talk for 10 or 20 seconds, interrupt him, cut him off, have a chuckle, ridicule him, and shake their heads as if they’re so indulgent for having “let the lunatic spout off.”

But they have no response when he asks the O’Reillys and Blitzers and Hannitys for a proper televised debate (in a $how that would be guaranteed to $ma$h rating$ record$) on the following 20 points (that Sheen wishes the puppet president would respond to):

1. On the FBI’s most wanted list Osama Bin Laden is not charged with the crimes of 911. When I called the FBI to ask them why this was the case, they replied: “There’s not enough evidence to link Bin Laden to the crime scene,” I later discovered he had never even been indicted by the D.O.J.
2. FBI translator Sibel Edmonds was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July, 2009, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.
3. The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.” WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, the answer to this question remains unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.
4. In April 2004, USA Today reported, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the targets was the World Trade Center.
5. On September 12th 2007, CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, reported that the mysterious “white plane” spotted and videotaped by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the White House shortly before 10am on the morning of 9/11, was in fact the Air Force’s E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit; otherwise known as “The Doomsday Plane”. Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.
6. Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph, they could still have defended the skies over Washington well before 9am, more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, however, they did not return until after 9:55am. Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off on the morning of 9/11.
7. WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.
8. Flight 93 is fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03am. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down order at 10:10-10:20am and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes after Flight 93 has crashed. Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on 9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military operation.
9. Scores of mainstream news outlets reported that the F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11 hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.
10. In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone. As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”
11. Hundreds of eye witnesses including first responders, fire captains, news reporters, and police, all described multiple explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.
12. An astounding video uncovered from the archives shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their tapes from 9/11 had been “lost” before admitting that they made the “error” of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened without adequately explaining how they could have obtained advance knowledge of the event. In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm, CNN’s Aaron Brown reported that the building “has either collapsed, or is collapsing.”
13. Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife Barbara Olsen called him twice from Flight 77, describing hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11 story. However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined after Olsen kept changing his story about whether his wife used her cell phone or the airplane phone. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have airplane phones on board. According to the FBI, Barbara Olsen attempted to call her husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore Olsen must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife from Flight 77.
14. The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.
15. What is the meaning behind the following quote attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11 Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. “During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, “The plane is 50 miles out.” “The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to “the plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the Vice President, “Do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?”” As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders were to let the plane find its target?
16. In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush administration was refusing to release a 900-page congressional report on 9/11 because it wanted to “avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report,” particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings as well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight schools.
17. Top Pentagon officials cancelled their scheduled flights for September 11th on September 10th. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, following a security warning, cancelled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the morning of 9/11.
18. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time.
19. On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath. They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of “state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the public domain.
20. A few days after the attack, several newspapers as well as the FBI reported that a paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August 2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s visa was found in the remains of Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Who’s laughing now?

Christine and I go way back to the beginning of The Cheek of God. Her own blog, Flutter, was one of the first I ever read, and with her entry for the “Just A Little Crazy” series, she continues to inspire me . Be sure to visit the new Crazy! page to read previous entries in this series . . .

I can sing.

No, really I can.

The problem is, while I can sing, and well, I get immensely embarrassed when someone asks me to. About a year ago, someone asked me to sing on my blog. I did, but I was so shy for someone to see the absolutely mental faces I imagine that I make when I sing, that I made a sock puppet to sing for me. Out of a cashmere sock. And dreadlocks.

Oy.

So, there is a voice, hidden beneath a cashmere sock, just dying to be heard. When I was 19 I decided it was time for the world to hear it. I got a ginormous hair up my arse to audition for Star Search. Star. Search.

Ed McMahon.

Cheesy stage lights.

Copious amounts of make-up.

Bad, bad BAD costuming and enough pre-teen squeaky Whitney Houston wannabes to choke a moderately sized horse. Maybe even a big horse, although I haven’t done the calculations as to how big of a tween star it would take to bung up a Clydesdale. Not that you’d need to worry about a tween star being born purely Star Search.

