pump room for sublet...
Chris and Shana have expressed an interest in subletting my pump room. It is, I hear, is almost the size of their flat... I have to say, it does have it's advantages; it comes with it's own water supply; it has an attached, spacious kitchen (currently undergoing endless renovation...); it has lots of valves and handles and pipes to fiddle around with; and, it conveniently comes with it's own pets!

They don't eat much and are ever so amusing to watch, and, aside from chewing holes in socks and boxes of dog biscuits, aren't that much of a pain. Besides, they could use the company! (the mice I mean..!).
pearls before swine...

the pump room...
*insert typical film noir music here...*
Chris and Shana are wondering just what a pump room is...
well, it's a little (5' x 8') room off our kitchen that houses our well pump, water conditioner, electric breaker box and all the shit that doesn't have a home somewhere else... old light fixtures, odd tools and hardware, my target bow and arrows, a rain coat, mucking boots, stuff like that. we really never knew what to call it, so we called it "the pump room"... as opposed to the laundry room, which is also off the kitchen, which actually is the old pantry, with our furnace, hot water heater, washer and dryer shoe-horned in for good measure, as well as our turn of the century (the last one, not the current one...) pantry. Stately Sad Old Goth Manor has lots of nooks and crannies, like the little closet under the stairs. A very cool place to hide when you need to be alone. hmmm, might make a neat horror movie, eh?
later
pearls before swine...

a new venture...
goths on fire...
new link in the sidebar to a mutual blog by me and Erin of Sweet and Sour Goth...
if you're of the gothy persuasion and want to join in, drop either of us a line.
strictly goth stuff, for whatever it's worth. if nothing else, it will be fun.
later.
pearls before swine...

a merry autumnal equinox...
to one and all.
pearls before swine...

finally...
the tin ceiling in the kitchen is finished. I put up the last piece of cornice work at 1:30 AM Saturday... nothing like being wired on coffee and fooling around with tin snips. I painted all the nailheads and still have some caulking to do on the obvious joints, but for all intents and purposes, I can now move on to the next part of the endless kitchen remodeling project... the pump room door. It's an original door, with the civil war era lock box and hinges on it and is in wonderful condition. All it needs is to be stripped and repainted. After that I will put up the new tin backsplash, then on to the floor and counter tops. I think I should be able to get it done before Thanksgiving...
Right now, I'm having a Guinness draft and enjoying the aroma of catfish on the grill wafting in through the window. Dinner Menu at Stately Sad Old Goth Manor tonight: Catfish, mixed green salad, marinated grape tomatoes with mozzarella and TATER TOTS! I love TATER TOTS!
Also this week is the Autumnal Equinox celebration! If there's anything I enjoy more that Tater Tots, it's a good Equinox celebration...
Time to eat! The siren call of the TATER TOTS has hold of me! Can't resist...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
pearls before swine...

gabba, gabba, hey...
in the twilight days of rock, before the dark days of goth, there was punk...
and when you mention punk, two bands come to mind... the Sex Pistols and the Ramones... well, we've lost another Ramone. Johnny Ramone passed away from prostate cancer the other day, lovingly attended by his family and friends like Rob Zombie and Pete Yorn at his bedside. Johnny was a good guy. He was the glue that held the Ramones together through thick and thin.

Thanks, Johnny, from all of us who suffered the bruises and bloodletting in the mess while you and the guys churned out Blitzkrieg Bop in CBGB's... I hope you find your peace, but don't stop kicking ass, where ever you are.
I'm going to put on some of my scratchy old Ramones LP's tonight, suck down a six of Beck's and celebrate your life... and mine.
rest easy.
pearls before swine...

Holy Crazy Brit, Batman..!

Check out this bloke, all done up like the original Batman, who climbed up the outside of Buckingham Palace in London to protest the treatment of divorced dads!
Only in the UK! I love 'em!
pearls before swine...

