Now Put on Your Shoes

And hie yourself hence over to the "Hark! A Vangrant!" blog or Kate Beaton's actual site to check out the latest series of one-off comics she's making, based on a list of historical figures the general public submitted. The consensus was as follows:

1- Soren Kierkegaard
2- Benedict Arnold
3- Agnes McPhail
4- Mary Shelley
5- Queen Elizabeth I
6- Emperor Norton
7- Benjamin Disraeli
8- Nikola Tesla
9- Genghis Khan
10- David Hume
11- Henry VIII
12- Thomas Beckett
13- Jerry Thomas
14- Pope John Paul II
15- Geoffrey Chaucer
16- Marcel Duchamp
17-Sylvanus Griswold Morley
18-The CBC
19- Jean Baptiste Lamarck
20-Heritage Moments

Here is one of her little autobiographical comics.

(click to enbiggen)

So far, so amusing. I have to admit I love Kate and her quirkitudes. She writes and draws charming comics about life in the Maritime provinces, and other such goodness. She hasn't been an internet presence for all that long, but I can see her going far. *waves* Hi Kate! Do well!

Kitchens around the world

Here's an excellent resource for international recipes. I do a lot of Thai food, so this will be very handy for extra recipes there, as well as letting me branch out.

We finally got a mortar and pestle the other day, so that'll let me use things like the whole cardamom leaves we have other than to just drop whole ones in soup.

The Darkest Night of the Year

So, it being Christmas-time, and this being Cincinnati, this Saturday we made the first step in what we hope will be a long-standing tradition of yearly attendance at the homecoming (from tour) show put on by Over the Rhine at the Taft Theater. The show was breathtakingly lovely, as is the norm for OTR, though I hadn't seen them in several years.

It's been so long since we've been to a proper show. There are several potential opportunities coming up, though, so we'll have to get off our duffs and go to one or more. Yo La Tengo, the Bravery, Band of Horses, etc. We're lousy hipsters. Not that that's anything new.

Speaking of musics and such-lot, I've added a last.fm player to the blog here. I'm having a bit of fun with that, since it logs everything you listen to, making it possible to create playlists and "radio stations" of your songs online from whatever ones they also have in the Last.fm library. I have high hopes, though undoubtedly the player will pick out some random embarrassing song and just play that over and over. I'll regret forever looking up the theme song for "Hong Kong Phooey" or whatever. Actually though, I'm sure what you'll find is a big chunk of Christmas music, since I just loaded the player this week, and have been listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens holiday songs. Hopefully you'll find it gets more diverse eventually.

New Music Alert!

The ways of the internet are mysterious and convoluted. Sometimes in a conversation, one will try to figure out the string of conversation that led to the current topic--In the same way, I've been trying to figure out exactly what brought me to the Myspace site of Rich Aucoin and his lovely music.

I think there may have been a conversation involving babies on Fark, and someone mentioned the Halifax comedy troupe Picnicface, and their "Harness the power of 400 babies!" sketch, which somehow led me to Youtube and one of their other sketches, which had Rich Aucoin's music during the credits, and that led me to his videos on Youtube, which led me to his Myspace page. Whew. I think.

Anyway, I suggest you check out his stuff. It's lovely melodious indie pop and you will enjoy it. You will. I friended Rich on Myspace and he wanted to know how in the world someone in Ohio had heard of him. It's the world wide webs!

And since 'tis the season, I'd also like to offer this sync'd version of the How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with music by Rich Aucoin. He did a pretty amazing job of writing and working the music to go with the film.

Plus, the man rode his bike across Canada to raise money for cancer research. How about that?? He's a bike-riding, music making machine.

Hmm. Could've sworn I was at least 90%.

88% Geek

Neat Video Pick of the Day

I've had fun playing with cornstarch + water mixtures before, but in this video, someone is applying vibrations to that mixture with really interesting results. See the end of the clip, especially.

Something to look forward to

I think I posted about the Music Now Festival previously, specifically about the most excellent Take Away Show with Sufjan Stevens filmed at it. Well, planning is underway for the third incarnation of the festival in 2008, and I'm twitchy and excited about it already.

I haven't yet been to Memorial Hall, where the last festival was held, but it looks like a pretty stunning place. It's about 15 minutes from where we live, which makes it all the more excellent.

We found out recently that The National are from Cincinnati, which would explain their involvement in the project.

November Already?

I can't believe it. Where'd my Autumn go?

Well, we got to see Steve and Anna this weekend, which was so darn nice. Steve hauled a bunch of gear down and set up a veritable full-on studio in the living room in order to record vocals for the songs Au Revoir Borealis has been working on. So glad to get that done. I had a scratchy throat, and am hoping it didn't show. Ah well.

It was just darn nice to get to see good friends. Time blurs, and I don't realize how long it's been since I've seen people until I actually get to spend some time with them.

Lovely.

PS. Pumpkin muffins!! Yay Anna! I just ate the last one. :)

Recent Adventures #3

More exploration this weekend: It was a day of various mounts - Mount Lookout, Mount Washington, and Mount Adams.

Sunday was gorgeous, so we finally went to Ault Park, which is supposed to have one of the best views in Cincinnati. I can't really argue with that assertion. I think Mount Lookout is the hill the park is on, and you can see across the valley to Kentucky pretty much. The trees have finally burst into color, so seeing them from above was really neat.

