Quicktime | Flash | iPod Let s take a break from the Palin Madness (oh, come on! Just a wee break ) to enjoy some calm, soothing, quiet time with some of the gentler dumber woodland creatures. It s lunchtime in the forrest. Let s see who shows up. Shhhhhhhh!
Flash | Quicktime | iPod Life s funny. I responded to an email from Nokia about testing a music phone (forget that I m not sure whether I would use a music phone, who says no to free use of a gadget? I love gadgets!) and got the phone promptly enough, but unfortunately for this little AT that s where you come in
Flash | Quicktime | iPod and I won. Sort of. Technically I came in second, but really the 1st and 2nd place prizes were identical in value, but the 1st place winner got to choose which one they wanted.Not to put too fine a point on it (and not that it matters, because really it was all in good fun), but I was robbed. Robbed! I was robbed! My melon was SO much more bare than the winner s! Ask anybody!
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Nothing says Summer quite like a small-town County Fair. This was shot at the Barnstable County Fair in Falmouth, Mass. and is just the first of many fair excursions this year if I get my way. There s still the local Ulster and Delaware County fairs, and then there s The Big One (dood! Journey, Heart A Dream That Can Last Sleeps with Angels, 1994 No permission whatsoever
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Square dancing is seriously bigtime Saturday night fun, round these parts. And it was seriously fun, even though our square was a hot mess. Now that we know our allemande from our do sa do we ll be ready to move on to more advanced moves.
Quicktime | iPod | Flash I ve been sitting on this footage long enough. When we were on vacation in Istanbul last Winter the majority of our evenings were spent in our cute little hotel room shooting the breeze and enjoying a light (second) dinner of cheese, wine and halvah. Me, my Mom and her BFF Sally together on a grand international adventure (a good deal of which was spent in our cute hotel room enjoying wine, cheese etc). I ve shot and posted family fun before, but sometime between then and now my Mom decided she didn t want to be featured on the blog any more. She never really explained why no matter how many times I asked. I guess it s just too strange to her too personal. For me, it s different. The more personal the better. We didn t take family movies when I was young, so to me capturing these moments is like a special gift. I get to keep them forever, living them again and again as I choose. Granted, I don t re-watch 85% of the videos that I post. But this one? This one falls into that remaining 15%. I ve watched it ten times in the last hour already. It s special to me, and it s mine. Sorry, Mom. I had to do it. I couldn t help it. I think it s just too dear to keep to myself.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod The only thing less interesting than watching grass grow is watching it get cut, unless you grew up in the city and never mowed a lawn in your life. THEN it s pretty damn exciting! Brian is in charge of lawncare (and by lawncare I mean just mowing because it s not like we re fertilizing or watering or anything), but I m home more often so I needed to learn how to use the mower. The front gets really scraggly after a couple of days, and luckily it s flat and I can manage it. This is the side yard, there s a little more to mow in front of the house, too. I m thinking of planting a bunch or stuff there so there s less to mow. The back yard is simply too hilly for me to even think about mowing. Brian can do it, but I m too scared that the mower will slip back and slice off all my toes. I have no grace with the lawnmower, no rhythm and basically no skills. I can barely start the damn thing.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod The day started off great! Birthday party, face-painting, pizza and good friends. Then it took an ugly turn. The party was on Long Island and we were driving home upstate from there. We knew we had the Belmont Stakes, a Yankees game and just plain Saturday to contend with traffic-wise, and because of that and the fact that we had my entire record collection and a whole mess of baby tomato plants in the bed of the truck on a 90F day, we knew we had to hit the road early. But something went wrong. We zigged when we should have zagged and after a spell I looked out the window and saw water. We were deep South instead of Way North. We got off the highway but couldn t get back on and ended up driving through the whole of Brooklyn all of it, no really ALL OF IT from Canarsie through Kings Plaza, Midwood, Prospect Park, Park slope, Fort Green and Williamsburg via Flatbush Ave. On a Saturday afternoon. You may have to be a New Yorker to appreciate how awful that really is. If you re not, here s a visual: The drivers were complete maniacs, we got cut off from the right at literally every block. The traffic getting past the GWB and Yankee Stadium was insane. We left the party at 2:30 and didn t get out of the damn city till about 5:30. We didn t get home till 8:30. We were broken. So we broke out the champagne we d been saving for a rainy day. (it was also raining)
