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Gacked from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} noiseinmyhead:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlM | ||||||
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Blatherings
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December 17th, 2009
November 25th, 2009
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| A holiday present from Muppet Studios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7 Good thing it's kid-safe because Peo walked in just as I was starting it. Don't worry, the violent lyrics have been altered in amusing ways... | ||||||
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October 30th, 2009
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| Halloween pumpkin and costume under the cut: ( Read more... ) | ||||||
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October 7th, 2009
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| Dave Carrol of "United Breaks Guitars" fame has a great new song about how the cable industry hurts local programming in Canada: He's my new favourite activist singer! | ||||||
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September 13th, 2009
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| Just watched the new They Might Be Giants Here Comes Science DVD today with Peo, and she LOVED it. We did too, although Peo's kind of bummed that the John and John puppets aren't there. They’re animated this time. The first song, "Science is Real", is pretty much a hardcore slam against the anti-science movements like "intelligent design" and that sort of crap. There's a great line about how it's fun to imagine things like angels, unicorns, and elves but when you want knowledge you have to look at the facts. Awesome. It will give Peo good ammo to fight off religious incursions she'll inevitably face as she gets older. It's also really funny how they revisit the sun stuff, first by doing mass of incandescent gas but then followed by miasma of plasma. It skews for older kids more than ABCs and 123s, but in our household, it's never too soon to learn about DNA. And yes, Peo shouted out that it was DNA before they said what it was. We were very proud! | ||||||
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August 19th, 2009
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| There's a second installation in the United Breaks Guitars saga: Here's the first song, which I like best: Also...Dave Carroll Says No To Guitar Hush Money From United (includes link to video and a transcript) Looking forward to the promised third song! | ||||||
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| Hrm, I wonder what can be gleaned about me with the CDs I just ordered... Carpenters Gold: 35th Anniversary Edition Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Daughtry See, Vista did an update that means I can't connect to our MP3 box anymore so I only have music that's resident on my computer (yes I could put our DVDs on here but the hard copies are still in boxes and we haven't had time to arrange a file transfer), which is mostly Lifehouse with one Annie Lennox album, with the occasional 80s single and The Calling's "Wherever You Will Go" (which I am totally obsessed with). Plus a handful of free Amazon downloads (most of which are no longer free so I only linked two that are). Which no doubt complicates my musical profiling even further... (And yes, the song depicted in the icon is one of the ones I can't get to...*sigh*) | ||||||
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August 18th, 2009
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| I give up on finding soccer stuff for Peo this fall. It looks like the YMCA - whose brochure emphasizes the C more than I'd like - requires kids to be 4 before the season starts, which conflicts what other parents had told me. Hmph. Then there are a gazillion other for-profit things that seem to be big-time competitive. Nope, no thanks. (Plus a lot of those require kids to be 4 by September too). And the city's pages are useless for finding actual information for little kids' stuff. I can find plenty of info on baseball and football for older kids. So unless someone reading this has better info on preschooler soccer in South Austin for the fall, I give up. On the better side, I've just registered Peo for her fall music classes. Unfortunately the teacher she likes is only available on Fridays, so we'll have to change her school schedule to accommodate that. But it's worth it, because that teacher is awesome and already gets Peo's strengths and oddities (ie Peo does not often join the group in singing or dancing, because she prefers to study the others intently). | ||||||
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August 9th, 2009
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| Peo has been singing the words "Yellow Submarine" over and over again, because her teacher sings the song to the kids at school. I happen to have the movie. I had thought of showing it to her before but figured the Blue Meanies would be too scary. Today we decided to offer it to her and warn her fully about the Blue Meanies and give her the choice, since she has rejected other things recently that she thinks might be too scary. She decided she wanted to see it - especially when she realized it featured Beatles music, because she likes them - so I watched it with her. The Blue Meanies didn't scare her. She was very annoyed at the big blue glove, but not particularly scared of it. She didn't like that it hit things and broke things. She was dealing with it all fine until the sucker creature sucked up the whole world. OMG, total sob-fest! "Where's the whole world gone? I want the world baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" Etc. Repeated for a good long time. She didn't want to stop the movie but was very upset until Pepperland was fully