Sunday in Ellen's kitchen	April 30, 2006

I went to the grocery store twice today. The first was this morning, when I was with Steve. This is because... back when the Winter Olympics were on, I frequently played Coke's "Drink. Watch. Cheer. Win." game, and one time, I actually won! That's right, I won 5 free 2-liters of Coke products. WOO HOO! My voucher finally arrived, and with the aid of Steve's car, I transported home $8.45 worth of free soda. Awwwww yeah! I can feel your jealousy from here.

After stopping by Stef's house to feed her kitty, I headed up to the Tivoli Giant to make my second big shopping trip of the day. When I got back, I spent the better part of the afternoon in my kitchen making foodstuffs to bring in my lunches this week and such. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a picture of my kitchen, for those of you who haven't ever seen it. It is tiny. You may have heard me comment on how I fear I may set my ass on fire someday? Perhaps you can see why. It is wee, but I've gotten used to it, and I actually really enjoy cooking in it - everything is within easy reach!

It was such a sunny weekend, which put me in the mood for summer-ey food. So I made a mango-banana-peach smoothie and my favorite summer salad. In case you're curious... I make the dressing by throwing a few green onions, a blob of green salsa, a handful of cilantro, a lime's worth of juice, and some salt into a food processor. Then I toss with coarsely chopped veggies. I always use cucumbers, corn, bell peppers, and tomatoes, but mangoes, black beans, and cocktail shrimp are also good additions. Yummy stuff.

Other highlights of my weekend included seeing The Notorious Bettie Page at the E Street Theater. It was a good flick - it told her story in a very non-judgmental, non-sensationalist kinda way. But the movie ends right around the time she quit modeling, leaving me anxious to hear what happened after that. She disappeared, she resurfaced, she is rumored to feel only remorse for being a pin-up model... I would've liked to see some of that addressed. Though even if it were, I would doubt its authenticity - Bettie's story has been told so many times, and I don't even know what to believe.

Back to School?	April 28, 2006

In the event that I haven't mentioned it to you before, here's a little announcement: I am applying to the Corcoran College of Art + Design for the fall of 2006. Not full-time or anything - I'd be getting an Associates of Fine Arts degree by taking evening/weekend classes, and I only plan on taking one or two classes a semester. I am kind of looking to transition my career away from communications management and toward just-plain design work. There's sort of a background to this...

When I was in high school, I was really into art. I took as many art classes as I could, all sorts of AP and independent study classes, and I was in the art club, and I took the trips to National Portfolio Day, and all that. But I had a 17-year-old's skewed perspective on the world. I thought that commercial art and graphic design were the devil. Picture a long-haired girl in a Jane's Addiction T-shirt: "No way, man. I'm not gonna let some evil corporation tell me how to express myself." And the life of a dirt-poor artist with an MFA and a job at Starbucks didn't appeal to me either. So I headed toward an art-adjacent career - first art history, then arts management, then cultural policy, and now the hybrid of all of those that is my current job.

But all of the jobs that I have held have afforded me an opportunity to do a little (or a lot of) graphic design from time to time - laying out exhibition prospectuses, designing flyers for gallery openings, printing postcards, etc. My current employer even re-wrote my job description recently such that my title is in the graphic design series, not the public affairs series.

Inevitably, when tasked with a quick layout job that should take me 20 minutes, I find myself tooling around with Illustrator for six hours. I just enjoy it. And I've learned how to use such programs totally on my own. Which is a big part of why I wanna go back to school - I want to learn how to use these tools right-and-proper, 'cause I suspect I'm not fully harnessing their potential.

Now... whether or not I am actually any good at design remains to be seen. The crap I've designed in the past has always been well-received by my supervisor or whatever, but that doesn't mean it'll hold up to respectable scrutiny from an aesthetic perspective. That's the part I am afraid of. I'm going to sit down for my portfolio review and be told, "Yeah, you're real good at getting words and logos to fit on a page, but your methods are hackneyed and stale." And I shall respond with, "Yes, I know, so let me into your school so I can improve." And they shall politely instruct me to not let the door hit me on the ass on my way out.

