OK, just one more thing about PATD: You should also listen to the song below. It's the "harpsichordy" one I mentioned the other day. The harmonies are very pretty, and the whole thing just has a sweet feel to it. The embedded video below is just a still with music, so don't worry about not being able to see anything.


Next item of business: Can anyone recommend a good dinner cookbook? I dislike traditional cookbooks, because I don't like dishes divided into categories. Part of the reason I'm fond of Rachael Ray's recipes (and, no, I've never seen her cooking shows -- no cable -- so I don't really have a sense of why she's considered so god-awfully annoying) is that she just does whole meals -- not an appetizer here, a dessert there, a veggie there, etc. I'm just too lazy to put 3 recipes together and turn it into a meal, so I'd prefer that someone else do it for me.

So, anyway, I'm looking for other good cookbooks that focus on putting meals together rather than recipes divided into 1 of 18 categories. Holler if you can recommend one.

I'm listening to a new CD right now: Panic at the Disco's second album, titled "Pretty. Odd." From the 2 or 3 songs I had heard on the radio from their first album, they came off as musically interesting but kind of, well, snotty -- forgivable, since they were teenagers just out of high school at the time. If not for the recognizable voice, I might have thought this second album was the product of a completely different band. The songs move in directions from rock to folksy to a very harpsichordish ballad. I am particularly fond of tracks #1, #2, #5, #8, #13 and #15 (that's a lot, I know, but they're good!). I highly recommend it as somewhat eclectic rock. These kids are talented; I hope to hear more from them in the future.

Listen to "Nine in the Afternoon"


In the world of literature, I've just finished Colleen McCullough's The First Man in Rome. This hefty tome (896 pages) of historical fiction details the military and political career of historical figure Gaius Marius (157 BC - 86 BC) alongside the history of Rome during his lifetime. It sounds dry, but it was actually quite fascinating. It just took me ages to get through because there is so much detail -- not to mention learning Roman naming conventions, which are at first very confusing, and keeping track of the many, many characters. I think I've just learned more about ancient Rome than I ever learned in school -- which isn't difficult, since it was probably nothing. Although I've finished the body of the story, I'm still working my way through the 94-page glossary (slightly dry, but it is helping to round out my understanding of the Roman world). Oh, and there are six more books in this series, so yeah. Wish me luck.

In the morning, before the library opens, I think we should play music over the PA system so everyone wakes up and is in an energetic mood.

I'll even be the DJ. Here's a tentative set list:
Muse - City of Delusion
MCR - Teenagers
The Darkness - Hazel Eyes (Incidentally, this song looks like a bitch on Guitar Hero. I couldn't find a better online recording.)
Goldfinger - 99 Red Balloons
Green Day - Jesus of Suburbia (All 9 minutes of it!)
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
MCR - I'm Not Okay (I Promise) (Yes, another MCR!)
Muse - Unintended (A little more Muse, this time meditative. Maybe during break time.)
They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in Your Soul

And we'll round it out with Queen - The Show Must Go On* as we open our "show" to the public.


*This video is really touching as it was one of Queen's last videos and beautifully illustrates their entire career at a point when Mercury knew he was dying. The song title says it all.

I'm not sure what to expect from this, but I put it on reserve. Should be interesting.

For the first time in a while I was super busy at work. I even had to set some things aside to take care of Saturday instead. It was nice.

Now I'm just bouncing along to They Might Be Giants, waiting for Jonas to get home. After working late into the night yesterday he was home all day today, until late afternoon when there was some kind of security emergency and he had to go in anyhow. We met quickly for dinner at Biaggi's. Well, not exactly "quickly," since it's a nice, sit-down, Italian restaurant, but it still felt somewhat rushed. I had some yummy tortellini and some very naughty chocolate cake for dessert.

I've got a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon. I'm not too worried, except I haven't been flossing all my teeth regularly. Heh, just my front teeth, which I run floss through every morning since that's what people see when you smile! My old dentist used to have a poster hanging in the room that read, "You don't have to floss all your teeth -- just the ones you want to keep." I think the electric toothbrushes have helped overall, at least in stimulating my gums so they're not so sensitive.

Woo, I just ran into Kevin, an old talker friend whom I hadn't run into in several years. He didn't have much time to chat, but we exchanged current emails.

Ooo. Jonas just called and is already halfway home. Turns out the guy they suspected of snooping in files he wasn't supposed to may have just made an honest mistake. They went through all the logs and didn't find anything else suspicious, so it was probably just an isolated incident. I guess they will keep an eye on him anyway, though.

What an excellent concert!!!

