gadabout GAD-uh-bout, noun:
Someone who roams about in search of amusement or social activity.

Gadabout is formed from the verb gad, “to rove or go about without purpose or restlessly” (from Middle English gadden, “to hurry”) + about.

(I’m playing the gadabout to put off any serious writing or working out. Going walkies at about 8, though.)

In other News, I’m looking nito an apartment! One looks very possible, they like Kitties, and it’s roomy. ๐Ÿ™‚

Little Brother is my fave!!

In Search of Fecal Accidents
=================================
Any kid will tell you, sometimes accidents just happen. But with summer-like temperatures luring more residents into the water, health officials are doing their best to keep accidents — “fecal accidents,” to be precise — from causing trouble in the city’s public pools.

Little Brother Gets Busted
=================================
In this lively and engaging tale, a naive young robot runs afoul of the law – and wacky hijinks ensue! Through the trials and tribulations of our protagonist, we discover the nuances of U.S. drug enforcement policy and learn valuable lessons including proper procedures for handling police interrogations and hiding contraband in one’s anal cavity.

Segregation Is Back, But Its Okay!
=================================
This weekend, UCLA’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community will unite pink with black ย– colors of triangles used to identify gays and lesbians in Nazi Germany ย– in the Lavender Celebration to convey the significance of their graduation as visible LGBT individuals.
The celebration, along with the Iranian Student Group and the Asian Pacific Islander Celebrations, are examples of the identity-based graduation ceremonies, which are available in addition to the traditional, degree-conferring commencement events…
“Students not of the majority feel that they’re not included in university life,” Sanlo said. “(These) celebrations tell students not only that their identities are something of which they can be very proud, but that this institution is very proud of who they are and what they are going to become.”

Dog Boy Rescued!
=================================
In Chile, an 11-year-old boy who had been living wild with a pack of dogs has been rescued by authorities and taken to hospital. The child, who has severe physical and psychiatric health problems, had been surviving by drinking the milk of a female dog, who was the pack leader, and scavenging for food.

Fungus Eats Compact Discs
=================================
FIRST there was the computer virus. Now scientists have found a fungus that eats compact discs.
Victor Cardenes, of Spain’s leading scientific research body, stumbled across the microscopic creature two years ago, while visiting Belize. Friends complained that in the hot and sticky Central American climate, a CD had stopped working and had developed an odd discoloration that left parts of it virtually transparent.

All Your Money And A Chalupa
=================================
It was a late-night run for the border gone awry. A 17-year-old man was shot and arrested early Monday after he rode his bicycle to a drive-through Taco Bell window, demanding that the crew give him all their money and a chalupa.
But, while he was waiting for the food, a Taco Bell worker called the police.
The man, whose identity has not been released, was a former employee of the restaurant.
Fort Worth Police Lt. Duane Paul said the crew handed over the money, but while the suspect waited for the chalupa, a police officer pulled up behind him…

germ, for later polish. add to after ‘blimpies heroin story’.

South Florida in June can bear a serious resemblance to the classic idea of Hell. Like Jules had always said – “I’m not gonna lie to you, Mike. I’m not gonna say Fort Lauderdale is hell…but they share a zip code.” Mike shook his head, rubbing his face with both hands and coming up with twin palms full of sweat. Jules’s voice, in memory, led directly to memories of Jules’s blood, of Jules’s intestines tangled in the seaweed when Mike had found him, face down on the beach on South Beach. It was coming up on three years since Jules caught a bad case of dead, and Mike was finally ready to finish what they’d started back then.

Rounding the corner onto Los Olas, Mike turned right off twelfth and dodged the latinos stumbling out of the Castaway. Closing his eyes, Mike counted his steps, and came to a stop. He turned right, then left, then right again, looking up and down the avenue. The sky was still pink, even at three AM, and still busy – knots of kids from the projects across the street were here and there, drinking and walking in packs. The police were nowhere in sight.

A moment’s panic mounted at the base of his spine. He shook his head, hard, and pushed on the buzzer to the right of the doorway in front of him, ringing apartment 6E.

The door opened let him in. Kid Sinister, an angry-nosed Mulatto out of Miami, leaned out to peer up and down the street, then opened the door fully and stepped back. Mike let it fall shut behind him, squinting in the dim and flickering fluorescents of the stairwell.

“Yo, Mickey Mouse. What’chu need, man?”

