Couple-a new items for the house.  Since my housewarming and holiday parties, I’ve started to loose a little steam.  I mean I’m checking craigslist like, once a day instead of 58 times a day.  But I still had the opportunity to pick up some sweet pieces last week.

First, I became totally and completely obsessed with purchasing a cow skull to mount in my loft.  I mean, the decor it’s pretty western-y… I guess… but it lacked the full-on “crazy-person-accessory” to westernize it beyond all recognition.

Let me preamble this by mentioning that you can’t get a cow skull in a retail store in Toronto for less than like, $300.00.  That equals bullshit, so I set a goal to buy a cowskull using my super developed search and negotiating skills like a bad-ass mutherfucka.

So first, I look on craigslist, of course, and I find some guy out in Etobicoke who is selling his cow skull for like $150.00.  So I email him, fully planning to offer him around $100.00 or $120.00.  Then he comes back to me and says there is a bidding war on his damn cowskull and the new asking price is $350.00.  So I email him back and say “suck my choda” and decide to look elsewhere.

As mentioned on several previous occasions, I have been blessed the super-human ability to exploit the internet, and after days of scouring, I found a huge 3 foot cow skull for $50.00 from Texas.  Shipping was $30.00.  So that baby was $80.00 inclusive.  Plus it was expertly modeled by a midriff-baring woman wearing a steer-wranglin’ hat.  I mean, how could I say no to that??

You would think that a real cow skull with bones and DNA and possible bugs living in its eye-socket-holes and shit would have problems crossing the border, because when I order fucking pants from J Crew it takes the border officials 10 days to mull over whether or not I’m a terrorist.  You know – a terrorist ordering poo-green pants from J Crew.

But no.  The COW SKULL crossed the border in record time, and I had it in my paws within about 5 days of payment. 

I was concerned that it was a fake because I got such a good deal.  But hellz no.  This bad boy is a real skull from a real cow, all bleached in the sun for weeks and weeks. 

Only catch was that the horns were removed for shipping.  I had to re-screw them and wrap the rope around them myself.  But since I’m bad-ass hardcore, I screwed that shit in like an expert.

Yes.  Now I am a fully crazy person with multiple skulls adorning her living room.  SKULLS SKULLS EVERYWHERE!!!

In addition to the crazy-person skull, I also managed to score this fantastic mid-century space-man chrome ball-light at the Public Butter:

Now crazy-ball space lamps from the 60s/70s are in surprisingly high demand, and I have been looking for one on and off for a little while.  It’s hard to find one for less than a few hundred bones, so when I saw this down the street I got excited.

But not so excited when I saw the price tag:

I mean, fine.  I was originally $350.00… and now it’s $175.00… but:

1. $175.00 is still way too much for me to buy an un-needed lamp on a whim; and
2. I’m pretty sure that when Public Butter has their 50% off sale, they just mark everything up, so I don’t think I was getting a huge deal.

Now, I have my ways when negotiating.  (And no.  It does not involve sexual favours, you pervert.  Besides, any sexual favours I could provide would likely not amount to much value.  Due to my extreme awkwardness.  And now things are even more awkward because I said that… damn) 

So I decided to be my wiley self and try and see if I could negotiate that bad boy down a few bucks.  We tried out the lamp in a socket… and lo and behold, two of the sockets were defective and needed to be replaced.  I hemmed and hawwed and hemmed and hawwed and pushed. 

AND I GOT THE LAMP FOR $50.00.  So hardcore.

Look at her, all spacey and chromey.  She’s going to artify one of my rooms all up like crazy.  Now I just have to figure out how to re-wire light sockets and I’ll be golden.  Or chrome.  As it were.