Time for some ebay temptation!

In honour of the Watchmen premier (which I have not yet seen!) - this one strikes me as Sally Jupiter incognito daywear:
TWO TONE rayon TIMELESS DESIGN WWII DRESS
(Measurements of the garment (not the person who wears it!) bust 37" -waist 27" - hips full)


( Continued behind the cut with a sort of a late 1950s-1960s wiggle cocktail Mad Men sexy secretary theme this time... )

Winter hasn't even settled in and I am already planning escapes of a Tiki nature.

1. Esther Williams Bathing Suit.
Any local gals want in? I'm going to finally take the plunge and order one of these. I know the Canadian dollar has tanked, but I've found that RetroDress.Com sells these for $65 USD (~$80 Cdn), which is not a bad price for a suit, all things considered. And it'll be made in the US, and it'll be an ESTHER WILLIAMS suit. There are a couple places you can look at pictures of these:
Esther Williams' Site:
There are other suits, but these are the two I'm after:
One Piece
Two Piece

These EW photos may not do them justice, so I'll also point you to another site that sells them and shows off their sexier side: MyBabyJo.com
EW suits show their PinUpitude.
( Continued behind the cut with more info on EW suits, as well as Hawaii and Luau plans. )

Get outta my head, Black Phoenix Alchemy lab!!!

From http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/limited.html , scroll down a ways:

"In the spirit of Polynesian Pop and Tiki Culture, we present Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Atomic Luau Lounge: the Exotica Collection... Gah! Limited Edition!

I mean - not just a Tiki collection, but an Atomic Luau! They are either reading my mind or my blog.

And the goggleheads in the audience probably already know there's a Steampunk line coming, in follow-up to the "Mechanical Phoenix" limited edition scent.

What's next - A James Cagney puts on Brass Goggles and Dances with Ginger Rogers (who wears Kaylee's ballgown) to Busby Berkley tunes inside the ring of Stonehenge while Magpies string decorations made of shiny replicas of DNA helices interspersed with First Editions of Tolkien? Is that what's next Bpal?! Do yer worst!

The sort of whacky podcast that only Canadians locked away in their basement, shivering from the cold, could invent.... Tiki Bar TV. Low budget, ad-libbed, hit-and-miss, tipsy podcasting at its best. Look close and there's even a couple cameos from Battlestar Galactica's Cally.

If you ever visit my LJ page (as opposed to always reading my posts on a friends page) the link to TikiBarTV has been there since the beginning. I've been following the adventures of Dr. Tiki (who always solves the problem of each episode with a Cocktail Prescription), Johnny Johnny (the intrepid Fez-wearing bartender) and LaLa (she's cute! she dances!) since about episode #7 and they've just posted episode #30 - cheers!

If I were to get a feel for the show, there's worse places to start than Episode #9, The Red Oktober - the link to which I've embedded behind the cut. A couple Luaus ago, we featured Tiki Bar TV as our theme, showcasing some of their cocktails, including the Red Oktober, courtesy of guest bartenders veritate and drhaggis. This past DragonCon, we took the game of Bunnies from episode #24 on the road. Full rules to the game of Bunnies can be found here. Warnings: a sexy girl dances, there's the very occasional cuss word and drinks are drank...( Forbidden Cocktails in a Swank Pad. )

Quick - go out and grab summer while it is here!

The short prairie summer is upon us. It still might snow at any time. It's snowed August long weekend before. But for now, it's hovering around 30C and it's light out til 11pm and too hot to sleep past 7am. Go forth and plant your plants, drink on your patios before it is too late. Carpe Sunshine!

Oddly, I don't get my sewing mojo on until this time of year. Then I go about complaining of being shut in my hot little sewing room instead of out enjoying the weather. But there you have it. The bridesmaids' accessories are all done and I get to do something fun. I drafted and got a muslin cut out this afternoon and everything! Yay!

But there's more!

I have my "Tiki" mix on the stereo and friends will be over for hot dogs. I have learned to make a Tom Collins, and now you can too, courtesy of the Thinking Bartender - including live action video! The Atomic Barware will be in use tonight.

Speaking of live action videos, my husband just sent me this email:

"This will be a good reference for D*C and other times when you're cross-dressing!
http://www.bensilver.com/style04/knots_home.htm
Enjoy!"

Dr Smith is so sweet, he not only 1) understands my love of costuming and 2) appreciates my penchant for wearing male costumes (Jedi, Gilderoy Lockhart and upcoming 30s gangster-ish ensemble) but provides me with something downright useful. That site has clear pictures and even videos on how to tie all the classic neckwear knots, like the Four-in-Hand.

This will come in handy for these beauts... (the seller described the Pocket Square as something like "Deco Pocket Square for Your Manly G-Man" - I had no hope of resisting its allure!)



Finally, my "Ultimate Complete Rogers and Astaire Collectors DVD set" and "All the Thin Man You Can Handle Box Set" have both arrived today. Solid!

Good times.

