Mac Verus PC Commercials

These are so cute!

This is my favorite!! Twice a week, hahahaha!!



Apparently there are a large number of these so it would drive me crazy to post even a bunch of them so I just found this long string of clips. So funny!!



A fan's take on the battle through mouths of babes...

Laptop

Whoo!! I got a new laptop today!! Well, I should say I got my first new laptop. I've always had hand-me-downs that just never seem to work too well and basically would get to use them for a couple of days and then poof, no usuable laptop anymore. Bah. But now... *holds laptop up into a single ray of sunlight while angels sing "aaahhhhh!!"* Uber.

Let me rattle off its specs, which I imagine most of you won't even understand and half I don't even either(well, a little), but hey... still cool:

This is an Acer brand laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5250 (1.5 Ghz, 667 Mhz FSB, 2MB L2 cache), 2GB DDR2 memory, 250GB HDD, 1024MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS Tubo Cache video card (which supposedly is good for gaming... better be), 17" WXGA+ Acer CrystalBrite LCD (screen), 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N WLAN wireless, a disk drive that can burn CD-ROM and DVD, as well as play CD-ROM, DVD and Blu-Ray (which apparently everyone thinks this is going to be the cornered market over HD-DVD), plus a built in web-cam with pretty good quality and of course, like everything installed these days, Windows Vista.

I basically walked in and said, "I need a laptop. And this is what its main functions need to provide... To process Adobe Photoshop well and to play World of Warcraft well. Oh, and to be able to do these two things at least fine at the same time." After being shown some nice computers by the nice Best Buy boy, I mentioned I needed it a little cheaper and he directed me to this one.

It was under $1000 but came to just a little over with the "idiot-proof" insurance/service warranty added on. Because, yeah, if I drop it in the bathtub...

The only problems I have with it so far is certain keys on the keyboard are too easy to hit when typing (such as the CAP lock key) and the touchpad.

Touchpads on laptops are the spawn of the devil. I'll be typing along, say in a blog post and suddenly I'm typing ten lines up, inside text I've already written; I guess because my hand brushed the touchpad and the computer registered it as me wanting to go where the cursor is currently hanging out. It is so extremely annoying, I can't even tell you. I don't like complications in my word processing. And I don't like having to hold my hands in a certain position so the side of my thumb doesn't brush the touchpad and upset it. You're too sensitive, go get some therapy, you dumb touchpad!!

I'm a mouse user. Mice are good. Touchpads are bad. So probably in settings where I'll be able to use a mouse (home, cafe, etc.), I'll use a mouse. On planes, etc, I'll suffer with the touchpad.

Another thing I don't like about my laptop is actually not about the laptop itself but what's on it. Windows Vista. I have Windows XP on my desktop. "Grew up" with DOS and Win95. Somehow thankfully managed to skip Windows 3.1, and continually upgraded, Win 97, somehow missing Windows 2000 as well. And NT. To XP. I'm fine with XP. But everything comes with Vista these days whether you like it or not. But hey, I didn't really know the difference between XP and Vista, and although I don't have anything major against Macs, I'm not buying one at this point, so I'm stuck with Vista.

And really, I don't see any major differences except looks. It's all sort of chrome-ish without being metallic. Sleek, modern looking icons and such. I'm not hugely fond with the looks but it might be partly getting used to the 17" widescreen monitor. One big difference though about Vista is the CONSTANT requests to Allow or Cancel various actions you might take throughout your usage of the program. It's very annoying.

So this perfectly (if not a little bit exaggerated) exemplifies my experience with Windows Vista thus far. It's one of those cute Mac vs PC commercials with the two guys standing side by side.



Sounds like from the commercial there is a way to turn it off. I must look look into this. It sounds like my very insanity depends upon it.

Marty/Heather Unit Attend a Baby

Today the Marty/Heather Unit went to babysit Benjamin, James' (Marty's best friend and best man at the wedding) and Robin's (James' wife unit) newborn (well, 7 months new, anyway). Marty has sat for Benjamin before but I had yet to be present for a sitting on... errr, of... the baby. I'd seen him about three hours after he was born. So cute! And I don't say that about babies, really. For the most part, I don't want to have much to do with them, but Benjamin is KEEYOOTE!! I'd seen him a couple of times after that, amazed by how exponential his growth seemed (especially as I was sick for almost two months after he was born and thus barred from his presence).

