Had to upload it to youtube this time!

At least his bedding will be clean soon, even if he isn't....

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Reasons I Am Buying Less At Trader Joe's

or

Items Trader Joe's Has (Apparently) Discontinued

in no particular order other than the most heartbreaking is first (also you might notice a theme)

• Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies--I told the cashier last year that I loved these so much I wanted to marry them.  Then I wrote Trader Joe's and told them that, and they said they were a seasonal item.  And they didn't bring them back this season.  I want to punch them in the face for this alone.
• Pierogies--these had become rather a staple for me over the last year or 2.  I'm not sure if they have been discontinued but I haven't seen any in a few months.
• Hot chocolate mix in the round blue can--okay, they have the sipping chocolate which is good, and this one I can live without but still, just another turn of the thumbscrew.  Saw it 12/10 on the shelf.
• Chocolate yogurt--the kind with the real cocoa in the bottom that you mixed up and it was all delicious and shit, not that Eurotrash crap in the smaller container they try to shove off on you.
• Cookies with Perks--the chocolate chip cookes with espresso chips (or espresso flavored cookies with chocolate chips?).  Haven't seen them since probably last winter or spring.  Bastards.
• Milk chocolate cocoa almonds (are you getting the theme yet?)--now they have the black cocoa almonds, and they are pretty good, though unless you eat them with a spoon or chopsticks it's like you just read 100,000 newspapers (okay, newspapers that taste like chocolate, but still, it's messy!)  Now---90% of the time I prefer dark chocolate, but this is one of the few exceptions (one of the others is the milk chocolate covered McVitie's digestive biscuits which I haven't had in years but I would probably sell a kidney for a packet right about tomorrow).  Would it be SO WRONG to have both?
• I didn't check for it this time because I bought some at the regular supermarket since I couldn't find it at Trader Joe's the last couple times, but if they have discontinued their frozen broccoli florets I'm gonna bust up the joint.
• I don't think they have discontinued them (YET) but their sea salt brownies were really delicious until they lightened up on the sea salt.  Now they are just bland.
• I didn't see the little chocolate mint cookie clusters.  They were so good that I can't even remember what they were. They were in a brown and dark pink round container, like a pint of ice cream, like Thin Mints or something, all crumbled up and covered in chocolate, maybe?
• Also I haven't seen the dark chocolate toffee squares I've become rather addicted to, in a while.  I bought some in September to bring on vacation.  I have one left in front of me.

There are probably other things but it's probably like regular food that doesn't stand out in my mind like chocolate stuff.  I will add things as I recall them.  I know my neighbor was pissed about some croissants they discontinued, maybe almond croissants.

They are discontinuing stuff I like but not replacing them with anything as good or better.  Are my tastes that eclectic?  Do all the rest of the Trader Joe's customers have bland ass taste?

Oh--the first thing I ever had from Trader Joe's, before I lived near one, were these little chocolate animal cracker type cookies (my sister had them at her house when I was babysitting once and I wanted to eat the whole thing).  They weren't chocolate covered or anything, they were like chocolate butter cookies that melted in your mouth.  And they replaced them with something BLAND.

I seriously was planning on buying 10 boxes of those Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies. And next trip I would have bought 10 more.  I'm completely serious.  I was going to stock up so I could have them at least through the spring.  Or till New Year's.  Or till I OD'ed on them, or at least till I vomited.

Quit breaking my heart, Trader Joe.  You are getting to be evil and sadistic, getting me hooked on this stuff and then yanking them out from under me, without warning, before I can stock up and buy out every store in the area.

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I thought this was kind of neat.

The Beatles Complete on Ukulele  (recorded in Shabby Road Studios in Brooklyn!)

I was just looking again at a newsletter I got in October from Spottiswoode & His Enemies and noticed it mentioned at the bottom.  Well, Spottiswoode does a cool version of Within You Without You which I downloaded for free.  Yep, all of the songs are free to download.  They are doing a song a week for 185 weeks till the catalog is complete.  And if you happen to be in Brooklyn this weekend, they are doing a Benefit Concert for Yoko Ono.  Last year it was a benefit for Warren Buffett, so I don't think it's like Yoko's broke and needs bone marrow transplants or anything.

Sunday December 6, 2009, from noon to midnight at Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Whythe Avenue, between N. 11th and N. 12th Streets, Brooklyn 11211.

more info here.

37WithinYouWithoutYou

Spottiswoode

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The Eyeballing Game 

eyeball right angles, center of circles, 3 lines converging, dissecting an angle, etc.  Oh the worst for me is making a parallelogram.

Planarity

like untangling christmas lights, yarn, etc.  only with more and more for each level more points the faster you get it (if you have hours on your hands)

Let's not forget about the snowflake making sites!

Snow Days and Make-a-flake which is the one where I made this a few years ago:

Elvisflakemake-a-flake0117226278

There is no way I could do anything half that cool again.

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Maybe you'll remember back in October, me trying to get a head start on the year end music voting/contest thing they do on WXPN and posting this.  Maybe not.  Anyway, I think I'm ahead of the game doing that.  Well, sort of.  WXPN decided to add top 10 SONGS of the year too.  And the contest is a drawing to win a 50 inch plasma screen hi-def tv.

You don't have to be a member to enter or win. Vote here, if you care to.

So I compiled my list of top ten songs of the year (and added Mike Doughty's "Sad Man, Happy Man" to the album list, since I only had 9 in October)

and here they are.