I've found...
a way to save on black nail polish... it's called putting up a tin ceiling. The nail on my left thumb is starting to turn a lovely shade of purple and will probably turn black soon.
The ceiling is about 90% complete. All the field panels, the filler panels and all but one piece of flat moulding are up, the only thing left to do after that is put the cornice up, which should go quickly. I tried working on it a little while ago, but I'm dog tired from mowing the lawn. It hasn't been mowed in two weeks and it was a foot high and didn't completely dry of dew when I started, so I had to set the mower high and mow it once, then readjust the mower and cut it lower. It also took an hour to do all the trimming and cleaning up. I started at ten in the morning and got done about four this afternoon. Six hours is way to long to be chasing a lawn mower all over the place. It sure looks nice when it's done, though.
I'm looking forward to the Equinox celebration this year, I have a good feeling about the turn of the season for some reason. Maybe it's because things are starting to settle down a bit at the Manor after what turned out to be a hectic summer. I can't wait for the turning of the leaves, the crisp mornings and the eventual Hallowe'en and Thanksgiving gatherings. Also my birthday in October when I officially break the half century mark. It's all down hill from here, folks.
Things are starting to look up on the Roller Derby side, we're planning on having a recruiting party at a cool little bar in Philly in December. I hope it starts to take off soon. Also in October, I'm going to see a concert by Jason Molina and Songs:Ohia, I'm really looking forward to that. He's become one of my favorite singer/song writers over the past few years. Very dark and intelligent stuff that grabs me really hard.
I think I'm rambling here, what? I'm going to go grab some dinner and chill for a while. Maybe be back later.
see ya.

pearls before swine...

Genesis update...
after this morning's crash of the Genesis Solar Particle Probe, NASA's top engineer was put to work designing a replacement...

pearls before swine...

ooops..!
I managed to get on the live internet feed this morning to watch the re-entry of the Genesis space probe return to Earth with it's delicate cargo of captured solar particles. A stunt pilot in a helicopter was supposed to snag it in mid descent so the contents wouldn't get shaken up by a hard landing. Unfortunately, the chute did not open and I watched it bury itself in the Utah desert...

would it be safe to say that NASA is bewitched..?
more nonsense later.

pearls before swine...

this old lair...
After a few false starts this weekend, I started to tackle the tin ceiling in the kitchen. I ringed the room around the ceiling with some one quarter inch by three inch pine boards, painted gloss white to match the tin. I then screwed up the courage to lay out and cut the hole in the center panel for the ceiling light electrical box and put up that panel first. I managed to all the full size panels up and half of the bias cut panels before breaking my last 7/64" drill bit, so after that everything came to a grinding halt. It does look pretty nice, though and will be the highlight of the remodeling project. I'll probably pick away at it during the week and get it wrapped up before the weekend so I can attack the grounds, which have been suffering neglect of late. The wet weather has caused the grass to grow like it's springtime and it's going to be a bitch to get back into shape. I have lots of cleaning up to do on the various gardens and beds to get them ready for autumn and winter. It's always a sad time for me, deadheading and thinning and pulling up the dry, dead frames of the annuals.
As far as Labor Day Weekend went, we hung out with our good friends Larry and Lisa on Saturday night, feasting on turkey grilled over an open fire, with wild rice and my wife's super take on Waldorf Salad. Drank lots of beers, smoked some fine cigars and sat out side until midnight, drinking coffee with generous shots of Sambuca.
Spent Sunday with family, eating too many hamburgers and drinking too much soda and coffee. Always a good time.
So tomorrow it's back to work. I'm going to cut this short because I'm chatting on line with the lovely Erin of Sweet and Sour Goth, so have a good night.
later.
pearls before swine...

ain't it the truth..?

pearls before swine...

oh, for goth's sake...
read this...
so much for fostering individuality in young folks...
I wonder if they're cracking down on all the jocks who walk around the school in their letter jackets or the "urban" crowd with their hats on sideways and pants hanging off their asses?
I'm glad that I'm old and going to croak soon... this world is going to crap in a hurry...
pearls before swine...