Posts
If you missed it, here's a view of the moon from my part of the sky (SoCal).
This was done by an artist named Pogo from Australia: "Video for my track 'Upular', composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from the Disney Pixar film 'Up'. Enjoy!"
I love how this composition turned out and yes, now, I want to watch a Disney movie.
More of these songs are here.
dressing w/ vegetarian stock
apple chicken sausage stir-fry w/ fresh green veggies
carrot souffle
panettone bread
vanilla maple tea
It took 1.5 hours total to prepare the whole meal.
It took 4 minutes total to polish off a plate.
Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season to all.
If you want to know what my story is all about, you can view my profile page here: KwaS
You know of those rear-enders that you can see coming in your rear view mirror? I saw one coming in my rear view mirror this morning on The 101 freeway.
I saw a damaged off-white older Toyota pickup with a shell on the back approaching way too fast. The driver hadn't noticed that my lane had slowed to a stop for a few moments, even though all the other lanes were still moving. Next, I heard screeching tires and saw the smoke from the pressure applied to the brakes. I watched the car sort of veer from side to side in order to slow down but not enough to leave the lane. I remained calm and just prepared for impact.
Then it was quiet.
The car behind me stopped mere inches behind me and a couple seconds later, my lane started moving again. I drove on and watched my rear view mirror and I as drove away, untouched. The driver changed lanes and as the guy passed me (quickly) on my left, I was left with the smell of burnt rubber.
I am a defensive driver and I try to give cars, especially visibly-damaged ones, a wide berth on the road. Even this doesn't prevent all possible collisions. Sometimes I can't do anything but trust others' ability to either pay attention to where they are going or react in time if they don't. I can do that or I can figure out a way to get one of these for my next car.
Fully-loaded WITH the voice-activated Bat Shield.
You know you want one too.
First, I want to state that I have this lofty goal to eliminate my credit card dependency. However, my compulsion to support certain 'why-are-these-people-still-under-the-radar?' musicians @ established music venues makes it quite difficult.
Tuesday night when I saw Ari Hest play at the Hotel Cafe I knew the online ticket purchase was worth it-- as are all my purchases, of course. The opener from Ireland, Declan O'Rourke, told the audience that this was his first time playing (or first tour playing?) in America. He had a great sound and one novelty song stands out. It's about an old black crow and it was highly entertaining because there was a fun song introduction and then part of the chorus was him cawing. Not counting that particular song, to me, live, his style was like an Irish version of Ari's so it shouldn't be too surprising if he gains a large following here fairly quickly.
"I can make you move against your will. Don’t it make you sad to lose control?" Broken Voices by Ari Hest
Ari was fantastic with his band, and played a bunch of songs from his early material and CD The Break In, plus newer songs from his project, 52, which included my favorite song, Broken Voices. At some point Amy Kuney came up to sing Cranberry Lake which she co-wrote and sang in a duet with Ari. That was great because I've been wanting to see her live for a while now too.
Ari's vocal ability is amazing. His tone ranges in his songs from baritone to falsetto with impressively flawless lung control. It bowls me over me every time I see him live.
I ran into @KristinJuel during the evening which is always refreshing. Sitting with her I discovered my new favorite bass player, Rob Calder, who has an interesting way of dancing to the beat while he plays. Very entertaining to watch!
The only downer of the night is that there's a rule that non-flash photography is allowed in Hotel Cafe, but video recording is not. Kristin got busted for taking video with her digi cam at some point. That was too bad but at least they didn't confiscate her camera. She had also taken a bunch of still photos. Overall, it was a good night for live music.
"You're the song that I sing that I don't need to practice." from In the Creases by Amber Rubarth.
Tomorrow is Amber Rubarth's show @ The Mint-- http://themintla.com is their site. I refuse to hyperlink to it because it has music that auto-plays and defaults to the loudest volume setting. Way to facilitate an obnoxious user experience.
I love Amber's lyrical ambition and like Ari, she is now based in NY so I try to see her whenever she's playing here. Can't wait to hear her new songs and old ones again that I like. A lot.
I received an invite this morning for Google Wave and with no idea what to do with it. So, I'm watching a Google video on what the intended use for Google Wave is. The video is an hour and twenty minutes long. *smh*
At first glance it seems like a glorified e-mail account, which is what I thought G-Mail was.
I don't know if I like the 'view text while typing' feature being a default setting. I'm a bit of a messy typist. I also wonder about the implications of data mining for users of this service. I am mostly concerned about how Google is planning to use, archive, catalog, and ultimately monetize this potential goldmine of user generated content (UGC) with a EULA (by using this product you consent to *anything the company wants to do*) agreement. I'm going to give it a chance and see what happens.
G-Wave users, what are your initial thoughts?
mmm... Chocolate. Last Sunday was the 3rd Annual LA Chocolate Salon in Pasadena. I've finally come out of the sugar shock enough to share my experience but my hands are still too shaky to type it all out, figuratively speaking. So I'm going to do the next best thing.
Here's A Salon of Indulgence, Luxury and Chocolate, an article from the Occidental paper, Oxyweekly, which details the event in a way that was fairly close to my experience.
If you missed this event, the next Chocolate Salon is in San Francisco. Chocolate lovers planning to be in the Bay Area in March, don't miss that one. There will be as many as 50 chocolatiers in attendance to LA's 35-- which had one more sample table than this chocolate fan could handle.
Read a book in a week or less. Read at least two books this month.
That will be twice as many as I read last month.
It is an attainable goal.
This weekend I finally had a chance to replace my (stolen) library card from summer. All my cash was spent at the previous stop-- wait for it-- the cleaners, and this library doesn't take credit cards. I didn't have enough pocket change to pay for the new card, but the clerk said I could take my replacement card now and pay next time, which was a pleasant surprise.
I stopped at the reference desk and inquired if the book, Nickel and Dimed, was available. The library's two copies had already been checked out. An extra copy will be sent to the branch so I can check it out by next weekend. This works out nicely because I have another book (a YA novel) to read while I'm waiting. Also, I found out that they take magazine donations. I have a few dozen that would be better off donated than chucked into the recycle bin.
