Black and Gold - Sam Sparro | Cant. Stop. Listening. (to the entire album)

Ghosts - Ladytron | Always one of my favorite bands but this album isn't as good as the last (I do love the song Versus a lot, though).

Mirror - Supreme Beings of Leisure | I go through phases where I really really love them and then forget about them

Going On- Gnarles Barkley | Another album I can't stop listening to - even though it's been out awhile

My Drive Thru - Santogold, Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D produced by Pharrell | I like the Casablancas and Santogold parts, not so keen on Pharell's Prince-like vocals. I also kind of like Santogold's other song, L.E.S. Artistes but I'm pretty sure that I'd get tired of her after awhile.

More News From Nowhere - Nick Cave and Night of the Lotus Eaters - Nick Cave | I adore this man but the skeevy Grinderman look is getting old. ick. (and if you click on that Grinderman link, mute your speakers. You will thank me for that piece of advice.)

Hunter - Portishead | One of my all time favorites. I love them.

And last, a limited time download of the new Dandy Warhols song, Mission Control | I don't love the Dandys. I like an occasional song. But for some reason, I love this song.

I even expected to see many sisters and brothers in formal habits - black mandarin collars, fitted waists, frock coat skirts, black habits with stiff white borders. Gaggles of them, excited to be attending this rare event.

What I was unprepared for was the scent.

Wow.

The scent that hit me as a group of black-clad brothers stepped on to the train was of heavily varnished pews, smoky incense, hymnals and candles. They brought to mind rituals performed in dark interiors, brass and ivory cloth and bells. Stained-glass, industrial carpet, water, flowers and marble. Distant laughter, gothic arches, stale, dry host sticking to the roof of my mouth, sweat-stained blouses, pleated skirts, saddle shoes. Boredom. Impressions from the past rushing over me and then away again. They say memory and scent are intimately linked. They are right.

I am reminded of three Demeter colognes I ordered years ago, scent unsmelled, off the Web simply because of their names: Funeral Home, Holy Water, and Holy Smoke. They sit atop my Last Rites kit on a shelf above the television, remembered for a little while only to be forgotten again, blending back into the scenery.

What's up with you? I have been incommunicado. Yes, I have been remiss in my blogging duties for years. Part of this is because it's a royal pain in the ass to blog now. It requires all sorts of jumping through hoops thanks to the way my webhost set up my site. I am not interested in restructuring everything. I'm lazy. But I'm considering it. And if so, I need to take the entire site down. Probably for months. And when it comes back, I don't know that any of these older entries will be there. It's a freakin' pain in the ass.

I'm also considering another podcast. What's that, you say? Why, yes, I realize I haven't done one in, like, two years. I've been, um, busy. Because World of Warcraft is my second job. Yes, it is. No denying it. I'm an officer and it's very time consuming.

On the plus side, I am very happy with our guild. There are folks I've met in guild that I would love to know in real life. Maybe we will someday, especially the ones close by. We seem to have quite a nice group of guild mates here in the mid-Atlantic area.

Stop it. I hear you laughing at this pathetic life. Well, I have a wand. And a flying griffin. So there.

See the "bunny pods" section to the right to download.

Tracks for no love from me
My Friend Dario - Vitalic
Music Is All This ( feat. Gustaf Karlöf) - Stockholm Cyclo
Strictly Rude Boy (feat. Roots and Zeebo of See-I) -Thunderball
Crazy (live) - Gnarls Barkley
Calamity Jane - Supreme Beings Of Leisure
Drowned - Tangle Eye
The Big Sleep - Tosca
The Wolf - Khan
Warning Shots (vinyl version) - Thievery Corporation
9 to 5 (the Ordinary Boys Remix) - Lady Sovereign
Lied It Up - Riovolt
Here Comes Tomorrow - Ursula 1000
Modern Inventions - The Submarines

1. Dad's business is seriously stressing everyone at home. They could end up going bankrupt and losing both stores/owing millions. Dad's trying to be optimistic but mom and sis have a very different (and gloomy) story to tell.