1. Illinois---- Hang On
2. Mexican Institute of Sound--Sinfonia Agridulce
3. Gomez--Airstream Driver
4. Empire of the Sun--We Are The People
5. Guerrilladelphia--Unstoppable
6. Vic Chesnutt--Chain
7. East Hundred--Slow Burning Crimes
8. Jack Penate--Tonight's Today
9. Sondre Lerche--Good Luck
10. Mexican Institute of Sound--Reventon

(I had a hard time with #10 so I just repeated a band.)

01 Hang On

12 - Sinfonia Agridulce

Oh Vox, I really hate your fucking formatting.  It really CHAPS MY ASS.

I give up or I will be here all night.

04_Vic Chestnutt Chain

Vic Chesnutt

East_Hundred_SlowBurningCrimes

East Hundred

JackPenate_TonightsToday

Jack Penate

Just a sampling but they are all in my Vox library should anyone give a flying crap!

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When Michelle & I went to the Outer Banks of NC in September, we stopped by a really nice store called Sandy Bay Gallery.  After making our jewelry purchases and chatting with the owner, we walked back outside and stopped to admire the hippo pottery.  But oh look!  Hippo Mouth has a resident!

the hippodrome

welcome to my abode

Is that the blurpiest little frog ever? The shop owner saw us looking and came out and said he lives in there, and that sometimes there is another one that hangs out close by.  But before I could get more photos inside the hippo, she coaxed him out onto the wall:

2009_11080300

and that is about half of my vacation photos right there....

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Get your free download of this most excellent boppy fun song.

Includes lines like "others try topping us, keep coming up short like Webster Papadopolis"

RIGHT HERE

You can get the "unwashed version" which I think includes Chase Utley's parade F-bomb.

Well, here it is, let's see:

UNSTOPPABLE_Unwashed

Guerrilladelphia

Thanks for the free download and the great song!!

Also, thanks to Arbed for alerting me to this awesomeness from someecards:

Hal_38

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Okay, it's anti-cat but it's still funny.  I liked the part where he was talking about what would happen if there were seeing-eye-cats.

I know, "Cats for Clunkers" doesn't really make sense for this, but don't give me grief about it, I didn't make it up.

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I know it's only October, but everytime that dreaded year end listmaking comes up I draw a blank.  Every year WXPN asks you to send them their list and then have a drawing for something, usually a bunch of the top CDs, maybe an iPod. 

So here are MY FAVORITE (that means no arguing that I'm wrong, because I'm right) of 2009 so far.  Subject to change depending on if anything I like better comes out in the next 2.5 months, or if I get into something I hadn't heard that came out before, of course.

They aren't going to be in order excpet the ones I like best and listened to the most will be at the top, lesser listened to toward the bottom.  The top 2 are my runaway favorites of the year.

Illinois--The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe

01 - Kid Catastrophe

Illinois

Mexican Institute of Sound--Soy Sauce

12 - Sinfonia Agridulce

Mexican Institute of Sound

Kinky--Barracuda

01 - Hasta Quemarnos

Kinky

Empire of the Sun--Walking on a Dream

02 Walking On A Dream

Empire of the Sun

Art Brut--Art Brut vs. Satan

11 Mysterious Bruises

Art Brut

Gomez--A New Tide

07 Airstream Driver

Gomez

Sondre Lerche--Heartbeat Radio

Sondre Lerche - Good Luck

Sondre Lerche

Andrew Bird--Noble Beast

03 Fitz & Dizzyspells

Andrew Bird

The Church--Untitled #23

08 Anchorage

The Church

Okay, that's 9.  I scrolled back through my music and couldn't find much else.  I hate the top 10 of the year because I rarely find albums the year they come out unless it's an artist I already know and love.  And sometimes I just put them on the list because even though I don't think it's their best effort (see Kings of Leon Only by the Night and Ryan Adams Cardinology...) I put them on the list because I know it's still better than half the shit out there.  Sometimes I just put stuff on the list because I've heard a few songs off the album.  Anyway, the only reason I'm doing this is so I have it for later and also because I am procrastinating doing housework. 

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For some reason when I couldn't sleep last night I thought of this movie and for some reason too, I started writing a review at about 3 a.m.

Before there was Gil Grissom, there was Richard Chance, William Petersen's character in To Live and Die in L.A..--the bowlegged badass bungee jumping cop who is out to get the guy who killed his partner:  Rick Masters, the flare-nostrilled artist who makes most of his money by, well, making it, the counterfeiting way, since he prefers to burn most of his paintings before he can sell any.

To Live and Die in L.A., to me, is the ultimate 80s movie (not counting John Hughes flicks).  It has the flash and glam and new wave California decadence of the 1980s, countered with the gritty reality of cop life and the seedier side of LA.  Throw in an awesome, nailbiter, edge-of-your-seat, wrong-way-on-the-highway car chase and a killer Wang Chung soundtrack* and you've got yourself one hell of a movie.  It's got a bit of the cheese factor, but it was the 80s, after all.  That's part of its attraction, its charm, if you will.

William Petersen is sexy.  Willem Dafoe is nasty sexy.  Look for a sexy lesbian played by Jane Leeves (yes, Daphne Moon of Frasier), and John Turturro as a crafty convict.  John Pankow (of Mad About You) plays his new partner, John Vukovich, a by-the-book cop who is dragged to the naughty side by Chance.

*Scoff not at the Wang Chung soundtrack.  This is not your "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight" Wang Chung.  They captured the time and mood of this film.  It's sultry, and it is 80s.

A little trivia for the kiddies---this movie, I believe, introduced bungee jumping to American audiences.  What may seem common or even passe now was almost unknown in 1985.  Also, we had to rent this movie in a store, on videotape, and we didn't have cell phones, internet or iPods.  We drank water from the tap, not from plastic bottles!

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