Thursday, December 23, 2004

Holiday Hours

If you notice an unbearable absence of posts over the next 10 days or so, please forgive me. Blame it on the holidays. Blame it my upcoming trip to Chicago for my Grandma's 90th birthday celebration. Blame it on the remnants of moving into a new apartment, or the preparation needed for a proper Chrismukah-Festivus type of party, or Law & Order reruns. Or, blame it on the government (that's what I usually do.). But don't say I never gave you anything. Because I am giving you this. And, as previously promised, here is the playlist from Super Fantastic 2004. Enjoy!

I am Stretched on Your grave by Sinead O'Connor
Lovely Rita by The Beatles
The Dead Only Quickly by the Magnetic Fields
It's All Right to Cry by Rosey Grier
Government Center by Jonathan Richman
Exquisite Dead Guy by They Might Be Giants
He Needs Me by Shelley Duvall
Surfer Girl by Cub
My Wandering Days are Over by Belle & Sebastian
Everybody's Talkin' by Leonard Nimoy
Shattered by the Rolling Stones
Town & Country by Chris & Tad
Suzanne by Dan Bern
No Other Love by Perry Como
I Cried for You by Rosemary Clooney
Vincent Van Gogh by Jonathan Richman
Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones
Kissing the Lipless by the Shins
Palisades Park by the Ramones (thanks, Dad!!)
Common People by William Shatner
It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career by Belle & Sebastian
A Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon & Garfunkel
Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burnin' by the Bad Livers
For You Blue by The Beatles
Sandra in Short Pants by Chris & Tad
Heaven is No Place for Me by Laura Cantrell

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Question of the day

On what was this city built? You know the answer--come on, sing along!

Monday, December 20, 2004

Happy Holidays from The Planning Shop!

The Planning Shop held it's annual Holiday Lunch today. We enjoyed a fabulous feast at PF Chang's, including an order of The Great Wall of Chocolate for dessert. How could we not? True to form, our annual Holiday Party won't be held until sometime around March or April.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Lobster and Bacon Sandwich

Those are the four words I would use to describe Minneapolis, if I had to do so. The combination of vacation in Minneapolis and a gnarly case of strep throat have kept me from functioning properly for the last week. But you can't get rid of me that easily! I'm back, and swallowing no longer makes me cringe!



As you can tell from the picture, Minneapolis is cold. It actually snowed Sunday night! But apparently, it got much, much worse, as Ira sent me this the next day:



Screw that! I like boots and scarves and stuff as much as the next guy, but I also value my sanity which, as it turns out, requires the daytime temperature to be at least 15-20 degrees above freezing in order to operate as advertised.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

The Gopher State

Tomorrow I'm off to Minnesota, The Land of 10,000 Lakes--supposedly, the state with more miles of coastline than any other state in the Union (excellent trivia tidbit)--to visit these lovely people. In a serendipitous merging of weekend vacation plans, we will be enjoying the company of this lovely person as well. Unfortunately, we won't be visiting the Spam Museum. Still, I would put money on us spending more than a healthy amount of time at the Mall of America, in all of it roller coaster and peak-holiday-shopping-season filled glory.

Pray for us.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

A Boy and His Dog, with a little help from Google

This has got to be all over the web by now, so I'm sure many of you have seen it already. But for those of you who are starting to feel the winter blues, or for a certain friend who had a particularly awful night last night, or if you just need a good cry (the happy kind), here's the story of Mikey the dog and the boy who found him.

Monday, December 06, 2004

A glorious weekend in the Land of Port

I'm back from weekend getaway number one. Having spent the weekend visiting my old college chums, I've come to realize that perhaps seeing some people once every five years just isn't enough. It's funny, because they might look different, or maybe they've gotten married or bought a house, or they've got a dog you've never met, but they're absolutely the same person you remember from living in the dorms or late summer backyard bar-b-q's. Case in point: Adam.



Sure he may have less--much less--hair than I remember, but I'll be danged if that's not the exact same Adam as I've had the pleasure of knowing since college, day one, when we met in the cafeteria.

It's important for me to remember those times when the most important thing in my life was finishing that paper on the role of Minoan pottery in 19th century Swedish folklore; when home was half of an 8 ft. X 12 ft. room with 2 shoebox-sized closets and a bed that doubled as a couch with the help of bolstered cabinets attached to the wall; when dinner was a bowl of Coco Puffs and a big-grab sized bag of Cheetos, washed down with a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. As I slowly adopt the belief that my car runs better when the outside is clean, and I start to remember to get my oil changed on time, as I can now understand the value of delaying material gratification in order to assure financial security (sort of), and I feel a great deal less anger when the cops hassle the homeless guy sleeping in the park across the street from my apartment; as I become a bonafide adult, it's very important for me to remember that once upon a time, I wasn't.

Thanks to Adam, Liz, Galina, Dedi, and Shane for reminding me!

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Music to bowl by

A few weeks ago when some friends and I went hyper bowling (the crazy style bowling-ball-sunk-into-a-pedestal version seen here, not the lame version), it was decided that we each needed a theme song. I chose I Get Around by The Beach Boys as my theme song because it seemed to improve my ball rolling skills (I was up against some very stiff competition and needed all the help I could get.). I didn't intend to keep the theme song for very long, but it continues to stick with me. Especially when I've just had my car washed.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

World AIDS Day

First off all, I have an excuse. I haven't posted to Deborah's Den since last Wednesday because of Thanksgiving (duh) and three cardboard-box-filled days of moving. But I am now officially unpacked, officially done waiting for the phone guy to fix the jack, and officially less crazy. I promise.

Question: How many helpful guys does it take to move a dresser from my second floor apartment to the curb?



Answer: Three. Three helpful guys, and three cheers for Max, APV and Winfield!

I thought that World AIDS Day would be a good opportunity to blog about Klaus Nomi. Those of you who have heard of him know that he was a rising talent in the New York City new-wave-synth-pop club scene. You can hear his delectable mix of pop and opera right here. With friends and fans like David Bowie and the B-52's who knows what might have become of his falsetto-infused performance art, complete with German accent and beat. Tragically, he contracted AIDS--back in the early 1980's, when it was still called GRIDS--and died in 1983. Here is an interesting website which talks briefly about his long-lasting effect on popular culture. He shares the site with his countryman and fellow popular culture icon, Andre the Giant, so look for the Klaus Nomi info on the second half of the page.