restored. Jeremy the Nowhere Man - my favourite bit of the movie when I was a kid - failed to please her because the world being gone was too traumatic. The other worlds weren't good enough; she wanted the REAL world back, and pointing to the world outside the window wasn't good enough either. By the end she was laughing and cheering that the Beatles had restored Pepperland with music and love, and that even the biggest Blue Meanie had learned to be nice. And she says she's okay now and liked the movie, but I feel pretty guilty having let her watch it. So it just goes to show: you can bend over backwards to protect your kid from things YOU think will be scary and they'll still find something you assume to be innocuous to be absolutely terrifying. She's giggling right now getting ready for bed (late bedtime because we let her watch one of her kiddie shows to dispel any remaining angst), so we're assuming she'll be fine. PS: When the first scene of London came up, Peo shouted, "That's Big Ben!" I said it was and that that was good that she knew that, then asked where she learned that. "On Daddy's computer!" He occasionally shows her random stuff on Wikipedia or tells her stories from his childhood with online images on the side. Which goes to show another truth about parenting: it's not about intentional education, it's about sharing and letting curious minds soak up stuff all over the place. | ||||||
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July 28th, 2009
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| Here Comes Science (Amazon.com Exclusive) [CD/DVD] now available for pre-order, release date is September 1. I just ordered three copies...one for Peo and one each for her Aussie cousins to be sent home via GrandparentMail. | ||||||
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July 7th, 2009
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| Holy moley, this is the BEST protest against airline luggage mishandling EVER. United Breaks Guitars It's catchy too. I have a new earworm, I think. | ||||||
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June 12th, 2009
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| So thanks to the Tony awards, I've had Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" as a firmly lodged earworm for days. But because I'm a parent, there's also the endless loop of bits of children's programming in there too; currently a bit of a Ni-Hao Kai-Lan song about listening to your friends ("because even the smallest person may have something super important to say!"). They're now co-mingling. And for no good reason other than having watched the Tonys and thinking of broadway, there are also occasional bits of that song from Oklahoma about the surrey with the frrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinge on top. (Oh come on, you knew there'd be some Hugh Jackman in there somewhere, didn't you?) Plus now Peo loves to tell me that her favourite song is Moonshadow to get me to sing it in a silly voice, so there's a bit of that in the mix (was going to post a YouTube link for it but YouTube seems to have gone boink). And then Corran's phone rang and his ring tone is this weird plinky music that reminds me of Music Box Dancer, and he didn't know what that was by title, so I had to go find it on YouTube and play it for him so now that's in there too. So right now my brain sounds like this: dee dee dee dee dee dee DEE DEE DEE DEE up and down the BOULEVAAAAAAAAAARD when I take you out in the surrey with the frrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnge on top with something super important to say leaping and hopping like a smell of wine and CHEAP PERFUUUUUUUUUUME on and on and on and on with a frrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnge on top dee dee dee dee DEE you're only dancing on this earth for a short time... Oh shit, that's not Moonshadow, that's Oh Very Young...gahhh now that's in there too....aiieeeeeeeeeeeeee | ||||||
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April 21st, 2009
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| I really, really, really like the band Lifehouse. I've got three of their albums and have been listening to them all shuffled up a lot lately. There's only one song I'm not keen on in the whole bunch, and it's not a bad song, it's just that it doesn't fit with the mood of the others so I find it jarring (it seems angrier, more like an Eve6 kind of thing). I've reached a point where I just really dig men with medium to low voices singing about being uncontrollably in love. I think it has a lot to do with Nick living in my head, and the character of the new book I've started but haven't had time/energy to work on in any real way. When I hear a song that reflects how these guys would feel, it gets to me on a visceral level. By contrast, over the last few years I've found myself increasingly turned off by love-related songs sung by women. I prefer women who sing political songs, angry songs, or post-victim-now-you-get-to-deal-with-my-i | ||||||
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March 5th, 2009
