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Babyland General Hospital

Lance — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:58:23 +0000

Gentle readers, I have placed below the "fold" photographs documenting certain events of this afternoon, which events I have come to believe I must relate to you, even though I think it likely that you will dismiss them as the product of an "over-active imagination" or a "nervous disposition". Indeed, I fear that you will think me mad. Nonetheless, the only proper course is disclosure. I have come to know certain things — awesome and terrible things — about what dwells in the ancient hills of North Georgia. I must risk my reputation if it means that even one person is prepared — as I could not have been — for what he will find stalking amongst the sagging homesteads and rusting cars of White County.

Naw, I'm just joshin'. Today we went to Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia. This is the nexus of the Cabbage Patch universe. Sg has been really into the baby dolls of late, and I guess the chances are good that she will be for a while to come. Plastic dolls (and especially dolls with cloth bodies and plastic faces and/or other extremities) creep me out, and Cleveland is just up the road, so we decided to go get an all-cloth Cabbage Patch Kid doll there.

Before the photos, allow me to quote extensively from Wikipedia's entry on Babyland:

Dolls are "birthed" every hour during business hours in a procedure during which one of the resident "nurses" aids the Magic Crystal Tree in producing each doll. When the intercom announces that a Mother Cabbage is in labor, a nurse hurries to get ready for delivery of a new Cabbage Patch baby. With the nurse are the pink and blue bunnybees that pollinate the kids with crystals, determining if the newborn is a boy- blue crystal or girl- pink crystal. The nurse comments on how much the Tree is dilated and injects with "Imagicillin," an "experimental but highly recommended" drug.

If the need arises, a "C-section" or "Cabbage section" may be administered. After the doll is successfully birthed, the audience is asked to provide suggestions for the its first two names, the third of which is always that of the adopter. Most of the time the children's names are being chosen by the youngest kid. These names are then recorded on its certificate and on a name tag, and the doll takes a place among the hundreds that inhabit the facility's nurseries and play environments. A full-featured Intensive Care Unit is in place to handle premature births and otherwise unhealthy newborns.

On with the presentation.

Here we are at the foot of the Magic Crystal Tree. Ask yourself whether the idea of a cabbage live-birthing a baby is more or less creepy than the idea of someone beheading baby dolls to festoon the site of an hourly New Age ritual?

Here's the bunny bee, which sprinkled blue,* so the baby we saw born was a boy.

The nurse had a spiel that sounded well-practiced. Or maybe I mean well-worn. Or maybe I mean that she delivered it in a tone that evinced a boredom that was positively French. I was able to capture a brief video:

This is the result when things go well at the cabbage birthing. All the leaf-spawn shown here were born today. That happens to be the doll that Sg ended up picking out over there on the left.

Unfortunately, not every birth is trouble-free. Cabbage Patch Kids come in sizes ranging from bigger-than-a-2-yr-old to smaller-than-developed-country-newborns. This latter group is referred to as "premies" (as in, short for "a baby born before the standard period of pregnancy is completed"). It's pretty clear that these pre-term cuties were developed to fit a market niche, and that a cute (if somewhat disturbing) name was assigned to the category. I'm sure you're now thinking what I am — if they end up fielding an even smaller CPK, would those be called crack babies? Fetuses? And if the latter, would anyone other than Catholics pay CPK retail?

Hot. Mama. Nuff said.

These two are on a waiting list at a prestigious boarding academy.

I'll tell you something about "Imagicillin". Imagine that the word Disney uses for its technical development team members ("Imagineers") is a passenger in an exotic sports car, careening at breakneck speed down a curvy mountain road in a light rain, the jagged boulders of "not clever enough" racing by on one side, and the vast chasm of "too clever by half" dropping precipitously away on the other. Perhaps the drive wheels of Imagineering's car lose traction briefly. Perhaps you, dear reader, are amazed when it safely reaches the valley of respectability and slows to merge onto the interstate of acceptable usage. "Imagicillin", attempting the same feat on that same mountain road, was involved in a wreck that made the man who operates the jaws of life stop believing in God.

* "To sprinkle blue" sounds like jargon the Cupcake City Air Force might use. E.g., "Airman Goodpastry was on his third run over North Dietnam when he took a toothpick to the starboard wing and sprinkled blue into the Gulf of Frosting." Now I want to go dig out my Perry Bible Fellowship book. (Mr. Gurewitch would totally have made the joke in this footnote funny.)

I Am Russia, and My Parties Are Legendary

Lance — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:24:05 +0000

I went in to work somewhat earlier than usual this morning, and the early alarm clock seems to have caught me in a dream that I now recall as follows:

I am walking down an urban street at night with what seems to be the United Nations of young hip people. (I'm not sure what I'm doing with them. The street is too close and shadowy to be one of Atlanta's; it seems European, though it could be New England.) I speak briefly with one not-so-hip fellow who I imagine to represent Russia. He appears in every way to be Jerzei Balowski (played by Alexei Sayle) from the Young Ones.