After that, we checked out a comic shop in Mount Washington. It had that classic dusty smell, and was full of old school issues in long-boxes and plastic. The clerk/owner looked kind of defeated, and it made me a bit sad. It can't be a very profitable business to be in these days. The store had mostly the big name Marvel/DC/Dark Horse fare that's easy to find anywhere, though there was a hardcover Firefly/Serenity book I would have liked. I wish there were a store in the area to find smaller independent comics, and printings of webcomics. I suppose if you're going to be cutting edge in the comic business these days, you have to first of all be doing business online, and also with print-on-demand places like Lulu and such for special orders and small online comics. Even then, I imagine there's not an awful lot of money to be made in the business these days.

After Mount Washington, we made our way back up to Mount Adams, which we finally discovered on Friday. I'm still kind of giddily excited about that neighborhood. It reminds me so much of a small east coast town--maybe old-school Vermont or Maine, with narrow hilly streets, and pretty, ivy-covered old buildings all nestled together. We ate at the place that used to be the Rookwood Pottery Factory. It still has the giant brick kilns and chimneys in place. In fact, there are tables within each of the three huge kilns--they're pretty much private rooms now.

It's blurry, but it was a nice view!

I was glad to get the chance to take some pictures, since I've been wanting to try my hand at putting together some HDR photos. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and I guess the simplest description is that it's a compilation of several identical photos of different exposures, which uses the best exposed bits of the image to create one more like what the human eye sees. At the same time as being more like what we actually see, they're also a bit bizarre because they can be ultra vivid, and crisp in ways we don't often see photos. HDR photos can also be tweaked into utterly surreal, gorgeous images. Er... I'm still getting the hang of the whole "gorgeous" part here. Here are a a couple attempts at HDR images. I'm not using RAW files like I should be for these, so they're pretty grainy and "noisy" at times. Ah well. Fun all the same. This one is from out front of the uber art deco Union Terminal Museum Center. It's a bit on the surreal side, but I think it's interesting to look at, and it's not so boring a photo as it was.


Here's the pavilion at the top of Ault Park. A little more realistic. The sky was actually that blue.


These are a couple from a bridge up on Mount Adams. The city view was pretty fantastic. We could see all the way to Union Terminal on the other side of town.


Anyway, after a bunch of rain last week, we're being rewarded with some days of gorgeousness. It's Halloween today, and although we don't bother celebrating it, it's fun to see how excited the kids walking home from school are. It was chilly yesterday, but today I stepped out onto the patio to find it was sunny, in the high sixties, and our entire neighborhood smelled of freshly made waffle cones. Huh? I have no idea. I did hear the school marching band in the distance not too long ago, so perhaps there's a festival-type function happening? Anyway, I've opened all the windows (mmmm....wafflecones....) and I'm expecting small people in costumes to come seeking sugar any minute now, so I'd better go.

Eureka!

The author of XKCD has just solved a persistent problem for the boy and I.

Behold!

Rawk n' Bawk

So we just had an exceedingly delectable dinner of chicken, and I thought I'd share the recipe in case anyone wants to give it a shot. It was actually pretty low-key in the time you actually spend making it, which is always a massive plus in the kitchen. I kind of compiled several recipes and this is what happened. Please excuse my not having precise measurements. The kitchen might as well be a lab with all the experimenting that happens in there.

So, without further adieu... Preheat your oven to 500 F. Yes, I know. HOT. But you turn it down later. It just gets things crispified.

Stuff you'll need:

• Chicken, duh. We used a whole one, though I could see this working well with chicken breastses.
• Roasted cashews. Lots of them. The ones I used were salted, which was fine.
• fresh basil - a good handful of it. If you don't have basil, parsley might work, as well as (shudder) cilantro, which I hate. Don't worry about stems and such.
  
• two cloves of garlic, or two decent dollops of pre-minced garlic
• soy sauce
• lime juice. I actually used lemon because I didn't have any lime, but I think it would be even better with lime.
  
• Olive oil. You could also use one of the lighter oils like grapeseed oil or walnut oil.
• fresh jalopeños, diced - I only used one, and was a little sad I didn't use two. I like things fairly spicy, but I would recommend one for people who aren't sure how spicy they'd like it. Careful when you're cutting these suckers up. That oil is pretty hard to get off your hands, and it stings like a mother when you rub your eyes.
  

So. Get out an instrument that will make something into a mash. I had to use our lame blender, but if you have a food processor, that would be ideal. Into the blender or whatever, dump:

a cup and a half of cashews - Make sure there are some left for later
the garlic
some soy - I probably used a couple tablespoons?
all the basil or whatever herb
a blop of olive oil
lime juice - couple tablespoons here too, maybe?
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
the jalopeños

The idea is to blend all this stuff into a paste. You can use the soy and lime juice to control the wetness of it, etc. I kind of went by smell as well. you don't want one thing to be overpowering.

If you're using a whole chicken, put it into a baking pan that has some room around it, and stuff it with whole cashews and a bunch of the paste you just made. You can also rub a bunch of the paste all over the outside of it.

Stick the chicken in the oven and turn it down at once to 350 F. Then, walk away and do other things for about an hour and a half, depending on how big your chicken is. Time varies according to weight, so you'd have to figure out the appropriate amount.

All that's left is pulling it out when it's done, and digging in!

