What am I doing wrong?

Would you give me $3 if I could get your picture taken with TV's Carlton Banks? What if I offered to throw in a free limo ride, 1/8th of a free bottle of liquor, free admission, and VIP seating from which to watch the Carlton Banks Dance-off? How am I having so much trouble selling this?

Sparkle Birthdays!

Sparkles: it is an awesome birthday party theme, and Rachel and Rachelle hosted an awesome birthday party. Too bad I missed the shot of Rachelle eating the cake with her whole face.

Back to Canada

It'll be hard not to have family and tiny adorable babies to hang out with in Edmonton. I'll have to make do with photos, research, good friends, guitars, and double-doubles.

Last Day in Austin

After a recommendation like this, I couldn't not go to Cabela's. We were not disappointed:

And the gun guy nervously let me pose with a gun so big it doesn't fit in frame:

But it isn't all big useless .50 caliber single-shot rifles that take a mile of rangeland to shoot - there are guns for kids, too!

After the gun show, we headed to Sonya's for sinfully tasty cake and ice cream, and for some necessary introductions:

Then we finally played the Saved By The Bell game, which was slightly boring but with much potential for improvement:
So, for the last day in Austin I got to do fun things with people I already miss. Appropriate.

How The Drafthouse Works

The Drafthouse is my own personal paradise. You get there 45 minutes before show time, get a seat, and watch scandalous old trailers:
Then you pick what beers and gourmet pizzas you want during the show, and write them on a little card for your server:
Then somebody comes out to tell you how awesome and/or terrible the film will be. In the case of BLACK COBRA, a 70's bisexual softcore snake sexploitation film starring Jack Palance, you get a nerd:
And for All About Eve, you get a drag queen, playing both herself and Bette Davis in a filmed 'interview'.

The Dirty Six

6th street isn't bad, but walking on 6th street at night is a cacophonous, seizure inducing nightmare. I loved hating it, and when you get inside the bars it gets way better. You have to choose carefully, though. This one looked like it was speaking my language:
But looking closer, I found that it was not:

H.E.B.

Michelle wanted me to go to H.E.B. - not for anything specific, just to go. It could be because she wanted me to see the Latino Soda aisle:

... which is the kind of thing this blog would make fun of if they weren't in so many magical, effing delicious flavours:

The big guns

Sonya's job is wicked cool - she's a diesel mechanic for Freightliner. I got to visit her today, and she showed me the purple bookshelf in her bay:

... and then the inside of a fire truck:

A school bus:

and an engine:

Santa Rita's

Nobody could wait for me to get Mexican food here, least of all me, so we went to Santa Rita's for deeeeeelicious spinach & mushroom enchiladas with suiza sauce and Margaritas. Then we went home to bully Jo into a cigar and a tycoon handshake:

Jackie O!

Exciting news! I made the Fa(t)shion February blog! And the Fa(t)shion February blog made

it to Sociological Images! The SI post is interesting, the pictures are lovely, and the comments section is predictably awful.

Back to tonight: Jackie O lives in Austin now, where she has a charmed life and a taxing job. She took me and her friendly dog LiLi to see her favourite empty lot:

and buy me a Lone Star at Cheer Up Charlie's:

Then we went to the first ever Whole Foods in the world to get dinner and to show me KRYPTONITE:

They Never Told Me It Was Beautiful

The Cathedral of Junk is a must-see if you're in Austin. Beautiful, rickety, and certified-safe, here's Joanna climbing from the second story to the third story.

Here's Vince Hannemann, the man who created the Cathedral in his backyard, with aaall the Caravitas:

And here's the saga:

Free ride

I figure I can post this baby picture here since it's really a picture of a moustache see-saw.

Walmart is Gun Free??

Video of Ziv yawning is here. NSFB (Not Safe For Babies) adventures below.

I had Joanna take me to the guns section of Walmart, but we could only find BB guns, so I asked a guy working there. I swear to you, the conversation wasn't exactly like this, but everything you might be shocked by is pretty much verbatim:

Me: "Do you have real guns?"

Guy: "No, you won't find those at any walmart stores. [...] What kind of gun are you looking for?"

Me: "No, I'm just from Canada, and I wanted to see if I could buy a gun."

Guy: "Oh, yeah, for sure, try Cabela's. Look at me: I'm 19 and I've got an assault rifle."

Me: "No background check?"

Guy: "Yeah, I just went in to Cabela's, said 'I'd like that' and 'here you go!'" [mimes putting something on the counter]

Me: "Just your driver's license??"

Guy "What! Not even, man! My 13 year old cousin has a gun! Anything goes for home protection, this is Texas! Like, see, look at these bullets: These are .45s. One woman was using one in a Desert Eagle and Bam! [mimes gun kickback] It broke her whole face!"

Me: "..."

[...more crazy things...]

Me: "Are those hollow-points??"

Guy: "These are mushroom-points. Normal bullets, you shoot someone with them and they go right through your wall, they kill your neighbours, they kill your neighbours' kids, whatever. I mean, fuck 'em, they're your neighbours, right? Sometimes they're annoying! But these bullets mushroom out and stop in the person you're shooting, so you don't kill your neighbours' kids."

Me: "I don't think the army can even use those."

Guy: "This is Texas, man. As long as they're on your property, anything goes. You can shoot 'em, you can tie 'em up and shoot 'em, whatever."

This conversation made me feel much less excited about the machetes:

New Plan

Ok, new plan. I started meeting Jo and Toshia's chosen family tonight, and we started doing fun and non-baby Austin things, like Spiderhouse:

And I want to post about those things, and about how Texas has preposterous things like Texas Pete's in fast-food packets FOR FREE:

So I'll post stuff like that here, and post one zillion baby pictures and videos with silly captions here. Not that you'll get bored of baby pictures. If you think you will, here is a video of Ziv with the hiccups to change your mind:

IT'SABABY!!!

I just met a baby!!!! She is quite a baby! She gooes and yawns and grunts, mostly while sleeping. I love her! And she isn't even a person yet! She is a baby!

Safety!

Getting my new-baby shots! Also of note: this is the last post for appx. 9 days that will not be a picture of a baby.

Announcing Ziv Grey Moist Panties Cash Monet Cucumber Interrobang Caravita

Welcome to the world, baby Ziv! Your name is spelled the same way in English AND IPA! We look forward to learning what your super power will be!

I was hoping to be there for the birth so I could smoke a cigar with the grownup Caravitas & edheldim, especially Joanna, who is the dadliest, but I was also glad to smoke one with Mary.

Garbage Holiday => Garbage Flowers

Happy 'Fuck Valentines Day' day everybody.

Birtha birthaday GITTARS!

Rachelle and I would like to introduce you to Pal George and Augustina 'Serious Gus' Serieuse, the cigar box guitars we made today.

Birtha birthaday PARTY!

Woo woo! Good friends, good birthday times! I've decided that I'm going to spend this year pretending to be a muppet.

From: Me. To: Me.

I got myself new glasses for my birthday! Google thinks I did it wrong:

Free Time?????!??!?

It's so disconcerting - if you finish all your work for the day before you go home, you can just, like, watch a movie! Just sit there and watch it! So Bizarre.

Gratuitous Goodness Post

I know I already posted today, but Pud's food is too good not to blog. As is his friend Lo Pan:

I like it

No better place to set up a fair & free hot chocolate table, I tell you.

.... Everything will be just fine!

All of us are very excited! This is why are we excited!

Season's Greetings

I got a Christmas card in the mail just the other day! Unfortunately, it was from me: