National Record Store Day, Take 2

As you know, I jumped the gun last month and did my record shopping early. Of course I didn't let that stop me from venturing out again this time for the real thing. Since I was up in Capital Hill for breakfast, I stopped by Sonic Boom to pick up Lisa Hannigan's album Sea Sew. I posted one of her videos (Lille) a couple weeks ago, and another has been making the rounds on the interwebs (through the series of giant tubes) that has the same simple yet beautiful quality. On top of the lovely voice and charming videos, the cd includes lyrics! I hate that fact that so many artists no longer include the lyrics to their songs. I like to sit down with the lyrics and follow through with the album a couple times. Not only does this album include the lyrics, she hand stitched the lyrics, notes, and cover art. Thanks L for letting me know about her.

I Don't Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

I was also sucked into buying a t-shirt so that I could get the screenprint to honor the day and raise money for the School of Rock. It's a rock music school for kids 8-18. I thought they were pretty clever with the design. It is a record broken in half like the friendship necklaces little girls wear. You could get half of the design at the Capital Hill store and the other at the Ballard store. Since it was such a nice day, and I was on my bike, I decided to trek to Ballard. Fortunately I was already at the top of Capital Hill, so it was a nice downhill ride to Ballard. I'm not sure I would have done it the other way around.

One of the things I really like about the design is that it could stand on it's own, each portion has part of the name on the record and the other in the field. I imagine most people would only get one of the designs. I think that I was the first person to come to Ballard, because the kids printing the shirts were really excited to see the other half.

Bathroom

I think I might try to start a new series of posts, interesting bathrooms in bars/restaurants. You may remember the tire mirror frame and exposed conduit I posted about here. This bathroom moment is directed at Adam.

(I don't mean that to sound the way it might...)

While Top Pot Donuts has a mediocre donut (don't get me started on their "cruller") they do have a palindromic name and a nice approach to bathroom design. I particularly like the picture frames. They are about 6" deep, and each side is solid wood, not a buildup of profiles like you would find in wood molding. I also appreciate the fact that, while certainly not a quiet frame, the lines are simplified and elegant. Not the sort of thing you expect in a donut shop.

SUNSHINE!!!!

I think that the whole of the PacNW breathed a collective sign of relief and rushed out into the sun this weekend. It was the first real signal of a change in seasons, warm weather and sunshine the whole weekend.

I took Friday off, and spent the day cleaning the house and out in the yard with my roommate working on the garden. It was a fantastically beautiful day, and it felt great to spend some productive time outside.

Since I was so productive on friday, I decided that saturday should be a really selfish day. I spent the day wandering around Capital Hill, where I came across this mural. It is on the side of a building that is being demolished for a light rail station, and they had invited several artists to do installations in the empty storefronts. I'm not sure if this piece was part of that or not, but it has been up for a couple months. I've passed it several times, but now that the trees are in bloom, it really jumped out at me.

Sunday was the best day by far. Lisa (the intrepid leader of my recent horticultural activities) has some land out on Whidbey Island, so she organized a work party/brunch. The group that I went out with decided to park at the ferry but take our bikes across and ride to the site. Once again it showed how out of shape I am, but it was a fun ride all the same.
Don't get me wrong, we did some work. at the same time, it was a work/brunch party, so there was plenty of wine and food, and a bit of time around a campfire. Eventually we turned to games, and made Charlie try to stack the wood he is cutting (background) in a certain amount of time. He failed, and so I do not owe him a sandwich.
The games progressed to running through the woods, and wiffle golf, once again demonstrated by Charlie (although again he did not win, poor lad.)
Finally the return trip to Seattle. Unfortunately the iphone doesn't really capture panoramic vistas so well, so you'll have to take my word that it was beautiful.

Weekends like this make me appreciate living in Seattle, and make me want to enjoy it as much as possible while I am here.

Disney cutting corners

Here's a funny video from college humor showing how Disney traced over animation for newer movies. I can recognize Snow White, Cinderella, Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood (one of my favorites, and Jungle Book. I think maybe the Aristocats, and possible one about a mouse as Sherlock Holmes, but I'm not sure

Watch Disney Templates on CollegeHumor

The Satan debate

I finally sat down and watched the Nightline Satan special. I watched the online special because it was clear that the televised version was just cherry-picking the exciting or controversial quotes without context.

