Cool Cool Color Quiz!!!

Here's what this ambitious little color quiz says for itself:

What color are you?

This quiz is simple: you check the box next to words describing you, and then get to see which one of the 144 named HTML colors describe you. The colors are found based on hue (how you think), saturation (how much you do about it), and lightness (the effect you think it has). Fairly simple, but fun in a way that other lame color tests aren't, because there are 140 possible results and it uses a lot more math. So, on with the checkboxes...

you are mediumvioletred #C71585

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. You can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. Your saturation level is high - you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you - either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don't have much patience for people without your initiative. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I'm totally going to do it again, though, because I could see this turning out slightly different several times. Like you would need the average of all of the colors you end up with. So hang on. I'm doing it again.

OOOOHHHH. Ok. Get this:

you are darkredviolet #600B40

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. You can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. Your saturation level is high - you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you - either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don't have much patience for people without your initiative. Your outlook on life is slightly darker than most people's. You try to see things for what they are and face situations honestly. You'd rather get to the point than look for what's good.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Yeah. Gotta do it one more time.

you are teal #008080

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

WHAT??? WHAT??? THIS IS ANOTHER PERSON ALTOGETHER. Gotta try again.

By the way, if you're bored or sick of this game, I don't mind if you don't read the rest of this post. I've got to get to the end of this, but I understand if you have better things to do.

you are darkredviolet #600B40

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. You can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. Your saturation level is high - you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you - either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don't have much patience for people without your initiative. Your outlook on life is slightly darker than most people's. You try to see things for what they are and face situations honestly. You'd rather get to the point than look for what's good.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Ha! Do you see that? Back to #2! I wonder if I can hit that one again.

Nope. Apparently not.

you are teal #008080

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

So now I'm starting to wonder - have you noticed how they've all been dark dark dark since the first one? I must admit that I do see myself as being more dark, and I could very well be influencing the outcome by not checking off any adjectives that would point to a more positive outlook, even though really maybe I'm more positive than I think! Woah. So is the first one the more genuine one even though it hasn't been replicated yet, or am I really somewhere between the other two? One more shot, then I'll quit, I promise maybe.

you are darkcyan #008B8B

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Yeah. Brand-freakin-new result. Right. Bright or dark. Ha! It's in my mind.

I always wonder what I would be if someone else clicked the boxes. So now for sheer entertainment, I am going to do the quiz again but about Cutest. :) Won't you just wonder how it turns out.

The Soundtrack To Your Life Game

So I am trying to play along with the game Cutest posted on her blog, which is to come up with the soundtrack to your life. Here is how it should be done:

If your life were a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

1. Open your music library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every category (see below), type the song that’s playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool.

Right. So I opened up my most annoying player this morning and it refused to locate any of my music. So I unloaded all of the music from the library, and now I have reloaded all of the music to the library, and now it has frozen and given up on life. So hang tight another minute while I fiddle with it some more, and attempt to jimmy it into a state of functioning…

Now the rest of the computer seems to be freezing up…I know I have a lot of music, but COME ON!!! So I am actually writing this in Word so that I can save it periodically and hopefully not lose this, and then I will paste it into my blog. What a whole lot of bother to play a little game! My soundtrack had better be AWESOME. At this point, I may be willing to cheat to get it to be awesome. (No. I wouldn’t really do that. Not really. Yeah, I know it would be tempting…Really tempting…but you can trust me, right?)

Oi – we appear to be up and running. Here goes.

Here are the categories, and my results / responses:

Opening credits: Duemila- Massimo Priviero. Ha! It’s in Italian! BooYah! English translation: "There are two thousand nights / under my blue sky / there are 2000 streets / to breathe down below…" and it goes on and on with 2000 of everything, including "2000 years, if you want, (yours, for years, for us)", and 2000 jungles and 2000 bombs, and 2000 stars, and 2000 histories…so I guess that as far as being an opening credits number this tells us absolutely nothing about the life to follow, except that it’s in Italian! What a funny number 2000 is for everything.

Waking up: The Conqueror – Anne Dudley and Jaz Coleman. This is an instrumental from the album “Songs from the Victorious City” which I bought my junior year in high school and absolutely to this day still adore. Anne Dudley was half of Art of Noise, and I read a review of the album and saw she was involved and bought it without hearing any of it, which was absolutely risky for me back in the high school days when my music budget wasn’t what it is now. The album was done in Egypt and is based in Egyptian music (Jaz Coleman’s mother is Egyptian) and it is AWESOME. Plus, I’m waking up as “The Conqueror,” I guess. As long as I’m not waking up to face “The Conqueror…”

First day of school: Deliver Me - INXS. That is HILARIOUS because I STILL work in a school! Yeah. Really this song does not fit as it’s all about being fixated on somebody, and I just didn’t feel that when I was five. Fifteen, maybe, but not five.

Falling in love: Born of Frustration - James. Yeah. No comment. Except to say that you should get this song and listen to it within the context of me falling in love and you will probably laugh so hard you will roll on the floor while I try to evaporate into the paint on the wall.

I think my computer is laughing and in fits and it has just had a heart attack because the music player is frozen again. Really. Let me see if I can get it going…

I have rebooted the computer. It seems to be over its fit. Are you, dear reader? Can we move forward?

First love song: Radio Song – R.E.M. My first love WAS the radio.

Breaking up: Araku – Gervasio Martìnez and Mario Silva. This one is off a Smithsonian Folkways album called “Wood that Sings.” It’s a painful combination of a screechy violin and a strumming guitarish thing. Thankfully it’s only 2 minutes and 10 seconds long.

Prom: White Wedding – Billy Idol’s song covered by The Whip. OK. There was no prom at my high school. We had “Senior Ball.” I didn’t go. I went to a party instead and ended up spraining my ankle on a trampoline, then four days later I graduated from high school in a walking cast.

