12.16.2006

Best.Looking.Car.Ever.

The NYT review of this example of absolute, total perfection in automaking was the first thing I read this morning:

http://www.autointell.com/News-2006/December-2006/Dec-1/Dec-06-06-p5.htm

I would do practically ANYTHING to have a white retractable hardtop convertible of this baby. Yeah, you heard me. I'll diet just to live up to this vehicle's appearance. I must have it. I will have it.

Gaaaaaaaaaaah.

12.11.2006

infrequent visits

I'm not so good at this diary-keeping; there seems to be too much going on to do it lately.

Drum corps camp was really good this weekend. I hope they'll make a move this year; that'd really be good, plus it would mix up the top 12. The DH was extremely pleased with the number of kids returning from the summer.

I think the kid may have a chance to audition for the youth brass band at the Dozier Centre, and we're all very enthusiastic about that.

Time to get going on Christmas shopping. I like to track down gifts that are inexpensive but clever and unusual, so it's a real scavenger hunt. Boy, is online shopping better than doing the drive-and-shlep routine.

This is a dull blog :-(

12.08.2006

Hootie hooo!

Wooooo, a week of good days in a ROW. It's awesome! And my jeans are getting baggier by the day, yaaaay!

Got all the outside lights and the Christmas tree up today, the kid got a 96 on a physics project which gives him an A in that class, and his new trumpet mouthpiece came in the mail today (not much time to test drive it, but he loves it), and we went to a swell concert by the Georgia Brass Band at the new Dozier Center for the Arts tonight. All in all, just a great day all around. I'd never heard a brass band before-- very unique sound, and they played Saint-Saens' Marche Francaise which I hadn't heard since we played it for festival in symphonic band in nineteen seventy-cough-cough-cough. There were some moodier special arrangements I absolutely adored (especially the one inspired by an island off the coast of Scotland) and they finished up with one of my favorite pieces of music for this season, the oh-so-British The Holly and the Ivy. "and the running of the dee-ahh" - I can just hear it being sung. Saw our friends Scott and Jerry, who were performing. The Dozier Center is a PALACE, and the minute we win the lottery, we are SO having it duplicated in Jacksonville, Alabama! Seriously, the Dozier Center is MUCH swankier than Marietta CC, which is just across the street from it.

Okay, so here's some feelgood stuff for the weekend:

My all-time fave 60's song, "Be My Baby" by Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, lip-synched (ya can't have everything) on a 1965 B&W tape of the old National Bandstand clone, "Shivaree": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDwDdA8wVa0

Sisters Veronica (before she became Mrs. Phil Spector) and Estelle Bennett and their cousin, Nedra Talley, look so darling with that fabulous 60's big hair and sweet sheath dresses. They look cute and classy, and happy that they've got a hit.

Cool article I found on a back-dated online Salon magazine, about what makes "Be My Baby" such a pop music masterpiece:

http://archive.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/28/be_my_baby/

(I'm sorry about the lack of hotlinks... this version of the Blogger software is still in Beta, and it shows.)

I love 60's *anything*.

Have a great weekend, whoever finds this...

12.02.2006

Doing good things

What an awesome thing to do -- props to my distant cousin Ted Paris (two grandparents were siblings, however that works out) for his part in making sure almost 11 square miles of Paulding County, Georgia are preserved as green space!!! Thumbs up for Janice's boy (his mom is also 10,000 kinds of terrific):

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2006/12/01/1202metforest.html

12.01.2006

Friiiiday

Two *really* fascinating things:

1. http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/11/30/astronomy.calculator.reut/index.html

2. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72199-0.html?tw=wn_technology_3

CERN got a plum role in Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons". Say Dan, when's that next book due out, anyway?

I'd better go tackle that pile of stuff on the desk. It multiplies when no one's looking, y'know.

11.29.2006

Random A Thru E

The light outside today is very pastel and diffused-- nice!

I think we're all almost recovered from Thanksgiving week. Sheesh, what a blur. We all staggered around a little bit, and finally narrowed down the malaise to mild jet lag. The dogs are clingy and tired after a week of boarding. If possible, they're even stinkier than usual 8-O Bathing them is such an ordeal, though. It's easiest to just peel off the clothes and get in the tub with them. Think I could sell that video? Aaaahhhahahahaha! Ehhh, no.

The long-term project fell by the wayside a bit, but back to work. Exercise today and tomorrow is going to have to be in the form of generalized running around, though. I just want to feel like I did the year I turned 40! OMG, that was so great. Heh heh heh... no comment (naughty grin).

Yay for the kid's grades being so good! He's got high B's in all three academics, pushing A's!

Have spent far too much time over the last two weeks (the ones spent at home, anyway) monkeying with the kid's computer, trying to get a browser-- ANY browser-- operable. He downloaded Norton, which, according to a lot of comments I've seen on diagnostic message boards, many computer gurus opine to be garbage, and it promptly devoured something (the registry is the prime suspect) and will not connect for love or money. I've thrown in the towel, and am headed to MicroCenter this very day to replace the thing. He's got a bells-and-whistles computer at his dad's, so a garden-variety model will be fine.

Random A: My favorite blog, Paris Breakfast, has some absolutely gorgeous photos of the Russian Tea Room! Look at her 11/24 entry: http://www.parisbreakfast.com/

Random B: Last week at the Fontana bar at the Bellagio, we had a really yummy drink called a limonito, which was their tweaked version of a mojito... it was Bacardi Limon with a splash of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and cranberry juice, served in a martini glass rimmed with ultrafine sugar. Dangerously good. Mojitos are also evilly delicious, mmmmm...

Random C: Indecision over Sandra Lee on Food Network. I can't decide if she gets on my nerves, or if I would walk over hot coals to wake up in the morning looking like that. Dang. I think those are real, and she's annoyingly California thin. Real ones should be somewhat low-slung and European-looking, like Princess Diana's and Sophia Loren's. They should not be up around one's collarbone. Classic cleavage should leave room for jewelry and occasional appreciative ogles.

Random D: This is giving me the serious seafood joneses: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_pa/episode/0,1976,FOOD_10234_45161,00.html

Random E: On the flight back, I decided what SkyMall catalog is. It is the Sears Christmas toy catalog for grown-ups. I could grow to love those noise-reduction headphones. Also, XM radio is pretty swell, and the folks on AirTran flight crews are cool. Had a great, funny, blabby pilot on the flight out. A bit of learned-it-the-hard-way for any young, hetero, female readers: Type A Men are like Great Danes: a whole lot of trouble to actually live with, but real charming in small doses.

11.27.2006

survival and feathers

well, we made it (barely) thru the vegas trip. let's just say the town isn't a good choice for really conservative old people. the DH's face is LOTS better but his ribs still hurt. the scrape on his right cheekbone was so deep that his crow's feet are gone on that side now. i told him if he wanted cosmetic surgery that bad, there were easier ways of going about getting some... feeling better, though. it's easy to get down with some people around. ugh.

the dogs got bored in the house while we were gone, and somehow managed to get the kid's 2005 Macy's Parade shako plume and completely murdered it. it looks like a henhouse exploded in his room. haven't cleaned it up yet; we keep just going in to admire the total devastation.

the camp went really well this weekend. it seemed like all the people who know what they're looking/listening to were pleasantly surprised with who and what they had. the kids all seemed to have a great time and all the vets were so happy to see each other. i hope 2007 will be a turning point year; man, is it time.

i think all 50,000,000,000 leaves fell in our yard from all those trees while we were gone. it's like a black hole of manual labor out there. great to have so much good organic stuff for the plants, though.

first, to de-feather, then, to de-leaf.