For which I made my friend Jenny drive me to L.A., singing Madonna no fewer than 7034 times. She was a trooper, but to my credit I was on FIRE. Seriously? A 19-year-old white girl, wearing denim shorts, a button down denim shirt (of precisely matched washes) more hairspray than a southern girl’s wedding, and the reddest lipstick allowable by law, singing Madonna, with an entire verse en espanol? SO cross cultural. So fabulous.

[/end sarcasm]

We walked in to the auditorium where auditions were being held and without the benefit of my name or intent, I was given a number to wear when I reached the stage. I sat, watching a group of 6 girls, 3 guys, 2 dogs and a small Volvo do a rousing juggling routine, during which one of the dogs decided to crap onstage.

I shit you not (insert rimshot here).

Said shit was not yet removed, three excruciating acts later, when my number was called. I handed over my background music and took my very denim self up and positioned myself behind the mic. Then, I looked up. Ed McMahon (God rest his soul) was at the judge’s table, drinking coffee and picking his nose (so totally not speaking ill of the dead! It happened!). Literally. With his pinky. I took this to mean he was bored and I better hurry the hell up.

I waited for the music to start and opened my mouth, fully expected a belch, a crack or an “um” to betray my nerves. But, none of that happened. My voice, strong and true and beautiful came spilling out of me. Perfect in pitch and intensity, I rocked it. Until I reached one line.

I should have sang, “Te dijo, te amo”. Which means, “He told me, I love you”. What I sang was “Te dijo, me amo”, which means “He told me, I love me.”

Every Spanish-speaking person in the audience burst into applause and laughter.

Mortification grabbed me by my fallopian and yanked me off the stage, down the hallway and out to Jenny’s car. I didn’t wait to give them my name, I didn’t wait to get my tape of background music. I didn’t wait to get judge’s comments. I just hauled ass. I was at once thrilled with my nerve and mortified with my gaff.

Jenny and I drove home, me barely containing tears and her afraid to tell me that the judges thought I was great and had asked who I was. But it didn’t matter.

For three minutes, I moved. For three minutes, I shook. For three minutes, I let a room full of people see me . . . and I was a Spanish-challenged rock star. For three minutes, I dropped my chains and let the world hear my voice.

I’ve been dying to get back there ever since.

My birthday was a very simple, homebodyish, filial day, but still was very very pleasant.  My dad was on a business trip in Atlanta with the heads of the CDC – something really important about health care reform, I was 100% behind him – so it was just my mom and me.  We went to Sawyer’s, a local pancake place, then the Michigan History Museum, then we went by Joanne’s and got materials for me to make a lesbian sock puppet for a friend of mine.  I haven’t told my mom the sock puppet is a lesbian.  I think Regina (pronounced to rhyme with vagina) will have to come out for herself.

I dropped my moldy coat off at Baryames Cleaners.  Then home.  My mom gave me a green iPod nano in a little embroidered case made of peridot sweater felt she did herself.  We laughed about everything.  It was the best day I’ve had with her in a long time.  I remember an episode of This American Life, I think, where they talk about how all families have their own internal dynamic, and they mentioned one where the family was funny all the time, the son joked with the dad even during arguments.  I never realized that ours is really a little like that sometimes.

I promptly took the iPod downstairs and put music and photos and podcasts on it – I’ve never had an iPod that did photos before, or at least that I knew about; and I don’t know why, but I felt like the pictures to have on there were the skeevy ones from tumblr.  Not pictures of people fucking, but pictures of women with grimy feet, loose pants, deep beautiful chests, men with veiny hands and dark eyes.  Watched the L Word and relaxed.  We had faro pie, mashed potatoes, and asparagus for dinner, and it was delicious; she made cake with vegan icing, and we discussed how bad and great vegan cake icing is.