Anyway... wish me luck - both in getting in to this program and figuring out what the hell I'm gonna do with my life.

My date with Heath Ledger	April 26, 2006

Tonight I stayed in and watched Casanova, which was an OK thing to do for 110 minutes, but that's all the higher of recommendation I'm going to give it. It's rated R, but it totally shouldn't be, for there is narry a boob nor a swear in the whole flick. That I found very disappointing - I was expecting mad smuttiness.

It ended *just* in time for me to see Kellie get kicked off American Idol, which was almost as gratifying as seeing Ace get kicked off. The 5 I like are the 5 who are left, which will make for some goooood watchin' in the remaining weeks.

A happy discovery on iTunes	April 26, 2006

On Monday night, I was bored as shit waiting for 24 to start, so I bummed around online for a while. In addition to undertaking the totally unnecessary redesign of my MySpace page, I browsed around the iTunes music store. Whenever I do that, I can be certain that I'm going to be out some cash by the end of the night. Monday was no exception.

You ever heard of a band called Ms. John Soda? Neither had I. But after listening to 20-second spurts of their latest album, Notes and the Like, I threw down the ten bucks. Apparently they grew out of the "Weilheim music scene" (I love it when I discover a new scene), which I learned was also the birthplace of Lali Puna.

A far-more-verbose reviewer than I says:

"Taking a bleeping engine and then hooking on carriages of prime-indie, European-pop, tender solipsism and brash sloganeering, Ms. John Soda allow the velocity of their talent to blur into a gorgeous entity that can't help but drag you along wantonly in its slip-stream."

Damn... I'd be more inclined to put it like this:

"Ms. John Soda sounds exactly like all the other music I like, so I like it. It's kinda like Sonic Youth, only lighter and more electronic, and kinda like Lali Puna only darker and less pop-ey."

Voila! Who's gonna pay me three dollars a word for that magic?

My iPod will surely cause my death	April 25, 2006

This morning, I was walking to work listening to my iPod (as I do every single morning). I was rockin' out to "The Rhumba" by Digital Bobby, one of the best booty-shaking songs of all time, waiting for a Don't Walk signal to change. It changed, I started into the intersection, and found myself inches away from a sporty blue whiz-mobile zooming by me at mad speed.

Now, the whiz-mobile driver is certainly an asshole for running a red light, and lots of folks on the cross street started honking at him to reinforce that. But were I not wearing my iPod, I would've heard his approach and held back before stepping into the intersection.

There have been more than a few occasions where I have felt the ill effects of wearing headphones - something would fall from my bag and hit the ground, or someone would call out to me, or the metro-man would make an announcement, and I wouldn't hear it. (I must mention, however, that they have also shielded my ears from unpleasantries such as screaming kids on the metro and creeps on the street who feel it necessary to comment on why they like my ass.)

But this was probably the first time where I felt endangered by it. I guess I could stand to turn down the volume and be more alert, but as I say that, I realize that I'm not going to do it. I make the same walk every day, and it's 30 minutes long, and my mind drifts - I doubt I possess the ability to stop that.

So, basically, I'm certain to end up in a hospital sooner or later. Just giving you a heads-up.

The most insane cab ride ever	April 23, 2006

I had lunch with Stef today, at an Indian place near Woodley Park. After lunch, I was heading to the Corcoran College of Art for an open house (yes, that's right, I am considering even more school). Their campus that is just north of Georgetown University, on the corner of 35th and S. I decided to take a cab, for expediency's sake, and I caught one on the corner of Connecticut and Calvert.

The secondary streets between Connecticut and Wisconsin have always confused me - I have had trouble finding one that goes all the way through. So when the driver whizzed past S Street, I wasn't all that surprised. I figured he was heading for something more direct. But when we were getting down to N or so, I had to pipe up, "You know I'm going to 35th and S, right?" And he said, "Yes, I know, Georgetown." Uh, OK. When we whizzed past K street, the sensible way to get to the Whitehurst Freeway, I had to speak up again: "Why are we going this far south? And he says, "You'll see."

