duck-shaped pain

Colorado only legalizes lame fireworks. A trip to Wyoming is in order if you want to get anything decent. There's a scene in the movie SLC Punk that I completely identified with (the movie wasn't too great overall) where the two main characters are planning on having a party. They can't really get anything good in Utah (whose liquor laws make our completely senseless ones look reasonable), so they have to drive across the border to Evanston, Wyoming to buy all their paty supplies. Anyway, they end up freaking out the liquor store owner and being fairly unsuccessful.

Still, the sentiment "Let's go to Wyoming!" is very, very familiar. We used to go there sometimes when I was a kid to buy firecrackers, bottle rockets and M-80s, none of which are remotely legal in Colorado. Heading over the border to Baggs, Wyoming [1] -- the closest town to us -- was always a big stealth operation, and setting the illicit fireworks off when we got home always felt dangerous and risky. Then, we noticed all our neighbors were doing the exact same thing. Safety in numbers.

There was nothing to eat in the house tonight, because I, too, was lame and forgot to go to the store. Didn't feel like going to the store so I made really crappy food for dinner -- one of the pasta and sauce in a box mixes that I used to totally live on a few years ago, before I learned how to cook real food. It was edible, at least, but the dog liked it much better than I.

I supplemented my excellent meal with similarly excellent TV, the first I've watched in days. I alternated between (shudder) QVC and the Libertarian National Convention on C-SPAN.

I watched the former because it was on when I turned the TV on and the latter because I felt obligated to at least watch some of it, seeing as I'm actually registered to vote as a Libertarian. [2]

One of my secret shames in life is that I've racked up an awful lot of QVC viewing over the years. For a while before I moved out six years ago, it was on all the time in our house. My household was responsible for a large amount of their sales volume, to say the least. I didn't watch it for a long time after that, but when I broke my leg and spent a few weeks flying around on Demerol, I was back down at its level again. [3] The weird thing is that it hadn't really changed any in those six years -- I still recognized all the hosts.

One of my stories that freaks people out sometimes is that I actually TALKED ON THE AIR once on QVC. My mom wanted to order something (this was about six or so years ago), and she made me call them to place the order. The operator asked me if I wanted to speak on the air, so I said okay. I don't remember much of what I said, except that I sounded pretty idiotic. I played some word game and I answered correctly (the answer was "squirrel" - why I remember that, I don't know), and won 50 dollars. There's something to tell the grandchildren.

Right now, I'm listening to In The Pineys by the Strapping Fieldhands. Just minutes ago, I was listening to Gene Pitney's Greatest Hits, which I own for only two songs -- "The Man Who Shot Libery Valance" (which is a hoot in many ways it was probably not intended to be) and "Town Without Pity," which is one of my favorite songs ever made.

I wore one of my favorite shirts today, one which I never fail to get comments about. It's just a normal black t-shirt, which is distinguished from all other black t-shirts by the fact that it has a picture of Johnny Cash on it -- Johnny Cash giving you the finger (it's this picture, without the text). That's all (except for the word "CASH" under the picture, as a visual aid). People either really love this shirt or they become completely unglued by it. I bought it at Wax Trax, my favorite record store in Denver, and I think every record store clerk in the city also owns it. If I wore it when I was out CD shopping, they would all be sure to tell me so. I love my shirt.

[1] You can probably guess how glad I am to be able to say -- "Yes! I've been to Baggs, Wyoming!"

[2] Just because I could, more than any other reason.