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In iTunes. This does not count in the car or anywhere else but on my computer.

These are all songs I’ve gotten stuck on at one time or another (in some cases, multiple times) and listened to on repeat for hours.

What’s yours? (To find out in iTunes, create a smart playlist: File -> New Smart Playlist, uncheck “Match the following rule,” check “limit to 25 items” selected by “most often played.”)

People have posted a lot of video from the Buckethead show on youtube. Soooo awesome.

Here he is doing his robot dance:

And this one shows him doing the robot while playing guitar, which I think may be the sickest thing I’ve ever seen:

Sorry, the sound quality on that clip is bad. The robot bit is best shown at 1:48 to the end of the clip. It was even more impressive live in person.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m grateful for talented people like Buckethead.

• Buckethead is tonight. I’ve been wanting to get back to Downtown Disney to take pictures and was hoping to do so today. However we won’t get there before the concert until after the sun goes down. Do I really want to go out there twice in one day? Well, yeah, I do. But I also want to go to Newport Beach and take pictures there. I’ll most likely end up doing neither, since it’s Saturday and the kids will have plans.
• Dead spiders are only marginally better than live spiders. Depending on how big and where they are. Sure, live spiders move and scurry really fast and are therefore a much bigger threat. But somebody really needs to do something about all the dead spiders outside our apartment door. That’s all I’m saying.
• Yeasayer is playing tomorrow night. I really want to see them. I was considering going, even though I’m seeing Buckethead tonight, because it’s at the Troub and I could sit down. And I really want to see them. However I just realized I have to help roll out a website update tomorrow night at 9pm. Why do it on Sunday at 9pm? Who knows? I guess they figure less traffic on the site at that time. I tend to doubt it, since it’s a website for gamers.
• I showed Elijah my new favorite discovery, a band called Portal. He showed me Locust. I win.
• My parents are coming down for Christmas. I’m excited. They were originally hoping we could go to Washington for the holiday but there’s just no way. Christmas is one of the busiest times for Daniel, and the next month or so is going to be really busy for me, too, it looks like. Plus, no money.
• We’re going to a friends’ house for Thanksgiving. The family we went camping with to the desert to go dirt biking last winter. They’re super cool. And this year instead of bringing videogames I’m making the kids bring a football, badmitton, some games and some coloring books.

  I love coloring books.

Taking the boys to see their FAVORITE OF ALL TIME, Buckethead, on Saturday. Nathaniel wanted to make a Tshirt of something Buckethead-related that might catch his eye. So we went to the mall and had this made:

My digital camera isn’t doing too hot. But you get the idea. That’s a band or album Buckethead did. One of his more obscure projects.

Man Nathaniel is getting ridiculously tall. It looks like he’s almost to the ceiling in that last picture.

If you don’t know who Buckethead is, he’s a guitarist who was in GnR for awhile (after they broke up and Axl got the band back “together”). And if you’re wondering why he’s called Buckethead, here you go:

He keeps his identity hidden. The original idea was, if people couldn’t see him, the focus would be on the music and not him as a person. Yeah, that didn’t work out too well. In addition to the mask and bucket, the guy’s freakishly tall. Do you think that’s a wig?

My favorite part of that song is when he starts bending the notes, but he doesn’t really do it much in this live version. (He changes up songs when he plays them live.) I must’ve heard the boys play this song a billion times, and I’m still not sick of it.

I think it was probably inspired or influenced by this song by Parliament, called “Maggot Brain.” The story is, someone in the band told the guitarist, Eddie Hazel, to imagine his mother had just died, and start playing. This is what came out.

Ween wrote a song inspired by “Maggot Brain” called “A Tear For Eddie.” It’s excellent as well.

Daniel opened a package the other day, spread them out on the table, and grouped them by color. Then he ate them, one color at a time.

I realized I do the same thing, only I don’t always put them into groups. I’ll just eat all of one color out of my hand before moving on to another color. If there is more of one color than another, I’ll usually eat that color first. I like them to be even in number, too, so if there’s an odd number I’ll eat just one to make it even, then I eat them two at a time.

Actually, I have been getting enough sleep, not sure why my eyes are so irritated. I think it’s just the dryness of the air around here. The Santa Ana winds make it way worse, I think they may be starting back up. They just suck the moisture out of everything, it’s crazy.

Sidenote: What color would you call my eyes?

In the morning. Later I went to a cemetery, but I’ll post pics from that some other time. The beach was pretty deserted:

That’s a TTV, or Through The Viewfinder shot. I took it with my digital camera. It’s a picture of another camera’s viewfinder—a vintage one with a really big viewfinder.

There are numerous beach hazards, in case you were wondering:

My favorite being:

Most of the people there were surfers or older retired folks—it was 10:30 am on a Friday.

The main reason I went out to take pictures is that we actually have clouds in the sky this time of year.

Ran into some friends of Misty May:

That’s a joke. I don’t know if those guys actually know Misty May. But I’m guessing they do. There’s always beach volleyball at Huntington Beach. Always.

Here I am up on the pier:

OK, it’s my shadow. Here’s a pin wheel:

The waves seemed pretty crowded for such crappy surf. Occasionally a good swell would come through but they seemed to peter out pretty fast.

And is it me, or are there a ton of little kids surfing? Why aren’t they in school?

My faves are always the older dudes, though.

They have style.

I don’t usually blog about work, for various reasons, but I just met a deadline and have to unwind from it a bit. I’ve been working really long hours for weeks now trying to get everything in place correctly on a website I’m building. Everything still isn’t quite there but enough of it is. That’s just how things go when you’re building a complicated website. Client review is today. Right now, actually. This very minute.

