another meme that is probably only really interesting to yourself…
Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.
How many songs total: 20337
How many hours or days of music: 7.3 days
Most recently played: (none— just upgraded to itunes 7, plus we play stuff off the roku so it doesn’t show up here)
Most played: outkast - “hey ya”, 98
Most recently added: carla bruni, “la dérniere minute”
Sort by song title:
First Song: mísia - “à beira da minha rua”
Last Song: stereo total - “@#$%#@”
Sort by time:
Shortest Song: michelle shocked - “go in peace” (0:02)
Longest Song: brad robinson - “dyslexsic & brad robinson 2-5-06” (2:26:57)
Sort by album:
First album: nick cave & the bad seeds - “abattoir blues”
Last album: kraftwerk - “1974-2004”
First song that comes up on Shuffle: johnny cash - “i still miss someone”
Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 45
Life - 121
Love - 557
Hate - 28
You - 1060
Sex - 38
nice little quip about delegate allocation mirroring party philosophies in the nytimes:
“Democrats, being the nice liberals they are, grade on a curve,” he said. “They give you delegates for coming in second.”
“Republicans,” he continued, “being mean social Darwinists, we tend to punish the second-place guy with a lot of winner-take-all primaries.”
the nba all-star game, which usually barely is even a game, was pretty good and competitive down the the wire last night. however, of possibly more interest was steve nash’s introduction of his new shoe, the trash talk, which is the first performance basketball shoe made from recycled components:
BEAVERTON, Ore. (13 February, 2008) — Steve Nash is the All-Star guard for the Phoenix Suns whose passion for environmental awareness forged a partnership with Nike (NYSE:NKE)to create the Nike Trash Talk, the first performance basketball shoe made from manufacturing waste.
…
Nike footwear designer, Kasey Jarvis said: ” We were really looking for a ‘here and now’ solution to footwear waste, and creating a performance product using waste materials felt like a very innovative solution. Using Nike’s Considered design ethos we were able to create a shoe that stands up to the stringent on-court performance requirements but is also more environmentally friendly.”
The Nike Trash Talk meets Nike’s Considered design standards because…
* The upper is pieced together from leather and synthetic leather waste from the factory floor using zig-zag stitching.
* The mid-sole uses scrap-ground foam from factory production
* The outsole uses environmentally-preferred rubber that reduces toxics and incorporates Nike Grind* material from footwear outsole manufacturing waste.
* The Phoenix Suns’ colorways will have shoe laces and sockliners which use environmentally-preferred materials and will be packaged in a fully recycled cardboard shoe box.
so i probably shouldn’t be telling this story until a couple of months from now, so get your decoder glasses out if you want to read it…
so i’m watching cheryl’s car while she’s out in nepal or tibet or wherever she is right now, and it’s been parked out in front of my house for the past few months. one of the advantages of being in a highly suburban neighborhood where NOTHING EVER HAPPENS is that you can park cars for weeks on end and no one complains. except for the neighbor who DID COMPLAIN TO THE COPS and reported it abandoned without asking me, “hey, is that your car parked in front of YOUR HOUSE?”. but anyway, i moved it to the other side of the house so they wouldn’t have to look at it or smell it or whatever else about it was up their bum.
then came wednesday. i leave for work at something like 7:30am, and when i get back home, as i’m helping hmc put stella to bed, i remember that mika is totally out of food and try to run out to the pet store before it closes. as i rush out of the door, i look out on the street and WHERE THE HELL IS CHERYL’S CAR? uh, FUCK. when i get back from the store, i tell hmc, “cheryl’s car is gone!” and she said that she had the same reaction when she got home that afternoon and thought i must have moved it again to appease the neighbors, and so i must be kidding, haha. except that i HADN’T and i WASN’T.
maybe someone got over aggressive and had it reported and towed. i call up the oakland department of records, and see if they have towed it, but they hadn’t. FUCK. all i can think about is 1. did someone really steal a car from OUR neighborhood? really? and 2. how do i tell cheryl that her car got stolen AGAIN? (this very car got stolen from her old house last year, and was gone for like six weeks before they found it in san leandro in a parking lot). i try and report it missing, only they tell me i can’t because I DON’T OWN THE CAR. since i don’t have power of attorney for cheryl, i need to get a faxed and notarized statement from her giving me authority to act on her behalf for the car. WTF? how the hell am i supposed to do that? do they even have notaries in nepal?
i tear my hair out for two days, and make periodic calls to the department of records to see if the car actually does show up as being towed, but it doesn’t.