I end up speaking with a tall blond gentleman who is the center of the group (both socially and spatially), and I tell him that I think we're going to Russia's party, though I express that, having met Russia earlier, I am skeptical about the quality of this party. The gentleman stops and turns to face me and, with an aristocratic air that is both commanding and winningly inclusive, says “I am Russia, and my parties are legendary”.

It turns out the first guy was from some former-Soviet satellite state or something.

Anyway, the “legendary” part turns out to be true, as I find myself in a beat up car with three people who were friends during my college years (none of whom have recently commented on this site). They are desperate to get into Russia's party because they have heard that he is generous in handing out party drugs. They think that I can get them into the party because I was with the UN crowd earlier. I'm torn between wanting to do a good turn for my (fairly pathetic) former friends and a sense that their quest is a ridiculous, pointless waste of time. We drive through a crowded parking lot while I try to think of something else to do, and that's about when I wake up.

Weird, huh?

So to sum up: I committed a faux pas and then failed to take any action to separate myself from some stupid people's stupid agenda. In my dreams, I am Charlie Brown.

My Car Has a Cheat Code

Lance — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:39:50 +0000

It's true. I've tried it and it works. If you start your 2006 or later Toyota Rav4 in park, with neither the pedal nor the handbrake engaged, and then:

Raise the handbrake,
Pump the pedal brake twice,
Lower the handbrake,
Press the pedal brake down,
Pump the handbrake twice,
Release the pedal brake,
Raise the handbrake, and then
Pump the pedal brake twice,

...the Vehicle Stability Control and Traction Control systems are deactivated. (Depending upon how you look at it, these systems either keep you from making certain stupid maneuvers or keep you from regretting the stupid maneuvers you try to make. Put simply, the TC and VSC keep you from burning rubber.) The little swervy-car light on the dash comes on, and a computerized voice* reminds me that my car, despite being a baby SUV (i.e., a tall mid-sized station wagon) has about the same horsepower-to-weight ratio as a Mazda RX-8. Vrooom!

(Sg, the fact that you have survived to read this owes something to the fact that the TC and VSC systems are automatically re-activated whenever the car is turned off. Mom and Dad, I promise not to enter the Freedom Code when Sg will be riding with me.)

I'm going to try some different combos (maybe including the windshield wipers and radio preset buttons) to see if I can unlock invincible mode.

* Computerized voice may be imaginary

Sex! Drugs! Exploitation Comics!

Lance — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:43:04 +0000

Hey, while we're on the comics tip, check out these awesome and hilarious illustrations by Jack Kamen. A quick search indicates that most or all are from EC Picto-Fiction (a short-lived family of exploitation titles that combined black & white artwork (see below) with blocks of text). The source for these is Mr. Door Tree's incredible Golden Age Comic Stories Blog.

Oh my god, that's horrible. For how much?

(More after the jump…)

“In a world where knitting is a crime...”

I'm not really sure what the title is supposed to mean, but that empty chair at the foot of the bed is actually pretty creepy (in a Twin Peaks kind of way).

Is it just me, or does it look like the most dangerous thing that guy is capable of is a windy explanation of why Pinkerton is actually way better than the Blue Album?

I scaled these down, so it's a little hard to tell, but it kind of looks like the guy in front is chasing her with an open can of beans. You just know there's got to be a fascinating back story to that.

I can't tell if the alcoholic is supposed to be the guy (angrily grabbing at the first martini in sight) or the lady (surprised to find that she's already being cut off). If the latter, I have to question the value in taking away the martini and leaving her with the double-sized cocktail shaker.

I also wanted to post a couple of other funny items (also from the Golden whatnot blog) of a very different exploitation genre:

This doctor is making a mental note to call his accountant to ask whether his operating overhead includes a line item for Kleenex.

“I proposed to an orbinuptialiphobe!*”

* It means “one who is deathly afraid of wedding rings”. I know this because I made it up.

Rare Early Family Circus

Lance — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:12:55 +0000

In the very beginning (and I know this is hard to believe, Sg), Family Circus was even more boring than it is today:

Just kidding. This is from a "How Not to Get Polio" ad in a pre-code comic book (Lovingly preserved by the Horrors of it All):

Pumpkin Patch

Lance — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:12:53 +0000

We went to a Pumpkin Patch down near Newnan with my parents before Halloween. In addition to a whole lot of pumpkins, there was a petting zoo and a hayride. A number of photos (somewhere between too many and too few), some with captions, can be found after the jump.