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Back in the day, they used to show shorts before Rocky Horror down on 8th Street to get the crowd warmed up. Paradise Garage and Thank You Mask Man were two of my favorites, but there was a third sick & twisted little movie that always made me giggle. I though of it when I shot this.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Winding down The Plaid Years, thank goodness. Unlike the last journal entries, these are a lot less eventful (that s probably for the best) and span a large stretch of time. The Plaid Years should really should be called College: The Early Years . I took another couple of stabs at it till I got it right. Then grad school took a few more stabs, topped off by a second bachelors stab. For someone who clearly did not like school, I sure went to school a looooong time. The most annoying thing about this diary (aside from the fact that by age 19 I m a mess-and-a-half) is that not only are the pages not pre-printed with dates but I didn t date them, either! I guess I though that being deliberately vague was really, really cool. I also didn t name anyone, I just used their initials. Not helpful. When I m 80 I ll have no idea who these people are. I left out the superpathetic sex bits. Plenty of that in my last post. That s all you get.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Now we are treading in dangerous waters. No life jackets. Pirhanas everywhere. Nibbling. We re moving on to a new journal. The plaid one. The Plaid Years were well plaid. All jumbly and going in several directions at once. Why? Because that s what being a college freshman is all about. Everyone around you is saying you re grown up, that you re an adult, but you re not by a long shot. What you really are is a 13th grader masquerading as an adult. I m sure I thought I was a sophisticated Woman of The World, what with my being away at college and all**, but in reality I was just as much of a kid as most of my friends. I slept with a teddy bear and was still having nightmares about The Day After. I shot video of several journal entries from The Plaid Years, but realized that this one the first one should just be out on the loose on its own. A side note to the Fathers: Yes. It s true. Your daughters will get older, they will have sex likely too soon and it will be a nightmare for you. They might make some questionable choices in spite of the fact that you ve raised them to be strong, smart young women. You can t lock them in the basement. Actually, I guess you could lock them in the basement Go. Go do it now. Yes. Lock your daughters in the basement. Hurry! **I was 37 minutes away by commuter rail. Real worldly.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod The Unicorn Years: Part Two.** After a couple of years of writing in dated diaries I became embarrassed by the volume of empty pages when I didn t write so I took to writing entries in blank books instead. The gaps are still there, just less obvious. That s why the unicorn book lasted as long as it did. It stretches all the way into March of 1986 - the Spring semester of 11th grade - and it s still more than half empty. I never could resist starting a new blank book. There is a huge gap between September of 84 through September 85. The pages for the entire school year are actually ripped out. I have no idea when I did that, but I do remember why: junior year was excruciating. Academically disastrous, friendships obliterated, loyalties tested, epic scale teen-girl drama. I m pretty sure my best high school girl friend wrote a play about that year when she was old enough to parse it all. You couldn t pay me to relive high school, particularly that year. Now we re getting into the yucky part of being a teenager. Pain, rejection and parental disapproval. I really should have stopped listening to The Smiths so much. But how could I? They were speaking directly to me. **Today there may be a Dear Diary two-fer. I m hoping to cram in VBWeek #3 before I go to work. If not, the whole week will be off by a day. As you can plainly see from my diary entries regarding school, organization and prioritizing were never my strong suits.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod I ve been away for far too long. Busybusy, not much to report, just busybusy. What better time to get back into the swing than Videoblogging Week? One video a day for seven days. After NaVloPoMo, a week should be easy as pie. Last year for VBWeek I reviewed some of my favorite good, cheap foods of NYC. This time, it s personal. Pretty much every year for as far back as I can remember someone gave me a daily diary as a Christmas gift. Being the pack rat that I am, I still have most of them. I m not sure what made me think that reading them in public was a good idea but I was inspired by a recent episode of my favorite radio show in which a man read entries from his childhood journals expressing his deep desire to become the prime minister of Israel. It s what you d expect from a teenager s journal: intense, outrageous and touching. It s also seriously cringeworthy. I m expecting a whole lot of cringing going on here, for certain. I haven t read all the way through the diaries and don t know what embarrassment is in store; it could be really bad so this little project may end abruptly. I can always go back to good, cheap eats, right? Let s start with 1983-1984, the years documented in the journal with a unicorn on the cover. From what I can recall, those were very good years. The unicorn years.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod Apparently, it s genetic. My family has a cellular desire to broadcast themselves. My sister s cable access TV show gets streamed on the internet, and I finally got to tune in. It s a gas.Maybe we should do a show together?