finally i call back yesterday and try to report it missing again. it takes a lot of doing and wheedling, but i convince them to send an officer out in person, and then maybe i can get him to take the report. SIX HOURS LATER an officer shows up, and we convince him to let us make the report.
whew. at least there’s something official, in case something turns up.
then this morning, the miracle occurs.
i get a call from the contra costa sheriff’s department: cheryl’s car has been FOUND in el sobrante!!! OMG! i get cc to drive me up there, and we’re greeted by the cutest most adorable deputy sheriff ever. if all the deputies look like former cheerleaders, i know where i’m pulling my first heist. she says that she gets stolen cars abandoned over there all the time, and she actually found it on friday, only nothing came up because i hadn’t successfully made a report yet. she thinks that may be a few people who must go over to oakland and party or whatever and steal cars to get back home. which makes sense except wouldn’t you start off in a place where people actually have parties and not my neighborhood where NOTHING EVER HAPPENS? in any case, her car is there, it totally works, and it’s not much worse for wear. the stereo was still missing from the last time it was stolen, and maybe they might have stole the speakers this time, but it’s otherwise unharmed.
i drive it home and now it’s sitting in my driveway. tomorrow i go buy a club for it, since cheryl neglected to use/give me the keys to the one i GAVE HER ALREADY.
and everyone lived happily ever after.
yesterday i took the prius in to get the oil changed, prompted quite persistently by the yellow “MAINT REQD” light on the dashboard, reminding me that, oh! i’ve driven 6k miles already since getting it four months ago! this is what happens when you commute to the south bay.
while i could have gone to hmc’s mechanic in el cerrito or my fave mechanic koji at joy auto, i decided to give luscious garage a try. it’s a hybrid specialty garage, woman-owned, and green-focused.
meanwhile, now i’ve got crazy thoughts of a TRD sportivo suspension! hmmmmmmm.
classic movies overdubbed by the cast of spongebob! oh patrick, you are a true thespian.
hmc totally called it! snapper now has teeny little two front teeth. which are very sharp and bitey. i don’t know who she takes after. no, i don’t know what you’re talking about.
from the jan 28th issue of the new yorker:
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: +3
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 6+6541020000.
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: .
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 06
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 60
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 6910.206 3+
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: .0+361102….
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 0130
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 60
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: 0+ 20
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: +
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones: mn3
[February 12 18:31] snapperjones:
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: 20000+1.+0.0.6
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: 0
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: 5826+
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: ++
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones:
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: .0+6
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: 0+23
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: +100
[February 12 18:32] snapperjones: /+2
[February 12 18:33] snapperjones: 0
[February 12 18:33] snapperjones: ++++
[February 12 18:33] snapperjones: 80.010
[February 12 18:33] snapperjones: 0/7664+00+
[February 12 18:33] snapperjones: 00
either she’s going to be a math or cryptology genius. unless she ends up like that guy in pi.
xz reminds me that i dropped all this stuff about my dad and never closed the loop. just in case you were waiting with baited but polite breath, everything’s ok. as far as they can tell, there isn’t a tumor, and the blood clot is shrinking on its own. my dad’s been home and fine for a while now, and there are no physical side effects. he’s still recovering mentally, but he’s much much better and everything looks good. there are no doctor’s appointments scheduled except one to check up on the size of the clot in four months.
thanks for the good thoughts!
the primary’s today. while i’m now registered as a permanent absentee voter so i won’t have to rush home to vote, i haven’t mailed in my ballot because honestly, i can’t decide.
someone asked me who i’m supporting in the election, and i responded, “the one without an elephant on their lapel”.
seriously, i’ve been spending most of the time during this campaign trying to figure out which the rest of america is least likely to vote for: a black man or a woman? because while i’m delighted with both options, i sure as hell don’t want to lose AGAIN for another four years of republican misery. as much as i would love/be astounded by a woman president or a president of color, i can’t help thinking of how many people just wouldn’t vote for a woman or a person of color. which is worse? which is more “no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks”?
yet talking with roo yesterday, she makes a good point: do we let whom we root for be decided by white men in the south? shouldn’t we vote for whom we believe and inspires us, and not let those decisions be made by what we fear (or they fear)? in some ways if the republican candidate ends up being mccain perhaps the choice is easier; somehow i’m more ok with mccain than anyone else. but what if it’s romney— are we back to the same question of “who’s the best choice to beat them” instead of “who do we love”? (hmc notes that additionally, it’s not just any woman. it’s hillary. hillary whom many republicans just HATE with a venom. although again, there’s a question of whether they hate hillary or they would just hate any woman who was strong willed and potentially in power.)
