Uploading Fever

I finally decided to start uploading photos to my Snapfish account. It's about time I ordered some prints.

I'm going through so many discs of photos and folders on my computer. I don't know when I'll be able to decide what prints I want. It may take a week or more to get all the photos uploaded! But doing this allows me to see all my shots over again, and I've really taken some amazing shots over the last few years. I'm really proud of my photography.

So rather than sound like I'm blowing my own horn, which I am, really, I'll post a few of my favorite shots.

Just One Of Those Days

There's a song on Duran Duran's last album that is so appropriate for today.



One Of Those Days

I got to work this morning and discovered my sneakers had finally expired. I had a nice hole in the heel. Yay! That meant that I had to go to Walmart after work, which I was hoping to put off until tomorrow. Luckily I now have 2 cute pairs of sneakers. Not quite like the one's that died, but I'm not complaining. Cute is good.

At 2:30 I was sent on a check fetching errand. Not a bad thing, except that was exactly when the first wave of storms happened to be hitting the Mon Valley and I had to drive to Monongahela in zero or near zero visibility.

At 3:30 I had the luck of taking the check to the bank and coming home early, except that the line at the bank was slower than molasses in January. So I only managed to be home about 10 minutes early. Then I had to go back with grandma to get one of her accounts situated. Only to find out that she needs to go back next week, because her checking is needs to be changed. ARGH!

Walmart is evil. Enough said there.

Nothing bad happened, in fact, good things tried to happen, but they didn't quite make it. Overall it just made the day very weird and very tiring. I want to go to bed now and I don't want to get up until the weekend!

Who Ordered A Busy Week?

I've got so much to do this week my head's going to spin? I've got a Walmart trip tonight as well as taking gram to the bank to get her savings account situated. The kitten is going to vet on Wednesday to be neutered. (Poor baby!) I pick the kitty back up on Thursday right after work.

I'm not sure when I'm going to get to Curves this week, except maybe Tuesday and Friday, which are the only days that don't have anything pressing that needs to be done.

It's a good thing I don't have a family to feed or anything like that, because I'd probably let them all starve. I hate after work busy-ness. I tend to want to veg after I finish the job. When I have buttloads of stuff to do it cuts into my vegging time. Like I said, if I had a family, they'd be starving or eating tv dinners, because I'd be in front of the computer staring blankly at it, because that's how I unwind.

I hope I can fit all the stuff I have to get done this week in.

My Camera Is Tired Now!

It's been ages since my camera was given this kind of a work out. I took over 200 pictures (around 258) at Phipps and in Oakland this afternoon. I'll slowly be posting some at my Flickr page and my photoblog

Here's a landscape shot of one of the beautiful rooms at Phipps.




To see the tulip pictures I've already posted, clicky here.

Happy B-day Daddy!

Today's my dad's 80th b-day! To celebrate, my sister and her youngest son are getting out of his hair for a few hours so he can have some peace and quiet!



This picture was taken Christmas 2003.

Happy B-day Daddy!

Cheesy Elvis!

Someone posted a very rare Elvis Costello song on one of my favorite websites. The song is called Party Party.

Lordy but it's bad. It's so bad it's good.

For those that are familiar with the Punch The Clock CD and don't appreciate it for the sheer 80's-ness that it represents, you shouldn't even bother to check out this song.

Party Party makes the cheesiest 80's song seem thoughtprovoking and intellectual. Suffice to say, Elvis is trying to make sure that the world doesn't see it on the reissues that Rhino is putting out.

Yes, Elvis, it's bad. But it's still worthy of a listen.

Why?

Because some things are so bad that they are good. And this is one such song.

Share the badness with one and all!

Party Party

Saturday Lists

Every weekend I try to make a list of things that I need to do over the course of my two days off. Whether I get them done or not is a totally different matter altogether.

I've got to be close to home today, as I have to be at 7 o'clock mass tonight. But that doesn't mean I don't have a zillion and one things that I want to do. And today is really the only day I can get the stuff at home stuff done, because tomorrow I'm going to the Flower Show at Phipps.

Yay! Another workout for the camera!

