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):

I Wanna Tell the Stars to Get in Line

Recently, as I was poking through the archives of Dresden Codak (which could deserve a post of its own), I noticed a link directing me to the site of the band Balthrop, Alabama. I dutifully clicked, and was rewarded with the discovery of some free and interesting music.

If you sign up for their mailing list, you receive a link to download their double cd debut album, "Your Big Plans & Our Little Town." I think that is very cool of them to offer. Way to acknowlege the digital era, guys (not sarcastic). No matter what their music sounds like, I'd have to give them props for that. So...um...Go Balthrop, Alabama!

As things turned out, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm actually listening to the album right now, and quite enjoying it. There's a pretty big range of influences packed in there, so it's difficult to just drop a couple references to describe it. Imagine a hearty dose of the irony and melodic-ness (is that a word?) of Belle and Sebastian, with occasional pretty boy/girl harmonies and horns that also vaguely remind me of our Scottish pals, along with a few touches of the lazy, cracky vocals of Songs: Ohia (which does tend to grate on occasional songs), and the nonchalant flow of My Morning Jacket, and occasional inklings of early REM.

It's part acoustic, part americana, part indie-rock, and most of it is just a treat. A couple of the songs I could live without, but that's pretty par for the course when it comes to any double disc album. Balthrop, Alabama have done themselves proud here, especially for a debut. I recommend the songs "Tell the Stars" for a happy, vintage pop experience, and "Another Hell to Live In" for a melodic, lazy, americana-tinged experience.

And, uh.. heck - just give it all a listen.

Spring Has Sprung

At least temporarily. This is Michigan, after all, which means tomorrow we could be snowed in, with an inch of ice covering everything.

But today, ahh--- it's sunny and mild outside. Not warm, persay, but not chilly at all. Tepid, perhaps. I did the first walkabout of the season and noted with satisfaction that various perennials are being particularly ambitious this year. Because it is Michigan, I raked some leaves over them to protect them from the frost and such. I think they're coming along just fine though.

Once we get both feet into the "trying to sell the house" pool, it'll probably be easier with the gardens blooming.

Meanwhile, we're making trips back and forth between the OH and here, and I'm getting to know it a bit better. I do like Cin-city, even if most of my time down there right now is trapped in a tiny, crusty apartment. At least The Boy and I get to spend quality time together, which is rare. That is a good thing.

Interestingly, we've already met some neat folk who live right near where we'll be moving, thanks to the wonders of nerdy technology. Yeees, I admit it. We've been playing World of Warcraft. It's really nice to at least virtually get together with The Boy while we're separated during the week. No, we are not letting our real lives go down the toilet so we can huddle in front of our monitors. I am surprised just how good the game is, though. There's a huge, huge variety of ways to go about playing it, and though The Boy and I play completely differently, we both enjoy it lots.

Annnyway, back to less (or at least a different?) nerdy pursuits. I started our taxes the other day, and was pleasantly surprised to find we'll be getting money back this year. Woot! I haven't done our state taxes yet, which may turn out to be a little complicated, since Boy has worked part of a year in another state... ah well. Either way, we should get a refund, which will be welcomed with open arms and bank account.

Grey Gardens

I'm awful at blogging regularly these days. Enough said.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, life has been poking along as usual, though I did spend a week in Cincinnati, which was a nice change of pace. Now that I'm back, the cats can't seem to get close enough to me, and look on suspicously whenever I step out the door. At the moment, they're both hovering over me at the desk, occasionally causing odd typos by crowding around the keyboard until I set them firmly back on the floor.

I've just watched the 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens. It was filmed by the brothers who made Gimme Shelter, and is an oddly beautiful and bleak look into the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale, and her daughter, Edie. The women are relatives of Jackie O., and spent a good part of their lives in high society, and living exceedingly comfortably. However, at the time of the documentary, they're cloistered into a decaying summer homes owned by Edith.

