Ah yes, I wanted to do gordon_r_d‘s music meme some time ago, but never got around to it. Thanks to peterjf, I’ve remembered now.

First single bought (by yourself, not bought for you)? Man, that’s a difficult one. Probably “Doctor Who”/”The Astronauts” which I got from a sci-fi mail order store when I was young-ish. Or it could have been “Hey Jude” by The Beatles. I was much more into LPs than 45s.

First album bought? Now why couldn’t it ask “First CD bought” cuz I remember that! 😉 How about John Denver and the Muppets Christmas Album? Or an album by the Monkees. I bought so many albums when I was younger. The first CD I bought was The Rutles – got it long before we had a CD player (it didn’t come out as an LP record).

Last single bought? MP3: “Pressure” by Billy Joel. CD: “Before” by The Pet Shop Boys.

Last album bought? MP3: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. CD: Audio by Blue Man Group. LP: The Pirate Movie (a recent score on eBay – still looking for Grimms third album, Sleeper, however, so I still have one last LP to locate).

First band seen live? Heart (my sister was the fan – I went to two of their concerts with her).

Last band seen live? Stomp (though I nearly fell asleep in places, thanks to having just flown into London that morning).

Best live band? Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Worst live band? The opener for the first Heart concert that Amy and I went to. I don’t remember who they were, but they were too loud and the music was unmemorable.

Five favourite genres? Dance, novelty, anarchy, rock/pop, Celtic.

Genre you hate? Not terribly fond of Country & Western.

Last song sung along to? “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” (Well, it *was* Easter!)

Best remix? Dunno.

Worst remix? Dunno.

Best cover version? “New York Mining Disaster” by Chumbawamba. (It’s a cover of a Bee Gees tune.)

Worst cover version? Dunno.

First music related crush? Julie Andrews, of course! 🙂

Current music related crush? I’ve seen Sylvester McCoy in a musical, does that count? 😉

Collaboration you’d like to hear? Chumbawamba & the Pet Shop Boys.

Best band from your home country? The Monkees. (Heh!)

Most embarrassing item in your music collection? Indian Rope Trick, a Beatle bootleg album that I got simply for “The Pirate Song” by George Harrison. Thankfully, I’ve got an MP3 of it that’s in far better shape than the version on the album.

Strangest thing in your music collection? Monty Python’s Matching Tie and Handkerchief which is a 3-sided album.

Five songs to take the world on to –
“Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin
“The Theatre” by The Pet Shop Boys
“Homophobia” by Chumbawamba
“Cleanin’ Out My Closet” by Eminem
“Games Without Frontiers” by Peter Gabriel

And speaking of music, I discovered another group that I’m going to have to give more airtime to. Leftfield seems like my kind of music.

Not World History or US History or anything interesting like that… Instead, it’s a blast into Trina’s past. I’ll set the stage. The date is April 13, 1985. Trina is 14 years old and in 8th grade. (8th grade? Was I ever that young?) For some reason, she decided on March 8 of that year to start a journal. It’s written on narrow ruled paper in a wire-bound notebook that’s long since lost the cover (but which I recall was blue and had a lot of stickers on it – I still love stickers).

Went to grandma’s again today. I am thinking about tomorrow, we’re going to sing at church. Fortunately we’re only singing “Good News” but it isn’t doing well anyway. This isn’t a very interesting Saturday.

Wow – profound! OK, I have a few questions for my past self. Um, which Grandma? Anderson or Short? Which church? There are 5 in town and I’ve been to all of ’em at one point. Heck, if she’d’ve stated it was the Brethren church, that wouldn’t have been very helpful either – there are 3 of ’em. Which choir? I’m assuming the junior high choir, but I think I might have been in the UCC choir at the time too. Or were we still at Troy First United Methodist? Ah, the joys of being a Preacher’s Kid.