I still need to clear out the hard drive. I don't know why this task is so damn difficult. There are really some things that I just don't listen to. It shouldn't be difficult to delete the files, especially since I have the damn CDs in my collection. Plus I'll need the room for some of the new CDs I've bought. Because I'd really like to get a few of the new discs on my computer. It's a vicious cycle.

The main problem I have is that I clean off so much space and then in a course of the week I manage to put more stuff on the damn computer and I'm right back to where I started.

I'd also like to start reading a non-fluff/smut/romance this weekend. I don't know why, but reading and weekends don't go together well for me.

And I still haven't managed to get my closets cleaned out yet. It's really time to get some more dejunking done. I think it's the thought of cleaning that actually keeps me from doing it. The more I think about it, the more I don't want to do it.

And have you noticed that my weekend list is pretty much the same? I think the only thing I ever manage to accomplish is the laundry.

I Caved

I was going through my wishlist at Half.com and I decided to thin it out by two CDs, basically because one of the discs was less than $3.00 before shipping and the other was a good price and was the first disc on my Must Have list.

So for less than $18.00 I got these two CDs.





Obsession isn't a bad thing, right?

Top 5 On Friday - Week 65 (Wishlist Edition)

Top 5 albums you wished you had in your collection (If you want, tell us why you want these albums)

My wish list is currently 2 pages long in a notebook. On Half.com my wishlist is 4 pages long. I'll post the discs that I currently want more than the rest.

1. Herman's Hermits - Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter



I only own a best of disc right now. (I'm still waiting for A Kind Of Hush to come in the mail) I hope to own all 4 of the bands CDs before Oct. This particular disc has the songs from the On Tour album, which was one of my favorites.

2. Cliff Richard - Miss You Nights



One of the nicer best of packages. Oh and it has a pretty cover!

3. Glass Tiger - No Turning Back



These guys were one of my favorite 80's bands. This best of has a few unreleased tracks that I have to hear. One day I'll own a copy.

4. Annie Haslam - One Enchanted Evening



Annie covers the Beatles, She's Leaving Home on this one and I have to hear it!

5. The Tremblers - The Tremblers



Peter's cover of Elvis Costello's Green Shirt is on this one. Nuff said.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Reasons Why I Love Peter Noone

1. Cheesy fun songs that get stuck in your head forever and ever like Rattler.

2. His wacky dress sense, which makes Justin Hayward's look good.



That jacket used to be someone's couch!

3. He is an active participant on his webpage.

4. The Noonatics are an awesome group of people.

5. His wacky sense of humor. I have a copy of a show he did in Carol Stream and his concerts are half stand up comedy and half vaudeville! (I can't wait til October now)

6. Those baby blues



7. He's a very silly man. (And you can never have enough silly in your life)



8. Tickets to his concerts don't break the bank.

9. He's got a cute tushie!



10. He's got cute down to an artform.




11. I don't have to drive more than an hour to see his concert.

12. He covered an Elvis Costello song.

13. He looks cute in leather trousers.

Hunks!

Hey, it's hump day! Ya gotta have hunks on hump day!



Elvis Costello is sexy in purple.



They don't call Richard, Foxy Roxy for nothing.



Sexy Sigh-moan!



Peter in leathers....YUM! He's so darn cute. (And Jill...you know what cheeks I want to pinch!)



And hump day wouldn't be hump day without the Jays!

Random Thoughts

Yes, it's time for another potpourri of thoughts.

~ Mary Kay is a pretty damn good line of skin care and make up. I swear they make the only lipstick that stays on after eating. The only line I like better is Chanel, but Mary Kay skin care is the best I've used so far. (Why am I not beautiful, then?)

~ I still have that damn Herman's Hermits song stuck in my head. I've got a mad crush on Peter Noone. Have I mentioned that?



He's so cute. I want to pinch his cheeks.

~ My "To Buy" CD list is now 2 pages long. This is so wrong. I've even made a few purchases and it seems to grow rather shrink. (Cheap Trick has a new disc out on June 6 along with Elvis Costello's The River In Reverse)

~ Keri Noble's new EP is supposed to be out next week. I'm very excited about this. I just wish I knew how much this 6 song EP was going to set me back. I'm thinking 20 bucks since that's what all her other EPs cost.

