Priscilla Ahn's New CD - A Good Day

Ok. My friend is a radio DJ (The Lyrical Venus Hour) and is doing a little promotion for Priscilla Ahn's new cd, A Good Day. The promo is winning a signed copy of above said CD. Yeah!

How to get that signed CD you ask? Click on over to Lyrical Venus's regular (non-radio) blog for all the gory details.

Optical Illusion

Here is a twist on your old optical illusion: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=8952476

Unfortunately, Blogger.com wouldn't let me post the embedded video onto my blog, but the link will take you to a neat motorcycle motorcade illusion.

School House Rock

I dont know how many of you remember School House Rocks, but I sure do. Basically educational cartoons about things like language (intergections, nouns, conjunctions) and numbers (multiples of #'s).

One of my fav. is "Three is a Magic Number"


Ah classics. Cartoons, like School House Rocks, Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, are classic cartoons I grew up with. It still amazes me what they put out today, kids actually watch. I'm sure our parents would say the same of the quality of the TV shows we watched as kids. ;)

Anyway. Here's another good one from School House Rocks:

Naughty Bits!

Ok. I made a pair of pasties for a friend of mine for her bachelorette party. From this she, and a few others (after a "Guess what Nandi made me!"), said I should make them and see if the local adult stores would buy them. Interesting thought. Here are a couple of examples of what I would possibly make:


The top is a condom cozy that's an owl. It has a hidden compartment (opening at the bottom) for more condoms or lubricant (or what ever else - that could fit in there). Then we have the pasties. Self explanatory.

*shrugg*

What's Your Score?

It's called Walk Score. I saw this on Yahoo's main page. Its a site where you can see how walkable some place is (more so for where you live/work). You basically enter an address and it calculates a score out of 100 of how walkable that address is. And based upon the score it will tell you if it's more car-dependable or a walker's paradise. The top three are: 1) San Francisco, CA, 2) New York, NY, and 3) Boston, MA.

I think it's pretty neat. Looking at the "Walkable Maps" they have for the most walkable cities, I noticed that the more car dependant areas are where fewer people lived (like parks) or developed neighborhoods (like in the suburbs of NYC).

Oh Thank Heaven!

I've been finishing the ends of things for the county fair. Slowly, but still finishing things. The most recent thing that I finished is the Amigurumi Octopus I've been working on for WAY too long (5+ months I think. It was all but finished 4.5 months ago, but it waited patiently for it's remaining two legs).

Here's a pic of it!


Yes, that's an air freshener it's sitting on. It was the closest thing I could find to prop it up. It's in my brother's bathroom, where the motif is oceanic. A mini note on the octopus, it's made of wool, dyed with sugar-free koolaid.

I also made another Amigurumi, this time its a frog.


It looks identical to the photo (granted the photo isnt mine). I'm not entering it into the fair b/c it's for my moms birthday. Hrm. Maybe I'll just enter it into the fair instead of the octopus. I dont know. I'll have to look into it. Maybe surprise her when we go see what of my things won.

My pink scarf is getting longer. No photo b/c it's just the same picture, only the scarf is longer. I will take one final pic before I do the fringe just to give a perspective of before and after.

I was thinking of making a doll's sweater or a small childs/infants sweater. I will see how much tim I have.

A Boy and His Frog....

I was listening to public radio earlier this afternoon, and low and behold, one of their programs had a segment about Jim Henson! (Good thing I wasn't driving at the moment).

They were highlighting a installment from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition that was all about Jim Henson's career and memorabilia. Its a traveling exhibition called Jim Henson's Fantastic World. I am a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Muppet/Jim Henson fan (heck I even made a Cookie Monster Hat!). It's actually a touring exhibition, which is just as neat.

What makes it a little more unique, at least for me, is that it's in one of the neater museums here in DC. It's underground! YES! Underground. I've only been there once before when friends were visiting, but it's pretty impressive that you go underground to this particular museum. Here is a picture of the entrance to the place. I think I saw one of Liberace's pianos there. It's not a noticeable building entrance, at least not to me. Something, I think, most tourists would pass on by (unless they're there specifically for one of the exhibits).

I'm SO excited about seeing this exhibit.


So here's a little something to go out on:

Hat Time.

Ok. Huge help here. Which of the following two hats should I enter in this years county fair?

A: Hat from Golden Compass Movie

or

B: Cookie Monster

County Fair.

The county fair is coming up in roughly a months time. I have a couple thing to enter into the knitting section, but I would like to have some more things for it (greater chance of getting at least one ribbon from the fair).

Here's a pic of a scar I'm currently working on:

The foot in the picture is more so for reference of size.

