Hi sinisterines and -ettes, Even though I suffer from subheading anxiety, I'm going to dip my big toe in the informative caps-lock marquee pool and give it a whirl, since it seems to help with coherence in post. COVER ART AND WHAT TO CALL IT Amazon versus, um...the other one (oh, MTV, right). Well, I wanted to say this pretty much right away, but the cover pictured on Amazon displays the Catastrophe Waitress (I'm guessing that girl is the title chick) in such a nice and alluring way. If forced to admit it, I'd say the CW is probably the most attractive B&S filtered-light cover lady. Ever. I mean, heck, what guy doesn't love the hell out of the Tigermilk girl (what's her name- Ciara or something?), but c'mon. Messed-up dark hair? Drawstring pants? The CW is hot-a-tot-tot. The cover on Amazon is just all sorts of orange-y good. So. What were the choices for the Sinisterization of the title? DICKWIPE vs. DICKWANK? Something like that, I think. Well, OK. I'm not sure I like either of those (at least not as much as I liked TWATTYBUS and FISHYCLAP) enough to say them all the time, and since the only rules I can extrapolate from those examples are that you indiscriminately insert letters into the abbreviation of the actual title (sort of willy-nilly, like vowels in hieroglyphics), I think I'll start calling "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" DICKSAW. A useful tool, this DICKSAW. All the rage for aspiring eunuchs and disgruntled wives. And it's just good old-fashioned pop music, people. Pure pop. Like you couldn't get it this untainted if you were to mainline granulated Britney Spears CDs. OH MAN ANOTHER *$%#ING THING ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE ATLANTIC PICNIC, WHEN WILL THE TERROR OF THIS EVENT STOP, IT'S AS IF THESE KIDS NEVER HAD BEEN OUTSIDE IN THEIR LIVES AND ARE NOW JUST DISCOVERING HOW TO MANIPULATE OBJECTS WITH THEIR ROUGH MOTOR SKILLS AND CRUDE THOUGHT PATTERNS. I'm looking forward to it pretty hard, I have to say. Work has been wearing me down, and I just completed a lengthy move from one end of town to the other (which I'm going to say right now that moving within a town is maybe more stressful than moving a long distance. Just think- with the long distance, you can feel justified in getting a big truck from U-Haul or Ryder or whatever and just pitching stuff into the hold in the back. But with the short move, it's all do-it-yourself. And that sucks.) and am right now enjoying possibly the best glass of iced tea in my life. But yeah, D.C. picnic'll be hella tight. And oh, I think we're all 7 or 9 of us planning to report back about it in extreme detail. I believe Kim's responsible for gathering the meteorological data for the picnic day, and I'll be drilling cores to get the pH of the soil and constructing a hydrological chart of the groundwater, within a 12 mile radius. I wouldn't want anyone to think we do our picnics half-assed here. Oh no, baby. I ALMOST WENT ON AN ILL-ADVISED RANT ABOUT 'TWEE' AND THE ROLE OF LABELS IN LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE, BUT THEN REMEMBERED THAT PEOPLE WOULD PROBABLY RATHER HAVE INTERCOURSE WITH A RUSTY RAKE THAN READ THAT. Twee. The only thing I've ever posted about it was confusion over the phrase 'twee as fuck', which I overheard in a record store once, and then waxed idiotically about on Sinister, only to have someone kindly point out that Hello Kitty vibrators do in fact exist. Which is the story of my life. But good discussion all around, I thought. Um, until the very end there where it got a little intense. Twee isn't used so much over here (in the U.S.) as much as 'fey' is, and even that isn't that often. Not that I want to start a fey debate. BELLE AND SEBASTIAN IS TOTALLY FEY, OMG!! IF YOU DON'T SEE THAT THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY LACK EITHER TYMPANIC MEMBRANES OR ARE JUST SUFFERING FROM A BRAIN PARASITE, RIBENA FOREVER!! etc. Not sure where I'm going with this. Hmm. Girl on the cover of DCW sure is hot though, wow. ONCE WHILE DRIVING BACK HOME, I STOPPED AT A LIGHT ALONGSIDE A CAR THAT WAS DRIVEN BY A MAN IN A CLOWN SUIT. DID I MENTION THIS WAS AT NIGHT? AND I WAS ALONE? Anyway. Just wanted to agree with G.Jay about the weirdness and horrible design flaws in exit ramps that also serve as on-ramps. Do they want people to die, as some sort of population control? I fail to understand how the advantages for having these would overcome the sheer volume of death that must be created each year. Also, I fit a twin-size mattress in my car yesterday, and I would like everyone to know that doing so is probably the exact same experience as mud-wrestling with a lethargic hippopotamus. Which is to say, awesome. These were a recipe for disaster, Take care, Kevin +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+