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.