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Early tomorrow morning, I’ll get on a bus to Heathrow and thus commence my journey back to middle America. I am not looking forward to the trip, and not only because of the 11 hours of travel time. I am feeling particularly pouty about leaving and am considering the following strategies: (1) a child-esque tantrum that involves foot-stomping, angry arm-crossing, glaring, and insistence that “I won’t go, you can’t make me, you’re not the boss of me” (even though, in fact, someone is the boss of me, and that someone probably would like me to return to my job); (2) trying to bring a person has my carry-on luggage (only because he refuses to curl up in my very large suitcase and go as checked luggage instead).
In addition to leaving things behind here, I am returning to the final five weeks before my exams, and I still have an amount of reading to do that I can’t even bring myself to admit to it publicly. Have I mentioned I’m not exciting about leaving England?
I’m finally posting this entry about last weekend, not to be confused with the last two days. Not having good internet access outside of work is really cramping my blog style, y’all.
Last Saturday, three lovely people braved the English cold and horizontal rain to take me around the West Country. I was skeptical at first about the possibilities of something initially described to me as “the English Grand Canyon,” but in actuality, Cheddar Gorge was beautiful (despite the weather, which prevented me from getting any pictures).
Cheddar has a few main attractions, and I experienced all of them: cheese, cider, and caves. Caves aren’t exactly my favorite thing in the world, but Gough’s Cave was warmer and drier than outside. And also pretty spectacular. Like so:
The rest of my photos from Gough’s Cave are on Flickr.
I’ve completely missed a weekend of posting nerdy lolcats and music recommendations because I’ve been traveling in the West of England. I had tons of fun and have heaps of photos to share, but at the moment I’m nursing a cold and catching up on work with BBC News EastEnders football on in the background. However, in keeping with the West-Country theme of the last few days, here’s a news link from tonight’s evening news: there’s a company in Wales that makes paper out of sheep poo. The company’s website is here; it won’t load properly for me, but that may be due to my dodgy internet connection.
I’m in Toronto. It’s excellent. The airport, that is. This is good, because I have a little over two hours to spend here. Naturally, I have elected to take advantage of the free wireless, whilst eating dinner, sipping on a mojito, and people-watching. If I could have triple-citizenship, I would so want my next one to be Canada. Regardez-vous the sunset that welcomed me:
(more at flickr, because I am a nerd)
Trivia: Did you know that Heinz ketchup is not only America’s favorite, it is also “le ketchup préfére au Canada”? I’m just throwing that out there for you.
When I was in the second grade, the New Kids on the Block ruled the world. I had New Kids trading cards, a Joey McIntyre poster, a book about the New Kids, New Kids cassette tapes, and a friend with a pink New Kids sleeping bag. I believe I forced the family to endure a prime-time New Kids concert special. My father made fun of me, but at the time I think he had Meat Loaf in heavy rotation on his car stereo, so who was he to judge?
Anyway, the New Kids on the Block are back, with their swanky new website, at which you can view slick new pictures and listen to what I presume is their comeback song, “Click Click Click” (you can also hear on youtube). The song is about taking mental pictures, because, and I quote, “Damn you look so good it hurts me.” And something about losing the cool in one’s knees?
Just in case you thought the New Kids hadn’t always been such a lyrical tour de force, I think it’s only appropriate that we revisit a couple of my favorite originals:
- You’ve Got it (The Right Stuff) – Video embedding of this video has been “disabled by request,” according to YouTube, so it seems like somebody doesn’t really want me to write this post. Watch it for the group dance number. Lyrical tidbit: The chorus consists of 34 words total, but only 4 unique words: “the” (2); “right” (2); “stuff” (2); “oh” (28).
- Hangin’ Tough – Hey, another song built around the word “oh”! The goal? To “put you in a trance with a funky song.” But not until you “get on the floor and do the New Kids dance.” In addition to the New Kids dance, the video features: Donnie Wahlberg in his “Home Boy” t-shirt, Joey McIntyre wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a giant smiley-face and a hat with no top, some totally awesome air guitar, and a lot of exceptional coifs on the female audience members. Interestingly, this is the only one of these videos still allowing embedding.
- Step by Step – If “Hangin’ Tough” looks like the New Kids were taking a stab at establishing street cred…I’m not sure what they were going for with this one. For starters, Jordan Knight is wearing overalls, and as soon as I noticed that, it almost completely distracted me from the leopard print, rat tail, motorcyclin’, weight-lifting, hairsprayed hairdos, sweet dance moves, and…what was that other thing? Oh, yeah. The song. The best line is something about how the anonymous “girl” in this song? In her eyes? Apparently, in them, Jordan Knight sees a “picture of me all the time.” And all I can think is, okay, but in that picture, is he still wearing overalls?
Perhaps this is more of a comment on old-school pop culture than it is a music recommendation, but this post is sandwiched between Little 500 weekend and an imminent trip out of town, so I guess for now? You’re just going to have to hang tough, and do the New Kids dance.
This week’s Caturday for Nerds is a day late and a dollar short, but I found this one on the icanhascheezburger vote page and thought it would do the trick. (“Ceiling cat” is the rough equivalent of the cat god in the icanhascheezburger universe).
Everything is running a bit behind today, including this post. Björk released the video for “Wanderlust” (from Volta) last week, and it’s a strange but stunning visual treat:
It’s directed by Encyclopedia Pictura, and it’s really something (note: it’s also not short).
Incidentally, my other favorite track off the album is the Timbaland-produced “Innocence;” you can listen to that track at hypemachine, or check out the contest-winning fan-made video on Youtube.
The Kitteh Subjects Committeh does not approve your study.
“This sombre series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study. The work by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta, who recorded interviews with the subjects in their final days, reveals much about dying – and living. “
Portraits Before and After Death
I found this link yesterday (via Heather at Dooce), and looking through the photos and reading the accompanying text sent me into one of those existential tailspins thinking about life, death, and the way I want to live my life. The comments over at Dooce were also interesting to read.
It’s funny how in some ways it’s through death that we learn about life, but I guess that just shows you about the power of binary oppositions. Oh, okay, I guess I might as well go all sociological for a minute: if Durkheim’s right, and the sacred/profane dichotomy underlies all our binary oppositions (good and evil, life and death, etc.)…in the “life/death” pair, which is the sacred side, and which is the profane?