It turned out to be nutty and savory with a tad of spiciness as well. Just lovely. We're thinking we'll probably try this on our thanksgiving turkey, since we can't have bread stuffing. I bet that some baby portabellas would be good chopped into the stuffing, too.

Let me know if you try it, and what you think!

How do I love thee?

I can only think of a a couple ways, but that's a-ok. I'm talking about Arnica Gel, people. It's my product of the month. According to wikipedia, Arnica is in the same family as the common sunflower, and has been used for ages as a salve for bruises and aches.

Warning: Frou frou girly-type topics ahead!

Aside from the advertised uses, which I haven't tried, here are my discoveries:

Puffy eyes - It actually works really well when you don't get enough sleep and have puffy eyes, which I manage to get on occasion. The fact that the gel base is witch hazel can't hurt, I'm sure, though witch hazel on its own is just too strong for me. I'd been told hemmorhoid cream would do the trick so when E. and I were at the drugstore once I took a detour to grab some. She seems a little nonplussed, so I explained I was going to try it for reducing eye puff. At that point, another lady walked into the aisle and caught only the last part of the conversation, which was me standing there with Prep-H in hand, and E. exclaiming, "Cool! You've got to tell me how it works, and I might try it!" Anyway, the point is that Arnica works as well as Prep H, and doesn't sting at all.

Post waxing - my poor legs are never happy after having the hairs ripped forcefully out. The gel does a pretty nice job of soothing and making the red go away.

Burns - This is what inspired me to post on Arnica Gel. Last night I was making a caulifower dish and it was boiling away merrily, and I was cooking merrily, until I stupidly popped the top off the pot with my thumb exposed to the crack, and got a wicked steam burn. Those of you who haven't had a steam burn, imagine, if you will, some of your flesh being boiled. Yum. In any case, I cannot over emphasize enough the importance of putting ice immediately and for a long time on burns. I realize this may seem obvious, but I think in the past I've only kept the ice on for a bit, and ended up with a burn that stung for days. I wrapped my hand in a bag of frozen peas, and oh-so-bravely finished the dish, which, by the way was pretty yummy. After a couple hours and a couple change-outs of ice, I tested not having anything cold on it, and it felt basically like someone was sawing my hand off. Awesome! that was when I thought of the Arnica Gel, which I slathered on generously. It cooled it nicely, and within a few minutes, the pain was pretty much gone unless I bumped my thumb on something. Today, it doesn't feel like anything, though there's a vivid red mark there. So next time you get a burn, give it the old one-two: fast and long ice application, and then blob something along the lines of Arnica onto it.

I'm not saying there's nothing that could replace Arnica or do what it does, but I do think it's a handy multipurpose thingy to have around.

_____________________


I know cauliflower doesn't top everyone's list of delicious vegetables, but it's actually quite good this way:

1. steam until it falls apart when you poke it with a fork. if you have leeks, add a bunch and steam them along with it.
2. stick cauliflower and leeks into blender or food processor with the following:
- salt & pepper
- nutmeg
- garlic
- dab of cream

3. blend until the consistency of mashed potatoes, and add cream if it's too dry. Basically treat it like mashed potatoes from here on out. Serve with a pat of butter, etc.

It makes a good replacement if you're eating low carb and really miss having a pile of mushy white stuff on the side of your plate. I hate when people say things like "It's juuust like mashed potatoes!" because it's not. It's quite good though, and I really like the subtleness of the nutmeg. Don't compare the two and you'll find it stands pretty well on its own.

Hah!

So... another format change because: When I was messing with the settings on my template a few days ago, I thought, "hmm.. I like this look, but it somehow seems familiar... ." It was bugging me, until I went over to Sojourn North and realized I had copped that look exactly, right down to the photo replacement for the header. Heh... Apologies, Woman North! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or the sincerest form of me being an oblivious dork.

Did you hear that?

"Back in the Day," I think the internet was easier to simply bumble around, discovering things. People built ugly pages just jam packed with information about obscure things, just for the sake of bestowing their knowledge upon the world wide web. One found these pages via search engine, or links from said interesting page, to another interesting page. While the awful flashing gifs and such were hard on the eyes, (and the aesthetic sensibilities), it seems as though it was easier then to stumble onto new things. Nowadays, (insert old lady voice), one searches, but gets redirected to commercial sites, linked to ads, and barraged with cookie requests more often than one finds something truly new and interesting. And git off muh virtual lawn!

In order to reacquaint myself with the internet of old, I stuck the StumbleUpon toolbar into my browser. It's not one of those awful and intrusive "Find a deal!" toolbars that I so detest. You specify what types of pages you're interested in "stumbling upon," and a click of the button sends you to a random site fitting those specifications. You're able to give a thumbs up or down to the page you reach, making it more likely that StumbleUpon will send you someplace you're interested in being. You're also able to submit a new page, if you so desire, by simply giving it a thumbs up or down and filling out the subsequent little form describing what it is.

The only thing that annoys me about it is that it asks to set cookies for the next page in line before you actually see the page you're stumbling to.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I recently found a neat site that could be an interesting resource: A page full of sounds. Ever wonder what a pheasant sounds like? Or curious about what a sounds Geiger counter makes? This is your page. Neat stuff.

Prettier than your average documentary

The Boy with the Incredible Brain is a documentary that follows the mental magic of Daniel Tammet, who is able to do insane mathematical calculations in his head with seemingly no effort.

