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The Internet is great

Sep 27th, 2009 by

for being a bottomless font of covers and novelty tunes, which bring me boundless joy:


A while back I expressed great enthusiasm for the Dollyrots’ “Brand New Key,” which at the time I had no idea wasn’t original to them.

I’ve since learned that a sweet hippie folk singer named Melanie Safka was the originator of this song back in the early 1970s.

I also got to see one of few “fan-made-videos” that didn’t suck (and feature misappropriated anime characters). A young lady in 1972 shot a 8mm film meant to be set to Ms. Safka’s song:

This is AWESOME (also ADORABLE). I think I have the sewing pattern for that middy-and-hotpants outfit, also:
Simplicity 9922

Thanks also to the bounty of the Internet, I have become acquainted with the British “novelty” band, The Wurzels, who had a great hit in 1976 which was in essence a parody of Safka’s ’72 offering, “Brand New Key.” The Wurzels sang a spirited song employing the offer of the free use of a brand new combine harvester as a substantial enticement into an affair of the heart:

Oooo-arrr, oooo-arrr!

Posted in Distractions, videos | 2 Comments »

I feel a new obsession coming on!

Sep 26th, 2009 by

A little AP blurb on a dude with a metal detector who found a massive Anglo Saxon treasure hoard mentioned in the “Share and Enjoy” section of The Usual Suspects has reignited my fascination with all things Early-Medieval-To-The-Point-Of-Damn-Near-Prehistoric.

A metal detector hobbyist trying his luck in a friend’s field stumbled upon the largest to-date cache of early-medieval treasure. Dated to circa AD700 (roughly contemporary with Sutton Hoo & the Lindesfarne Gospel), this new find could open up more understanding of the travels, politics, rites, and motivations of the post-Roman, pre-Norman British people.

Here is a video of the finder, Terry Herbert, speaking about his amazing discovery.

The only thing that bothers me a bit is how much of it he recovered before he called in the archaeologists. He claims to have dug up five boxes of artifacts before the archaeologists came out, and what little I know about archaeology from when I was doing my MA tells me that you can learn nearly as much from how/where the items are found as you can from the items themselves. Then again, this is three times bigger than the Sutton Hoo ship burial, and there was certainly plenty enough to learn from that particular find. It seems, though, that a fair number of items were not excavated, or were only partially excavated so archaeologists can have a bit of their own fun:

The present list runs to 1,345 objects, including 56 lumps of earth. X-rays show them to be studded with pieces of metal. You can make out tiny decorative animals and jewel settings, but until the lumps are taken apart we will not know what’s there. In other words, archaeologists have the prospect of themselves being able to excavate part of the country’s most spectacular ancient hoard.

It seems that these two famous treasure finds will inevitably be compared and contrasted. Apparently from roughly the same time period, and containing items of stunningly high quality craftsmanship, the superficial similarities are striking. But Sutton Hoo was quite obviously the material remains a funereal rite, while the purpose of the Staffordshire Hoard is currently less clear. It has been speculated that this was the spoils of one particularly successful raid, or it could well have been the accumulations of a lifetime of raiding. Personally, I would be more likely to believe the latter scenario – that this hoard amounts to some bygone hlaford‘s “Safe Deposit Box” of stuff he and his loyal troops nicked from other, less fortunate and successful noblemen.

A set on Flickr provides fabulous detail photos of some of the treasures.

This is definitely a story I will be following with interest. I imagine my alma mater, York University is buzzing like a stirred-up beehive these days. The CMS has got to be a pretty exciting place to be at this point. As I said over at The Ususals, I thought I was cured of any interest in anything medieval after doing my MA, but old habits die hard I guess. This time, however, I’m going to leave the research and shit to the academics and just read whatever articles come out of this kickassed discovery.

Posted in Distractions, Well I'll Be Darned | 1 Comment »

Messy day

Sep 25th, 2009 by

Wow, today was pretty disgusting.

I guess it started off when I got shat upon on my way to work.

Some sort of bird which had been eating lots of something chock full of chlorophyll took a big ol’ juicy, seedy dump on my right shoulder as I rode in to work.

I kind of freaked out because I had an enormous, runny, green bird crap on my shoulder, so I took my water bottle and did my best to hose the bulk of the poo off my white blouse (work uniform!). Of course that got rid of the chunks, but a quarter-sized green patch was left behind. Also, basically my whole right-hand side was sodden due to my overenthusiastic dousing.