Mental breakdown: Deer-Ree-Shee – The Black Angels. So this is one of the songs on my computer that I don’t know if I’ve ever really listened to. I downloaded this album in May. It’s not bad. It fits here. It reminds me of Brian Jonestown Massacre meets a slightly softened Smashing Pumpkins. Lots of feedback and distortion, steady drums, and a sitar.

Driving: Palo Santo - Shearwater. This works pretty well. Sort of trancelike, though, so hopefully I’ve got a Red Bull handy, or I’ll end up in a ditch.

Flashback: It Girl – The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Yeah. When I think back over my life I realize that I have always been the “It Girl.” As those of you who know me well no doubt realize. Absolutely. No question.

Getting back together: A Survivor’s Tale – Anne Dudley and Jaz Coleman. 9705 tracks to choose from (I excluded the poetry) and here we are back in Egypt.

Wedding: Love is Blind – Annie Lennox. “Oh, Sugar! When ya gonna come?” …yep.

Birth of child: Miles Apart - Yellowcard. This has nothing to do with anything at all.

And the player is frozen again.

Final battle: Bend to Squares – Death Cab for Cutie. “Gravitated towards a taste / For foreign films and modern plays / But that machine could only / Bend to squares five to six times / Before your fingers came unwired” I don’t pretend to know what it means.

Death scene: Pilot Light - Mandarin. I’ll be right back. Got to check my stove and the battery in my CO2 alarm.

Funeral song: The Beekeeper (Live) – Tori Amos. Freaky appropriate for a funeral. Played on the organ and all. “Do you know who I am? She said / I am the one who taps you on the shoulder / when it’s your time / do not be afraid I / promise that she will awake / tomorrow, somewhere, tomorrow, somewhere.”

End credits: New Sensation – INXS. Funny, again, that of the 1017 artists represented in my MP3 collection, we are repeating anyone. But it’s a good way to end this. “You will find out / in the end / there really is no difference.” And that’s it.

Fire

So I've been craving wings for a couple of weeks, and tonight set out to fix that. There is an awesome wings place here with this jerk sauce that is the bomb. They also used to make biscuits that were just like mom used to make, but they quit selling them about a year ago, much to my chagrin. It has actually been almost a year since we've gotten wings, so tonight was a nice treat.

Anyway, between 3 of us we ordered 5 kinds of wings, including "suicide." The orderer of the suicide wings is a recent transplant from New Mexico. I'm afraid I've lived in this all-too-blandly-palated state for too long, and suicide isn't up my alley like it might have been several years ago. The girl who delivered the wings saw fit to comment on the suicide wings: too hot! So hot that they made her mouth numb for several hours, or something like that... Anyway, so New Mexico bites into a hot wing and promptly starts to hiccup! I have never seen that reaction to heat before, and it was painful to watch, although sort of humorous, not to be mean, but it was funny. New Mexico got through three wings and he had to call it quits.

And that should have been enough. Let's face it. I just don't eat heat like I used to. But no, no. All of that pain that I witnessed was not so much that curiosity didn't get the best of me. I grabbed a suicide wing and dunked it into a cup of blue cheese. Then I took a bite. Everything was ok for a deceptively long time, really, and then it started to burn. I did not hiccup. I died. The pain was so crazy. I picked up a fresh cup of blue cheese and went for a spoon, causing serious laughter from the others. It just hurt. Finally it started to abate, and I chased it with a "sweet & tangy" wing, and after a long long time I was breathing normally again. I did not finish the suicide wing. One bite was enough.

So I was driving home later and thinking about ice cream, which made me think about chocolate, which made me wonder--what would the suicide wing have been like dipped in chocolate syrup? I mean, dark chocolate with peppers inside is crazy yummy. So I wonder...

But until somebody new with a daredevil mouth moves to the region, I don't see any more suicide wings being ordered, so the experiment is on indefinite hold.

Hey, Johnny Park!

No, it's not in chronological order, but here is the first installation from our trip. Can you believe it? These are some of the pictures that we took at the monumental cemetery in Genova. More pictures of the cemetery and of Genova at large will come later, with stories and in who knows what format.

Anyway. Today's selection. The music is Foo Fighters (thanks, Daryl) and the poem is Salvatore Quasimodo, a Nobel laureate active from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Staglieno cemetery is huge - the largest monumental cemetery in Europe - and I figure that front row tickets to watch the Resurrection happen there will be hard to come by. The show will be absolutely overwhelming and cool.

(I am trying various incarnations of the video - right now I'm trying YouTube, which is less choppy than just uploading the video straight to Blogger - it just is so choppy choppy. Sorry!)

Arrr!

Cutest says it be Talk Like a Pirate Day. I'll not be havin' much to say, but there be some divertment to be had on such a day, and here it is:

My pirate name is:

Bloody Bess Kidd

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

And, me hearties, ye'd best be alert, for me pirate job be the Quartermaster. I'll be watchin' ye, I will....

Insanity

Crazy morning. I woke up to my alarm at 4 to write a test for my 3rd years for this morning. I didn't do it last night because I knew I would concentrate better at 4 and the test would turn out better (something about me being the craziest procrastinator in the world and me not being able to accomplish a thing unless I feel the pressure of the clock chasing me down). Anyway. I woke up, and seriously one of my first thoughts was that my jump drive was still in the computer at the university from class last night. It was the most rational thought. I hurried and looked for it in the obvious places here at home, then pulled on some sweats, ran a comb through my hair, and raced back to the university. Mind you, it's 4am. On a logical level, I knew the building would be locked, but there was just no way I wasn't going straight down to get my drive.

So I get there, and the nice thing about 4am is you can get parking right in front of the building, and of course the building is locked up, but sitting at some tables outside are the custodial crew, and they let me in, and I ran up to the 3rd floor and voilà! there was my dear little jump drive.

So now I am at home and the adrenaline means that really I am writing the test even more quickly than I would have written it otherwise. I do need to get back to it now. So everyone have a nice day with little happinesses of your own.

