Haylo!!!
Well, that greeting was the most energetic thing I have done all day.
We had a perfect weekend. Today I am determined to do nothing and so far am succeeding amazingly!
In fact, I am so lazy that I am going to take a nap now. So, I'll post some pics later....probably! :)
I'm conflicted about Winter Solstice. This year I'd love to have some nice things. I'm supposed to be making a gift list. I mostly want things that aren't really gifts: clothing and boots, a work bag, money for travel and a new home.
I'm even having a hard time deciding which charity I want to give to this year. There's so many great ones. This year I'm finding some amazing new smaller charities like the Carnivore Trust and the Mangrove Action Project.
What can I ask for? My family purchases stuff whether I specify or not. So I should make some sort of list. I'm hugely grateful for the fortune we have in life, so I'm not complaining, but sometimes people ignore my charity request and just buy me clothes that don't fit.
It sure would be nice if people could buy each other simplicity, or reduced clutter. Maybe the soul of a Yogi. But those things aren't purchaseable. They have to be earned, sadly! I don't want more junk. I'm trying to simplify. It's not easy. What could I ask for that gets us closer to a home or travel?
Update: I'm asking someone to adopt Pinju for me!
Pinju: Male. I love to curl around the branches of oak trees and eat sorbus fruits. I hope you can come an visit me in Nepal soon.
I'm just venting today. There's a fairly trivial matter that's driving me nuts. I can't think of a name for our new strays. I'm drawing a total blank on names for them since they showed up 2 months ago.
Background story for those who don't know: Basically, our jerkbrain neighbors dumped 12 cats. Yes, 5 kittens and 7 adults. Locked them outside the apartment and left them to starve.
Our neighbor, a single grade school teacher, who can hardly afford to take in a stray animal, alerted me to the cats who had been abandoned and were starving. She was able to take 1 cat and we took 2 into our small shelter.
The Little Girl is very gentle, but she doesn't like being touched. She follows her "brother" around everywhere. She's also tiny but growing since we actually **ahem** feed her.
The landlord couldn't take them and the "owners" didn't bother to do anything until they saw the notice on the door alerting them that they were being investigated for animal cruelty, at which point all the rest of the cats disappeared, maybe they dumped them into the river. Who knows.
The Little Boy is really intelligent. He was terrified when he first got here but now he's friendly, gentle and catching on fast. He takes good care of his "sister". He's also one of the most muscular cats I've ever seen. A real macho kitty. But he doesn't spray and he's a wonderful cat. Did I mention we desperately need homes for them?
Anyway, I can't think of names for them. We generally name our cats after authors (Poe), composers (Hugo and **Charles** Ives) or famous characters (Watson). For the little girl I was thinking of: Rosie (Jetsons) or Fossey (Dian). I was calling the boy Newton. Rosie and Newton. Maybe.
Suggestions would be welcomed.I especially like sci fi and I'm jealous of my friend Bones who named her ferrets after Star Trek characters. I wish I had thought of that.
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12/01/09 Webster Theatre* Hartford, CT
Discography
12/02/09 House of Blues* Cleveland, OH 12/03/09 Bogart’s* Cincinnati, OH 12/07/09 St Andrews* Detroit, MI 12/08/09 The Armory* Rochester, NY with Matisyahu
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KOSHA DILLZ
official ♥ myspace
We've previously mentioned Kosha Dillz before, with his collaboration with C-Rayz Walz. Derek said that previous album had "classic hip-hop that rests firmly on a bed of oldskool beats", so missing from Beverly Dillz, Kosha Dillz's latest album (released November 10th on Modular Moods Records), seems to be the "oldskool beats".
Although the album starts off with a surprisingly hip-hoppy "DooDoo" - the rest of Beverly Dillz seems pretty laid back to me. There are a few exceptions like "Jungle" and "Tastes Good" (the best rap song on the album).
Personally, I thought "Puddles" was one of the better song, it's probably because it had Yak Ballz as guest. The song feels really familiar to me, like its bass is from the 80s or something. Speaking of familiar, you'll get that on his single, "Cellular Phone", which features some classic Dilliefied version of "This Old Man" and "Word Up".
Kosha Dillz was recently in the news because he remixed fellow Jewish artist YACHT (aka Jona Bechtolt) for an EP called Swim Club. You can grab the free 8-track EP at Kosha Dillz's website. I didn't listen to the entire 8 tracks, but I can tell you that I spotted some Beastie Boys, New Jack City, and Hansons references!
PS, While there are a lot of "hhheh" Hebrew sounds in "Kol Ha Kavod Lirkod", I believe all the songs on Beverly Dillz are in English.
MOSHIACH OI!
myspace
With the baby picture and my generally association that Jewish musicians tend to be either traditional or modern hip-hop, Moshiach Oi!'s album, Better Get Ready, surprised me with their hardcore punk music. Like typical punk songs, these songs are fast, loud, and brief - like a punch in the face.
The band's singer and found, Yishai Romanoff, actually sings his songs (instead of shouting out loud that you find on hardcore bands). Unfortunately, as religious as some of the songs can be ("I Wanna Learn Torah", "I Wanna Learn Torah", "This Is My G-d", "Hashem S'fasai Tiftach"), I can't help but think that the message will be lost in a loud sea of drums and guitars. The one exception of "I Love Torah", where you can clearly hear the majority of lyrics are "I love Torah, yeah!"