My dad called and told me where the guitar he bought me was.  Bascially, it’s good.  It’s a guitar that someone who actually knows how to play should have.  A brand name that everyone but me seems to know.  I can make clicking noises.  I don’t know.  I’m excited, but I really don’t process gifts the way I’m supposed to.  I just matter-of-factly start to imagine what lifestyle changes my new possession will cause.  I’m grateful, of course – I mean, expensive shit, I don’t even know where to begin – but whenever I’ve had to act out my gratitude, that’s really what it is.  An act.  I don’t have the natural faculty for getting excited at times like that.  It’s probably low self-esteem.

Today, my mom left in the morning, so I put together Regina.  Regina the lesbian sock puppet has red felt lips and red felt acne/freckles.  Her dress is made of a couple inches of sleeve from each side of a dress I have that’s very gay, a kind of baggy, fake batik thing, and it barely covers her erumpent breasts and butt, which are both made of giant cotton pom-poms.  I mean way big cotton pom-poms.  She also has very large googly eyes, and I made her dreadlocks and pit hair out of $1.99 of “craft fur.”  The dreadlocks are pulled back in an orange scarf made of the shirt hem of a very sad doll of confused but fakey ethnicity I got in the free bin at a garage sale.  I was going to glue a pubic triangle onto her front, but when I did it just looked unnatural, plus I had to keep pushing her right buttpom around so it wouldn’t pop out of her dress, and every time I did the pubes would pop out.  I also baked her an acoustic guitar out of Sculpey.  I feel like I’m crafting myself a little Doppelganger.

I tried to apply myself to schoolwork after that.  I can’t remember whether or not I wrote a full page on Anna Karenina, but I at least got started.  Then I got out Harper’s magazine and thought about doing the one where I read an article and all that, but I didn’t.  Instead I painted a beautiful castle into the painting I thought about calling “Memorious” (but that doesn’t fit).  So I’ll work furiously after hanging out with my she-friend and her guitar tomorrow.  That’s what I did next.  I talked to her on Gmail chat, she lives just a couple blocks away, I’ll walk to her house at eleven tomorrow and we’ll sit around on her porch, me with my guitar I don’t deserve and my two chords I know, and her with her actual relative skill.

Left to do: finish AK writeup, read and write up an article from Harper’s (ugh), finish The Worst Hard Time, do nothing, note-take on The American Pageant. Sounds like a lot strung together, and I do kind of have to hurry, but I believe I’ll breeze through it.  What I’m worried about is college apps this year, making it sound good and doing it fast enough, and pre-cal and physics.  Ohgod.

I’m going to give up Facebook.  Left a status message and filled in some contact information, not going back on all year.  I hereby resolve.  So help me webofinterdependentlife.

My parents are arguing about money.  I wish they’d stretched their pockets sixteen years ago, buying a house with thicker walls.

As the taping of the 10th anniversary show of Good Eats is tonight in Atlanta—and I am currently in my home in Texas—I am reluctantly forced to concede that I did not win the contest. I’m startled at the uncharacteristic lack of good taste on the part of the Food Network, but I can only assume the judge in question had his/her reasons. (However misguided they undoubtedly were.)

I’m not bitter. No really, I’m not. Although it would have been amazing to go meet Alton Brown and be part of this special occasion, life will go on. Having the time at home allowed me to do battle with the trumpet vine on my back fence (and the myriad buzzing bees that live in it), finally go grocery shopping, and spend 4 hours decorating a cake for a Sunday School birthday party tomorrow. I also prepared a most beautiful and delicious lemon rosemary roasted chicken dinner. I know—my social life is the stuff legends are made of. It’s been a good—if quiet—day. Some days are like that. And, to quote that noted philosopher, Scarlett O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day.”

My fan club

School’s starting around the country once again, and that means that all the AP pushing College Board minio…er, educators with an eye on college prep are back to pushing students into AP classes. The goal is, of course, to force students to Rise To Meet The Challenge and Unlock Their Hidden Potential. Excuse me for a moment while I go burn Micky Mouse in effigy.

