In which Merenwen battles a library self-checkout, her family, and high-sodium food.

For some weird reason, Blogger just posted as I was typing the title the first time. Odd.

So I went to the library to pick up my stuff, and I was having a hard time with the self-checkout machine. It was recognizing a manga as two items, which I don't understand, and then I selected 'finish' by accident, so I had to dig my card out again. I was having the same problem with other items.

And when I got home, my mom started bitching at me because I was supposed to bring two bags for the library stuff we were picking up (she said something about two bags, but she must've been mumbling or something). And then when I told her about my troubles with the self-checkout, she nattered at me to check my slip to make sure it didn't list it as two copies of each item. I told her it didn't matter, and she went into an 'it does matter!' speech. OMG. Seriously?! Duplicate items are the least of my problems! I got an e-mail at 10:49 last night from Stephen telling me that youth group would be cancelled until AUGUST 12TH, because he's in BATON ROUGE!!!

And now, more ranting about family, and a rant about high-sodium food. Because I can.

We went out for Chinese food on Monday with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Brent, Justin, Uncle Brent's girlfriend Heather and her daughter Tegan, Aunt Patti (I flashed her a snide smile when she thanked me for passing her a menu, but I don't think she saw it), Jesse (Patti's son and my cousin), PATTI'S FRIEND LORRAINE (why she was invited, I still don't know) and Grandma's cousin Donna.

And now the rant. WHY THE HELL WAS LORRAINE THERE?! SHE'S NOT FAMILY, AND UNLESS SHE MARRIES A SECOND-COUSIN OR SOMETHING SHE WILL NEVER BE FAMILY! I KNOW SHE DOESN'T HAVE A FAMILY OF HER OWN OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT THIS ISN'T A HOLIDAY DINNER, IT'S A FAMILY, A FAMILY GET-TOGETHER!!!!!

M'kay. That's done. Oh yeah, there was also the part where Grandpa was being his usual cheap self with the bill and the tip, Patti bitching about there being no shrimp left in the one noodle dish (I got it before her, and had to wait forever for it to come my way, so I figured I was entitled to the last shrimp!) and me having to wait a little while for dishes to be passed to me - I know it wasn't intentional, but a lot of people could see my plate and, thus, see what I had and what I didn't have on it. Oh, and on the car ride home, Dad said something about everybody having to pay for Patti's soup. Must be nice for her. I wanted to get won ton soup, but Grandpa was kind of rushing us, and I should have spoken up, but I didn't want to look ungrateful by saying that I'd like soup, too. But dammit, I should have asked for soup. Patti got soup, and almost everybody else got a spring roll or an egg roll. I hate spring rolls and egg rolls!

The food was pretty good, though. Not as good as stuff you can get at Mandarin, but still decent. But it was so packed with sodium that Mom and I felt like roadkill.

We might be going to Michaels this week. I hope we do, because we have a coupon, and I want to look at circular needles. And they have Vanna's Choice on sale.

Underrated Singers

I was watching an episode of SNL from the third season (1977-1978), and was listening to Leon Redbone sing, and thought, 'He's an underrated singer. I should write a post about underrated singers.' So here it is.

I'll talk about Leon Redbone first.



He has a growly voice that reminds me of Tom Waits. Or Louis Armstrong. And it's hard to define what his genre is: blues? Bluegrass? Jazz? Or maybe a combination of the three? Anyway, I don't know much about him except that he's been on SNL a lot. I can't think of another musician who has been on SNL as much as Leon Redbone. He's like Steve Martin or Buck Henry, always appearing once a season. I'll have to look him up on Wikipedia and find out how many times he's been on SNL. I think he's great, but I had never heard of him until I started watching the first season of SNL. Robert Johnson I'd heard of, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, but Leon Redbone? Never heard of him until I saw him on season one of SNL.

Another underrated singer is Meatloaf.



A lot of critics hated his debut album, Bat Out of Hell. Why did they hate him? I think the two reasons are: people didn't understand his style, and he isn't a skinny pretty-boy. But I like him. Most of his songs were written by the epic songwriter Jim Steinman - at one point, though, they split due to creative differences, and Meatloaf wrote his own songs. I've never heard those songs, but my mom, a true Meatloaf fan, doesn't like them. I think critics have even said that he 'can't sing', but if he can't sing, then why does he fill stadiums?

Another favourite of mine is Frank Zappa.


Though he still has a huge fanbase years after his death in the early 90s, I still think he's an underrated singer. He had a knack for thumbing his nose at authority. Before there was Green Day, there was Frank Zappa.

I love his sound - it's so hard to describe. It's strange, rhythmic, jangly, bluesy... he took bits of jazz, blues and rock and fused them into a whole new genre that is way beyond description. It's difficult to think of another musician who's done something as surreal as this with music. Or with anything, for that matter.

So there you have it. Three singers that people either hate or have never heard of.

edited to fix a 'has' to a 'had' in the bit about Frank Zappa

DUDE!!!!!

Dad got the DVD player to work! It's simple, too.

Now I can watch SNL or Inkheart or The Mighty while Dad's playing poker :D

DUDE?!

Dad still hasn't gotten the DVD working.

I have three DVDs to watch, one of which is seven discs long.

You do the math.

Things I did today

1. I made up the last packet of instant udon, and garnished it with green onion and grated carrot.

2. I watched Rocky Horror. I think it was on Super Channel.

3. I worked on my Irish Hiking Scarf while watching nature programs on Oasis HD.

4. For a minute, I thought my spellcheck wasn't working, lol.

5. I ate dinner.

6. Dad's either going through male PMS or male menopause. I can't tell.

7. I talked to Max for a bit.

8. I ate gooseberries.

That's pretty much it. Mom wants to go to the market tomorrow - not the one downtown, though. She wants to go to the one by our house, and she said we can pop into the library to pick up the weaving book I have on hold, but I said I had stuff still coming, so I may as well wait. I have to get Dad to fix the satellite settings, because he was fiddling with things and now the DVD player won't work properly - well, it works, but I can't get it to switch from TV to DVD, even when the satellite is turned off. Bah.

Bleh

The weather started out cool and rainy, and then the rain stopped and it got humid. Bleh.

I actually woke up at a decent time this morning - just before 9:00. Mom was watching a program on Oasis HD about urban wildlife in Toronto. She told me that Teddy was 'stalking' the squirrel on the TV. I wish I could've seen that! I did, however, see Mouse watching the TV when a program about lions was on after the urban wildlife program. I swear, with this HD receiver, I could sit and watch Oasis HD and National Geographic HD all day - while knitting, of course.

Youth group last night was hilarious. We played this game called 'Honey, I love you', where you have to go up to someone and say, "Honey, I love you, won't you please, please smile?" and the other person has to say with a straight face, "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile." I didn't really play it, though. Also, Sela, Stone and Micaela were hiding each other's shoes, which was funny. And we locked Stephen out of the loft ;p Actually, I think it was either Sela or Laura that locked him out, but I instigated a little ;)

And I watched about half of 27 Dresses.

Hey, guess what?

I learned how to cable today! I had tried without a cable needle before, but I had no idea what I was doing. But anyway. I started an Irish Hiking Scarf the other day, and today I learned how to cable. I did two of the cable rows today!!!!

...that's all ;P