Addio

So it's been a quiet day and a quiet little evening. Which should make it the best of days and evenings, but it hasn't been. A couple of days ago on Facebook I got up the guts enough to ask a friend about the health of one of the most dynamic and amazing women I've ever known, not just in Italy but anywhere, and I have been walking on beds of nails anticipating the response - because on my trip to Genova four years ago when I saw her last, she was undergoing some serious treatment for cancer, and at that time her husband told me that the prognosis was short.

So this evening I got the message that she succumbed to the disease a few months ago, which meant that she lived longer than I had believed that she would, which makes me very happy for her wonderful family, but still I am mourning. Everything about her made you think of the sun, from her so-very dark, loving-that-time-at-the-beach summer complexion to her jumping eyes that matched perfectly her radiant smile. She was warmth in human form, so full of compassion and joy, and I am sad to note that for now she is gone from us.

So I have been doing quiet things - reading some poetry (That Kind of Sleep by Susan Atefat-Peckham, one of the books I picked up Labor Day weekend at the Freer), not about death, but about a loss of cultural identity that happens in one generation when a family immigrates to another country, and a short story by Italo Calvino, Pesci grossi, pesci piccoli (Big Fish, Little Fish), in which (spoiler ahead) a woman whose heart is broken stops crying after being saved from an octopus that was squeezing her neck with one of its tentacles. Sorry if I ruined that for anyone. Poetically (more spoiler) the man who saved her from the octopus hacked it up and gave it to her to take home and cook for dinner. So I liked that story, because I would like to feast upon the dead remains of the things that trouble me, especially if that meant eating octopus.

How much I would like to float a candle on a little boat out to sea tonight, or let a lighted paper lantern rise into the air. How much I would love to gather in at Genova with all of the people I love there. Someday. Speriamo.

The Downside of Pictures, and the Silver Lining

So last night I stayed up late working on the pictures from Staglieno Cemetery in Genova. Yes, I AM trying to get my Europe pictures up! But I want them to be cool so it is taking some time! Anyway, now it's 5:20 a.m. and I just woke up from VIVID dreams of being in Europe. Not of being in one specific place, it was just Europe, and so very Europe, and I was looking at a map figuring out my day and running out of time to see everything, and then I woke up. Mercifully, it's Saturday so I don't have to face going in to work with my heart torn out and stomped all over with disappointment - the letdown I'm feeling is seriously and truly painful. Maybe I will try to go back to sleep and see if I can go back - or at least give myself the morphine of distance from reality!

Now that I'm thinking, though, today we should experience some hurricane rain - so today has its excitement too. It's not Europe, but it's Saturday (THANK HEAVENS) and a good storm is a fun thing. So today I guess the clouds are the silver lining. Maybe I can face reality after all.

The Mahler story

So here's what's on my mind.

I spent the day ripping my classical music to my computer. I started off with Mahler. And here is the story of the 2nd Symphony, Resurrection.

Once upon a time when I was in college, I worked near the Grand Canyon. And for my 20th birthday, Nathan, a classical music devotee, decided to introduce me to the 2nd Symphony. We took my big huge early 90's CD player and trekked down the highway at some hour that should be unheard of, climbed a fire watchtower, and listened to the symphony to watch the sun come up over the forest. Nathan wanted to have it timed so that the 4th section with the oh-so-soft soprano would be starting just as the sun came off, but I think we were a little late. Anyway, it was a glorious morning, with the horizon starting off cinnamon-brown and moving its way through all the pastel bandwidths until morning had come.

I honestly wonder if that was the last time I purposely did anything to greet the sun in the morning. I am, after all, a night owl.

Anyway, today I have had a classical music day. I discovered that Dvořák wrote an opera, Rusalka, and so far it's pretty good. I downloaded it - it's a lot like the Little Mermaid, except tragic at the end (no sea foam, though). (Of course I just know what it's about from the synopsis, as I don't speak Czech.) I listened to my favorite Chopin piece, and to The Moldau by Smetana and the Hungarian Dances by Brahms. It's been restorative. Not quite the walk in the woods of two weeks ago, but nice nonetheless.

Something to See

So Hooray! The networks are finally doing something good. NBC has episodes of the old Alfred Hitchcock TV show on its site for online viewing. CBS has Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone. So there IS something good on, it just happens to be on a different screen than we were used to. Who ever said we should work on computers?

And Now, For Your Viewing Pleasure

I took these when I fled to the hills today. Needed a break. Enjoy.

this last one's my favorite...

(Yeah. Check out me and my superbad photographer skills. It's a wonder what you can learn in a book on exposure...)

Entertainment

So once upon a time, about six years ago, Christian said, "Let's watch Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street." and I said, "A musical?" and Christian said, "Not just any musical - it's bloody and it has meat pies made out of people." and Elizabeth said, "I'd be down with it." and I said, "Sounds like I should make sausage." And so we watched it, and so I made sausage the whole time, and it was funny and strange (and the sausage was pretty good!).

So tonight Thomas says, "Let's watch Sweeney Todd." and I knew that Tim Burton had gotten his hands on it, so I didn't say, "Sounds like I should make sausage." And I'm glad I didn't. Yeah. Wouldn't have been able to eat that.

Wanderlust

So I'm not a huge Björk fan or anything, but the Wanderlust Video is so cool! Watch it!

(Yes, this is the 2D version. It would be cool to see the 3D version, but somehow I don't know that I will.)

Reconnecting with lost family?

So spring break ended and yesterday in one of my classes we were talking about what we did over the break, and so I told the class that one of the things I did was buy tickets for my sister and me to go to Europe this summer, and without missing a beat, one of the girls says, "I didn't know I was your sister!"

Funny. I was cracking up for five minutes. This is my class of seniors, and they are hilarious. I love teaching seniors--they are so funny, and the world is theirs. Kind of the onset of the golden age of young adulthood. And the bunch this year is such a great group too.

Amilynne and I keep singing "I've got a golden tick-et" to each other... The passport application is in (so sad, because really my last passport had the BEST picture I've ever had on an ID!), now I've just got to do taxes so I can apply my economic stimulus money toward Italy's economy. (I'm sure I'll buy a couple of things here getting ready to go... So certainly China will get its share of it too.)

