Saturday, January 03, 2009
I just checked... I have 26 different versions of "One Too Many Mornings" on my iPod. (A couple of them might be repeats.)
Posted at 11:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm listening to WDRC's A-Z again. There seem to be a lot of Ts.
Posted at 6:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Inspired by said A-Z, here are my two most often played songs for each letter of the alphabet, according to iTunes. (I made my first-ever Smart Playlist to figure it out!)
The list is a little strange since I actually listen to podcasts on my iPod a lot more often than I do music, and iTunes only knows what I listen to on my iPod or on my computer, not what I play in the car, which is where I listen to the most music. It's also much more eclectic than I expected (not just ten thousand Bob songs), which is pretty interesting. I think I play more new songs on my iPod, vs. Laura Standards on CDs in the car. But it's pretty representational, I guess... most of these are songs I've played a lot.
Anyway, here's my slightly-embarrassing A-Z. I only lied a couple of times, and it was all for the greater good. (Like when "House of the Rising Sun ("electric")," which I never listen to, ranked insanely high. Again.)
A - "A Good Man" by King Straggler (John Hawkes' from Deadwood's band) | "All La Glory (Early Version)" by The Band.
B - "Born in Time" (this pleases me very much) by Bob Dylan | "Beast of Burden" by The Rolling Stones.
C - "Cracklin' Rosie" (my fav guilty pleasure) by Neil Diamond | "Christmas in Prison" by John Prine.
D - "Different Drum" (!) by Michael Nesmith | "Darlin' Man" by Peggy Honeywell. (Next is the Beach Boys' Brian/Mike cover of The Everly Brothers' "Devoted To You." Nice!)
E - "Engadine's Dreamy Party" by Albert Elms (from The Prisoner soundtrack... this is my #1 most played song, for some reason!) | "Everybody's Talking" (theme from Midnight Cowboy) by Harry Nilsson.
F - "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty (I play it a lot while we're flying in Tango) | "Fruits of My Labor" by Lucinda Williams. (I wanted to claim "Ferdinand the Impostor" beat both of these, but it was #5, right after Elvis' "For the Heart").
G - "Girl From The North Country" (superb Dylan cover) by M. Ward, Conor Oberst & Jim James | "Go Go Liza Jane" (awesome!) by Levon & The Hawks.
H - "High Water" by Bob Dylan | "Hog of the Forsaken" (ha!) (from Deadwood) by Michael Hurley. (Followed by "Hazel" and "Handy Dandy"!)
I - "If I Had A Boat" by Lyle Lovett (from Hunter S. Thompson's favs collection) | "Instant Pleasure" by Rufus Wainwright (wow, I downloaded this song from someone this summer, as part of a "modern Jeeves & Wooster" soundtrack they made... apparently I'm a bit obsessed with it.)
J - "Jokerman (alternative take)" by Bob Dylan | "Joy to the World" by Moses Kahumoku. (I guess I'm not that into J songs, if a Christmas instrumental that I hardly ever listen to [albeit a nice one] is #2!)
K - "Ka Manu" by Dennis Pavao (very deserving!) | "Katie's Been Gone" by The Band.
L - "Love In Vain" by The Rolling Stones | "Let Your Love Flow" by Bellamy Brothers (perfect while biking on Block Island!).
M - "My Blue-Eyed Jane" by Bob Dylan | "Mail Myself To You" by Earl Robinson (from the Woody Guthrie tribute concert).
N - "No. 6 Steals a Lifebelt" by Albert Elms (the fact that all these Prisoner songs rank so high blows my mind!) | "Not Dark Yet" by Bob Dylan.
O - "Oh Sister" (fantastic Dylan cover) by Andrew Bird and Nora O'Connor | "One Too Many Mornings" (also a fantastic Dylan cover) by Jerry Jeff Walker. (If this had been in the car, a real Dylan version of OTMM would have won easily, since "One Too Many Mornings" is pretty much my all-time favorite song.)
P - "Prodigal Son" by The Rolling Stones | "Please, Please, Please" (live at Port Dover) (yeah!!!) by The Hawks.
