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[28 Dec 2009|09:50pm] |
ASTRONAUT TAKOYAKI. OMG WANT.
Having fun in Sechelt! Mom & Pop have been spoiling us with gourmet meals. Mango salmon with spaetzle and roasted mini-squash! Prawn, blue cheese, and pear green salad! I am promised a Julia Child omelet party in the morning. <3
Dad has a collection of rocks that look like potatoes, which he collected on the beach in a manic fervor with their last house-guest. He swears they weren't drinking or smoking anything but cannot explain exactly how they came to go on this quest. I have composed the Potato Rock Reel for him. "Potato rocks are a specialty item! The look like food but you shouldn't bite 'em!" (It goes on at great length, but that's quite enough I think.) He and mum are going shopping for gum boots and have signed up for a bird-watching course. I can't decide if they've been assimilated by the Sunshine Coast or are just going through all the possible coast-er activities as quickly as possible before getting bored and moving back to the Mainland. Mom says I am too cynical, but we'll just see!
The Safety Llama, which mom has taken to calling the Dalai Llama, is displayed prominently on their front stoop. The neighbours still look more ridiculous. One side: a tiny pine tree with 18 or 19 giant bows on it. Other side: a plastic wasp and a Norwegian flag. Well, maybe I could make a tiny tiara so Safety Llama would stand out.
OKAY NO
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| Well |
[28 Dec 2009|06:43pm] |
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We finally saw Princess and the Frog!
And guess what?
It was really good, yay!
Had lots of pretty parts
Had good songs
Had parts where I definitely laughed
Had parts where I ALMOST cried...
And had interesting plot developments and interesting characters!
Bradach liked it too!!
(Athrylis also liked it, but she had already seen it...she liked it again)
Regarding Rich:
So it turns out he just, like, ISN'T going to work this week, or something, I guess...
Which is the dumbest thing ever.
Mama was WAY too sick to drive home yesterday (which she did anyway).
She had a fever of 102 and her family all said she should stay in bed and leave the next day, rather than driving eight hours when she had a fever...
But she said no, no, we can go home, because she was under the impression that Rich had to go to work on Monday.
WELL, it turns out that the real reason that Rich wanted to get home was that he thought he would go Skiing by himself instead of go to work today.
He wanted to go skiing. He got his boots already.
(He would have been going by himself. He never invites anyone else skiing with him. He would have just expected mama to stay with Bradach, with her 100 degree fever)
But as it turned out, his BACK hurt too much to go skiing today...
...even though he didn't do any of the driving, he just rode in the passengers seat
With nothing in his lap or on his legs
Mama drove
And those of us (three) in the backseat were holding our dog Tobi on our laps the entire way...
And Bradach, mama, Athrylis, AND myself all felt near to throwing up at some point during the drive because WE were all actually ill...
For some reason, RICH is the one who is feeling sore today, so he did not go skiing after all, so he was in the house the entire day (save for twenty minutes when he drove to the post office)
...we leave this house tomorrow, and it will hopefully be an entire year until I have to talk to him again.
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| Help for a Big Damn Hero in Colorado |
[28 Dec 2009|04:23pm] |
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Kiss - "Strutter '78" |
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Hi, folks!
As my lovely Dami has already posted, our friend Gaffer has been hit with a sudden emergency in Boulder, CO.
Here's the scoop.
Gaffer's one of the Good Guys - a real-life urban fantasy character who, at the moment, needs some real-life magic.
Any help is welcome.
Thanks!
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[28 Dec 2009|01:35pm] |
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see entry |
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| ...small heart grew three sizes that day.... |
[28 Dec 2009|03:32pm] |
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Ah, warm after christmas fuzzies! They say presents and material possessions do not show you how much you are loved, but I may make a slight alteration to that statement; they show you how much the person giving them KNOWS you!
The Fictitious Husband gave me a SONIC SCREWDRIVER for Christmas! Squee! Not the multi-hundred dollar one (well, pound, as he sent away to the UK for it) but a nice little plastic one that lights up! I want to go resonate some concrete or something! But that's not all! Noooooo. He also gave me the dvd of "The Next Doctor" which I have not seen because we live way out here in the middle of nowhere and various other reasons. But even THAT'S not all! He gave not one, not two but THREE weeping angel posable action figures! Triple squee!
Later in the day I got the second of the four 2009 Dr Who specials on dvd and a Doctor Horrible wall calendar! Someone in my family said, "you're such a geek." I said, "I know, and I'm okay with that."
Squee!
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[28 Dec 2009|11:21am] |
I think there needs to be a new form of international art thief, one who breaks into museums and makes high quality scans of the old paintings, to be released on Wikileaks. It's utterly ridiculous how hard it can be to find good copies of famous works of art.
Just watching the media try to come to grips with this "crime" would be awesome.