So Marty's first babysitting experience was of crying and upset but when we went over, he hardly made a peep. I was so tired from my night (at work) and the day, I slept a good deal, waking up when I heard occasional noises. Marty read and then I awoke to crochet some. Had I been alone, I would not have slept, but it was nice having back up in the form of Marty there. I imagine that if there had been some colicky upset that a tag team would be a nice approach. Oh don't want the female right now, here's a male presence and vice versa. Or "I really need a break from the crying, pass him off and back again...", probably makes a better babysitting experience than any one person alone.

So, it was a good first experience for me and I think it will be one that may become often since I'm interested in learning the violin again (well, ultimately the fiddle) and Robin just happens to be a master violinist. So a trade might be possible. Although for me to sit with Benjamin alone without Marty, I'll have to go through "Baby Boot Camp", to learn all about diapers and such. Yum.

A Post a Day...

A post a day keeps the ... what away?

Anyway, I want to do a post a day for this year. I realize this is a very challenging goal because I tend to be verbose and writing one post can take up some time. But I want to give it a shot. Plus I'm giving myself some leeway in when I actually post the entry. I'll have one per day at least but it might take a while to when I actually post it. But I'll always make sure I post in chronological order.

And since sometimes my life isn't that exciting, I might just provide you with some silliness to amuse you for the day.

Off I go!!! Enjoy the Year of the Blog!

You Can't Make Me

So I went to my Rosen body worker today. Currently, I see him twice a month. I also see my Chiropractor twice a month as well. Keeps me put together.

Rosen Method work is a type of body work (involving touch of course), that focuses on the relating to the body's allowances and resistances to engender therapeutic change. Well, actually, that's pretty broad. So, you can go here to learn more.

My Rosen worker is also a licensed psychotherapist so he is able to work with the issues that arise from the Rosen work in a psychotherapeutic way as well. Plus, he's got great hands.

Today I came in very anxious (a common state for me) and I could barely draw in a full breath. I could breathe but I couldn't get my body to draw in one of those nice, deep and full breaths after which you go "Ahh, that was nice." and my body was rigid, definitely not loose. As he began working on me, I could feel my body resisting each touch. It's rather hard to describe this without the reader having had some Rosen done on them in order to know what I'm talking about but I'll try my best. So he might press into a tense spot of muscle and he will "listen" to how my body might respond: does it tense more, does it shift and relax? and then go with that by either pressing in more or gentling his touch. It's a rather intuitive method, I gather. Sometimes images will arise in connection with this body touch. A wolf in a cave, guarding something. Usually symbollic in some way. Which then can be processed verbally, if desired. Steuart doesn't talk for generally the first half hour, just works with my body. Then the last part is still body work but with a verbal component. Often my body will react to things I'm saying by tensing or relaxing, indicating in some way areas to be worked or areas releasing.

So, my body was resisting, almost pushing back against his fingers in grumpy tension. Eventually I mentioned I was noticing this, which he acknowledged as well. A question he will often ask is, "What is the body voice that goes along with this?", meaning if this part of the body or this particular reaction of the body had a voice, what would it say? The body voice could be verbal, or could be an image, or even a feeling or sensation. Often, it is an imagine for me that I am able to describe quite clearly, along with a felt sense. Today, it was all three. I mentioned that I felt like a teenager in the corner with arms crossed, feeling grumpy and recalcitrant and saying "I don't wanna and you can't make me!!" He said, "Yes! That's the voice! I like that voice and I want to hear more from that voice!"