The silver row of top front teeth were the Kid’s trademark – he’d had the canines elongated into fangs. Which, while admittedly being intimidating as all get out, made the above into an incomprehensible slur along the lines of ‘Yo, mi’mouf, ‘shoonee, ma’?” Mike thought about telling him to go fuck himself and his short-counted sacks. A sigh, and he answered, “I’ll take a bundle. And I need to see Turkey Joe.” Ninety dollars in five bills, folded into quarters, were pulled from his back pocket and offered over.

Tugging on his Lakers cap, the mulatto bared a wide grin and plucked the cash from Mike’s trembling fingers, then pulled a rolled bundle of wax paper baggied from the pocket of his ankle-length shorts and offered it back in exchange. He laughed, shaking his head, and pointed at a door behind the stairs. “Damn stupid, looking for Joe…but he’s waiting, anyway.”

Mike didn’t answer, instead he simply pocketed the heroin, walked over to open the door and step into Turkey Joe’s office. Joe had never come any closer to Turkey than Key West. As a matter of fact, he was probably of Swedish descent – pale hair and paler skin. Mike’d never seen his eyes, since Joe’d been affecting a pair of lennon glasses ever since Mike knew him. But Joe had, at some point, become the go-to for the Turkish Mafia in this part of the South. So he became Turkey Joe, and so he was the man Mike needed to see.

Joe was sitting at the janitor’s desk in his office. The air conditioning was cranked, and Mike watched the cloud of condensation his breath formed, shuddering as it seemed to writhe, as though trying to spell some warning before it dissolved into tendrils of meaningless dissipation. Joe didn’t say anything as the door shut – he shook his head and stood, walking over to an antique refrigerator in the corner and pulling out a small, six ounce bottle of Coca Cola with a faded and peeling label. He sat down, laid the bottle on his desk, and spun it.

“Finally making your run for it?” Joe’s glasses distorted Mike’s reflection. Swallowing dryly, Mike nodded and crossed the linoleum floor to the desk, where the bottle was slowly wobbling to a halt, its dented cap facing squarely at his navel.

“I’ve got everything I need lined up, Joe. I’m gonna make it.”

“You know this bottle leaves this building, they’ll be onto you. Won’t have much time.”

“Yeah. They won’t catch me.” Mike tugged a thick roll of bills from the other back pocket and dropped it onto the desk. “Six grand. Like we said.”

“That was three years ago, Mike, and I owed Jules a favor. The price is seven five. There aren’t many left, and lots of people are looking these days.”

Mike’s mouth opened and closed, but he simply nodded. This was not a place to waste one’s breath. Digging into the front pocket of his ragged jeans, he found a fold of money, and snapped it open, counting crisp hundred dollar bills onto the green formica table. When fifteen had been laid down,he returned the much reduced fold to its pocket, and reached a hand for the bottle.

Joe’s hand closed around his wrist before he’d gotten there. “Listen to me, kid. Your friend got you into this, he was the one who knew what was going on around here, and he bought it trying for the prize. You touch that thing, you go outside with it, and you are in the game. No turning back. Better hit the street running and don’t plan on stopping in this lifetime. The cryptophage, he’s in town. No way he won’t be coming after you. You get me?”

Another mute nod as Mike slid his wrist free and picked the bottle up. His skin stuck to the glass, colder than anything had a right to be, the chill settling immediately into the marrow of his bones and weighing there. “Yeah. I get ya. Be seeing you, Joe.”

And then, he was walking out – past Kid Sinister and the savagely skinny punk rock nypmhette in the stairwell. Past the Castaway and back up twelfth, his steps accelerating slowly, strides lengthening, the panic rising like bile to the back of his throat, until he was running down first avenue for the bus at 4th Street. The bottle was his, but God only knew if he’d be able to get the rest of the ingredients together before they found him. This could be his last chance to die…but with odds like this, no way he needed a second one.

I wonder if this will work.

Scotto’s getting a little greedy.

I want cool stickers/patches to put on my laptop, and the carrying case. Would anyone like to send me some? (Anything you’d like on a laptop would be cool… Regional… New York/Quebec/Lapland/Etc… and Cool, too… Flaming Skulls, Smurfs, Trix Rabbit, etc)

I’ll send you a little prezzie in return if you want to give me your return address. (I’m missing the fun of the LJ Valentines from times past.)