Quicktime | Flash | iPod If you own a car in New York City, you know all about alternate side of the street parking and how it can take over your life. If you don t, then here s a quick lesson! Fortune by Great Big Sea courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network
Quicktime | Flash | iPod I love food. I love eating. I love cooking. I hate eggplant. While in Istanbul I discovered something extraordinary: I love eggplant. I ve been testing several different eggplant recipes over the last couple of weeks and last night realized that I had forgotten the most obvious one, eggplant parmagiana. I love chicken parmagiana, so I figured I d love the eggplant version, too. But it just didn t seem like enough; just eggplant tomato sauce and cheese? That s it? Seemed sort of boring. Seemed like there wasn t enough food in that food. I wanted to add another layer, but what? I have to admit that chicken came to mind. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. What s that other vegetable that s fabulous breaded and fried? Oh, yes. Talk about obvious. SOUTHERN FRIED PARM 1 medium sized eggplant, partially peeled in wide stripes, sliced 1/2 thick 1 big green tomato sliced the same size as the eggplant 2 or 3 eggs well mixed in a bowl flour with a little black pepper bread crumbs + crushed Pepperidge Farm Stuffing + some parmesan cheese, too oil for frying (or, a cookie sheet for baking if you re not into frying, which is crazy, by the way) the tomato sauce of your choice. I used a whole large jar of Classico Caramelized Onion grate it fresh if you ve got it mozz 1. sprinkle eggplant slices very lightly with salt and set in a colander for 15 minutes. 2. to spare yourself more dirty dishes and, roll down the sides of a clean plastic grocery bag till it lays reasonably flat. Put the flour on the left and the breadcrumb mixture on the right. I like panko, but it really doesn t hold up to all that time under sauce in the oven. I use Italian seasoned breadcrumbs mixed with some stuffing mix for extra crunch. The cheese is a bonus. Flour both sides of the slices, shake em, then dip in egg, let the excess drip off, then dip it in the crumbs. Set aside on waxed paper or a rack. This process takes longer than you think. Mid-way through, heat up your frying oil. 3. Repeat with the tomato slices. 4. Test the oil with a small eggy bread crumb ball. If it sizzles in a lively happy way, then fry your eggplant slices in batches, followed by your tomato slices, about 3 minutes on a side for each. Don t crowd them or the temperature of your oil will drop too far. Set slices aside on a rack as you go (NOT a paper towel! It ll get all greasy, soggy and steamed!). Halfway through the frying, pre-heat your oven to 400F. 4. Put a little sauce in the bottom of a glass baking dish big enough to hold all the slices. I used a 3 deep round one. Add a layer of eggplant, a sprinkle of parm and then a more sauce. Top with a layer of fried tomato, parm and sauce etc, till you end up with one last layer of eggplant. Top with remaining sauce and top THAT with shredded mozz. Use good mozz, if you can. I used lame generic shredded 2% mozz, which was fine, but the dish would have really benefited from decent cheese. 5. Bake till cheese is bubbly and lightly browned. 6. Let stand a couple of minutes, then serve with pasta tossed lightly with olive oil, or rice, or orzo, or whatever you want! Serves 2 with seconds and leftovers for lunch, or four with no seconds and no leftovers.