| The Western White House |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|01:12 pm] |
No matter how lukewarm one might feel about Obama, I'd like to give belated thanks this year for not feeling ongoing embarrassment about my president. I randomly ended up looking at The Western White House, Bush's nickname for his Crawford ranch where he was caught by many a crisis.
The Western White House is a modest and photogenic reflection of the Bush family's folksy, down-home authenticity. Completed in 1999, the Western White House was designed by President Bush himself, and is notable for its patriotic and evocative melding of architectural highlights from Baptist prayer halls, medium security penitentiaries, and antebellum tobacco plantations.
Mmm, nostalgia for prisons and slave era plantations. Delightful! Those multinational oil-investing, jet setting Bush scions with flexible drawls sure are authentic.
But then the page takes a turn for the even weirder: "When President Bush comes to town, that number increases ten-fold, as thousands of arrogant Jewish journalists arrive to shamelessly broadcast liberal lies – often straight from the President's own front lawn!"
Oh. This site is a spoof by some Chickenhead Productions. I guess that's a slight relief? |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
The roast is in the oven, and I'm cooking down the apples for a tart tatine on the stove.
Everything else was 'pre-catered' from the grocers, so I just have to heat them up.
There are tamales in in the fridge, which I'll steam for the Boxing Day open house. I need to wrap ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) cynthia1960's gift before she gets here.
Arcade Fire's playing on the media server.
Merry whatever you're celebrating.
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| For those of you tiring of holiday music |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|11:17 pm] |
The Smithereens playing Behind the Wall of Sleep live in a small club, fierce as ever.
Nataly Dawn covering OK Go's Do What You Want. I love how she uses composition to expose the production process in her work.
I love this version of Y.M.O.'s Technopolis and Rydeen on electric piano and bass. The edit's rough but they are having a blast.
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| Help me with Big Checkin? |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:22 am] |
I started thinking about how to best reflect on the year, and the decade, as I do every year. And every year I am dissatisfied with what's available. Reflection works best when it can build on reflections from the past, year over year, etc. We are changing, slowly, over time, in ways that none of us can really tell from up close.
I mentioned the idea a while ago, and have since started on this "Best of 2009" meme which has been making me feel pretty unsatisfied in the reflection department. I met with Carinna and Michael a couple weeks ago to start coming up with ideas on how to make yearly reflections more fun and more satisfying.
This is the first draft:
http://bigcheckin.com
I'm leaving for Delaware tomorrow morning for a week, so this is as far as I got. It has 15 questions, varying from checkbox selection to adjective listing to inner-circle creating to goal contemplation. The answers are stored in ways that I think will make it easy to create aggregates amongst people, and also in ways that will make it possible to chart your own changes over time.
It's not yet possible to publish your results, but it will save your answers and I promise that results will be made available as soon as possible when I get back.
This is another long-term project. I want to launch something in January that will include charts and graphs and statistics and ways to post your Big Checkin to places people can see it, ways to make some parts private, etc. But while I'm gone (and won't be near a computer) it would help if some people felt interested enough in the idea to post their own thoughts and reflections, it will help me better able to figure out what's interesting and what's not.
So, yeah, there's no report at the end yet. But I'm bringing my sketchbook with me to start thinking about it. Any ideas you have as well on better ways to ask the questions, ways to visualize the answers, etc, would be awesome.
Help? |
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| Best of 2009, #16 - 21) Tea, word, shop, car ride, person, and project |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|11:33 am] |
Tea of the year. I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours?
I should have read all the prompts before agreeing to do this I think. What kind of person do these prompts lead us to try to be? Tea? I think it was that curiously strong tea that comes out of my French press. For sure.
Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was _____."
My word of the year, determined early on, was "frugality to the max!" I suppose that sort of sums it up for me... an attempt to reign in the unbalanced nature of my life from the previous year. Back to basics, build from the strongest part of the foundation, make a plan for a sustainable and balanced future while still thinking big and taking well-calculated risks.
Shop. Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?
Lawyers, landlords, credit cards, and the IRS. I guess the offline shopping world wins again.
Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?
Another silly question. I don't have a car. But the scene from the window of a taxi is usually pretty exciting. I also enjoyed the bus ride to Vancouver this summer. My Zipcar errands were more about the destination, and our mini-roadtrip to Orcas was more about the people in the car.
New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?
I'm very happy to report that my unsung hero of 2009 wasn't a customer service rep. That would be sad. I didn't so much get swept up by any new people this year as grow more solid relationships with the people I already know and love. Kellianne deserves special props for weathering our third year of higher highs and lower lows with me. I feel like I also got to know several of my friends a lot better this year too. You know who you are.
Project. What did you start this year that you're proud of?
Locavore, Enjoymentland, and project Baby Benson. |
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| Kinds of people |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|07:09 pm] |
Male, Female, Hermaphrodite
Child, Adult, Young, Middle aged, Over the hill, Old
Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Aunt, Uncle, Grandfather, Grandmother, Son, Daughter, Pet owner
Wife, Husband, Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Friend, Friend with benefits, Flirt
Gay, Straight, Bisexual, Lesbian, Monogamous, Open
Student, Employee, Boss, Entrepreneur, Unemployed
Ill, Healthy, Fit, Slovenly, Unhealthy, Sporty, Accident-prone, Lucky, Alert, Slow, Calm, Stressed, Focused, Distracted, Energetic, Lazy, Passive, Agressive,
Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Activist
Religious, Spiritual, Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Lost soul, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim
Extrovert, Introvert, Intuitive, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling, Perceiving, Judging
Proud, Greedy, Lustful, Angry, Gluttonous, Jealous, Lazy, Sarcastic, Cynical, Cheating, Lying
Sincere, Polite, Trustworthy, Frugal, Industrious, Fair, Moderate, Clean, Chaste, Humble, Loyal
I'm looking for generic kinds of categories that people can put themselves in. Not either/ors, necessarily, but demographic kinds of things that are more about who you think you are than who you really are. Some serious, some silly, etc. Can you think of more categories? Help! |
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| Best of 2009, #13) Change, #14) Rush, #15) Packaging |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|12:44 pm] |
What's the best change you made to the place you live?
We got it ready for selling. This included replacing (though we had no choice about it) the windows, replacing the washer/drier (cause they broke), replacing the garbage disposal and the faucet, replacing the microwave, re-painting the white walls, replacing all 39 kinds of different light bulbs. Replace replace replace. I actually like my place a lot better with all this new stuff, but at the same time I wish someone would be it already.
When did you get your best rush of the year?
I think probably hearing the baby's heartbeat through the doppler at the hospital and being reassured that he/she was okay even though Kellianne was afraid of potentially miscarrying. Yeah definitely that.
Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?
Stupid question. |
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