I talked about my sense of loss of control in my world and how I am able to control it (or believe I can control it) by shutting down and just saying "I don't wanna. And you can't make me." But really, control is an illusion. We don't have any control. But oh how we want to believe we can and try as hard as we can to create it. I am definitely one of those "we". I think surrender is the worst form of punishment to an already battered psyche. I notice how I really feel this body voice when getting into a common, "usual" argument with Marty, when I feel pushed by him in some way. And I feel pushed a lot because it's very hard for me to just take in something put out by another person. I don't trust one lick of it. I don't trust people as far as I could pick them up and toss them. Which is not at all. That comes from a long history of bullying by peers in school and such. Whole different series of entries... But if I set up that "You can't make me!", I'm safe. I'm going to be stubborn and not let you in.

Control, safety, fear... yes. So, one might think that seeing all these things might stress me out more and I was feeling a bit worried that I didn't really know what to do with this information. That is for another session... series of sessions, most likely. But at the end of this one, I was breathing fully again and my body was not as stiff as when I had first come in. So whatever came up shifted something in my body.

I love body work and I love my Rosen worker as well.

But... you still can't make me. Do Anything.

Paqrat

So, as you know, I play World of Warcraft. Not as obsessively as some people who have all the end-game epic gear and such, but a fair bit.

Today I noticed something about my play in World of Warcraft which actually came from my try at EverQuest2, another online multi-player role playing game like WoW.

A friend of mine let me use his second account to make a character and try out EQ2 since that is what he plays a lot and I on WoW. None the twain shall meet. So I made myself a cool little faerie wizard and started zipping around the world of EQ2. Very quickly I realized the immense factor of collection possibility in this game. As in running around the virtual world collecting "stuff". Stuff for main quests, stuff for side quests, and mostly stuff for crafting. Oh, so much stuff for crafting.

In WoW, you can take two major professions and all of the three secondary professions (cooking, fishing and first aid). Your two major professions can be one "creation" type (alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, engineering, jewel crafting, leather working, tailoring) and one "gathering" type (herbalism, mining, skinning), or two creation types or two gathering professions. Usually folks will choose a creation type with an appropriate gathering type, such as blacksmithing and mining or leather working and skinning. Now, in WoW, if you have mining, you can gather ore. If you have herbalism, you can pick flowers, etc. But you can't gather other types of "stuff". Unless you have herbalism and skinning, say. Then you can gather herbs and skins. But you can't gather ore. But in EQ2, you could gather EVERYTHING. Oh my gods, it seems that 80% of the game was running around picking shit up, at least for me, because I'm a hoarder.

In real life, I'm not as bad as clinically diagnosed hoarder who keeps everything. And I mean everything. I keep a lot stuff and I have a damn hard time throwing it away. Books, magazines, paper; mostly that sort of stuff. But, well, shells and keys and stuff like that too. So, I'm a pack rat. Yay.

I had to stop playing EQ2 because it felt like it could be way too obsessive for me, collecting so much junk. I mean, I do it in WoW too. But EQ2 felt above and beyond the pale. It had interesting bits of gameplay that I liked but ultimately, I like WoW better. I guess it's all in how one is "raised". Mac or Windows? That sort of thing.

But I realized today that, yes, I am a real life Pack Rat. And I'd rather not be. But, I know I have the tendency. So, since I have that leaning, and I like to play WoW, I figured maybe I could work on bringing my pack rat-ism to the digital-virtual world. Collect and save only there. It's a goal, I guess. Certainly less space to take up and more fun to organize. I can spend hours organizing files and folders. But for some reason, I hate organizing my real stuff. Harder to bend over and pick up something off the floor I guess and then to find some real, physical space for it.

So, let me describe my virtual pack rat-ism. You can have 10 characters per server. And there are tons of servers, so technically, you could have tons of characters for your account. But remember, servers can't play with each other (excepting in battlegrounds but that's a whole different story), so your 10 characters on Shadowsong are only there, your 10 characters on Hyjal are only there. If you have friends on both servers, you can't talk to the ones on the other one. So, most people choose a major server where they have their 10 major characters with smatterings on other servers.

So Hyjal is my main server and I have 10 characters there. Nine playable characters and one "bank alt". This configuration is quite popular since people don't want to use a main playing character to go back to the Auction House to sell stuff all the time, so they in-game mail it to their bank alts who are parked in a major city.