I was about to start ranting about this whole subprime mortgage thing. It makes me so mad! I don't think I will. Serenity now, 4 months to Europe, deep breath in and out.

Tickets? Czech.

Amilynne and I have tickets to Europe this summer!

I now need to get some sleep, so I'll post more later, but hooray!


...by the way, completely off subject, but I did try the herring, and liked it all right.

Way too much excitement about good food

A Lebanese restaurant opened up a few weeks ago very near the school. Yesterday I was on my way back from a training session and I was going to swing by Arby's or somewhere in search of a chicken breast when I saw the Lebanese place and I did the fastest U-turn you've ever seen. I went in and ordered some chicken shawarma to go. While I waited, I was chatting with the owner. Apparently he got here from Lebanon about 20 years ago. I told him how excited I was to see the restaurant and how much the area needed something beyond Chinese and fast food. We also got to talking about languages and how hard it is to keep up with a language you just don't use much (I do still wish I could pick back up on my Arabic studies someday!). Anyway, I got back to the school just in time to teach my last class of the day, so the shawarma had to wait a little while, but when I finally got to it it was fantastic. The best was the hummus--I've been eating stuff out of the refrigerator section for so long (and that's not horrid) that I really had forgotten how great a fresh batch can taste.

The thing I'm most excited about is that going into state testing season, I have a restaurant like this so close that I can call and order something to run pick up after school before my all-nighters so maybe I won't have to subsist on fast food and granola bars for two months starting in mid-April. There is a Santa Claus!

Anyway, since I'm food blogging at the moment, I might as well fess up that here it is, 12:15 am, and I am currently prepping pork roast for the crock pot. I decided to try my Chinese/Indian Pork Chops in slow roasted form, i.e. not hacked into chops but rather kept more like roasts and pre-browned in a sauté pan then thrown into the slow cooker. I'm doing that with about half of the pork loin; I'm still trying to figure out how I want to cook the other half--traditional rosemary and garlic, or maybe curry? I don't know what I'm in the mood for. And let's face it. If I were really in the mood for any kind of roast pork at this time of night, that might be a sign of trouble. Anyway. Some version of the rosemary theme will probably win. Maybe cooked with some lemon teabags? Who knows.

Today the coolest package arrived from Amazon. Last week I read about and instantly purchased The Silver Spoon - an Italian cookbook translated into English (with American measurements and suggestions for American ingredient equivalents--sounds lame, why don't I just get a cookbook in Italian, but really, this will be much more usable). The whole thing is just a testament to how bipolar Italian cooking is--either it is simple, and absolutely beautiful and flavorful in its simplicity, or it is complex and (dare I say?) weird, and (even?) overdone. Thankfully, most of it falls in the simplicity category.

Last word on food for the evening: If you haven't yet, and if you're the least bit interested in history and food, a must-read is Salt: A World History. One of the top three books, and certainly the funnest, of the books I read last year. The book even prompted me to buy a can of herring. Not that I have dared to open it yet. But it sits there, waiting for me to engage in the miracle that is tinned herring in salt...

Yeah. It's late. I'll shut up now. Good night.

Annual Oscar Post

Oh, the Oscars.

Here is the menu for the Oscar party that Amilynne and I are not throwing, as we live on opposite sides of the country:

Appetizer: 7-layer Tex Mex dip (No Country for Old Men)
Drinks: Sunny Delight and Blue Slurpees (Juno)
Main dish: Beef Wellington (Atonement)
Side: Baguettes. Or anti-depressants. (Michael Clayton)
......You come up with something for Michael Clayton. Yeah. Nothing? Right.
Dessert: Blood Orange Sorbet (There Will Be Blood)

And maybe some homemade sausage for Sweeny Todd, just because that's fun.

Amilynne has seen all of the nominees for best picture. I have only seen Michael Clayton. Amilynne predicts that No Country for Old Men will win. I predict that Michael Clayton won't.

So far they have only performed one musical number, from Enchanted. It hurt. Bad. Amilynne predicts that if we really fall into a severe recession, we will see more musical numbers as integral parts of movies. It has something to do with the 1930's and Little Orphan Annie and well-fed people not putting up with such a lapse from reality. If that isn't a good enough reason to strengthen the economy, I don't know what is.

And yes, I continue to be happy that John Stewart is hosting. Enjoy the show.

p.s.-- Oscar's Tribute to Binoculars and Periscopes. 'Nuff said.


Update: Go Ami! She definitely won the Oscars pool this year. I think the only one she guessed wrong was supporting actress, because all Oscars should go to Cate Blanchett. Or Helen Miren. There should really just be a big show where they give each other Oscars. That would be nice.

No eres mujer. Eres hombre.

So I've found this fun new site, www.livemocha.com. It's a free language learning site. So far they only offer Spanish, French, German, English, Hindi, and Mandarin, so I am working on my Spanish. And I just had to practice the phrase "No eres mujer. Eres hombre." (You're not a woman. You're a man.)

I don't even want to picture the scene in my future where I actually need to use that phrase. It sounds so telenovela. You kind of even have to say it with a little shake of your head, leaning forward, touching his arm: "No eres mujer." Now, with conviction, and a coy straightening of the back: "Eres hombre." Growl.

Needed: The Next Great Development

There needs to be an audio Google just like there's a Google for typed words. Here's the deal.

As I have said before, I've been spending way too much time ripping CDs to digital. Fun and games, except that there are some mix discs that I've gotten my hands on to which I don't know the names of all of the songs. So I'll play the disc and type a google search for the lyrics as fast as I can type.