2. Mom keeps ignoring her medical problems, the uber-queen of denial. So five days after she can't move without getting extremely short of breath, she finally went to the doctor and - surprise! - she has pneumonia. This, of course, added to the stress of dad & sis who have to try to keep the business going. Thank goodness there was a close family friend to check up mom to make sure she didn't have to be rushed to the hospital.

3. Last week, we found out for certain that sweetie's dad has to have triple bypass and a heart valve replacement in a few weeks. We knew he would have to eventually have the replacement (my dad had the same surgery about 10 years ago) but the bypass thing is new. He's got a fairly rare blood disorder, though, so they have to make sure his blood is in top shape before any surgery (my brother has the same disorder, basically like a hemophiliac without actually having hemophilia).

4. And now, to top it all off like the cherry on the sundae, my sister called to tell me that our family friend (the one mentioned in #2 who checked in on my mom all week) was found dead of a suspected heart attack yesterday. I can't believe this happened. She and her husband (they now live in MS but she was back at home taking care of her father with alzheimers since her mother died 6 months ago) were/are pretty much family. We grew up playing with their sons, in their house, they lived right across the street. It's really really heartachingly sad when you hear the whole story of their family (both sons are also dead).

It's so much sadness and too much stress. Argh.

Having a bit of a nostalgia trip right now, working on cds for my sister because she's in in need of music that is 1) not Hawaiian and 2) not Lite Rock (ugh). This has prompted me to rip about 10 gigs of music that I rarely listen to anymore. Technotronic, Soft Cell, Psych Furs, Gene Loves Jezebel, Bangles, B-52s, Adam & the Ants, KLF, En Vogue, Ziggy Marley, Bob & Doug McKenzie, Meco. I even re-discovered that I had a Pseudo Echo cd for some ungodly reason. All in all, it's been fairly hilarious.

I can't bear to actually put together a coherent post yet I don't want to forget that these things happened in the last three or four months. This will make no sense to anyone but me, so you might want to move along now. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060510.wgrizz0510/BNStory/Science/home

Grizlar a rare bear indeed

SARA MINOGUE

Canadian Press

Iqaluit, Nunavut ó Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years.

But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, NWT, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly.

Territorial officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid--possibly the first documented in the wild.

"We've known it's possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen," said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton.

Polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos before--Mr. Stirling could not speculate why--and their offspring are fertile.

Breeding seasons for the two species overlap, though polar bear gets started slightly earlier.

Polar bear and grizzly territory also overlap in the Western Arctic around the Beaufort Sea, where the occasional grizzly is known to head onto the sea ice looking for food after emerging from hibernation.

Some grizzly bears make it over the ice all the way to Banks Island and Victoria Island, where they have been spotted and shot before. These bears will scavenge seals left over by polar bears.

"And some hunters have told me that they think sometimes the grizzly bears actually hunt seals, which I'm quite sure they could do," Mr. Stirling said.

That might explain how a grizzly got to the region, but few can explain how it managed to get along with a polar bear mate long enough to produce offspring.

Colin Adjun, a wildlife officer in Kugluktuk on the northern mainland in western Nunavut, said he's heard stories before about an oddly coloured bear cavorting with polar bears.

"It was a light chocolate colour along with a couple of polar bears," Mr. Adjun said.

And though people have talked about the possibility of a mix, "it hasn't happened in our area," he said.

Three years ago, a research team spotted a grizzly on Melville Island, an uninhabited island about 350 kilometres north of where Idaho sport hunter Jim Martell bagged his crossbreed.

While the latest find is a surprise, it is not necessarily another sign of climate change, said John England, a geologist who was with the team that spotted the earlier grizzly.

"If we want evidence for climate change, we don't have to go to an isolated occurrence of a grizzly bear somewhere," said Dr. England, who holds a northern research chair on environmental change in the Arctic.

"The satellite imagery showing sea ice reduction over the last 30 years is proof positive of very dramatic changes in the northern hemisphere."

The DNA results were good news for Mr. Martell, who had paid $50,000 for guides and a permit to hunt polar bear. Before the tests came back, the 65-year-old hunter was facing the possibility of a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail for shooting a bear for which he had no permit ó as well as the disappointment of an expensive hunting trip with no trophy.