To me, punk bands do not often translate their live energy and performance well on the recorded medium, so to really appreciate a band like this, you sort of have to see them live. They are playing one date - probably to celebrate Hanukkah at: Chabad of Bushwick Brooklyn, New York, on December 12th.
You can pick up both of these albums from Shem Speed Store (the largest collection of Jewish music).
IN MORE JEWISH NEWS
For a full listing of events, head over to sephardicmusicfestival.com, what I can tell you is that Matisyahu is headlining on December 14th, which incidentally is also the most expensive ($35) among all the dates. The rest of the dates are decently priced at $12 or so.
Update 11/29/2009 17:51:48:
| jaklumen wrote: Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 4:23 PM |
other than that they get like 10 gifts for Hanukkah
Eight. There are eight days of Hanukkah, and there's a gift for each day, or there's a number of gifts corresponding to the day (1 gift on the first, 2 on the second...) All I remember well was some Jewish friends of my family said they had to alter things so they wouldn't go broke giving gifts to the kids.
The observance is tied to the Maccabean uprising and references the miracle of the menorah remaining lit for eight days despite a lack of oil.
11/29/2009 04:13:56 ♥ vu (
) ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
Actually, I was about to name my article Sleepless in Seattle --thought it was pretty cool. But well, I wasn't really sleepless. I did manage to sleep well the night in Seattle and woke up pretty early in the morning. So yeah, the title needs to change.
Although I didn’t spend time in Seattle much but Seattle was the city I first arrived and it would most likely I spent 2 days and 2 nights there. Anyway Seattle was cool city.
We arrived in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in the afternoon. We spent an hour at the immigration because of the long queue and processes.
We took a charter bus from the Gate00 according to Carla our colleague’s advice. It was very good and cheap, USD18 round trip. We were there only 2 persons on the bus—that makes we feel so special! *lol*
Seattle was so beautiful city in my thought. I like it there. But it was rainy day—no wonders why this city has been nicknamed “The City of Rain”. That’s the reason why I didn’t have a chance to tour around the city that much. We stayed at the Sheraton hotel, and we spent a couple of hour exploring the city a bit. We went to the shop around there and went back to the hotel.
The next morning, we spent all day meeting at Sheraton and we need to fly to Portland.
The way back from Portland, we need to stop by say hello to Seattle again and we stayed overnight there at Extended Hotel. The hotel is nearby the airport because we need to catch the early morning flight 6:00AM to go to San Francisco.
I was luckily to have a chance tour around Seattle and thanks to Thomas (My personal tour guide). He tooks me everywhere I want to go. J We had a chance to say hello to the original Starbucks!—now I understand why people sleepless in Seattle. Well, and just so you know Seattle is a birthplace of Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee. But I didn’t’ see them anywhere so…
We also went to the mall in Seattle and walk around and around the farmers market. It was cold and windy; we found Italian coffee shop to sat down and drink hot chocolate.
We had dinner with Scott at the place near the market. One of the great benefits of travelling is that you got a chance to try on local foods which you hardly found anywhere.
So Seattle in my thought, I think it is a special city. I hope I can have more chance to explore next time around.
But first I did a good thing. I went to the drug store, later than planned, but that doesn't surprise me. I am not, and never will be, a morning person. I used 40,000 points and left with about $91 worth of stuff (a little over $10 out of pocket for taxes and a lotto ticket). About $50 of that is for the food bank and spca. I had planned to spend some on stocking stuffers, but there wasn't much there I was looking for, and you couldn't use the points on gift cards (they have a big display of cards for lots of stores and restaurants - I got a bunch of different ones for mom and aunt last year and they liked it so I think I'll get more this year). They had food and cleaning stuff on sale, so I figure it's as good a use as any, right? I'm quite pleased with what I got.
The bad thing? FUCK. As I was leaving our parking lot to head out, I scratched the car. I'm very very angry with myself, so that's all I'm going to say about it. FUCK. I have never done anything like that and can't believe I did it today. Okay, okay, so I'm not counting the mirror I ripped off the UHaul truck when I moved up here, but hey, that wasn't my vehicle, and I had full insurance to cover it. FUCK. I'm going to talk to someone about what's involved in fixing it up. FUCK.
I finally came home after the trip to the U.S. Even I’m not in shape because of jet lag but I am fine.
I woke up this morning 4:00am since I went to bed 06:35pm. I drove my car back home after 5:45am. I arrived home after 6:30am and I found a gift box with my name on it. Immediately I opened it. It was Colin’s mum. In side there was a cute photo of Colin when he is a little boy playing something on the table. I reached inside the box there was cute card and lovely diary. I really love his picture when he was just a cute little boy and I just know he has blond hair. *lol* I looked at it thousands times already today. This is going to be my favorite picture ever! You really brightens up my day!
I love the sentence that says “If there is so much love you will find a way….”
Thank you Mayke, I’m so touched and I couldn’t stop smiling. You don’t know what that mean to me. Now my heart Is full of thankfulness. I hope you read my blog and I hope you don’t mind I post this beautiful things. :)
I know how hard to keep up our relationship to be a good one when we have difference time zone. We are struggling to be together. I can’t always be positive and I can’t pretend that I have a healthy relationship. There were so many times that I feel lonely. There were many times that I gave up when we misunderstood. I missed him a lot and miss the day we were together. It’s uneasy for me to ignore those feelings. So I’m grateful for every single thing in single moment that you made for us. Your ‘love’ and ‘support’ mean a lot to me.
So thank you, thank you and thank you. *hugs*
