Whomp Power

Song about Bush sung to the tune of the Beatles "I Am The Walrus": http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com (just wait, it will start playing automagically -- or go directly to http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/decider.mp3)

Next, a news story in song, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! Many different styles of music, such as "Tom Cruise Says He Won't Eat the Placenta of His Child" in old-time style or "Scott McClellan Stepping Down" that sounds like a song you would hear at an Irish bar. http://auraltimes.com/

Enjoy!

Just a PSA to say our awesome alarm clock is on sale this week at Target. We had been using the same alarm clock that for probably 10 years, before it started randomly deciding not to actually wake us up. I think we bought and returned two alarm clocks before settling on a mediocre one that crapped out after a year. A few months ago Derek came home with this beauty. It has a battery back up, and color changing LCD that will swirl through reds, greens, blues and purples. OR, you can set it to a certain color, and you can press a button to have it dim, medium, or bright. No more annoying bright clock numbers in the middle of the night!!! Derek jokingly said we should go buy two more of these and store them in case ours breaks...

In an amazing stroke of luck, The Tiger started. Derek drove her into the barn, and has been tinkering ever since. He is currently taking it out for a test drive, so I have the phone next to me so I can rescue him if he breaks down. O loves the bus, so he spent some time climbing in and around it, driving us to school, the store, and the park. Derek christened the barn with a Padron 5000 cigar and a bottle of Deschutes Cinder Cone Red (oh bottles of Inversion IPA, where art thou?). I fiddled with the right image in Photoshop...

We've been doing our part to complete the barn. We moved the fence so the animals can get into their stall. We put a boatload of straw down on the floor for maximum comfort, and installed two hay feeders. Finally, we moved their water container next to the barn, and closed the gate to the old barn. No more chance of being crushed by a deteriorating building! The goat (Chase) was veeeeeery helpful while we worked. He even tried to grab the drill and take it outside. With hay as bait, we lured Hector into the barn, but Noel was having none of it. She has always been very wary. We laid down some road fabric to extend the driveway by the barn, and had 12 tons of rock delivered. Now the joyous task of spreading it around. If anyone feels like a strenuous upper body and stomach workout, please stop by. Bring a shovel.



On left: Hector & Chase pigging out. On right: Noel staying just out of reach.



On left: Hector enjoying his hay. On right: King of the Hill



On left: "I can go in, and out, and in, and out..." On right: rocks, rocks, rocks

I was perusing this week's new music releases, and saw there is an album of covers by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (who I share a birthday with, btw). I saw that they covered one of my favorite songs, Alone Again Or. I first heard The Damned sing it ages ago on KROQ. I never knew it was a cover until I heard Calexico do it too. Apparently UFO covered it too, although I like that version less than the others. I finally figured out that it is a cover of a tune by '60's rockers Love.

Check out this cool site - if you are ever in a "who sang this song?" bind, you can check out who wrote it and who covered it. It isn't perfect - I looked up I've Gotta Get a Message to You by the Bee Gees, and it didn't show that it was covered by Moxy Fruvous on their album Live Noise. They do have a forum for corrections, suggestions, and the like.

Anyway, the Hoffs/Sweet cover is ok (listen to it here), the guitar work is much better than the vocals. I wonder if I would get sick of the song if I made a cd of all the versions of it... and now I can segue into another hair comment... yesterday I was pleased to look like this man. Everybody now... "you can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind..."

This is our favorite (local) beer festival. We first started attending 10 years ago, and have only missed it a couple times (mostly due to their adults only policy). Derek thought maybe we didn't go when I had cancer, but we have proof I was there:



We got there at 12:30 (doors opened at noon), but there was already a line. I guess people wanted to take advantage of the free admission from noon to 2:00 pm! I mean geez, that is like getting 5 free tastes! We got ourselves a set of glasses and 10 tokens apiece and got to work. Like good beer nerds, we had made a list of beers we had to try. We started with Deschutes Brewery Inversion IPA - a most delicious start to our day. According to a recent review of this beer, the brewer added hops in increments, not wanting to overdo it. It was never hoppy enough for the hopheads tasting it, so he decided to go over the top on the hops, and back down until it was drinkable. When the hopheads tasted this uber-hopped version they loved it, so it stayed. Praise Fuggles!