Sg wasn't what you'd call super smiley during the day, but I think she got a kick out of the petting zoo. I think this sheep is related to Jimmy Page.

Sg enjoys being turned loose to walk around. A covered path with Grandma at the other end is ideal for this purpose.

The weather was fricking awesome, a beautiful sunny fall afternoon.

It's a little muddy along the hay ride route. You would think that would mean that they would have some kind of gate on the back of the wagon. Or that they would not let me, Vickie and my dad sit right up on the back edge of the un-gated wagon. Or that the driver would not stop on a steep muddy incline before gunning it up the hill. You'd think.

"Pumpkins!"

This awesome — and completely giant — dog rode with us. The tractor driver tried to tell him not to, but you could tell the dog wasn't even thinking of obeying that command.

More hot hay ride action. I don't know that baby.

Sg chilling with the pumpkins while mom hit the checkout line. (We bought a pumpkin, of course.)

First Haircut

Lance — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:02:26 +0000

Atlanta's Black Mafia Family

Lance — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:13:25 +0000

After hearing an interview with the author on NPR this morning, I decided to spend some time this evening reading Creative Loafing’s three part peice on the Black Mafia Family, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Wikipedia tells us:

The Black Mafia Family, or BMF, is a drug trafficking organization originally from Detroit, with major hubs in Atlanta and Los Angeles, that in 2000 delved into the world of hip-hop music and entertainment, successfully promoting not only Young Jeezy but also BMF Entertainment’s sole artist, Bleu DaVinci.

The Creative Loafing piece is fun for a few reasons. There is the writing, which seems to be the product of a farm team reporter with an ambitious approach to narrative. The story is told in vignettes that jump back and forward in time. Occasionally these leaps left me grasping for the thread of the story, but more often than not the author (Mara Shalhoup) makes it work.

There is the tale itself, an archetypal journey through success (“federal prosecutors would estimate that BMF pulled in tens of millions of dollars annually — at least $270 million since the organization got its start”) to excess (“BMF members have credited themselves with inventing a phenomenon called ‘making it rain.’ They would toss fistfuls of money in the air. The bills would descend like droplets. And the crowd would go wild.”) and, eventually, to downfall. In this city, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women. Then, apparently, you get investigated by a number of local, state and federal authorities and, eventually, indicted. (Did I mention the murders? There are murders.)

But story and storytelling aside, my favorite thing about the Creative Loafing story is the backdrop. When I read about “a crew selling large quantities of coke up and down Boulevard”, I'm thinking “oh, yeah, it’s so totally all like ‘the Wire’ down there on a Friday night”. When I read that “Jeffery gunned it through a red light at Spring Street and North Avenue, and agents lost him”, I think “hey, I’m at that intersection like 5 times a week!” (I also thought “hey, that’s good to know if I ever need to ditch the feds”. But then I thought “that light is photo enforced now, perhaps limiting its utility as a getaway device”. Oh well.) My Atlanta now includes a new and fascinating layer; my day-to-day mise en scène is a little more interesting. Good stuff.

The video above is the product of the record label arm of BMF, and it is partly a love letter to Atlanta. I’m not qualified to judge its merits from a hip-hop perspective (though I do enjoy the 8-bit “pong” sound in the first half of the video), but I enjoy it because it is shot through with an affection for this town that is not unlike my own. ‘Cept I don’t run a flamboyant record label cum drug smuggling ring. Yet!

(One caveat—the story of BMF as told in the Creative Loafing piece seems too good to be true. And indeed, there is a lot of inference that could either point to a vast underground crime organization with a ruthless code of silence or point to a bunch of thugs who hang out together but do thuggish things more or less on their own. If the story is as good as it appears, then there is a pretty good book in it.)

Superstition

Lance — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:16:26 +0000

Well, I guess it's safe to add “Obama” to Firefox’s spell-check dictionary.

Voting

Lance — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:01:08 +0000

Sg, we went down to the church at the end of the street this morning to vote. We got in line right at 7:00, when the line extended halfway down Mell Avenue. We only had to wait about an hour, though, and you had fun playing on the steps of the church and with the flowers growing out front. It was fairly warm for November, even by Atlanta standards.

You went to the voting “booth” with me, and you touched the screen for Barack Obama and Jim Martin. No offense, but you were slowing down the process and getting heavy at the same time, so I took over from there and handled the school board races, constitutional amendments, etc.

We saw a few neighbors, and everyone in line was friendly. Voting in Candler Park is kind of fun because you can be pretty sure that about 90% of the people in line around you agree with you on about 90% of the issues and candidates up for a vote. Let’s hear it for enclaves!

