A work friend just came charging into my office babbling about the lobby of the building across the street being chock-full'o'puppies. So of course I had to investigate-- Discovery Channel films a lot of stuff at a studio across the street from NPR and it turned out they were having auditions for, yes, the PUPPY BOWL today! Puppies! A whole roomful of PUPPIES! I'm not even a dog person but ooooo their little earses and their little noses and their soft little paws and their little tailses going slappity slappity slappity on the floor! And there were dachshunds! And beagles! And funny foxfaced ones! And little fuzzy mutts! So yeah. I've just been petting an entire roomful of puppies. What a nice way to spend my lunch break!

I was bored at work today and googled my old college radio station-- and this is it, the very 8-pot LPB board I learned to DJ on way back in the dark prehistory of 1993. It was old even then. If you've ever heard me bitch about cleaning sticky dried-up Coke spills out of a mixing board because the fucking metal DJs never followed the no-food-in-the-studio rules, this was the board. If you've ever heard me talk about being down in the station at 4am, watching the VU meters dance to Young Disciples' "Apparently Nuthin," these were the meters. I can't believe it's still in service... though given that this pic was apparently taken in 2003, it may have gone to board heaven by now. My god, I miss it!

Does ANYONE out there (within driving distance) happen to own Season 4 of the Highlander TV series? I, uh... well, I need it for work. By tomorrow. And none of the video places around here have it. Help!

You all have probably heard me babble ad nauseam about the adorable NPR Bat-- so here she is, in full-on stereophonic SQUEEEEE-ness!



Could you not just die of the cute? Our bat rescue lady reports she has gained three grams since coming to the sanctuary, and in fact stuffed herself with so many mealworms a few days ago that she got an upset stomach. Poor little bat!

And if you HAVEN'T heard me babble about this, the gist of what happened is that our online staff noticed a bat roosting in the side of an office building right across the street from NPR, next to a busy bus stop. So we brought in a bat rescue expert to have a look. Here's the segment that we just aired-- have a listen, if it is your will: Bat Winters in D.C., to Delight of Urban Dwellers

i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday


-- e.e. cummings



To all my friends, far and near, I give you joie on this, the Longest Night.

We are off to Whitby tomorrow, and SO NOT PACKED, but artnouveauho and I took time off this evening for a trip to Garlic & Shots with our lovely friend P and then a womble around Chinatown. Where I found some, erm, INTERESTING baked goods in the stores. These are for you, jessicamelusine!

( If ONLY H-Mart sold cake rolls in this color )

My old friend J. called me today after way, WAY too long out of touch. "Where the hell are you?" he asked, and I shot back, "in a five-star hotel room in Dresden with no pants on."

For reals, all you out there in radio land-- I don't know where RIAS gets their money, but for these two days in Dresden we're staying at a historic pile with jacuzzis in every room and the fanciest pool I've ever seen. Whoo-ee! I slipped and fell in the sauna and nearly cracked a rib, but I can't feel sorry for myself, somehow.

( the East is black and blue... )

They have funny expressions for everything... I'm trying to keep a list of them but we're getting dragged all over Berlin at such a pace that I can barely think straight. HOWEVER, I wanted to share with you my new favorite German phrase (this might even beat 'arschfrißthosen!'), which is 'groß vie ein Klodecke,' or 'as big as a toilet seat.' As in, 'that wienerschnitzel is as big as a toilet seat!' Appetizing, eh?

( you know you want more... )

Well, here I am, soaking up the free wifi in a hotel lobby in Berlin. Tres global glamour! It would probably be more enjoyable if I didn't feel like someone had reamed out my ears with a wire brush, but them's the breaks, I guess, when you fly slightly ill.

The flight was actually pretty fun-- in a mad splurge, I decided to make up for my rotten month by splashing out on a business class upgrade, so there I was sipping a Kir and nibbling mcadamia nuts, being waited on hand and foot and thinking to myself, 'darling, the service on British Airways is lovely but their champagne is just TOO too dry for my tastes.' Yes, you can all laugh now. Anyhow, I was brought rudely back to earth by the transfer from Heathrow Terminal 4 to Terminal 1, involving several bus schleps and a wait-on-line-to-enter-holding-pen-to-wait-in-an-even-longer-line security checkpoint. Eccch.

Berlin seems quite different now from when I was here seven years ago. The mad crush of construction everywhere is pretty much finished and it's full of fancy schmancy new buildings. Also, no more shelf toilets-- and for those of you who've been to Germany before and know what I mean, you KNOW that's a big improvement. The RIAS people dragged us from pillar to post this morning, starting with the Reichstag, then a former Stasi prison, and finally a meeting with the transportation minister-- I fell asleep, which I've been told was the most entertaining thing about the meeting. I'm going to write a more official and professional account of the day over at rias2007, so head over there if you wanna hear more. In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of me with one foot in the East and one foot in the West, straddling the inlaid line in the pavement that marks where the Wall used to be.

...some of you may not know that I'm leaving on the 29th for a month in Europe, some of which will be vacation, and some of which will be gallivanting around the EU as part of a German/American journalist exchange program. I'll be writing about it as rias2007, so if it is your will, check it out! There's not much there yet, but just you wait...

I learned an important lesson today at the framing shop. Freshly cut glass is fucking SHARP. So sharp, in fact, that you can cut the holy hell out of yourself and not even notice till you see smears of blood on the glass. However, I did get some nerdly enjoyment out of it: I was framing original pages of Transmetropolitan and Preacher, and I couldn't stop giggling when I realized my fingertip looked just like Herr Starr's head after Jesse bisected it with a bullet. Hee!