This was especially a problem when it came time to rip the Jerry the Vegan disc. Jerry the Vegan is one of Amilynne's old Starbucks customers. He made the Jerry the Vegan mix for them to play at work. The Jerry the Vegan disc is pretty cool, but it contains a lot of music that I have only ever heard on the Jerry the Vegan disc. So I developed my Google search tactic, paired with some intuitive Yahoo Jukebox work, to find the songs. Then I got to my favorite song on the disc and there just aren't enough lyrics to Google it. It's an astronaut drifting away on a spacewalk watching the sun light up the horizon of the Earth and the majority of the song (besides the dialogue to mission control) is "Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Just Beautiful!" It's the BEST song, but I have no idea of its real name nor of the person/group who made it. Repeat today - I'm ripping a mix disc from Frank, and there was an instrumental jazz piece that everyone would know if they heard it, but who knows its name?

So what is needed is a Google where I can upload the song and it tells me what it is. Verizon has a thing like that on some of its phones, but I don't use Verizon. What to do? It's really not worth changing phone companies over.

Basia Bulat and the Return of the Headphones

One of the toys I saved my babysitting money for when I was in seventh grade was a Walkman. It took a long time to amass the $33. I read the sales ads every week hoping for a break. Finally, the day came and I had my very own portable music device and it was the toy I was destined to own. As long as I could afford batteries, the Walkman gave me the freedom to listen to music anywhere. Some of the bands I remember listening to specifically on the Walkman in the early days are Bon Jovi (riding across the Nevada desert on the way home from California), Glass Tiger, and Europe. The summer after 7th grade my cousin came to visit and brought with her Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles. She went to bed and I stayed up listening to it a couple of times. It was a revelation. The next year this guy named Ryan who rode the same bus as me loaned me his Art of Noise tape (In Invisible Silence) and I listened to that on the Walkman a lot, especially since it wasn't necessarily music to Amilynne's ears. (I just got a copy of it on CD, and since it's out of print and not something everyone is looking for it cost about as much as that first Walkman...) When my 9th grade art class kept me up all hours painting, it was Def Leppard, always on the headphones. I remember working on notecards for debate my junior year and in the midst of my cutting and pasting snipping through the cord of the headphones I was plugged in to. I might have been on my second Walkman by then.

With college, music became more social. Why hide in headphones when your roommates were up and everyone wanted to listen along? CDs made it harder to do headphones too--yes, there were portable CD players, I went through several, but they were prone to skipping no matter how well they claimed to be engineered.

Now the MP3s. And I finally joined the ranks of people with an MP3 player. One would think I would have been a little bit earlier of an adapter, but there were things to get into place first--a computer that could handle the volume of music I would need to have available (and the external hard drive because the computers just weren't doing a good job of keeping up). Plus the reality of every day life and the fact that it just wasn't a priority. So the long and short is that now I'm back to running around with music attached, and it brings me to the point of all of this:

There are only two ways to listen to music. One is in the car, and the other is on headphones. I spent some time this summer setting up speakers so that the music on the computer would pump from the den to the kitchen, and I do enjoy that. But the reality is that only in the car and even more so on the headphones are all of the layers balanced to create the music as it should be. And hooray for the MP3 player for bringing me back to all that.

So much so that I just yanked the speakers out of the headphone jack on the computer and put the headphones in. Yesterday I downloaded Basia Bulat's debut album and it is AWESOME, forgive me for saying it like that, but it just is. I've listened to it four or five times, but I just wanted to really hear it, and for that, headphones were the only solution. Hooray! The music just crystallizes differently when the stereo space is your frontal lobe.

So if you would like to try Basia Bulat, her myspace page is here, and you can download some of her songs, and I really suggest In the Night and Little Waltz, and all the rest, maybe you'd want to get the whole thing somewhere, but I'm telling you, you won't really hear it until you plug it the headphones.

How to keep busy

Today I finished ripping the music from another of my books of CDs. What a geek! you say, and I'm sure I am. But I want my music digitized, and I have a nice collection of music, so I've been working on this since July or so, off and on, when I have time, and today I finished another book, so I figure I'm a little more than halfway done. Or maybe just halfway.

The other part of this project is scanning photos. That's the real chore--it makes ripping discs a cakewalk. Not the least reason of which because the scanner is buried under paper and other things. So that part of the project is momentarily on hold.

Here is how else to keep busy. I made this for Amilynne as a preview for our trip this summer. Yes, it's amateurish, yes, it's not at all cool like a computer savvy friend might be able to make, but here it is for your own joy.

Another way to stay busy is to finish the set of cities we will be visiting. Venezia took a large chunk of Christmas break to do. We'll have to see about the other parts.

Cheese Crab

Here's the Cheese Crab video. testing, testing.

if this works, it will only be available for about 2 months. we'll see.

I'm playing with a new toy--Jing. This bit of video is short and it takes forever to load to play. Flash 9 required. I'm not keen on the timing, but I'm having fun and working out some applications to apply this to school.

Anyway. Isn't that fun and games. And in the mean time, hopefully they will have some new Pushing Daisies episodes by the time my free hosting for this clip of Olive Snook expires. Cheers.

So I've been gone...

I've been reading books!!! Several of them! How delicious is that?

Anyway, so that's what I've been doing. Sometimes you write, sometimes you read.

☺

Dino-Mighty Scary

The 50's are back! Bring out your biggest Cadillac! Or at least that's what it felt like when I caught this shirt while browsing birthday clothes for Junior. How scary that someone would actually make this shirt for sale today: are they intentionally trying to lobby for oil drilling in the arctic?

Here's the copy that went with:

Dino-mite! Give baby a stylish Stone-Age look with this cool dinosaur tee. Fun graphics and contrast stitching add prehistoric pizzazz. Features a rib-knit crew neck and cuffs. Tag-free for added comfort.

• Canteen Green: graphic features a young caveboy riding a giant dinosaur on wheels, with "Fossil Fuel Motors Dino-Might Power!"

Yeah. Thanks, Old Navy. This one I'm going to pass up.

The Barman

So the Kiddo got his results today: he passed the bar. We have a lawyer in the family. He gave me the news on his way to jail today. I could make a lawyer joke now but he would get mad at me. So I won't. It's his great day, after all.