Then we went to Starbucks, where they’re giving away free coffee to those who have voted. On the way out, a reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution spoke with us about the free coffee, and about the statement by the Georgia Secretary of State that the promotion is illegal. I said that surely free coffee in exchange for any vote (and not a vote one way or the other) was not what the legislature had in mind when the law was passed. You said “I got a milk”, which was true.

(The law, § 21-2-570 of the Georgia Code, says “Any person who gives or receives, or offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony”—so I guess mommy and I committed a felony this morning. And then spoke to a reporter about it. And gave our names. Come to think of it, if we’re in jail now, and you’re being raised by someone else, you may be better off.)

The poll workers gave you an “I’m a Georgia Voter” sticker, which you lost before we left Starbucks. You were kind of mad that I wouldn’t give you mine (which is fair, I guess, as I don’t usually show a lot of possessiveness about stickers). But daddy might want more felonious coffee later.

A Conversation and Pictures of Crowds

Lance — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:28:01 +0000

Daisy: Bark! Bark!
AT: Would you see who's at the door?
LM:[Checks door, then, sitting back down at the dining room table with Sg] There's no one there.
Sg: [Asking] No one dere?
LM: That's right, there's no one there.
Sg: No one dere?
LM: No one there.
Sg: [Brow furrowed] No Grandaddy?
LM: No, Grandaddy wasn't at the door.
Sg: No Grandma?
LM: No Grandma.
Sg: No Pumpkin?
LM: No Pumpkin either.
Sg: No Pumpkin. I got juice!

This morning we walked in some sort of cardiovascular disease charity's walk. We did this in the Raleigh area once, and there were a lot of people in attendance. There were nothing like this many people, though:

Here's another picture. You can see that Georgia's capital building has a dome that is actually plated in gold. How fabulously stupid.

Happy Halloween

Lance — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:08:14 +0000

Item the First: Happy Halloween!

Item the Second: Kiddies, by Self, a Song About Tricks and/or Treats.

Item the Third: Lady Bug and Poodle Skirt Find Cymbals More Fun When Shared.

Rednecks for Obama

Lance — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:23:41 +0000

We ended up behind this bio-diesel F-250 this morning on the way to work. The sticker below the "F" says "Vote Insane - Vote McCain". Atlanta, I'll be adding this to the tally of ways I love thee.

A Few Pics From Our NC Weekend

Lance — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:36:33 +0000

Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Mebane this weekend (from a base of operations in an RTP Courtyard). Here are just a few pictures. Now I'm two sets behind on picture processing (if you count the pumpkin patch pictures; if you don't count the pumpkin patch pictures or these, then I'm completely caught up). As you can see, we saw some friends (including one brand new friend, pictured below), went to the fair, goofed off and got really excited about wet dirty hands. Good time had by all. Sg, there are no words for how awesome you were in the car. Your behavior during those cumulative 12-15 hours could have made for a miserable time, but you were great. Thanks!

Anubis

Lance — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:57:12 +0000

Today Anubis Attacked Atlanta; He Did Not Say Why

No Man Could Hold Him Back

The Police Were Powerless

We Went to the Pumpkin Patch

Lance — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:17:25 +0000

Though I fear, Sg, that you may have been disappointed. You were talking the whole way there about going to the “pumpkin catch”, which sounds pretty cool, I guess. We'll post a few photos to Flickr when time allows.

Going to Day Care in October

Lance — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:44:06 +0000

I know I've basically done this same video before, but I love October, and I love the pre-dawn, and I thought it might be fun to do it again. The video is too long for Flickr, which only allows 90 seconds. At 90 seconds, things were too sped up to make any sense. Also, some of the labels didn't end up exactly where I'm pretty sure I put them (thanks a bundle, Adobe Premiere Elements), but there you are.

Going to Day Care in October from aquariumdrinker on Vimeo.

John McCain Equips the Hydraskin Cloak!

Lance — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:56:03 +0000

I was playing this flash adventure game and found it was most fun when I took full advantage of the opportunity to name the characters in my adventurer's party. Here are some of the results. I must warn you that, while I think that any citizen may find this amusing, only someone unhealthily obsessed with every twist and turn in this insane campaign season (like I am) will find this giggle-all-day funny (like I did).

More examples below the fold!

I found myself thinking of this during the debate last night. “John McCain invokes the Pro-Abortion Movement . . . MISS!”

And, of course, the fun doesn't have to end after November 4:

(There were some pretty good exchanges between Kant and Husserl, too.)

Hypothetical Canonical Apocrypha

Lance — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:52:28 +0000

Do you think maybe that the first time Johann Pachelbel showed someone his score-in-process for his famous Canon in D that the initial response was "wow, that's really inoffensive; that would be great for weddings"?

One Second for Every Twenty

Lance — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:10:19 +0000

By popular demand (in that the guy who demanded it is pretty popular):