The Guild and 8tracks.com

www.watchtheguild.com

I love The Guild. They have some fun songs, and the newest one that I know about is, "I'm the One That's Cool."

I have posted some of The Guild's earlier songs on my 8tracks.com Geek Love playlist.  If you're interested in it, you can see it here:

http://8tracks.com/jenniejumps/geek-love

I generally use 8tracks.com to listen to other peoples lists. There are some great ones out there. If you're not on 8tracks.com, check it out!

So Hot and Busy!

Today I drove through some scary parts of town trying to find a coffee shop to take refuge in during the six year old birthday party at B's house. I finally gave up and came back here.

I did get a little knitting done.  Isn't it gorgeous?

B's gorgeous homespun on the multidirectional scarf.
The foam dinosaur sticker is from the birthday party. 

It's slower than I used to knit, but I'm being careful to only knit for short periods of time to avoid aggravating anything. I wasn't sure how I felt about this yarn. It's not the colors I generally use. The zing on this particular scarf is really amazing. Gotta love short rows. Ok, you don't have to, but I do.

The dinosaur stickers are for future use. I might use them for mail art. I might use them for something else. I haven't decided yet, but I've got 10 and have access to more if I want them.

I'm also learning to play ukelele! N is letting me play around on his instruments, and I've been using his banjolele (it's the shape of a banjo with the strings of a ukelele. I can play three chords and 2.5 songs (I'm still a bit slow on switching into the chord that requires three fingers).  I am so excited - and N is planning to bring me to his ukelele group on Thursday.

Of course, ukeleles make me think of Jonathan Coulton. What else could they remind me of? After watching a video of someone playing Code Monkey on a ukelele, Nathan said that I can totally learn that soon. I already have several of the chords. So he's going to transpose it for me, and my plan is to be able to play Code Monkey on ukelele by August 1! It's what all the cool kids are doing.

You can skip to 2.50 if you want to miss his introduction to how he ended up with this ukelele version.

The humidity has been very difficult for me to adjust to. It seems that heat and humidity are making me lightheaded and dizzy. It also leaves me so exhausted that walking down a flight of stairs leaves me needing to sit down. I thought I'd have some adjustment time before a heat wave like this!  I'm sure that I'll be adjusted by next summer, but I'm hoping to be able to handle it this summer by the time they have the next heat wave. Or I won't even try. I'll just sit in A/C at every given moment until the temperatures are not in the 90s.  This isn't me being whiny. I'm just surprised at how strongly it's affecting me. I expected an adjustment. I just didn't remember how bad it was last time. I've been telling people that it was so humidity that it hurt me to breath. And now I remember what I meant by that!  

But hey, I can breath and sit in a house where someone might randomly pick up and start playing an instrument. I can knit handspun yarn and look at a loom and listen to kids play. I am not happy about how I got here, but I have ALWAYS wanted to live in a house where people might randomly start playing an instrument and folks crafts were all over the place. Somewhere that creativity was just a part of life and not a hassle. Playing bass clarinet and bassoon I couldn't create a musical home. And knitting became such a chore for me after a while. Now I am with people who love me, who give me dinosaur stickers and ice cream, who share homespun yarn, who open their home to me during the absolute worst moments of my life. Plus, they have one of those keurig machines so I've been making ice coffee each night (decaf for me) to drink in the morning when it starts to get miserably hot.

Can You Count?

It turns out that creating a playlist dedicated to the Count is more difficult than I expected. Within my sphere of knowledge, there are not a lot of counting songs (outside of the children's music genre), and it seems that I don't own much of what is available.

Who can resist a counter?

I do have a delightful version of 3.14 which is sung by someone from Cowboy Beebop. I wish I could remember where I got it. A young girl sings the digits of pi in Japanese for a bit and then she sings them in English. It's an oddly relaxing song. Not many other songs in my iTunes happen to be related to our cape wearing friend.

So thinking about a counting playlist led me to Sesame Street, and I found myself on the Sesame Street site. What other website would an adult woman peruse at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night? It's so much fun! There are pictures of Sesame Street characters that chime when you mouse over them. Unfortunately, the Count isn't one of them. So I went to the printable coloring pages. Would you believe that even on the counting pages coloring pages, I had to go all the way to number 13 to find the Count? Is it possible that today's youth don't adore the Count? Is it possible that I'm old enough to refer to today's youth with shock in my voice (or in my fingertips)?

1965 I am not going to tell you who is Big Bird and who is Mr. Snuffleupagus. I have no idea who the dog is. 

I was actually an Oscar fan with a slight leaning toward Mr. Snuffleupagus, but we're talking about the Count. Is he still on the show? Is it still loved?

And while we're at it, did you know that Mr. Snuffleupagus is now chummy with everybody? His charm was that he was only Big Bird's friend, and we never knew if he was Big Bird's imaginary friend or if he was real. Of course, 5 year old me knew he was real regardless of what others thought. Now everyone knows he's real - his magic's gone.

I haven't watched Sesame Street in a few decades. Does it still have magic for you or your children when Mr. Snuffleupagus can speak?  I understand that he became real because folks were worried that if children had a secret bad thing in their lives, then adults wouldn't believe them.

I was a lucky child; I knew the only things my parents wouldn't believe me about were the things my sister blamed on me (we were both adorable, but she had a pixie hair cut - who can resist a wee little brown haired girl with a pixie cut?). Perhaps it's for the best? What do you think? I mean, change is good - we don't want a stagnating world where change doesn't occur, but dude, when I go home, it's all changed. Now even my memories are being pulled apart!

So there's no Count playlist, no mystery in the mammoth-like creature, and I'm perusing the Sesame Street website in the middle of the night. Thankfully it's interesting and I'm easily amused.

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This post was brought to you by a cheap riesling and the number nine.  Don't judge - TJ's lists it as one of their best wines in the under $5 category. Seriously, it's $4.99 and they think of that as under $5.  Hah!  Taxes are about 9%, I paid pennies over $5 for this wine.  I'm looking for the Count on a Friday night. I obviously know my numbers!

Ernest Cline's Apes

I love Ernest Cline fan. I don't know exactly when I started listening to him, but according to this, it was earlier than 2002. He is a geek extraordinaire, and my favorite works of his are his spoken word art. "When I Was a Kid," caught my attention first and is available for free on his website. I own the full album and often play it for my friends. There are other samples on his website as well as links to purchase full CDs at http://www.ernestcline.com.  Here's a sample video of him performing Dance, Monkey, Dance.

Ernest Cline is a geek of many talents!  He is responsible for the movie Fanboys (as well as others).  If you haven't seen this fun film, you have to take a look.

It's about a group of high school friends who are traveling cross country to steal a copy of Phantom Menace before it's released. It's one of those movies that geeks watch to make fun of themselves or people they know. I'm guessing non-geeks watch it in order to make fun of geeks (or they don't watch it at all).

Ernest Cline is also a writer, and he posted that Wil Wheaton will be doing the voice for the audio book of Ernest Cline's book which will be released in August!  Apparently, Ernest Cline is a huge Wil Wheaton fan. I'd be tripping over myself if Wil Wheaton read any of my work aloud. However, I'm having a difficult time picturing Wil Wheaton reading aloud an instruction manual or articles or a Technical Brief.

Perhaps I'll get a contract one day writing/editing text or instructions for a sci fi website. Then maybe they'll hire Wil Wheaton to read the instructions aloud. MMmmm.... Ok, enough daydreaming. Dream jobs like that don't fall in a woman's lap!

The next time I fly, I'll purchase a copy of Ernest Cline's book being read by Wil Wheaton. I always bring audio books when I fly so I have something to listen to while I knit. Sadly, I didn't take a photo of the Star Trek washcloth I knit. A picture of it would have been the perfect ending for this post!