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod I was one of those lucky ducks who grew up with none of her wisdom teeth impacted. Nope, not me! Four perfectly formed 3rd molars popped up by the time I was 22, plenty of room for everybody, no pain, no shifting. Two years ago, though, I got a cavity in one of those chompers and my dentist recommended that he pull it, but having somewhat lame dental coverage for extractions I begged him to fill it instead. He agreed, but warned me that since it was difficult to reach back there with a toothbrush the day would surely come where I d get another cavity eventually and then only pulling would do. Today was that day. And since the troubled tooth was on the bottom, it s upper twin would have to go, as well. I m almost ridiculously healthy. I realized that this was pretty much the most surgical thing that s ever happened to me. I ve never been one to fear the dentist (I ve had 12 fillings in my lifetime, not that I m proud of it, just to say that I ve spent considerable time at the dentist) but I was overwhelmed once I got in that chair. Totally overwhelmed. The dentist was very kind and totally patient with me. I m glad it s over, and I promise to brush extra, extra carefully on the other side so I don t have to go through this again. This post is brought to you by the makers of Valium, Motrin, and Tylenol + Codeine, and Frozfruit.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod Five times a day, you hear the Islamic call to prayer. No matter where you are in Istanbul (on the European side, anyhow) you can hear it. Early (really, really, really, really, really, really early) morning, noonish, late afternoon, just after sunset and then again in the evening. Here are just a few of the wonderful sights and sounds of Istanbul, including The Haigha Sophia, The Blue Mosque and the Bosphorous Sea.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod Been here a week in Istanbul and only just today realized the wifi signal was stronger in the garden than it is in our room. Duh. While visiting the incredibly gaudy, gold-leafed and crystal banistered Dolmabahce Palace we were made to wear shoe condoms so as not to mar the umm new carpets that were already protecting the 200 year old parquet flooring. Whatev. We all looked very goofy.
Quicktime | Flash | iPod I don t think I ll ever quite get used to quirks of living with an artist. That s okay, though, because sometimes art is fluffysoft.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod After watching the Guitar Hero wunderkind, BigB and I were inspired to get back into the swing of gaming. It had only been, what, 20 years? I m exaggerating, of course. The last system I owned was a Sega Genesis and man, I could kick some serious Mortal Kombat II butt. I could rip out hearts and deal out fatalities (and Babalities!) with the best of them. Sometimes I d disconnect the Genesis and plug in the NES. Mario and Luigi were my very own brothers, and we would sail into the clouds, collect coins, bounce those damned turtles around and save the girl on a nightly basis. That was high-tech stuff! Adventure? Well, that was high-tech in its day, too. Somehow. I have no idea how I EVER got through that game. All I know is that now I can t. It s totally embarrassing. My only consolation is that BigB can t break his way out of Breakout s first layer of bricks to save his life. These games aren t even in a console. They re stuffed into old-skool joysticks that plug directly into the projector. Sweet hotness.