We got near Foggy Bottom and he just started making seemingly random turns this way and that. There was construction and some street closings that caused some of them, but a lot of them just made no sense. I'm in the back seat the whole time, asking him if he needs help, repeatedly telling him that the Whitehurst is that-a-way, and he's just not listening to me. The next thing I know, we're crossing the fucking river. That's right, he wanted to go from Woodley Park to Georgetown via Virginia. At this point, I just started yelling at him. I'm not the sort to do such things, but I just couldn't help it. I mean, what the fuck? And his response was always, "You'll see - we'll get there." Um, yes, I know that we will get there. But don't I have the right to request that we get there in a somewhat direct manner?

When we finally got there, I asked him what I owed him, and his response was something like, "You know everything, you tell me." I had a ten with me, and I chucked it at him and got out. If I had had any smaller bills, I probably would've given him less, but I didn't want to bother making change.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, I've drawn up the handy little map above. We started at the green star and ended at the red star. Is that good drivin', or what?

God bless Claritin (or the Claritin equivalent)	April 20, 2006

I come from a family of people with crazy-allergies. The corn pollen in Iowa is particularly rough on my mom and my brother. But for the most part, I haven't had many problems with respiratory allergies (skin allergies are a whole different story, however - my skin reacts freakily to pretty much every metal, dye, or perfume).

But as the years go by, I am noticing that the allergens hit me harder every year. A few days ago, it was pretty bad, so I took some Benadryl. And I was a zombie for the rest of the morning. I decided it was better just to suffer through the sneezing rather than turn myself into an idiot - I swear, the stuff doesn't make me tired, it makes me stupid.

Today, however, I couldn't handle the suffering. I needed relief, and I was at a loss for what to do. I was bitching about it to a colleague of mine who suggested I try Claritin (its CVS Brand generic name is Loratadine). I suppose folks who've been dealing with allergies for a while are already long-time users, but today I took my first pill. And shit... it really really works. I feel better, I sound better, and I'm not a zombie. YAY!!

Good Job America!	April 19, 2006

It's a shame he made it as far as he did, but thanks for finally getting rid of Ace, 'cause he's a cheeseball and he needed to go. If we were basing it specifically on last night's performance, we all know that Kellie was the one who should've gone home. But I am proud of America for making the right choice, and just in time - now American Idol has a respectable top six.

But I gotta say, I still cannot decide who I'm rooting for. Not Kellie, that much I know. She's got that dumb blonde country music singer thing going on, which does nothing for me. But I adore and respect all five of the others!

Taylor I suspect will go soon, 'cause he's a bit old for the American Idol audience, and he's just a little weird. That said, how cool is he? I love that he's goofy and moves around in those soulful-yet-awkward Joe Cocker-ish ways. I hear he was spoofed on Saturday Night Live last weekend. Looking forward to catching that on the STiVo.

I didn't much care for Elliot at first, but he's grown on me. I think it was the Queen song he did last week, "Somebody to Love." That was a hard frickin' song. And I'm pretty damn impressed that he tried it and he did so well. He's got a Justin Timberlake kinda thing going on (sound-wise). But he has crooked teeth. So I don't expect that he'll win.

Paris is INSANELY talented. For a 17-year-old girl, she can take command of a stage without breaking a sweat. She really is an amazing performer, and I find myself totally mesmerized when she performs. A lot of American Idol analysts, however, have pointed out that the American Idol audience has a tendency to vote off the really talented African-American female singers (I don't know how these analysts are reconciling the whole Fantasia thing, then). She has been in the bottom three on a lot of nights. I guess I could envision America giving her the boot because she is too talented.

There was something about Katharine's personality that made me warm to her in one of the very early episodes. She seemed kind of normal, and humble. And, um, totally hot. The Washington Post described her as the sexpot of the competition. I don't know if this is true, but she's certainly got quite a stage presence, and I've got a crush on her, so why wouldn't the rest of America?

I was a big Chris fan in the beginning, but I started to lose respect for him a while back (as I've sounded off on already). Last night I lost a little more because the man was wearing an ascot. And he calls himself a rock musician. I do think he has a great voice, but he just has such shitty taste in music, and apparently in fashion.

