M.N. Mania

my nightmare \'mI - "nīt-ˌmer\ noun, adjective
1: someone (and sometimes, something) who has the ability to produce an immediate allergic feeling of disgust, nausea, anxiety, embarrassment and disdain. Usually, these reactions are produced as a result of my mind not being able to compute or comprehend the person's utter grossness. Most commonly used in acronym form as simply, "M.N."

Many times, I find that I need to create a new word or phrase to describe things that seem to have no convenient or succinct descriptor. These creations are made out of pure necessity and economy of language. One term that I came up with almost a decade ago was "M.N." an abbreviation for "my nightmare." Originally, the term was created to quickly describe men who would now be considered a sub-species of the "hipsters" (now an overused, vague mainstream expression in itself) It actually comes in quite handy as I find that many people qualify as an M.N. in my book.

There are several people who top my Ultimate M.N. List. One of them would be that totally nasty freak from The Black Eyed Peas, Taboo. What is with his flubbery cheek jowls and weird Planet of the Apes sheath hair? Furthermore, he always has to do some horrible thing with his arms and fingers like he is some sort of world music homeboy. As a whole, The Black Eyed Peas and urine-soaked Fergie are just an example of music and style gone horribly, horribly wrong. But I do have to give Taboo (and the name just makes it that much worse...) the prize for being the grossest.

A more recent major M.N. for me is that stupid eyeliner-ed poser puffy babyface, Pete Wentz. Oh my god, when I see pictures of him, I can just feel the vomit rising up my throat. The situation is made worse by the fact that he is going out with Ashlee Simpson, who thinks he is just about the punkest, coolest person on the planet. She herself, while not what I would consider a M.N., is basically a poor man's Avril Lavigne, which is quite devastating considering Avril is a mall kid in a "punk" Halloween costume.

Anyway, Pete Wentz and his oily hair must be a phenomenon that I just do not get. As if his bloated face was not bad enough, he is often posing in the most annoying ways, hands held together in prayer, duck like snarl/grin, shirtless with his repulsive above-groin tattoo exposed. I confess that I have never heard his band, Fall Out Boy's, music but I can guarantee that I will hate it and will send me over the edge. I actually need to stop talking about him because I can feel my face tightening and grimacing.

Laptop Cover

Here we have my first sewing project without a pattern. It's basically a lined envelope with a little polka dot trim that I made as a laptop cover for Chris. He picked out the fabric with a little help from me and I improvised on the quilted padding. The fabric is actually from a really cute Japanese collection called Echino and from what I have seen, most of it is a lightweight canvas with various animal and graphic prints. Well, I was pretty pleased with the end result and hope to fine tune the design, should I decide to make another one.

kibble korner: the original early breakfast

FB here, hi.

A quick memoir of the original early breakfast...

back in my hearst days, when I was working for every meal, you had to get up early to get the good stuff. oh sure, it was good to start with - I mean who wouldn't want an everett and jone's 2-way for breakfast? but if you missed out on that, the choices got slimmer and grimmer.

And there was competition, and it was fierce, I mean there were some real problem kats. they weren't even from the neighbohood you know? but they would just show up, ready to take what was ours. we usually stood down when we met them though, not because we were scared, but kuz we felt sorry for them (the only Breakfast Bin in their neighborhood was behind a southern Indian joint, which, inexplicably, does not cook with meat?!).

So anyway, the point is - the only reason they showed up at all as because there was something for them to show up for, and that's exactly what we eliminated. No sooner had the Everett and Jones Breakfast Bin been closed for the night, we'd have a pair of watchful eyes on it, waiting for the 'sweet spot' to open up. Always between 5:00 - 6:30 AM, the parking lot would quiet down, the sun would start to hint at rising.... and you know the rest.

-FB

Kibble Korner

Who: Faben “Big Fun” Brown
What: Kibble Korner – Musings of a gormandizer.
Where: Here.
When: Sometimes.

Profile: Faben Brown (born approx. 2001-present) was born and raised in Berkeley, California. When she is not looking for her next meal or dumpster diving, she likes to spend some of her free time writing about food and food culture. She has a particular interest in kibble (coarsely ground grain and other ingredients in the form of pellets) but also loves various whole foods. Faben is the former board chair of the Hearst Feral Feline Community Association.

One More Thing...

Someone who works at Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts in Emeryville drives a BRAT!!!

Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts, A Little Slice of Americana

Most of the time, I consider myself rather lucky to have a really great fabric shop (with a not-so-great name) called Stonemountain & Daughter right in my neighborhood that will fulfill most all of my sewing needs. They are independent, have a really current array of quality fabrics and are always keeping their stock fresh. They also have a small pattern section of the store where they have the season's Vogue and Burda selections, among other smaller pattern companies. But what am I to do when I want to get the latest Built By You sewing pattern by Wendy Mullin? Well, I have to drive myself to the hideous Emeryville shopping center which is home to a Men's Wearhouse, a Lens Crafters and a Circuit City among other suburban retail gems. Unfortunately, my destination is no better than any of the aforementioned stores because it happens to be Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts.

If you are not familiar with Jo-Anns it's basically like a fabric and pattern store with a Michael's inside of it. The entire store is a complete mess both figuratively and literally. The women who work there who usually have those sunburst wrinkles around their lips from a lifetime of smoking, look like have been working for 20 days straight and will somehow manage to "help" you in the s-l-o-w-e-s-t manner possible. So, I pray - PRAY that when I finally reach the register (because the line is always long) to make my purchases that there is nothing that does not have a price on it. If there is, the scenario is usually like this: She scans the item. Scans it again. Scans it again. Checks the register, fiddles with some random buttons. Scans it again. Attempts to enter the item manually. Doesn't work. Picks up the phone and calls the other woman at the cutting table, 30 yards away for help. The helper comes shuffling over, slowly, slowly, making her way past the Dora The Explorer flannel and fuchsia sequined stretch fabric. Her feathered mullet looks a little flat and she sighs when she finally reaches the register. She's got a magic set of manager keys and brings up the price of the tag less item. This entire process can take up to 10 minutes and that is a long time.

Anyway, one time I went there for some patterns and sat down at the pattern catalog table at the back of the store to check out the latest designs and sat down to a table of three middle-aged women and an overweight girl of about 8 or 10 years. The girl was with her mom who was sitting next to her as they paged through the Simplicity book together to find a nice outfit for school. It was quiet at the table except for the mad flipping of the pattern book pages and "Man, I Feel Like A Woman!" playing softly in the background. Occasionally, someone would scribble some notes onto the back of a grocery list and the mom would quietly mumble things like, "Hmm, that's nice." or "That might be nice for Spring." to her daughter.

Just as it was becoming uncomfortably quiet, "Brrrt!" - someone farted. It didn't take long to figure out who did it since the mom clucked her tongue in disapproval and glared at her daughter who wordlessly threw up her hands and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Oh well! If I gotta fart, I gotta fart! What are you gonna do?" I sat there wondering why I wanted to both laugh and cry. That's Jo-Anns for you.

Recently, I came across a story about the poor customer service at Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft that was truly, seriously unbelievable and again, made me want to simultaneously laugh and cry. The article details a blow-by-blow account of a Jo-Anns customer in Indiana who is suddenly struck by a bad case of explosive diarrhea. Of course, you must read the entire article to get the full effect of the situation but basically she is repeatedly denied use of the employee bathroom as she begins to soil her pants. Apparently, the CEO of Jo-Anns made a public apology and the private bathroom use policy has been changed to accommodate customers with emergencies. Funny how awkward moments at Jo-Anns stores often seem to involve uncontrollable digestive upset, isn't it?

Well, I am still on the Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft preferred customer mailing list and know that I will have to go back there again for a $1.99 Simplicity pattern special or a 60% off fusible interfacing blowout. Everything about this store - the bad service, slovenly employees, tubes of opened and squirted out puffy paint, selection of fake flowers and so on is so distinctly American that you know the Emeryville Jo-Anns is the same as the one in Decatur, Illinois. God bless America!

These Things For Real

Ok, I am going to start with a recommendation for an online puzzle site. I had been crying and dying since my favorite Paint-By-Numbers (aka nonograms) site had suddenly disappeared - then I stumbled upon (or rather desperately searched for) another logic puzzle site. Luckily, I found my savior - Conceptis Puzzles.

If you like tedious puzzles that create weird little scenes and involve grids and numbers, then this is for you. They also feature regular (and crazy) sudoku as well. My only complaint would be that they don't release enough new puzzles every week. But I suppose that I should be happy that someone maintains this so well and that it's all free. My current fave is Link-A-Pix.

I could play this all day long. These puzzles are definitely not for people who enjoy action games. Rather, they are for people who like to make their beds with hospital corners and untagle large balls of yarn.

If you want to be REALLY boring you can print out the dot-to-dot pictures which I actually think are pretty cool.