Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The way to my heart...


I'm pretty sure I have written about these geese before. These geese are lawn decorations that you can dress up in different outfits. Um, I need these BBQ-ing geese on my lawn. BBQ-ING GEESE! They could become friends with the flamingos out there.

gah.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Turn it up


My house came with a 70+ year old oil boiler. It was prone to breaking down, and did quite often resulting in me developing the habit of running around all the time, touching all the radiators in my house to see if he was still working. He. His name was Orville and he was my "bastard in the basement." All he did was not work and cost me money. heh.

Well, this year I kicked him out and got a brand new gas boiler. It's now nice and toasty in my little bungalow... which last winter was something I never experienced. Orville broke down over eight times last winter, and so I had to get rid of him.

When he was working, Orville was so loud that you could feel it sputtering and rumbling in the living room. The new boiler is very quiet, which is new to me.. I'm used to being able to tell if the heat is on by sound.

It's odd having a reliable heating system. Now what am I going to bitch about all winter?

Another article...

Click the article and you'll be able to read it.

Sad news.

1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85
By BOB THOMAS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controverisal photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, her agent Mark Roesler said. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye, which lasted decades and included years during which she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.
"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's liberation.

Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page" and Paige Richards had the role in 2004's "Bettie Page: Dark Angel." Page herself took part in the 1998 documentary "Betty Page: Pinup Queen."

Her career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.

Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998, "I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous."

Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."

In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialized in S&M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.
"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said later.

Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.

Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure" were nearly over.

She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce. Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again Christian.

After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.

A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles.
She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in a state mental hospital in San Bernardino.

A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for eight years.

"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper to her."

Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.
He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to $300 each.

"Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all," he told The AP last week.

Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings."

The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father molested all of the girls.

After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time Betty lived in an orphanage.

In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career took off.

Associated Press writer Raquel Maria Dillon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Oh Dear.

Pinup Bettie Page Hospitalized After Heart Attack

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup known for her raven-haired bangs and saucy come-hither looks, was hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack, her agent said Friday.

''She's critically ill,'' Mark Roesler of CMG Worldwide told The Associated Press.

He said the 85-year-old had been hospitalized for the last three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she had the heart attack Tuesday. Page was transferred to another hospital in Los Angeles and remained in intensive care Friday.

A family friend, Todd Mueller, said Page was in a coma. When asked to confirm, Roesler said, ''I would not deny that,'' but he would not comment further on her condition.

Page, a secretary turned model, is credited with helping set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious 1960s. She attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure that were tacked up on walls across the country.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

Page later spent decades away from the public eye, and during that time battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

Mueller credits his business dealings with Page for bringing her out of seclusion. He said he first met her in 1989 when he offered her ''a bunch of money'' to show up at autograph signings.

''I probably sold 3,000 of her autographs, usually for $200 to $300,'' he said. ''Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40-$50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all.''

Thursday, December 04, 2008

It's Alive!


The super secret project I've been working on for months and months is live. Right now. Live. It's all very exciting.
It's here..... www.RetroactiveNortheast.com

I still have an entire notebook of links I need to add to the site, so I'll slowly do that in the coming weeks. Some sections are a bit thin.... sorry Pennsylvania!

it should be noted that my friend Chris built the thing from my crazy design files and did all the fancy-pants coding. I could not have done this without her immense help.

Monday, December 01, 2008

We're only in it for the money

I got a love letter from the guuuuvment today...

I got audited by the fucking IRS.

whhhhoooooo!
So basically, I can dispute it and then they'll probably crawl right up my ass even further, or I can just shut up and pay what they say I owe.

The funny thing is, I'm being audited for the one year that I had H&R Block do my taxes. Damn them.