Yeah, so that's that. I'm happy that I am getting so much entertainment from this season, even though I know it is a show that is targeted toward 12-year-olds.

Another weekend in bullets	April 17, 2006

This was one of those weekends that seemed to go by in about 15 minutes. Here I am again, back at my desk - it almost seems like it never happened.

During the day on Friday, I had a hard time getting any work done. I couldn't stop checking the news, looking for pictures of Iowa City and reading news reports about the tornadoes. I was like a woman transfixed. Here's what was on the Press Citizen's homepage on Saturday morning - with a catchy headline like "Tornado sticks it to our city."

Friday night was majorly lame, but a good break from the world. Steve and I started out the evening with intentions of going out and drinkin' and playing darts or something, and we called a whole bunch of people to let them know that they should come join us. But... while we were eating dinner, we threw in a DVD of The Tao of Steve, and slowly but surely, the couch took over. When the movie ended, we looked at each other and were like, "Nah, we're not going anywhere." Sometimes being a bum takes precedence.

Saturday morning included a fair amount of couch-time as well. I hadn't seen the Sopranos since week 2, and I needed to get caught up before watching it on Sunday night, so I watched all the TiVo'd back episodes. Eventually, we did leave the house, to cart Kesey, Steve's kitty, over to his parents' house, where he shall stay until they are done with the upcoming move. Kesey hated the car ride, but it's for the best, considering that the door to the outside world will be propped open a lot over the next week and he could try to make a break for it.

Saturday night we ate like kings. In the interest of cleaning out the freezer pre-move, we busted out the filet mignon, I made up some veggie kabobs, and we had them with homemade cornbread. Hard to top that.

After dinner, we rushed to the Black Cat, to meet up with some friends and to see Georgie James, Soft Complex, and Exit Clov. We only caught the tail end of Georgie James, and they seemed allright but not too exciting. I fell in love with Soft Complex, though. Their music is pretty 80's-inspired - all songs start with an electronic backbeat that belts out of a PowerBook, and layered on top are a cellist and a vocalist who sounds not unlike Morrissey. It's a very rich effect overall. I had planned on going to see the Ladytron show on Friday, but the tickets were sold out by the time I got on the ball enough to go try to buy them. Discovering this delightful new group nearly made up for it - you can hear some of their stuff on their MySpace page, though you cannot download it and near as I can tell they have no CD's or MP3's available for purchase anywhere. Hopefully coming soon. What I particularly loved about the show was the crowd, which consisted of the friendliest people I've met in a hipster club in a long time. I got a lot of compliments from total strangers on my shirt (which I was wearing for the very first time - it looks like this, in case you're curious). We had to leave shortly after Exit Clov started (to bop to another club for a private party - yeah, we're special like that). Exit Clov was OK, again, nothing that got me too excited.

Sunday was Easter, and although I am certainly not one to go to church or anything, I did want to do something Easter-ey. So we dyed eggs - with a Hello Kitty egg dyeing kit! I hadn't done it in quite some time, and it was very fun, like a kindergarten project. Our egg results were fascinating. I finally succeeded at creating a rainbow egg (something I tried to do repeatedly as a child), we used wax to mask off sections on some, Steve's dye-layering process yielded streaks that looked not unlike tornadoes, and we created a Phantom of the Opera-esque mask for a spotty egg that just didn't turn out right.

We were proud of our eggs, and we thoroughly enjoyed eating them afterwards.

Sunday afternoon we went on a two-hour hike around Burke Lake in Virginia. It was a gorgeous day - the rain didn't kick in until right around the time we were finishing, which was fabulous. Both of us were feeling the burn after that much exertion. Hopefully summer will bring more opportunities to get out and get active like this, a nice contrast to some of our more couch-centered weekend activities.

Like watching the Sopranos! Yay! Tony likes the L Word!

Jesus H. Christ	April 14, 2006

So I get an e-mail from my stepmom this morning, informing me of the tornadoes that swept through eastern Iowa last night. Had I watched the Today Show this morning like I do most mornings, I would've already known about it, but I didn't, so I didn't. The first thing I do is go to the Press Citizen's homepage, where I see this picture:

That is freaking St Patrick's Church. I used to live at 414 South Dubuque, in an apartment building that shared its parking lot with that church. Holy freaking crap.