I’ll look around for some context. Ah – next entry indicates that it was the junior high choir. Awww, the 14th was more interesting. Apparently Trina saw The Dark Crystal that day. Oh wow, and the 14th of April in 1985 begins my big crush on Eric Idle which has lasted ever since. (This is long before that upstart, Sylvester McCoy, came into my life.)

Looking at the previous entry, I discover that it was Grandma Anderson’s house. My cousin Eric (who at the time lived in Illinois) was there. (Along with his mom and step-dad, no doubt. But when you’re a kid, it’s the kids that are more interesting than the adults. Usually. Actually, quite a few of my friends at that time were older folks.)

Well, I might do this again sometime. Somewhere in my various journals is an entry where I figure out that I have a crush on Sylvester McCoy. I ought to find that and post it. 🙂

(if “That” means “Nerd”…)

(gacked from dreethal)

Not sure I’m ready for my own little kids, but it’s fun to visit family with their little ones. Had a couple of “too damn cute” moments this evening in dealing with the 4 year old (Sydney) and the 7 year old (Taylor) – both girls. Sydney wanted to show me and Granny her cheer, which she’d learned from Taylor, but she couldn’t spell yet. So she’d say “Gimme an N!” then “Gimme a Y” then “Gimme a C” and she had no idea what it spelled. “New York City!” I shouted. (She was trying to spell King.)

A little bit later, Taylor asked me how to spell “Zyland.” “Why do you want to know that?” “So I can tell Sydney how to spell it.” “But what’s ‘zyland’?” “You know, like King Zyland.” I had to laugh. There’s an amusement park in our state called King’s Island. I explained to Taylor what an island was and that it probably belonged to somebody named King. We decided that King’s Island was a small island, but I assured her that the United Kingdom was a much bigger island. “Oh yes, I’ve been to the United Kingdom” Taylor assured me. “You have?” “Yeah, I like Disney.” Another explanation was in order…

I escaped for a bit to talk with adults for awhile, but then Sydney called me out saying “I wanna show you some of the crazy things that I do.” At least she’s honest! 🙂

Anyway, they were fun to watch and talk with, but they wore me out. And Sydney kept giving me bits of candy from her basket, and who am I to turn away Reese Cups and Kit-Kats? Despite my being tired, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping well tonight! 🙂

I thought that, since I’ll be doing the “Low-pressure environments” tests on Peeps this week for Chemistry, I should link to one of the greatest science sites out there. Peep Research is a classic. Formerly blown up Peeps are (a) smaller than the original, (b) chewier than the original, and (c) just as tasty as the original. 🙂

Turns out neither of Becky’s boys (and their families) were at the noon gathering at Granny’s. They’ll all be at the supper one, maybe. 😉 So it was fun just having lunch with “the adults and Trina” as Aunt Becky said. I did end up getting things for the little ones. I ransacked my Easter box in the closet and found stuffed toys for the little ones and Brandi and from my toy box, I got a cool science gooey toy for Chris. Deanna gets $20 for me (which she can use on alcohol if she wants, being as how she’s legal now).

I’ve been cleaning off my desk today and making CDs for folks and stuff. Will probably be heading back to Granny’s for Easter Part II. 🙂

Hope everyone’s been having a good day! And Happy Birthday to dreethal!

I found this cute mood theme from enthymeme while looking through lj_art. The URL for the whole theme (and instructions) are here. I think this theme should tide me over until I make my own. (Haven’t decided if I’ll do a Leo theme or Sylv theme…)

I had a nice lazy day today. I had originally planned to drive to Detroit to meet some fellow Tomorrow People fans, but as the gathering was smaller than we originally thought it might be and wasn’t probably going to last a long while, I figured it might be best to wait until another time (when I’m in Detroit for other reasons). I’m sure those who did gather had a good time. At least I hope they did. 🙂