So meet Paqrat, my "bank alt" on WoW. A female gnome warrior, level one. Ain't she ugly? I was so amused by the hairdo and color, face and such when creating her, hitting random a few times, I kept it. (Click pic for a larger version.)


I collect stuff on my characters and send them to her. I have tons of crap in the bank and am always trying to upgrade my bags in order to store yet more stuff. Occasionally, I am forced to go through my bank and bags and sell stuff. Horrors.

But if I could narrow it down to the digital, I'd be doing pretty good. That's my aim for the year. Ack, another New Year's Intention/Goal!!

Knight Rider

Okay, yeah, I mentioned Knight Rider in my previous post as a show I'm interested in watching. It's starting up in February 2008.

Yes. I said it. Knight Rider. KNIGHT. RIDER.

And, yes, I used to watch the original. And YES, damnit, I had a crush on KITT. Hahaha, you thought I was going to say Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff), didn't you?!

Well, okay, maybe a little, but I think I did like KITT best.

Now I don't really like cars all that much. I think they are a nice way to get around; you don't get wet and all in the rain, it's faster than walking, it's safer than a scooter, motorcycle or bicycle, etc (I won't get into the negative bits like environmental impact and all right now). But I've never really understood the concept of the sports car or people ogling over cars in such an obsessed way. I think I "got" the point, at least about sports cars, when I started driving my ex-boyfriend's Dodge Talon. I'd been raised on hand-me downs and old Nissan pick up trucks as old as I was and was used to wrestling the steering wheel to get it to turn, etc. And I love to drive so I was doing it a lot, anywhere I wanted, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, up and down the mountain roads. I got in that car and was just floored. The slightest touch to the steering wheel and the car instantly responded. And for someone who loves to drive twisty mountain roads, it wasn't like anything I had ever experienced before. So excellent performance I can understand. But looks, for the most part, don't mean that much to me. I say for the most part because sometimes the sleek lines of a car may draw my attention. A little.

But, even I had to admit, KITT was a pretty cool car for "his" time; an extremely souped up customized version of a stock 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, in all black, complete with an AI "personality". I have to agree with the article on Wiki (link below), that KITT was probably more the star of the show than David Hasselhoff. With the bulletproof shell, speeds up to 300mph, turbo boost for jumping those pesky obstacles, self-driving, ability to print money!, and of course, add the cheeky attitude... well, you know wanted KITT for your own. And come on, that oh so cool red scanner light on the front... how could you possibly resist?

So, the TV moguls, in their infinite and sometimes, whacked, wisdom, decided we, the people, need a new version of Knight Rider. I put it on my "maybe I'll watch that" list because I had watched the original fairly consistently and sometimes remakes tend to be quite good (Battlestar Galactica, for example). But I put it on my "I will watch that" list because of one thing. I found out what car was going to play KITT. I have no idea who is playing Michael Knight, probably some hunky guy whose name I've probably never heard. KITT is going to be voiced by Will Arnett, who I recognize but can't remember what his voice sounds like. And I remember the old KITT's voice, played by William Daniels, quite clearly.

But KITT, the car, awesome-even-then KITT, is going to be "played" by a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500KR.

Now, remember, I couldn't really care less about cars or really how they look. But about a year ago, maybe more, can't remember, I really noticed a new car on the road. It was the newest model Mustang and I can't even tell you how impressed I was/am by the looks of that car. It has to be the cleverest car design I have ever seen. You see, they took the old muscle car look and made it modern and new. And wow, it really works. You can see the lines of the old in the new.

If cars can be sexy, which apparently they can because of the amount of people extolling the sexy virtues of their cars, plus those hot models draped all over the hood... but, anyway, if cars can be sexy, then this one is. I really like it in black but couldn't find a good pic in black of the regular version. Apparently, there are a ton of different "versions" of this car, but for the most part they look the same, aside from little differences like a racing stripe, etc. I'm not sure the differences of the Shelby GT500KR (KR does not stand for Knight Rider, it's something from the car industry), but all I can see are a hood intake and a stripe down the hood.



This is a photo of the GT back in 1968. See what I mean about echoes of the past living on. It's brilliant, I tell you, brilliant!!

But, welcome to the very new KITT.

Okay, that's sexy.

Check out this probably overdone and extensive Wiki entry on Knight Rider.

TV and Such

Okay, I admit it, I like TV. And movies. I like that genre of media in general.

And how I like these is often a bone of contention between my husband and I. I can like just about anything. Even if it's "bad", if there's one thing that I liked in the show/movie, I seem to be able to generalize it to the whole thing. We can come out of a (in his opinion) "bad" movie, say The Red Planet (remember that scientific silliness with Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss) and he's like, "Oh god, that was awful!!" and I'll say "I liked it!" (because it took place on Mars, that's the only reason, oh and Val Kilmer was cute). A huge argument ensues because of these quite different views.

So, there's a lot of stuff that I tend to watch that he does not join me. He also has no patience for serials either. Lost was driving him mad because he hates waiting a whole week for the next episode to come out. He'd rather just have the entire season of whatever show to consume at his leisure (usually if it's something he likes, at least two or three episodes a night). I don't mind waiting and I have so many shows that I watch, I just record them and end up watching several weeks worth at once anyway. I used to be very hooked into my shows and sometimes would get anxious about a character dying or a cliff hanger for the season end or the cancellation of a show. But now, I just sort of roll with it and hope the really good ones stay on. Which of course, doesn't often happen. Say with John From Cincinnati, because apparently America is too dumb to get it.

Anyway, here's my ever growing list of shows that I watch. I'm sure it's not complete but it's about as much as I can remember at this point.

For the sake of readability, I'm not going to be all proper English and underline or italicize these titles.

Here are some of the current TV shows that I'm watching:

24, America's Next Top Model (yes, now shut up), Battlestar Galactica, Beauty & the Geek, CSI (all three), Criminal Minds, Dexter, Dirty Sexy Money, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon (new), Heroes, House, Jericho, Kyle XY, Lost, Moonlight, Psych, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, Smallville, Star Gate: Atlantis, Supernatural

Here are some upcoming shows that I'm interested in, that are in production but haven't seen, or are starting up very soon (like next week) or in the next couple of months or so, or might even just be glimmers mentioned on vague rumor sites:

A.M.P.E.D., Californication, Caprica, Darkside, Dollhouse, Eli Stone, Fringe, Knight Rider, New Amsterdam, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, To Love and Die, Torchwood, True Blood, Warehouse 13, usually any vaguely interesting sci-fi/fantasy type show

Here are some shows I watched but have been canceled or ended:

Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Dead Zone, Deadwood, The Dresden Files, Earth2, Firefly (bring it back!!), John From Cincinnati (bring it back!!), Star Gate: SG-1, Star Trek (all versions), Surface, Threshhold, X-Files, Xena

Okay, don't laugh about my choices, damnit.

Sometimes I Think the World Is On Crack

I've had this song stuck in my head for sometime. I'd heard it a long time ago and for some reason the line "Great party! Where's Timmy? He's smoking crack with Billy!" keeps going through my head over and over. So I looked it up on youtube.com (natch, as they say) to find it because often I can get something out of my head if I hear it. And I found this..... crack-headed music video. Which I find funny but that still doesn't mean people aren't crazy.

This is from an Australian band (so blame them) in 1998 called Happyland, which apparently is made up of two people, each from different bands (Janet English of Spiderbait and Quan Yeomans of Regurgitator, neither of which I have heard of). Supposedly they chose Happyland over The Shits for their band name.
Really, I think the world is on crack sometimes when I see stuff like this.

I don't know if this is the official music video or not but for your viewing pleasure:

"Don't You Know Who I Am?" by Happyland

Storms

We don't get storms very often in San Francisco, not even really in the Bay Area. Sure, it rains and might rain pretty hard, and gets a little windy at times but rarely do we have what came through on Thursday night, Friday morning/day.

Last night I was at work and it was cloudy and rainy. A generally blah day for the residents as they were all hiding out in their rooms for most of the day. But the wind started picking up at night and you could hear it rattling the windows and at points, shaking the very foundation of the house. One resident came to me and asked if we were going to be okay, would the house blow away. I assured her we would be quite fine, that I had experienced this before, which I had. Once or twice. And we were fine, even kept our power on, except for about five or ten minutes.