Q - "Quelqu'un M'a Dit" by Carla Bruni | "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" (Tree with Roots, basement tapes bootleg version take #1) by Bob Dylan & The Band.
R - "Red Cadillac and A Black Moustache" by Bob Dylan | "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell (ha!!!).
S - "Stars on the Water" by Rodney Crowell (I love this song. It's also from Hunter S. Thompson's favs collection.) | "Soul Deep" by The Band (nice).
T - "Tell Ol' Bill" (my most-played Bob Dylan song!) by Bob Dylan | "The Stones I Throw (Song Sketch)" (wonderful) by Levon & The Hawks.
U - "Uh Uh Uh" by Levon & The Hawks | "Under Control" by Bob Dylan & The Band (from A Tree with Roots basement tapes bootleg).
V - "Viva Las Vegas" by Shawn Colvin (great cover, but this surprises me) | "Visions Of Johanna" by Bob Dylan. (Actually "Village Green Cricket Match" from The Prisoner soundtrack was #1, which is just too crazy, and "Vomit Express" by Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg ranked above "Visions Of Johanna," but come on! Plus, three different versions of "Visions" ranked in a row, so I think this is fair.)
W - "Waltz of the Wind" by Alison Krauss and Ledward Kaapana | "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" (excellent) by The Band.
X - no X songs!
Y - "You Got the Silver" by The Rolling Stones (this is my favorite Rolling Stones song) | "Yellow Bird" (my favorite Hawaiian slack key guitar instrumental) by Leonard Kwan. (#3 was "You Have Just Been Poisoned" from The Prisoner soundtrack!)
Z - "Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie (this is my only Z song).
Posted at 1:02:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tired Tarpon.
(drawn with silver pen on a paper towel)
Friday, January 02, 2009
Oh, AND my new Milo in Maine jellyfish t-shirt came today!
Posted at 11:12:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm listening to WDRC-FM's New Year's A-Z treat (all songs on the whole station, played in alphabetical order over several days) on my old white Art Deco-y Soundesign stereo that my mom bought me in middle school, via my computer speakers. (I don't have speakers hooked up to the stereo, but do I have a line-in from it plugged in to my computer. My only other radios that I can play out loud are in the car and Grandma's old Telefunken in the basement.) I wonder what the very last song will be? They played "Positively 4th Street" when I was in the car this afternoon! They also played "Popcorn." That was bizarre. I haven't heard that song since my elementary school music teacher used to play it so all the kids could dance around (everyone else loved it whenever she did this; I loathed it). The DJ didn't say the name of the song, but I recognised it. So so so WEIRD.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Dean just told me that TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND (25,000) of my old NECA computer (bought in 1989) would fit on my new hard drive!
Posted at 9:56:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Our Vic card came in today's mail! :-)
Posted at 5:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
My fav foam expert barista, at Borders, is the best. First he told the barista who was going to prepare my drink to make sure it was nice and dry, then added, "Make it pretty. She comes here special because we make good cappuccinos. (No pressure....)" Me: "That's true!" Then the other barista messed it up somehow (not sure how; I always wander off and look at some books while they make it, instead of just standing there staring at them, so they won't feel rushed) and he deferred to the foam expert, who redid it for him. The cap was fantastic. I felt like telling F.E., "I never go to Starbucks anymore, because of you!" But that's not the real reason I never go to SBUX anymore. (It helps, though.)
Posted at 3:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
??! There are other books by Frances Hodgson Burnett??? All these years I thought there were only the three!
Posted at 12:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Posted at 8:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Happy New Year! Here it is, everyone's favourite annual feature of ALB: our official Christmas Card Competition results!
Once again this year, I actually WON on the card count, fair and square! (Mostly fair and square, at least. I didn't cheat, and I didn't count Hunter and Marilou's cards separately, since last year we agreed on the "One card per couple and their dependent children" rule. I did get a few cards from online people which Dean is disgruntled about, but that's to be expected.) My count of 16 cards may be a new record, not including the year I got all those great scam cards from LC members, which Dean wouldn't let me count. Dean got 11 cards, the exact same number he did last year. Dean's people are so consistent.