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| Opportunity for Excerpts |
[28 Dec 2009|12:54pm] |
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I've been posting excerpts of various crowdfunded projects over on Hypatia's Hoard of Reviews. So far, these have been novels, online serials, short story series, or other fiction projects. I'm open to the idea of covering poetry, artwork, music, or other types of cyberfunded creativity. The main consideration is that they need to be ongoing projects rather than one-day events. (I post about one-day events too, sometimes, just not in the same way.) I've already gone through the community's sidebar guide to projects, issuing invitations to the authors of the projects that seem to be active currently.
If you're doing cyberfunded creativity and I haven't approached you yet, now is a good time to talk with me about doing an excerpt. For this I need:
* The project title
* The author's name
* The URL of the website(s) where you want linkage to direct readers
* A brief description of the project and what makes it cool
* An excerpt (maybe 250-500 words, but that's flexible)
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[28 Dec 2009|10:49am] |
Off to Sechelt for a couple days! Well, just overnight, actually, but I have a giant stack of luggage because I'm bringing my jola to play for mom and dad, and then that means I bring a rolly suitcase because wearing another backpack along with the backpack banjo case is too tricky, and then as long as I have a goddamn SUITCASE I might as well cram it full of extra books and my favourite blanket and some stuffed toys so my laptop doesn't feel like it's in a rock tumbler, and in short order I'm a one-woman caravan. Joe's coming along this time too, and he, by contrast, has a one-third-full daypack, plus a gameboy in his pocket. (Really! Though he says he is also happy to see me.) I think I could have fit all his stuff in my purse, and then folded him up - he's very foldable - in my suitcase to save on ferry fare, but then I'd have a terrible time on the escalator, and besides, I have a BC Ferries gift card anyway. (This was the HINT HINT HINT present from Santa, who has recently moved to Sechelt as I understand it.)
I love crossing the Lion's Gate Bridge! (Or is it the Lions' Gate Bridge? Or the Lions Gate Bridge? All three versions seem plausible. There are two lion sculptures being all gate-y, and then the bridge is sort of a gate to The Lions, two mountain peaky items, and then it depends how possessive all these creatures are feeling, and perhaps how hard they growled at the municipal registrar and/or the Queen.) The majestic view of the port cranes and the sulfur piles!!! And I suppose Stanley park, the mountains, the Pacific ocean, the gulf islands, and the forest, yawn ho hum. NEON YELLOW SULFUR PILES!!!
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| Colorado Help for our Gaffer; time-sensitive, very important |
[28 Dec 2009|10:43am] |
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Mirrormask soundtrack |
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) gafferbear is one of the most amazing human beings I think I've ever met. Given the (truly high) quality of people in my life (yes, I'm talking about you!) that's really saying something. He is a harpist, among many other things, and one of those people you find yourself talking with for hours upon end ... and then realizing that every single word he said was worth listening to. He normally spends his days busking, or travelling to retirement homes to share the joy and serenity he creates with his music and do what he can to make the world a better place.
Gaffer lives in Boulder CO, which is really freaking cold right about now, as it normally is at the turn of the year. Part of what this means is that busking isn't really an option right now, so his income has been cut pretty drastically. And, unfortunately, he's just had an emergency come up that requires him to find new living space and get moved into it on very very short notice. In short, he needs a miracle. Gaffer is physically pretty fragile and isn't going to be able to do all this himself. He could also use some help finding a new place that (a) fulfills his own needs and (b) he's able to afford on his fairly limited housing budget.
There may also be some other stuff people who don't live in Boulder could do to help--I'll be talking with him tonight to find out the details and will share them as they become available. Some of it will be simple financial help, other parts will be things like helping him to set up a website to sell his CD's.
For now, if you live in Boulder, or if you have friends or family or community in Boulder who might be able to help in some way, please, please ... Gaffer is one of the most wonderful human beings you will ever meet, and he can and will fill your world with heartbreakingly lovely harp music in exchange for anything you can do to help, not to mention his (and my) deep appreciation.
His post with the initial information is here.
Please feel free to repost and spread the word--the more people who hear about this, the easier it's going to be for us to create the magic to get this fixed.
(reposted from damiana_swan )
Gaffer is a damned amazing wise elf of a human being, and after only having hung out with him for a weekend in October, I know that he's my brother. He reminded me recently that we don't work for a living, we PLAY for a living, and for that reminder I'll always love him. omnisti and I won't be back in CO until Jan 7 or so, but we're going to let our Colorado allies know about this and hope that they are willing to help a brother out. You please do the same.
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| Ah. |
[28 Dec 2009|10:41am] |
It's been a good Christmas so far... and there's more to come.
