I took my dad to get his first tattoo today. For a lot of people, that may sound odd, or trashy, or just wrong. My family are rural. We own livestock, rodeo, ride horses, and my dad is a cowboy. However, we are far from white trash. My parents raised us to be respectful, polite, open minded, and cultured. We were encouraged to read, love music and art, and explore the world around us. I'm very lucky in that way. My parents may not have always approved of me or my choices, but they supported me in the ones that were fundamentally me, while helping me through the decisions I made that were self destructive.

My father and I were never close while I was growing up. As an adult, we've come to respect and understand each other. Though we come from different worlds and mindsets, we somehow still seem to get and respect each other. He's supported my weird hair colors, piercings, tattoos, and being queer. While I may not have taken the path he'd have liked me to, he's respected me being me.

So, for him to want his first tattoo at the age of 59 and wanting me to find the place to have it done, and wanting me to take him, meant a lot to me. To spend a day with him...just us, was wonderful. The fact that he spent that afternoon in, what is kind of my world, is an experience that I won't forget. While it may sound trivial to some, today was a pretty amazing day and meant more to me than anyone will probably ever know...

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD...MY ASS

I have to start with stating that I love Romero, and I'm a huge zombie fan, however...as the credits rolled on this, I was left wondering when he started working for the SyFy channel. The acting, writing, sad attempts at humor, and CGI were so poor that this literally reminded me of some crappy SyFy original playing on a Saturday afternoon. There is absolutely no tension, or scares, and the gore is ridiculously weak. I have, honestly, seen better effects in video games. The plot lines felt recycled from his previous output, some crappy PG-13 teen horror films, and a number of newer zombie flicks. Pacing bordered on painful and I can't count home many times I caught myself looking at the time display on my dvd player. I didn't like Diary of the Dead (say the name fast and it sums it up) and this was even weaker...What happened, Uncle George??

Stick it in yer ear...

A few bands that I've been hardcore on lately:

The Distortions: Like the mellower, dreamy side of Jesus and Mary Chain and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

The Violets: Angular, post punk with a female vocalist. Kind of like early Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs if they covered Siouxsie and the Banshees early stuff.

The Domino State: Melodic, moody post punk. Like Coldplay with a lot more balls or The Glam.

More to follow...

This is our new little guy. My husband went to game at an employee's apartment last week and the neighbor across the hall had moved out, leaving a momma cat and her litter of kittens. This employee had taken them all in, even with the two cats he already had, because he couldn't stand the thought of them not being taken care of. I get that having a pet can be a responsibility. I also totally get that having a litter of kittens around is work. What I don't understand is leaving a mother cat to starve herself nearly to the brink of death feeding her litter because you can't be bothered to deal with it. Craigslist, a no kill shelter, even facebook, but just leaving them to fend for themselves is fucking sick. I don't get people's apathetic attitude toward animals. I know not everyone is an animal person. Not everyone SHOULD have a pet...but just own up to that. Don't get a dog or a cat, decide it's too much work and leave it in an alley. Then again, some people are this way with their babies, so why should a fucking kitten be any different to them. I've always agreed with the saying that you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat an animal...This kid took in a starving mother cat and a half dozen kittens even though he already had two cats and he was breaking the rules of his lease. He refuses to dump them at a shelter. I've never met this guy, but he's already pretty fucking aces in my book. The fact that, thanks to him, we now have a new love in our life is just a big plus...