Joel and I rode downtown together and I guess we were keeping a fairly smart pace, ’cause I arrived at work with plenty of time to spare. It was just as well as every available minute was spent trying to budge the green stain from my sleeve and/or dry the side of my shirt sufficiently so that my undershirt didn’t shine through obscenely.

I got myself to a relative state of tidiness only to have the third messiest day I’ve ever had at this job.

The first and worst was when I was working on register 2, which has a faulty shutoff switch for the conveyor belt. A lady set her paper cup of coffee (some kind of sugary latté confection) on the belt, and when it got to the end, the belt didn’t shut off. The coffee tipped over, the lid flew off, and sticky coffee went everywhere! Down the conveyor belt, under the produce scale, all over my blouse, all over the floor. Who knew 12 ounces of coffee could spread so far? And she had really sugared it up, so I was finding (and cleaning up) stickiness for the entire rest of the evening.

The second worst mess was the night I spilled hand soap while putting away the cleaning cart. I had been wheeling the cart back into the way-back storage area of the store, and got the supply rack on the cart hung up on the double-doors from the main store floor into the back area. The hand-soap refill jug obligingly toppled over and began to glug slimy soap all over the floor. The cleanup of that mess was like something out of Greek mythology. Cutting off heads of Medusa’s hair, of the hydra, rolling a stone up a mountain endlessly….something like that. Wiping up a substance that multiplies in foamy volume as you scrub at it could well be a modern day (puny) allegory for futility.

Today wasn’t a day of such epic messes as it was a day of continual messiness. Customers brought overflowing soup cups to be weighed. One customer brought the salad dressing for her salad in cups without lids which promptly spilled on the conveyor belt. Italian & raspberry vinaigrettes are a pretty close rival to over-sweetened latté for pervasive messiness. Another guy was eating gelato which had been over-filled and it turns out he’d dribbled a fair amount on to the floor, which subsequent customers walked through and tracked all over creation before I was notified of the mess and had a chance to clean it up. An enthusiastically drooly and snot-nosed toddler insisted on “helping” his mother with the keypad for the credit/debit-card reader, and I felt duty bound to sanitize it after they left.

Ick.

After my shift, I went in the women’s restroom and scrubbed myself from fingertips to shoulders, washed my face, and re-combed my hair. I’m going to loofah the hell out of myself tonight. I just spent so much of the day feeling slightly sticky that nothing short of an exceedingly thorough bath is going to make it right.

Posted in Work/career (vague as to avoid doocing) | No Comments »

One Year Ago

Sep 24th, 2009 by

I’m a total bum, and didn’t say a peep about Joel’s and my anniversary, but this past Sunday, it was a year since we did our “I do-ing.”
IMG_3997
We went out to dinner on Friday and took Joel’s mom out and had a joint celebration, since her birthday was on Saturday.

IMG_4067
One year ago yesterday, Joel and I rode out to Santa Cruz from my aunt and uncle’s house in Ben Lomond, CA, and stuck our feet (and my head) in the waters of the Pacific. We took off on our coast-to-coast adventure the next day. From my short-lived paper journal of the trip:

Yesterday (9-24-08) we rode from Ben Lomond to about 10 miles beyond Hollister (just short of  Los Banos, I think). The countryside was mostly agricultural CA, so not very scenic. We passed by the turn-off for a town called Aromas, which amused me at least.

We found a great camping spot last night behind an abandoned house. Actually we had found an even better one earlier in the evening, but it turned out to be part of some sort of ritzy exurban development and we were gently nudged along by one of the residents.

Now the sun is up and we will be eating breakfast, breaking camp, and getting back on the road soon. I’ll take pics of the site before we go.

Okay, so this morning we were nowhere near Los Banos (no ñ).  We were about 30 miles from there.  We went on to Casa De Fruita, which is this big produce outlet/farm/event facility which is wher eGene, the man from the night before, had suggested we go.

We got coffee there and were considering our route for the day when Gene ambled up with a gift card to the fruit stand and apologies for the previous night’s gentle chivvying. Apparently his wife chastised him for not suggesting that we camp at the playground like we’d been preparing to! So, we got some grapes, nectarines, dried fruit mix, conr-nuts, and a seasoning mix for our future cooking, all courtesy of Gene.

