10 posts tagged “qotd”

What are the 10 foods you must have in your refrigerator and/or your kitchen cabinet? 

1. Soymilk or almond milk
   
2. Eggs
3. Cholula or The Rooster
4. dark chocolate
   
5. peanut butter
6. beans, dried and canned
7. steel cut oats or quinoa
   
8. chevre or other goat cheese
   
9. fresh broccoli
10. carrots
    

Would you go on vacation by yourself, and if so where would you go?

Of course, but I'd call it "solitary retreat" rather than "vacation". Crestone, CO seems to be a good place for retreat.

What do you absolutely refuse to eat?

Fast food, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Arby's, Carl's Jr., etc.

I do make exception for In-and-Out Burgers, however.  I suppose that Chipotle, Illegal Pete's, Qdoba and other such burrito places technically count as fast food too.  As does Tokyo Joe's.  Hrm.  Maybe the categorical refusal is against all forms of fast fried foods and non-foods.

What are your top 10 most-played songs currently?

1. Deceptacon by Le Tigre
2. Happy and Bleeding by PJ Harvey
3. Where is My Love by Cat Power
4. I Miss You by Bjork
5. Before Today by Everything But the Girl
6. A Mistake by Fiona Apple
   
7. The First Taste by Fiona Apple
   
8. Studying Stones by Ani Difranco
9. Marrow by Ani Difranco
10. Welcome To: by Ani Difranco

I'm also listening to a lot of Baroque/Medieval, particularly compositions of Hildegarde of Bingen.

What's the last thing you crafted, constructed or created yourself?

Crafted: my latest essay for class -- a reflection on a meaningful thing I've carried with me for a long while.

Constructed:  a wood rack (about 10 ft long, 2 ft wide, and 4 ft high), made from 2x4s and 2x6s, to hold a half cord of firewood, keep it up off the ground, and allow it to be easily tarped and secured against the wind.  I need to build several more racks until I run out of my dimensional lumber, as well as order about 4 cords of firewood for the long winter season ahead.

Created:  Last night's dinner:  red miso soup with soba, spinach and wakame, seasoned with toasted sesame oil, hot pepper flakes, and black/white sesame seeds.

What time period would you have lived in, if you could have lived at any time?

I'd like to have been born during fin de siecle times in Vienna, and moved onto Paris for the 1920s in Gertrude Stein's salon.  The atmosphere for intellectual debate, art, poetry and music must have been scintillating.

What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?

Sleater-Kinney: One Beat  and  The Woods
Yeah Yeah Yeahs:  Fever to Tell  and  Show Your Bones
P.J. Harvey: Rid of Me  and  Is This Desire?

How well do you know your next-door neighbors?

As of yet, I don't know my next-door neighbors very well, but I'd like to.  I met my across-the-street neighbors, the Tipsy Weasels, not long after we moved in (May 2005).  They brought us chocolate cake.  I'd like to return the favor sometime, but I must develop the habits of neighborliness first.

My to-the-east next-door neighbors helped me and an MRIC hardware geek fix my wireless antenna, which had gotten blown way off course during a heavy storm.  They've invited us over for a beer and a chat sometime, but Atraya and I haven't had a chance to take them up on the offer yet.   The wife used to work at Naropa, which I think is neat.  They're considering selling and moving, but the market is slow for mountain homes.

My to-the-west next door neighbors threw an Independence Day party that we went to, and met many other folk of the neighborhood.  They're quite friendly folk, actually, but it seems that most people keep to their homesteads up here in the mountains.  Regarding the neighbor couple, the wife works for IBM and telecommutes, and has offered to keep an eye on our house and take care of our cat while we're away, which is deeply appreciated.  I think we'll take her up on her offer this winter.

I've heard that the neighborhood don't really warm up socially until you've lived here a while.  I think it's because our house in particular has had a lot of turnover in the past 10 years, whereas the other folks who've lived here for the shortest time have been here for 14 years.  So, we're newbie neighbors until we've been around a while.   I think our house has had a lot of turnover because it's one of the smallest ones, and therefore more affordable to new buyers.  There's maybe one smaller house, but that one has a grand view of the reservoir, and therefore has a selling price approx $100K higher than ours.

What is your favorite cover song?

I listen to a lot of jazz, particularly on KUVO, so I'm accustomed to hearing riffs and variations and improvisations on the theme of jazz standards.  It's one of the more interesting features of jazz for a longtime listener -- the musicians take a snippet of a catchy earworm and play with it, make it their own.  Once you've listened to enough jazz, you start to hear the standards come through in little phrases or the whole scope of a tune.

Now, that said, I always appreciate anyone other than Bob Dylan signing Bob Dylan songs.  There's a greatness to Dylan's songs that his voice is simply unequal to.  Actually, I think Bob Dylan's voice is tantamount to torture.

I love Janis Joplin's cover of Me & Bobbi McGee (Chris Christopherson) and Indigo Girls cover of Juliet (Dire Straits), and Madeline Peyroux's cover of the Edith Piaf standard Ma Vie en Rose.

If I could speak any language (I'd prefer to speak at least 3 fluently, and be able to get by on at least 3 more), I'd opt for German.  Part of it is heritage -- my grandfather came to the US from Germany in the early 1900s.  Part of it is aesthetic appeal -- Deutsch has a quality in its tones, pacing, arrangement of consonents, length of words, sounds of vowels, and so forth, that makes it differntly sexy from the more classically sexy languages (French, Italian, Castillian).  I'd also like to travel extensively in Germany, to learn about the general landscape that has been home to my ancestors.

I've attempted to learn some German from Deutche Welle, but it's slow-going. I find that whenever I study a language for any length of time, my mind keeps spurting out in French (which is what I studied in high school).  I took Russian in college, from which I derived only a stronger sense of French.  I've tried the Pimensleur Spanish lessons -- I remember French.  Now German inspires me to think in French.  But it's only traveler's French, nothing like fluency.

Le sigh...

The 2 langages I'd like to add to my current fluency (English only) are German (it would be good for professional academics) and Spanish (most useful in the Americas).  I'd like to have functional savy in French, Japanese, and Chinese.