shadowspar

Ever feel so strongly about the non-existence of a given image macro that the world just seemed out of balance until you went and made it yourself?

Yeah, uh, me neither. ^_^;;

I can't even verbalize how well listening to THE BLUE HEARTS suits night like this.

...when you finally figure out the name, and from thence the lyrics, of a tune you've been hearing since forever. Oftimes, the song turns out to be almost exactly unlike the mental image of it you'd formed in your head. Sometimes the two are so incongruous as to be completely absurd.

To wit: Funiculì, Funiculà. Here's Andrea Bocelli singing it. Assuming you don't speak Neapolitan, listen to the performance first, then head over to the Wikipedia page and see what this uplifting, noble tune is an ode to. =)

Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
Funiculì, funiculà, funiculì, funiculà!
Jamme, jamme jà, funiculì, funiculà!

• Chanced upon a 24-hour grocery store that had a half-dozen huge aisles full of imported-from-Israel kosher food, and
• remembered that bissli was the canonical-ish Israeli snack food that marina had mentioned a while ago.

Pizza bissli == can haz. *crunch* *crunch* *reaches for a glass of water*

Well, the moon is broken / and the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see / is all that you lack
Come on up to the house

All your cryin / don't do you no good
Come on up to the house
Come down off the cross / we could use the wood
Come on up to the house

I love the pointedly outlandish juxtaposition that's a not-uncommon feature of J-Pop and a lot of Japanese humour. The lyrics to this one are actually a rather touching love song.

This place can actually be extraordinarily beautiful. (When you're not choking on fumes from the steel plant or being suffocated by some of the small-town attitudes, that is.)

These were shot near the Roberta Bondar Pavilion, a huge permanent tent on the waterfront downtown, right next to the St Mary's River.

So, I was lucky enough to get Basia Bulat's CD Heart of My Own this past Christmas. It's awesome, she's awesome, and anyone who's been following along at home for a while already knew that I would say that. =)

Here are two tracks of hers that I hadn't heard before the CD made its way into my hot little hands.

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

:Shel Silverstein

I like this, as an introvert myself, and a parent of another.

Linked by marina.

1. Respect their need for privacy
2. Never embarrass them in public
3. Let them observe first in new situations
4. Give them time to think; don't demand instant answers
5. Don't interrupt them
6. Give them advance notice of expected changes in their lives
7. Give them 15 minute warnings to finish whatever they are doing
8. Reprimand them privately
9. Teach them new skills privately
10. Enable them to find one best friend who has similar interests & abilities
11. Don't push them to make lots of friends
12. Respect their introversion; don't try to remake them into extroverts

There is a Rant, Gentle Readers, that I have long avoided subjecting you to; a Rant about how Certain Persons, helpful though they may be, invariably fall upon my Domestic Goodes, steal them away, and turn them to Ends such as Home Improvement, from whence they never return. I speak, for instance, of having all Laundry Baskets and Plasticware Disappear from the Laundry Room and Kitchen, respectively, only to make their reappearance in the Storage Room or Garage, having there been Converted to Storage Containers; or of Finding one's Prized Corkscrew, long having Vanished from the Kitchen under circumstances of Great Mystery, bravely serving in the Shed as an Opener of Painte Cans, and covered in Various Wondrous Shades of Latex Painte therefrom.

Tonight, however, I am not Ashamed to say that I had My Retribution, in that I had opportunity to Abscond with an unattended Painte Tray, and turn it to mine own Devious Ends; namely, the Storage of Rags having been Used for Cleaning as they wait upon the Chance to make into the Laundry for Washing. Vengeance!

Home sick today. (No, not that kind of sick. Strongest thing I drank yesterday was root beer.) Thankfully only "stay home from work and don't make everyone else sick" kind of sick, not "flat on my ass incapacitated" sick.

As much as I was tempted to curl up in bed and try to get into reading h/c fic, closing up the computer and sleeping through the morning probably did more for my aching head, throat, and stomach. =)

Running Debian squeeze? Using the supplied Iceweasel as your browser? Did your "It's all text!" plugin installed from the Firefox add-ons site recently quit working? Uninstall it and install the package xul-ext-itsalltext instead, and you'll get a version that works with your Iceweasel/Firefox.