Last night we went to see Simon & Garfunkel at the Xcel Center in St. Paul. It was just fantastic. It was also my first ever concert experience, so there was that whole ethereal aspect as well. They of course did all of their hits, and several songs I'd never heard before ("Here's a little something we wrote when we were 15..."). I'd initially wanted to take Dad along, but he didn't think he could sit so long at a time. Now I wish we'd have insisted anyhow -- he would have loved it, especially since the Everly Brothers came out and performed a few songs as well. In all it was just about two and a half hours long, and we were on 35E by 11:15pm and decided to time how long it took us to get to Chaska from St. Paul. Amazingly, we were within the Chaska city limits by 11:45 (then another 10 minutes or so to get to our house). How come it never goes that fast in the daytime? :)

Well, I fearfully got on the scale this morning knowing it would be bad news. Ever since this past spring when we started getting involved with building the house we have totally let ourselves go in terms of horrible eating habits. After having successfully lost my 15 lbs last year (Jonas lost 30) and managing to maintain fairly well over the winter, it's all come back. That kind of freaked me out, so I'm starting to use the Points Tracker on Weight Watchers Online again. We've been paying for the account anyway, I should have been using it all along. It's just so easy to let go, and restaurant food naturally tastes so much better than nearly everything I can make "healthy." Jonas says he's along for the ride, but I don't know if he'll stick it out. It will be really hard for me if he doesn't, since I have very little willpower in this area on my own.

Newly inspired (albeit by fear) to eat healthier, I picked out a recipe from WWO for barbecued pork sandwiches and made that for us for dinner last night. It was really delicious, although I was drooling to have a second portion when I'd finished my first bun. Jonas did anyway, but somehow I held back. After dinner we watched the second Matrix movie. Jonas had made me watch the first one last weekend so that we could go see the 3rd whenever it comes out, which I believe is fairly soon. They were decent, but the prolonged fight scenes of the 2nd one got awfully monotonous for me after a while -- I swear they went on for twenty minutes. Each time I would turn to Jonas and go, "Oh boy! Another fighting scene!"

After the movie I played a teeny bit of Baldur's Gate before heading to bed. My package from Amazon arrived yesterday, containing the Baldur's Gate II Collection for me and another game for Jonas that I'd never heard of. Now I have to finish the first game before I'll allow myself to try the second. I'm right smack in the middle of the Cloakwood Mines.

Just two days until Simon & Garfunkel! Jonas is going to try to make reservations for dinner Monday night at someplace close by the Xcel Center so we can just walk to the concert after eating. I'm probably one of few 27-year-olds who's never been to a music concert. It seems weird, but the music I like has always been by artists who either have never toured (XTC), are dead (Freddie Mercury/Queen), or simply don't tour any longer.

It's been a relatively quiet day at work, despite the booksale going on in the meeting room. They are just about getting ready to wrap things up now, and are selling an entire grocery bag of books for $5.00. The Friends of the Library, who hold the sale, typically raise several thousand dollars at sales they organize twice a year. They then contribute funds for programming and various other things the library is not able to do on its county budget alone.

When I get off work Jonas should be waiting for me and we'll go have some delicious Punch Pizza -- YUM! I can never get enough of that place -- it's heavenly. Then we'll maybe see a movie or go bowling, but I'd almost rather go bowling tomorrow morning when it's just $0.99/game. Saturday nights are pretty expensive. I should call Kris and see if she and Ron would like to go sometime -- maybe Dad, too.

This morning I woke up around 5:30 and noticed Jonas still hadn't come to bed. So I got up and looked out the door -- the light was on in his computer room, but he wasn't there. i found him downstairs sound asleep on the sofa in the livingroom, so I shut off the TV and all the lights and said, "Come to bed." He woke up and obediently followed me back to bed. I don't know how he could fall into such a deep sleep on the couch -- it's not that comfortable!

I seriously need to do some grocery shopping this weekend and pick up general things so we'll have some supplies on hand (frozen, canned, etc.). Of course, stuff for lunches and breakfasts for the coming week is needed as well. I'd still love to try Simon Delivers sometime. Heidi's been getting it for a while now -- I should ask her how well she still likes it.

MY CDs ARRIVED TODAY!

Yay! So I of course first organized them into order by release year (yes, I'm like that) so that I could open them and listen to them one at a time. I've only finished the first one so far, and discovered that a song I already knew was on it: "Don't Let's Start," from the first album They Might Be Giants. It was one of those moments when you know you've heard a song many times before, but you never realized that was the artist!

Looking forward to more ...

I've only heard one album so far, but I may have found my newest match in music.

I think I might have mentioned previously that while I wasn't certain I'd ever even heard a song by the group They Might Be Giants, the things I'd heard about their music made me think I'd like it -- diverse in style, fun original songs with atypical themes (at least in the popular music world). So I reserved a few albums from the library.

Last week the first one, "John Henry," came in. Elation! I totally loved the stuff. My first listen-through I couldn't shake the feeling of similarities with XTC, one of my other favorite bands. I wonder if TMBG were influenced at all by XTC.

Some of the most interesting music I've ever heard has been songs about ideas or things people normally don't sing about. For example, the song "Meet James Ensor" is a tale of a Belgian artist who was once all the rage and then forgotten. Or "Unrelated Thing," an amusing song about daydreaming and smiling to oneself when someone else is talking, only to have to subsequently admit to have been thinking of something entirely unrelated.