The rest of the Bay Area did not fare so well. One and half million people were out of power from here to the Central Valley (which is Sacramento and the main growing valley for California, I do believe). Apparently trucks were flipped on the highway, trees were down on cars and houses. There was a huge amount of snowfall up north and west of here.

When I drove home this morning, fortunately I had the truck and not the scooter, it was still very blustery, shaking Eucalyptus House and pelting it hard with heavy rain. I am so thankful I had the truck. I recently had a scooter accident (well, maybe a month or so ago) when it was wet (hit some train tracks going about 30-35 mph, slipped and just went down). Skinned and bruised up my knees pretty badly (I have pictures somewhere of my poor knee but I ended up never doing a blog post on the accident). So I get a little nervous when riding the scooter in the rain after that. But even so, even not being nervous would have made a different here because the wind could have just blown me over.

So driving in the truck was fine, if not a little bit being blown around the road. There were tree limbs down, one on a house (not big but definitely lying on top of the roof), some had come down on a few cars parked along Golden Gate Park and there were branches, leaves and tons of pine needles all over the road, debris everywhere. It looked like the aftermath of a small hurricane. I made it home and noticed the old scooter (the trusty little red one, not the nice new spiffy blue one) was on its side, apparently have been blown over, the poor thing. So, after parking and running squealing to the house (still raining!!), I ran squealing over to the scooter to right it and zip back inside, wet despite my dashing efforts.

I turned on the heaters and huddled down, listening to the rain and wind, feeling the house shake. Our power was on and fine although many places throughout the Bay Area had to shut down for the day due to the power outages. I couldn't see my Rosen worker because his power was out and he couldn't run the heater built into the massage table and the small foot heater. And trust me, this is not a good thing and I was not fussed that he rescheduled because that office can be cold without those things, especially when your naked with only a sheet over you, and the nice warm table is... very nice, I love it. I wish my bed had that option!! And it has been so very damn cold this winter season. Not as cold as from where I used to live in western North Carolina in the mountains but some how this cold out here is much worse to me than ten below with a foot of snow. It seems to get down into the marrow of the bones. Wrong place to live I guess. Need tropical island.

So that's the storm story. We're fine, my work and personal houses are fine. Our power is on and the heaters are working. That's really all I care about, the roof could be gone but if I have my heater, I'm happy.

This Too Shall Pass

Well, if there's one thing I've learned... well, mostly learned... about various emotional states is that:

"This too shall pass."

I was in the slide this past month, more like two. Each year in November, I seem to hit a depression. The past couple of years, I had to go on meds to help with the slump, and would often stay on for a year or so until the next year's April and would go off, be okay and then, LO! November!!

This November was no different, same depression. Well, actually, it wasn't the same. Not as deep as it has been in the past. And considering the stress I've been through the past six months with work and what not, you'd think it would be the worst year yet. But maybe putting all that energy into the stress helped me skip the hard core depression this winter. Hah. New therapy strategy for therapists... stress your clients out so much they can't think of their original issue. Like pressing that accupressure point in your hand to get rid of a headache.

So this year, I didn't feel the need to go on meds but I did hit some low points where that fear always arises, "Oh gods, here it goes again. I can't get out of it." That feeling you think you're never going to get out of. You're stuck. In permanent cement. That it will never pass.

And of course, it usually does. Maybe not in a huge way and certainly not permanently. It can be as small as five minutes. It can be grand scale as well; that 'light bulb' of inspiration, insight and change.

And it did for me. After the holidays, it was like some dark cloud had lifted up and I could breathe again. Things are still dark on occasion but seem to shift faster in the past couple of days. I can even view things with some amount of humor.

But this is so hard to remember when inside a mood of whatever kind. It feels like forever, no change possible.

Change. The only permanence is impermanence. This too shall pass.

Music Is My Boyfriend

I know I've gone and waxed eloquent about music before, well, maybe not eloquently but I have before mentioned that I like music.

That I really, really like music. LOVE.