We rode away from Casa de Fruita out toward San Luis Reservoir (which had been our original destination for the night before but was scrapped due to impending sundown).
IMG_4106
As we came upon the reservoir, the scenery, especially the contrast of the colors of trees, grass, water, sky, and sand was so striking I had to stop and snap a few pictures. The Louis Armstrong song, “What A Wonderful World” popped into my mind:

Over all, getting to Los Banos involved a LOT of climbing…about 1000 feet over a stretch of about three or four miles. Yikes! That actually kind of sucked, but at leas tthe shoulder was wide and the winds were gentle. We stopped in Los Banos to eat our lunch and have a wee siesta.

I guess I got a little carried away with my nap as it ended up being about 45 minutes – but it felt so good! The ride from Los Banos to Merced totally blew. Once we got off HWY 152 and on to 59, there was no shoulder and a lot of traffic, most of it semis and large farm trucks. Luckily there was a dirt frontage road that largely paralleled 59 and we mostly rode on that. The going was a little rough and harder, but at least we were dicing with semis. We ended up stopping at a little motel in Merced for the night as this area seems pretty inhospitable to stealth camping. So we had showers and washed clothes and anticipate a full and peaceful night of sleep.

Posted in 2008 Coast-to-Coast Adventure, Adventures, Family | 2 Comments »

Kingsblood Royal

Sep 23rd, 2009 by

If you want my opinion (and if you don’t why are you reading my blog?!) I think that Sinclair Lewis is probably the most insightful author ever to come out of the USA.

Probably four years ago or so, I read my first Lewis book, “Babbitt” on the strength of the prudish, boorish, racist Upson family in Auntie Mame having been described as “Babbitty.” I figured by this brief reference, that this would be an interesting dissection of the ultra-conventional upper-middle-class WASP type…which it was. But it was also a surprisingly prescient look at urban/suburban development. Lewis fairly accurately predicted the spread, sprawl, and subsequent degradation that would come of streetcar suburbs and automobile dependence. As did one of my other favorite Dead White Guys, Booth Tarkington in The Magnificent Ambersons. In fact, BT placed a magnificent and amazingly premonitory anti-car rant in that book that I will sometime later post in its entirety for some analysis/discussion.

Anyway, back to Sinclair Lewis. Shortly after I read Babbit I motored through Main Street, recognizing much of the society airs that are still trotted out in provincial communities in the midwest.

I wish I’d been aware of Tarkington at the time I read Dodsworth, as I think the contrast of a story written from the industrialist’s point of view would have been fascinating read in conjunction with Ambersons, where an automobile maker is cast as a mild antagonist.

Of Lewis’s other books, I’d only read “Cass Timberlane,” which is a study of the delicate and easily upset balance of class and how it affects men’s and women’s relationships with one another. In this story, a well-respected judge marries a younger, frivolous but very beautiful working-class girl who finds adaptation into the Judge’s stuffy social set a difficult (and nearly disastrous) transition.

Anyway, I went into Kingsblood Royal knowing nothing about the story. From the title, it sounded like it might be another story criticizing exploitative real-estate development, for “Kingsblood Royal” sounds like the sort of pretentious name that real-estate developers like to give to subdivisions. Imagine my surprise (and gratification) to learn that it’s a nuanced, and introspective tale about race perceptions and relations in mid-century America.

Neil Kingsblood is a WWII vet, sent home from the front with a debilitating injury to one of his legs. As he settles back into civilian life as a low-ranking banking official, he is persuaded by his father to undertake an amateur genealogy project to determine whether or not their family can trace their roots back to some putative shirttail relation of Henry VIII. What he discovers is that he is, in fact, descended from a renowned trapper and wilderness guide of Martinique birth and African descent.

Previous to this discovery he’d always considered Black people with impatience and contempt and unselfconsciously participated in the casual racist speech that was common in his time. As he accepts the reality that in some parts of the country, he, pale-skinned, and red-headed, WASP-looking though he was, would be considered “colored,” he starts to realize that the stereotypes might not be altogether true. He begins to reach out to the black community in his town to learn more about his newfound racial status. He goes to a black church and re-unites with a black classmate whose intellectual family give him a pretty straight-shooting introduction to the prospects and experiences of African Americans in their time.

I’ve only gotten about halfway through the book so far, so I can’t say whether or not Neil Kingsblood manages to help Ash Davis fund de-mob services for returning black veterans, or how Neil’s family and friends will take the revelation of his racial heritage, but if the so-far frank tenor of the book carries through, it should be one hell of a ride.