And completely unrelatedly-- HELP! Is anyone in this area DRIVING to Dragoncon? I have a package that can't go via airplane (it's a long story), and if someone's willing to drive it down for me I'll kick in $20 for gas for your troubles. Email me at speedlime (at) gee-mail dot com.

Any Mac geeks out there that feel like hitting me with some pearls of wisdom? My spiff-o-licious new MacBook Pro has developed a really annoying quirk involving the Desktop folder. I migrated all my stuff over from my old Mac, and apparently that included the old Desktop folder. Now the new computer seems to've gotten confused about which desktop it's supposed to be saving things to. It keeps putting downloads in the old folder, which means they don't actually appear on the my desktop-- AND I can't get at them, since it tells me I don't have the permissions to get into the old folder (I can, weirdly, find them using Spotlight and use them that way).

I called Apple tech support where a very unhelpful guy in Hyderabad told me to re-install the operating system-- which I did, with exactly NO effect. Dick. Squat.

Sooo.... anyone out there have any idea how I can tell my dopey computer which desktop to use? Any advice will be greatly appreciated, and rewarded with brownies (or beer, depending on your preference). Thanks in advance!

All Songs Considered just put up their recording of last night's Gogol Bordello show-- check it out! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11907007

There's a link at the bottom to the in-studio performance chat my show did with them last year, which includes an early, unfinished version of the song that ended up on their new album as "Supertheory of Supereverything."

My new housemate has arrived! Suck it up, heptadecagram, you've been replaced with a younger model! *grin*

He's pleasant and friendly, he can cook, he's a certified EMT, he likes board games AND Firefly-- I think this is going to work out JUST fine.

So you all know how emotionally involved I was with my old car, Speedlime the trusty-yet-cursed 1995 Plymouth Neon. Yeah, dammit, I drove a Neon. For 11 years. Towards the end it became something of a point of pride, owning such a comically crappy car, but I loved my Speedy. She was the car of my youth, the car of seven accidents only one of which I caused, countless trips to Amherst and back with a Siamese fighting fish in a Nalgene bottle balanced on the parking brake, and one epic drive across the country with a mad Bermudian who was wrecked on cough syrup.

That poor car really was cursed-- she attracted hit-and-runs like no other car I have ever known, and narrowly escaped being totalled once when a big ol' delivery van bashed most of her hinder off. Speedy and I reached the end of our road together a couple of years ago after her air conditioning broke for the third time in three summers-- but I sold her to a very nice guy in my neighborhood. He kept her running and I used to wave to her every time I saw her on the street. Today I got this email from him, and I would like you all to join me in a moment of silence for my poor noble Speedlime, who has met a really very appropriate fate.
( lj-cut for length )

*sniffle* WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Warning, homeowner grumbling ahead!

In the past month, these things have happened:

1) I made the terrible mistake of expecting my garbage disposal to actually chew up some apple peels. It had other ideas, choked, and filled my sink with black sludge. $180 to the REALLY EXPENSIVE plumber.

2) The exterminator came and discovered that carpenter ants have eaten my back door and the frame around it.

3) Some charming motherfucker broke the glass in my front door.

4) The hot water boiler light went out and refused to be re-lit until I had called the REALLY EXPENSIVE plumber, who charged me $140 to re-light it.

5) Not five minutes ago, I went to clean out the sink in preparation for an attempt to cook dinner for my parents (nerve-wracking enough as it is) and the aforementioned garbage disposal made a hideous grinding noise and died. Guess I'll be seeing the REALLY EXPENSIVE plumber again real soon now.

ACHTUNG, HAUS!! I'm sick of your shenanigans! Keep this shit up and I'll sell you to a MEAN PERSON. See how you like THEM apples.

So, artnouveauho, remember how I said I was going to make a silly LJ icon out of your amazing bruise?

Y'all know this already... but since heptadecagram deserted me for the joys of connubial life, I've got to rent my spare room out. Here's the ad I posted on Craigslist, and if you know anyone looking for a spare room, send them my way!

---

I'm looking for someone to share my funky little house in Takoma Park. The room is smallish, but bright and partly furnished, and you get a private bath and run of the downstairs. I'm about a mile from the Takoma Park Metro, a few blocks from the bus, and there's plenty of parking on the street. The house has a washer/dryer, WiFi, cleaning service, and if you like gardening... PLEASE, have your way with my sadly untended garden plot (and if you don't, hey, there's a yard guy). Rent is $575/mo plus 1/2 utilities, which run between $75 and $150 depending on the season. The room is available May 1, and I require first and last month's rent.

I'm a female public radio producer in my early thirties. I don't smoke, and I'm pretty quiet, but basically sociable. These are all good qualities to have, but I'm open to just about anyone (well, except smokers). Please, no cats or dogs-- however, birds, snakes, fish, hamsters, rabbits, Star Wars figures, and possibly even hedgehogs or miniature horses are okay by me.

I have a couple weeks' worth of manicure updates. Because attempting to be smart about opera takes it OUT of a girl, so I have to retreat to fluff.

( follow me to Salon du Cranky Vietnamese Guy )

HOJOTOO-HOOOO! HOJOTOOOO-HOOO! HEIA-AAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Man, if there was ever an opera to make a girl feel good about being fat, loud, and German, it's Die Walküre. I've just got back from the Washington National Opera's stellar production, with Placido Domingo as Siegmund (juju_bee3 dragged me there for my biennial dose of capital-C Culture, dontcha know). I'm not the world's biggest opera fan (that would be artnouveauho, and I really wish she could have seen this!) but I figured I should see some damn Wagner finally, it being such a cultural touchstone and all that. Yeah, I hear you out there murmuring "kill the wabbit, kill the WABBIT" to yourselves!

( cut for vast quantities of uneducated opera blather )