Melissa Dunphy

Matt and I spent Thanksgiving weekend siding the back of our house. Click for before and after photos! Also completely new are the fascia and gutters. There are a few odds and ends we need to fix (caulking, securing flashing), but all in all, I'd say we did a pretty goddamn awesome job. The weekend before, we stripped all of that old (and *completely* rotted) wooden lap siding away and put up (previously non-existent) plywood sheathing. It's odd to think that in the space of two weeks, we went from the picture at the left, to NO WALL WHATSOEVER, to the picture on the right. Underneath the shiny white siding is both foam and batt insulation. The kitchen is cozy and warm! We are the handiest people in the universe!

Unfortunately, siding all weekend has put me terribly behind with relation to schoolwork. I'm writing a set of variations on NIN's The Frail which is sounding ... rushed. Yuck. I should have started earlier, but since this is my first college composition, I developed an insecure neurosis about it and put it off as long as possible. Thus, even if it's awful, I can always say, "Yes, but see, I composed it in only a week," and hope that people will forgive me.

Last week, I came very close to calling into Radio Times on NPR. Normally, the topics on RT are political, and the only listeners who have the desire to get on the air are complete moonbats (and excessively verbose to boot). But they recently discussed the new James Bond movie, and I desperately wanted to call in after the expert guest read this line from Fleming's novel Casino Royale: "The conquest of [Vesper's] body ... would each time have the sweet tang of rape."

I read Casino Royale, along with most of the Bond books, when I was twelve or so and was so scandalized by that sentence that I remember it perfectly fourteen years later. Previous to reading the books, I had been something of a Roger Moore fan since the age of eight or nine. I think Moore is a great way to get small children into Bond when it's all about having fun and giggling at the sex. Later, they can come to appreciate the other Bond actors. Then, when they're ready, they can discover the sweet tang of rape or being dragged over a coral reef until your back is a tangle of bloody ribbons within the pages of the books.

I once tried to read some of the post-Fleming Bond books. Brokenclaw was particularly gruesome. Bond is tortured in that novel by being strung up via four meathooks thrust into the flesh of his back. Horrible book. Maybe the author was overreacting to the relative tameness of the movie franchise.

Anyway, I wanted to call in and talk about the difference between the books and the movies, but I was driving from Ephrata to West Chester (Romeo and Juliet workshop at Ephrata high school - I bawled like a crazy person) and thought it might be unwise to talk on the radio while on the road. I should have pulled over and done it, though. I would have been the only female to call in.

• Pennsylvania is the worst state in America for car accidents involving deer. It's pretty bad where we live now. I usually see at least two or three dead deer on the road during the twelve-minute drive to college.
  


• BE A CHARACTER IN A WEEBL AND BOB CARTOON! AHHHHH!


• Kramer the Mason - there used to be an online copy here of a front cover and cover article of Scottish Rite Journal featuring an interview of 33rd degree Freemason Michael Richards, but it seems after the whole "YOU'RE A NIGGER!" fiasco, they've taken it down.


• Story of my goddamn life


• Pennsylvania - 27 Hate Groups Found


• Monty Python's "Galaxy Song" actually earned me a couple of points on my Physics exams this semester.

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