Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.
by kathi
I have nothing to give tonight.
Nothing to say, unless you count some earlier profanity directed at Axel, who was A Very Bad Dog, and Freya, who was A Very Bad Dog’s All-Too-Willing Very Bad Sidekick. It might be the other way around.
Nothing was actually destroyed except my hopes for a peaceful dinner, so I’m well on my way to being over it. The dogs, of course, are over it already. They look like sweet angels when they are napping, instead of Very Bad Dogs.
by kathi
I know this is a recurring theme, and it really shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be so “stuck” on this, yet here I am, still with a digital stack of comps and photos and not much else. Yes, sad to say, I still don’t have a kennel website.
I guess it’s good then that I also have no breeding plans (not that I would ever breed a dog whose health checks aren’t yet complete, but not all of you know me well enough to take that for granted), because I’d have no place to promote them.
By the way, this is also my proof that having all the whiz-bang digital tools you could ever want at your disposal means nothing if you can’t or don’t use them to best advantage. I upgraded very recently to Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium so I really have no excuse for slacking, do I (well, except for having to learn to use it but as a Photoshop user since v3 and a DreamWeaver user since Studio 8, I guess it won’t be too convincing)? This also reminds me that I haven’t yet talked about that upgrade here, and I’m sure at least a few of you are interested in how I’m liking it. Not to mention that I still need the opportunity to vent about the circumstances that caused me to upgrade this month, rather than at a more financially feasible moment.
Axel wants to be like all the other show dogs and show dog wanna-bes, and have his own page full of brags and plans. All right, fine, Axel doesn’t really care. He doesn’t get online much that I know of. I want him to be like all the other show dogs with pages full of brags and plans and beautiful pictures.
Kick me, hard, so he… umm… I… we? can have this.
Note to self after the fact: No one will see your posts if you do not PUBLISH them and make them PUBLIC. Kick me, harder, for this, too.
by kathi
I have quite a few songs on my playlist that are from movies featuring fictional bands. I will blame this partly on the fact that The Monkees, the ultimate made-for-TV band, were a big part of my childhood. The rest of the blame lies on the movies or songs themselves: they might not be great art, but they are great at making me smile. And even as much as I like Spinal Tap and 2ge+her (MTV’s send-up of boy bands which didn’t last nearly long enough), it’s not about satire either, at least not for this part of my playlist.
And those songs?
“On The Dark Side” from Eddie and the Cruisers: John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band got compared to Springsteen and the E Street Band a lot when this movie came out. I have been a Springsteen fan for a long time (in case it is not obvious from my domain name – brilliant-disguise.net if you are reading this on LJ). As for the movie, I love Tom Berenger (even as Aaron Noble in Third Watch, which is a stretch). And I like Michael Paré, at least in this movie and one other…
Streets of Fire which is one of my favorite movies and favorite soundtracks. The plot is nothing new: biker gang kidnaps hot chick singer and her ex is summoned home to rescue her. The visuals and casting and yes, the music, make it something special. “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast” are my favorites, followed closely by “Countdown To Love”. By the way, did any song of Jim Steinman’s from that time NOT have the sound of a motorcycle revving somewhere in the background? This movie also has one of my favorite quotes: “Everywhere I go, there’s always an asshole” which sadly is true in most places in real life as well.
“Break My Heart” from Spectacular! Yeah, I was surprised, too. Funny what turns up when you are bored and clicking the remote or the mouse. I would not generally expect to find a fun, perfect-for-the-car song like this from a Nickelodeon movie, but hey, there it is.
Two days of my schizophrenic musical taste is probably more than enough for most of you, so tomorrow will feature a new and exciting topic. Or something!
by kathi
Because I am old now, I don’t keep up with music the way I used to. In particular, I don’t keep up with music videos because I really don’t know when and where to watch them any more (except online, of course, which is sometimes difficult depending on the state of my connection and age of my computer at any given location). Sometimes I actually get nostalgic for a time when MTV played music videos most of the time and I could have it on as background noise instead of the radio.
So I had no idea that Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” video was filmed in Hawaii, or for that matter, anything at all about the video, until I saw the latest issue of Hawaii Magazine.
I love that song. The first time I heard it, I wondered which Hawaiian singer had something new out. It has the same feel as a lot of the contemporary Hawaiian music I like. I didn’t know of Mraz’s connection to Hawaii as a frequent visitor, but I would say he definitely “gets” what life there is about. Even though I’m not personally familiar with every one of the locations in the video (I haven’t visited Kauai since I was very young), it still feels like home to me.
by kathi
I went to IKEA this morning for the express purpose of buying a single one-day-only sale item. It was sold out by the time I got there, but that wasn’t the problem. Sellouts happen, and I could have tried to get there earlier. The problem is that the item was advertised as one per household, and there were clearly more than a few people who were getting around that. I don’t want to hear about how they were all honest people and I am wrong to assume that they did not in fact live in separate households. When you see what appears to be a husband and wife with FIVE of the damn things, and no other people getting into their vehicle along with the merchandise… exactly how would you guess I am making a wrong assumption? I’m really interested to hear the interesting fiction that might spawn.
But enough about that minor annoyance and on to my real topic. I don’t get the whole appeal of IKEA. There are things there that I like well enough to buy, and also things that don’t seem any better than cheap crap from WalMart or Value City. I just don’t get why so many people are so enamored of the place. Their whole idea of “experience shopping” leaves me cold. I get that the idea of the annoying layout and lack of escape routes is to run you past as many things you might think about purchasing as possible. And I guess it must work on a certain percentage of the shopping population. It didn’t work on me, but it did annoy me and I did not buy a single thing. The food at the restaurant part did smell good, though. I didn’t buy any food either as the slowly wandering suburbanites were getting on my nerves.
That is another thing that really bothers me, but it’s certainly not unique to IKEA. I truly hate shopping so I am probably less tolerant of the slow meandering gazers than most people. I don’t mind that they might actually enjoy shopping and want to take their time about it. I do mind, and very seriously, that many of this type of shopper seem to have absolutely no concept that someone behind them might not appreciate how slowly they are moving if they are also blocking every inch of space along that path. Waiting for some of these shoppers was like waiting for a glacier, only less interesting to look at.
I feel better now that I’ve vented about all of that. I am glad that most of my shopping can be accomplished online which saves me from these experiences, and saves you all from having to read about it.