He called himself the Barman. I told him that he gets to serve us drinks at Christmas whenever we're thirsty. I wonder if I can get him to serve up some peanuts and mozzarella sticks too. I would stuff a couple of dollars for him in a tip jar to keep him from calculating it as billable hours. Hmmmmm...... This might just work.

Now we just need some good contenders...

...for the Oscars. Hooray that they asked Jon Stewart to come back. Now if the movies are good, it will be a good show. Should I start planning the party?

Non ti scordar di me

What to say? I mean, I certainly am not letting the passing of Pavarotti go unnoted here, but this is just one of those times when words are inadequate and possibly do more harm than good. There aren't enough superlatives in all of the languages combined to describe his voice, his persona, or the impact he had on millions, myself included. Let's face it: Pavarotti was my first introduction to opera and to the Italian language (a beautiful and yet somewhat frustrating introduction at that--I distinctly remember when I was in second grade or so trying to follow along with the words on the dust cover of the album--they made no sense according to the spelling rules I knew at the time). So seeing him go makes me sad. The world needs more bounteous, joyful personalities like his.

The Summer in Photos

Well, since I taught a class last night, the summer is really officially over. So here is a recap of the summer from the point of view of my camera lens. Enjoy.

1. Bumper cars. Here is a picture of the car belonging to the idiot who parallel parks worse than I do.

2. Signs. The grammar is horrid. To the writer of the first, I say no wonder they haven't fixed it yet. To the writer of the second, I forgive you, hooray for Idaho.

3. Here is my sad car after the semi got to it. It doesn't look as scary as it felt:

4. This summer's praying mantis:

5. And the picture I got framed as a consolation prize for not going on vacation this summer. I did it more to protect the painting--it was in danger of having a corner bend off--than to show it off, but the frame is so great with it that I displaced some other stuff and hung it in the dining room.

Well, there it is, two months of deep breathing, and now the onslaught renews. Wish me luck.

Peach for Dinner

Tonight for dinner I had a peach that was so perfect it caused fireworks to go off at the base of my brain. The fuzziness from the fireworks explosions then wafted upward to surround my whole brain and right now it's settling into the most wonderful sense of wellbeing and awareness.

Jealous?

Kabuki and a Truck

Nasty thing happened today in the middle of some fine to good things that were happening today. Class went well enough this morning, although tomorrow is their final exam and I know we have just gone too fast for most of them to understand what they've been taught. A few of them have it, but most of them really could have used more time.

After class, I was going with friends to Washington to see a Kabuki troupe perform--really, a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we were going to see it for free for the dress rehearsal - tonight's performance was $105! But the trip up is when the nasty thing happened--we were stuck in traffic for a long, long time--an accident on the freeway had clogged things up good and proper--and we were just getting in sight of the accident, which meant we were just getting in sight of being able to move again, when a semi in the left hand lane decided he wanted to merge into our middle lane, and did so right into my car. I was sitting in the back seat so I could work on correcting, and I saw it coming and couldn't speak, I just screamed. Then the other passenger saw it and she scremed a little too, but by this time we were being hit. Now the driver is starting to honk and move a little bit out of the way, but let's face it, we're boxed in, and the semi comes forward again and hits us a second time!! Both of my driver's side doors look terrible, there are even holes torn in the back one. So we called for a trooper and now my car gets to go back to the body shop, even though it was just there two weeks ago to fix an accident from January.

The officer railed into the semi driver. He asked him what he was thinking, changing lanes in traffic that is packed in so tight. I was glad that the officer gave him a piece of his mind. I learned a couple of accidents ago to not say much to drivers who hit me or I'll end up giving them a plausible lie to tell once the police arrive! So I was happy to let the officer be frank with him.

Thankfully, no one was hurt--it could have been so much worse! But we shook it off and continued along our way and saw a great performance. Japanese woodblock prints from the 1700s and 1800s often featured kabuki performers, and some of my favorites show them making wild eyes and pulling faces. It was so strange to see that in context today. They performed two plays. The first one was boring to me (not much action, just a lot of talk, and let's face it--I don't speak Japanese). But the second one was great with lots of body movement, vocal variation, and comedy. Both plays were visually stunning, there was live musical accompaniment, it was just a fantastic performance overall.

Finally I'm home now. I have to write my final exam for tomorrow. Yikes! But then the class will be over and I will be able to focus on other things, which, unfortunately, now include getting my car fixed. :P

Big Audio Dynamite

Ok, so maybe the title is a little overreaching. But the fact is, I have a new project. After looking and looking and evaluating and looking more to find the perfect portable music/whatever else player, I ditched it and bought a big fat external hard drive (500 GB) for the purpose of collecting my music, photos, and a few other things. So now I am in the process of ripping my entire music library to MP3. Which is so much fun. I am listening to music that I never listen to because it is not in my computer. But now it is, and now I can listen to it. The whole thing makes me think of Hermione's sparkly new bag for book 7--a tiny little thing that holds way too much. (If you haven't read Deathly Hallows yet, please do--what a wonderful way to spend a weekend!)

But an external hard drive is not enough to code name this project Big Audio Dynamite. The fun part is the system of cables I'm putting together to pipe music beyond the study. Now, mind you, without a freestanding house it is really rude to do anything too loud and bass-shuddering (not that some of my neighbors over the years ever realized that--come to speak of it, it's not nice to shoot guns in the middle of the night, but some people just won't learn....) I digress. Anyway, we're not talking a big bad mother-of-all sound systems, just something to pipe some choice tunes through the house. It's fun. It makes me feel all zen with my computer and with my music all at once--everything connected, everything in balance.

ommmmmmmmm

Patriotic Zeal

Hi! Happy holiday, it's the Fourth, hooray for independence and freedom! I just rolled out of bed--it's 7:45 in the morning. The lovely thing about being a couple of time zones ahead of everyone else in the family is that they should all still be asleep (even the Boy is visiting friends a time zone away). So I'm resisting the pull to be terribly evil.