So I go into my boss's office and flip on the TV and what's the first thing I see on CNN? Images of cars smashed on top of each other, uprooted trees, and other all-around god-awfulness. And I started to bawl like a baby.

Of course now I've heard that there were no fatalities in Johnson County. Despite "an F2 tornado that cut a 3½-mile long, one-third of a mile wide swath of destruction through the heart of Iowa City." Which is astounding when you look at some of the pictures.

I can't imagine how scary it would be to be alone in your apartment while a tornado basically walks down your street, like my best friend Karen was. Looking at the images of all this destruction - I can't even think of how loud and rumbley and frightening... damn, guys. I'm so sorry that you had to endure something so scary. And I am SO THANKFUL that my loved ones are OK.

Through phone, e-mail, and hearsay, I've been able to check in with many folks, but I haven't reached everyone, by far. Iowans - expect to hear from me!

I am a nerd, even in my sleep	April 13, 2006

There was a morning a few months back where I awoke shaken from a mad-weird dream that I had just had. In my dream, my life - my entire earthly existence - was all controlled by a master MS Access database. In my dream, I was having this horrible horrible day, and I came to the realization that it was because the query "qryGoodDay" was incorrectly defined, and in a mad tension-filled rush (think Chloe from 24), I had to figure out how to fix the query and create an update query to correct the crappy day output.

Last week sometime, I had a very similar dream in which my life was controlled by a website with improperly-functioning JavaScript.

And last night, I capped off the trifecta by having a PDF dream. I imagine this was somewhat due to the fact that I attended a PDF workshop last week (that's right, a whole day of lectures about PDF's and why they rule), and had PDF on the brain. But nonetheless, I am a giant nerd for having had a dream about a malevolent PDF whose demise could only be accomplished through my effective font-embedding and web-optimizing.

Dreams are so often about the forces of good and evil, and having to destroy them or protect yourself against them. I guess when you spend eight hours a day doing nerd-work, your subconscious associates your nerd-work with the forces of good (unless of course you are an evil hacker-type who does evil nerd-work for a living). So it's not THAT weird that I should dream in nerd-vision. But it does cause me to wake up and say, "Hot damn I am a loser!"

Do not think I don't appreciate the irony in the fact that I have to hard-code HTML in order to communicate this message right now (my blog is old-skool!)

Kite Flying 101	April 9, 2006

	While my Friday and Saturday nights were, as they often are, quite full of beer, cigarettes, and off-color humor, this afternoon was an exceedingly wholesome departure. Steve and I went out to fly our kites for the first time! Conditions were not ideal - the wind was spotty, and never got nice and gusty-strong, but there were moments where we were able to get some good flight in.
	We went kite-shopping last weekend, and we had very little idea what we were shopping for. I bought this delta kite with a kitty on it, because I thought it was cute. A "delta kite," I learned, is a triangle-shaped kite that is prone to quick swooping and looping.
	Steve bought this colorful "Rokkaku" kite, which is frickin' huge. Since it was so heavy and the wind was so lame, we weren't ever able to get it to fly successfully. We shall have to haul it out again at another time, when we've got gustier conditions.
	Although successful kitty-kite flight did happen from time to time, since it was the quick-swooping kind of kite, it spent a lot of time plummeting toward the earth. Here, it was driven down so fast that it is actually stuck in the ground. Sigh... I guess there's a learning curve, here.
	And here I am examining the damage and showing off the kitty's whiskers. We did all of this at an empty ballfield at Wakefield Park out in Fairfax, but when we were driving back to my place in DC, we saw all the folks with their kites on the Mall. We're thinking that next time we'll have to head down there and enjoy the patriotic landscape.

Yet another one of those...	April 7, 2006

A list, that my friend Cara sent me, that I took the time to fill out. Of course, the idea is that you'll copy it and fill it out on your own blog, or in a comment on this blog, but whatever. It took me a while, so I thought I'd share.

