Hilarity, Courtesy of My Sister-in-Law

As Hurricane Irene descends on the East Coast, federal disaster officials have warned that Internet outages could force people to interact with other people for the first time in years. Residents are bracing themselves for the horror of awkward silences and unwanted eye contact. FEMA has advised: “Be prepared. Write down possible topics to talk about in advance. Sports...the weather. Remember, a conversation is basically a series of Facebook updates strung together."


Hurricane Irene is a'coming Jersey. Be ready to converse like never before. Lol.

One Day, Many Updates and Thoughts

A self-portrait I liked today:



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Whole Foods in the South: A Horse of a Different Color

Woman ringing up my groceries: That's a nice color combo you have on there.
Me: Thanks. Blue-green and red-orange are complementary on the color wheel, so I was hoping it would work.
Woman ringing up my groceries: It's really...what's that word I'm looking for...
Dude bagging up my groceries: Creative?
Woman ringing up my groceries: Puerto Rican!

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Via AT. Not much you can say about this sad event. I have so much respect for photojournalists. I fantasize about having the courage to do this kind of work some day:

Tim Hetherington, 'Restrepo' Director, And Chris Hondros, Photojournalist, Killed In Libya

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Dinner made tonight came out delicious. Something, as Aaron put it, "Totally off the map."



Salad with the following ingredients (organic, fresh, and local in this case, might have made a difference): mix of arugula and spring blend ripped up small, buncha chick peas, fresh cherry tomatoes halved, bulb of fennel sliced thin, red onion sliced thin, goat cheese mozzarella roughly hewn, and homemade dressing of flavorful extra virgin olive oil, fresh oregano and flat leaf parsley from my garden, fennel seed, red pepper flakes, orange zest, salt and pepper.

Fresh loaf of bread from Gugelhupf, sliced on the angle, rubbed with a sliced clove of garlic and touched lightly with butter, then broiled.

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An open letter to my brown, Banana Republic scarf:

Dear Scarf,

I miss you. I'm not sure when you left, but I recently took notice of your absence. I'm sorry if this makes me a bad friend, but doesn't the fact that I miss you now count for something? Did you run off with my only pair of black pants that fits right now? If so, I wish you two a happy romance, as I do believe that black and brown can live in harmony. But it would be nice if you'd come back after you elope. Because I found you the perfect outfit to accent. I was all excited to show you last night and that's when I realized you'd gone. Twas a sad day. We've had some good times together, have we not? I mean, we've been friends since my junior year of college. And I've taken care of you, haven't I? I always bathed you by hand with gentle soap, hung you up to dry with the gentlest of padded clothespins, and gave you the coveted top rung of the scarf hanger. If you come back, I promise you won't have to share a rung with my Israeli kafiya anymore. I know how you get jealous when you think you have to vie for favorite, but you know you've always been my #1. Come back and let me tell you how much I appreciate you.

Fondly,
Beth

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Over a year ago, I got the Elliott Smith album "New Moon" and ripped it into my iTunes. My cousin Andy, who is a walking music catalog, told me that if I liked Nick Drake I would probably also like Smith. After an initial listen my conclusion was, "Yeah ok, that's pretty good." Promptly, I forgot about the album's existence, only maybe hearing a track sprinkled in on the rare occasions I use the 'shuffle' mode on my ipod. About three months ago, I remembered. I have been listening to this album pretty much nonstop since then. If you have any affection for lyrics that resemble poetry and yet somehow also maintain an observational posture on the day to day, you will love this CD. Released posthumusly, it contains recordings Smith made between '94 and '97 (while he was recording both Roman Candle and Either/Or which I now have and are also good). Some of my favorite tracks from New Moon are as follows (including links to YouTube versions):

Angel in the Snow
Go By
Georgia, Georgia
Big Decision (posted here a few days ago)
Almost Over

and many more! Anyway, give some tracks a listen and maybe buy the album. Because it is DAMN good. I'm even noodling around the idea of an entire post inspired by the lyric from "Riot Coming" (another fave) that goes, "I met a girl on the square, who showed me how to kill my cares. But once that's done, man, there's nothing to do." Still just a thought though; probably now that I've said it it'll never happen. :)

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Living more alive. Where to begin on this one? It ends self-referentially. I can't even say this because I'm saying everything else. I am a river of words. I'm living more alive. I think you help bring this out of me. Alas I'll have to save it for another day.

Please Support This!

If you get a chance, please hop on over to Boing Boing and check out this post. I think it's a petition worth signing. Organizations like this one, and like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault provide a crucial service in ensuring the biodiversity of our world. When reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, she had an awesome stat in there (which I can't remember exactly) talking about the lack of biodiversity in our food. I think she said something to the effect of: 2000 years ago our ancestors ate over 80,000 species of crop; today we are down to around 200? I can't remember. I'll have to go to the library and look it up. Either way, check out the article, and if you feel like it, sign the petition. Cheers.

HA, Foresight.