We got ZERO joint cards this year, even though we sent out two. You dropped the ball, Vic!!!! :-(
As always, I did not fare very well on the Slack Front and was easily defeated. This is the count that charts cards received from the people I sent them out to. Dean's people's slack percentage was 18% last year and 17% this year, so once again they're very consistent. Meanwhile, my people's slack rate has actually steadily improved in recent years (37% in 2006, 35% last year, 30% this year). Bettie, who I haven't heard from in a while, even came through, as did Jan, as well as the David family, in spades! Plus, I added Wendy to my repertoire of non-slacky correspondents. Meanwhile, June, Robert, AGD, and Thomas all slacked this year, as well as the usual (Uncle John), and a couple of friends that I sent cards to didn't return them either.
My favorite statistic is the Message Measurement. Dean's people are wildly inconsistent on this front. In 2006, a pathetic 38% of his dudes wrote a message on the card ( = something beyond just "Love, Blah and Blah"); last year, it was an impressive 82%; and this year, it dropped to 64%. My dudes attained a very commendable 87% (up two percentage points from last year) and most of them wrote much longer and more personalized messages (hand-written letters, even!) than Dean's people did. There was even a note on the Uncle Dick card this year! (A nice one, too.) Amazing! I really love and appreciate the variety of messages we get at Christmas.
Best wishes for 2009... it seems like a pretty nice number! And I will be posting my Grand Cayman trip entries in the very near future, I promise.
My new gigantic hard drive makes lots of chomping, crunching sounds, like it's hungry for files!
Posted at 3:54:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Here's my favorite photo from our New Year's Eve snow day. The Beag's all nice and clean because I got a Triple & Shine on Monday.
Posted at 2:08:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
(Brrrr! It's currently 5°F, and -7° with the windchill! Quite a dramatic changearoo from Monday.)
I hope we'll have a chance to do the annual New Year's Day Christmas Card Competition Results Report in the morning, before Dean's Gs show up for our Huge Party. I'm sure everyone's on tenterhooks. We got a bunch more cards in the mail on the day we came back from NC (waiting queued up in the mailbox) but no more have rolled in since! I fear the Slack Rate will be high this year. And no card from Vic. :-(
Wow, I didn't know that my 2007 goal was to eat kidneys. I posted on January 13th (my birthday!), 2007, "I decided that my goal for 2007 is to eat kidneys." Then I posted on January 10, 2008, "Damn! I was just looking at some ALB entries from last January, and my goal for 2007 was to eat kidneys. I didn't. And I extra want to eat kidneys now, because of Raffles' Mr Justice opening chapter kidney feast." Well, I'm canary-eatingly pleased to report for January 1, 2009 that I finally met my goal and ate kidneys when we were in Grand. (But I'm a slack and still didn't post about it because I haven't finished all my trip entries!) Here's a beautiful delicious photo for proof. Maybe my goal for 2009 should be to actually read Mr Justice Raffles. Other than just the kidney-eating part, I mean.
Posted at 12:56:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Best bread loaves ever!! I'll try to post a picture later. We wolfed down half of the skinny one already. ("You know what happens when you wolf your food.")
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
It's a snow day today and I still have NO computer because Dean's setting up my new hard drive (reimaging the whole thing, installing all the programs, etc.), but that's okay because tomorrow's our fake Christmas Eve with Dean's Gingers so I'm doing lots of downstairs-cleaning and French bread baking. (Yeah, Christmas Eve on New Year's Day... this is anti-linear brain, you know.) Right now the dough is rising and if you go out in the hall it smells nice and yeasty.