I know I’ve written before about how I’m dumbfounded by some of the books that become canon and some of the ones that are left to molder in obscurity, and I’m feeling another such rant coming on. This is a book that ought to be included in the canon of books dealing with race relations in this country. Sure, a lot of the language is very coarse – slurs that were in common parlance at the time are used freely…by people of whom one is supposed to get a bad impression. I know schools are (rightly) squeamish about “The ‘N’ Word” and others, but I think that especially at the college level, students ought to be able to distance themselves from the text and take it in context of its time. Especially when, in a case like this, the author is directly criticizing free and malicious use of slurs and insulting language.

Posted in books | No Comments »

It doesn’t taste vegan!

Sep 21st, 2009 by

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but I’ve eaten foods that were specifically touted as being “vegan” that basically taste like you hate yourself for eating it.

I’m thinking specifically of this particular vegan soup at a local restaurant that has a bizarre and inappropriate, slightly sweet grain/nut flavor, as though the broth was made from steeped Grape Nuts. It has those wonderful tofu-curd knots, cellophane noodles, and plenty of veggies – all good ingredients, but that godfuckingawful broth basically wastes all the other good stuff that went into the making of that soup.

Now I occasionally cook vegan meals, not specifically because I’m a vegan (because I’m not) but because sometimes it just works out that something I made is not only meatless, it’s sans animal products of any sort.

Tonight’s dinner is one of those affairs, and I’m going to let you in on a secret for a good vegan broth: mushroom stock granules. I get this stuff at a nearby Asian grocery and it is so much the bomb. It’s basically shiitake mushroom concentrate and salt, and if you like shiitake mushrooms, then you’ll way dig this broth.

I’m simmering some Central Soy hickory-smoked tofu (that I browned in chili oil) in a broth made from the mushroom granules, a squirt of Siracha hot sauce, a dash of garlic powder, and about 1/4c dried shiitake mushrooms.

I’ll cook some broad rice noodles and then arrange thinly sliced cabbage (like you’d do for cole-slaw) and half of a bell pepper (diced) on the noodles and then ladle the broth/mushrooms/tofu over the top.

This turns out to be a vegan dinner that doesn’t taste like punishment and self-loathing.

Posted in Food & Snacks | 1 Comment »

Time for a new category!

Sep 21st, 2009 by

It’s been a while since I added a category to this site, but the time is ripe for a new one. Introducing “Take A Look At This!”

When I find cool shit on the Internet, I’m going to post it here under that category (and possibly on Facebook).

So, the inaugural link is, “Translation Party,” an automated website that translates an English phrase into Japanese, then back to English, then to Japanese, and so forth until it has been rendered into complete and utter gibberish. It’s pretty awesome.

Big-ups to Steve Cooper for highlighting this on his site, thus tipping me off to the grab-bag of linguistic insanity.

Edited to add:

Start with an English phrase:
let’s go!
If you want to be my lover, you have got to get with my friends.
into Japanese
もしあなたが私の恋人にしたい場合は、私の友達とならなければいけない。
back into English
If you want to go if you are my lover, my friend and I have to serve.
back into Japanese
場合、もしあなたが私の恋人、私の友人であり、私は提供する必要がありますに行きたい。
back into English
If, you’re my lover, my friend and I want to go must be provided.
back into Japanese
もし、あなたが私の恋人、私の友人だと私は行くことを提供する必要がありますします。
back into English
If you love me, but I need my friend is going to provide.
back into Japanese
もしあなたが私の愛が、私の友人が提供する予定です。
back into English
If you love me, my friend will be provided.
back into Japanese
もしあなたが私の愛、私の友人が提供されます。
back into English
If you love me, my friend will be provided.
Equilibrium found!
Okay, I get it, you like Translation Party.

Posted in Take A Look At This | No Comments »

Chuckleheads

Sep 20th, 2009 by

chuckleheads

This picture of Ruby and Bagheera continues to amuse me.

B-dawg has gotten so HUGE.  He’s got to be around 110lb at this point and his back is level with my hip.

He’s still got that silly, merry puppy personality.  Ruby’s always beside herself with doggish glee when I borrow Bagheera for a playdate.

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8-31-09

Hi! We're Filthy!
3-29-09

Posted in Photo entries, Ruby the Dog, Super-Short Entries | No Comments »

It’s people like you wot cause unrest!

Sep 20th, 2009 by

Urgh, what a nuisance!

I wasted the entirety of Friday waiting around at my old house for the gas company to send somebody by to shut off service.  Nobody ever came.

This makes the second time this has happened.