So, instead of driving to Detroit, I went to the Lake with dad. Mom and dad have a cottage on Lake Loramie that’s in a nice quiet section of the lake. Dad was doing some electrical work on the new three season room, so I spent the morning finally paying my bills and balancing my checkbook. That took long enough that when I was done, it was lunch time. So we went to McDonald’s and I had a nice 600 Calorie Big Mac (the calories have gone up since I first used that as an example on converting between calories and Calories – food Calories are 1000 calories) and a 450 Calorie medium fries. The thing that got me most was the amount of sodium in them. Grief. Still, I do enjoy a Big Mac every so often. 🙂

After lunch, we returned to the Lake and I spent some time on my laptop working on the Metadot Portal that I’m trying to set up for the school website. It’s gonna be awhile before I can get things the way I want them to be, but I’m learning more and more about it. (I’d just prefer if someone came and simply told me what I needed to do…)

Eventually, dad was done with the electrical work and I was ready to go home. I then spent the rest of the day being lazy and watching The Curse of Fenric director’s cut edition on my Home Theatre System. Mmmmm, stereophonic Sylv! There were some nice bits that reverbed around the room. When I eventually get my basement turned into my entertainment complex, this will be a must see – sitting in the dark with the image projected on a big screen with surround sound. Mmmmmmm.

Leo has been lazy today too. He loves having open windows and spends a lot of time in front of them. I went to get a brownie earlier this evening and saw him laying in his hammock (that I’d given him for Christmas this past year) and just had to take a picture. So here’s my lazy kitty:

Tomorrow is Easter and the family will be gathering (in shifts, apparently) at Granny’s. I intend to be there for both lunch and supper, just so I can see everyone. Didn’t get anything for the little ones, alas. I pondered buying some Silly Putty for them all, but that required going out again today. Nah, too busy being lazy. (And I wasted 2 hours playing Diablo II.) Haven’t even bought Deanna a birthday present. Ah well, she’s old enough now to not need birthday presents. 😉

In my quest for power the ultimate in geekdom, I bought myself a “home theatre” system. Nothing enormous. Just a nice $180 300 watt system from RCA (tax included). Now I can watch either DVD player, VCR, or listen to radio without resorting to swapping cables and stuff. I ended up with yet another remote control (I feel like Susan in Coupling), which was supposedly universal, but didn’t even have DVD player codes. So now there’s a remote for the TV, the Sampo (my multiregion DVD player), the Phillips (my combo DVD/VCR) and now the RCA. All of the batteries work in them, however (joke only for fans of Coupling).

Now, I really dislike the radio. They never play music that I like and then talk and talk and talk all the time. So I love Rhapsody. I can play streaming music of groups that I like, and they even have a “radio” feature that will stream 10 groups that you like plus similar music. So far I’ve made a BritPop station (The Clash, Oasis, Pulp, Blur, Franz Ferdinand, etc), a Swing station (based upon Cherry Poppin’ Daddies & Squirrel Nut Zippers – it plays Reel Big Fish a lot and I think I’ll like them), a Motown station (I was surprised that Rhapsody didn’t have one of those already!) and a station of my usual groups (PSB, Chumbawamba, Rusted Root, etc). I’ll set up others for other moods, I’m sure.

So, um, you’re probably wondering why I’ve started talking about all this while I’m writing about my new Home Theatre? Ah, you see, it all goes back to that FM transmitter thingy that I bought when the Evil Geek Women forced me to buy my wireless network. If I have that FM transmitter hooked to my computer and play Rhapsody, I can just get a signal into the living room where the Home Theatre system is set up. Even better, with my new wireless network, I can have the laptop in the living room and streaming music from Rhapsody and onto the tranmitter. Sweet! So now I can listen to the radio, but it’ll be music that I like. And no talking! Woohoo!

(In other Geek news, I’ll have to admit that Judi was right – I’ve been enjoying Diablo II. If only my Spring Break were longer – I’ve got fun things I want to do still!)

No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This has become a 4-letter word to most educators in the nation. Another typical unfunded/poorly funded mandate from people who have NO idea what it’s like out there “in the trenches.” But I’m not going to spend a long time ranting and raving about Proficiency Tests or OGTs or other results of standardization. I’m going to talk about Professional Development instead. Yes, I can feel you getting bored already. You have no idea how boring it was.