The subject matter is intriguing all on its own--a young man who can recite twenty thousand numbers of pi by memory, who can learn languages ridiculously quickly, and will never need a calculator for anything--ever, unless it's for someone to check the fact that he's right.

However, I'm impressed at the prettiness of the documentary as well. It's beautifully put together, the music is lovely and the overall look if the thing is much more interesting than the usual fare.

More Low-key Adventures.

It was in the 70s today, which made running errands a pleasure. I am happy about the fact that I literally "run errands." Well, technically, I walk errands, but whatever.

Here's a view from a bench in Old Town Center - I mentioned posting this a couple days ago.



This is the bell tower I was also talking about. I try to time things so I'm nearby when it rings noon or six. We can hear it from our house, but it's fun actually see the bells go (deafening, but fun). I have no idea what one does to actually play a carillon. Will have to look that up.



There are several trails of various lengths that start at the (completely landlocked!?) old stone boathouse. I poked around in the woods for a while, and though you're really not that far from civilization, it feels like a gentle sort of forest wilderness. The trails are mostly in a valley, while the roads and houses are up above, so the noise of cars and such doesn't make its way in.



In other news, this is the favorite thing I have on my desk. J made it a while ago, and I can't stop inspecting it. So many little things to see. You must click the photo to make it big enough to get a good look.

Recent Adventures

I try to go walking around our neighborhood a lot so I don't go stir crazy in the house.

Is it a holiday of some kind? Perhaps some sort of flag competition I was unaware of?

There's a neat old church a block over. One gets to it by passing through the super-secret slate-roofed portal.



I like mission style lights, and I approve this arbor.



"I'll meet you at the cemetery gates. Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine." A Smiths quote is almost always appropriate. Almost.





Quite a lot of grave markers from the 1800s. RIP, Sarah Jewett. She was younger than me when she died, yet she was a wife and a mother several times over.



This house across the street was begging to be sepia toned.



Walking through this area makes me feel almost as though I were in the Lake District. This neighbor has the "romantic English garden" down pat. I adore it.



As small as the village is, I still find new and interesting things almost every time I go walking. More to come: I was going to take some pictures of Old Town Center, which the church and these houses cluster around, but there was a lady sitting by the fountain eating lunch. I didn't want to bother her. Next time.

It's Official

I have the most adorable niece and nephews (plural now!!) EVER. I keep pictures of them handy in order to have a sudden dose of cheer when I need it. Here are the feet of the most recent addition to the unbearable cuteness (as of the end of September):


I can not stop staring at all his pictures. I can not wait to meet him in person.

I made a thing a while back before he was born, and recently worked up the courage to send it. For some reason, after looking at a project long enough when I'm working on it, I lose all sense of whether it's stupid or not. Ah well. It's fine, though I always feel like I could make it a million times better next time. It's a bird mobile with the birds sewn out of felt. Here are the first three:



And for some reason I didn't take any pictures of the fourth when it was done, but here's its little unstuffed body.



I made a leaf kind of thing for the middle of it.



The crossbars were made out of some dowel stained with coffee and sealed, and I left the ribbons uncut so they could be adjusted for height and balance, then trimmed.

I was kind of hoping for a fifties sort of feel for the whole thing, which I'm not sure I achieved. I love the felt toys of that era. I think in that regard, maybe the little green bird worked out best? H.A. has asked me what the names of the birds are, so she can tell them to the Tiny. Hmm... Anyone have any ideas? I kind of think they'd be names along the lines of what you'd find in Beatrix Potter books, or some-such.

It was fun to break out the sewing machine again. I'm looking forward to having a permanent setup for it. Now to work on Christmas ideas...

So sweet it may cause tooth decay.

True story about an orphaned maccaque whose best friend is now a pigeon. Aww.

A Lovely Noise

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Gravenhurst. There's something about those bell-like vocals and the something between Nick Drake and Creation Records era shoegaze that is just tasty.

Below is a Take Away Show Gravenhurst did for La Blogothèque. I recommend browsing around that site any time. I love it, and it's a great way to find interesting music and get to know musicians in a more simple and personal setting. (on that note, they've just done a neat set of songs with Loney Dear in Paris. We saw Loney Dear with Low back in the spring, and I've been curious about them since.)



And here is a pretty little film Gravenhurst made using a Super8 camera. It's slightly "collegy," but the song is lovely, though it sort of cuts off a but abruptly at the end.



I do recommend taking a look at their other videos on Youtube. It's good Autumn music.

I....I don't even know what to say.

This was just posted on Neatorama, but it was too good not to share here. Apparently this movie can be watched as part of Netflix's online video rentals.

There is also a music video complied with scenes from the film. The poo sings so touchingly.

(??!)

The Cusp of Autumn

For those of you wondering, my dad came through heart surgery well, and is making a good recovery--which makes me very very relieved. Life can be pretty sucky at times, but mercies like that can make all the other stuff seem pretty irrelevant and small.

I realize I'm a worrier a lot of the time, but I hope I'm not a pessimist. It's only because I forget to remember the things that are good. Er...unless that's the definition of a pessimist. I think of them as someone who's aware of what's good, but manages to imagine everything is going to be awful anyway. I'm working on encouraging my tiny, withered seedling of optimism to grow up into an oak tree or a skunk cabbage or whatever.