All right, Micky Mouse is dead. Now, on to the question, why do so many educators suffer from Acute Disney Syndrome? Do teachers spend their summers strapped to a chair somewhere in a dark room watching Miracle?

The problem would be easily explained if we were talking only about elementary school teachers (the sort of teachers who want to teach elementary school kids are the same people as the ones who love the happy feel good underdog stories), but the one’s to whom I’m referring are neither in elementary schools nor teachers. They are a diverse group, ranging from education columnists to principals and department supervisors. They are in districts as different as the DC schools and upper middle class suburban districts.

Self interest (“My school is higher in Newsweek than theirs!”) really doesn’t adequately explain it, either. It appears to be a strange mix of self interest, delusion (they actually believe that the average kid just needs a challenge to turn into a wonderful scholar), and the truly bizarre educational culture in the United States (“I believe that evwywon is gifted!”) coming together in a sort of perfect storm of bad educational theory.

.

Here to illustrate the complexities of the situation, I give you the Perpetual Dissent Abridged Sock Puppet Company in their second performance.

Perpetual Dissent puppet: So what makes you think that pushing underachieving students into college level classes will make them perform better?

Administrator puppet #1: You’ve said it yourself! Putting gifted students in college classes helps them learn better!

PD: But most students aren’t gifted stude…

Puppet #1: EVERYONE is gifted! Everyone is unique and special and wonderful and amazing and important and significant!

PD: …do you even know what “gifted” means?

Puppet #1: It means that they deserve decent treatment!

PD: Yeah, um, no. Are you sure you got a degree in education?

Puppet #1: Yep,  that’s where I learned all this!

PD: Oh god why?

Administrator puppet #2: He’s dumb. But I’m smart, so here’s why everyone should do APs! See, if everyone does APs, then we get higher in Newsweek. And if we’re higher in Newsweek, then more people move here and pay taxes, and I get a pay raise. And if I get a pay raise, then I can go out to Vegas and…wait, what were we talking about?

PD: *blinks*

Administrator puppet #3: Admit it, Disney is true! Everyone just needs a push to unlock their hidden potential! Everyone’s just waiting to rise to meet The Challenge!

PD: Was the lobotomy painful?

*At this point the Puppet Theater was interrupted as Disney Commandos (Donald Duck knows how to use an M16, who would have guessed?) swung in through the windows and dragged puppet #3 from the room for violating their trademarks on “unlocking hidden potential” and “rise to meet the challenge.” We will mourn his loss. He was a good puppet.*

I know I’ve been focused on amputee_milfs a lot here (cuz they’re sloppy-cunted bitches), but let’s turn a brief eye over to goms_sux for a moment, just to see how good these people (I use that term loosely) are at following their own rules.

Now, there’s been this “no Starla and no Thorn” rule over in goms_sux for a bit.  Problem is, they don’t address past posts, just current ones.  They don’t bother deleting ones that people with 4-second attention spans have forgotten about.  I was browsing goms_sux earlier this evening and came across:

http://community.livejournal.com/goms_sux/17147.html, in which whereinchicago quotes Starla’s blog.

http://community.livejournal.com/goms_sux/18319.html, a “Starla is full of shit” post by richey

http://community.livejournal.com/goms_sux/20005.html a post by intarwebpolice requesting everyone post their favorite Starla “art” (we’re coming back to this a second)

http://community.livejournal.com/goms_sux/39318.html by chairmanbetty, the post where they all try to convince themselves I didn’t just destroy their community

and http://community.livejournal.com/goms_sux/53444.html by atelan asking about my “I’m really Starla” joke.

Oh, and yes, I know they’re all locked.  You need to be in the community to see these.  Good luck on that, btw.  It’s pretty much locked up as tightly as milfs now.  Only us members get to see what’s happening.

There’s been references since, of course, warning about not mentioning me, then more posts about me, and so and so forth.  Even more Starla mentions.  Some subtle, some not-so-subtle, which I’ve referenced elsewhere in this blog, or you can find caps on various ED pages.