When we were kids there would be a pancake breakfast at the church every July 4. And a sunrise raising of the flag. The choir would sing some patriotic songs, it was all really quite lovely, but it did mean getting to the church early enough to call it sunrise. Which is really early in July. So dad would sneak his gigantic early 80's stereo (which, I must admit, I thought was so cool and called a ghetto blaster at a certain point in history when kids who wanted a stereo of their own really did call those things ghetto blasters) downstairs, plug it in in the hallway, crank it up full blast, and jerk us into consciousness to the tune of Stars and Stripes Forever. One year he even did it to the neighbors.

So, of course, right now I want to put on Stars and Stripes Forever and call everyone in the family. And maybe even the neighbors, who moved, but are still within telephone range.

Or maybe I'll let everyone have a nice sleep in and I'll just play it for myself and make some pancakes.

Holding Back Gale-Force Vindication

Let me tell you all what a good little lawyer the Kiddo is going to be. Today I went to my car, which I had parallel parked before class, and there was someone parked in my back bumper. I was livid. I wanted to knock in all their windows and doors. I wanted blood. The freak shouldn't have been parking there anyway--more than half the car was in a no-parking zone. I wanted to let the air out of the tires. I wanted revenge.

So I called the Kiddo to say hey, what's the deal, because I figured the police wouldn't really have to believe my side--I could just as easily have slid into that car. So the Kiddo asked me what damage I had sustained - none, really, as the back bumper is still messed up from when I was rear-ended in January. So really all I could do was call the police and see if they would ticket the idiot.

Remember. I want blood. If I had had a machine gun, I would have shot up the car.

But Kiddo the Lawyer was so calm about it, and all "Well, you could get the police to give him a ticket, or you could drive away and in a couple of hours be fine."

Well.

So I took a picture. I admit that I very much want to post it here with a "When You See This Freak Car Hit It" message, but who knows how many ways I could be held liable if anyone did. (I didn't bother asking the Kiddo about that. I like to think that I only have to be told to be a decent human being once a day.) What a good little non-bloodthirsty lawyer the Kiddo is.

I did leave a nasty note on the windshield. The jerk probably laughed and then threw it on the ground to litter the world up. I still wish I had smashed in a window or two. Hopefully Karma will do that for me.

Festivals

I am the type of person who hears the word "festival" and usually runs in the opposite direction. A festival is just one more reason why it's hard to park, one more opportunity to bump into people who aren't using their brains, a time of standing in line forever for a little bit of "fun". No, I much prefer being at home or going out to find the anti-festival, a place that is beautiful and isn't packed with people.

Not to mention that when I was a kid, the annual torture of having to go play piano in front of a judge was called "Festival". I never understood that one, as it always racked my nerves so much to play in front of a stranger that I was millimeters from tears (and the tears usually ended up falling after the performance, perfectly executable at home, fell apart with my nerves). That festival was certainly a misnomer.

I explain all of this so you can understand the significance of my saying that I would do just about anything to attend the Venice Biennale. Yes, it's contemporary art when I much prefer something older, but Venice is so amazing anyway and then to make the whole city host art from everywhere, as a matter of course, it must be beyond wonderful. (And it's not like the masterworks get dumped in the canals while the newer stuff comes in....) I imagine sitting on the Grand Canal in front of Santa Maria della Salute drinking in the view after having seen some strange but oddly likable piece of contemporary art somewhere (wish wish) and anticipating an afternoon in the Academy in front of some Tintoretto frescoes to wash my soul and set it free to fly. I imagine staying in a hotel away from the main walks of the city, getting to wander and see Venice at night, and being there long enough that on one day I even find myself escaping to one of the smaller islands for a breather with relatively fewer people milling about, then, once I am fortified by the away time, rushing back in to the excitement and buzz of thousands of people out to see the new, the curious, against an antique and venerated backdrop.

Of course in this dream I am also there long enough to visit other cities: Genova, Firenze, and finally Assisi, Rome, Capri, Palermo...

Off Task.

Right now I'm supposed to be writing one of two final exams I'll be giving in the next two days.

I'm supposed to be writing them so I can get to bed so I can get over the cold that has attacked me to the very core and made me so exhausted I can't make it through the day.

I'm supposed to be eschewing the Internet and the television and concentrating on the task at hand. I even tried going to work on the exams at a location without Internet or cable. Of course, though, since I'm sick and out of my mind, I didn't take the proper books, so here I am at home where there is Internet and cable and I just finished watching a documentary on Tianenmen Square and the changes in China since 1989. Last night when I was supposed to be working I was watching a documentary on being a nightowl and insomniac. I love documentaries. What a fantastic medium--to make your point with experts and witnesses and pictures, sound and motion. Viva la revolucion!

Hooray for PBS and independent filmmakers! Hooray for freedom of speech! Hooray for information so easily available, so nicely digestible, so incindiery and wild!

Yeah. I should get back to the test.

on Work and More

All right, for anyone who has been in suspense since my last post, I decided to take the summer job. Which we all knew I would do. There's only one word for me. Spell it with me:

S-U-C-K-E-R.

When I have been stealing time from the piles of work that surround me and make me feel guilty for doing anything but pay attention to said piles of work, I've actually had some lovely little things happen in the past couple of months. Dad came to visit for spring break, and although I made him sit around while I worked for much too much of the time, we did fit in some fun things, including catching a show of orchids (which Dad thoroughly enjoyed, especially as they reminded him of the beautiful island of Zamboanga in the Philippines) and seeing the National Cathedral, and driving out to Assateague Island to see the wild ponies, or the "Fat Salt Ponies" as Amilynne has named them. (She apparently saw a special on them which stated that they are plump because of the extra dose of salt in their sea-island diets.) They were really cool. Dad also got his first visit to the Atlantic. Here are the pictures to say the thousands of words I'm too impatient to write:

In other news, I also discovered the amazing poetry of Mary Oliver. The poems are the most real and powerful and spiritual descriptions of the natural world that I think I have ever encountered--I can only read so many before it is too much and I have to set it down for fear of my soul bursting out of my skin. So I'm reading the books slowly, and re-reading poems several times before moving on. Amilynne is mad at me because I told her I think Mary Oliver might be my poet (meaning Billy Collins may have been bumped from the top spot). I don't know. I love them both, but I can't argue with the power of this. Here for your pleasure, a link to several of her poems.