Yes, I know. It's been for-freaking-ever since I've blogged. As an apology, I would like to offer these tasty morsels:

• What do you get when you combine Johnny Cash's vocals, Led Zeppelin's drums, Beastie Boys bass, Ted Nugent's guitar, and the Beatles lead guitar? No, not an apple streusel, silly--It's quite possibly the BEST MASHUP EVER.
  

• When it comes to storytelling flash games, many times they're a digital cacophony of crappy animation and awkward gameplay. However, Samarost is different. It's essentially a beautiful interactive children's book with lovely music, interesting art, and engaging puzzles. I've linked to the walkthrough, because I did get stuck a couple times. Point and click adventures force you to think a little differently, and it takes a bit to catch on. There is a second installation of the game as well.
  

• Also, who doesn't like a simple game that basically just involves Japanese Victorian ladies slapping each other?

• This is a concept I can get behind. "The more unhappy you are, the more ice cream you need."

• For those of you with small dogs, this is valuable info. And it's darn cute.
  

• Here's a highly entertaining look at what the world of 1910 envisioned the year 2000 to be like. The page was originally in French, and I've linked to the Google translation, so the text may be a bit awkward. The ideas are an awful lot like we used to dream up for the future as children. Machines that put on your makeup! Pills for dinner! Ah, the glorious future...

• And if you'll excuse me now, I have to go take my daily chocolate supplement.
  

Grocery Shopping at an Amusment Park

Yesterday we plotted our course and did some adventuring around town. First stop was Lulu's Noodles, where the pho is supposed to be legendary. Uh, we didn't order it, though. Next time we will for sure. It just seemed too warm out for a big bowl o' soup. The Cantonese pan-fried noodles were good, though.

After that was a stop at a couple shops in the area - I'm afraid I did the typical wife thing and wandered to a nearby Cost Plus World Market while the Boy mulled over arcane external drive housings and computer guts at another store. We need curtains downstairs, so I searched for some. I've come to the conclusion that whoever decided that curtains should be sold one panel at a time ought to be smacked. I can imagine someone rubbing their hands with evil glee as they propose that not only will one one panel be sold at a time (as if anyone ever just needs a single panel for a whole window), but the panel shall be thin! So thin, in fact, that one may need to buy MORE than two panels to cover an entire window. MWAHAHA!!!

Only IKEA seems to get it right. They not only sell curtains enough for an ENTIRE window in one package, but it still costs less than a single measly panel elsewhere. Oh IKEA, come quickly. Cincinnati is waiting, and Spring 2008 seems so far away.

Anyhoo, after gnashing my teeth about the curtain panels, we traversed north a ways to a food market called Jungle Jim's. Now actually, to call it a food market would be a disservice.

You can't see the elephant fountain from here. Seriously.

What the place actually is, is something....sort of hard to describe. Imagine, if you will, that an amusement park married the most massive international grocery ever. This place would be the kid they'd have. According to the eccentric "Jungle Jim" himself, the place is, "Oh, six or eight acres" of gastronomical wonders ranging from thousands of cheeses, to an entire normal grocery store size area of wines and alcohols, to a fresh fish market, to a massive hot sauce section alphabetized by name, to... pretty much, you name it. Good thing we'd already grocery shopped recently. We hadn't really known what to expect there. Among the foods, you have weird and corny displays of various kinds, like a singing lion dressed like Elvis, or a support pole transformed into a giraffe neck. It was kind of bizarre in that respect, but you really really couldn't argue with the fact that any food or ingredient you could ever imagine, they had.

This is just part of the Parmasan and Romano section of the Cheese District. Forgive the blurriness. We were being sneaky with the camera.

Here are some of the dried peppers, most of which I'd never heard of. The whole area had an amazing smokey, peppery smell.

This is the front of the Hot Sauce Department- there are some aisles behind. I think the Boy had a little heart attack when he saw this. There was much gleeful browsing.

Who'd have thunk? A hot sauce that costs $2,000?? If cost is proportionate to heat, it must be like putting battery acid on your food.

We got off easy, buying just a few things: a six pack of various interesting beers and ales, which I'll write about later, cardamom, big shavings of cinnamon, star anise, and galanga. Oh, and a cat toy. Heh.

If any of you visit us here in Cin City, you may want to pay Jungle Jim's a visit. Bring your walking shoes.

Prettiest Commercial Ever?

I know it's ancient by web standards - it's been over a year since Jose Gonzalez sang "Heartbeats" as a sonic backdrop to hundreds of thousands of superballs being released down a San Francisco street for a Bravia commercial. However, I still love both the image and the song.

Wha...?

Remember the other day when I posted about how the cats love to look out the window at the feeder hanging on the oh-so-convenient tree right outside the study window? I neglected to mention that it provides a nice amount of shade and privacy to the front of the house, and is as fit as a fiddle, with its evergreen foliage making nice places for little critters to hang out where we could watch them right outside.

Yesterday I'd just charged up the camera and was ready to take some more adorable squirrel-hanging-from- feeder pictures, when I remembered the laundry needed changing. At the same time, I heard the lawn care guys doing some trimming outside, and breathed a sigh of relief that they were going to take down a couple large dead branches of a tree out by the road. I had had visions of them crunching down on an unsuspecting jogger.

Anyhoo, I figured since the squirrel would undoubtedly be in hiding until the lawn guys were gone, I'd just take pictures of it at the feeder later. It's not like it was going anywhere. Right? RIGHT??