Quicktime | iPod I ve been trying to post this video for four days. Apparently there are some signal problems at Time Warner Cable that are affecting upload speeds in my neighborhood. Mega annoying. But the nice man at TWC Tier Three Customer Service said it should be fixed before the weekend. I have my fingers crossed. A third of the way through NaVloPoMo there was much twitterbuzz surrounding The Truth Fairy s fantastically rich and butt-widening carbonara recipe. Cheryl tweeted something like The carbonara is so good we should do a vlog cook-off! and then The Truth Fairy tweeted You think THAT was good you should see my risotto! and I tweeted Oh yeah? and he tweeted Yeah! and then I said Oh YEAH? and then actually it didn t go quite like that. But there was mention of risotto and a food challenge so I filled in much of the rest. There s not much of December left, so get cooking! It s DecVloRisMo! (December Vlog Risotto Month! Duh!) I make this dish all the time so exact measurements have long left my mind. But here s an approximation of the recipe: 1. Heat 4 tbsp olive oil in a saucepan. Add one small chopped onion (3/4 cup) and cook till just soft. Add 1 cup arborio rice and stir 3 tbsp cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 small onion chopped (about 1/2 cup) 1 small shallot finely chopped 1 cups arborio rice 1/4 cup dry white wine About 3-4 cups of hot chicken stock or vegetable stock 1 small-med butternut squash cut into medium dice (3/4 ) 4 slices cooked bacon, in little pieces, but not crumbled. Or 4oz chopped pancetta cooked till crispy. 1/2 cup grated Parmesan, or, if you re me, way, way more 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (cut into little pieces) In a medium-size heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and shallot and saute until just soft, about 4-5 minutes. Add the rice and continue stirring (use a wooden spoon if you have one) coating all the rice with oil. Add the wine and stir till it has been absorbed by the rice. Pour in just enough chicken stock to cover the rice, and stir often until all the liquid is absorbed. Add the cubed squash, and continue adding hot broth in small amounts (1/2 cup) and stirring frequently until the rice is creamy and the squash is just tender (don t over cook it or it ll be all mush and not cubed at all! Don t obsess about constantly stirring. If you need to rest your arm or answer the phone or go pee, that s fine. Your risotto will not suffer. Add the bacon (mmmmmm ) Stir in the parmesan and the butter. Serve in warm bowls for a super fancy effect, and garnish with a sprinkle of additional cheese and little chopped Italian parsley or cilantro.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod Never believe it s not so! Oy. Kids these days Kids! I don t know what s wrong with these kids today! Kids! Who can understand anything they say? Kids! They are so ridiculous and immature! I don t see why anybody wants em! Just you wait and see Kids! Kids! They are just impossible to control! (Soon you ll be old enough to be) Kids! With their awful clothes and their rock an roll! (Another teenage delinquent) Why can t they be like you were, Perfect in every way? What s the matter with kids to Kids! What the devil s wrong with these kids today? Kids! Who could guess the they would turn out that way! Why can t they be like we were, Perfect in every way? What s the matter with kids? What s the matter with kids? What s the matter with kids today?
Flash | Quicktime | iPod I was going to close NaVloPoMo with a deep, meaningful post about what I ve learned over the course of the month, and all the cool new videoblogs I ve been introduced to this November, and the amazing stuff people have put together, but instead I figured I ll just offer up something I shot the other day. I highly suggest checking out the Ning NaVloPoMo group, or just hop over to blip.tv or mefeedia and search of the tag NaVloPoMo07 for a giant collection of video treats. Alas, I cannot go to The Winnies. Dire financial straits and screwy work scheduling keeps me from all the fun and frivolity happening in LA on this fine day. I have to admit, when I woke up this morning I thought I should just fly out today with the money I ve been saving for a car since I didn t get my but then realized that I had to work tonight, anyhow. So here I am, in the green sparkling dress I would have worn, giving a well-deserved Winnie to a fine, upstanding member of the videoblogging family. (note: although completely and utterly censored, this isn t really kid-friendly)
Flash | Quicktime | iPod This was supposed to be a wholly different post. But it s not, because I suck. I swear I m not an unsafe driver compared to the idiots out there. I just didn t pass.
Flash | Quicktime | iPod Delays, delays. Excuses, excuses. I should never wait until the very last minute before heading off to work to post a video because one little glitch, and poof! No post. Here s a little post-Thanksgiving lovey moment.
started vlogging because: I needed to silence the little voices in my head...
...and I've always this inexplicable desire to broadcast myself and my city.
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