Now, the supposed “no Thorn” rule in amputee_milfs?

Check this out.  In that intarwebpolice post, one of the pics posted is this one (caution: nudity), posted, naturally, by one of the milfs.  Now, just recently, on a photo-hosting website, I came across this pic (again, caution: nudity).  Uploaded just a few days ago.  Funny… exact same sense of humor, and referencing… me.

No real point here, just pointing out more fail, the failure to follow one’s own rules.  Yes, I’ve required a blog this size to catalog all the fail of the milfs.  And there’s really so much more…

It’s redundant.  I’ve beaten them to death… well.  Not quite yet.  How… depressing… (heheh)

OH.  I should mention how I have come to be a member of goms_sux, since it’s so exclusive now.  It’s actually quite delicious.  Remember the thing I did with the boozecruiseee sock?  She deleted her journal, I waited til it purged, then made a duplicate journal with the same name that they let right into the communities?  Well.  What if… what if, someone who was a member of getoffmyspace and goms_sux, who was actually sympathetic to a guy with a dead child who’d been stalked unmercifully (can’t imagine), decided enough was enough and simply gave him their account?  Wouldn’t that be cool?

Of course, the real question to ask here is… how many members of amputee_milfs were on their friends list?  That is to say, how many milfs are now showing me their friends-only posts?

I don’t know how many times I have to say it… the Thorn has eyes everywhere….

Now I'm worried...

Good Eats is not your average cooking show. Yes, the host (the aforementioned Alton Brown) does cook. He also explains the science of cooking in a fun and creative way, utilizing such visual aids as a giant tongue, a male crew member dressed as a little Swiss girl (pigtails and all—it’s pretty scary), and the occasional sock puppet. In a show about using yeast, Alton explained that activated yeast molecules produce gas. To highlight this, he was surrounded by little sock friends burping their knitted heads off. Maybe you just had to be there…but every time I make bread or any baked good that calls for yeast, I think of those burping sock puppets. (Here, you can see it for yourself. But promise to come back, OK?)

It’s true I am a huge fan of Alton’s but I didn’t spend the better part of a week—off and on—designing and creating sock puppets just for fun. It’s part of my cunning plan to win a Food Network contest and attend the 10th Anniversary taping of Good Eats, plus attend the VIP after party and actually be in the presence of the great man himself. They’re choosing 6 winners, so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you to look here for contest rules and regs. The deadline is August 7, so you’d better hurry.

I would mention how much I want to win this contest, but you’d get bored reading all that “really, really, really, really…” so just think back to what it was like being a 17-year-old waiting for your crush to ask you to prom and you’ll get a feel for my emotional state. Not that I actually did that; my crush at 17 was a grown-up musician who didn’t live in my town and wasn’t going to my prom regardless…but I digress.

Back to the contest: I realize my odds of winning are slim, despite the charms of my googley-eyed supporting cast. There was a time I wouldn’t even have entered, assuming that it wasn’t worth the trouble, that the disappointment would be too great, that I was doomed to fail . . . but now I think “So what?” So what if I don’t get a trip to Atlanta, so what if I don’t get to meet my food “idol”, so what if I just look silly on the Food Network Web site for all the world to see? Sometimes you just have to go for it. It cost me about $6 and several hours’ work. It might get me nothing; it might get me the trip of a lifetime. I’ll let you know.

If nothing else, I now have a family of sock puppets to do something with. I’m thinking costumes for Halloween, caroler outfits for Christmas, bunny ears for Easter . . . this may turn into a whole new trend in seasonal decorating!

I received this email today:

Hi!

Love your blog and wish to remain anynomous, if that’s okay.

You’ll love this one. This shop, PenelopeG2, is in the voter this week. She’s in second place, as of this writing, with 155 votes. Second place, mind you, but not one single item heart. Imagine that!!

Everytime flapperdoodle moves ahead by 10-plus votes, PenelopeG2 moves just to within a few votes of her… within a matter of minutes. This has been a consistent pattern all week, since this round of voting began. Probably so she can keep the pace and cross the finish line in the final minutes??