Interesting sidenote - I am pretty damn sure that I filled out this exact same list in the summer of 2000. And not so long ago, my friend Joe found it in an e-mailbox and sent it back to me, for shits and giggles. I'm going to see if I can find it, and if I can, I'll post it as well. It'll be funny to see what has changed in the past 6 years...

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:15 am
2. Diamonds or pearls? I can't say I own any of either.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Thank You for Smoking
4. What is your favorite TV show? The L Word!
5. What did you have for breakfast? Latte and a muffin
6. What is your middle name? Susan
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Probably Thai. Or Japansese.
8. What foods do you dislike? The peas they serve at the Greek Deli. They taste funny for some reason.
9. What is your favorite Potato chip? Sour Cream & Cheddar
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Yeah Yeah Yeahs
11. What kind of car do you drive? WMATA, baby
12. What is your favorite sandwich? "The Franita" from Just Fresh (turkey and artichoke dip on cibatta... mmmm)
13. What characteristics do you despise? Intolerance
14. Favorite item of clothing? Probably my teal corduroy blazer - I wear it a lot.
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go? New Zealand or Scotland. Someplace green & hilly.
16. What color is your bathroom? White
17. Favorite brand of clothing? INC (when I can afford it... my closet actually contains far more items from Filene's Basement or Old Navy)
18. Where would you want to retire to? A big old house in a small town.
19. Favorite time of day? I dunno... 7:00 or 8:00 PM? When you've gotten your second wind and are getting ready to go out.
20. Where were you born? Cedar Rapids, Iowa
21. Favorite sport to watch? Snowboard cross, apparently!
22. Who do you least expect to send this back? My expectations are low.
24. What type of detergent do you use? Tide
25. Coke or Pepsi? Coke
26. Are you a morning person or night owl? I vary
27. What size shoe do you wear? 10
28. Do you have pets? No, but Steve does - does that count?
29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? Um... I got promoted. And I beat jury duty!
30. What did you want to be when you were little? A novelist.
31. Favorite Candy Bar? Kit Kat
32A. What is your best childhood memory? It's totally nerdy... I won this state math contest, and got to travel all the way to Des Moines for the regionals... it was my 15 minutes of fame.
32B. What is your worst childhood memory? Getting in trouble for punching this mean girl in the chest
33. Different jobs you have had in your life? Cashier, movie theater schlub, caterer, waitress, retail sales associate, museum liaison (for a traveling exhibition service), development assistant (for a museum), graphic designer (for a gallery), web content editor (for a think tank), visual information specialist (for a federal agency)
34. What color shirt are you wearing? White
35. Nicknames: 2 people out there call me Elle Belle, my family calls me Onyah (or Onion, a derivative)
36. Have you ever been to Africa? No
37. Ever been toilet papered? My house was, but it was targeted at my brother, not me.
38. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes
39. Been in a car accident? Not a bad one, just fender-benders
40. Croutons or bacon bits? Croutons
41. Favorite day of the week? Friday
42. Favorite restaurant? I dunno - so many are so good... I am craving the Greek Deli at the moment, as I do most days around 1:00.
43. Favorite flower? Orchids
44. Favorite ice cream? Chubby Hubby
45. Disney or Warner Brothers? Disney
46. Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell
47. What color is your bedroom carpet? Hardwood Floors
48. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Never
49. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? Steve
50. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? The Apple Store
51. What do you do most often when you are bored? Blog, read blogs
52. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? I'm not expecting many people to bother.
53. Last person you went to dinner with? Stef & JJ & MH & Brunette
54. Ford or Chevy? Shit, I don't care. I prefer Japanese cars.
55. What are you listening to right now? iPod on random... TV on the Radio at this exact moment
56. How many tattoos do you have? 0
57. How many piercings? One in each ear (with many scars from piercings past)
58. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg.
59. How many people are you sending this Email to? I think I'll just send it back to Cara and post it on my blog for others.
60. When is your birthday? July 12
61. Favorite color? Lime Green
62. Least favorite color? Hunter Green
63. If you could change your name, which would you pick? I don't know... I don't think I would.
64. Time you finished this e-mail? 1:27 pm

Fuckin' Rock and Roll, man!	April 4, 2006

This seems to be my month of yakking about music (so far, at least... it is only the fourth). And along those lines, each of you, when you have a spare moment, should visit Masked Marvel's MySpace page and listen to the three brand-spankin' new demo tracks. I don't have to tell you that, ahem, they rock, and I'm not just saying that 'cause it's my boyfriend's band. Got mad love for the stuff? You should post a comment on their page (or here), and say so!