The joy is that this has me writing poetry again. (Yes, Billy Collins, I know that doesn't necessarily please you.) Not that any of it is good yet. But if I'm not writing it's never going to get any better, and it feels good to be in a creative moment, because I've been out of one for a long time.

And it feels good to shake my little fist at the piles of work and say, "Yes! But first this!"

So I'm still up

and it's almost 1:00. I should really be asleep, but I'm not.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my summer. I had declared that this would be the summer of peace, and that really I would refuse anything that came my way. Now I'm faced with the opportunity to teach a class at the university and I am torn. On the one hand, who turns down decent income for a 5-week stint? On the other hand, I had promised myself a summer off. I keep going back and forth on it. There are a lot of things that normal people do to take care of themselves and their interests that I just haven't had a chance to do since September 2003. Not to mention that I have side projects (stained glass, painting, books to read) that could easily fill ten summers. I haven't been really truly creative since I started my master's and I really need to give that an outlet. Anyway, I have to decide by Friday. And I am absolutely torn.

And losing sleep.

on Sting

One of the times I didn't get to see Sting.

I could go for a Police reunion tour, but you know that for me it would be all about Sting.

Yes, I caught the Police opening the Grammys tonight. I didn't know what I would think. And then Sting started to sing and it was good. I didn't care much who was playing the other instruments, it was all about Sting.

You see, once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was 14 or so, my cousin came to visit, and she had a copy of Dream of the Blue Turtles. We hung out and I had a listen, and late that night, long after she had gone to bed, I was still listening. The lyrics were profound: they spoke to my greatest fears, appealed to my growing sense of social justice, and enchanted me with their poetry and with descriptions of places I hadn't yet imagined. The music and the voice were rough and smooth and played tricks I wasn't expecting. I greeted Sting's pursuant albums with the same mix of awe and adoration. Hours have been spent just listening. Tears have fallen. Ultimate Sting mix tapes have been made. I spent years waiting for the chance to see Sting on tour - but whenever he came near I was elsewhere. When I finally got to see Sting perform live, my heart just about burst. I could not stop the tears that welled over the whole time he was on stage. OK, so I mist up easily, but that was extreme.

Hearing him sing the earlier Police stuff is fantastic. (Hearing him sing the ABC song would be fantastic.) Do I care about the Police reuniting? Only as a vehicle for another tour with Sting, another chance to have all of that live emotion and greatness blow me off my feet again.

It's an architecture kind of day

I'm vibing with buildings. Found a couple of cool things. I was reading about the current soccer moratorium in Italy (national crisis!) and the article referred to "Palazzo Chigi" as an entity - Ha! *Click* went my brain and off I went to find a picture of seat of Italian government. Here is Wikipedia's version:



I also came across an article on Time.com referring to the top 150 examples of American architecture as picked by the American public. The list is here. Hmmm. The Empire State Building is definitely not my favorite (for old skyscrapers, the Chrystler building is cooler), and the White House is not nearly as cool as the Capitol. But what a fun list to go over and look at. I haven't decided yet which is my favorite. I'll let you know when I do.

Bozzetto's Take on Italy

Click here or on the title to experience the truth about life in Italy, as compared to the rest of Europe.

I split my sides. The bus thing is SO true.

Where is my Robot?

I've been home for two weeks now and the house is still a mess and I'm still behind in what I need to get done for work and I went to do laundry and of course the facilities are down so I've got to go to the laundromat. And I would just like to ask: Where is my Robot? Where? They just had the big tecchie show and woo-hoo there's a new cellphone coming out (hello - I've had a cellphone for a LONG TIME now and the one I've got lets me phone. It's a phone. That's all I need there.) but why did no one unveil a robot? A robot to keep the house clean and calculate the balance in the checking account (and do my correcting) and run to the laundromat when the laundry facilities are down. That is the invention I would buy into and make room for...a personal assistant I would only have to buy once.

Did you see the Electric Grandmother when you were a kid? She should be the prototype. She knew when to make chocolate chip cookies and she handled the house with ease. I would not be like the little girl in the story. I would embrace my Electric Grandmother with thankfulness. I would make sure she had a nice rocking chair for when she was plugged in every night and I would pay the electric bill with a song in my heart.

So please, Steve Jobs, take your iPhone and go back to the drawing board. I'd like to see the first issue of an electric grandmother announced at the conference next year. Put all of your people on it, maybe team up with the folks at MIT. But hurry, please. My to-do list isn't getting any shorter.

Resolved: Must Blog in 2007

Here I am at my computer making "lesson plans." Right. Unfortunately, I'm still running on mountain time, which means my body thinks there is plenty of time to get the work done and still get some sleep before work in the morning. And that is why procrastinators should only travel in a westerly direction... might miss some days entirely, but it will always feel like sleeping in!

Anyway, I suddenly remembered that I used to blog. And that I enjoyed it. And it really fits in with my one and only (2-part) resolution for the new year: to take better care of myself and enjoy life.

So Hooray! Hooray! Last semester is over. I graduated, taught my first college class, and worked full-time to boot. I am SO happy not to be taking a class this semester. I remember how happy I was to take my first class for certification--it felt so good to be back in school--how things change! I am so ready not to be taking classes for a while!

Anyway, so the holidays were good, if brief. Lots of playtime with Junior, the whole family was at Dad's and we had a pretty good time. Junior is the cutest child in the whole world ever. He loves to tell stories--I do wish I knew what he was saying--but it is so fun to listen to him just talking away.

And now it's back to work until the end of June. Far away, but we'll make it.