It gets better- Zero hearts on her popular item. Check out her feedback from buyers- minharda buys from PenelopeG2 on July 6, 2009 and leaves feedback July 7, 2009. Here’s the feedback she left: “I gave this as a birthday gift to a girlfriend and she loved it….I think these pieces are unique and universal and very stylish.”
Can you say express mail??!
The next day, July 8, minharda makes two more purchases and leaves feedback July 21, the same day the other buyer, Hgerryts, did. Neither buyers have bought from any other shop.

And it still gets better! In the etsy storque article about this voter, there is a comment that says “wow, love PenelopeG2’s stuff – definitely on my wish list!” written by “dianadiva008″ — guess when she started her account? July 21st!! http://www.etsy.com/storque/etc/vote-who-has-the-freshest-shop-4406/ (scroll a way down to find the comment)
Dianadiva008n loves PenelopeG2 so much that she doesn’t bother to heart her shop, or her items. In fact, she hardly has any item hearts on anything. Now, wouldn’t you heart someone whose shop you love so much?
About 10 of us have been watching the voting pattern all week- it is amazing how, when flapperdoodle moves ahead by 10 or more votes, Penelope manages to close the gap.
While I think she makes her necklaces, some of her bracelets are mass produced.

Sock puppet’s for sure… I hope you will look into this and post something before voting ends at 10 am Monday.

Please, please!!

Many have been following the recent “IP addresses” thread on expatexposed.com

It’s stirred up a lot of controversy and a number of people have contacted Nanotide with information. They have asked for their comments not to be published so what follows is a digest of their information:-

• If posters’ IP addresses are made public on every post their privacy could be protected by removing the last octet.

• Sock puppeting and/or trolling has been happening ever since Expatexposed hit the headlines and television screens of New Zealand.

• A number of people have been directly affected by the actions of sock puppets and/or trolls on the site.

• A  significant number of people (names are withheld) have had information about their personal lives published on the site by sock puppets and/or trolls.

• Those personal details have been allowed to remain on the forum. Some aggrieved parties made requests to have their personal information removed but were told ‘No.’

• A number of people have made complaints to the site’s administrators/moderators about sock puppeting and/or trolling and have been told to mind their own business it wasn’t their job to troll hunt – Hula posted on the site ” This has been a problem in the past and when I pointed it out then I got slapped around the legs for it and told it was admins problem, not mine, and I wasnt to start a bunfight. Thats why I am stepping back, counting to 10 and doing what I was told.isn’t the only one to have experienced this and be turned away.” Information received by nanotide supports her evidence 100% ,  Hula you are not alone.

• Monitoring IP addresses alone will not pick up all sock puppeting and/or trolling. Posters use multiple IP accounts, anonymizers, CGI proxies (such as the one named by Butterfly) work/home accounts etc. Most private IP addresses are not static, broadband modems will assign a different IP address with every re-boot.

• Each member’s profile should show how many accounts that person holds.

• Sock puppets/trolls have blatantly abused the moderation system to support their compatriots and to discourage their dissenters and this has gone unchallenged by the moderator/s

• Sock puppets/trolls use the site to promote businesses.

If anyone would like to comment further please do so, all replies will be handled in strict confidence.

My first post was very very sad, and that isn’t the best thing for a first post to be.

So, let’s go on to something more cheerful.

I spent last spring break in New York City, which was a wonderful experience – much shopping and eating – and while there I happened to encounter a very strange and interesting individual. My aunt and I had wandered into Union Square in search of buttons, and found instead Marty Allen.

Marty is in the business of sock puppet portraits.

(Pictured left to right: Zephyr Speculex, Harold Speculex, and Glumf Speculex.)

I couldn’t resist and bought three to bring back to friends at home. If you can’t get to New York, they’re also available for purchase on his website (www.martystuff.com) along with music from the sock puppet rock band.