L's Handy Guide to Repainting Bathrooms

According to top experts, the average bathroom remodeling project costs $15,994.21 and results in an increase in home value of about $101.23 after causing depression, exhaustion, bruises, crushed fingers, mental scarring, hair loss, migraines, heartache, broken limbs, broken relationships and the occasional loss of life.

So, it is not a project to be undertaken lightly. However, with L's Handy Guide to Repainting Bathrooms, you too may have the bathing experience of your dreams without the pain and expense of breaking into Donald Trump's house.

When planning to repaint your bathroom, it is necessary to start with the proper supplies

1. Organize a checklist of the items you'll need, as well as the tasks that will be required, but make sure to promptly lose track of where you've placed it. If you aren't the forgetful sort, make sure to feed it to your dog.

2. Make a trip to Home Depot to purchase paint brushes and sandpaper, but spend two hours looking at various shades of blue, all of which look exactly alike. Buy a questionable hot dog from the vendor outside and then forget the sandpaper.

3. Return home and realize that existing paint must be sanded off

4. Return to Home Depot to purchase paint scrapers and sandpaper, but don't forget to buy the wrong type of primer.

5. Return home to begin sanding and scraping paint until very large piles of paint chips and dust are formed (no less than 3 inches deep); these may be strategically placed throughout all your rooms as a sign of good luck, and tripping over various piles will ensure that your entire house has nice, even coverage.

6. After picking paint chips out of your dinner and your hair every night for several days, borrow your great aunt's 55 pound power sander from 1963 in order to disperse a very fine mist of hazardous dust throughout your ventilation system as well as the entire neighborhood.

7. Accidentally knock several holes in plaster while scratching your nose and sneezing then accidentally continue project into hallway

8. Discover extensive termite damage after chipping floor tiles with a dropped paint bucket. Spackle over five foot long cracks in shower wall while crossing fingers and humming "I Fought the Law and the Law Won"

9. Discover that previous owner painted over cardboard instead of drywall behind the sink, which has caused water damage to the termite damaged cracks. Spackle over cardboard and holes and termite damaged cracks and any ants that may have wandered out.

10. Don't forget to spackle some more and then spackle when you're done with that.

11. Spackle for good measure

12. Prime one wall and take a break for three weeks so no one thinks they can just go around using your bathroom. Spend the next three weeks picking paint chips out of your dinner and vacuuming your clothing.

13. While hopped up on three cans of Coca-Cola and Excedrin, prime the remaining surfaces and then pass out.

14. Cry

15. Hurriedly splash paint on walls, mirror, floor, medicine cabinet, bathtub, ceiling, light fixtures, and window while leaving attractively random brush bristles embedded for artistic texture.

You have now successfully repainted your bathroom.

Useful Sorts of Things for the Office of Today

unapproved activities

Rather than pursuing a normal lifestyle filled with champagne, yachts and terribly expensive party frocks, I have, rather dismally, been studying and working for a living, which can't be at all good for my health.

Luckily, my office is organizing a "Team Outing", which I am hoping will involve alcohol and attractive celebrities. Unfortunately, pesky legalities have removed most of my suggestions for fun and educational team building activities. For some bizarre reason, an actual memo was distributed to ban the following events:


Unapproved Activities
· Bull Fighting
· Bull Riding
· Bungee Jumping
· Car or Boat Racing School
· Cave Diving
· Cliff Diving
· Hang Gliding
· Mountain Climbing - Technical
· Piloting Private Aircraft
· Racing Boats
· Riding Motorcycles and All Terrain Vehicles
· Running with the Bulls
· Skate Boarding
· Sky Diving

However, this still leaves BASE jumping, alligator wrestling, extreme fighting, competitive flamethrowing, tightrope walking, bear-baiting, professional wrestling, machine gun-jet skiing, artistic welding, human cannoning, swimming with sharks, firewalking, and naked kickboxing. So, all is not lost.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

In honor of the holiday, I was going to post on all that is good and beautiful about love and flowers and puppies and sunshine and rainbows and peanut butter cups.... but most especially romance.



Here goes.








There was a young fellow named Skinner
Who took a young lady to dinner;
At half past nine
They sat down to dine,
And by quarter to ten it was in her.


There was a young lady of Norway
Who hung by her toes in a doorway.
She said to her beau:
"Just look at me Joe,
I think I've discovered one more way."