I am a silly woman… Today was a training session about TIPS, the latest and greatest thing that SchoolNet (a loosely attached arm of the Ohio Department of Education) has come up with to make sure our teachers are Highly Qualified (a requirement of NCLB). Rather than the Novice Training (some of which was, indeed for novices, but some of which even *I* don’t do and I’m pretty damn good with computers) or the impractical Practitioner Training that they’d set up, they’re now going to train schools how to do their own Professional Development which will help teachers become Highly Qualified. They call these HQPD (Highly Qualified Professional Development). There will be a number of training sessions throughout the year. But today’s was in Piqua, which is very close. And today’s was held during my Spring Break, so I wouldn’t need a substitute in order to attend. So I went.

I am a silly woman… It was a gorgeous Spring day today… I had lots of fun goof-off things I could have done. But I spent 7 hours of my life being bored by a bunch of jargon and impractical examples. The only good bits were lunch (where I got to complain to my fellow county techs and the two SchoolNet guys that deal with us) and the times when we discussed things in our small groups. Those were the minority of the time. The point of the HQPD that we’re developing is to make teachers better teachers and get kids more engaged. So why not lead by example? I think the SchoolNet folks were somewhat frustrated with the “Tell Don’t Show” method they had to use.

Such a silly woman… I’m now trying to decide if it was better for me to have wasted a Spring Break day for this rather than wasting time to write up detailed sub plans for a sub who may or may not do what I request and may or may not prevent my equipment from being broken into a zillion bits (it’s happened before). Actually, one of the folks at the workshop today was a former sub of mine. (He was actually a decent sub.)

Well, tomorrow I have the time to sit around and goof off. Can’t even go anywhere and spend my money because my car is in for a check up/oil change. (I’m sure Miriam, the car, will find a way to allow me to spend more money that I’d like – hey, she’s 10 years old.)

So, I’m still suffering from the boredom of today’s workshop, so I had to make an icon for other occasions in my life.

The majority of my remembered dreams are about family and friends. But I sometimes go through spats of dreaming about TV shows. Last night/this morning was one of those.

I think this may have been my first time to have a proper dream about The Tomorrow People. This was a British TV series that I loved as a kid (and still enjoy, especially as the DVDs have been coming out). The only two characters that I recall from the dream were Elizabeth and John (the two main TPs – Liz being my absolute favorite, with John as second favorite). They were undercover in a shabby hotel room and investigating something that I don’t remember. Elizabeth got out to the place to do the investigation, but when John tried to teleport there (the Tomorrow People have special powers – telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis, telephones, etc) he couldn’t. At first he thought Liz was playing a prank on him and preventing him from jaunting (their lingo for teleportation), but then he took ill and ended up nearly unconscious on the bed. And, unfortunately, I remember nothing else from the dream… Oh yeah, except that there was one line that Liz had that I thought was a perfect line and had intended to capture as a .wav for my LJ. Disappointed to wake up and discover that line is lost forever…

In another first, Monk made its debut in my dreams this morning. At the start of the dream, funnily enough, I was writing in my LJ about the Tomorrow People dream and that I’d also had a Monk dream. (Which I don’t believe I actually had yet – my brain is so odd!) So as I start describing it in the LJ, the dream develops into an actual story. This dream had all of the principle characters. Monk and the police were working on a case while Sharona had a boyfriend du jour… And so who was playing the boyfriend du jour? OK, I’ll admit it – it was Sylvester McCoy. I once again don’t remember much about the case going on, but at the end, Monk had found the murderer and when it was time to haul him off, everyone got onto a stage coach (including some relatives of the murderer, one of whom was played by Judy Cornwell (Maddy in Paradise Towers)) which Sylv’s character then drove off through the desert. (And when did San Francisco become a flat desert?)

Ah, my freaky, freaky brain. Got to admit, I get a lot of entertainment out of my odd dreams. (Hope you folks do too!)