Perambulations in Verbiage

More organization. After careful study and consideration, it has come to my attention that I need an iPod or other MP3 player. This announcement brought to you by a dining room table covered in cassette tapes and CDs. Gareth has most, if not all, of the music on these objects in digital form. I am the only one in the house who has no way to play digital tunes. This needs to change. The only problem is that I really don't want to ditch some of my taped stuff. Thankfully, yet again, Think Geek has got my back: USB tape player converts cassettes to MP3s

Also spent time with friends. Hooray for hanging out with friends! Had a lovely time with berkie, cartoon_goblin, matt_the_brit, sherwood21 and the LJ-less Kemme clan over the weekend. The only downside was trying to attend the "Taste of Lawrence" festival before fireworks on the actual 4th. The food was good, the company was great, the temperature was decent, but the humidity was devastating. Ended the evening with a few drinks and returning home to collapse from heat.

I did discover that the new digs are close enough to our downtown area that I can watch the city fireworks from home, so that was nice. If we're in town for it next year, I may suggest an evening cook out and viewing from our roof.

Right, so here's a link to the story I mentioned earlier:

Jade Ghost Story


Also, here's an inspirational post on writing and fear of failure: Fail Better. by John Remy at Inkpunks

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One film?...Nope. Can't do it. I have had an abiding crush on Depp ever since 21 Jump Street was new. I have too many favorites. Maybe a top five? I'll try that.

Not in any sort of order:

Benny & Joon - For his totally sweet dedication to becoming Buster Chaplin...Charlie Keaton...you know what I mean.

Don Juan DeMarco - Yes, it's also sweet. And I love magical realism, or urban fantsy, or fairy tales, or whatever words you need to use to describe this film.

Donnie Brasco - Depp does not belong to the Meryl Streep/Brad Pitt school of "I'm blonde and can do accents" school of acting. I think he does something a bit more subtle with his portrayals of real people, inhabiting them in a way that finds the thing that will make you care about them, whether they're drug dealers or addict writers or crazy directors or gangsters, or in this case, undercover cops. This one is so good that I don't really want to watch it again - it's just too sad.

The Ninth Gate - This film is creepy and weird, and so is his character. Bonus, it's about books, and Satan! What's not to love?

From Hell - Because this is a film based on a graphic novel and yet his character felt totally real to me. Brave little opium addict investigator.

This is not to say that I don't love Jack Sparrow, or Sands from Once Upon a Time in Mexico, or that I don't think his performance as Edward Scissorhands was anything less than brilliant. I'm just hard pressed to choose even five of his films as favorites. And I really don't care for most of Tim Burton's work, even when it comes with Depp, alas.

Or, more acurately, my mothers childhood.

Todays issue of "random things that get stuck in my head" is a tune that looks like this:


They strolled the lane together,
The sky was studded with stars.
He walked up to the gate with her,
For her he lifted the bar.
She raised her brown eyes to him...

But, there's nothing between them now.
For he was just the hired boy,
And she a Jersey cow.


It's one of many funny little songs that my mom sang to us as kids. I don't know where she got it, but sometimes it just pops into my brain and sits there for awhile. Thought I'd share.

Just thought I would embellish a tweet from gmskarka for fun:

The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself



Madonna's Express Yourself, linked because the video wouldn't let me embed it.

Lady Gaga - Born This Way


whattravissays - Gallifrey



That's all for now... Be seeing you!

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Ha! Hahahahahaha!...I think this one is fairly obvious... :D

Old house is empty and clean. Hooray!

This week saw the last of the scrubbing and recycling and trash out the door. I finished up by giving the garage a good sweep, and it's done.

I only pulled one muscle during the process - whatever the one is that wraps around my left ribcage and attaches to my spine. It kinda hurts a lot, but only when I breathe.

This weekend, not only does the weather look promisingly Spring-like, we also get to focus on putting the new house in order. Double Hooray!

I'm looking forward to knowing where my clothes are, and maybe being able to start MAKING THINGS again next week.