I hauled some clean laundry upstairs and as I passed the study, I paused. It seemed awfully bright in there. That was when I realized my tree was totally and completely GONE. Gah! The cats were milling around on the windowsill, wondering why the view was so different.

After some roaring and fist shaking, I realized that they'd not only cut down my perfectly healthy shade tree, but they'd LEFT the 2 dead branches over the road. What the...?

Apparently this is a new trend with elderly man landlords. My mother-in-law had the exact same thing happen a little while ago at her place up North--- The landlord had a perfectly healthy tree chopped down for no other reason than that "It might fall on the house someday." I can only assume ours cut my tree for the same reason. Darn our trendy landlord! He didn't have to give in to peer pressure!

Bleh. I'm still sad about the tree, but I'm over it. And in the grand scheme of things, we do still have the best landlord ever. He's a grandpa-type who is absolutely charmed and impressed when you bring him the rent in person and shake his hand. We've heard no end of, "We're just so glad you're on board with us! It's just a pleasure to have such wonderful young people in that building. A pleasure!!" He actually added screen doors and ceiling fans and refinished the wood floors for us before we moved in. He wanted us to choose the paint colors, too! His wife is great as well, though she's hard of hearing, and can't take a phone message worth beans.

So *sigh* no more tree. I guess I'll put a feeder outside a window downstairs. The cats will be just as entertained, I'm sure.

Certain Laws of the Universe...

state that it would have been scientifically impossible for this ragingly adorable Valentine-spotted puppy to have been born anywhere but Japan.

Er...

I realize the last post had nothing to do with malts. However last night we went over to Graeter's on the town square after dinner for malts. It's ice cream month, apparently, and they're doing a thing where they'll add a mini scoop of ice cream for free. This equals a tiny scoop perched carefully on top of the regular scoop in the cone. We were highly amused by it for some reason. Who would have thought ice cream could be adorable?

I think it has to do with CuteOverload's Rule of Cuteness #7: "A thing, accompanied by a smaller version of that thing, is always cute."

Hooray for Malts!

Well, a week on from the move, things are pretty well unpacked, and though we need to pick up some shelving for here and there, and a couple other things, we're pretty well settled in.

It feels odd to know all the neighbors. We've always been friendly, but pretty quiet--not really diving into communities we've lived, partly because they haven't been all that conducive to diving into, and partly because we're "homey" types. But I think I like this whole "being social" business. Next weekend we're supposed to go to a big farmer's market in downtown Cincy with the girl who lives next door, and we're hopefully meeting up with a buncha nerds in a couple weeks from a literary group. We'll see what happens in terms of churches as well. We have a couple leads on decent places, though we're not rushing to find one.

The cats seem to be doing better. After the initial flurry of nervous stalking around and Nihao hissing, they've settled back into being pals--sleeping practically on top of each other and grooming each other like mad. I stuck a bag feeder outside the study window, and they've both been entranced by a massive chickadee convention as well as by a particular squirrel we've dubbed Squirrel Nutkin. (link goes to complete book online)


We have a decent patio and a--gasp!---already made garden to which I can easily add and maintain. The house we moved from started with a wasteland of trash and tomato wires in the back yard that took me an entire summer to clear and till. By the time we moved, there was more of a formed garden with plenty of perennials. About a thousand percent better than it was, but oh-so-much work... In any case, it's nice to have something a little simpler. I planted nasturtium, lavender, oregano, and chinese bellflowers in this section, which will be the "mostly herb" area. The nasturtium should spread nicely, with lots of spicy flowers, and buds you can cook with like capers. There was a tomato plant I repotted, and the local neato plant nursery was having a sale on herbs, so I got some thyme and Basil for pots. As we were walking up to the register, the owner of the place came running up with a couple garlic plants, which she gave us for free, since the cloves were ready to eat. Yum.

Ignore the big trash can and dolly. They're gone now. Also, is that a fancy-dancy brand new grill I see under that cover in the corner? Why YES, yes it is. The Boy had been yearning for one for a while now, and apparently there was a crazy sale at Lowes, and that= grill. Huzzah. We did a lime-herb turkey breast and asparagus on it last night. So yum.

oh, and Nihao likes to watch the neighbor cats from the back door.

Still Alive.

*yawn* Just barely. Happy Fourth of July, fiends and families!

We made it down to Cinci and have had internet for a few days, though I've been too pooped after the move and such to do much of anything but sloooowly unpacking boxes, like an old, rusty robot.

We're actually pretty settled for having been here less than a week. The neighborhood is lovely, the people are friendly, and we're having great fun getting to know the area and finding neat places to eat and hang out.

The cats are slowly recovering from an uber-traumatic 5 hour drive, and I expect that by next week they'll be back to normal. They're already pretty comfortable here, though there's been some hissing and spitting as Nihao is a little uncertain about her territory. Boo could care less, but she growls and roars at him, unless they're both preoccupied by something, in which case, they'll distractedly groom each other until Nihao remembers she's supposed to be hissy. It's noticably better already, thankfully.

Last night we spent some time out on the patio in the dark. There was a fireworks display happening nearby in downtown, and the carillon in the nearby church was playing songs along with it. The fireflies were out in force, trying to match the flashes in the sky.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

I'm rehosting my blog because we're changing internet providers.

The new location (which looks pretty much exactly like the old location) will be:

http://whenidropdead.blogspot.com

That site should redirect you here for the time being. It'll switch over this weekend.

Just the Facts, Ma'am.

