hot & humid weather makes me irritable

Why did we have to spring forward to August? Yuck.

The disembodied floating head of Andrew Carnegie for the Arts Festival is funny, but sort of cements the idea that you can be a right mean bastard with gallons of blood on your hands for your entire life, but the donation of a few million here and there will turn you into a kindly old uncle. I mean, the man had shared responsibility in the Johnstown Flood (over 2,200 killed and still one of the largest disasters in US history) and dumped the Homestead Strike in Frick's lap before hiding out in Scotland-- plus he played an active role in the subsequent subjugation of immigrants fresh off the boat. But it's all good. You can buy your way to a polished legacy and a teddy bear image with a few libraries and music halls (though no funds for their continuation) and such.

Speaking of libraries.... I tend to not want to do things that are overhyped. Like, I have no desire to watch Firefly/ Serenity, Avatar, Lost, or many of the things I quote-unquote should obsess over based on my demographic. I'll take a look at things in my own time, thank you very much. But with time to kill, I picked up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from the library (while picking up BPRD 1946). And... I'm done with Alan Moore. Watchmen was decent, but League magnified the sexism issues I had with Watchmen into artful misogyny and I can not tolerate that. The Hellboy universe is an Eden of feminism compared to everything I've read from Moore, and Hellboy is decidedly non-political or partisan (well, except for being anti-Nazi-- but who isn't?). A+ for conceit, F- for execution.

Speaking of execution, the problem with recently watching Death Race-- which is admittedly big and dumb and surprisingly entertaining, though not nearly as hilarious as its predecessor-- is that when I'm on the parkway and already feel like most of the other drivers are out to kill me, I really think it would be awesome to have a cow catcher and anti-tank missiles on jeepzilla. I think jeepzilla would like it, too.

DamnCat is still afraid that the new covered litter box is a carrier. She's FINALLY out for short stretches after hiding for about 35 hours. I managed to get her new collar-- with SKULLS!-- on her by touch when she was in the closet, but she's a little... edgy at present. Poor baby.

I am so going to miss Pittsburgh real estate prices. Assuming that my two years turn into permanent, houses in the area-- and we're talking moderate houses further out from the city core, where prices should be lower-- are still about 1.5-2.5x what you'd pay for comparable housing in the Pittsburgh area. Yikes.