furnished

This here is an update for readers who are following the Saga of the Espresso Machine and the Adventures in Procuring a Teak Credenza (hi, you two!).

First, Silvia has arrived:


Second, here is an actual photo of my actual credenza in my actual apartment (as opposed to the actual photo of not my actual credenza on eBay):


So, there has been a little progress around here. Stay tuned for the Debate About What Color to Paint My Hallway, the Conundrum of How the Hell I am Going to Fit All My Crap in the Closets, and the Fairy Tale of the Dishdrawer That I Want to Force to Fit into My Stupid Non-Standard Kitchen Cabinetry.

And yes, I am quite aware that I could make much faster progress on all of those things if I would actually get out to the home supply store instead of parking my ass on a chair and knitting Ariann.

more from the geekytown files

OK, if you have not yet had a chance to experience Blu-ray Disc, you have not lived. I don't care if you have summited K-2, fought off Brazilian piranhas with your bare hands while simultaneously wrestling a jaguar, or sat through an entire half hour of Rachel Ray. You. Have. Not. Lived. Tonight I got to see a couple of episodes of the BBC series Planet Earth on Blu-ray disc, and it BLEW MY MIND. For serious, people. Not that photos can adequately capture the fabulousness, but here are a couple:



Those of you who are familiar with my Crazy Shark Phobia will understand how incredible it is that I insisted on having that last sequence played back numerous times. Seriously, this shit makes you gasp things like "OH NO WAY!!" and "THAT IS NOT EVEN REAL!" and "HOW DID THEY DO THAT?!" at approximately four-second intervals. Every water droplet, every striation in the snow on the side of a mountain, every feather on a lunatic bird from New Guinea...it is all there up in your grille like real life on steroids.

And my amazement was not even dampened by half a bottle of Rubicon Estate Captain's Reserve 2004 Chardonnay followed by a lychee martini.


(Which, after this photo, I am going to start calling a "fetus martini.")

The Planet Earth series has the added bonus of being narrated by David Attenborough. Having watched approximately 94 million hours of his earlier series such as Blue Planet, Life of Mammals, Life of Birds, Life in the Freezer, etc., I was able to shout out things such as "Say GLASS-yer! Say GLASS-yer!" when the topic turned to glaciers, and so on. Endless entertainment.

how to tell you are visiting a geek

I decided to come down to Casa de James in Los Angeles this weekend and I must say I'd forgotten just how geeky this man is.

Exhibit A:
Telescope that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit B:
Room-cleaning robot.

Exhibit C:
Computer monitor that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit D:
Espresso machine that is bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit E:
Stacks of back issues of Science and Nature that are bigger than 18 people's heads.

Exhibit F:
Space jammies.

Also, here is a conversation that just happened:

Me: How many computers are in this house?
James: Um, let me go downstairs and check.
(Pause)
(Heard being mumbled from downstairs: Seven, eight...)
(James comes back to main floor, continues counting)
(James heads upstairs, more mumbled counting is heard)
(James comes back to main floor)
James: Looks like right now there are 18. But that's not counting specialty hardware for work and various...antique collectibles. Eighteen regular ones.
Me: Thank you.

Edited to add:
Not that there's anything wrong with all that. Now please excuse me while I enjoy my borosilicate mug of perfectly brewed soy cappuccino along with my lightning-fast, hacker-impenetrable wifi access.

mad knitting skillz

The MEOW fest was a big success, which is to say that many snacks were eaten, much booze was drunk, and much knitting took place. We also went to a rad yarn store in Portland called knit/purl, where I got some very pretty sock yarn with which I decided to make these mittens:


The pattern, such as it is, is "Lingonberry" from The Mitten Book by Gottfridsson & Gottfridsson, which is my kind of knitting book because it assumes you know what the hell you're doing and just gives you vague guidelines and some charts.