I got a welcome packet in the mail today for our future hometown.

Here are some highlights:

• There are 3400 residents in the village.
• Boo... street parking is pretty regulated
• They have a setup where residents can leave a copy of their home key in a lockbox at town hall in case you get locked out of your house or apartment. (?) That's kinda cool.
  
• Boo also...you have to put a special sticker on each trash pickup. Ah well.
  
• Hurrah - On sunday evenings in the summer, they have carrillon concerts in the bell tower park three blocks from our place. Lovely.
  
• They have a setup where you let the police know when you're heading out of town on vacation, and they'll swing and check on your place if you want. (It's like the Waltons or something!)
  
• They have town meetings that actually include a town crier in period costume. I'm going to feel like I live in Greenfield Village. ^_^
• The area of the village is .9 square miles, yet has 50 acres of parks and greens.
  
• It's about 15 minutes to the museum center in downtown Cincinnati, the botanical gardens, the zoo, etc.
  
• ANNNND, they just broke ground on an IKEA! It's kind of lame how excited I am about that.
  

"Fish! Plankton! Protein from the Sea!"

Okay. I realize that was a massive stupid jump in logic. Those of you with obscure enough tastes in film may recognize that title quote as being from the 70's campy gem of a movie, Logan's Run.

The character being quoted is called Box, which happens to also be an object I'm seeing lots and lots of these days. Get it? That wasn't such a stretch, right? *groan*

I have aquired more boxes. Many more. That's about the only thing happening in my life at the moment, other than half-watching a gigantic marathon of Stargate SG-1 on the Sci Fi Channel as I packed downstairs. I swear, the past two weeks, every time I've turned it on, they've been running that show. It's practically the Stargate Channel. But I figured it was a toss up between that and watching perfectly manicured people with a troop of obedient movers make over houses I already think look fine on HGTV. That was beginning to make me twitch.

I did have the Kevin Costner opus, Waterworld, on the other day as I was packing. You know, I saw this movie in college. I remembered people saying it was awful. Well, it was even more ridiculously dumb than I'd remembered. It really helped me focus on the packing to avoid looking at it. What I caught was basically "Mad Max at sea." Only with terrible acting, laughable writing, and a plot that made me shake my head in disbelief. Oh, and no really good-looking young Mel Gibson. But seriously, in Waterworld, the characters, with a straight face, refer to oil as "go-juice." *brrr* Even as someone appreciates the occasional campy romp through the back lots of B-movieville, it was too much for me.

In other news, to counteract all the celluloid nightmares left over from Waterworld, I've found a piece of film that perfectly embodies drama and incredible method acting. It's only six seconds long, but it's so intense, and acted with such passion I have to watch it over and over. Please be sure you have your sound on.

BEHOLD.

Reporting From the Parking Lot of the Mos Eisley Cantina

Uh, of all the weird things I've run across on Amazon, this might just take the cake. Don't you need a crew of Jawas to pilot these things? And for some chuckles, read some of the reviews. Heh.

In other news, I seem to have run out of boxes. There I was, packing away, minding my own business, when I realized that I've packed every box I have, and I'm still not even close to being ready to move stuff to Cinci.

I've gotten extra double-plus ruthless lately when it comes to pareing down the amoung of things we have. Four years is a decent amount of time to accumulate stuff we don't need, but I can't really use that excuse. A lot of the stuff I'm getting rid of is boxes of things we never really unpacked. Loads of moldy books from the Boy's storage space, things that were here when we moved in, boxes of random baby paraphrenalia we were given by a coworker ages ago. Don't ask. Just lots of stuff. It all contributes to the love affair I have with digitally stored media. That doesn't take up any of my physical space.

In any case, my plan of action so far has been thus:

1. Divide STUFF into categories - stuff to donate, stuff to trash, stuff to store, stuff to pack.
(Technically, there should also be a stuff to sell pile, because lord knows when we're going to hook up that Sega Master System, but I can't imagine dealing with Ebay on top of everything else at this point.)

2. Have thrift store haul away a lot of stuff. Tax writeoffs! Yes!

3. Somehow store and weatherproof boxes of stuff for the garage and basement.

4. ??

5. Profit!

Just kidding. The list was overkill. And boring, like this entire post is turning out to be.

There really isn't much more to report on life at this point, though I have been enjoying the songs of Linda Draper lately. As I descibed it to someone, her album, Keepsake, is not earthshattering, but she's a really solid songwriter--she makes wistful, rolling, folk-nouveau songs that will stay with you. "Traces Of" was the soundtrack to a dream I had the other night.

Huh.

In my browsing of childhood icons, I learned something. Apparently our favorite baritone red-head is at the center of a new internet meme. Rickrolling.

Here's a site that explains.

Surprise! It's not a relavant news article or link to an awesome video of a guy falling off a skateboard! It's RICK!! Haha on you! (uh... I guess.) I suppose it's less traumatizing than certain other switcheroos which have been popular targets for smartasses to trick people into clicking to.

If you don't know what they are, you're not missing out. Trust me. If you do know what they are, start thinking about something else immediately, and maybe you won't be scarred for life.

*Groan*

Really? I actually thought this guy was so cool when I was in sixth grade. He looks so young! I even had fond old memories of this video that most certainly didn't involve that awkward oh-so-white dancing.

Please don't tell anyone.

