There was Heather's 30th birthday, which had me in tatters for lack of a seemingly adequate way to celebrate the event. Skydiving? Horseback-riding? Alcohol poisoning? In the end we went with the wonderfully simple option of spending the day together and buying her lots of cool stuff, like roller skates, Joni Mitchell albums, and a treadmill. She can tell you all about it.

Then there was the dog dropped off by a remote acquaintance who was being extradited back to New York to face drunk driving charges. She can tell you all about that one, too.

Me? I've been fighting a cold. And researching the candidates for the Oregon primary election. And stupidly taking on a little freelance web work. And negotiating a new lease with my apartment management company. And trying to get my piano re-tuned because the first place is ignoring me or something.

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I have had a lot on my mind and my plate in recent days and weeks, but fighting a cold at home has at least given me the opportunity to finally post all the edits you guys did recently from my Headmasters Laserdisc scans. So let's get right into it, shall we?

From heroic_decepticon:
• Raiden, the Japanese Trainbot gestalt
• the Decepticon Targetmasters: Misfire, Triggerhappy, Slugslinger, Cyclonus, and Scourge
• and some Autobot Targetmasters: Crosshairs, Pointblank, and Sureshot (who was a bit of a toss-up, since the previous version came from a crisper source)

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Years ago, I accompanied my friend Mike to the Sears optometry department where his father was buying him his first pair of contact lenses for his 16th birthday. If you've never had the experience, it should be known that the first time you receive contact lenses the optometrist places them in your eyes for you, then teaches you how to insert and remove them yourself. This is a naturally awkward experience, docilely allowing some stranger to put foreign objects in your eyes. For some it's not so bad; Mike had a less-than-ideal time.

My first experience was private, tucked away in a back room of the eyewear facility, discreet, clinical and intimate. If it was a porno, and the women was my age, it would have been perfect for an illicit encounter, a cheesy porn with myself cast as the young stud, newly reborn without the offending spectacles, like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. My friend Mike was not so fortunate: a middle-aged, frumpy and impatient women presided over his rite of passage right in the middle of the shop, on display for anyone and everyone, including Mike's father and I. Nor was she reassuring, understanding or sympathetic to Mike's obvious difficulty with the stated task of staring wide-eyed, unafraid and unblinking, as an umfamiliar finger with inappropriately-long painted nails made made a beeline for his naked and defenseless eyes. Horrified and horribly amused, I could do nothing but cover my mouth and stifle a giggle at this optometric lunacy.

But what really got me, and this is the whole point of this post, is when she unhelpfully chided: "Listen, you control your eyelashes, they don't control you."

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