~ I need a DVDR drive badly. Why? I'm not sure, other than I want to copy some bootleg DVDs for family etc.

~ I'm going to the Spring Flower Show on Sunday! Yay! I'm going to get to take pictures this weekend! Squee!

Doing The Mary Kay Thing

A friend of mine has a Mary Kay business and tonight I'm going to one of the meetings to have a facial.

Me being the anti-social creature, am just a trifle nervous about this. I'd almost rather be a hostess, but I don't have enough friends that wear makeup or even have a decent place in my house for a party.

I hope this doesn't last very long, but I hope I have fun and most of all, I hope I don't spend too much money.

I'm such a beauty product whore, that it's easy to rope me into buying stuff. Right now I'm doing my best to only get things that I need. (skin care..that sort of thing)

Anything to be beautiful, right?

Ha! Making me beautiful would take more than Mary Kay!

My Major Accomplishment This Weekend

Yes, I took lots of pictures this weekend, which brought me endless joy, but that's not the huge accomplishment of the weekend. The huge accomplishment was buying this cd:



It's There's A Kind Of Hush by Herman's Hermits. I spent $14 dollars on this disc because of the song You Won't Be Leaving, which has been stuck in my head for the last 3 days.

I downloaded a video clip of this song over at Peter's Official Site in the forums and I've grown addicted to it. It's a song that's on the one album that I don't own on either CD or vinyl.

If Half.com doesn't cough it up quickly I will probably the last bit of sanity that I'm clinging to.

Gave My Camera A Workout

I finally got to snap some pictures yesterday! About 100 or so in all, which is great, because I haven't had the opportunity to use my good camera in ages. Out of the blue, I decided to take my nephew to Round Hill Park, which is a working farm.

Round Hill is a fun place to go with kids or just by yourself if you're an animal lover, but I like to commandeer a kid when I go, so I don't look silly.

Here's one of my shots of the ducks from the pond.



To see some of my other shots and more ducks go to my photoblog.

A Great Day For....

Trying to get more stuff done than any one person should try to accomplish in one weekend.

1. Laundry (oh how I hate doing the laundry)

2. Getting some photos taken somewhere. I don't really care what I photograph as long as it isn't my damn cats. (which I love, but they are such hams! And my camera is sick of them)

3. I need to clean out closets again. I still have 2 bags of stuff from the last closet dejunking to take to the Salvation Army.

4. Buy that damn Herman's Hermits CD that has the song You Won't Be Leaving on it. So at some point in time that song will get out of my head.

5. Go on a nice long stress busting walk. (Take the damn camera along)

6. Burn some CDs so I can get some stuff off my hard drive again.

7. Find pleasure in the beautiful things in life...like this





Eeep. Young Peter looks like Justin!

Covered Bridges

The County that I live in has about 30 covered bridges. A few weeks ago when I was out and about with a friend I got to snap pictures of 2 of them. Shortly afterwards I discovered that our county has a tourism website with directions to all the bridges in the county!

Clicky here to go to that site and to see some of our covered bridges. I plan on taking that driving tour (since I sent away for the brochure) as soon as the weather is nice and I can take pictures!

But wait! I do have a few pics. I posted them at my photoblog back when I took them, but I never shared them here.

Top 5 On Friday

From the ladies @ Music Memoirs.

Top 5 Songs that make you feel warm.

The Moody Blues - The Swallow

Herman's Hermits - Sunshine Girl

The Monkees - I Wanna Be Free

Bernie Barlow - Golden

Nick Lowe - The Rose Of England

Cross-posted at my Livejournal

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things that have irked me this week.

1. Parish council covered dish dinners that I have to attend. I'm still trying to figure out how I got talked into being on parish council. Oh wait, I remember, the magical nun powers of persuasion.

2. My debt management program, which managed to drive me crazy when I was just trying to add an account to the program. (They managed to make me think I had missed a payment when I hadn't)

3. Buying concert tickets for a show that isn't until October! Lordy I could be dead by October or rather, the act I'm going to see could be dead!

4. Truckdrivers calling me "The Sexy Secretary" HA!

5. The P.A.M.S. (which is the taxing authority for local taxes in my area) not knowing the tax rate for the borough that I work in. I found out that all the employees in my company had 42 dollars more than they should have withheld. ARGH!