Posted at 10:19:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I had shrimp cocktail as a New Year's Eve treat (got them at Shaw's yesterday) but Dean didn't toss any of them into my mouth like Jake and Elwood. We usually have Chinese food on New Year's Eve, but it's a good thing I got alt stuff, since we're snowed in! It's super-blowy. I can't tell how much it actually snowed since there are lots of drifts. It was pretty tall when I brushed off my Beag this afternoon, but nice and powdery just like last time. Everything looked all white and blizzardy, the air filled with whorling crystals. I took some pics but I can't import them yet since my computer's still out of commission. I felt so fish-out-of-water without my computer yesterday! Luckily at least I had good ol' Palma. Okay, punching time, I think.
The timer rang about two seconds after I typed that. I have no sense of direction, but I do have a great sense of time. I punched it down and formed the dough into loaves, so now it's having its second rising session. I thought of something else while I was rolling out the dough but now I can't remember. Oh yes. I used my new KitchenAid F.P. (that is, food processor) yesterday to make our family's famous Macaroni and Cheese recipe (which Susie makes all the time but I have made about four times, ever). I used the F.P. to grate the cheese (my knuckle is still recovering from a pre-Christmas cheese grating incident) and it was highly nifty. The F.P. was a Christmas present from my Gingers, which I told them I wanted via my Amazon.com wishlist, and they had sent directly here since it's very heavy. The Gs are a big fan of the Amazon wishlist. I can't say I blame them. I'm very particular, so how else are they supposed to know what the heck I'd want? That's particular, not peculiar, But that, too.
I also made cherry pancakes for Snow Day breakfast today. Yes.
I'm typing this on the laptop and it's not so bad, even though I despise typing on the laptop. I think it's making me a little loopy, though. My fingers are writing weird stuff.
Only 1 hour 'til I get to put up my new Charley Harper calendar!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
My computer is misbehaving (I'm writing this on my Treo), so Dean brought home a new 1 TERRABYTE hard drive. !!!! I've never even heard of anything that big! Just so you know, apparently hard drive space is one of the few gifts that actually makes me jump up and down and squeal.
Posted at 7:41:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I had to go on a mission to the mall today, and it was crazy. Like pre-Christmas, not post-Christmas! When I was driving around attempting to find a parking space in the Lord & Taylor garage, this nice man approached my car and I rolled down my window. I'd noticed him walking before when I was driving past on my previous fruitless circle, because he looked pleasantly eccentric, with a mustache and a vest and the look of someone who plays a stringed instrument in a small orchestra. He said decisively, "I'm on the other side. I [looked at you and] said [to myself], You have a nice smile and I'm going to save my spot for you." I gasped out, "Thank you!" and he nodded and walked to his car, waiting beside it for me until I'd worked my way back around (as a zillion other poor dudes looking for spots also circled helplessly), then nodded to me in satisfaction, got in and pulled out, while I lurked with my blinker on and zipped right in to his vacated space. We waved to each other and he zoomed off. Wow, smiling at people sure can pay off!!!
Posted at 1:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
It is really gusty. The wind woke me up! Sleeping in a big window does have its disadvantages.
Posted at 11:05:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Posted at 1:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I'm wearing my new fish socks!!! That is, fishbone socks. Aren't they fantastic? That's the real name, too. I got them for Christmas, but they didn't arrive in time. They were waiting in the mailbox when we returned from NC. I love LOVE them! They're going to be perfect with my fleecy boots. Maybe I'll even get more (they also come in green/gold, in addition to the brown/mauve), but I'm cheap and they were expensive, so maybe not. I'm hoping they'll go on sale! :-)
[Edit, 5:20: Wow, I officially love them x 1,000. They are perfect with my boots, and 100% warm and cozy, like an all-day hug for my legs. ALSO, I got two insane deals at Uptown Consignment today: a brand-new heavy Maine Green J. Crew shawl-collar button cardigan (interesting style, nice fit, soft and part cashmere, different from any of my other sweaters) for $18, and a gorgeous Banana Republic waffle-y zipped cashmere cardigan (also totally different from any of my other sweaters) for $21. It was marked $42 and that's how much I thought it was (normally I would never pay that much for an item at Uptown, but this one is so nice that I thought it was worth it) until the cashier told me the total! Nope, it wasn't $42; it was half price. It's turquoise blue and the cashier commented that it's the exact color of the ocean in the Caribbean, to which I agreed. I had been thinking the identical thing. Wowowow. Not only that, but I had a $5 coupon from the Rare Reminder, so I only paid $34 for both sweaters. I'm glad I stopped by Uptown today.