Well, in my last bit of work with my most recent talk-style therapist before ending to start focusing more on my work with my current body-style therapist (a fantastic Rosen worker who is also licensed as a MFT), I realized that music is a lot more important than I had originally thought. It is my greatest ally and THE most important thing in my life.

I like most forms/genres/kinds of music. I'm hard to put to say I "hate" some sorts of music but I definitely have my favorites, such as, well.... erm... Heh. Categories of music these days confuse me. Alternative versus house techno, versus punk, versus industrial techno... etc. So, I generally would say, "Okay, I like Peter Gabriel, Sting, etc...." but then I would have to take up an entire computer screen of names.

So, I'll just talk about music in general. So, as I said, I love music. It's groovy, you can sing to it, you can dance to it. And I can create various moods, deep and effecting, with it. I can't do that with all music. There's just some songs that you have to go "mmh" in that small noise of deeply effected satisfaction/pleasure/just "Oh my gods, that is so amazing". My husband makes this noise perfectly when he hears an excellent singer's voice or when reflecting on a favorite TV show (such as John From Cincinnati). These songs are the ones that my mood can shift almost instantly, make me melt in appreciation for the human creative spirit, for life itself.

And when you combine good music with another good thing, well, that's beyond fantastic. Like the American Beauty Soundtrack, haunting and amazing for such a haunting and amazing movie. Or like my current listening playlist, the soundtrack from the TV show John From Cincinnati, the combination of the music with the memory of the show... just has me drooling and if I could make that little noise as well as Marty, I'd be hoarse. Goosebumps are a regular experience for me, when I immerse myself in such a great combination of music and other media.

Currently I am melting over several songs from the JfC Soundtrack:

"Sun / Rise / Light / Flies" by Kasabian - A video of clips collected from the show, as this song was played during the closing of the first episode, "His Visit: Day One". (Well, it used to be until Youtube started going bonkers about removing everything in sight, now it's just the song with a static background).



"Tic" by Kava Kava - With the clip from JfC whence the song appeared, Episode One - "His Visit: Day Two", with Shawn Yost, the young surfer on the show, preparing for his first surfing competition.



"Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partiro)" sung by Sarah Brightman - Well, I found the clip from the show but the song is in the background on the radio while the character Steady Freddy sits in the car (Episode Three - "His Visit: Day Two Continued"), and if you've watched Deadwood, well, you know Dayton Callie (who played Charlie Utter), and you know the monologue he's indulging in is full of more cocksuckers than you can shake a stick at. So, I'll give you this silly video of the song.

"Series of Dreams" by Bob Dylan - Again, I found the JfC clip that this song goes with but I can't put it on here because it's basically one of the last scenes of the show and gives far too much away so I don' t want to ruin it for people who haven't seen (and should see) John From Cincinnati.

Well, music is my boyfriend and how I love my music!!

Year of the Hair

Well, here it is, a New Year. 2008!! Marty said "How the hell did we get here?" and I think I have to agree. The world has been such a crazy place the past few years. It's amazing we're here and still in, mostly, one piece. But here we are.

So, if you've been keeping up with my blog from the beginning or so, or knew me personally, face to face, exactly a year ago, you know that I shaved my head. And I looked like this:


One of the reasons I shaved it was that I wanted to know how much my hair grows in one year. So I didn't cut or dye or do anything at all to my hair for the entire year. I had Marty measure it today.

7 Inches!!

I have no idea if that's an average of what hair grows per year or if it's different for others. But, that's how much my hair grows in one year, and, you know how hard it is to take a photo of yourself when not using your camera timer or remote... So now I look like this:

Yep, that is seven inches of hair. Seems like it should be longer. And now I can finally get a haircut and trim that stuff up. And do whatever else I want to it. I'm probably not going to shave it again but I did like that velvety stage when it was growing back in the first few weeks.

Hair Gone, Hair Today!

New Year's Intention

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. I think they are a way to set ourselves up for inevitable failure. Of course, Marty will also tell you that I am a Cynic of the first degree. And he's right.