A City Like Cincinnati

The most recent Take Away Show from La Blogothèque is their fiftieth, and they determined to make it something special. My, but they've suceeded.

It was filmed in Memorial Hall--one of Cincinnati's old concert venues--a meandering walk behind the scenes, beginning on the roof, and wandering down through dusty storage rooms filled with antique chairs to find the Czech duo, Havlovi quietly making music amongst forgotten set pieces. As their song fades out, the watcher is slowly drawn down the hall to find Sufjan Stevens plucking a delicate and solomn song next to a window, and so on and on, we stumble onto one gorgeous, quiet performance after another, as if we were walking on a lazy afternoon through a beautiful, rambling building with people who just happened to be performing in every stairwell and nook.

Also included on the page is a lovely film of Sufjan Stevens up on the roof of the building singing The Lakes of Canada by Innocence Mission.

All the Take Away Shows are special (see The Arcade Fire, and Alan Sparhawk particularly), but this 50th one just swept me along with it.

Shamefaced

I've looked back over the past page and realized that I've been horrendous at posting regularly this year. Boo on me.

Well, the latest development in the great southern migration is that we seem to have found a place to live down there. We found a townhouse about a block from all those pictures I posted earlier, and we've submitted our application and deposit. The property manager and owner are nice folks, and we're planning as if it's set in stone, but I'll be a little antsy until we actually have the lease signed.

The townhouse is on the end of building with just a couple units in it - it's a fifties building, so it has nice clean lines and huge windows that swing outward. Since it's on the end, it's got twice the windows, which makes me quite gleeful. The neighborhood is so incredibly perfect - every garden is overflowing with flowers and hostas and the whole area is nice and shady because of the massive old trees. I'll post pictures eventually. Another thing I love about the place is that it's on one of the blocks that surrounds a secret park accessable only to people who live on the houses around it. There's a little alley that runs around it. Also, it's walking distance to downtown, which makes me very happy.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, we've temporarily given up on the house selling, and are renting to some people we know. I think that'll turn out to be better for everyone involved. They'll have a cheap and nice place to live, and we won't have to worry about dealing with realtors and tackling the miserable housing market.

Now, to put more things in boxes. The upstairs is something of a cardboard jungle right now. I'm always a little depressed at how every box I fill with books takes such a little chunk out of the bookshelf. Ah well. Costco has a great set of sturdy, reusable boxes that don't require tape, and they've been great for storage, etc.

Hmm...

It would be a good time to be in San Francisco on June 29th. Yup.

Aha!

So I figured out my keyboard and the shift key issue: the problem was that I had not disected it, gotten grossed out by all the cat hair inside it, scavenged the parts for future crafts and replaced it a dreamy new keyboard. Simple! Why didn't I think of that to begin with?

I love circuits and technology guts. I've been fascinated with them ever since I first disected a calculator. I always thought the diodes and such looked like a wee futuristic city, with tiny streets and buildings. Not that I'll ever do anything more ambitious than pulling stuff apart and (sometimes) putting it back together, but it's just interesting to me.

It's Minitropolis!

This piece can look forward to a future as a book cover or wallet.

Neat. My new keyboard lurks smugly in the background.

dream neighborhood

nope, i'm not going all e.e.cummings today. inexplicably, my keyboard shift keys have both ceased functioning.

hey exclamation point11one11

see, it's just not the same. i hadn't realized how much i'd miss asking questions and writing things loudly.

in any case, my point of blogging was to post some pictures of the neighborhood in which we're looking at places in cin-city. being somewhat jaded with the whole 'equity' thing in today's sad, sad housing market, we're not looking for a house. we're looking for a townhouse or apartment, and fortunately, the neighborhood we have a big fat crush on has several available. we'll be walking through some soon, and i'm all a-twitter with anticipation. this neighborhood is lovely for walking around, and there's plenty to walk to - several restaurants and bakeries, a coffeehouse, and an art theatre all within a few blocks of the block we want to be on. dreamy. it's packed with big trees, which form canopies over the road. i've always loved that.

anyhoo, before driving back up to mi today, we puttered around there for a while, taking photos.

this would be a fun building to live in, above the little storefronts. the apts here have the high ceilings, wood floors, and crown molding that you hope for in an older building. lots of character. no central ac, but window units can be more cost efficient if you use them right, anyway.


this building's on one side of a triangle of grass and garden that would be nice to read a book in. here are the other two sides: a some more of the neato houses in the area, and an interesting church.
voila. we'd be very happy with anything in a couple block radius of here.

Top Secret Cherished Deliciousness

Oi, Intarwebs! I come bearing links ---or rather a link to the recipe for the fabulous oatmeal honey bread one of my very "culinarily gifted" sisters makes.

I think I need another cup of coffee: This one's for you.

More later. Most go clean up the drool I produced by thinking about that bread.

I Are Serious Blogger. This is Serious Post.

My amusement with the recent explosion of captioned cat pictures forces me to post a few of them. For the past few months these pictures have been cropping up in internet forum threads (for the non-forumy of you, a thread is an online conversation about a particular topic). There are some sites now where you can find the pictures in large collections as well. Some of the original crop of pictures were funny because of references to various nerdy things, but it's actually gotten to the point where the whole meme is beginning to fold back in on itself by spawning funny pictures which are funny because they reference previous funny pictures (some of which were a reference to something else to begin with). Here are a very few (not an exhaustive list of favorites, but perhaps I'll post a few here and there down the road):