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| This is my first day with Peo in school that I don't need to be working on cake show stuff. So it's time to clean out the browser (so here comes an infodump), run updates, get rid of Norton and install Avast, etc. Maybe I'll even get time to deal with the mountain of unanswered email. Hahahahaha...nnnrgh. Let's begin the infodump! High Fructose Corn Syrup ATTN: HFCS Haters. Get Ready For Sugar-Sweetened "Pepsi Throwback" Snapple To Switch To Real Sugar Instead Of HFCS And another bit of info: some of you may recall that I've posted multiple times about trying different cereals to make rice krispies treats without the HFCS-laden actual Rice Krispies. Well, there's a new version of Rice Krispies called "Jumbo" which are allegedly "multi-grain", but more importantly, do NOT have HFCS! I have already found a box at my local store and acquired it for treat-making to come. Will report on results at the time. Consumer Stuff Best Buy Sells Busted Cam As New, Blames You. Oops! Employee Pix! - Yet another reason we no longer shop at Best Buy, and haven't for years. Going To The Doc? Be Sure You Don't Sign A Gag Order - putting this one under Consumer because it's less about medical and more about not being dumb enough to sign away your rights. Seriously, people, don't ever sign NDAs or gag orders unless you really do agree with them and are 100% sure you're okay with never changing your mind on that. Signing away your right to speak is almost never in your interest. Science Pen Mightier Than Passion - 60-Second Science - I actually haven't listened to this yet, but the blurb was interesting enough for me to go start downloading the entire podcast series for later listening. And while I'm linking that, let me also mention that I made a lot of that cake show cake while listening to old podcasts of Radio Lab. I'm only up to March 2008, but it's been fascinating. It's the kind of show with so much information that after a few of them, I need to take a break because my brain gets too full. I'm sure my fellow nerds will enjoy it. Natural Explanation Found for UFOs - "Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand in hand with a puzzling natural phenomenon known as sprites - flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms." Groovy. FIRST PHOTOS: Weird Fish With Transparent Head - Coooooooooooooooooooooooooool! Snow Flakes and Snow Crystals - some pretty spiffy piccies. Gorgeous stuff. Dry cleaning without solvents - Please note that this is a PRESS RELEASE, not an article, so it is heavily biased. However, I find it very interesting and do hope that the claims they're making are true and if they are, that they have great success in spreading the technology. Although I don't buy dry-clean-only clothes, so it doesn't affect me personally much. Parenting 3 Ways To Cut Baby Costs Without Feeling Like A Terrible Parent - Plus they've missed some obvious ones like breastfeeding if you can, using cloth diapers if you can afford the initial cost, and only buying infant clothes on resale. Police cite breast-feeding driver for endangering - Mmmkay I'm all for breastfeeding, but this is just stoooopid. Sheesh. If your kid needs boob NOW NOW NOW, frickin' pull over, idiot. Crafts/Art/Theatre What happens when you get married and most of your friends are into musical theatre gacked from bnwrenTHE ARTFULL BRAS PROJECT - fancy bras made for fundraising. Definite works of art in there. I guess this might not be considered work safe if you work with prudes. Knitters turn to graffiti artists with 'yarnbombing' - I love it, especially because unlike paint, it's relatively easy to remove if it offends the property owner. With a Knitting Needle Piercing Her Heart, Keeping Cool Saved Ellin Klor’s Life - Twice - Double meep. I've been extra-paranoid about how I carry and store my needles since reading this. Misc Supreme Court Rules For Injured Consumer In Big Pharma Case - this is an update on a story I've linked to before about a musician whose arm was amputated after the wrong application of a drug in a hospital. Short version: she won the case. Man Living in Cave Faces Foreclosure - but what really interested me were the photos of this incredible house they built into the cave. That'd be awesome for energy efficiency since caves take the median temperature of the area. It'd be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And quiet too. Ooo I want one. :) 25 Years of Growth in Las Vegas as seen from space - from indomitability. Not surprising, since Vegas is one of those places where if you drive by an empty bit of desert one month, it's likely to be a suburb or strip mall the next. We've only been gone for about 9 months but I guarantee you if we went back right now, there'd be stuff built we don't even recognize. It can make the slow-to-update Google satellite maps useless for finding a friend's house. Hell, even the street maps aren't updated fast enough for Vegas. Oh, and that's just a small view of the area, probably showing Vegas proper. Even though our address was listed as being in Las Vegas, we weren't actually in the city, and our house isn't even on those photos. There's so much more sprawl beyond what this shows."My iPhone Is Missing, And Some Guy Is Taking Pics Of Himself With It!" - I'm posting this not really because of the actual story, although that is interesting, but primarily because of this line of advice: "Before losing the phone, his dad set up a rule where any email sent from the phone blind-cc'ed his personal email address, which we think is a pretty brilliant low-tech security solution for tracking down a lost/stolen phone or laptop." Those with portable devices such as these might want to consider such a setup. A Colorado school district does away with grade levels - An interesting approach, especially since this is what I've learned a lot of gifted private schools do. I'm curious to see how it works out long-term. Arbitrary regulations on age and groupings are convenient but almost never great for all the kids involved. The Crisis of Credit Visualized - an interesting little movie that sums up how the credit crisis came to be. Forget the G-string - can ANYONE wear the new C-string? - Meep. | ||||||
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February 26th, 2009