I have nothing else to report.

oh, meOW

I am in Troutdale, Oregon at my MEOW knitting retreat. Not everyone has arrived yet, but eventually we'll have 9 (out of 14) members here. As you can see, several of the attendees brought along their mascot kitties, so that we have an evil MEOW army to watch over us.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to check my work email at 7:00 a.m. while on vacation. Because I am a retard. And now I have a big fat headache and am extremely irritated. Is it cocktail hour yet? (At a MEOW retreat, this is the same as asking "Is it 10:00 a.m. yet?")

Every year we seem to end up with a MEOWfest catchword or phrase. This year it is "tent." Last year it was "Tom Wopat" (don't ask, because I can't tell). The first year it was "giant woofie." One year it was "I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream." And of course we can't forget the year of "Randy Beaver."

teak freak

Tonight James helped me put together the Danish teak 60's coffee table and chair I got from my parents. And when I say he helped me, I mean that I watched while he put them together, and I occasionally handed him a screwdriver (the tool kind, not the beverage kind, although I am sure he would have appreciated either).


I also have a couch that is just like the chair, except three seats wide and needing cushions to be made for it, which is why it seemed less urgent to get it set up for now.

Tomorrow I head out of town for the Fifth Annual MEOW Kitty Knitting Retreat. There will be much wine consumed and much catty gossip slung about. Oh, and there will also be knitting. Stay tuned for exciting yarn-filled updates.

color theory

Just in case any of you out there thought I wasn't dorky enough to color coordinate my cookbook shelf, I would like to prove you wrong:



My apartment is slowly coming together a bit. Here is the dining area. I'd originally planned to get a Saarinen pedestal table, but ended up getting this square thing at IKEA and saving...wait for it...$1369. Because that sucker was on sale for $39.99, people. THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE. And I can spill stuff on it without freaking out, because did I mention it cost THIRTY NINE NINETY NINE?


That red box is my microwave, by the way.

And now you should go out and buy the ingredients to make Caramelized Tofu, because damn that's good eatin'.

vegan sushi!

Tonight I made vegan sushi for dinner. That's all I have to report.

progress reportage

I actually got some work done in the home improvement department this weekend, despite being jet lagged off my ass. I've painted my dining area:


And I've set up my Reading Area of Clashing Animal Prints:


However, most of the apartment still looks a little something like this:

Today I also went to a Danish antiques place in Emeryville and bought myself a rad teak credenza. I don't have a photo of the one I bought, but this one is almost identical:


It will go perfectly with the Danish teak couch, chair, and coffee table my parents bought in 1964 and which I've recently charmed them out of.

Tonight I made Heidi Swanson's Tasty Asparagus and Brown Rice, except with quinoa instead of rice. It was veganlicious. I guess that doesn't really count as home improvement. But it's a vast improvement over what I get to eat in India, so there you go--I just made this post on topic, did you see how I did that?

Oh, and also I am now a brunette:


It's exactly like being a blond, except with brown hair.

denied!

The only voice mail waiting for me when I got back to the U.S. was a message from Aabree Coffee saying that my light blue Francis Francis X5 was unavailable AND discontinued, and did I want to maybe order a different machine?

I think this is all because I dimed out Francis Ford Coppola. Maybe tomorrow I am going to wake up with a group head on the pillow next to me.

But it all works out in the end, because James admitted that he's been thinking about upgrading to the Quick Mill Andreja Premium, and so I self-sacrificingly offered to take his Rancilio Silvia off his hands at no extra charge so that he wouldn't have to feel guilty about abandoning it. I am just that nice, you see. Plus I'd been kind of feeling lame for preferring the slightly more expensive and obviously technically inferior Francis Francis to the Silvia on the basis of aesthetics alone.

Silvia, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

it's a boy!

One of the reasons I chose not have children is that I knew I would feel so very, very guilty when pillaging their college funds to buy items like this:


This is the Illy Francis Francis X5, the latest in a string of luxurious purchases that I justify to myself by pointing out, "Self? Did you know that you will be 40 in six weeks?" and/or "Self? Don't you think that you deserve something special as a reward for living in a godforsaken developing country for months on end?" And so on. And there's nothing like being half a gazillion dollars in debt (please refer to Exhibit A: New Apartment) to make the purchase of a state-of-the-art Italian espresso machine feel positively trivial. (A year from now, when you find me living on the sidewalk outside my erstwhile apartment, please take pity on me.)