We moved on from there, and with our homework done there was really only one bad one in the bunch (see if you can guess which one it was):

Walking Man Big Phat Homo (twice!)
Widmer Broken Halo IPA - (tasted like ass!)
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA - yum!
Alesmith Brewing Grand Cru - (a perfect Belgian style, why do we always try a Belgian when we know we don't like them?)
Avery Brewing IPA - suprisingly good
Jack Russell Brewery London Porter & Blueberry Ale - fantastic porter, not bad fruit beer
Karlsson Brewing Rye - good, and they are only 20 minutes away!
Laurelwood Bunny Hop - Laurelwood never goes wrong

We sat outside and smoked a cigar with a full glass of the Inversion IPA. Then we stuck around to hear a set by Sneakin' Out. Where else can you hear an instrumental cover of Another Brick in the Wall and Walk Like an Egyptian played on mandolin, acoustic bass and a mass of percussion instruments?

All in all, 4.5 hours of good fun!

I know most of you (ok, all of you) don't really care about my hair. But stick with me here. I know in the past I mentioned it looked like Leif Garrett. Thankfully my hair has grown longer, but it is still an unruly mess. If I am lucky, it curls just right, lays down nicely, and doesn't look like a mullet when I tuck it behind my ear. Usually I look like Randy from That 70's Show, or if my hair is feeling really retro, Farrah, and not in a good way.

The coup de grace happened two days ago, when I was pulling my hair back with a headband. Owen asked "are you doing that so your hair doesn't look like a wookie?"

Here is a cool program to help kids get healthy lunches in school from the San Luis Coastal USD in California. Some of their goals include using local produce, offering salad bars, eliminating candy and unhealthy junk as rewards... you know, basic no-brainer ideas! I really like this goal: "Serve meals after recess, in a pleasant environment with sufficient time, nurturing good manners and respect for fellow students." Wow, how excellent is that? Plus they hope to add gardens to the schools, and curriculum on nutritious food and sustainablility to every area of teaching, as well as every grade. I think it is great - I'm guessing as a vegetarian Owen will be taking his lunch 99% of the time. Thank gods for vegan lunchbox!

Then there are those creating Breastfeeding Cafe's in communities... basically pinpointing and supporting businesses that welcome breastfeeders, and don't ask them to leave, cover up, or "do that in the bathroom". Click around for lots of really great info. Boobs. They're whats for dinner.

I never used to mind using voice activated menus when I call someplace. But now that I have a kid, I find them nearly impossible to use. He wants to know why I am saying strange, random things on the phone, and I don't want to answer him for fear of selecting the wrong thing. Then he gets agitated, and it just escalates into chaos. The Virgin Mobile phone voice mail is the worse, it's like "yo yo! This is Teresa! Where do you wanna jam to the X-factor shizzle phone da bomb wack yo!" Sometimes the words are just hard to say. I called Sears today, and they want you to say the department name you want. I said "tools". Try saying that, all by itself. Tools. It's kinda hard, isn't it? The system didn't understand me, so I had to repeat it. Then it said "did you mean hand tools?". I had to try not to giggle.

We have a resident Chickaree (aka Douglas Squirrel) that is just hilarious. He (or she? I suppose there could even be more than one, although I only see one at a time) is all over the place, climbing up the deck, hoarding seeds next to the bigger squirrels, or scolding us from his tree. It is the noisiest thing! Anyway, today it was raining, and I saw it scramble down its tree and then dash across a patch of grass to the swimming pool. It proceeded to crawl under the pool cover (which extends about 2 feet around the edge of the pool) and walk under the cover to the other side of the pool. I guess it didn't want to get wet!