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| Busy busy, this will probably be my last main check of online stuff for the next few days. The cake show starts Saturday morning, but I'm delivering our cakes and volunteering starting Friday night. And my cake isn't done. Peo's is, but you'll have to wait for piccies of that. And video of her making it. OMG you will die of cuteness. So tomorrow I have to bake my real cake for the tasting competition, plus finish the cake that's actually styrofoam dummies for the decorating competition. I'm utterly exhausted, but it's almost done. I went bug-eyed today making 88 piano keys fit into a few inches. Oh yes, I made them all...it's an accurate piano keyboard. Let's hope I don't kill it when I put in the strings and the propped-up lid thingy tomorrow. Oi. Here's one last teaser pic: ( Read more... ) Boy, will I be glad to get back to knitting after this is all done with! eta Previous sneak peaks can be seen via the cake tag. | ||||||
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January 2nd, 2009
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| Peo has been singing random babble to what sounds an awful lot like "Ode to Joy" all day. Now I get to spend the next few hours driving myself crazy trying to figure out where she heard it... eta: Corran figured it out: she's heard it on the Biscuit Brothers (warning, link will start to play music). | ||||||
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December 12th, 2008
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| Some pre-bedtime eye/ear candy: If that doesn't inspire pleasant dreams, nothing will... | ||||||
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September 14th, 2008
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| Tonight I watched the movie of RENT. I figured I'd quite like it, but other than the obvious-hit-over-the-head angst about AIDS, it was meh. Not bad, just not as moving as I thought it'd be. The Seasons of Love song is nice, but I've heard it before. I do love the way it's sung at the beginning, especially when the men harmonize (I've developed a severe preference over the last few years for male singers, to the point that some very popular female singers actually irritate me), but I can't say I was deeply touched at all. Maybe it's because I don't need to be told that AIDS sucks and is unfair. Maybe it's because I don't need someone else to put the idea of death and losing a loved one in my head because the fake people who live in my head go through that all the time and I'm stuck living it with them. Maybe it's because there are so many other ways of suffering and dying in the world that some pretty people singing about one nasty disease doesn't really tug on my heart enough. Then again, the problem was most likely that, from note one, all I could think of was the Team America parody of puppets singing, "AIDS! AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS!" And that's very, very wrong, I know. So not PC. But it's the truth...the parody got to me first and yeah, RENT comes across exactly like that. It's not like I'm minimizing AIDS, I obviously care about the fact that so many people are suffering and obviously I wish for a cure and for less judgment and all of that...but this movie just didn't work for me beyond one evening's knitting background music. Honestly, the last time I watched Hair, I was considerably more moved. Hell, even my last watching of Godspell was more moving and I don't believe in God (I totally wanted to put on rainbow clothes and go distribute flowers to random people on the street). Even now, just thinking about it, my brain is ringing with "PREEEEEEEPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD!" and it's totally drowning out "525,600 minutes". And it's not just that I'm not much of a Bohemian, because during the La Vie Boheme song I kept thinking, "Hrm, it's been awhile since I've watched Moulin Rouge. I should put that on this week." And yup, now the songs from that are overriding everything from RENT. And don't even get me started on how superior Les Miz is. Five notes of Eponine angst trump all of RENT. Nope, sorry, RENT was decent background for knitting one time, but I don't plan to bother watching it again. Now I'm going to go to bed with the theme song from Hair battling the credit sequence tango music from Moulin Rouge in my brain. Ow. No, wait...it kind of works...holy shit... | ||||||
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August 15th, 2008
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| Dear Wiggles, I regret to inform you that you are no longer Peo's primary boyfriends. While she still loves you lots and lots, she is now much more obsessed with The Biscuit Brothers. They combine musical instruments AND animals. That's a double-threat for a toddler. She would, however, explode with joy if you ever had a concert alongside the Biscuit Brothers (specifically, visited their farm and/or had them in Wigglehouse). She would also like to sing and dance with all of you at the same time. So don't feel too bad, but please do make room for her new obsession alongside you. Sincerely, Someone with whole new songs to dream all night | ||||||
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March 11th, 2008
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| I have meant to post this for several days but kept forgetting... Last week I went to get Peo up from her nap. She was awake already and playing in her crib as usual (she won't let us remove the bars, and shows no inclination of leaping out). That is, I thought it was usual until I went in there and saw two feet sticking out of the top of the crib. I asked her what she was doing and she hurriedly stood up, looking guilty. To alleviate her guilt, I asked her to show me what she was doing and made sure I sounded positive about it. So she stood on her head and stuck her feet out of the crib. I applauded her and she got up, so I got her out. Then I asked her why she was doing that and she replied, "I'm a 9." Turns out the "Secret Life of 6" song on the TMBG's Here Come the 123s album is heavily influential...she was playing 6 standing on his head to turn himself into a 9. | ||||||
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Blatherings
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