We should have time before it goes live to get the rest of everything in place and working right. It’s actually been a much easier project than most. Most projects have crazy insane deadlines and I’m working 14 hours a day the last week or two to get it done. This one we had a nice long deadline and I could work just parttime at it. Until these last couple weeks.

They call it project creep. Things that get added on as you’re working on a website. Oh wait, we need to add this in here. This doesn’t work like we thought it would, let’s make it completely different, and add ten more functions onto it. Just how it goes. My boss is generally very good about keeping a tight rein on that stuff. But even so it’s pretty much unavoidable.

Which is one reason why we always end up scrambling at the last minute to get everything done.

Oh and then there’s the client not getting you stuff on time. Always, always happens. We need information or content by a certain date, and it’s almost always late in getting to us. Some clients will push the deadline in that case—which happened on this website. Some expect you to just get it done anyway.

I worked 13 hours yesterday. It’s 3pm right now: I’ve worked almost 8 hours today.

Sooooo glad it’s Friday.

Shazbraz posted this and while she didn’t tag me with it, she basically dared me to post it, so here we go.

1. Do you like blue cheese? No
2. Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Yes. They’re yucky.
3. Do you own a gun? No. I’m very anti-gun.
4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? Never been to Sonic and I can’t have drinks. (Diabetic)
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointment? Sometimes. Depends on the situation, the doctor, etc.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I think they’re gross and super yummy at the same time.
7. Favorite Christmas Song? Hmm. O Holy Night. Mainly for the “Fall on your knees…” part. So awesome.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Juice.
9. Can you do push-ups? Plural? I just got on the floor and tried to. I managed two!
10. What is your favorite movie? Life is Beautiful
11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? Only thing I wear—my wedding ring.
12. Favorite hobby? Computer-music-photography.
13. Do you work with people who idolize you? Somehow I doubt it. I do get a lot of “Susan you kick ass” comments, though.
14. Do you have ADD? No.
15. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself? Hate is an awfully strong word. Sometimes I don’t like my hair much.
16. What’s your middle name? Catherine.
17. Name three thoughts at this moment:

* Is it possible to “name” thoughts?
* This fingernail polish has been on for a day and is already wearing off.
* If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday: All at the grocery store…

* Tampons
* Preparation H
* Athlete’s foot cream

HA! No, really, didn’t buy any of those things. I just got boring old groceries—tortillas, butter, milk, etc.

19. Current worry right now? I haven’t been going on bike rides as regularly as I want to. It sucks.
21. Current hate right now? I’m a lover not a hater. Oh I know—ants.
22. Favorite place to be? On my bicycle!
23. How did you bring in the New Year? That was like, how long ago? 10 months? I can’t remember yesterday, dude. We never do anything so I’m sure our New Year’s was boring.
24. Where would you like to go? Anywhere in the world? Like, total fantasy? Tibet, Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand…More likely: New Mexico, Mexico, Arizona, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, southern Utah.
25. Name three people who will complete this? Whoever wants to. If you don’t have a blog you can answer in the comments.
26. Whose answer do you want to read the most? bythelbs
27. What color shirt are you wearing? Red.
28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Not really.
29. Can you whistle? It’s pitiful, but yeah, I guess you can call it whistling.
30. Favorite color? The blue of this water:

31. Would you be a pirate? Arrrr, matey.
32. What songs do you sing in the shower? Today it was “Dani California” by RHCP.
33. Favorite girl’s name? Valentine? I dunno. That’s a toughie.
34. Favorite boy’s name? Trevelyan. It’s a girly name, yeah, but I love it.
35. What’s in your pocket right now? Empty pockets! Bummer.
36. Last thing (Person) that made you laugh? Geeze I can’t remember. Either Nathaniel or Dillon or Elijah.
37. Best bed sheets as a child? Star Wars!
38. Worst injury you’ve ever had? I damaged a tendon in my ankle once. Like, I think it got torn. Didn’t go to a doctor but it took awhile to heal up—and for a year or two my ankle was really weak.
39. What is your favorite snack? Strawberries, blueberries…mmmmm.
40. Favorite thing to do on Sundays? Sit by the pool and read with Daniel.
41. Who is your loudest friend? Daniel. Man is he loud.
42. How many dogs do you have? None, but I wish we could have one.
43. Does someone have a crush on you? Yeah right.
45. What is your favorite book? Of all time? Probably Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Or Little Women. Or Children With Emerald Eyes.
46. What is your favorite candy? Lately it’s been Tootsie rolls.
47. What is your favorite sports team? Yawn.
48. What song do you want played at your funeral? “Nothern Sky” by Nick Drake:

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Coming home from a Calexico show.
50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning? What day is it?

That’s me!

I got a surprised package in the mail from my good blogging friend bythelbs. Speaking of golden people. You rule.

The package contained:

The Office Sticky Notes.

A copy of Young At Heart on DVD.

A license plate for my bike that reads “DMMTLMM.” Doom Metal Mom!

Isn’t she the coolest, ever?

Young at Heart is a documentary I’ve been wanting to see ever since bythelbs first told me about it. It finally came out on DVD and she surprised me with a copy! Daniel and I watched it and both loved it. It’s really touching and so funny. It’s about a choir of elderly people who sing rock songs.

It’s really interesting how the songs take on new meaning when they sing them. Think about some of these lyrics:

I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years
Nothing’s gonna touch you in these golden years
– David Bowie

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go, I wanna be sedated
Nothin’ to do and no where to go-o-oh, I wanna be sedated
– The Ramones

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother,
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’,
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
– The BeeGees

And may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain
Forever young, forever young
– Rod Stewart

The movie was even cuter and more heartwarming than I thought it’d be. Worth seeing if you spot it. Here’s the trailer: