these are a few of my favorite things

i love the caveman commercials. this is one of the first. the song is, "remind me" by Royksopp.



this one. i love this one. it never gets old for me. the song is "hurt you" by The Sounds.



the free credit report.com tunes get stuck in my head for weeks at a time, so i have just learned to live with it and i have even grown to like it. oh, and the credit report is NOT free. its a lie-- a lie that i want to be told over and over again.



this is not a commercial. this a music video a la Wes Anderson from Vampire Weekend, with whom i share a similar grammatical philosophy . "Oxford Comma" is the name of the tune.

B! Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

I have fond memories of my mother's banana bread. I mostly remember the anticipation I felt while waiting for the bread to bake and of course the awesomeness of a warm slice of banana bread with tons of butter. Yum. Well, I found my mom's old recipe and I happened to have some overly ripe bananas, so I baked a loaf and Chris called it "Awesome". This made me happy, indeed. So here is the recipe:

mix

3 well-mashed, ripe bananas
2 beaten eggs
2 cups of flour
1 tsp. of baking soda
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp. of salt
2 tbs. of melted butter

cook 1 hour at 350

don't forget to grease the pan.

and remember, when you use bananas you are contributing to the degradation of the rain forest. just kidding...sort of.

i forgot to take a picture of the banana bread.

angry baby

i just document the truth.

show off your spirit animal for only $19.95

chris has been picking up these animals shirts at d&b supply and i think he is slightly ahead of the curve.





this is one of the coolest animal shirts, but unfortunately it is sold out.

Madeleine and Rachael wear animal shirts too; though young they be hip.



this dude and his shirt are finds of face hunter, one of my favorite blogs. click to see.

^_^

today ...

i drank some coffee.

i took some pictures of madeleine.

i vacuumed.

i called chris and complained. (sorry baby)

i talked back to palin through the tv.

;';';';

even cowgirls get the blues.

frack mitt romney, that glorified weather man

-_-
\~

<--- this is someone glaring, smoking a cigarette, and thinking mean things



i heart huckabee. though i wish he weren't a republican.

fuax "paw"

i just finished watching joe biden's speech and man, he brought down the house. i was like "fuck yeah! this is the dude i want as obama's v.p. what a bad ass team." then jill biden came out on stage and introduced a surprise guest. it was obama. he went to go kiss her on the cheek and uh oh! he kissed her on the lips! i was squealing in my seat. oh my!oh my! rachael and i were so scared to rewind it and see if it really happened, but finally we did and it went like this: silence.. silence...silence..[kiss]"OHHHHHNOOOOO! NOOO!! NOOO! NO!" oh! i was so embarrassed for him and for it to happen right after that great speech... you could tell the pundits were uncertain if they really saw what they just saw. they didn't mention it, but you could hear it in their voices. obama was sort of thrown off by it.


these things happen though and you just got to keep on like nothing happened. biden verbally bloodied the nose of McCain, though. the best speech of all the convention.

a real bright idea! real bright.

i have been thinking about compact fluorescent bulbs lately. the first news item about cfl's that caught my attention was on morning joe on msnbc. the story was about the capitol building going green or "carbon neutral" , well half of it anyway. the house of representatives' chambers are powered by natural gas and the senate is still getting its energy from the coal plant just down the street. its odd, funny really, the idea that the capitol building is dived right down to its energy supply. anyway, morning joe was interviewing a female representative (her name eludes me)and she was talking about the "Green the Capitol" project and they got on the subject of compact fluorescents light bulbs. she then brought up the fact that the sale of the classic incandescent light bulbs will be outlawed in 2010 (very american, indeed). the representative had legislation in the works that would overturn the the fast approaching ban on incandescents. i remember thinking at the time, "thank god that someone has the sense and minerals to to stand up against this bullshit ban." how can they just outlaw incandescents because they use a little more energy than cfl's.

i'm not a full-fledged conservative. i hate that ridiculous, ayn rand, "the-free-market-will-take-care-of-it" ideology, but i do, generally, believe in limited government. the ban on trans fats and smoking in california and new york piss me off. now, i now the dangers of unnatural hydrogenated oils and i don't smoke, but i do believe in a persons right to choose. i also believe that health workers shouldn't be forced to preform an abortion if it offends their morals. i can't imagine if abortion did offend a health worker's morals they would be working at an abortion clinic and i don't know under what circumstances in general practice they might face such circumstances, but they shouldn't be legally obligated to do so unless the mother's life is at risk. birth control is another story.

my thoughts are convoluted. anyway. i should be able to choose an incandescent light bulb over a cfl, if i want. especially, considering the mercury content in cfl's. if you break a cfl, you have to call a professionals to clean up the mess. no one ever stops to consider the danger this may pose to children or the fact that there aren't hazardous material waste sites conveniently located across the nation, so most of that mercury will end up in the landfill or in the ally or on the kitchen floor, where children walk barefoot. not to mention a ton of people don't even know how dangerous cfl's are. its ridiculous! here is a link to a Washington Times article about cfl's. check it out.

there is a whole bunch of money to be made off of the green movement. there are going to a whole sleuth of companies and legislators doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons and hiding behind the pretext of saving the earth. ethanol, for example. what a farce. even wind energy is an excuse for billionare, t. boone pickens, to get out of millions of dollars worth of taxes and trade in carbon credits. like stephen clobert said, "the market has spoken global warming is real."

*******

chris left for sioux falls today and left his camera here, so i took a couple pictures. i love point and shoots. i took a picture of my lavender and of this plant i have growing which looks a lot like an artichoke in bloom, but i actually have no idea what it is. i bought it at paul's back in april. it wasn't labeled, but it was so cute, i just had to get it. the picture is blurry, but you get the idea. my herb garden didn't work out as planned, mostly because it was so cold all spring and then when i finely sowed my seeds, it rained for two days straight and washed them away. i should have started them indoors, but i figured it was warm enough to just plant them in the ground. hopefully, i won't have to learn that lesson twice. i took a picture of our aging kitchen sink. there is no story behind this one. i did the dishes and clicked it. a few weeks ago there was a violent wind storm that ripped up our apple tree. it was actually fortunate. the apple tree was leaning east because of the constant wind from the west over the years. well, the tree was ripped up by the roots and so uncle chris and my dad got a stake and some rope and set the tree straight. oh, and i have officially seen every episode of the "the o.c." and have subsequently adopted a new fix: "battle star galactica". yeah, thats sort of like giving up drinking for cocaine. lord help me. i have ordered some books on health care policy, which are essentially text books and whose authors are objective in their analysis. this is just what i am looking for straight facts. no coke. no tonic. i have my own.