At one point, long, long ago, in a life far, far away, I made a New Year's Resolution with my cousin David Bennett. We both resolved to never again make a New Year's Resolution. I guess it's the only New Year's Resolution I've ever kept!!

But in keeping with this old Resolution, I now only make New Year's Intentions. Goals or Goal, if you will.

Usually these are broad and sweeping, and many. As in too many to possibly keep up with, even when setting intentions. Such as "Learn guitar, clean my room (house), keep up with communication, do all sorts of crafts, blah blah, on and on, etc, etc." Tons of things to do that I never seem to keep up with. I think partly because I tend to overwhelm myself with too many things to "intend" to do. Hmmm, so still a set up for failure, it seems!!

So perhaps setting just one Intention, one Goal, might be a better direction. Something I really want. Hmmmm.

So, my New Year's Intention is that I want to look HAWT by the next Burn (meaning Burning Man 2008, August 25, 2008). And by HAWT, I mean around 150 pounds, more flexible and stronger, more shapely.

Mostly, I want to feel better. My body seems to react to weight as if it were double or triple the actual weight I am. My heart arrhythmia gets very active, my joints hurt (more than usual), I'm achy and tired all the time, I can't walk up the stairs of my house without getting out of breath and setting off my heart even more. I waddle. Yes, waddle. Blearg!!! My clothes don't fit and I don't like the way that I look.

I want to be able to do physical activities again, such as rock climbing. I never even considered that I would even like rock climbing until I met my husband who loves to climb. Granted, he hasn't been for some time as well, but I think I mostly like rock climbing because of his love for it. Somehow his love seems to translate out into me on some energetic level. When I am on belay, I can in my hands and feet, his hands and feet. I can feel his fingers curling around a handhold, his toes seeking and pushing into a tiny nubbin and holding with a confidence that I don't have in my own feet when climbing. I can feel his mind ticking away, examining the route ahead, eyes roving around. I don't have anywhere near the same knowledge or experience that he has (climbing for years and me, well, probably less than six months if you squish it down). With some refresher and strengthening, he's up to a 5.11 (fairly hard climb rating) in no time and I'm still stuck at 5.4 (pretty easy). I've been up to 5.8 but only have after really working on it. And I've never been out of the climbing gym. But, there's something about climbing I find myself attracted to. Again, I think, more through the energy body of my husband than my own attraction. And I'm okay with that.

But activities that I've always been personally drawn to, such as dancing of all forms, martial arts, fencing, etc, I want to be able to do again. And just being physical over all. I used to have a Mesomorphic body type. I barely had to exercise and just stayed thin and fit. Now, I'm more of an Endomorph, gain weight far too easily and have a hard time getting it off. I blame the military personally. Boot Camp, to be precise. Eating three massively high caloric meals in 15 minutes a day. I used to eat like a bird, little bits all throughout the day, and weighed 135 at 5'9". I joined the military and 8 weeks later I weighed 160. Yes, I was doing all the physical stuff, you can't not. And no, it wasn't muscle. About 80 percent of the women gained really bad weight. We just don't lose weight the same way and that food was built for men who lose way more calories than women. Plus eating that way seemed to kill my bird-fast metabolism and I was never able to reset it.

Anyway, I am digressing quite a bit. So, to boil it down....

My primary goal: Be healthy!! I want to weigh 150 and gain back a good amount of strength, endurance and flexibility by August 25, 2008.

I would like to set some other goals to engage in but they aren't as in important to me and I don't want to put them out there to overwhelm myself. And yes, I do notice they are the same ones that I spoke of at the beginning! But!! The primary goal is priority!!!

Secondary goals:

1. Engaging in more creativity (be it crochet or jewelry or photography, just something!!).
2. Start learning, or progressing with, an instrument (be it guitar, violin/fiddle, dijeridu).
3. Keeping up with any classwork from classes that I take on and really studying.
4. Having a clean room and house with some "spring cleaning" (getting rid of stuff).
5. Maintain contact with friends and family on a more consistent basis.
6. Try and finish my MFT hours, if possible.
7. Stop chewing on the inside of my cheeks and lips when nervous.
   

Well, there it is. Primary goal takes priority!

Viva la New Year!!