I've officially popped my picnic cherry, and I have a KAPOW Batman badge to prove it. I've been wearing the "Wonderful Wisconsin" yellow sun visor all weekend because Kirsten let me steal it. Ms. Kenyon, by the way, has regrets about losing her anonymity- so I'll just let the cat out of the bag before she crawls back into her hiding place: she is Peurto Rican, and she looks like Jennifer Lopez (speaks with a lovely carribean dialect). It is important, I think, to visit the actual lakes of the picninc title. My friends and I climbed up the sand dunes and rolled down the other side toward the beach. The ladies thought it a shame that Thomas Green-Jeans and I didn't jump in, but we enjoyed the beach-side view (aside from the giant factory stack on the horizon) while they frolicked in the water with their clothes on. I made a sand alien (complete with sea shell eyes) and I performed an autopsy on it using various pebbles as organs. Nobody liked my joke of making a sand embryo and performing a beach abortion on it, so I won't mention that. My friends have been trying to organize their thoughts about what-it-takes-to-be-a-bellandsebastian-fan and how did we all become twee. It wasn't until I got home from the great lakes that I realized my answer. My mother showed me pictures of her as a child. I realized that everyone had a twee childhood in the 50s. We are the last generation to be ripped from a twee childhood and thrust into a world of video games and action figures. I liked the transition at the time, but now I'm mourning the loss of twee things- like the joys of making snow men in my corduroy coat or launching persimmons at my neighbor friends in a game of "war". Of course, I always tend to get a bit over-dramatic when dealing with the subject of childhood, but it seems like children don't even have a chance now to avoid techno-crap-crap. In dealing with this new-found thought process, I've decided to get a job at the Imaginarium (the educational branch of The Toys R Us). No video games, no action figures- just twee toys and equipment. I'm not quite sure how friends and family will react to me working at both a toy store and a lipstick kiosk, but anyway... Secret decoder rings, Colin (or Road-Trip Tink) P.s. Amy- Charlie Rose said in his interview "we about had a Jihad with the situation" and I danced about because your word was kinda used, but I sulked when the other person said "Yeah, a real 'holy war'". Can I call you malaprop Amy from now on? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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 +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+