Coming up in my month of music... a review of the album The Best Party Ever by The Boy Least Likely To, and the Ladytron show on the 14th (awwwww yeah!). And then there's Phoenix on May 6th. And then... and then... Man I love not living in the Midwest (ooooh, Iowans, that had to hurt!)

Yes, I know I'm too old for this	April 4, 2006

This season, I can't seem to get enough of American Idol. I've half-watched it for the past few seasons - I was a big Bo fan, and a big Clay fan, and now, I am watching it every week, trying to decide whose fan I'll be. I was pro-Chris for a while, but after he 1) admitted that he didn't know that Higher Ground was a Stevie Wonder song, and 2) gleefully belted that Creed crap last week, I'm not feeling it anymore. I like Taylor, but I don't think he'll last. I feel the same about Mandisa - I'd like to see her win, but she won't. And I also like Kathrine and Paris, probably about equally. I am still waiting for a favorite to emerge.

What I do know, without question, is that I hate Ace. Everyone knows that he's only still on because he's got the kind of face that 12-year-old girls go apeshit for. But they try to pretend that he's still on because he has talent? His stellar falsetto is supposed to be his trademark? Ulgh. His falsetto is not stellar. His ass is his trademark. God bless America!

I took this picture of Karen O.	April 4, 2006

With my own two hands! Monday night, Steve and I went to see the sold-out Yeah Yeah Yeahs show at the 9:30 Club. I believe it had been well over a year since I'd last been there - I forgot how much I love that place. And I now live within stumbling distance of it (though it is an unfortunate uphill stumble), so I have no excuse to not go all the time.

We stumbled out my front door to have a pre-show dinner at about 7:30, about thirty seconds before the sky opened up and started dropping buckets of water on us. So, we had a somewhat soggy dinner (at Alero), and a somewhat soggy walk to the club, but once we got there, all was good. The show was AWESOME. The opening band, Blood on the Wall (cheery, huh?) was a great prelude. According to the NYTimes, they make "hip-shaking rock with a touch of Midwestern-gothic twang." Does that sound like my kind of group, or what?

Not that the other two/three members of the band aren't extraordinarily talented, but watching Karen O. perform was a joy even beyond what I'd anticipated. Not only was she dressed all shiny, and constantly playing with sparkly, mirrored, or beaded stage props to delight the eye, she was just so happy. Dancing and laughing and jumping and smiling... hipster rock stars don't do that anymore. God bless her. As I linked before, the show is available on NPR. I encourage you to take a listen! Seeing the tracks from their new album performed live gave me a whole new appreciation for it.

To be honest, my initial reaction to Show Your Bones was kinda ho-hum. A lot of the vocals have a more pop-rock polish to them, which I didn't warm to as much as I did to some of the more swoon-ey raw-edged tracks on Fever to Tell. I felt as if they took Karen O's rage, vulnerability, and just general weirdness, and tried to cram it into the mold already formed by Siouxsie Sioux. But when I saw her belting them out in her own characteristic way, I ceased in every way to question her songwriting or vocal talents. But I do think that the live version of this performance (nabbed from the NPR website) will become my preferred way to listen to this album.

AND... I bought the red tote bag featured on this page. It makes me very happy.

Confessions of a recovering Morrissey fan	April 3, 2006

I bought the new Morrissey (Moz) album yesterday, Ringleader of the Tormentors. I had to. For you see, back when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I was one of those psycho Moz fans. I wore a lot of satin and velvet back then, purple eyeliner and black crystal jewelry. My Euro-goth-trash-lovin' crew and I would pile in the car and follow Moz around. On the Maladjusted tour, I saw him no fewer than four times.