6. Not being able to go to sleep early enough for my body. During the week if I'm not in bed by 10:30 I'm tired the whole day. I haven't been able to fall asleep until 11 or later all week.

7. Out of print CDs. Everything I've been looking for is out of print!

8. The cold! Wasn't spring supposed to start on Monday at 1:26 pm? Why are we still getting snow showers and generally cold yucky weather?

9. Venues that don't let you know when concerts are going on sale. I had to find out that the Peter Noone tickets were on sale a day after the fact. Thankfully no one else knew either and I still managed to score great seats.

10. Not knowing where a concert is going to be at. My sis wants to see Gary Puckett and he's playing Hershey Park, but the specific venue isn't listed anywhere yet. That concert's in June.

11. Not remembering things. Eddie Izzard has been on BBC the last 2 Saturdays and I've forgotten to watch both times.

12. Being told I look like Velma from Scooby Doo. Ok, that was last Friday, but that still counts, cos I'm still irked by it. The question now is, am I the "Sexy Secretary" or "Velma?"

13. The Moody Blues. I love them, but everything they do right now is annoying me. Including playing a show in Niagra Falls on April 1. (Considering Niagra Falls is on my list of places I really want to go)

Got My Tickets!!

Even though the tickets to Peter Noone's show in Uniontown went on Monday. (And I didn't know), I still managed to score great seats! Left aisle, row E! That's 5 rows from the stage! Better than I've managed for half of the shows I've gone to in the last 3 years.



I'm still pondering why I just bought 2 tickets for a concert in mid-October on March the 22nd!

Happy Hunk Day

Really, it's not about it being hump day, right? It's all about the hunks! Hunks make the world go around. (At least for me they do)



Erasure, geeky and gay boy hunks.



Jays! Cos they are still hunks even if they've toppled from their pedestal.



The Monkees are too cute to be forgotten.



Even with a bowtie, Cliff Richard is still a hunk.



And there's no forgetting Johnny Depp! Happy Hunk Day!

Farewell Kaufmann's

Elena was talking about the closing of Robinson-May in her area, due to the merger of the May Company and Federated Department Stores.

Well, yesterday saw the closing of two Kaufmann's stores that were close to my heart. South Hills Village actually closed on Sunday. That was the first store I worked at. I was employed there for 2 years after college. It was a fun and often aggravating experience, but one I wouldn't trade for the world. Everyone should work at a department store once in their life, and it should be over a Christmas holiday. I worked there for 2 Christmases. I'm sure I'll be up for sainthood for not killing anyone during those two seasons.

I adored that Kaufmann's store. It was big and beautiful, ok, not beautiful, but it was big and you could always find a deal there. Plus all the people that worked there were nice, associates and management alike.

These closings are the first step in switching over of all the stores to the Macy's name. I'm not thrilled by that. Macy's doesn't have quite the appeal to me as Kaufmann's did, and it's not that I'm feeling loyal to the home store. It's the May Company brands that I'm going to miss.

Shopping just isn't going to be the same when this merger is complete.

R.I.P. Kaufmanns.

Thank you for the debt!

Fan Clubs

In my nearly 32 years on this lovely planet of ours, I've only belonged to two fanclubs. I belonged to EIS for Erasure, still do, considering its a free service these days, and I subscribed to the Monkee Business fanzine back in the 80's.

I'm very seldom tempted into joining a fanclub.

I am now.

Who is getting my undying devotion and possibly twenty dollars, you ask?

Peter Noone.

Why?

Well, as opposed to some moodier bands, when I shell out the 20 dollars, I get things, rather than access to a website filled with nasty wanker fans that should be put to sleep or turned into cracker meal. Oh, that sounded nasty.

Anyway, with the Peter Noone fanclub. I get a welcome message from Peter. (Awwwww!) An autographed picture. (You can never have too many pictures, right) A 10% discount on merchandise at the store. And there were a few other things too.

Needless to say, I'm considering giving Peter's fanclub some of my cash. The Moody Blues won't get a dime from me. I have no desire to have access to a fan community that has a miniscule amount of nice fans.