It started with picking up Seanan at the airport on Christmas day, and having a great rehearsal with Betsy. The show on Saturday at Wayward was incredibly fun, and I was amazed to see how many folks came out to see us on the day after Christmas. Thanks everyone for coming!
We have a house full of loved ones now, with gfish now permanently back home, and tereshkova2001 is returning tomorrow to make it a complete set. It's warm and cozy and geeky.
Because everyone was scattered about and doing things on the traditional Christmas day, we're saving our official Agora household Christmas for tomorrow. Tonight? GORN CANNON!
Here's a fun Christmas story. Well, fun for me anyway:
We're all sitting around the TV, watching "Die Hard" because Seanan hadn't ever seen it. Plus, it's a Christmas movie. A completely different kind of Christmas movie than Grinch or Wonderful Life, but a Christmas movie nonetheless. Plus, Alan Rickman. You can't go wrong with Alan Rickman. (Side note: We all want a sweatshirt now.)
So we're watching it from a DVD, which is playing on the Playstation 3. The PS3 is great for watching DVDs in terms of sound and picture quality, but the pain of having to use the PS3 game controller to pause or rewind a DVD is nearly unbearable. When you pick up the controller, it's either already powered itself off to save battery charge, or you accidentally bump one of its soft finger triggers and inadvertently skip forward a chapter.
We've got a fantastic universal remote, but the Playstation doesn't have an infrared transceiver, so you can't use the remote with it. Each time someone curses at the PS3 controller, I have to explain that I need to get the proper "doohickey" (technical term) that lets me control the PS3 videos with the remote.
So Vixy takes a present out from under the tree and makes me open it, despite my protests that it's two days early, since we're not doing presents until Tuesday. And what do you know, it was an honest to goodness doohickey!
After industrial-lasering the blister packaging open, I was worried about having to interrupt the playback of Die Hard to make the doohickey work. I figured it would need some kind of setup or configuration. But the amazing thing is, I plugged it in during the movie and it just worked. Plug in the doohickey, and suddenly I can pause and unpause the movie in progress without touching the game controller. That's what amazed me: A tech gadget that actually Just Worked Exactly Like You'd Expect It To. No rebooting the console, no having configure it via setup menus, nothing. Just plug it in, and poof it works. Now that's a good OOBE. (We're going to disregard for a moment that a better OOBE would have been for the PS3 to have had an IR transcever built-in in the first place.)
Vixy is made of awesome. But you all already know that.
Anyone else have good OOBE's this Christmas?
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| Question of the Day |
[28 Dec 2009|10:38am] |
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I'm About to Be Bad (in my head) |
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...why isn't Rich at work?
It's 10:36 on a Monday.
Why isn't he at work?
I only ask because I formed a direct correlation between the fact that I didn't get to go to Disneyland yesterday and the fact that Rich would have work on Monday. So I ask again.
Why isn't he at work?
Oh, I also ask because I'd like to be able to go up and hang out with mama and Bradach in the living room at some point today, which would be made a lot less unpleasant with his exiting it.
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| Bits and bobs for a December morning. |
[28 Dec 2009|10:06am] |
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Grease 2, "Who's That Guy?" |
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First off, huge, huge thanks to everyone who came to the show at the Wayward Coffeehouse. We'd been somewhat concerned that we wouldn't be able to drum up an audience, it being Boxing Day and all, so imagine our delight when we wound up playing to an essentially full house! (If you couldn't attended, snowcoma has posted a lovely and detailed review.) A good time was had by all.
If you're curious about what kinds of things we performed, all three of my albums are currently available through CD Baby, as is Thirteen, the first album by Vixy and Tony. Or you could take a gander at The First Rule of Flying: Songs From The Black II. This is the latest collection of music from The Signal, an awesome Firefly-themed podcast, and includes songs by all of the people previously named. Plus it's free, which makes it an awesome taster.
In literary news, Lurv ala Mode has named Rosemary and Rue as an Honorable Mention for Best Read of the Year. This is a review site run by a reviewer I have come to very much respect, and I'm delighted to be on the list. Maybe next year, I can make it to one of the named slots!
I'll post another review roundup soon. For now, I leave you with the knowledge that 2009 is almost over, and the world hasn't ended yet. Oh, and I made a metric fuck-ton of rosemary shortbread last night. I rule.
Happy winter!
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| Antijitos and a QUESTION |
[28 Dec 2009|01:00pm] |
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Yeah, that photo has nothing to do with antijitos, but it's one of the most recent food photos I've taken, so I figured it would suit the post. The photo shows a really cool gingerbread house that my sister, Sheilagh, built and decorated for Christmas. Sheilagh was on a baking tear this month- she gave us cream cheese chocolate truffles (amazing good) and candy cane candies (yum) to bring home with us Christmas Day and she made cookies, too.