The strangeness of certain remnants of their former lives against their current circumstances is part of what makes the documentary riveting--in the same way a train wreck is. Edith, her sparse white hair swept up into a 1930's style, spends most of her days propped up in stale bed covered in newspapers, old photographs, and cats. She talks in her aritstocratic east coast accent about her days as a singer, and contemplates giving herself "a month to get my voice back" so she can be a celebrated woman of the stage again.

Edie, the younger of the two, is in her fifties, but seems very like a teenage girl. She has a kind of naivety that is surprising, and tends to giggle to herself about things. At the same time as fiercely longing to be "outside," she fears the outside world, and this fear is part of the the chain that traps her with her mother. When she's not grumpily following her mother's orders, she spends her days feeding the crowd of cats, dancing, dumping bread onto a newspaper in the attic for the racoons. She also gazes off the back balcony with binoculars into the sea of overgrown foliage and vines that is the backyard, and beyond that, the real ocean.

There's a short scene that really sums the entire film in all its tragicomedy-- Edith is fighting with Edie about whose fault their circumstances are. Edie stops long enough to point at a large framed portrait of Edith in her younger days. It's a beautiful piece of art, in a gilded frame, leaned against the wall on a pile of old magazines and trash. "Ma, the cat's going to the bathroom behind it!" Edie declares, and old Edith takes a glance and remarks, "Well, at least someone's doing what they want around here."

I recommend watching Grey Gardens with a couple of people and bottle of wine. It'll make for a quiet and thoughtful time. Some of it is quite funny, in a sad sort of way.

The Promised Zatarain's Run-down.

Do the newer Zatarain's commericals bother anyone else? Ad concept: a family sits down for dinner, and one parent, because of the fabulous taste or smell of Zatarian's rice product, is transported mentally to a street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. It's a party, I tell you! Then then, suddenly, they realize where they are.

My problem with these commercials is... have the people who came up with the concept ever been to Mardi Gras? I can just barely swallow the idea of a ridiculous and awkward father pretending to lead a marching band using a dishrag. He's about as full of soul as a sieve is full of water. But I suppose I can buy it. His small son looks at him derisively, clearly counting the days until the parent-child divorce goes into effect.

What I can't get my mind around is the commercial where the mother flashes back to Mardi Gras while delivering Zatarain's rice to the table. She's in a crowd of cheering, brightly dressed party goers, and confetti and beads are flying. "Throw me some beads, Mister!!" she screams, and then realizes that she's standing in the dining room with her little nuclear family staring at her in confusion.

Does something about that seem just a little off? What is it that the writers are just tempting you to think with that commercial? Well, what happens when a "party lady" wants beads from a man on a float during Mardi Gras? Come on. YES. She screams "Throw me some beads, Mister!!" and either flings her bra, or lifts her shirt over her head, exposing her boobies. Did they seriously think no one was going to snicker at that?

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that. And if you hadn't thought of it, don't write to tell me how naughty my mind is. I already know. It's Zatarain's who are naughty, I tell you!

*CUTE ALERT*CUTE ALERT*

Warning! Your head may explode while playing any one of these adorable little flash games. People whose heads are prone to exploding due to cuteness should check with their doctors before clicking the following link:

CUTE

This has been a public serivce announcement from the Department for the Prevention of Cute-related Injuries.

Another Post for the Commercial Hall of Shame

Now that Superbowl Sunday is over, and I've watched all the commercials (online) that I forgot to watch at the same time as I didn't watch the game... (?) it's gotten me thinking about a couple commercials which ought to be stricken forever from the broadcast lineups. Both commercials make me cringe in distinctly different ways.

Offender #1: Office Depot's "Lend you a Hand" commercials

"No. NO NO! NO-NO-NO!!" That is what I would have said, accompanied by a smack with a rolled up newspaper, to the marketing team responsible for this campaign. The first time I glimpsed one of these things, I noted the crisp office envionment, the obvious whites and reds, and I thought, "Oh neat! A Staples "Easy Button" commercial I haven't yet seen!" How wrong I was.

Perhaps explaining what is good about the "Easy button" campagin will help explain what is so stinky about the "Lend you a hand" campaign.