It felt like spring out again this afternoon. Until it got dark, that is.]
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Posted at 4:20:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We're back from G-ville, as of late yesterday afternoon! (Flew straight home, without stopping to eat, and we made it back before dark!) It was a very very very nice Christmas. Almost all the snow is melted now (it was about 60° out today!!), but Tuesday morning when we left there was lots, with huge piles alongside the hangars at Brainard. Dean had to shovel in front of our hangar the night before (they plow, but not right up to the edge), and when we left in the morning we both had to push to get Tang over the slippery slushy/icy area.
On the way to the Gs, we took the Hudson River VFR Corridor through New York, and the viz was great, with a nice layer of clouds way up high so it wasn't glarey or reflectiony. It also was hardly bumpy at all! I got some good pics (even though we were on the New Jersey side of the river, not the Manhattan side, since we were flying south). We didn't circle the Lady (aka Statue of Liberty) but we flew abeam her and I had a good view! There was no more snow on the ground past Manhattan; New Jersey and southward were bare. It was pretty warm at the Gs the whole time we were there! And I got to spend quality time with Diane, June and Sam (this was the first time I spent much time with Sam, and I really like him!), and even see Robert's family for a short time on Dec. 26th (the Diane fam and I had to go on a mission that day, so we had to run off not too long after they arrived). Robert gave me a giant lift-a-million-inches-off-the-floor-and-hold-up-forever hug. :-) Bettie's fam came to visit the Gs yesterday, but that was the day we flew home, so I didn't get to see her. I like mornings/afternoons at the Gs best, when there's not too much going on, and it's relaxy and quiet and just nice. I really like seeing everyone too, but when there's "lots" of people (and food!) around all at once I get a bit exhausted/OD'ed. I'm just not used to it! All in all, everything was quite low-key and nice, though. Also, I brought my own pillow, so I didn't get a stiff neck this time!! That was KEY! Do it again, Future Self!
Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were so nice. We baked cookies on Christmas Eve! :-) My dad and I made a whole bunch of tiny rolled cookies for Dean's hot chocolate dunkin-ing (including, among others, lions, snowflakes, cherry red stars, Filberts, and two different types of turkeys!), which we decorated with sparkly sugar, and we also made a tray of larger ones which I drew on with special cookie-markers after they'd cooled. No one else helped with the marker decorating, but when Diane and Tim arrived I did get Tim to help me with suggestions since I started running out of ideas (I removed a few of his suggestions before I took this picture, since they're a bit controversial!). Oh yeah, Diane did do one cookie--the Santa Claus star one. On the right in the photo is a Charlie Brown Christmas tree (not the one he bought, but the kind everyone else wanted him to buy at that funky modern tree store), a portrait of Tim, and a hen wearing chicken glasses (they're red-tinted and deter chickens from pecking each other because they can't see the blood). The other chicken is a rooster with fancy leg ruffles, and above him is a brittle star.
My dad bought a digital camera for Christmas, and seemed to really like it! (He also bought a scanner, which he opened early and I helped him set up on Christmas Eve!) He took this photo of me doing my elf job (handing out the presents) on Christmas morning. I organized them into stacks by person this year, so each round would be more efficient. Dean likes it when I introduce new efficiency measures, since Whaples-style gift opening takes many many hours. (We take turns opening one gift at a time while everyone else watches, going from oldest to youngest. Since I'm the youngest--or at least pretend to be--I get to hand out the presents for each new round of opening.)
[Edit, 6:45: I just decorated my tree! Well, I decorated the front of my tree, really fast. I mostly only put up sea creatures, a few birds and animals, and the icicles. I was inspired because June gave me and Dean the coolest ornaments for Christmas: jellies!!! The blue one is mine and the gold one's Dean's (color assignment designated by Dean).]