There was a young plumber of Leigh
Was plumbing a maid by the sea.
Said the maid, "Cease your plumbing,
I think someone's coming."
Said the plumber, still plumbing, "It's me."


A very smart lady named Cookie
Said "I like to mix gambling with nookie.
Before every race
I go home to my place
And curl up with a very good bookie."


There was a young lass from Dumfries
Who said to her lad, "If you please,
It would give me great bliss
If, while playing with this,
You would pay some attention to these."


Have you heard of the Widow O'Reilly,
Who esteemed her late husband so highly
That in spite of the scandal
Her umbrella handle
Was made of his membrum virile?

*all poetry attributed to Anonymous

an Absolutely Enormous Tumor and a Lack of Cigarettes

Well, I just returned from the hospital after visiting a friend who has a TWENTY-FIVE POUND tumor (!)


I really had no idea they made them that large, the doctor was flabbergasted, and we've considered giving it a cheerful name like "Steven" or "Roderick" since it's practically a person anyway. Luckily, my friend is being given all sorts of lovely drugs to cheer her up while concerned-looking people in scrubs earnestly discuss how enormous scars aren't all that bad, really, and she wasn't using some of her internal organs anyway.

some observations:
1. Apparently, hospital regulations require all patients to watch ten hours of "American Idol" and "Entertainment Tonight" in order to be properly anesthetized for surgery, so her girlfriend and I couldn't stay very late.

2. These regulations also state that each patient's buttocks should protrude no less than three inches from hospital gowns in order to give the staff a giggle.

3. All cafeteria meals must be constructed from only the very best and latest imported space-age plastics

Although she spent much of her time demanding fried chicken and glaring at tubes, she did manage to amuse herself by pretending to be a straight married woman who desparately desires seven children and is hopelessly traumatized by the loss of her uterus. Unfortunately, as a ploy to win sympathy cigarettes, it was a miserable failure. She cheered up a bit, however, when we told her it could be a record-winning tumor; so she hopes the surgeon will give her a photo for a memento.

I missed frisbee (again), so it looks like I am back to sanding paint off the bathroom walls.......

A Cultural Post For The Edification And Improvement Of All

From time to time, the cultural committee here at Random_Speak presents a very special post for the edification, education and general improvement of our audience.
To-day is no exception as we proudly present the first installment of Tiny Biography Monday

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Despite his once famous reputation Joseph Pujol is largely unknown today, his lasting contribution to French culture all but forgotten. Popularly known as the "Farting Maniac" (Le Pétomane) during the late 19th century, he could fart with enough force to extinguish lit candles from a couple of yards away.

Performing at the Moulin Rouge (as well as recording popular phonographs), he would imitate earthquakes, thunderstorms, animal noises, musical instruments and 21 gun salutes with his sphincter muscle. Additionally, his flatulent version of La Marseillaise brought joy to many, including a rather impressionable Sigmund Freud. After taking a well-deserved retirement from the stage, Le Pétomane quietly ran a bakery and died in his late eighties -- finally ending the career of a truly great fartiste and bringing to a close his important contribution to the arts.
















* image taken from pennypostcards.com

back to blogging and a trip to the flea market

I'm back from an extended blogging break, although I'm sure that only my mother is reading this after an absence of several months. Hi Mom!!!

Contrary to popular speculation, I did not run away to join the circus or die spectacularly in shark-infested waters off the coast of Africa while evading pirates. I've just been swamped with puttering around my new house, acquiring a boyfriend, having my neck crunched by drunken sailors, eating cheese and buying useful things at flea markets.


For example, a flea market is the only place you can purchase a "Gold Packs of Flavor Wrapping Paper", which states: "This wrapping paper the assortment is numerous, and the species assorts with the popular vogue synchronous, the applicability of low file product in rarious senior high school is expensive sufler the large businessman to like!" The ingredients are listed as: "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. My friend! I will never erase the memory of you from my mind please remember me now and then." I can't wait to use it.

Luckily, I was also able to purchase a plastic "Natural Health Care Product Out Of Plant", which was accompanied by a plastic "bath massage thing", which strongly assured me that the "vegetable Sponge has the efficacy of disinfecting. Eliminate itch, beatifying and protecting skin, as well as strengthening health and invigorating brains. Soft and comfortable. A bath with vegetable sponge. Can eliminate filth and grease, promote metabolism of skin. Long use can serve to care all kinds of skin diseases." So, yeah, my leprosy and softening brain are almost cured.