Incidentally, I am planning to paint my kitchen the color of a clementine, or perhaps a cantaloupe (um, the inside of a cantaloupe), so the machine should look fan-effing-tastic in there after that. Note the little indicator lights are orange, and look so very pretty against the pale blue.

Here is another interesting tidbit. Alright, another tidbit. Recently there was a piece in the NY Times about Francis Ford Coppola and his love for the soon-to-be-released Illy Francis Francis X7 espresso machine (which is not named after him, nor him after it). Now prepare to be freaked out. The Francis Francis X5 (see above) was designed by someone named Luca Trazzi. And who sleeps with the fishes? Luca Brasi. And who directed the Godfather movies? Uh huh. That's right, my friends: Francis Ford Coppola killed the guy who designed my new espresso machine.

P.S. Today's post title serves double duty as a salute to my littlest new buddy, Alex Michael, who decided to come out and join the world a few days ago. Go Alex!

thematic analysis

Tonight I was poking around in the iTunes online store and discovered that they have over 300 albums in their My Groove section, which is basically a bunch of themed albums such as 70's Dance Party and Dinner Jazz {::shudder::}. I began noticing that some of these album themes were kind of, I dunno, stretching it a bit. For example, Boxing. Is there really someone out there whose consumer needs can be partially satisfied by purchasing an entire album of songs somehow related to men beating each other up for money? Although anything that will potentially introduce musically-inclined pugilists to Bob Dylan's Hurricane can't be all bad. Incidentally, that one segues right into You Knock Me Out by R. Kelly; I mean, Bob's a tough act to follow under any circumstances, but that just seems unfair.

A few other themed albums of note are:

Cajun Cookout (including Who Stole the Hot Sauce? by Chubby Carrier)

Labor Day (predictably including Take This Job and Shove It and Working For A Living)

Saturday Errands (Seriously? You can't get through those without a professionally produced soundtrack? I wonder what song goes with "picking up kitty litter." Shit Iz Real by Black Moon? I Smell Pussy by G-Unit?)

Black Frat Party (There was an interesting self-referential theme going on in this one. It had Brick House, and also an artist or group called Brick performing a song called Dazz, and then also a song called Back That Azz Up.)

Recovery Songs (including Wine Into Water [see what they did there?], Nobody Drinks Alone [um, yes they do, and that's part of the problem], and Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac [now, I'm no heroin junkie--yet!--no, seriously, I totally have it under control--but that seems like the opposite of good counsel])

Indie Wedding (OK, I'm sorry, but would any self-respecting Indie couple really turn to a pre-fab album from the good folks at iTunes to decide on the music for their Big Day? Plus, from what I observed there's nothing iTunes can do for them that they couldn't achieve by throwing random darts at a list of Decemberists, Bright Eyes, and Cat Power album tracks.)

And my personal favorite...

SOCCER MOM CHILLOUT (which had a strange sub-theme represented by selections such as Fallen, Upside Down, and As I Lay Me Down. What exactly are these album compilation people implying?)

Which leads me to my next question: This is really someone's job? To sit and think up song collections very loosely held together by some nebulous theme? Because I am starting to think I want this job. In fact I've already got a few ideas brewing:

Stalking Your Ex (including Hey Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms, Please Call Me, Baby by Tom Waits, I Just Can't Stop Loving You by Michael Jackson, and My First Restraining Order by Drowningman)

Things That Itch (including Heat Rash by Infamouz, Allergic to the Medication by The Hypertonics, and Poison Oak by Bright Eyes)

So You've Decided to Get a Sex Change (including Man! I Feel Like a Woman! by Shania Twain, Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks, and That Dress Looks Nice On You by Sufjan Stevens)