Sunday, November 30, 2008


I hope I'm not just really behind in viewing this video, and that you guys will be able to have a good first-time laugh.

Scarlet Takes a Tumble

Friday, November 28, 2008

Señor Chinarro "Del Montón"

This is a song I had to transcribe to practice hearing/understanding spanish...


And I liked it.

(I ended up going to the place where this video was shot.  and climbed to the castillo that he sings about.)
If I am not back to the haus in time for the meeting, since this is my last haus meeting, please, someone, propose that the haus constitution be changed from Phoenix Haus Constitution to "The Order of the Phoenix". I know that J.K. Rowling already has a work by this name, but it is uncomfortably inappropriate if we don't follow through with this.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

HELL ON EARTH.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHoxl8IK7po
I feel so, so sorry for the male figure in this household.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

and in less embarrassing news

As a separate post, because I don't want to taint it with all the Twilight nonsense, here are a few links for you guys, because I know you like food. I read a lot of food blogs and it would selfish of me not to share some of my favorites.

1) Bread and Honey - two ladies from Portland who blog about their foodie adventures. The recipes always please me (they are even split between the two authors, one does baking and one does cooking), their photography is really great, and their writing styles (especially Alice's) really tickle me. I used to follow her personal blog while it was up (sadly it's gone now).

2) TasteSpotting - this is not a blog per se, but rather it aggregates a bunch of submissions from various foodblogs in one totally fucking awesome hub. It is kind of dangerous because I tend to get engrossed in it and spend an hour looking at delicious food and then wanting to eat some delicious gourmet shit but just end up with a bagel.

3) The Crepes of Wrath - I really like this one because the stuff she cooks is like, top-notch comfort food. It all sounds like stuff that a) I could cook and b) would be really satisfying. And not to mention it has a ton of crock pot recipes and Y'ALL KNOW HOW GUNG-HO I HAVE BEEN ABOUT CROCKPOTS LATELY.

this is the skin of a killer!!!

Alright, all y'all make fun of me enough for the dumb shit I like, and I am not saying it isn't warranted (except for all the House Hunters I watch because that is just good planning for the future alright), so I am just going to cut you off at the pass and talk about Twilight.

Number one, I am sorry, Mary, that I am dumb and didn't remember what day your birthday was, and that I had to go see a midnight showing of Days of our Sparkly Vampiric Lives but OH MY GOD you guys IT IS SO RIDICULOUS.

Here is the thing about the whole Twilight phenom: I didn't read the books until just recently. I had been perusing a couple blogs that mocked them at great length and was equal parts offended and enthralled by it. I kept verbally shitting over it hard enough that eventually my cousin, who digs them a lot and without any facetiousness (she is a fan whereas I am sort of a lolfan; I love it mostly just to lol at it) said "YOU HAVEN'T EVEN READ THEM OH MY GOD." Alright, fine, I'll read them! JUST TO SHOW YOU.

Basically all this did was multiply my initial feelings sevenfold. It is SO BAD and REALLY OFFENSIVE ON SO MANY LEVELS - intellectual, feminist, literary - but GOD HELP ME I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. Maybe I won't get into a too-deep primer because I already suspect that no one who reads this besides me gives a hoot, but just in case you want to go more in depth (I ASSURE YOU THAT YOU DO), this wiki is good (and appropriately snarky).

The jist is: Bella moves to forks Bella is awkward and yet every boy falls in love with her including dark brooding vampire Edward who, along with his vampire family, only eat animals and not people because they have morals or something, blah blah there is angst about whether they can be together and also I guess there is some action involving bad vampires who want to eat Bella beause I guess the author realized that sometimes plot is worthwhile. That is just the first book, it goes on and on and becomes exponentially more absurd by the time you get to the fourth and final book.

I guess here is my abbreviated list of why it is so bad and yet why I have such a horrible, masochistic fondness for it:

1) I am sucker for terriblarious repetitious dialogue, and the book is like Stephenie Meyer got drunk with a thesaurus almost all the time. Every is "brooding" and "chagrined" and "windswept" and "irrevocably in love" with someone ALL THE TIME.

2) THE VAMPIRES CAN'T GO OUT IN THE SUN BECAUSE THEY WILL LITERALLY SPARKLE LIKE DIAMONDS I am not making that up.

3) Book 4 includes: appropriately chaste post-marital vampire-human sexing; a subsequent pregnancy with a half-vampire fetus that comes to term in a month; and said fetus BREAKING ITS MOTHERS SPINE AND RIBS FROM THE INSIDE OUT and then Edward, the vampire-daddy, BITING THE BABY OUT OF BELLA'S ABDOMEN WITH HIS TEETH WHILE SHE VOMITS A FOUNTAIN OF BLOOD.

4) There is also this hilarious love triangle with a Native American werewolf, Jacob, and Edward and Bella. Jacob is all in love with Bella, but her "WHOLE WORLD" is Edward (since he has been like, sneaking into her room to watch her sleep since about a WEEK AFTER THEY MET because THAT IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE I GUESS) and he gets rejected and butt-hurt.

BUT THEN, it turns out werewolves can IMPRINT on people, where that person becomes their entire reason for existing, and the imprintee basically has no voice in the matter because you "can't resist" such a powerful love or something retarded like that. One of the werewolf lackeys imprints on a two-year-old (IT'S NOT SEXUAL OKAY HE WILL JUST TAKE CARE OF HER UNTIL SHE IS HIS AGE [THE WEREWOLVES DON'T AGE]). Anyway Jacob apparently never loved Bella, just one of her eggs, because as soon as the half-vampire baby is mouth-Cesareaned out of her, HE IMPRINTS ON IT. Also it is named Renesmee. You know. As a combination of her grandmother's names (Renee and Esme). ~beautiful~.


It is so bad, and yet it is so good. I couldn't stop laughing while I read it (because I might have had to hunt the author down if I started taking it seriously), and the movie just improved on it so much -- it was appropriately mockable, but at just the right frequency. Not to the extent where it would have been unbearable, just to the point where it was PERFECT.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Amadou and Mariam

Apparently we don't know about too many international super-groups here. I just learned about this song called "Sabali", produced by Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz, Good t Bad a t Queen). I like the buildup in the song as well as all the pictures of comfortable chairs.