As an emergency backup, I also purchased a "Magnetic Darts Safe Funny" which is very colorful and seems to involve toxic plastic and various photos of aliens wrestling midget Godzillas. Additionally, as the manufacturers helpfully inform me, the "Magnetic Dartboard is a toy which is very safe and full of fun. Normal dartboard using a very sharp dart. It is very dangerous and could hurt people if used in-properly. So it is not a good toy for children. However, our magnetic dartboard does not have such problem. Our mangentic dartboard use a strong magenton dart to replace the sharp tip." Which is great advice and really quite useful, as I could poke an eye out or kill someone otherwise.

So, Mom, if you're lucky I might post tomorrow too!

back

post to follow

Odd Art: a review

In the words of noted art historian, William Bradford Tuppington:

"This boldly exceptional and vivid masterpiece from the late 16th century is entitled Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her Sisters; it was painted by am unknown master of the second school of Fontainebleau (which was named after a commune) and heavily influenced by the Italian artist Parmigianino (who was named after a cheese).

If one closely examines this multi-layered and exquisitely modeled composition, it can be seen that the carefully posed figure of Gabrielle d'Estrees (the mistress of Henry IV) is standing in a bathtub while being naked. Her sister, who is quite the saucy young vixen, is depicted as pinching her nipple while being naked and raising one eyebrow while having breasts. These naked women firmly place this work within the "boobie" genre of art comprising some 90.02 % of all Rennaissance, Neoclassic, Romantic, Modern and Contemporary art, as well as the majority of work in the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Met, the National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Frick, and the Museo Nacional.

The two very naughty young ladies are framed by a rich red velvet curtain, which helps to highlight the domesticity of the frolicking and romping along with their boobies. Blah blah blah contested models of sexuality blah blah OMG! BOOOBIES!!1! Ssomething something and their frank gazes something boobies something expressions of female intimacy blah blah blah. Some historians interpret the boobies something something boobies! something blah blah boobies blah blah boobies!! booooobies!!!!!!!
"






* my favorite headlines this week *

"Nebraska state senator sues God" (it's about time)
"Crocs, kids and escalators a bad combination?" (what about sharks, babies and monster trucks???)
"Russia blasts gerbils into space" (it gets lonely in space)
"Jack Hanna, flamingo trapped in airport turnstile" (I have nothing to say about this)

ill

If my remaining .018 readers would like to know why I haven't posted lately, I would like state that I've been off powdering my nose, as well as acquiring all sorts of new and exotic maladies with which to patriotically line the pockets of my health insurance plan.

In addition, I have decided to take up smoking, in order to languish more glamorously while lying about and swallowing pills and things. After all, four out of five doctors from the 1950s agree that cigarettes have numerous and well-documented health benefits as a result of lower tar and nicotine. Without sacrificing any of that great taste! Each pack o'pleasure increases your enjoyment, your rosy-cheeked feminine sparkle, and your lack of ironic self-awareness by a whopping 120 percent!

yes, there's more

Krishen's complete papparazzi collection of work-safe photos and video may be found here






-- and here are a few more pics!

Celebrity Watch 2007 - another batch!

Celebrity Watch 2007 - Even More Photos

Celebrity Watch 2007 - Photos

Celebrity Watch 2007 - More Photos!

Celebrity Watch 2007 -- Party Video 3

pics and probably more video to follow.... waiting to hear from a few
of the "papparazzi", especially those who caught the naked keg tossing!

Celebrity Watch 2007 -- Party Video 2

Celebrity Watch 2007 -- Party Video 1

Here's the first video from the celebrity party -- more photos and video to follow (courtesy of Krishen!)

more selections from my little postcard book...

The front reads: "You'll Be Sorry If I Go"

The back reads: "Hello Ruth. Thanks for the card which I received yesterday. am glad to see that you are not so fat as father said you were. We are all OK out here, as ever, your brother Arthur Carlson"


















The back reads: "Dear Paul. Have rec'd your card. was very glad to hear from you. I thought you had died because I didn't hear from you for almost a coon's age. I don't know about coming out and I haven't (???) for (???) from (???). Marge

blah blah blah

Someone requested that I post my stuffed Argentinian beef roulade recipe, which I cooked yesterday, breaking yet another world record in tastiness.

WARNING: it is amazingly delicious and tender and decorative, and has absolutely nothing to do with peas.