Fire

I saved the neighbourhood yesterday. Yes, my sharp beady little eyes were the first to pick out the smoke and wavy heat rising above the treetops of my backyard aspen woodland and meadow. We were the first to call 911 and tell the fire department that there was a bushfire maybe 200 feet away from our yard and they came to our house and made their way out into the meadow:



We overheard the firemen saying the fire when they arrived was about 100 x 180 feet in area. We got 2 big pumper trucks and 2 little ones, and they got it under control in a couple hours. Yay!

This was the first really warm day of spring and it was "Leaf Day" - the day that all the trees on the prairies burst into leaf - and we'd just been out tracking down frogs in our wetlands and enjoying the weather for the first time since winter, so it would have been tragic if anything worse has happened.

Friends: Tiki Highballs!

It was a full day all round, and it was topped with a rather belated but still very welcome and generous birthday supper with my family. By tradition, the birthday 'child' gets to pick a couple friends to come too, so I was very happy that veritate and drhaggis could come. You won't believe the ineffable coolness of the Vintage Atomic Highball Glass Set Complete with Carry Tray that those two managed to find and keep hidden from me for the past several months. Highballs! w00t!

Speaking of Highballs. I need some good Tiki highball recipes - is there such a thing? Tiki drinks tend to fall into the "Cocktail" family, I think, rather than the HighBall one. But if you know some good drinks to put into these supercool glasses, I'd love to hear of them.

Fandom: Making tiny pictures

Did you know one of the reasons I chose variations of "Magpie" as a username when I first logged onto the 'net in about 10 years ago was that I loved to run about stealing shiny pictures of actors from the web? And turning them into desktop wallpapers with my paint program? Yep.

My eyeballs are square once again from staring at the screen and making tiny 100x100 pixel pictures. It's silly really, spending hours on these wee things. I got the idea to make classic film fandom icons involving famous legs and feet with the line "My Fandom Has Legs" - which I think is terribly clever since, of course, not only are there famous legs in classic films, but by definition, classic film fandom has legs - it's been around a long time.



I am also getting a kick out of colourization:



Fantastic: Dr Smith is teh Sexy!!1!!111!

My husband made a goal this year of running 10 km, and this morning he got out there in front of thousands and ran 10 km! Yay! I am so proud of him! Yowsa!

A birthday present come early to the Laughing Magpie from her Dr Smith:


Information about the "Electra Tiki" here:
http://www.bluestarbrewing.com/bikes/electra-streamride-womens1.html#tiki

I especially like how the bike is described as "one part goddess of Paradise, one part hot-rod beauty queen"!

Dr Smith was in cahoots with another friend of ours who got this bike (in blue) at a charity fundraising auction for us. It's new and was bought at apparently quite a bargain, and it benefits Kidsport too!

It hasn't arrived yet, but when it does, I'll rig her out with a basket and put on my pedal pushers and strike out for the grocery store.

Yay for Dr Smith!

--

I haven't posted for a week! And the gauntlet of Science Fair begins today - I'll be shepherding 1000+ children, 500-odd judges for the next couple days - wish us all luck!

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who came to the Luau of the Atomic Age! All 100 or so of you are what make the effort worth while. That and my own Dr Smith, this is his birthday present and I wish I could do even more for him.

And a very special thank you to those of you who help out, especially in the hours before hand, when I know I am at my very worst snarky stressed-out short-fused self. Forgive me. I continue to stand in awe of the creativity and generosity of my friends. A bunch of you are still owed a commemorative Lava Lamp from us in honour of your contributions!



Welcome to the Luau of the Atomic Age! ( Click here for a few more photos )

As Dr Smith and I prepare for the annual luau I've been refurbishing the iTunes playlist. Not that there's really a theme other than tropical drinks, chocolate fountains and the thermostat set to HOT, but I like to have something to give each year a slightly different flavor.

Last year we showcased Tiki Bar TV and the guest bartenders (a different bartender and drink each hour!) chose some of that excellent podcasts more drinkable cocktails.

So, this year it's "Luau of the Atomic Age". An excuse to wear my sparkly blue sequined bikini bra essentially :-), but I've been gathering some of the Tiki jetson lounge retro exotic bongo surfer futuristic early 60s-ish tunes together for ambiance. And Benny Goodman's 'Sing, Swing, Sing' because that's one of the best party songs ever, even though it's not Tiki jetson lounge retro exotic bongo surfer futuristic early 60s-ish (TJLREBSFE60s)...

I discovered this crazy artist on iTunes that's perfect - Kahuna Kawentzmann - samples of music included! He's contemporary and has mixed his music to be played in modern clubs, but he's devoted to the whole TJLREBSFE60s scene. Surf guitars, bongos, sitars, exotic sound effects... is that a Theremin I hear?? I picked up 5 tracks and added them to the now 5.2 hours of TJLREBSFE60s music. We are ready to Luau.

And I found a copy of Elvis's 'Blue Hawaii' DVD for cheap that we'll play in the background (we have the sound off - just the visuals - very artsy). Any suggestions for other movies we could play in the background ?

___

Oh, Johnny Johnny!
Heavens above!
You make my sad heart jump with joy!

Johnny-Johnny has his own blog - with a cocktail every day!

Bliss!

http://www.tikijohnny.com/