I -thought- about making cookies, but didn't really do any baking for Christmas :). Still, the broken wrist is a fresh enough memory, that I'm still grateful to be at a stage that I can putter around the kitchen and cook meals again.
Which brings us to the anitjitos. On occasion, John and I go to a restaurant called Montanas, which is part of a Canadian chain of restaurants. They're the typical "stuff on the wall" type place, a bit more rustic, and tend to feature ribs, steaks, that kind of thing. John's favorite appetizer at Montanas are their oven-baked antijitos- a Mexican dish where cheese and peppers are spread on a tortilla, rolled up and baked and then cut into pinwheel slices. He loves thm so much that he'll sometimes suggest going to Montanas just for the antijitos. And he did that last night.
Unfortunately, our closest Montanas is in a complex with a large theatre, other restaurants and a massive Indigos bookstore, so the area was a post-Christmas holiday zoo that we decided to escape quickly. We ended up at Swiss Chalet, so no antijitos for John (though he had chicken spring rolls for an appetizer and liked them, too).
So, I started to wonder how difficult would it be to make antijitos myself. I went exploring on-line. I didn't realize how popular Montanas antijitos are until I found a handful of food message boards with people desparately looking for the recipe for the antijitos at Montanas :). After I read through a few of those threads I came to a link to a Montanas ad where they published the recipe to their antijitos. Score.
I went out this morning and bought all the ingredients- tortilla shells, shredded cheddar, cream cheese, red and green peppers, green onions, Worchestershire sauce- and I'm going to make them this afternoon. We'll see how they compare to the restaurant appetizers.
I also bought the ingredients for a turkey meatball soup recipe in the new slowcooker book my sister gave me for Christmas, as well as ingredients for meatloaf, korma chicken and scrambled eggs. It's nice to have a week off and actually feel like doing some cooking.
QUESTION:
Do you ever cook any Mexican dishes? Which ones are your favorites? Are they hard to make? Have you ever made antijitos before?
I must admit the only other Mexican food I make are tacos, where I brown burger and find all the other ingredients in a taco kit box.
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| Help for a friend in Boulder |
[28 Dec 2009|09:00am] |
gafferbear is one of the most amazing human beings I think I've ever met. Given the (truly high) quality of people in my life (yes, I'm talking about you!) that's really saying something. He is a harpist, among many other things, and one of those people you find yourself talking with for hours upon end ... and then realizing that every single word he said was worth listening to. He normally spends his days busking, or travelling to retirement homes to share the joy and serenity he creates with his music and do what he can to make the world a better place.
Gaffer lives in Boulder CO, which is really freaking cold right about now, as it normally is at the turn of the year. Part of what this means is that busking isn't really an option right now, so his income has been cut pretty drastically. And, unfortunately, he's just had an emergency come up that requires him to find new living space and get moved into it on very very short notice. In short, he needs a miracle. Gaffer is physically pretty fragile and isn't going to be able to do all this himself. He could also use some help finding a new place that (a) fulfills his own needs and (b) he's able to afford on his fairly limited housing budget.
There may also be some other stuff people who don't live in Boulder could do to help--I'll be talking with him tonight to find out the details and will share them as they become available. Some of it will be simple financial help, other parts will be things like helping him to set up a website to sell his CD's.
For now, if you live in Boulder, or if you have friends or family or community in Boulder who might be able to help in some way, please, please ... Gaffer is one of the most wonderful human beings you will ever meet, and he can and will fill your world with heartbreakingly lovely harp music in exchange for anything you can do to help, not to mention his (and my) deep appreciation.
His post with the initial information is here.
Please feel free to repost and spread the word--the more people who hear about this, the easier it's going to be for us to create the magic to get this fixed.
UPDATE: Paypal information is gafferbear [at] yahoo dot com, listed name is Wild Elf Productions.
UPDATE 2: Here are a couple Youtube videos of Gaffer, aka That Harp Guy, courtesy elionwyr. Yes, that is really his voice, and yes, his music really does just reach right in and grab you by the ventricles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkk5YXXWgr8 - "Scum of the Earth" - the Voice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDLgbA_3W2M - the Harp
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| Ho, Ender. |
[28 Dec 2009|03:48am] |
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What? ...Anyway.
So, remember that art show I mentioned? A friend of mine is opening a restaurant, The Night Kitchen, and asked me to hang art there. So I have! The official opening is December 30th at 6 pm, and I have some fourteen pieces of various sizes, all framed, mostly for sale, etc., etc., hung up and ready to go.
I'll be back late that evening, and whether I put in an actual appearance will depend on how I feel after the flight (And the sign reads: Going Skiing, Back Wednesday Night), but I'll try to turn up sometime after ten or so.
So, you know, come check it out at your leisure. The food's good, the company's good, and there's some kind of cool stuff on the walls.
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