Loving Herman's Hermits

I was going through my vinyl today and I found this among the piles of Beatles and Monkees LPs

I bought this album at a flea market sometime in the mid-eighties. I remember waving it madly at The Monkees 20 Anniversary tour, where Herman's Hermits (minus Peter Noone) opened, along with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

I was in love with their light cheesy pop music. I'm finding that I'm still in love with it. Hearing some of the songs again, brings a smile to my face. They have the same appeal as The Monkees and the early Beatles material. Innocence, pure and simple.

I only wish more of the band's music was available on CD in the US. A few albums are in print in Europe, but the prices here are out of the ballpark and even Half.com doesn't have any good deals.

So if I want to replace albums like Blaze or any of the others, I have to cough up at least 25 dollars, which is ridiculous considering the Monkees discs are less than 10 dollars on CD Universe. And even more bizarre is the fact that Herman's Hermits had a great deal of success in the US. So the fact that you can only get a few meager Best Of discs in this country is just a trifle disturbing.

I want my Hermany goodness, damn it!

40 Years

I never realized it but there are so many bands and albums celebrating 40 years this year. (That sounds weird)

As for the bands...Happy 40 goes to:

The Moody lunkheads...erm The Moody Blues.

The Monkees

God that makes me feel old. I wasn't around to see either band in their hey day, but I did live through the 80's revival that brought so many bands from the 60's back into the music scene again, and that was 20 years ago!

Both bands are planning wonderful things for this year. Guess which one I care about and which one I don't give a rats backside about?

Ah, maybe I'll finally get to watch all the Monkees episodes again. I really wish I could get the chance to see one of Davy's shows, but he doesn't seem to want to play anywhere near me. Grrr.

On another note, how many times do you think that record companies can repackage and remaster any given artists back catalogs? And how many times will the consumer actually buy them?

Fried Pickles Are Yummy

I went to Primanti's for a corned beef and cheese sandwich, as my delayed St Patrick's Day feast and my sister and I ordered the fried veggie platter to go along with it.

The fried veggie platter is yummy, yummy, yummy. It had fried zucchini, mushrooms (which I let big sis eat, cos I'm not much on fungi), onion rings, french fries and fried pickles.

Now the concept of a fried pickle is not quite appetizing but I have to say, the finished product is really great. Somehow the dill pickles manage to stay cool and crunchy after they've been deep fried, and oh are they good.

I shouldn't have doubted the tastyness of this treat because I did sample fried oreos and fried twinkies at Idlewild last year and those were to die for.

So if you're ever anywhere where they serve fried pickles, I suggest you try them. (Assuming, that you like pickles.)

I Used My CD Player!

It's funny. I have a decent Aiwa stereo system that I've had for years, but since I bought a computer 6 years ago, I've used it less and less.

When I buy a CD, I usually rip the tracks to my harddrive and put the CD aside. But the other day I got some CDs in the mail from my friend Callie and I had to listen to them, nd since they are bootlegs, I didn't want to spend hours retagging the tracks, because that can be annoying with the CDDB screws up.

So my CD player is actually turned on, and Elvis Costello is actually coming through the speakers.

Wow!

It's probably not a good thing that I let the computer completely dictate my listening habits. I have so much music and not even half of it is on my computer. Hell, some of my stuff is still on vinyl, like my Herman's Hermit's stuff. (Though I do have quite a few mp3s)

Perhaps its time to step away from the computer for a bit.

Nah.

But I do think it's time to stop using my winamp for all my music needs.

Monkees In The Mail

I caved in and order The Monkees Missing Links Vol. 3 this week.

Because it's pretty much out of print I spent more than I would have liked to spend on a disc that's not in the best of shape.



But I'm just really happy to have this in my collection. (Even though I spent nearly 17 bucks on a used disc. But then again, this disc has been sold for 22 and higher on a few sites I've been to, so I'm not complaining too much. I'm just going to make sure I don't spend as much when I buy Missing Links Vol. 1. That disc will complete my Monkees collection.

For some reason I've really been on a Monkees kick for the last week or two. I haven't a clue why. I guess it's because it's shiny happy bouncy music, and I'm really in the need for something like that right now. Plus I like looking at the cute pictures of Davy in the CD inserts.