IdeaMine

My day's been a morningsworth of upbeat energy swirling in a steadily-narrowing snowstorm of corporate jargon and project performance analyses. New team leader = new assessment metrics = piles of spreadsheets.

This video makes it all better.

Hey, I'm a beer!

* The Berkshires are still there. Our hosts at the 1886 House impressed with cozy lodging and tasty breakfasts. Over the weekend we stumbled on (and right through) Northampton Pride, plenished our kitchen with widgets at Thornes, hot-tubbed at East Heaven, sushi'd at Teapot, and refilled our lungs with their proper supply of greenery and pine on the mountain. All good.

* MI-3 is missing a theme song. Watching Philip Seymour Hoffman sneer and growl (eevil Lester Bangs) didn't quite do it. Playing hooky on a Monday made it worthwhile. :)

* Benjamin-Moore has an online color-viewer. My workday is over.

* LJ thoughts are turning to the Camping Season, so I begin to wonder... Apart from essentials that appear on all the packing lists (extra tent stakes, first-aid kit, copies of your prescriptions, etc.) what much-appreciated but rarely-mentioned items come to Pennsic with you?

...In which a deaf man fitted with a cochlear implant badgers researchers until he finds implant software that will allow him to hear -- and enjoy -- his beloved Bolero. And then?

Chorost, Michael. "My Bionic Quest for Bolero." Wired November. 2005: 144-158.

"And some music just leaves me cold: I can't even get through Kraftwerk's Tour de France. (Later, a friend tells me it's not the software -- Kraftwerk is just dull.)"

* Once more with feeling: ginger-infused vodka with plum wine, the veggie kebab, babaganough dip plate, and olives. Mmmm!

* Fallow time projects:
... measure/cut/sew napkins and tablecloth
... finish the Lake Dance
... polish an eating-knife and an athame
... work out a reasonable paper-flow-system for the house
... enter "Hale and Merry-Met" and the CD stuff into MelodyAssistant
... learn/teach/work up three duets
... hollandaise
... bead a pentacle
... help find and cut quilt pattern
... row, elliptically
... Harry Potter, Serenity, Walk the Line, and The Aristocrats, at least

* The British Library is closed from the 23rd to the 27th, but the bookbinding exhibit is still up. :) Everything else looks to be business as usual after Boxing Day.

* This house really makes me laugh.

* On Thursday my Lady's parents will meet mine for the first time. I'm nervous as hell. But each pair knows that they are meeting their daughter's girlfriend's parents, and wary or not they are still up for the event. I know enough to be deeply grateful that the meeting is even a possibility.

Some so nice they had to be mentioned twice...

* Seven Times Salt last night performed their set called Sufficient Grounds which, it turns out, really is. The concert featured examples of "...the Renaissance art of "divisions on a ground"--the playing of elaborate instrumental lines, either composed or improvised, over a repeating melodic or harmonic pattern." Hmmm. This style of arrangement resonates with a set-selection structure that I find attractive. I must think upon that and, I think, set a contrefact to Stingo.

The woodwind player is beautiful, and a faun, and for a countertenor employs a surprisingly rich basso.

* Aikido is always about deep energy exercise applied to physical exercise, but sometimes it's just about rolling around on the floor and getting up again, over and over. That part's fun, too!

* Barry returns calls at 9pm.

* Mortal Love was chewy and fascinating as always but disappointed somewhat in the flow. Overall it made me wish Ms. Hand relied on more assertive editors. "Extrapolation", by Theodore Sturgeon, excelled. I'm still pinging from that one.

[EDIT: * The Enormous Room wasn't enormous nor did it offer the Enormous Platter any more, but it did successfully supply my Lady and me with enough dim lighting, plushy seating, and finger-food to get us from Aikido to early music without falling down. Mine was the Ginger Martini (ginger-infused vodka with plum wine) and it thrilled.]