This xkcd strip, posted many moons ago, was never more pertinent (and prescient) than yesterday during Ontario's earthquake. Predicting how ridiculous twitter would get - I LOVE IT.

I am terribly amused...

So apparently the other day a lesbian who looks like Justin Bieber (famous tween boy popstar) was almost arrested for underage drinking...except not. She was well over the legal drinking age but was mistaken for 16 year old Bieber. This has brought much media attention to Bieber's so-called "lesbian" haircut, and to the (formerly small-time now getting attenion) blog called "Lesbians who Look Like Justin Bieber." For some reason, this amuses me to no end. Click here for linkage to the biebians blog.

Sidenote: What's not to like about Bieber lesbians?  They look like guys!! ;)

Wow, it's been forever.

I can't believe how long it has been since I've updated this thing. And how infrequently before then. I can remember when blogging was a multiple-times-per-day activity in college. Back when my computer was always on AND connected to the internet with no concern about the cable or electricity bills, and before I had a job that kept me out of the house for 12 hours a day.

Anyway, some things have come up lately that I have wanted to share with anyone who might still check this thing periodically so I figured I should update.

Number one: my ipod is totally sentient. And it totally gets mood swings. It usually takes me 8 (+/-2) songs to get to work. Sometimes the pod is all sweet and compliant and gives me a perfect mix exactly when I want it. And sometimes not. This week, it has complied pretty well. Here's a sampling of some of the drive-to-work mixes it has delivered:

Monday
1.) I Touch Myself - Divinyls
2.) Just - Radiohead
3.) Whipping Post - Allman Bros
4.) End of the World as We Know It - R.E.M.
5.) Here Goes Something - Nada Surf
6.) You Look So Fine - Garbage
7.) Amber - 311
8.) This is Love - PJ Harvey

Tuesday
1.) Toxic - Britney
2.) Under Your Spell - BTVS Soundtrack
3.) If I Ever Lose My Faith in You - Sting
4.) Paranoid Android - Radiohead
5.) Mixed Bizness - Beck
6.) Great Indoors - John Mayer
7.) Politik - Coldplay
8.) 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins

Wednesday
1.) F**k the Pain Away - Peaches
2.) Mississippi - Sheryl Crow
3.) Me & U - Cassie
4.) New Genious (Brother) - Gorillaz
5.) You Turn the Screws - Cake
6.) Garden - Pearl Jam
7.) Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
8.) Life Your Life - TI

Thursday
1.) See You - Foo Fighters
2.) More and More - Offer Nissim
3.) Rock the House - Gorillaz
4.) 6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps (Paul Oakenfold remix)
5.) Electioneering - Radiohead
6.) In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
7.) Break on Through - The Doors

As you can see, when my Ipod is being compliant it is also being conciliatory - towards my extremely eclectic and random music tastes. Judging by these mixes.

Another weird thing about the Ipod - sometimes I feel like it's trying to show me something. Case in point, the other day after Electioneering had already come on once, it tried to play it again later. About 10 seconds in when I realized, "Hey, I've already heard this today," I decided to hit skip. And the next song started - and sounded exactly the same. I thought, "Wtf, Ipod are you sick?" and then noticed it wasn't Radiohead that was playing, but rather, a Lily Allen song. Of course now I can no longer remember which one - but it was a revelation inspired by the "shuffle songs" feature on my personified Ipod.

So that was one thing.

Next. Electric Mountain Rotten Apple Gang. This music = sweet. Accordion girl's socks = FTW.



That is that.

This art I was directed to by Boing Boing has me convinced that I'm not actually creative at all, just a good duplicator, because I could NEVER think of this. And it is awesome. In case you are wondering - those are CRAYONS. That picture is of a picture created with crayons. Check out the artist's website here. His name is Christian Faur.





Thus far I have resisted the urge to buy nintendo virtual console (VC) points and go crazy downloading games I played on my cousin's SNES. However, the recent arrival of Commodore 64 games on the VC has me singing a different tune. The first (and only) game playing mechanism my parents ever supplied/allowed was the computer. And the three or four 5 inch floppy disks we had with games on them were my first exposure to gameplay. "Dr. J vs Larry Bird," "Summer Olympic Games," and "Pitfall" all hold a great sense of game-related nostalgia for me. So I'm highly tempted to take the plunge and start downloading. Although like many things in life it is a balance between what we want and what we can afford. And if I am ever going to get the Nikon D80 I've been dreaming of for so long, the VC may have to wait. Even with commodore 64 games. But for anyone else out there who experienced these simple but fun games as a child, I encourage you to go check em out on the virtual console.

This story, about an airline in England that accepts a DIY photo id to board a plane gave me no small amount of fear and disbelief when I read it.

If you have a chance, check out this video countering the Ken Starr lawsuit against gay married couples in California.

Whew! That was a lot to get out. But I think that's it for now. I'll try to stop by a little more frequently, but who knows!!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr

There are still pirates?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/10/30/somalia.pirates/index.html