The NWT Environment and Natural Resources Department now plans to return the bear to the hunter.

Eventually, I may get around to the Devotchka review and a recap of the wedding reception. But don't hold your breath.

The week before last, I planted taro in the back corner of our yard. And that's a good thing, since it's been submerged since Saturday. But the rain is finally done. I put the new chairs and sun umbrella out on the deck in celebration, only the humidity was nasty so I didn't sit out there.

Luckily, we never lost power or cable although there were channels missing for awhile. My only fatality was my 8-port USB hub. A lightning-caused power surge zapped it dead. A small price to pay, since the rest of my/our computer equipment seems to have survived.

Areas near rivers and around the National Mall seem to be hardest hit. In fact, on Monday, the Metro was closed in sections due to the tunnels being flooded. I-495 was closed as well, as Cameron Run overflowed its banks and left behind feet of mud on the beltway. Hundreds of cars and people were stuck on the beltway from 10 pm Sunday to 10 am Monday.

Monday morning, when I turned on the tv and saw the flooding near work, I decided not to attempt to get to work. This was after I'd prepared everything to go to work, gotten dressed and eaten breakfast, of course. I'm glad I didn't go in because it would have been an exercise in failure. We've been out of work all week.

It was an apparent mess down in the area (at American History, Natural History, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, Arts & Industries, the Castle, IRS building, Commerce, etc.). Constitution Avenue was closed from 6th to 17th Streets and everything in between was flooded - the tunnels under the Mall, the buldings, everything. On Wednesday, there was still water in the buildings and full power had not been restored. The Metro was still having problems running through those areas, too. Even the National Zoo was closed for a few days because the parking lot flooded. Where the parking garages and houses flooded, it looks like hurricane Katrina all over again. Cars piled on top of cars, condemned houses with Xs on the doors, etc. On a much smaller scale, obviously.

At work, it'll be a long long weekend for essential folks. The rest of us have been told to stay away - no network, no phone service, no air, no restroom facilities - so I won't be going in to work until next Wednesday. I am a tad worried about our office since we're right next to an emergency exit and water came into the building under all lower doors (as well as flood the basement). In our office, four of my six computers sit on the floor. Last night, I spoke with my boss and she reminded me that we both left yogurt in the refrigerator. I guess I know what I'll be doing when I get to work next Wednesday. Yuck.

Meanwhile, S came back from her brother's wedding in Los Angeles only to find that her neighbor's house was gutted in a fire and her house has a lot of heat and water damage to windows and a broken fence. The fire also melted her air conditioning unit (houses in her area - NW DC - are so close together, they're like rowhouses with 10-20 feet in between). The man who lived next door died in the fire. What's even scarier is that the police told her that their block is now a lot safer because the house was apparently a drug house or something. The fire was also arson, not accidental. At this point, I think I should mention that she's hosting a DC reception for her brother's wedding at her house this coming Sunday - for only 125 people.

Since we have been lucky and the flood didn't hurt us, I should be enjoying this. The last time we were closed this long, I believe, was the blizzard of 1996 (which happened just after the furlough of 1995 - 1996). I haven't really relaxed into this forced vacation, though, thinking I'd be going back to work any day now. So I haven't gotten much done. Perhaps I should run more errands...

Red pickup truck. Male driver with cell phone to ear. Blonde female in passenger seat, repeatedly hitting the driver's cell phone hand against his head. I guess she didn't like him driving and talking on the phone? And how does removing all of his attention from the road make him a better driver again?

direct download

Drink Me Hot - Chris Joss
Fashionably Late - First Floor Brothers
Only the Shadow Knows - Mocean Worker
And L - Panoptica
Who Needs Forever (Thievery Corporation remix) - Astrud Gilberto
Euchari (Eucharius) - Garmarna
How Sweet Mal - Ekova
Manifest (Yossi Fine's Excentric Remix) - Karsh Kale
Storm Coming - Gnarls Barkley
A Little Bit of Shhh (Smallstars Remix By Adrock) - Lady Sovereign
Polaris - Bostich

Maybe someday I'll get around to, um, actually finishing these languishing posts of mine. Like the disappointing Sugarhill Gang thing yesterday at Woodrow Wilson Plaza.