Let me know, and I’ll give you my mailing address. ๐Ÿ™‚

Evil News

Tree Attacks Tree Hugger
=================================
On the eve of the first anniversary of its aerial “village” in a remote forest near Mount Madonna, Earth First!’s attempt to establish a large tree-sitting operation near Boulder Creek has been marred by the serious injury of a young woman. Jenna Griffith, 20, who uses the forest name “Sparrow,” was injured Wednesday when she fell about 30 feet from a tree and hit her head on a redwood stump.
“Sparrow was hurt doing her utmost to save those trees,”

Another Female Teacher Getting Some From The Kids
=================================
A second-grade teacher suspected of having sex with a 14-year-old boy was reported to authorities by Marysville teachers after her behavior with a boy at a middle-school sports event raised red flags, Marysville School District officials said yesterday. The 37-year-old woman, a Marysville resident who teaches in the Mukilteo district, was at a basketball game at Cedarcrest School when teachers noticed “behavior of concern” between the two, Marysville district spokeswoman Mary Fears said. Fears said she was touching the boy. The teacher is under investigation for her involvement with at least two boys, both 14-year-old friends of her son. One told investigators he’d had sex with the woman on three occasions in her home in April, according to a probable-cause arrest document. The mother of another boy had obtained a no-contact order against the teacher in February, after she became worried that her son was having an inappropriate relationship with the woman.
“Oh, I have the car all warm for you.”

Yahoo Bans Japanese Child Killing Game
=================================
A computer game modeled after the fatal stabbing of eight children in western Japan has been removed from a Yahoo portal site, Yahoo Japan Corp. said today.An unidentified person put “Killing Children at Ikeda Elementary School” on the Yahoo portal site following the June 8 school attack, Yahoo Japan Corp. officials said on condition of anonymity.

New Zealanders Call for Fat Tax
=================================
WELLINGTON, New Zealand โ€” A New Zealand nutritional group suggested today that food should be taxed according to its fat content in an effort to curb obesity

Thirsty Beer Fans Want Tax Repeal
=================================
A tax on liquor brought America the Whiskey Rebellion two centuries ago. Now the brewing industry is looking to start the Battle over the Beer Tax.”Beer is one of America’s best pastimes,”

Man Makes Wacky Excuse To Evade Wife’s Fury
=================================
Greenville County authorities are investigating the Friday morning kidnapping of a Greenville businessman, News 4 reports. Authorities said that Donald Burdette walked out of work early Friday morning and into the barrel of a gun.

Another Vendor Whines About Kids
=================================
Three girls aged 7 to 9 have been ordered to shut down their front yard snow cone stand. An ice cream vendor’s tip brought orders from the Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services to halt snow cone sales. The popular flavored snow cones went for 50 cents. The ice cream man apparently didn’t want the competition.
“It is really sad,”

Weight Watchers Fooled With ‘Diet’ Ice Cream
=================================
At Weight Watchers meetings from Florida to Virginia, rooms frequently become abuzz with talk of โ€œBig Daddyโ€ ice cream. Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards share the secret of this tasty, guilt-free treat made by DeConna Ice Cream Co. in Orange Lake, which has been selling briskly in several major grocery store chains. In a world in which counting calories and fat is a way of life, the nutritional label on the product is a dieterโ€™s dream. Vanilla Big Daddy, according to the label, has 100 calories and 2 grams of fat for a 12-ounce serving โ€” a mere 2 points for Weight Watchers devotees, about the same as an apple. But lab tests commissioned by the Sun-Sentinel could explain why calorie and carbohydrate-watchers who nosh on the supposedly light delight might not be losing weight. The tests showed the calories are triple what is touted on the label and the carbohydrates are more than double โ€” an understatement of 200 calories, 5.5 grams of fat and 31 grams of carbohydrates.

how do I feel?

I don’t know….mixed.

Maybe it’s the Malcolm in the middle being about moving. Maybe father’s day. Maybe not. Evaluating…

I think it’s a combination of multiple things. bypassing.

*thinking about my sweetie lounging in the tub, then curling up in bed to sleep soft dreams. Ah. Much better.

That missile base has me thinking…what a great lair! I think it’d be a great place to run mission control from.

A nice informational article follows.