Also, for your viewing pleasure, here is a link to Duran Duran's performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from last night: Leave a Light On. DD has been on everywhere for the last two weeks - it's like I'm 14 again. squee!

We caught up on the series finales of Being Human, Bedlam and Big Love last night.

Bedlam ended like it's hoping for a second season. Cliffhanger, anyone?

Being Human ended in one of the ways I anticipated (with a twist), but it still made me cry. This season was so much better than last. It also ended with a semi-cliffhanger, but, much in the way of the series end of Angel, not one that has to be revisited to work.

Big Love also ended as expected; gmskarka's guess from mid-season was on the nose, in fact. It didn't make me cry, but it was definitely an appropriate end for the show.

In other news, I'm looking forward to the weekend and nesting more in to the new house.

So - moving - Bleah.

Saturday we picked up the truck and installed the pets at the new house with no trouble. (Dog in crate, cats locked in master bathroom, safely out of the way.)

Trouble waited until we were trying to move. For one thing, we were nowhere near ready enough to move all our stuff - not enough boxes, not enough packed, not enough cleaned - ack!

Then, just before Friends arrived to help us start loading the truck, disaster struck in the form of a broken tap attached to the washing machine. I carefully turned the on/off knobs to OFF, which was clearly marked by the word "OFF". The hot water tap leaked a bit, but came away with no problem. When I unscrewed the cold water tap, water came jetting out, full force, with the tap clearly still ON despite the fact that it was turned off. Tried to hold back the tide with my hands and a bucket while yelling for gmskarka & Electric Boogaloo to come and help. They finally came downstairs & heard me, and we took turns bailing & going to the garage (next to the laundry room) to search for the water cut-off. Yes, I know, we should have known where it was, but in the previous 8 years of renting, we'd never needed it. Searched all over/around the water heater for something resembling a shut-off valve - no dice. Called the management company - no help, since they said to look where I was already looking - next to the water heater.

Finally found the damned shut-off lever, BEHIND and ABOVE the water heater, after about 15 minutes of flooding. My hands were so cold that I couldn't move the stupid thing, so one of our kind friends did it for me. By that time, water had been pouring for about 15 minutes, flooding the kitchen, the laundry room, the bathroom off the laundry room, and part of the garage and the living room under the carpet, because this place was built on a slab!

We then spent some time mopping/scooping up water that had been contaminated by the cat-litter strewn under the washer & dryer (bloody cats!). The water is gone now, but the cat smell remains. There is still a LOT of scrubbing to do. Plus some more packing, although most of the furniture is moved.

Last night, the very lovely radcliffe helped me pack up most of the kitchen while I emptied a couple of rooms upstairs. Tonight, the last of the packing/moving & more cleaning is in our future.

Because we happen to have watched some really good, relatively low-budget science fiction films recently - thought I'd share.

First up, Hunter Prey, a version of the classic "individuals from opposite sides in war meet in the wasteland" story, made by Sandy Collora, who may be known to some of you as the creator of Batman: Dead End, a fan film first shown at the 2003 San Diego Comic-Con. Hunter Prey was made in much the same way, with a cast of about five (including Collora) playing multiple roles. The dialog for the first 15 minutes or so of the movie is a bit muffled, but sitting through it is definitely worth it to get to the rest of the film.

Second, Monsters is a story of love and survival in the jungle, with some wickedly cool-looking aliens thrown in. If you mixed up 'Cloverfield' with 'The African Queen' you might sort of get the idea. It does a great job with atmospere, and is also pretty impressive for being created from about 100 hours of improv footage and special effects added by the filmmaker using desktop software. And you can stream it on Netflix. Do it!

Finally, not a film, but a YouTube video. You may have already seen it, but gmskarka showed it to me, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. I leave you with "She Don't Like Firefly", which is catchy, a lovely ode to a show I adored, and highlights (in a humorous way) one of the more ridiculous socialization problems of geek culture). I mean not so seriously, you'd dump her for that?...Loser.