You may see the cables better on this one:

The plain stitches are to be ripped upon finishing, leaving the cables in tact. What this does is gives the item fringe, with out worrying about saving enough yarn to do so. (You've incorporated the fringe into the amount you're using. Genius I say). I know when I finish the scarf I will not have to worry about getting more yarn, since the chances are the company discontinued this yarn (it was bought by my mom's parents for her, when Sears actually sold yarn).

I've also made a glove hat. Yes, a glove the size of a hat.

But I want to make gloves/mittens to go with this hat, so I can enter another hat into the fair (you can have no more ONE item entered in each category to be judged). I'll see if I can find the other hat to take a picture of for you.

Creative Writing and Creative Music.

In college, one of my final classes was a creative writing class. I really enjoyed it b/c I felt as if for the first time I could actually put my thoughts/ideas in writing (and have it be coherent). One of my favorite activities was taking an obscure headline (odd news) and making a story out of it (more so how the story got to the point the newspaper wrote about it). Sometimes, one does wonder what led up to the point the newspaper report (as in the sequence leading up to the newspaper article).

Part of the reason why I stay up late is for the music acts on a couple of the late night shows. Sometimes it's b/c of the actors/actresses. and the remaining 90% is b/c I cant fall asleep easily enough (partly b/c I got in the habit of staying up late). Sometimes I do find some interesting female musicians to pass onto one of my friends who has a radio show (featuring female singer/songwriters/musicians).

This has gotten me interested more in music. This has led me to find new "favorite" musicians (granted I have a rock solid favorite that will never change - Great Big Sea).


A new face I came across was Sara Bareilles. (Yes, she does have her own MySpace.com page). The song you've probably heard on the radio (or even on Late Night with Jay Leno) is "Bottle It Up". A good song to listen to. Up beat.


Aside the fact that one of my fav. quotes is "I'm covered in bees!", I stumbled across a website that involves bees with my favorite flower (the SUNFLOWER!). I think its a worth while project, esp. if you're into this kind of stuff. It's called "The Great Sunflower Project". What it does is it sends you sunflower seeds to grow sunflowers and once the sunflower bloom, for 1/2 an hour you take note of the number of bees that come to your sunflower(s). That's it. Simple enough, and you get to be outside for 1/2 an hour, relaxing, getting fresh air!

I think it was in part to the declining numbers in the bees. *shrugg*

Take A Seat, Find Something Healthy, and Find Your Inner Sleuth

Now, I've seen this before on TV, ages ago, about how a few people would come to this one stadium to sit in it's seats. Granted, it wasnt for your foot ball match or even a concert. They were trying to be the one who sat in the most seats with in a given amount of time. Well, at least Jim Purol, as seen in this mini article, actually just set the record for the most seats sat in with a 48 hr period. The grand total for his appearance in the Guinness World Book of Records was a whopping 39,250 seats. Granted, I have wanted, at various stages of my life, to make my own appearance in the Guinness, but I think I'll leave that to someone who actually has that ambition.

I have relatively recently set my homepage of my browser to Yahoo.com. Partly b/c I have two Yahoo accounts and I like to see what they put up on their main page, as far as "current" news in the world and entertainment. One article I just came across was talking about finding healthy food for about $1 or less. This peaked my interest, b/c I like eating, I like eating cheaply, and I would like eating healthy without breaking the bank. The 20 Healthiest Foods for Less Than $1 lists the 20 healthy foods and why they're healthy! Some of the food they list are: Oats, Kale (no surprise), Coffee (yes!), Eggs, Potatoes, Nuts, Apples, and Bananas. Check out the full list and why they're good for you.

Last but not least, Robert Downy Jr. is to play Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the once drug addict and now star of Iron Man is to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character Sherlock Holmes. The filming is to start sometime this fall. Personally, I want to see this movie, partly because I was a HUGE, I repeat HUGE, Sherlock Holmes fan growing up.

Music, Music, Music.

Sometimes, it amazes me how much my life revolves around music.

Let me rephrase that.

Sometimes, it amazes me how much I "discover" new music and/or musicians I've never even heard of.


(That's how I started this blog. I kept "discovering" all this music and sharing it with my musically inclined (and very talented) friend. She put it politely. Stop bugging her and write something about yourself).


What initially inspired this blog is from an e-mail sent out by a local performance space. It puts out what music shows it's putting on, as well as a couple of other performance places too.

On this particular e-mail, I "discovered" a band called She & Him (they have a MySpace page as well). They label themselves (according to MySpace), as Indie/Country/Pop. I would say they're more like a band you would go see on a cool summer's eve, with a picnic of watermelon, light refreshments (mint sun tea), sandwiches (like cheese, light mayo, lettuces, freshly sliced tomato, and maybe a dash of mustard), and someone who you wouldn't mind cuddling with.