How to be a Super hero

The first step in becoming a super hero is to acquire superpowers, duh. But like many things in life, this is not as easy as it would first appear. There are many methods that have been used throughout the ages, some good…some not so good. Here are but a few of the most popular:

1) Exposure to Radiation
A very popular way to acquire superhuman abilities is to goof around with cosmic rays, gamma rays and assorted radioactive creatures. If you get bitten by a radioactive animal, you’ll gain that animal’s abilities. Cool if said critter is a spider, bat or tiger. Getting bitten by a radioactive mallard or koala is nowhere near as cool and should be avoided whenever possible. (But maybe you’d get cool cuteness/eucalyptus eating powers from a koala?)

2) Weird Science
Super-serums, fringe medical experimentation and the ever-popular “highly-unstable molecular solution” dunking booth. Yup. That’s some good stuff. Of course, it helps if you yourself are the mad genius or else you might wind up as a two-headed freak of nature with a cable descrambler permanently grafted to your backside.

3) Extra-terrestrial Birth
Granted, not an option available to most of us, but this is a sure-fire way of acquiring all sorts of cool powers. I think many of the residents of Fort Lauderdale might be from Outer Space…

4) That whole “Vengeance” thing
There’s a quote by Neal Stephenson from his book, “Snow Crash” about how to be the baddest dude in the world. One of the options is to have your family wiped out by a villainous drug cartel and then spend the next seven years training in a remote monastery waiting for the day that you can exact your revenge. Me? I’m not into it, especially the whole, “Vengeance from beyond the grave” angle but that’s just me…I think that you’re more likely to look the “Spawn” than “The Crow.”

5) Gadgets!
Kinda like the Weird Science method, but rather than become a hideously mutated freak, you have access to all kinds of cool “Sharper Image” catalog wares…like, ummm…radio-controlled Mylar blimps and gigantic crossword puzzles and life-size Stormtrooper replicas. Okay, maybe not great for crime fighting, but an easy way out if you’ve got a good line of credit.

6) Lots of training and self-discipline
Okay, this method is no good for me. The pros are that you won’t have some weird vulnerability that can be exploited, you don’t have to worry about ever losing your powers if someone steals your “space ring,” and gaining superhuman abilities through sheer amounts of physical and mental conditioning is within the grasp of every man, woman and child alive on this planet. The cons are the fact that it’s REALLY a LOT of work and your “super powers” will be limited to being able to move a sofa bed by yourself. Yay.

Like I said, there are tons of other methods…but regardless, once you’ve gotten your cool powers you’re gonna need to create a “super hero identity” — basically a flattering costume and a catchy name.

Spandex and lycra are only options if you are a fantastically well-proportioned woman *or* “fabulous” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Leather is stylish and protective…but it’s also very hot.

I recommend the “business-casual” attire of the super hero world: some sturdy boots, black pants, a t-shirt with your logo or whatever on it, fingerless gloves and a domino mask (like the one Zorro wears). Simple, economical…and it breathes! Of course, if you’re “Arctic Lad” you might do better in a parka and mukluks. An important note: Capes are hard to pull off…but they do make a flashy and stylish statement.

Choosing a name is VERY important, if only to help those newspaper people write eye-catching headlines about your exploits (“White Witch Snatches Snitch!” “King Cobra Sinks Fangs into Underworld!”). I mean, calling yourself “The Squid” is just gonna get you laughed at. Some say that super hero superlatives and titles (Captain, Doctor, Amazing, etc.) are old- fashioned and out of date but in these cynical times, I feel that a good superlative can really bring a concept together. The Squid = bad name. The Sensational Squid = still a bad name, but not AS bad.

Top secret bases: It helps to be a multi-millionaire but you can always set-up your studio apartment as a headquarters (or form a super hero team for that whole co-op arrangement…quite handy for the hero on a budget as someone else on the team is bound to have a blender or DVD player). Anyway, all you really need is Internet access, a telephone, a television and (optionally) a police scanner. Cover your walls with aluminum foil for that hi-tech, space-age look!

Transportation is an issue for the non-speedster/flyer/teleporter characters…very few superheroes take the bus (well, I did for awhile but I made it look cool!). Oh, and if you ARE joining (or forming) a super hero team, matching costumes are very “in” this year (what with all the X-Men movie hoopla). As always, a cool name does wonders for the team’s image.

Personally, if I join a super-team, I’m going to be CIO. Surf the net, run the Troubalert, and let other folks beat on each other. Maybe be the lovable non-powered guy, offering unprofessional, but wise council to the other heroes?