Easy Button: After some office consternation, someone presses the Staples "easy button," wherein all their problems are miraculously solved. The button is a fun and witty little representation of all the services Staples offers. We know printer ink doesn't fall from the sky when you press the easy button, but it gets the point across nicely, and I enjoy the multiple takes on how the world works in the little Staples alternate universe. I see it, and I remember the brand--it's Staples, and it's easy to get things done there! Right?

Lend you a Hand: In these commercials, some actor melodramatically heaves sighs about how much work there is to do, and another person declares overcheerfully, "Sounds like YOU need a hand!" At this point, a suspicious parcel on someone's desk explodes open, a disembodied hand shooting out the top. Rather than fleeing in terror, everyone congratulates each other as though it were the finale of a vintage Mentos commercial. "Oh, you...I guess you made a pun!" What miracles does the hand perform, you ask? Does it show them amazing shortcuts and exemplify all the things Office Depot employees can help you accomplish? Does it snap its fingers and cause the office supplies to be restocked? Actually, no. Well....uh... it waves. And it points at things. And it probably gives people the finger when the camera's not rolling.

It's pointless. Someone hands it a paper, and it puts the paper into the box, which happens to be oh...a foot or two away from the person handing it the paper. So are they saying using Office Depot adds more steps to what ought to be simple tasks? An office worker labors behind an overfilled shopping cart. Perched atop the pile, the hand in its box points imperiously at various things that the office worker knows he needs to get anyway. Does this exemplify Office Depot customer service? When asked for help, do they wordlessly point at something out of reach on a shelf?

Come on now--they're not even giving you a hand, They're lending it to you. God knows they'll probably crap out on giving you your deposit back if the cuticles aren't just so when you return it.

Seriously though, these commercials just fall flat. They're not amusing, the early-nineties over the top jingle is annoying, and it's a blatent and lame attempt to copy the "Easy Button" commercials. Boo on you, Office Depot!


Next up, Zatarain's: Dirty Rice and dirty old men!

Preach it, Bourdain!

Anthony Bourdain has concisely expressed everything I think about the Food Network in one fell swoop.

Where's my Alton? Where's my Mario? And WHERE in tarnation is my Nigella?? Yes, the woman happens to be gorgeous, but she's also unpretentious, slightly nerdy, and absolutely passionate about food.

Why does the Food Network assume I'd rather watch Paula Dean squawk, "Tuhday we're gonna make some deep fraahd budder topped with lard, y'all!" than something as interesting and mouthwateringly informative as Molto Mario?

Ta-da!

Although I got some lovely gifts for Christmas, this was one of my favorites: From J&J, a ceramic robot head that holds a roll of toilet paper for dispensing through the mouth. The Engrish on the box states: Roll Paper Horder!

I blow my nose on its tongue. Ew. And, poor thing, when I need cheering up, I (fondly) mock it by cutting the paper thusly:

Huk huk!

One of the resons I love it so, is that it reminds me of the other red robot.

No series of Christmas pictures would be complete without a picture of my adorable niece with her new life sized Raggedy Ann. Some brilliant soul came up with the idea of making velcro loops on RA's feet, so they can be slipped over the shoes of the little owner, facilatiating lots of happy duo dancing.


The end!

it's just like that.

What can I say? I hate the "new Blogger," so I don't think of blogging all that often. I'm sure I'll get over it, though. In terms of basic function, sure--it does what it's supposed to do. I like that I can apply tags to my posts for searching later. However, this rigamarole about signing in to new or old blogger is apparently too complicated for their programmers. The entire site now freaks out when I attempt to use Firefox (my regular browser) . I've done the whole song and dance about updating, contacting them, redoing cookies, blah blah. In the end, if I want to blog, I'll just have to use another browser.

Rant concluded.

How is everyone?

At Long Last...

Another stinkin' blog post. It's been a busy month, clearly, what with Christmas, friends, family, New Years, The Boy being home for more than three consecutive days, etc etc.

A quick catch up -

The majority of my vast family arrived a week before Christmas, and I trucked the half hour over to Rochester to spend time with them. It was really nice to see and hang with people, but it was also a bit tiring being gone from a little while after I woke up until a little while before I went to sleep. Our two cats got right pissy with me and tore up several innocent pieces of junk mail in protest.

