You know we got lost on the way!

When I first googled to see who that was, I got a rant from some guy going, "Really? Someone left the gate open? WTF! Just go close it, don't write a song about it!"

No way! Awesome, Jesse, thank you!

All of AMEX from the past few years should be streaming online -- there's a ton of PBS video up, in general.

Vanity Fair predicts fashions for Series 3 of Downton Abbey, with pics. form the Conde Nast Archives. [link]

So pretty!

"Really? Someone left the gate open? WTF! Just go close it, don't write a song about it!"

Oh my god, that song. Makes me completely homicidal. That and the tampon commercial where she "can't be seen with tampons." Are you five?

buffistas,

what do you think of this hotel room?

I like the concept. the room would fill me with rage though.

[link]

ACK! Cat scratch fever freak out. The cat decided that in her journey from counter to floor, the appropriate midpoint was the arm of the couch on which a) my laptop and b) my ARM were sitting. After a massive and uncoordinated collision which has us both shrieking out loud (conference call on mute, thank god), I look to see how badly I was scratched and her claw was still in my arm.

So much ew. (And some amount of blood.)

Ouch, brenda!

the room would fill me with rage though.

Oh god, my OCD would go into overdrive trying to keep the bedspread lined up with the rest of the graffiti.

Ack, brenda.

I feel like I would like that room better if there was a small framed blank white painting on the graffiti side of the room.

So we had a snow day and the SO spent it in bed with allergies. Hardly seems fair. I bought him benedryl. But what do you guys use for allergies? What's the differences? I've never had them, although my dad did, and the SO has only started them recently.

Brenda, ew! and OW!

I can barely look at the graffiti side of that room. And I like colour!

Subjects of historical study today include:

Melungeons

Various "No Man's Land" spaces in America, including the Neutral Ground between Louisiana and Texas, and the Cimmaron Territory of the Oklahoma Panhandle. Wacky, lawless historical stuff!

Various aspects of Romany/Gypsy culture including:

Famous people with Rom blood (Michael Caine - Irish Traveler actually, which is different), Bob Hoskins and (they think) Charlie Chaplin. Rom claims on Elvis seem specious. (But that's what lead me to Melungeons, aka "Black Dutch".)

The close relationship between Romany Law and Orthodox Jewish Law. (It's extremely patriarchal and very restrictive for women. It's odd that the stereotype of the gypsy woman is so sensual and licentious, but that's completely the opposite of her status in Rom culture where she's expected to be virginal at marriage and any indication to the contrary would make her unmarriageable.)

I just read the book Gypsy Boy the other day and I'm trying to place his personal experience within the larger context. It's a fascinating book, btw, and a big bestseller in England. It's been optioned for a movie and he's got a sequel out (about his life on the run from his Gypsy father as a teenager. He came out as gay and ran off with a man. So his father put out a "blood avenger" hit on him and the guy.)

I hadn't realized there was so much enmity between Irish Travelers and British gypsies. (The British gypsies who claim Romany connection still self describe as "gypsy" though they are properly called Romanichel. Welsh and Scottish Rom are distinct and have their own culture/customs.)