L's Adapted Argentinian Stuffed Roast Beef Roulade With Flourishes (serves 8ish)

Ingredients:
2 one pound flank steaks
salt seasoned with basil, garlic, oregano, dried lemon peel, and whatever else seems good
2 Tablespoons tarragon vinegar
4 - 6 very large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
3 - 4 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 large carrots cut in half lengthwise
2 sweet Italian sausages
50 - 60 spinach leaves
2 cups grated provolone cheese
1 small roasted bell pepper, cut into small slices
pepper

Instructions:
1. place the 2 flank steaks on waxed paper or cutting board, and really whack the heck out of them with a meat tenderizer.
2. liberally season steaks with the seasoned salt, crushed garlic, thyme and vinegar, then allow them to sit at room temperature for 35 minutes
3. while the meat is just hanging around, boil carrots until tender
4. in a frying pan, poach the sausages for about 10 minutes then cut in half lengthwise
5. preheat oven to 375 F
6. cover the surface of each steak with a layer of spinach leaves, then the provolone cheese
7. place a row of carrots on each steak, then a row of pepper slices, then the sausage slices
8. roll up each steak into a very tight tube with the cheese and vegetables in the middle.
9. secure each steak by tying a bunch of kitchen twine around each one securely
10. sprinkle some more seasoned salt and some pepper on each steak
11. heat a bunch of olive oil on very high heat in an iron (oven-proof) skillet
12. sear each steak roll completely on all sides
13. transfer skillet to oven and bake until the meat thermometer shows an internal temperature of 130 F
14. remove from oven, cover pan with aluminum foil, and let it sit for about 20 minutes.
15. slice each steak roll into thick slices -- they look very pretty with the stuffing showing
16. serve with smile and very good red wine.

Technical Difficulties

In case you were wondering, a pair of fishnet stockings and a roll of duct tape are great for temporarily fixing busted pipes.

Still Swamped

Despite the fact the fact that I still have approximately 5,345,987.2 boxes left to unpack in my kitchen, and despite a mysterious case of flying ants, I have still managed to soldier on and participate in various shennanigans this week.

Saturday night was "Wigstock 2007!", which is an annual party where everyone is required to wear some sort of obnoxious wig. My "Castle Cheerleading Team" look was probably the least creative, however, as people showed up wearing everything from Cousin It to a fabulously tasteless mirkin. I didn't get home until 7 am due to circumstances beyond my control.

On Sunday, a couple of us toddled on over to the Tampa Theater for the Thin Man, which is probably the booziest film I've ever seen in my life. Afterwards, we oozed on over to The Hub for its fashionable combination of young ironic hipsters, very stiff drinks and aging, cancer-ridden barflies trading cigarettes and local gossip. Of course, a bar brawl broke out, which was terribly exciting and involved macho posturing, broken fingers, people trying to fling other people through glass doors, women crying, broken bicycles, screeching cop cars and an ambulance that sat around looking useless.

On a side note, can I just say that The Hub now has, um, the hottest bartender in the whole Tampa Bay area? She slithered on over to ask if she could collect our empties, and we were all "Okay, uh, anything you want" and handing her our mostly full glasses before we realized what we were doing.

I love The Hub.


Nothing else happened lately, other than:
1. I didn't win the lottery
2. I've given up men for Lent
3. I still need to research the best type of jacuzzi for bathing in chocolate
4. I haven't really been blogging
5. I'm behind on my kung fu movies

That is all.

An amusing find...

Fish Tale

By carefully scheduling a full week's worth of languishing uselessly, eating yummy foodish things and frolicking aimlessly, I have yet again managed to successfully avoid the remainder of unpacking. But it hasn't been just the usual loitering, bathing in champagne and irresponsible partying with celebrities.

We've also been fishing!

Yes, we here at Random_Speak are avid anglers known to wax philisophical while battling the mighty monsters of the deep-- and this week was no exception!

After a hearty breakfast of hardtack and coffee at the crack of dawn, we moseyed on out the door to grab our kayaks. Of course, fishing is a lot easier nowadays. When I was a child, we ate dirt for breakfast and woke up two days early before moseying. But despite the late start, we paddled for miles through raging swamplands, alligator-infested channels and open stretches of sea filled with terrible man-eating sharks before settling into a top secret fishing hole.