As such, I cling to my Moz-worship, for nostalgia's sake. I was not too hot about You are the Quarry, which came out in 2004. But that didn't stop me from paying top-price to go see him at Constitution Hall last year. I crammed my way to the front row and wailed my lungs out to such classics as "Shoplifters," and "Panic." Good times, good times.

The critics have been pretty good to him lately. This new album is supposed to be all rejuvenated, fueled by the lust emanating from Moz's recently-discovered loins. So I was ready to love it, and renew my passion for big hair and Queen-bashing.

But I don't love it. I suspect my musical tastes have become a bit more refined in recent years. His formula just doesn't work for me anymore. Take a totally innocuous guitar riff, add self-indulgent lyrics set to a seemingly arbitrary melody, croon them in a way that moves beyond self-indulgence into self-importance, and there you have it.

I guess the self-indulgent part appealed to me as a disenchanted youth. I mean, who can't love a lyric like, "I don't get along with myself and I'm not too keen on anyone else." This is still present, such as in "To Me You Are a Work Of Art": "I see the world; it makes me puke, but then I look at you and know that somewhere there's someone who can soothe me." But since I'm not so young and disenchanted anymore, I hear crap like that, and I just shake my head. Maybe now that Moz is admittedly doin' it, he'll start to lighten up a little bit. I think we all know that that's what he needed all along.

My weekend in bullets	April 2, 2006

This was a pretty busy weekend. Looking back at it, we did a lot of stuff. I feel that it would best be relayed in the form of a bulleted list. Here goes...

• For starters, earlier in the week I went to Borders to buy the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album (by the way, I'm going to see them at the 9:30 club tomorrow), and I got suckered into buying The Da Vinci Code, because they had it available in cheapo paperback. I told myself that I'd read it at some point, but that I wouldn't spend more than $10 for the opportunity. It's a crazy-addictive story. I'm going to be done with it within a day or two.
• So, Friday night I met up with Steve and we went to meet up with a few friends at Mambo Mike's in Alexandria. (Why? Because it wasn't my choice, that's why). Not too much happened there - we drank and watched the locals hook up.
• Saturday, me, Steve, and his two future-roommates went and looked at houses (they have to move out of their current place because their landlord is selling it), and the second house we looked at was the winner. It's a bit further north than all were hoping for, but the amenities more than make up for it - corner lot, 3 floors, 5 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, big ole deck... it'll be an awesome party house. Look forward to photos of mass hysteria.
• Then... we went to a sporty-kinda bar to watch the Patriots lose. While I'm not much of a sports fan, and I have no connection to GMU, I did get my basketball fan groove on. I even said yes when I was offered the GMU Final 4 t-shirt. I dunno what's happening to me. I guess it's because I played basketball when I was a kid - it is one of the few sports that I can watch without going, "Why did they do that? What does that mean?"
• Then... we went way out to Reston for a birthday party, where there was beer, smoking, gee-tar playing and red velvet cake.
• I've had this hankering lately to fly a kite. For the past few weeks, I've been saying that kite-day was a-coming. Today was supposed to be the day. We went to a hobby shop and bought some kits (mine has a kitty on it, because I am a sucker). The wind was a little weak, though, so actually flying these bad boys will have to wait.
• To pass the time instead, we played mini golf at Burke Lake Park. I can't think of the last time I played mini golf - it's been years, I'm sure. I wasn't very good, considering that I was on the golf team in high school. But I wasn't very bad, either. Steve only beat me by one measly stroke.
• Tonight I came home and went a little crazy with iTunes. I had to get the new Morrissey album, and I also bought album The Best Party Ever by The Boy Least Likely To. Album reviews coming soon. My PowerBook has been yelling at me because my disk is getting clogged (33 gigs of music files can do that, I guess). If anyone is feeling generous, the external hard drive that I now want is on the top of my Amazon wish list.

That's pretty much it. During down times, we watched some episodes of Undeclared on DVD. And I read The Da Vinci Code. I think that I need to go read some more of it right now...