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.