They're for sure more than background music.

I believe I've seen the girl singing before on TV. She looks like that girl from "Gilmore Girls", you know - the daughter Alexis Bledel. Wait! I've seen the girl before. Her name is Zooey Deschanel. She was the girl in "Elf" and the Sci-Fi channel's "Tin Man". The guy is M. Ward.

note: as I'm writing this I'm jumping around between pages doing a bit of research. I am known to know faces and not names. NOTORIOUS, actually. So bare in mind that this blog posting is more or less a cut and paste of names and mini facts.

May I suggest listening to Sentimental Heart. A good first song.


PS. A good friend of mine is in the musical Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. I love that musical. I am sorely sad I am most likely not to see her in it. To boot, on a slight tangent, the Cowboy from The Village People, Randy Jones, is playing the Pharaoh. Ok, I may be jonesing a little about that a relatively well know person is coming to the town where I attended college (yes, pun intended).

Coffee in the Morning, Coffee in the Evening.

Cup of Joe
(excerpt)

I wanna be your cup of joe
The first sip in the mornin'
Your get-you-going ritual
And warm your soul from within
Let me be your cup of joe
That first sip in the mornin'
Baby, take me as I am
And through your veins I'll be flowin'

~Daniel Ho & Lydia Miyashiro

So.

I like my coffee. I like to drinking in a mug or a travel handy paper cup (granted more biodegradable than your plastic one, but for sure not one of those reusable kinds).

I use to drink Starbucks, but not any more. Their coffee started tasting a bit burnt to me. I make my own coffee when I can, but if I'm forced to go out and buy it, I will frequent the coffee shop just down the street from me, when it's open (closes half the week at 3pm and the remainder at 5pm, understandable for a non-chain coffee shop), or McDonald's or Dunkin' Doughnuts (depending on my mood).

Yes, I said McDonalds or Dunkin Doughnuts. Their coffee beats Starbucks and your 7-11, at least according to my taste buds. But I do prefer frequenting the smaller chains/mom & pop coffee shops.

I really like this instant organic coffee called Mt Hagen Coffee. Really good with Stevia (an alternative to sugar and sure beats ingesting what ever Sweet'n'Low or Equal is made of).

I have been wanting to check out this other coffee shop just a bit further (well, a bit more of a drive actually). I think I'll do that tomorrow.

Alternative Fuels.

I was talking with a couple friends about a month ago about alternative fuels. One point I brought up was biodiesel, and how it pollutes less and one could easily get it from your local fast food restaurant.

One friend pointed out that if the entire country switches to biodiesel, we would be in the same bind we are in now. That's a valid point! But the point I was making, was that biodiesel, in conjuncture with other fuels (like hyrdocells, solar, etc powered cars) will spread the demand on any one specific resource. (Granted, some resourses are a little more limited than others).

Also, the point my friend brought up got me thinking. With allot of the fast-food joints (if not all of them) get their products delivered to them in big semi-trucks to their location.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the big rigs run on diesel. And any diesel engine can run on biodiesel (some engines you may need to tweak a little to get it to where it can run on biodiesel).

I was thinking that if these fast food joints would have a mini-station, where they would convert their throwaway cooking oils into biodiesel, they would be able to refuel their entire fleet at a much reduced cost! AND any excess they have left over from refueling their delivery truck, they could sell off to other biodiesel users. (if the location allows it, sell it to other truckers).

I know, grand idea, maybe not so practical the last part. But think about it. Fast food joints pretty much THROW away their oils (i.e. pay someone to haul away their oils somewhere), and if they can reuse that oil to refuel their delivery fleet, think about how much it would help conserve all that oil waste (think about how many McDonald's there are just with in the continental US, let alone the world. And that's just ONE fast food restaurant).

Anyway.

Odd City Names

This fasicnation started on my way out to college, of noting odd city names (well, not writing them down but just mentally noting).

Granted I dont remember any from our long 17 hr trip, but I do remember some, more local names.

Pennsylvania has some unique names, Intercourse, Blueball, and Bird in Hand (I've been to Intercourse and it's not half bad - lovely town).

There are some just as unusual names out there too. I found some sites that list the names. One is one with only national city names, while the other is an international one. (I did come across a page of city names worked into a crossword puzzle).


Granted, I live in Maryland, and I thought I would have heard of the unusual city names from the state I live in. Here is the list: Accident, Boring, Cockeysville (proncounced Cock-eyes-ville, granted I've heard of this but didnt give it a second thought), Flinstone, Secretary, and Unicorn.

Well, that's enough rambling for this posting. Enjoy!