it would be nice to be idealistic. hillary is certainly capable and has the experience of taking us where she feels we need to go. barack has the capability to inspire us and perhaps reach across lines to unite us as a nation. but are we dupes who keep believing in ideas while republican tactics repeatedly swift boat our dreams?
somehow i keep thinking back to the 2003 california gubernatorial free-for-all, when i voted for whom i was “supposed to”. and we ended up with arnold anyway. as it turns out, i should have just voted for the porn star.
the question is, who’s our porn star?
when we were getting ready for snapper to be born and i was reading up in all the books, i was totally down and ready for attachment parenting. the dr. sears book was all over it, espousing it as the best way to raise your baby: keep them close to you, wear them all the time, let them sleep on/next/with you, and they’ll grow up loved and confident and self-assured. “sounds great, sign me up,” i said.
and then baby happens. between not sleeping for a couple of months straight and being overwhelmed at the maelstrom of conflicting advice out there, we were more than happy to try the suggestions of both our sleep training-espousing pediatrician and that sleeping through the night book. end result: snapper falling asleep on her own in her crib by three months. more or less sleeping through the night at four months.
great!
yet hmc points out to me that what we’ve actually done is to do the opposite of attachment parenting. instead of sleeping with our baby and keeping her near at all times, we’ve instead trained her to soothe herself to sleep on her own in her own room. i think this is called “abandonment parenting” by the attachment folks. between getting my nights back and for the sake of hmc’s sleep, i’m actually fine with the result, but i’m just surprised that i didn’t actually notice that we ended up this way. especially since i was so gung-ho about attachment parenting in the first place.
on the other hand, i talk to mamaluna and hear stories about how they’re still holding and rocking maya to sleep at seven months. which is fine for them, but NO THANK YOU.
now the only challenge is to keep mika out of snapper’s crib. at least ONE of us is still dedicated to attachment parenting. or attachment snuggling.
dear snapper,
happy 5th month birthday!
while we were concerned that maybe you weren’t growing enough this month, you certainly were learning new things.
for example, after visiting emily, simon, and little ronan, you picked up on crabscrabbling, and have started to wiggle and squiggle around. first on the playmat, then on the changing table, and now you’re trying it when we’re trying to feed you. i’m not sure this concept of “mobility” is in your best interest. or is that our best interest? granted, all you’re really doing at this point is rotating around, but that seems to please you so far. once you figure out straight lines instead of arcs, i think we’ll all be in trouble.
you also had your first trip to tahoe, which probably looked like any other place as you didn’t really go outside and play in the snow. however, you did get to hang out in the lodge for a day, where you learned that brazillian kids are very loud.
you’ve gotten great at reaching out and grabbing things, like mommy’s hair and mouth and nose while nursing. and you now have figured out how to use both hands to hold things, such as your blocks or the crinkly car. now if i can just get you to hold the bottle, daddy’s job would be even easier and he could use the remote with his right hand.
speaking of television, i’m not really quite how to rationalize banning all tv at home but taking you to the movies every monday. nevertheless, this is also the first month you were actually more interested in watching the movie instead of nursing in the theatre. sure, you’ve previously watched parts of movies like american gangster, the darjeeling limited, and i’m not there, but this is the first time you wouldn’t turn away. what was so alluring about the kite runner, anyway? was it the kite? the running? i hope it wasn’t the other stuff, and you were just excited to see more short people.
i suppose all of this is just a sign of your increasing awareness. you’re getting bigger, and more and more you’re realizing where you are and what’s going on. the fun part of this is that you’re more interactive, inquisitive, and are taking things in. the down side of this is when you wake up in your carseat and SCREAM because you think you’ve been abandonded. which almost never happens.
next up: teething!
now snapper goes to sleep around 6:30 or so, but i’m still waking snapper up around midnight every night for a “dream feeding” so she’ll then sleep until 6 or 7am. the funny thing is that she’ll drink for a minute or so and then turn her head to the left, which pops the nipple out of her mouth, and then realizing this, she’ll return.
i can’t help but think that she’s become a manual typewriter. something like:
[suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [ding!] [zzzzzzzzzzzzzzip]
[suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [suck] [ding!] [zzzzzzzzzzzzzzip]
and then i think, if i ever try to describe this to her, she’ll have NO IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. “what, dad? manual typewriter? what is that? is that something you used after you ran out of clay tablets?”