The Boy arrived home the Sat. before Christmas and we traversed the grey and snowless landscape over to where my family was staying. Another couple members of the family had come into town, so there were more greetings and chattings and in general, many warm and genial sentiment as well as delicious and caloric treats were had. It was really Christmassy, which was absolutely lovely. Up until that point, the short doses of Christmas I'd had were from public decorations or the beautiful getup at my sister's house, which was resplendent with white lights and evergreens. I didn't have a tree this year because I've been the only one here, and the hassle and risk of cat attacks didn't seem worth it. However, I did hang a few ornaments from the chandeliers in the living room and dining room. While whimsical, it wasn't exactly Christmassy. In any case, in a continuing explosion of wrapping paper, exclamations, and laughter, lots and lots of gifts for lots and lots of family members were opened the night before Christmas eve, and it was heartwarming and makes me happy to think of. I like those times. I wish so much that every single one of us could have been there. Even so, our family is so vast that little pockets of conversation, card games, grazing, pool games, etc. form around the house, and it's enough to drift from one to the next in a happy daze. Best part of Christmas.

This year, Christmas itself was claimed by the Boy's side of the family, so on Christmas Eve, we packed up the rest of the unopened gifts, and bundled off to Vitosha Guest Haus in Ann Arbor to celebrate on a much smaller scale with the Boy, his mother, and me. The place was empty except for us, which was wonderful. The buildings on the grounds were very cool--built a hundred years ago of stone and thick wood in a neo-gothic style.

Behold, The Boy stands at the door of the parsonage and knocks! Or acutally, he has the key, so... behold! He lets himself (and us) in!

In the drawing room of the parsonage, the seven deadly sins were mounted around the ceiling on Pewabic pottery tiles. I took a picture of sloth to remind us why we were there. He seems to approve. "Yes, my children--laze about! Mwahhahah!"

This bed makes the Boy look tiny. At 6'4'', the Boy is not tiny. It was just a hella big bed, covered in down comforters and more down comforters.

The feel of the place reminded me a lot of some places we stayed in Bavaria in Germany. It was the kind of solid place that tells you it's been there a while, but that there's nothing frail about it. It was full of wonderful antiques and books and tapestries. I'm not talking about fragile victorian antiques with thin spindles--I'm talking about hearty, hand carved pieces made of dark wood. The downstairs rooms have heated slate floors, and most of the rooms have big fireplaces. The Boy and I piled the gifts near the hearth in our room, and from our massive cabinet bed (we needed STEPS to get in) we watched the flames flicker in the dark, and the light dancing on the gifts, and we knew it was Christmas.

Meet the very incarnation of my favorite lamp ever. This was over in the church building, which was more 1957 modern (prairie?) architecture. Very neat to look at.

The sancuary of the old church is still santuary shaped, but it's now used as a venue, and what a sweet venue it would be, with the light diffusing through the ivy on one side, massive windows on the other, and a pipe organ just like this:

The Tea Haus at the back of the property was called "The Three Bears Haus," though I think it could have aptly been named "Dove Cottage." I thought I saw one of the Lake Poets peering through the curtains, or perhaps Beatrix Potter.

Christmas morning was a flurry of opened gifts, oohs and ahs, and an amazing breakfast of fresh made streudel, a fruit salad with lychee, kiwi, and all sorts of beautiful, delicious things, a plate of assorted wonderful cheeses (thanks Kei!) and a quiet Christmas Day mostly spend wandering around the place, chatting with the owner patting the massive great dane, George, on his broad, sleepy head, and following seemingly endless winding corridors to other parts of the house for yet another neat little corner to settle into for a little while.

Behold, the sad and crumbly remains of our delectable breakfast.

I highly recommend it as an amazing, simple getaway. Be sure to order the breakfast! I'm going to keep an eye on cultural happenings there to see if there's anything those of us in the area would like to see. Wheee!

Thus concludes my report of what happened over Christmas. It was a nice Christmas this year. Not filled with the wonder and excitedment of some other years, but it was quiet and lovely and had some wonderful moments.