I'll take ordinary or unusual themes over I love you so much it hurts, please don't ever leave me, we'll be together forever any day.

So anyway, when I realized TMBG was definitely for me, I ordered seven of their albums from Barnes and Noble. That was on Saturday, I'm anxious for them to arrive now!

My hair hurts. It sounds odd, but anyone who's experienced "sore hair" would know what I mean. If you nearly always wear your hair hanging down and then one day decide to pull it up into a barrette or ponytail, by the end of the day your hair follicles can be extremely sore from being pulled in a direction they're not used to. This mostly applies to girls, unless you're a guy who wears barrettes. :)

We just got home from the Convention Grill in Edina. (They don't appear to have a website, so that link is to their review on CitySearch.) The place is constantly winning awards for best burgers, malts, etc. in the Twin Cities. It is delicious, but usually does quite a number on my digestive tract. I try to head it off with a Pepcid beforehand -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I learned long ago to be wary of greasy foods. But enough about that intriguing subject.

I heard a Christmas song on the radio the other day in which I could have sworn I heard Brian May's (Queen) guitar. In fact, I was thinking to myself, "If this is Queen, how can I not have heard it before??" However, a little investigation revealed that it wasn't Queen at all, but the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's song "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)." I was kind of disappointed having thought I discovered a hidden gem, but now I'm curious to hear some more of TSO. If the rest is anything like that song, it's definitely my kind of holiday music.

I'm determined to have some holiday spirit this year. Last year we didn't even put up the tree. I guess the whole thing took me by surprise and seemed like it was going to be all over too soon to even be worth decorating for.

I'm not religious. In fact, I'm more an unbeliever than anything. However, the music, the lights and the cozy, warm glow everything seems to have this time of year are always foolproof in lifting my spirits to a heightened contentedness.

This year I began popping the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums in the CD player the week before Thanksgiving (to Jonas' chagrin). A few years ago I found in MS my perfect match in Christmas music, and I'm not even certain how to describe it -- classic carols meet progressive pop? For me, it's just mellow enough to feel Christmassy and lively enough to have me prancing and skipping around the house.

Anyway, tonight when I got home from work I dug the tree box out of my closet and, after spending about 20 minutes searching for the second box containing the tree stand, began assembly. Of course, just like last time I mistakenly assembled the middle part of the tree first instead of the bottom. Honestly, tree-manufacturers, the bottom part is supposed to be the biggest -- but no, for some odd reason the middle portion of my tree is biggest. I ultimately got it put together correctly. *cheer* Then some green lights, a few strings of red garland, and gold, red and green ornaments and my masterpiece was finished. *flex* I put the Swedish candelabra in the window in the computer room and hung our stockings over the fireplace. Jonas may be a wee bit surprised when he walks in the door. I was going to light a fire as well (how cozy that would look!) but he's only going to be home about 30 minutes before heading off to his new job, and then I would have to sit and watch it myself.

They do this weekly maintenance thing at the new job, and since he officially starts the new job next Monday, he's going to go tonight and hopefully get a head start. He expects to get home about 1am, only to get up again at 3am to head downtown and stand in line at the INS. The doors open at 8am, but if you don't get in line several hours early, you'll never get in before office hours end. So for hours and hours each morning heaps of immigrants are standing out in the cold. He'd better bundle up! Anyway, after all that and just 2 hours of sleep, I'll be expecting a crabby boy tomorrow night.

Currently reading at home: The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
Currently reading at work: Buffalo Soldiers (Robert O'Connor)

Tired.

Just got home from work and threw some corndogs into the oven. Jonas should be home any minute. So I had this song "Come and Get It" in my head, but I didn't know who did it so I had to check online. Turns out it's Paul McCartney? I'm a fan of The Beatles and Paul himself and somehow I never realized this?? In my defense I don't think it sounds distinctively McCartneyish. :)

Work was relatively uneventful. Today the Human Resources weekly bulletin of open positions, retirements, resignations, promotions and reassignments came out and I was in it!! I recently was promoted to a PSA (Public Service Assistant) from a lowly clerk. My responsibilities don't really change, but it's a nicer pay scale (though still peanuts). Several people have congratulated me, so that was fun!

This apartment is so damn cold! They're supposed to get those boilers working again today. Nice time for them to break down, when it's below zero outside. My feet and hands are going numb. :P~

I just called Grandma to chat and let her know we'll be picking her up on Sunday around 2pm to go to Mom's for Christmas Eve. Sounds like she's doing well, though she has her good and her bad days. She uses a walker now, as she's not as steady on her feet but it was her idea so it doesn't seem she feels depressed about it as some do when they grow older and feel their bodies growing weaker.

I put on some Christmas music now, 3 Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums in the CD changer. I love their Christmas music, it's so cool. Jonas will maybe get off work early today, though he's now depressed that his new computer probably won't arrive in time for Christmas. We may do something tonight. I'd borrowed the movie Citizen Kane from the library for us to watch, having heard it's often considered the best movie ever made, but it turns out he's already seen it and that's no fun. :P~ We'll see.