Now, typically I'll use a 10/0 offset trap hook with 9' of S.S. cable leader, but I thought I'd try a little something new this time and baited my hook with a very large and irritable chicken. Immediately after I made my cast, a large whirlpool swirled before a monstrous leviathan with flashing scales and glistening fangs emerged from the depths to strike. I had only a moment to glimpse one red eye the size of a dinner plate before the monster fish darted away, pulling my kayak behind in its vast wake.

I fought to hold on as the giant thrashed and dove and leaped, watching in horror as it casually swallowed a scuba diver, three buoys, a snall dinghy and half a wake board. We battled for hours--my arms growing sore, sweat running down my brow, my face lined with grim determination. Gradually, the monstrous sea creature tired, and the shocked onlookers were finally able to help me lash ropes and cables around its tail to load it in the truck. Four men with chainsaws helped us filet, and we all ate heartily.

It was truly a memorable experience, and one that I will never forget.

But you should have seen the one that got away.

Yes, Yes, Yes -- I'm BUSY!!!!

I've been absolutely swamped this week! So, here's just a little item from my collection (in lieu of a real post). This is a very amusing WINK magazine from October 1951 (with a cover by artist Peter Driben).

Selling some of my pinup stuff

I'm getting rid of a few pinup items on ebay, if anyone is interested (still unpacking, settling in, and streamlining things a bit).

1. a partially incomplete set of very weird "World of Beauty" topless pinup vintage playing cards from the late sixties.

2. a December 1961 copy of GAZE magazine featuring burlesque queen Tempest Storm, other random pinups and cartoons.

3. a 1972 Playboy special issue of "Playboy's Vargas Girls", featuring large color Alberto Vargas illustrations

4. a 1957 vintage issue of SATAN magazine (vol 1, issue 2) featuring Bettie Page on the cover and as the centerfold of the month

5. a 1950 vintage "Pin-Ups by Bernard of Hollywood" featuring an early (large) pinup photo of Marilyn Monroe when she was still Norma Jean, as well as a number of other black-and-white pinup photos


*** there will be a real post tomorrow, I swear! Still swamped with house stuff ***

Procrastinating (Part II)...

I thought I'd post images from another "True Story" magazine-- this one from October 1935. I am supposed to be unpacking and tidying up, but I guess that's not happening!

Procrastinating....

While my old apartment is nearly clean, my new house to-do list has grown tremendously during the past week and contains everything from getting insulation and a jacuzzi to caulking, painting, nailing, and installing secret bookcase passageways.

Therefore, I have decided to procrastinate. Not only have I watched The Last Man On Earth, Night Of The Living Dead and The House By The Cemetery (all part of a housewarming gift -- yay!), but I have also gone antique shopping, explored a previously unknown *oriental supermarket and reread several stories by Luis Borges. Additionally, I may decide to learn Chinese.

While thrifting/antique shopping, I picked up a few hilarious old pinup and "true story" magazines from the thirties and forties. This one is from December 1935


Of course, it is full of thrilling and true-life stories of love at first sight, people lost at sea, crippled infants, adultery, men falling in love with their sisters, delirium, plastic surgery and young ladies dying after tragic falls from ponies (illustrated at left)











Among other things, it provides cautionary tales that warn severely against wives trying to state opinions or work outside the house. Everyone knows that stating opinions and working outside the house will make you have ugly children.











And we can't forget the stories that caution you against being a shallow gold-digging homewrecker. These stories always seem to contain a man named "Gil" or "Sexton", and the homewrecker always ends up working as a cheap waitress fending off drunken brutes while her lover commits suicide.




























* my favorite oriental market purchases so far
1. a bag of "apple gummy", which states "Every drop of fresh apple juice carefully pressed from the reddest apples, shining in colors of the cheeks of a snow-country child, is yours to enjoy"
2. a bag of "muscat gummy", which states "Its translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady."
3. bright red chopsticks

I seem to have acquired a house

All my blogging time was being overrun by house-hunting endeavors, then financing and closing, moving, etc.

I've had tree people out to molest my trees, pest control people to give cancer to my pests, air conditioning people to laugh at my air handler, electricians to shake their heads in disbelief, insulation people to romp around my attic, security people to let off sirens in my ear, and window people to pull imaginary sums of money out of their asses.

I am still unpacking, settling in, and cleaning my old apartment..... but regular blogging will resume again this week. I may actually have a life again soon.

Don't forget that Mother's Day is coming up!

looks like I need to call the exterminator.... ugh