I think there is more of a problem here than most realize. In fact, I tried to warn the Colbert Report staff about a very real threat they are facing. Wisely, they do not post any kind of contact information on their Web site, however, to protect themselves from people not as committed to truthiness as myself.

So I must post the truth here. Stephen Colbert is a man who doth protest too much. All one has to do is look at the thinly veiled name behind the man.

His name, after all, is Stephen Col-BEAR.

Don't say you weren't warned.

And that's the Wørd.

First was the baby shower for my brother-in-law's wife. That was something. I'm not a fan of these ritualized practices. I've also never been particularly big on family social scenes (my parents would have to force me to "make an appearance" at family gatherings with the aunts, uncles and cousins), so I was dreading that this would be too cutesy and that I'd be forced to play excruciatingly precious games. Or run away screaming. Luckily, the shower wasn't one of those affairs. It was pretty low-key and bearable. That's not to say that the talk of what one should and shouldn't do to potty train a child or how to book a week at the shore and how to save money in the restaurants was of particular interest. I'm sure it would come in handy if 1) one wanted to spend the summer at the shore or 2) had children. I am happy to report, however, that there was no sign of the $1200 high chair or $2500 pram. Seriously, the whole affair was ok. In fact, the worst thing was the pollen count. I was miserable if I stood near a window for more than 5 minutes. So, really, everything else was pretty good compared to that.

Yesterday's party wasn't the only chance I had to observe animal behaviors, though. As I was lazily drifting off to sleep last night at around midnight (damn allergies make so sleepy early), I heard a funny ratcheting sound. It was regular and fairly loud. I was about to rouse myself and ask sweetie (who was brushing his teeth) what he was doing when it occurred to me that perhaps the sound wasn't coming from the bathroom, but instead, from outside. Just as I figured that out, sweetie poked his head out of the bathroom and said "what's that sound?" I thought it might be something like a possum or raccoon, so I opened the window and looked out...right at a fox-like creature standing on our lawn. He or she had been gekkering, whether aggressively defending territory or looking for a mate, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it was a red fox. The fox and I spotted each other at the same time and after a brief moment of eye contact, it ran into the road and trotted down the street, white-tipped bushy tail and all. The one thing that struck me: it was much taller than I expected. I always think of foxes as being small, but this one was quite large. Not as large as an Eastern coyote (which I have yet to see, although we do have them) and not as mottled in color.

Speaking of coyotes, while searching for more information on the Eastern coyote, I came across the Coyote Club/United States Coyote Management Team. Their mission, should you be interested (and I know you are), is to hunt the coyote because "Coyote populations have expanded to include all 48 states."

Did that make you laugh?

How many things are wrong with that statement? Last time I checked, we had 50 states. And while it's true there are no coyotes in Hawaii (despite the disbelief of their directors), I have seen coyotes in Alaska. Also, the coyote population could not have "expanded" since they were all over the U.S. and Canada before the states were settled (although they may have repopulated after being nearly wiped out). Seriously, I know what they are trying to do (even if I don't agree with their methods), but they don't present themselves as well as they should. The Web site is a bit sad, really. What? It doesn't make you want to join this club for only $19.95? Come on, you know you want to join, if only to get a subscription to Predator Xtreme Magazine.

Part of me wishes it had been a coyote I saw last night, though. It would have been exciting. Not that the fox wasn't just as exciting. I might have to look up more on those vulpine varmints. They like to leave us little scat gifts.

The wilderness fun doesn't stop there, though. Because today, I practically screeched like a girl when this thing landed right next to my arm. Instead of screeching, though, I let out more, uh, adult language. Freaky looking thing is a megarhyssa wasp. Blech. And as if that wasn't enough, we seem to be plagued by tiny wasps in the house. Over the winter, we had big wasps and yellow jackets. Now, we have little wasps. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe the Brown Headed Cowbird I spotted today will eat them?

I just hope it leaves our little robins alone. What, you thought you'd escaped hearing about the robins? Not a chance.