Armies of darkness:

Forces of light:

Today's random muzak discovery: SCANDAL.

More: FUTURE, START.

From this review of Becky Hogge's Barefoot into Cyberspace:

There's a not-so secret about activists that those pursuing anti-democratic policies have unfortunately spotted: they burn out. A trade association has its choice of professional lobbyists willing to be paid to argue the cause during working hours. The supply of people willing to donate their lives to sparking protest for little or no money is much smaller, however, and the toll is intense.

(Amongst other things, the idea of getting a law degree and leaping into the current Intellectual Property fray on the side of good has a great deal of appeal to me, and this is why. There are plenty of excellent law firms taking up the interests of the monied corporations, but few folks standing up for remixers, independent artists, consumers, and so forth -- almost nobody can afford to.)

Haven't posted anything about how the viola lessons have been progressing for some time now. Will try to find time to rectify that soon; big news coming up. ^_^;

In the meantime, and since I haven't posted it yet, here's one of my favourite pieces of classical music. If you're not familiar with it -- it starts out soft, but you might not want to turn up your speakers too loud. ^_^ Even with the obvious musical joke in this piece aside, I really think it's a beautiful and flowing piece of music.

Even more interesting than what's on your shopping list is what you run out of, because that shows what you're actually using. Sometimes it only dawns on me how differently I've been cooking when we suddenly start running out of something we've never run out of before, or how many cakes, cupcakes, scones and hotcakes this kitchen has emitted as of late when I realize that the bag of flour I'm buying is the third one this month.

Things we've run out of lately:

Cumin, oregano, ancho chile powder: adding homemade veg burritos to our dinner rotation is the main culprit here, but lately cumin seems to go into every recipe that requires dried spices...so much so that the second 3oz jar to go was replaced with a one-pound bag of the stuff. (They say never to argue with a person who buys ink by the barrel...what about someone who buys cumin by the pound?)

Onions and garlic: Incredibly enough, we used to buy onions a few at a time with specific recipes in mind, but more & more they seem to be getting into many of the savoury dishes we make each week: stirfry, burritos as noted above, iridōfu, plus we finally found egg-free commercial perogies, so we can finally eat perogies covered in fried onions again. Olio aglio eats through a lot of our garlic, as well as soup recipes, but a clove here and there seems to go into all the other veg dishes, too.

We had a good run on vegan soup stock for a while, but that's dropped off, what with it being spring now and all.

Finally, white sugar & white flour (>_<), along with the holy baking trifecta of cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder. Oh, and vanilla extract too -- some four bottles of the stuff in recent memory -- and cider vinegar, of all things, which is what we use to turn soymilk into vegan buttermilk for baking. In the last while we've made a whack of birthday cakes including a half-sheet monster, several batches of scones for work & domestic consumption, several doz maple cupcakes for the kid's school, and (currently in the oven) choc chip cupcakes for Mothers' Day. This along with the regular Sunday hotcake routine and the occasional round of bread, buns, focaccia, or pizza. Sheesh.

This passage from Descartes says a lot about my approach to philosophy, and my philosophies in general. =)

I shall not say anything about Philosophy, but that, seeing as it has been cultivated for many centuries by the best minds that have ever lived, and that nevertheless no single thing is to be found in it which is not the subject of dispute, I had not enough presumption to fare better there than others had done. And also, considering how many conflicting opinions there may be regarding the self-same matter, all supported by learned people, while there can never be more than one which is true, I esteemed as well-nigh false all that only went as far as being probable.
:Rene Descartes

How did people in remote Northern Ontario ever find out about random awesome K-Pop and Russian girlpop bands before the age of the Internet?

Oh, that's right, they didn't.

Hanging onto the last little bit of summer cheer. Love this tune and this video.

While coming up with music recommendations for damned_colonial, I chanced to discover that one of my favourite songs by Shaye (of Happy Baby fame) is a cover of a tune originally done by Crash Vegas.

In my youth I always felt as though this kind of music trivia was exclusively the domain of 'cool kids' who hung out in record stores all day, so I love that the internetz has opened up an unlimited horizon of musical exploration for geek types like myself. =)