Believe me, the gas company will be hearing from me again on Monday, and while I have no intention of tearing a strip off the poor call-center schmuck that I initially contact, some deserving member of management will be hearing in full about why I consider this state of affairs to be entirely unacceptable.

Not only did they utterly fail to send somebody out to shut off the gas, they failed to call me and let me know that nobody was going to come and shut off the gas.  They did not, however, fail to continue to bill me for their services.  Dickheads!

Moreover, I called the gas company around 1:30 to make sure that I was  scheduled, and they confirmed that I was, and that I was to receive a call half an hour before the service person showed up.

By the time 5:00 p.m. rolled around and nobody showed up, I gave it up as a bad job and went home.  My ENTIRE day, from 7:30 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. was completely wasted.  I wasn’t able to do the laundry, go to the bank, go to the store, work on my new coat, walk the dog, bake some bagels…NOTHING.

I sat around in an empty house with a library book, an insufficient lunch, and a too-small thermos of coffee for almost ten hours not just once, but twice, to no good end.

DAMMIT!

I hate when my time is wasted like this.  Not just my time, but my money, since they will continue to charge me for service until they deign to send a service person out there to shut it off.  What a scam, eh?

You know, most of the time I’m not a peevish person, but when others gratuitously and flagrantly waste my time, I’m apt to get my peeve on.

And speaking of having somebody waste my time, I’m now going to tell you about the kind of cyclist who gives all the rest of us a bad name.

heh.

To preface this, I’ve got to explain that I hardly ever drive.  I mostly don’t have to, since I’ve deliberately organized my life so that I don’t have to.  Not because I think driving or drivers or evil, not because I think it’s nobler to bike, not even strictly on account of environmental concerns, but mainly because I don’t really enjoy driving and I do enjoy riding bikes.

I found myself needing to drive this past Wednesday, however, because Joel’s mom needed a lift to run some errands after she’d broken a toe and couldn’t get around too well.  Since I didn’t have to work until late afternoon, I fired up the truck and we went out and took care of business.  As we were heading back to her place, a chrome-bag-toting, fixie-ridin’ hipster flipped a U-turn in the street ahead of us, thus pointing himself in the same direction we were heading.  He was riding pretty high on the lane…basically, one skinny kid on a bike was managing to take up the whole (one-way-with-on-street-parking) street.

“No biggie,” I think, “I guess he’s a little overzealous about that whole “taking the lane” thing.  Whatever.”

Then, however, he slows to a crawl.  And slows to a stop.  Settling into a trackstand, his forward momentum definitely ceased.

Okay, whatever.  Maybe he’s going to turn around again.

I wait to see if he signals a turn or looks around to make a move.

.

.

.

.

He lifts one hand off the handlebars.

.

.

.

.

He lifts the other off the bars.

.

.

.

He lurches violently, and returns both hands to the bar and resumes his trackstand.

By this point, there are three more cars stopped behind Nancy and me, and I’m completely gobsmacked by this dude’s audacity.

I always drive with the windows down (I feel all claustrophobic if I don’t) so I leaned out the window and hollered, “DUDE!?!?!  What gives????“  I only censored myself so much on account of not wanting to yell “WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?” in front of my mother-in-law, though I know she’s heard it all before and then some.

Hipster-dipster finally looks behind himself, lurches again, and resumes his trackstand.

“This is one dumbasssed motherfucker,” is what I was thinking.

I cramped the steering wheel to the left and edged my way around this exceedingly stupid person, and went on my way.

I commented to Nancy that I’d be pretty damn ashamed if I was that kid’s parent, to know that my son was so arrogant and stupid as to think it’s a pretty good idea to stop stock still in the middle of a public street and start practicing his bike stunts.

It’s people like that midtown dweeb who make non-cyclists think that everyone on a bike is an idiot and an inconvenience.  I gave that kid a lot more leeway and patience than most non-cyclists would.

You just have to wonder sometimes what the hell is wrong with people.

Posted in grumbles gripes and pointless bitching, Oh, for fuck's sake | No Comments »

List of motifs of which I will probably never tire

Sep 17th, 2009 by

Sometimes I am compelled to treat this site like The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon and this is definitely one of those times.

During a slow period at work today, I was daydreaming about the various motifs that never fail to catch my eye. Included are:

This includes the real thing, as well as printed, painted, or, cartoony images, photos, etc. If I see any of the above, I’ll definitely look twice, and possibly remark about how much I enjoyed seeing it.

Posted in Lists | No Comments »

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