Surprisingly, they didn't all agree at the end. I know, I'm disappointed as well.

In the end I have to say I wasn't too surprised by what I heard or saw. Annie Lobert had a moving story about escaping from a life in the sex industry, but her story about being raped by demons is hard to engage with on a theological/rational level. I think that Bishop Pearson handled the subject well by saying that he did not discount her belief or his experience, but that he believed her experience is dependant on her belief, if that makes any sense (in the context of his arguement it does.)

Mark Driscoll was condecending and arrogant, but made a couple decent points. Deepak Chopra was a little disappointing. He began by saying that we need to do away with the personification of evil, but ultimately I felt he never moved beyond that. Instead he replaced the satan personification with a slightly broader cosmic entropy, which he balanced against a cosmic creativity. In the end his worldview is still a dualistic battle between good and evil, or creative and destructive forces. As Bishop Pearson pointed out, it was becoming a matter of semantics.

Carlton Pearson waas by far the most interesting frm my point of view. As he said early on, he comes from 4 generations of "demon caster-outers" so he understands the belief in demons and the 'power' of demons. He has come to the conclusion that if you want to see demons, if you believe in demons, then you will see them. In many ways he believes that demon belief is self fullilling. One of the things he repeated a couple times was the statement "If you change the way you see the things around you, the things around you change" or something to that effect. His point is that some Christians become so involved with believing in the devil, that everything they see around them is demonic. In a sense, some Christians come to believe more in satan than in Christ.

They had some time for questions and answers, unsurprisingly they were not very thought provoking. Fortunately the debate ended well, with the participants hugging and chatting on stage. At one poitn you could see Bishop Pearson and Mark Driscoll talking to each other, and I was struck by how interesting it would be if they actually sat down to talk seriously. If they could sit down without a moderator, without an audience and cameras, and really just talk through some ideas as two pastors...that would be a real conversation. I doubt that it would come to any conclusion, but I like to think that it could actually be provocative in the best sense.

If you have an hour to spare, follow the link and let me know what you think.

Gorge Orchids

Orchids in beer bottles!!! (42 seconds in)

Bacon Chutney

The time has come at last to make an attempt at bacon jam, or bacon chutney as some may call it. I'm not entirely sure which will be more accurate, because it is on the stove as I type and I haven't finished fussing with it.

Let me first introduce you to Bacon Jam, a splendiforous concoction created by the folks at Skillet Street Food. Skillet is a lunch cart in the form of an Airstream trailer that moves around Seattle. I have only visited once, but my roommate brought home some of their Bacon Jam and I fell in love. I knew immediately that I needed to make my own, and today is the day.

For starters, I'm not trying to recreate the original. I don't think I could even if I wanted to. I am taking my inspiration from the brief description they include on their website:

…..what the heck is bacon jam?...

well, we’ll tell you…….we take a big bunch of really really good bacon, and render it down...add a bunch of spices..onions, etc..and let it simmer for about 6 hours…give it a quick puree, and blast chill it…and you have bacon jam..

So I started with two pounds of bacon, rendered it down, sauteed a large chopped onion, added some sweet peppers and garlic, then some herbs and spices and a couple chopped tomatoes. At this point it has been cooking on low for about 4 hours with the lid on. I just took the lid off and I'm going to give it another hour or two. After that I will give it a taste and maybe tweak the flavor. I'm looking for a balance of sweet and savory, with a bit of smokiness.

developing.....

comment spam

as much as I don't like the word verification thing, I had to turn it on. At some point today I got 28 comments on 28 old posts. They are a string of jibberish that links to a crazy hentai porn site.

fuzzy goodness

My lovely friend Liz at Felt Cafe is leaving us for Japan, so she was kind enough to give be a pair of hand felted slippers, and I've been shuffling around the house in them all day.

I couldn't ask for better slippers, they make me all warm and fuzzy. Thanks Liz!

Earth Hour

Did you know Earth Hour was last night? It didn't seem to be very well advertised, but then I don't watch TV news so what do I know?

What I do know is that we observed Earth Hour at my friends house last night. We were able to finish dinner in time, but game time became Candlelight Jenga. Good times, arguably better then regular Jenga.